A Field in England (2013)
Set during the English Civil War, this beautiful black and white film features alchemists, hidden treasure, and betrayal. Characters die only to inexplicably reappear. There’s cowardice, jealousy, and greed.
It does a great job of conveying the chaos of the Renaissance. Facts are fluid; rumors are currency; allegiances are tenuous.
It’s a fun film, which would be great paired with The Fisher King (1992). Watching them together would provide a nice view of the emerging modern world.
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
This adaptation of the adventures of the legendary sailor, Sinbad, was the first color film from famed visual effect artist Ray Harryhausen, whose pioneering stop-motion techniques laid the foundation for the wizardry in nearly every blockbuster film of the past half century. Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, James Cameron, Tim Burton, and John Lassester are only a few of the famous directors who’ve acknowledged a debt to his work.
His films, focused on mythical creatures, have done more to influence the way we think of monsters than anything else in the twentieth century. If you close your eyes and imagine a frightening monster, it was probably first imagined by Ray Harryhausen.
If you’ve new to his work, this is a decent place to start. The story’s a little thin, but the visuals are impressive and miles ahead of most films from the late 1950s.
The Karate Kid, Part III (1989)
Vincent Corelone’s Law: unplanned trilogies result in subpar third films.
At least The Karate Kid Part II (1986) tried to expand upon the ideas of the original film, taking us to Okinawa, Mr. Miyagi’s homeland, where the relationship between Daniel and Miyagi was reversed and strengthened.
This uninspired retread of the original should be subtitled: The Revenge of the Cobra Kais. The leader of the disgraced dojo from the original film, John Kreese, recruits an old friend from Vietnam, Terry Silver, to humiliate Daniel in the next karate tournament.
After Daniel’s mother allowed him to travel to Japan with Mr. Miyagi in the sequel, she’s absent from this film. In her bid for fictional mother of the year, she doesn’t even tell the returning pair the apartment building where she and Daniel lived and Mr. Miyagi worked was demolished.
This desperate and unnecessary attempt to milk money from a profitable franchise tarnishes the legacy of the original. The only thing worth watching is the over the top evil of Terry Silver who feels like an old school comic book villain, Caesar Romero’s Joker meets Bruce Lee.