The next movie up for the DailyView is the beloved coming of age, stoner movie Dazed and Confused.

It had an exceptional soundtrack.

Matthew McConaughey’s iconic line “alright, alright, alright” was from this movie.

After that… I HATED this movie.

HATED it.

The movie tells the story of the final day of school for the high school seniors, who all act like total jerks and a-holes, and the junior high students who will be incoming freshmen.

Ben Affleck is here leading a group of seniors who are bullying and physically assaulting freshmen with a paddle. The females are completely cruel and vicious to the female freshmen. This is all okay because…. well, I have no idea. No teacher or cop in sight.

No one seemed to mind these horrible hazings. I don’t know if this was the way it truly was in the 1970s but I find it difficult to believe.

Yes, there is a list of talented actors in this cast and they would grow up to do some wonderful movies. I would even go as far as to say that most of the actors here gave solid performances. I just so hated what they were doing that I overlooked the performances.

Bad behavior. I found myself not wanting to see any more of it. I was glad when it was over.

In honor of the Army of the Dead debuting on Netflix this weekend, I chose another zombie movie for the DailyView. It was a sequel to a movie that was an unexpected favorite of mine, Train to Busan. The sequel was called Peninsula.

I had not watched this film yet because the word of mouth on it was not good. Train to Busan was just a tremendous film, filled with emotions and was grounded in a relationship with a father and his son.

Unfortunately, most of what made Train to Busan special was replaced with giant action pieces and lots of gunfire. The emotional stakes come way too late in the film to really care about. By the time the relationships are squared out, I had already basically checked out.

Four years after the outbreak of the infected, the Korean peninsula is overrun with zombies. Solider Jung Seok (Dong-won Gang) returned to the peninsula with a mission and a team and while there, he finds survivors.

The attempt to circle the story back around to the beginning was clumsy and coincidental. You have to accept a lot to buy into the events of the plot.

The action was typical and did not stand out in a positive way. In fact, there is a car chase that is so obviously CGI that it really detracts from the enjoyment. The zombies were fine, but they’re nothing more or less than any other zombie movie.

Peninsula is too long and feels like it is trying too hard to pack more into the film. Just because there is more in the sequel doesn’t mean that it is an improvement from the original. There was more tension and less manipulation of emotions in the first film. Definitely a step down.

I went over to Shudder tonight to look for more potential horror movies for the DailyView binge and I found a film that I had never heard of before. It was called Wendigo, which is a character from Marvel that I have always been a fan of. Now, this was not going to be the Marvel character, but the mythic legend. I decided that I was interested enough to watch it.

Then I saw Jake Weber, who I just saw in last week’s Those Who Wish Me Dead. Patricia Clarkson was then there and so was the youngest kid from Malcolm in the Middle (Dewey), Erik Per Sullivan and I was surprised that there were so many recognizable actors in a movie I had never knew.

Weber played a high-strung photographer George and Clarkson is his wife Kim. As an attempt to bond more with their son Miles (Erik Per Sullivan), the family heads to a rented house in a woody area of upstate New York. On the way, they hit a deer that was being chased by a group of locals, including one named Otis (John Speredakos), who was angry about it.

Then, a mysterious figure tells Miles about the spirit known as the Wendigo and gives him a wooden statue of the Wendigo. The wilderness spirit brings a darkness to the situation as things get worse for the family.

This was pretty good for a horror film of the early 2000s. However, the special effects on the Wendigo was not great. I wish that the film would have kept the beast hidden as it did in the early part of the movie. It was more effective when they did not show it.

There was some good tension in the film and the story was well done. There were some surprises and twists that I did not see coming, which is always a good thing.

Wendigo was a highly entertaining movie that did have some add moments. It is worth a watch, especially if you have Shudder on Amazon.

I was in the mood for a little horror tonight as the DailyView continued. I went searching through the top rated horror movies on Rotten Tomatoes to see if I could find something interesting. As I was making a list of potential choices I came across one that was more in the vein of thriller than horror, and it intrigued me. It was called The Night of the Hunter and it starred Robert Mitchum.

During the Great Depression, Ben Harper (Peter Graves) had robbed a bank, but, in the process, he had killed a couple of people. Rushing home knowing that he was being pursued by the police, Harper hid the $10,000 he had stolen and made his son John (Billy Chapin) promise to keep the secret forever.

Convicted and awaiting to be hanged, Harper wound up in a cell with a self-proclaimed preacher Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) who hears him talking in his sleep about the stolen money. Harry decides that Harper’s wife Willa (Shelley Winters) would be his next mark in order to get his hands on the money.

