Screening Log
This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.
April 2007 activity
Total Log Entries: 50
- Adam (6)
- Andrew (0)
- Chet (0)
- Chiranjit (6)
- David (0)
- Eva (0)
- Evan (0)
- Ian (6)
- Jenny (0)
- Katherine (0)
- Leo (7)
- Megan (0)
- Rumsey (8)
- Teddy (0)
- Thomas (0)
- Timothy (0)
- Victoria (0)
Total Comments: 20
- Grindhouse (0)
- Spider-Man 2.1 (0)
- The Shop Around the Corner (0)
- Chimes At Midnight (3)
- Heavy Weights (0)
- The Bothersome Man (3)
- Blood Diamond (0)
- Starter For Ten (0)
- Ace In The Hole (0)
- Flushed Away (0)
- Sunshine (2)
- Local Hero (0)
- Children Of Men (0)
- The Science of Sleep (0)
- La Kermesse Heroique (0)
- House By The River (0)
- Seraphim Falls (0)
- Eagle vs Shark (0)
- Manhattan (0)
- Year of the Dog (0)
- Kaw (0)
- Grindhouse (2)
- The Philadelphia Story (0)
- Bringing Up Baby (0)
- Purple Rain (2)
- Krapp’s Last Tape (0)
- Hot Fuzz (0)
- The Namesake (0)
- Dial M For Murder (0)
- Sunshine (4)
- Zodiac (1)
- Fast Food Nation (0)
- Labyrinth (0)
- The Second Circle (0)
- Cursed (0)
- The Wind That Shakes the Barley (0)
- The Awful Truth (0)
- Hot Fuzz (1)
- Children of Men (0)
- Stalker (0)
- Advise and Consent (1)
- Gates of Heaven (0)
- The Ox-Bow Incident (0)
- Shoah (0)
- The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (0)
- Piranha (0)
- The Namesake (0)
- Rushmore (1)
- Blades of Glory (0)
- Black (0)
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Piranha / USA / 1978
A horror film about deadly fish courtesy Joe Dante and John Sayles. What fascinated me about this film was that the killer in this case is already a killer, only removed from a comparatively lethal South American river to a mid-Western location, one populated exclusively by middle-aged parents and their children, all of whom attend camp together. Aside from a modicum of villainy (the piranhas were genetically mutated to sustain both fresh and saltwater environs; once deployed in a freshwater river, they will instinctively head toward its mouth and in turn the ocean) and that fundamental staple of horror films films, the Lecherous Teenagers, Piranha remains neither creative nor suspenseful. Dante generates suspense rather generously — the camp counselor is such a douche bag he warrants the most grisly piranha-related death imaginable — but at every instance the payoff is tired. (In a particularly exciting instance, one of the killer fish leaps straight out of the water to bite the inestimable camp counselor right in the face; exciting to be sure, but it is nowhere near the grisly death he deserves.) An effort to apply the phobia introduced in Jaws to more landlocked regions, Piranha succeeds not in sustaining a fear of water, but in creating a glossary of characters (many of whom pronounce pi-ra-nha differently) you pretty much want to see die.
by Rumsey Taylor | Source: Warner Home Video VHS (clamshell!)
03 Apr 2007 12:46 PM | Submit Comment