Tim Salmons

Crawl was a return of sorts for director Alexandre Aja, who had previously helmed High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes, and Piranha 3D. It didn’t light up the box office upon its initial release, but it did manage to make its money back, catching the attention and appreciation of Quentin Tarantino, and finding a small audience for it that continues to grow.

1991’s The Addams Family was several things. A hit, a resurgent appreciation for the characters, a feather in the cap for its cast and crew, and a stylish update of a dormant intellectual property. However, it did have some detractors. For instance, many didn’t care for the M.C. Hammer Addams Groove tune that closes out the film. More importantly, some didn’t consider it a true Addams Family movie because Fester, for all intents and purposes, isn’t present as a character for the majority of the running time, which is fair to some degree. It also falls into the trap of being a 90s adaptation of an old TV show wherein an outsider attempts to sabotage our favorite characters in some way or another for their own nefarious purposes (see also: The Beverly Hillbillies and The Brady Bunch Movie, among others). It’s part and parcel as to why many feel that the sequel, 1993’s Addams Family Values, is the better of the two. It wasn’t as popular or as much of a financial success, but it managed to find its audience with the same darkly funny and quirky sensibilities.

In the thick of Clint Eastwood’s newfound superstardom, he teamed up once again with Dirty Harry director Don Siegel for another Western, this time sharing top billing with Shirley MacLaine in Two Mules for Sister Sara from 1970. This unorthodox combination of talent set to an unusual though no less effective score by Ennio Morricone was treated surprisingly more kindly by critics than one might expect. With reports that much of the cast and crew became ill while filming on location in Mexico and that Shirley MacLaine had numerous arguments on the set with Siegel, it’s a wonder that the film holds together at all—telling an off-kilter tale that audiences accustomed to the silent, calculating, and sarcastic demeanor of the Dollars films likely weren’t expecting.

From the mid-1960s and through to the early 1980s and beyond, the Hong Kong-based Shaw Brothers Studio ruled the roost when it came to martial arts cinema. Producing a number of successful films that traveled all over the world, particularly to the US, Britain, and Europe, their brand of extreme hand-to-hand combat films entertained audiences under a myriad of different titles and in various languages. Today, they’re still beloved to genre fans, particularly to those who grew up seeing these films in grindhouse cinemas or repeatedly on television.

With three films under his belt, Clint Eastwood climbed (no pun intended) back into the director’s chair to adapt Trevanian’s 1972 novel The Eiger Sanction, choosing to shoot it on location in Switzerland despite the adverse conditions and the dangers of mountain climbing. Essentially a spy thriller of sorts, the film goes off the beaten path with a focus on character instead of plot, sometimes making for awkward but compelling moments between the cast members. The price of admission is the harrowing footage of climbers actually climbing the enormous titular rock face, considered in that era to be one of the most perilous to ascend. The film did decent business at the box office in 1975, but garnered an initially skeptical critical reaction. A favorite of many thanks to repeated TV airings and home video releases, it has grown in estimation critically since then, partly due to Clint Eastwood’s popularity and his continued success as a respected director.

After working under a number of filmmakers in film and television and learning the trade, Clint Eastwood stepped behind the camera to direct his first film, Play Misty for Me, released in 1971. It was a project he had been aware of, but it took some time to finally get around to it, having been granted a three-picture deal complete artistic control by Universal Pictures. It was also a change of pace as he had mostly been appearing in action-oriented stories. Play Misty for Me not only allowed him the chance to be more creative, but to also be a more sensitive and complicated leading character. The film’s crowning jewel is a breakthrough performance by Jessica Walter, who had been around but hadn’t had the chance yet to shine. Also in the cast was soap opera veteran Donna Mills as Eastwood’s love interest, and his friend and mentor, Don Siegel. Choosing to shoot the film mostly in and around Carmel-by-the-sea, it was a smooth experience for the cast and crew who recognized that Eastwood had a talent for directing. Making an effective and well-received psychological thriller on par with Hitchcock, Play Misty for Me was a big success upon release and remains a career highlight for those involved.

While the swords and sandals films of the 60s, 70s, and 80s are not particularly considered to be works of art as a whole, many of them are beloved thanks to Ray Harryhausen’s wonderful stop-motion special effects. Such is the case with the original Clash of the Titans, which many would consider flawed, but has enough charm and memorable moments and performances, not to mention plenty of Harryhausen’s amazing work, that we continue to laud it. The idea of trying to remake something like that with computer-generated effects was met with scorn by longtime fans. One can certainly see modern updates of classic Greek myths for modern audiences, but it felt almost disrespectful in some capacity. Nevertheless, Louis Letterier’s Clash of the Titans was released in April of 2010 and was a monster success at the box office, but along with its sequel Wrath of the Titans a couple of years later, didn’t leave much of a cinematic footprint.

Adrian Monk, the obsessive-compulsive, phobic, and lovable police detective, returns for another series of investigations while strengthening the bonds between his friends and colleagues in the fifth season of Monk, which initially aired on the USA Network from July 2006 to March 2007. The show’s popularity was as high as ever as Monk (Tony Shaloub) and the rest of the show’s characters hit their creative stride, with Monk continuing to deal with his sometimes unbearable OCD, yet always haunted by the tragic death of his late wife, Trudy.

Talk of a sequel to 1988’s Beetlejuice has been on and off since the film’s release. Drafts of scripts and various deals have come and gone, but nothing ever fully came to fruition outside of the animated TV series. Despite creative flourishes here and there, one might also consider director Tim Burton’s film output in the last couple of decades to be mostly stagnant. He seemed to have had similar feelings and was on the verge of retirement, feeling that his best days was behind him. Having helmed four out of the eight episodes of the first seasons of Netflix’s Wednesday, it seemed as if some of his creative juices were flowing once more. Talk of a Beetlejuice sequel resurfaced, and after bringing on Wednesday creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar to write a screenplay from a story by Burton and Seth Grahame-Smith, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was finally underway with Michael Keaton returning in the starring role.

Adrian Monk, the obsessive-compulsive, phobic, and lovable police detective, returns for another series of investigations while strengthening the bonds between his friends and colleagues in the sixth season of Monk, which initially aired on the USA Network from July 2007 to February 2008. The show’s popularity was as high as ever as Monk (Tony Shaloub) and the rest of the show’s characters had hit their creative stride, with Monk continuing to deal with his sometimes unbearable OCD, yet always haunted by the tragic death of his late wife, Trudy.