Harry Powell integrated himself into her life and wound up marrying her, making the community believe in his con. Powell realizes that the children knew where the money was hidden and he started to target them.

Mitchum was great as the crazed con man killer. When he would get angry or hurt, he would rip out the most inhuman cry I have heard from a human in a movie in a long time. It was penetrating. He would switch on the dime between preaching man of the cloth to psychotic killer without a second thought.

I loved the character played by Lillian Gish, Rachel Cooper who was a tough woman who looked after stray children and who took in John and his little sister Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce) after they escaped from Powell’s clutches in a small boat. I loved how she was no nonsense and willing to do whatever she had to do to protect the wards in her care.

The mood of the film was tremendously frightening when Powell was coming to Ms. Cooper’s home, looking to grab the children. The night time standoff, in particular with the pair of them singing a hymn, was creepy as can be. The ambiance of the picture was extremely effective and built the tension of the scenes extremely well.

The black and white imagery worked very well with the story that was being told here. There was some amazing religious parallels between the story being told and the story of Moses and other biblical tales.

The Night of the Hunter ended a little suddenly for my tastes, but most of the film was great and Robert Mitchum gave us a frightening villain to absolutely root against.

Another Wednesday during the school year which means another Charlie Chaplin short film for the DailyView. This week the Chaplin film I watched was Sunnyside from 1919.

Charlie this time is a farm hand working for am obnoxious boss most of the day and then working at the run-down Evergreen Hotel . Charlie is having a relationship with a local lady (Edna Purviance), but her father is not fond of him.

During his time at the hotel, a city slicker is injured in a car wreck. After he recovers, he meets Charlie’s girl and the bond. Charlie dresses up to try and impress her, This fails so he goes out to kill himself by stepping in front of a car. It was here where he was awoken by his boss at the hotel. The city slicker was there and had never met her before. She shows up and she and Charlie embrace.

This was interesting, but a lot of the narrative seemed to bounce around. I am not sure why he was a farm hand at the beginning when he ended up as a hotel clerk. Perhaps it is to show how tired he is and thus have it make sense why he was always falling asleep. There was a cool dream sequence in the film involving dancing nymphs that stands out. It has been speculated that this sequence is an allusion to the ballet. It also may have inspired the dream sequence in The Kid.

I did not laugh as much with this short as I did with the The Kid or The Immigrant. There is still Chaplin’s iconic style of slapstick comedy involved here too.

There has been debate over the years about whether the end of the movie is a dream sequence or not. My impression is that after Chaplin is awoken by his boss, the remainder of the film is him awake. Unless of course if the whole film is him in a dream sequence from when he was having trouble waking up on the farm.

There was a funny sight gag with a chicken and a cow which worked well. However, this was not as fun as the others that I have seen.

One more week of Wednesday school.

The first documentary being used in the DailyView binge watch is the most recent Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Feature, My Octopus Teacher, which is available on Netflix.

Beneath the water is one of the most unbelievable places on the planet. It is amazing what is down there and how much we really do not even know about the world of the seas. Animal species and the like are very much similar to earthly aliens and this documentary does a great job of portraying that concept.

Filmmaker Craig Foster started free diving in a kelp forest outside of South Africa. As he was documenting what he was seeing and doing, he discovered a common octopus that showed curiosity that he found fascinating. He began tracking the octopus and following her along. As he does this, he bonds with the octopus, and she seemed to have the same kind of connection to him.

The adventure of this octopus’ life, which is very short, was amazing. There was an extended scene, almost a chase scene, with a pyjama shark that was utterly edge-of-your-seat intense. I was more into this chase than I was in any of the Fast and the Furious movies. It showed the cleverness of the octopus and how nature is a wild and unpredictable place.

Foster narrates the film and talks about the way the relationship with the octopus changed his life moving forward. He was able to share the experience with his son, Tom. There may have been a few too many times when the voice over was overused, but it worked well for the most part.

The imagery of the ocean is beautiful and every shot beneath the water is exquisite. There are so many unbelievable shots that this team gets that it builds an environment that is a visual masterpiece.

The story of this documentary is one of redemption and connection between two living creatures. It is shot beautifully and is as compelling as any scripted film.

Disney + was the destination today to continue the DailyView binge as I found a film that fit nicely into my time frame, and one that featured one of my old favorites from General Hospital.

Jonathan Jackson played Lucky Spencer for years on GH. I watched him grow up. Jackson was one of the best young actors on the show. Seeing him here in Tuck Everlasting as the immortal Jesse Tuck was a cool thing.

