Bats (1999)

★
Bats is a lame nature-run-amok movie made worse by horrible supporting characters. Writer John Logan, who moved on to better things (much better things) in the years since this catastrophe, can be forgiven for trying to make an impression with his debut screenplay, which comes across as a mix between The Birds and Kingdom of the Spiders, but even if I grant him a wide berth for the mad scientist who is overly protective of his creation at the expense of the human population, I cannot do the same for his inclusion of a mouthy sidekick who grows more irritating as the story progresses. This movie has a lot of familiar elements of this genre, like the novice scientist minding her own business before she's recruited to solve a mystery, or the big climax featuring a town under attack by animals, but it does nothing new or interesting with them. The story unfolds in a very basic manner, with the only new visual being a cave full of waist-high guano (bat droppings).

Agent Cody Banks (2003)

★★½
I find the idea of a C.I.A. division that trains teenagers to be junior agents a stretch, but Agent Cody Banks is focused on being a children's fantasy rather than a deep dive into the C.I.A.'s bag of tricks. Cody Banks (Frankie Muniz) is 15 years old and was selected by the C.I.A. to attend a summer camp/training center for new recruits. Recruits receive the latest in spy gadgetry and lessons in fighting and diving. Cody is a boy of amazing dexterity, but despite his double life, he goes to a regular high school, has a bratty little brother and endures daily chores.

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

★★
John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 is big on ambition and short on execution. It's the story of a gang siege on a police precinct with minimal staffing. The movie features dozens, maybe over 100 gang members all trying to break in, and they're kept at bay by a brave Lieutenant, a secretary and a few prisoners who have no choice but to fight back. It's an interesting concept—inspired by Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo, of which Carpenter is a fan—but the direction is tepid, and the acting is stilted. Carpenter would, of course, find greater success later in his career, so this early effort is best viewed as a practice run, allowing the director to fine tune his skills for his most famous projects to come. Carpenter was just getting started, having completed Dark Star with college classmate Dan O'Bannon two years before this. His career went through its growing pains before maturing, so there should be no expectation that he would hit a home run with his first or second movie. Nevertheless, his failed efforts should be scrutinized for what they are.

Return to Paradise (1998)

★★★★
Before he found his groove as a reliable comedic actor in the 2000s, Vince Vaughn starred in this little-seen and barely-remembered drama from 1998 about two friends who contemplate whether they should help a third friend in need. Return to Paradise premiered in the middle of the late '90s creative surge for mainstream and independent films and costarred the late Anne Heche, who was on a roll during this time with appearances in Six Days, Seven Nights, Gus Van Sant's Psycho and Volcano, while finding time to appear in I Know What You Did Last Summer in a small role. Vaughn himself had recently appeared in Swingers and The Lost World: Jurassic Park, knocking on the door to stardom and proving here he could carry an emotionally heavy narrative.

Uncut Gems (2019)

★★★★
There are many things going on at the same time in Uncut Gems, but above it all rises Adam Sandler's performance. It is the performance of a lifetime. The day will hopefully come when somebody writes a book on his career. It will cover his beginnings on Saturday Night Live and his Happy Madison output, the good and the bad. It will cover his breakout role in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love before his career stalled thanks to some truly terrible movies like Jack & Jill. After a stint producing movies for Netflix, he came back in force, and by that I mean he came back with the gloves off and landed every single punch with deadly accuracy. Uncut Gems is a masterpiece. It is not only Sandler's best movie by far, but one of the best I've ever seen. It comes at you like a tornado that sweeps you away with its perfect storm of dialogue and music. In the book of Sandler's career, the chapter on Uncut Gems would be excruciating even if it captured just a tenth of the movie's chaotic unfolding.

Wrong Turn (2003)

★★
Wrong Turn is so effective at times that the glaring improbabilities in terms of plot development can be overlooked—almost. This is a horror movie that is not afraid to be gory. There's lots of bloodshed to be found, something to give Fangoria fans something to watch. There are also genuine scares, good acting and real tension. I'd recommend it if the premise wasn't so unlikely.

The Edge (1997)

★★★★
The Edge is a beast of a film. Much like its monstrous antagonist, it is intimidating, scary and untamed. It's a survival movie with a raging pulse. I watched this in a theater back in 1997. I remember distinctly how a loudmouth customer behind me kept second-guessing the hero. Don't do this, do that, he said. When the hero came up with ingenious ways to get out of a difficult situation, I concluded that the guy behind me would have quickly perished in the wild. It isn't just about being stranded in the wilderness. The dynamics among the stranded men reveal some truths about status and wealth that could prove uncomfortable for people who make assumptions regarding the rich. This is not surprising, considering that writer David Mamet's reputation for complex characters and dialogue precedes him. When you see his name in the opening credits, don't think for a moment that he's settling for popcorn entertainment. In crafting this riveting story, he traversed the road paved by the likes of Runaway Train (1985) to force two dissimilar characters together in a crisis and have their experiences up to that point cause as much tension as the environment around them.