Movie Poems

By John Thomas James

Explaining this collection has been a more difficult task than envisioned. In a sense, the title, as barren as it is broad, really says it all. It is the experience of a movie distilled into a poem. Some are disguised as reviews; some go in more interesting directions. I imposed no guidelines except brevity. And I suppose, in this concision, the craft (Id never call it artistry) finds its canvas.

Also, as most were penned in the 2014-to-2016 period, movies from those years feature prominently here alongside fondly remembered classics from past decades.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984534286

John Thomas James

John Thomas James was born in 1970 in Hartford, Connecticut. A published poet for 25 years, his work has appeared in publications such as The Iconoclast, South Ash Press, and Insomnia and Poetry. A collection of poems entitled The Progress of Later was published by Xlibris Press in 2011. He currently resides in the Nutmeg State with two cats named Sammy and Charlie.

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Copyright © 2018 by John Thomas James.

Library of Congress Control Number:            2018906992

ISBN:                  Hardcover                      978-1-9845-3430-9

                           Softcover                        978-1-9845-3429-3

                           eBook                              978-1-9845-3428-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 06/18/2018

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CONTENTS

Breaking The Sound Barrier

Annabelle

In Order Of Disappearance

Last Days In The Desert

Extraction

Child 44

Denial

Valley Of Violence

Bombers B-52

Wiener-Dog

Crossing Delancy

The Stamford Prison Experiment

Life

Absolutekly Fabulous: The Movie

All Roads Lead To Rome

Underdog

The Terminal Man

Blood Father

Miss Sloane

Nine Lives

Mothers Day (2016)

Rocky

Weary River

Rage (1972)

The Book Of Love (2016)

Life On The Line

A Kind Of Murder

Don’t Breathe

Mechanic: Resurrection

The Zookeeper’s Wife

Panic In Year Zero

Catfight

Careful What You Wish For

Poltergeist (2015)

Genius

The Confirmation

The Circle

Gold

The Space Between Us

Villain

I Saw The Light

Time Out Of Mind

Wakefield

The Founder

Term Life

Bad Moms

Young Messiah

Blind

The Best Of Enemies

Chain Letter

Hell’s Heroes

Room

Wish I Was Here

Mad Max: Fury Road

Captive

What If

Five Graves To Cairo

The Big Short

Mother Is A Freshman

The Lady Is Willing

Curse Of The Werewolf

Before I Hang

He Ran All The Way

Our Brand Is Crisis

City Of Ember

Hail, Caesar!

The Great Buck Howard

Life Happens

Thank You For Sharing

Homefront

The Richest Girl In The World

Bridge Of Spies

And Now

Star Trek: Into Darkness

Playing God

We Need To Talk About Kevin

Queen To Play

Employee’s Entrance

Heroes For Sale

Whirlpool

All Good Things

Our Idiot Brother

The Man They Could Not Hang

The Black Room

Screwed

The Visitation

Registered Nurse

The Beloved Brat

The Color Of Time

Haven

Lucy

The War Zone

Mr. Turner

Secretariat

Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man

The Fan (1949)

Bedside

Breakheart Pass

Luther (1973)

This Island Earth

Danny Collins

Let’s Try Again

Boyhood

Walter

Ex Machina

Good Kill

Sherrybaby

The Departed

More Than A Secretary

If You Could Only Cook

Bobby

The Sadist

The Brave One

Madhouse

The Addiction

Inception

Self/Less

Molly And Me

The Hitch-Hiker

John Wick

Predestination

Before I Go To Sleep

Miss Meadows

The Humbling

This Is My Affair

Robocop (2014)

Two Faces Of January

Marriage-Go-Round

Little Murders

Grindhouse

Shrek The Third

Mr. Brooks

Accidental Love

Ant Man

It Follows

God’s Pocket

Ruby Sparks

Colorado Territory

Maggie

Begin Again

The Proud Rebel

The Railway Man

Dr. Crippen

Enemy

Close To My Heart

The Truth About Emanuel

The Great Lover

Hell In Korea

Black Sea

Montana Moon

The Man Who Talked Too Much

Holy Matrimony

Crash Dive

My Man And I

The Phantom Of Crestwood

Men Of The Fighting Lady

The Bitter Tea Of General Yen

Still Alice

Sea Wife

Show People

Adam Had Four Sons

Bombardier

Vigil In The Night

The Baron Of Arizona

Steve Jobs

San Andreas

Bloodbrothers

Anna And The King Of Siam

The Boy

Life Of Crime

Some Kind Of Beautiful

The Peanuts Movie

The Human Centipede

The Dawn Patrol (1930)

Lamb

Forger

Knight Of Cups

Brooklyn

Anomalisa

Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice

The Woman On The Beach

Eye In The Sky

Victor Frankenstein

Battleship

Concussion

Tall In The Saddle

The Second Face

Trumbo

The Hateful Eight

The Adjustment Bureau

Aeon Flux

S.o.b.