Teenager Winnie Foster (Alexis Bledel) runs into Jesse Tuck in the woods as he drank from a small spring at the base of an old oak tree. Jesse was clearly up to something and started to chase her. His brother Miles (Scott Bairstow) intercepted Winnie and forced her to return to their home, in order to protect their secret.

Turned out that the water at that tree gave the Tuck family immortality. They could not die. They did not age, and they could not afford Winnie to tell anyone.

However, Tuck (William Hurt) and Mae (Sissy Spacek), Jesse and Miles’ parents, were not sure what to do with Winnie. They treated her kindly and kept her as a part of their family. Jesse and Winnie began to connect with each other, slowly falling in love.

Tuck Everlasting was only 90+ minutes, but it did move very slowly. The slow burn though fit very well with the idea that the world was movie slowly for the Tucks. The film explores ideas of what the meaning of death compared to life was and the loneliness of immortality. The film did not dive into these themes too deeply though, saving most of the screen time for the family friendly action and characteristics of the characters.

The deepest exploration of this came through exposition spoken by Miles about his own tragic circumstances involving his wife and children believing that he had sold his soul to the devil and was practicing witchcraft. Though the back story gave us a greater understanding of Miles, I wish they would have found a better, more impactful manner in which to present the material.

Sir Ben Kingsley was here too as the protagonist, called only The Man in the Yellow Suit in the IMDB page. Kingsley wanted the water for himself but, truthfully, his character was pretty one-dimensional. Not much for depth in him.

I’d say this was a passable film that was certainly worth a free viewing on Disney +. I’m not sure how I would feel had I had to pay (more than just the Disney + subscription fee) to watch this. Overall, it is fine and I liked seeing Jonathan Jackson again.

This is the fourth film that had made the header for the DailyView and the final one that I had to absolutely make sure I saw. I have not yet seen the original movie of this series (whether it becomes part of the DailyView is uncertain), but I have heard that the second one was the better film.

I love the Blaze of Glory song by Bon Jovi over the credits.

Other than that…. well, this was okay, at best.

William H. Bonney (Emilio Estevez), aka Billy the Kid, came out of the West when his former gang members “Doc” Scurlock (Kiefer Sutherland) and Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips) were captured and being prepared to be hanged. Billy staged a rescue operation, reuniting the gang from the first film.

However, not everything went as planned. After the rescue, Billy wanted the group to follow a trail to old Mexico as a way out. Pat Garrett (William Petersen) decided he was out. He wanted to start up his own eatery and so the gang left without him.

Billy went to see John S. Chisum (James Coburn) and claimed Chisum owed him $500. When Chisum refused, Billy and the crew killed two of Chisum’s men. This caused Chisum to hire Garrett as a sheriff and to give him $1000 to kill Billy the Kid.

That’s the basic plot.

Billy’s group went somewhere. Garrett would find them and they would shoot at each other. Some people would die.

Some of the crew were really characters that were pretty unimportant. They had Arkansas Dave (Christian Slater) who seemed to want to be the crazy one. Henry French (Alan Ruck) who wanted a nickname. You have the typical young teen who looked up to the outlaw with Tom (Balthazar Getty). None of these characters meant anything to me, which made them disposable.

Oh, and Viggo Mortensen is here too. He is completely underused as Pat Garrett’s side man.

Some of the gunfights are fun, but these characters seem to be superheroes. They are injured several times and never quite get hurt. Some of them took bullets and apparently kept on going.

Of course, the crazy killer Bill the Kid is the main protagonist. He’s the hero of the film, and they go out of the way to try and give him some positive traits. They also make Garrett the antagonist. Neither feel proper.

There are many better Westerns, including better Westerns featuring some of these very own characters. Young Guns II is as disposable as some of the characters and is most remembered for a great theme song.

I picked a movie from the HBO Max lineup today for the DailyView that is leaving the streaming platform this month. It was not on my original list, but I had considered this movie several times last year. It was around on Vudu and other on demand services, but I did not get around to seeing it. This now becomes the next DailyView film, Never Rarely Sometimes Always.

Produced by Barry Jenkins and directed by Eliza Hittman, Never Rarely Sometimes Always tells a powerful story of a teenage girl Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) who found out that she was unexpectedly pregnant. She and her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) went to New York in search of an abortion and, along the way, dealt with the harshness of life and the challenges faced by young people in the world.

Autumn had to go to New York for the procedure because there were troubles at the local clinic. The person at the clinic was specifically trying to influence her into keeping the baby, going as far as lying about how far along Autumn was in her pregnancy (To be fair, they never specifically say this, but it is implied heavily). An unusual home life prevented her in confiding with her parents.

