I do like serial killers.  Always have.  They fascinate me.

So with this thriller where at the heart of the story is a serial killer who was copycatting some of the most infamous serial killers inhistory, well, that film is one for me.

When you throw in the powerful casting of Sigourney Weaver and Holy Hunter into the mix, it only gets better.  Then, there is a creepy performance for the ages from Harry Connick Jr.  to make it all the more intense and suspenseful.

After being assaulted and nearly killed by obsessed killer Daryll Lee Cullem (Connick Jr), Dr. Helen Hudson (Weaver) wound up an agoraphobic.  However, Helen, a clinic psychologist specializing in serial murders, cannot stay out as she made several calls to the police, trying to give assistance on a new serial case.

Detective M.J. Monahan (Hunter) was the only one who was taking Helen’s calls seriously, and enlisted the sometimes unwilling aid of Helen to find the copycat killer (William McNamara).

The first time I saw this years ago, I was on the edge of my seat.  I will admit that I was not as filled with anxiety this time around.  Age will do that to you.  However, I still enjoyed the film and the performances of these actors.

I very much liked how Weaver’s character used her smarts to outwit the copycat killer at a point in the film.  She should be shown as intelligent and when she confronted him, Weaver showed how much of a bad ass she really could be.

Some of the other police officers did some really dumb things, which I felt was just because the plot needed them to be dumb.  That is a drawback to the writing.  Other than that, I liked Copycat very much and had a good time watching it.

As the country approaches an important vote on Tuesday, I looked back at a film, where at its center, was love and acceptance of differences.

The Birdcage starred Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as a middle aged gay couple who run a drag club in Miami.  Armand (Williams) had a son Val (Dan Futterman) who had fallen in loved with a young girl (Calista Flockhart) and wanted to get married.  The problem is the girl’s parents were extremely conservative, with her father being Senator Keeley (Gene Hackman) who had co-founded an organization for the morals of the country.

Val returned to see his father and “mother” Albert (Lane) to get their help to convince the Senator that they were a typical family.

Meanwhile, Senator Keeley’s co-founder died in the bed of an underage black prostitute, creating a huge scandal.  Keeley decided to escape the press by taking his wife Louise (Dianne Wiest) to meet Val and Val’s family.

There are a lot of uncomfortable moments in The Birdcage, a film based on the French film “La Cage aux Folles,” when the characters are being forced into situations that they simply are unable to exist within.  One could argue that the selfishness of Val and Barbara are really on display here, throwing their parents’ feeling away.  Val is downright cruel to the overtly emotional and practically on fire flaming Albert, never once really considering the feelings of the man he considered a mother.  Armand had to do so much damage control, but, in that damage control, we see the real and deeply caring relationship between these two men and you understand how Armand could live with the temperamental Albert.  The scene where Williams finds Lane sitting on a bench and gives him the palimony agreement is such a beautiful scene of love between two people that it really underscores the idea of the film.

Albert and Armand are willing to do anything for Val, even what might be uncomfortable or mean, because they love him and they accept him.  Val’s learns that lesson as the film moves on and when he finally cuts through the crap, we understand that he sees what he has done and that he had the power to straighten it out.

The film is remarkably funny, with the robust scene stealer Agador (Hank Azaria) as a Guatemalan house boy dominating every scene.  Robin Williams truly anchors the wild performance of Nathan Lane and keeps everything under control.  He still has his share of laughs, but it comes from his dry wit and the situations instead of his normal hectic manner.

Gene Hackman is spot on as the conservative senator who finds himself smack dab in the middle of an unbelievable scandal.  His sweetness toward “Mother Coldman” shows that he is not a bad man, just one who may not see the same way as the others.

The film shows that there is the possibility of people of different lifestyles to come together and help one another instead of immediately entering into hatred.  The lesson that Val learns is a lesson that much of the country these days need to learn as well.  The Birdcage is a wonderfully funny, engaging film that celebrates individuality.  When Armand, Albert and even Agador tried to be what they were not, the struggles for everybody involved was obvious.

This is a great movie that is eminently rewatchable.

This past week’s Top 10 Show’s list was music biopics and their number one film was Amadeus.  I usually do a list of my own following their show but I have been unable to find the time.  Plus, I had some noticeable omissions when I was trying to write up the list, this being one of them.  I wanted to watch this before doing my own list, but there was just no time seeing as the fact that Amadeus was a three hour movie.

