Lifeforce: Tobe Hooper followed up 1982’s Poltergeist with this 1985 Golan-Globus production for Canon. A steep fall from working with Steven Spielberg and MGM, but still, the first of a three-picture deal with Cannon that would culminate with Invaders from Mars and Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2—how could you possibly complain as a director? I doubt Hooper did—he was one to take his lumps, as well as his time: much of the compressed shooting scale of the first Texas Chain Saw Massacre was spent wondering what to do, what they should shoot that day. Insane. The more you read about that legendary, perfect first film, you understand why Spielberg felt he had to take over to ensure that Poltergeist would be the hit that it was. Lifeforce is a B-movie with B-movie special effects, and a D-list cast of Canadians and Europeans. But the villain is a beautiful, raven-haired, young, naked woman. Qualm?
Ball of Fire: Now streaming on the Criterion Channel along with several other Howard Hawks films, Ball of Fire (written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett) is perhaps the filmmaker’s funniest, up there with Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday. Released in 1941, starring superstars Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, the dialogue and the jokes are rat-a-tat-tat and wittier than most movies, now and then. I saw it with a full crowd at The Charles and everyone was laughing. So what’s wrong, what’s the story? Ball of Fire badly needs to be restored: the DCP and the copy playing on the Criterion Channel right now look awful, a digital scan made for the DVD back in the late-1990s or early-2000s. No one complained, and whether or not they knew why it looked so lousy, that’s the way they saw it, how they received it. Still, not as much of a damper as the awful looking DCP for Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, which had some disturbing face and motion smoothing throughout. A-I hope not!
Misery: I read Stephen King’s novel nearly a decade ago, and last December, I read both of Barry Sonnenfeld’s memoirs (to the befuddlement of everyone I knew), and in 2024, I read all of William Goldman’s books on the movie business. All of which is a long way of saying I took a long way and a long time to catch up Rob Reiner’s 1990 film, written by Goldman, shot by Sonnefeld, and starring Kathy Bates in a star making, Academy Award-winning performance. Even before I read King’s novel, the hobbling scene was printed on my brain from whenever I caught it on TV, probably on I Love the ‘90s. I remembered the close-up right before and right after, but I’d never seen James Caan’s leg slamming sideways, much less in a theater full of screaming people. Misery is a faithful adaptation of King’s book, but the major improvement is the hobbling: in the book, Caan’s character has his legs cut off and cauterized with a blowtorch. The hobbling is much worse. It’s a scene and an image that didn’t used to be available instantly everywhere.
—Follow Nicky Otis Smith on Twitter: @NickyOtisSmith