Movie-A-Day #222: Summer of Sam (1999).
David Berkowitz’s Son of Sam serial killing spree finally came to an end with his arrest 34 years ago today. The killings had kept New Yorkers scared to leave their homes for months, adding to general tone of anxiety and upheaval that wound up making 1977 such a pivotal year in the city. Spike Lee’s “Summer of Sam” uses all of this – Berkowitz. the heatwave, the blackout, the rise of punk rock culture – as background in a way that may be sprawling and messy, but certainly isn’t boring.
Movie-A-Day #221: Nixon (1995).
Richard M. Nixon resign as U.S. President on this day in 1974, marking the end of the sordid Watergate scandal that engulfed the nation for nearly two years. Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” has a lot to say about his downfall, as well as many other aspects of Tricky Dick’s life, and actually manages to make him come off as flawed and sympathetic. Who knew the most disgraced chief executive was such a tragic figure?
Movie-A-Day #220: Boogie Nights (1997).
Porno king John Holmes would have been 67 today. The proper way to mark his birthday, of course, would be to see as many of his movies as possible. But since I’m trying to keep this site at least marginally family friendly, instead I’ll recommend “Boogie Nights,” the thinly fictionalized account of his life story.
Movie-A-Day #219: Shakes the Clown (1991).
It’s International Clown Week! Please take the time to celebrate the clowns in your life – especially the abusive, alcoholic ones like “Shakes the Clown.”
Movie-A-Day #218: Gojira (1954).
At 8:15 a.m. local time on August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan, killing more than 100,000 civilians. Two days later, a similar attack in Nagasaki killed approximately 70,000 more. Japan remains the only nation to be the victim of a nuclear attack, and its people’s resilience in the years following is remarkable. It’s also fascinating to me that one way the Japanese dealt with their unique post-nuclear anxiety was by making a wildly popular series of movies about rubber suit kaiju monsters. The first Godzilla film came out less than a decade after the bombings and has been followed by an uninterrupted stream sequels, spinoffs and imitations that has to have reached triple digits by now. Along the way Gojira/Godzilla, the giant and blindly destructive face of nuclear science run amok, turned into a benevolent protector of the Earth for outside invaders. It’s an interesting reversal.
Desuko Movie Spot. 