Finally, Friday night, I got a chance to watch the film and it was really great.

I enjoyed the format of the film very much.  The fact that the tale is being told by a rival of Mozart (Tom Hulce), an old man version of Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) brought such an interesting spin to everything that is being said.  We have no idea if anything that Salieri said was true or even close to being true.  As a rival of Mozart, Salieri is a perfect example of an unreliable narrator, someone who sees the story through their own perspective.

F. Murray Abraham is wonderful as Salieri and Tom Hulce turns a great comedic performance as the man-child Mozart.  Both men were nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor, with Abraham taking the prize.  The film won a ton of Academy Awards and other awards back in the 1980s and I can see the reason why.

Amadeus is very funny, but it is also able to turn on a dime and show off drama that borders on tragedy.  There is a fine line between humor and tragedy and there has not been a better film to illustrate that concept than Amadeus.

It also has a fascinating turn by Jeffrey Jones, an actor known for playing comedic villains such as Ed Rooney in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  Jones’s portrayal of the Emperor is both funny and beguiling.  I enjoyed his work here.

I did enjoy the film, but I will say that it would not make my number one spot on a music biopic list. It would certainly be in the top 5, however.

I had a chance today to catch Disney’s Hocus Pocus on the big screen for the first time since I saw it back at the drive in.  That was the last show I have seen at our local drive in.

I have to say, it was not as good as I remember.  It was still fine and I enjoyed myself for the most part, but there were a lot of scenes that just did not hold up 25 years later.

The Sanderson sisters were a group of witches who would use the life force of children to stay young.  Before they were hanged for witchcraft, they completed a curse indicating that they would be back.

When Max (Omri Katz), a new boy in town, was showing off for the pretty girl (Vinessa Shaw), he unwittingly brought the sisters back to life.  Winifred (Bette Midler), Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Mary (Kathy Najimy) picked up where they left off, trying to regain their lost youth.  Max, his young sister (Thora Birch), and a talking cat named Binx (Sean Murray) teamed up to prevent the sisters from returning forever.

There are many fun scenes in Hocus Pocus.  I still laugh like an idiot when Sarah Jessica Parker says, “Amuck, amuck, amuck, amuck.”  I always liked Omri Katz from the television program, Eerie, Indiana, and he is very easy to cheer for here.  Vanissa Shaw is beautiful and she has some nice, easy chemistry with Omri.

The musical number performed by Bette Midler, “You Put a Spell on Me” was fun and moved the story forward.  The three Sanderson sisters were great here.

The whole virgin running joke felt very 1990s and was driven into the ground hard by the movie.  There were some moments when the Sanderson sisters were confused by the new world, but other times when they made jokes about things that should have confused them as well.  It was as if they only did not know about the new world when the plot called for them not to know.  That is a weakness.

There are some scary scenes for the young viewers and a few charged moments for the adults.  Hocus Pocus is a fine movie for the Halloween time of the year.

I loved the Universal monster movies as a youth.  Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, The Creature from the Black Lagoon… they were some of my all time favorites.  However, I must say that I had never seen the H.G. Wells classic The Invisible Man until this very morning.

Claude Rains starred as Dr. Jack Griffin, who, as with any great mad scientist, experiments on himself and turns himself invisible.  The chemical he uses affects his brain as well, sending the man cascading toward madness.

We are along for the ride as we “see” the man at first bad tempered before changing into a psychotic killer.

Directed by James Whale (who also directed Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein), The Invisible Man has many special effects that were quite amazing for the time frame.  When you realize that this film came out in 1933, what they were able to accomplish is even more impressive.

Nearly the entire cast of secondary characters are unimportant here.  Even the Gloria Stuart as Griffin’s love Flora felt unimportant to the story.  The only other character of any real repute here is Kemp, played by William Harrigan.  Kemp was Griffin’s associate and partner and the man whom Griffin approached to help him formulate the antidote.  Kemp, understandably creeped out by the slowly insane invisible man, betrays Griffin by calling the police.  The fate of Kemp was a standout moment of the movie.

This role turned Claude Rains into a star which is remarkable since it was a role that you never see his face until the very end of the movie.  It is a strong performance from Rains, who was unable to use facial expressions in his acting and had to require other means to emote what he wanted to do.

I enjoyed The Invisible Man very much although I could have done with less screeching from the inn keeper (Una O’Connor)