So Autumn and Skylar got some bus tickets and went to NYC.

The two girls were really lucky that anything worse did not happen to them. They had limited money so they were struggling to find places to stay, especially when they had to be sent to a different clinic because she was 18 weeks pregnant instead of 10 weeks as her hometown doctor told her.

Plus, the procedure was going to take two days, so they had to account for a couple of days in New York with few options available.

The powerful performances from both Sidney Flanigan and Talia Ryder propelled this movie forward. The relationship between these two girls are the center of the film while the honesty of the situation brings the tension and a distinct feeling of uncomfortableness. This was a tough movie to watch because of that level of uncomfortableness, but these two young actresses are stars in the making.

Easily the best scene occurs in the New York clinic where a counselor questions Autumn about the situation using questions that are to be answered “never, rarely, sometimes or always. ” There was so much revealed in that scene without having things laid out in front of the audience.

The movie is slowly paced, but it worked very well with what story they were telling. The realism of the story brought a level of honesty that some audiences may not be ready to handle. Of course, the topic of the film has been desperately controversial since the beginning.

A tough watch. Very powerful.

Here is a perfect example of a film for the DailyView. The Sound of Music is a film that has been considered a classic for decades and is played all the time on television, and yet, despite knowing plenty about it, it is a film that I had never seen. I never believed The Sound of Music would be a movie that appealed to me. I have heard most of the songs, and I liked them to an extent.

I was surprised how charming I found the film.

Failing in her attempt to become a nun, Maria (Julie Andrews) is sent to become a governess for a wealthy family led by the widowed Captain Georg Von Trapp (Christopher Plummer). Captain Von Trapp had seven rambunctious children who were driving governesses away. Maria arrived and immediately saw the overly disciplined children and brought music back into their lives.

Captain Von Trapp, who was with the Baroness (Eleanor Parker), began to be enthralled with the energy and enthusiasm of Maria, started to fall for the governess.

The film is set opposite the Nazi arrival in Austria and the end of the movie brought this story to the forefront. Some of the confrontation with the Nazis was very tense and worrisome. It did make the film feel like two distinct separate movies.

The music is, of course, one of the key parts of this musical. I knew most of the songs and I enjoyed them quite a bit.

Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer were great here and they had a lot of chemistry. The dance they performed earlier in the movie was beautiful and truly stunning. I knew that Plummer was in this movie, but I had not completely placed it because his name shocked me when I saw it.

1978’s Peter Parker from TV, Nicholas Hammond, was also here as one of the Von Trapp children, which was another cool bit of trivia that I did not know .

The film was long and started to feel a bit near the end, and I can see people’s complaints about how it is too cheesy, sweet or sentimental. None of that bothered me as I must have been in the right mood for sentimentality this morning. It is a classic for a reason and I am pleased that I finally took the time to watch it.

This story has been told multiple times in movies and on the stage, some better than others. This version from 1943 includes the amazing Claude Rains as the titular Phantom. Rains, who was also known as the Invisible Man for the Universal Monsters, had big shoes to fill as well. The previous version of this film had featured the iconic portrayal by Lon Chaney. All of this makes for a solid film to continue the DailyView with this Friday night, beginning week number three.

In some of the other versions of this movie, the Phantom has been sympathetic. However, here, in my humble opinion, Erique Claudin, the pit violinist and wannabe composer who becomes the Phantom after being scarred with acid in his face, has little relatability. When he believed that his concerto was going to be stolen by a sneaky publisher, he flipped out and murdered him. As a response, the publisher’s secretary threw acid in Claudin’s face, scarring him terribly.

The murderous rage was there prior to the acid. He was just a killer. He retreated to the Paris Opera House and began hiding in the catacombs beneath it. He continued his obsession about beautiful opera singer Christine DuBois (Susanna Foster), attempting to get her to sing in the main show. He went about this by murdering people.

I will say that I enjoyed the main parts of this story, but, not being a fan of opera, the music that is throughout the film is too much more me. They certainly use a lot of operatic music in the film.

However, the parts around the opera were really good and filled with tension and anxiety. Claude Rains was excellent during the entire film. Nelson Eddy and Edgar Barrier were good too as Christine’s two suitors. They were both trying to set traps to capture the Phantom.

Rains played the Phantom as a murderous psychotic. The whole chandelier scene was just horrendous when you think what would have happened. He did not think twice about murdering women or anyone that got in the way of his ultimate goal.

This was a decent film, but too much opera for my taste.