Posts by Gino Sassani

"When someone is shooting at you, you know their intentions."

Submarines have had their own fascinations since Leonardo da Vinci first designed one. Jules Verne took us 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and used a fantastical submarine to inspire and dazzle readers for centuries. Even television has gotten into the act as Irwin Allen took us on a Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea. But it's the cinema that truly captured the idea of submarine warfare, from the German classic Das Boot to the equally classic Run Silent Run Deep. Modern films like Crimson Tide and The Hunt For Red October took advantage of modern f/x technologies to bring us even closer to the perilous depths. But things have improved significantly since then. Now with computer-generated images able to show us anything the mind can imagine, submarines are positioned to go to the next level. It's all of that that I took with me when I went to see Hunter Killer. I got some of it before. But I can't quite escape the feeling that I've seen all of this many times.

"I always knew he'd come back. In this town, Michael Myers is a myth. He's the Boogeyman. A ghost story to scare kids. But this Boogeyman is real. An evil like his never stops, it just grows older. Darker. More determined. Forty years ago, he came to my home to kill. He killed my friends, and now he's back to finish what he started, with me. The one person who's ready to stop him."

I was 17 years old when John Carpenter released The Shape, aka Michael Myers, on the world in 1978. It was a milestone film. Of course we didn't know we were watching something that would become so culturally huge. We were the target audience. Teens who were looking for some extra thrill in our films. These so-called slasher films became great escapes of fantasy to bring a date along. For a late-teen, there's no better way to spend an evening with a date than a film that might have her jump right into your lap. Great times. But the reason Halloween stands out from the crowded genre is because John Carpenter knew something about anticipation. He knew how to build towards a scare. And he understood how to use music, shadow, and pacing to truly immerse his audience into a film. I didn't watch Halloween in 1978. I experienced Halloween in 1978.

I was quite reluctant to attend the screening for The Oath. My reluctance wasn't based on my willingness to see the film. People like us will go to any kind of a movie. I love films. My issue was the impression I received from the trailer. The film appears to be ripped from today's political climate and quite possibly to be a close parody of the actual present political situation. No matter on what side of that issue I might personally happen to fall, we here at Upcomingdiscs try our best to keep our politics out of our work. It's not fair to fellow writers for them to be brushed with any other writer's ideals, and it's simply unnecessary to create a hostile environment here for any of our readers or staff. So I approached the screening with the caveat that I might not actually review the film. When the studio agreed to those terms, I set out to experience The Oath. I'll give you a little "inside baseball" into the movie review business. When a critic is invited to a press screening of a film, there is a bit of a contract strongly implied in that invitation. Attendance is an agreement to write and publish a review of the film that is reported back to the studio. No studio has ever even commented on the review's content. Rest assured we are completely free to write whatever we want with the exception of revealing important spoiler information and agreeing to a specific embargo date (as sometimes we see a film weeks before they street). So that freedom to decide not to review was an important and rather unusual agreement to have, because I was not sure I was going to be willing to follow through. Fortunately, the trailer is a bit revealing, and The Oath isn't a one-sided spoof at all. It can easily be enjoyed no matter what your individual politics happen to be.

This film certainly touches on the political divide; however, it quite smartly removes itself a full step away from the current participants or personalities. The story pretty much focuses on one family that has gathered together for a holiday meal. Like most families, there are the usual tensions, and that includes differing ideas about the political situation. That landscape was impossible for them to avoid, because the President of the United States had just announced that he was issuing a "voluntary" Loyalty Oath, and the deadline for people to sign was fast approaching. And so our family naturally begins to discuss what they plan to do about it. Writer and director Ike Barinholtz stars as Chris. He has refused to sign the oath of loyalty to the President and has a pretty hostile opinion of anyone who has signed or is planning to sign it. Unfortunately for Chris, his parents and siblings who have all gathered at his home for the Thanksgiving dinner are more inclined to sign the oath, and some family members already have. The promise is that the oath is completely on a volunteer basis, but we soon learns what happens when you don't sign and someone rats you out.