Criminal

Girl In The Red Velvet Swing

No Escape (1953)

Lured

A Successful Calamity

The Huntsman: Winter’s War

Berlin Express

Destination Gobi

Bone Tomahawk

The Bat Whispers

The Family Fang

Accidental Tourist

Air Force One

The Witch

Money Monster

Master Of The World

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For

Lincoln

The Answer Man

The Invention Of Lying

America: Where To Invade Next

Exposed

London

In Good Company

Looking For Comedy In The Muslim World

Mass Appeal

Magnolia

Lolita (1962)

Mamma Mia!

Risen

Fatso

Metroland

Gi Jane

First Family

The Gospel Of John

Approaching The Unknown

13 Hours

Love Is Strange

She Couldn’t Say No

The Lobster

Rawhide

Good Luck Chuck

Midnight Special

Love And Friendship

Mud

I Am Sam

The Program

The Shallows

London Has Fallen

Man Up

# Horror

Shelter

Devil’s Doorway

99 Homes

The Infiltrator

Assault On Precinct 13 (1976)

Home Sweet Hell

American Heist

The Legend Of Tarzan

Our Kind Of Traitor

Day Of The Evil Gun

The Last Challenge

Meet The Hitlers

The Intern

Aloft

The 40-Year-Old Virgin

The Mummy (2017)

A Merry War

Max

Silence

Lights Out

Churchill

Kidnap

Rings

John Wick 2

Cell

Tomb Raider

Death Of Stalin

A Quiet Place

Toward The Unknown

BREAKING THE SOUND BARRIER

                This is an achievement picture

                meaning there is a stated goal

                (breaking that damn sound barrier)

                thus everything the characters say and do

                is in service of that goal

                at a patently absurd level.

                Like Dr. Ehlrich’s Magic Bullet,

Madame Curie, The Magic Box,

Chain Lightning, and so many others,

                these movies have a peculiar fascination

                for the presumption of the importance

                of unique inventions and breakthroughs

                that others could only see in hindsight.

                But on they go!

                Toiling away night and day

                so that jet fighters can reach Mach 10

                while Ralph Richardson’s engine magnate

                with his narrow-minded determination

                farts around in a stuffy office,

                somehow controlling events from a distance

                through his sheer force of will.

                That must be how these great leaps are made:

                by old men barking orders at young people.

ANNABELLE

                Doll possession movies

                Usually boil down to one issue:

                Why did the invisible spirit choose

                To embody an inanimate object?

                Why did it give up the advantage

                Of stealth to get stuck

                Inside a vessel of plastic

                Absent any internal workings?

                I suppose the shock value is enormous

                If your one intention is to terrify,

But that doesn’t explain the stubbornness

                Of remaining inside once detected

                By an exorcist or other determined adult.

                What’s preventing anyone

                From chopping off its head,

                Burning it in a furnace,

                Or dropping it from a helicopter?

                Would it vacate then,

                Or just lie there, inert?

                Hollywood usually saves

                Such answers for the sequel.

IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE

              I love how it delivers what it promises.

              Meaning, how it literally is a tallying up

              of all the dead people throughout the movie

              in the order of their inevitable demise

              by way of witty, playful captions

              juxtaposed with stark, black backgrounds

              that become something to look forward to

              after every clockwork killing

              employed by this "father seeks revenge

              for the death of his son" story.

              And even though the petulant mob bosses

              and earnest and affable good guys

              make for an engaging dichotomy,

              in an absurd sense everything is secondary

              to this Norwegian location

              of towering mountains of blinding powder

              and the biggest snowplows—

              and I mean the biggest snowplows

              ever seen in my life!

              I didn’t know they produced plows this large.

              They could carve a road out of an avalanche.

              And Skarsgard proves his acting chops again

              by looking eminently comfortable

              behind the wheel of those babies.

LAST DAYS IN THE DESERT

              On rare occasions a movie

              is exactly what you need.

              One may not be looking for it;

              the awareness may be tenuous,

              but then it comes along gently

              and upsets the apple cart.

              More than any philosophical,

              or even historical fascination,

              is the stunning quietness—

              stillness;

              the staring off into the sunset;

              the total submission to the desert

              as a metaphor for God.

              The plot gives Jesus companions

              to interact with amidst his forty days fast.

              We become emotionally invested

              in the inter-dynamics of the family

              and that provides the substance

              that fills in his emptying-out of spirit;

              their love and torment

              imprinted like earned wisdom.

              The devil is depicted as a tempter—

              or rather a twin brother gone rogue—

              but his scenes are like comic relief

              compared to the harsh world inhabited

              by nomads, sheepherders, budding messiahs.

EXTRACTION

              I once made a maxim

              that just about every movie

              will contain something

              to make viewing it worthwhile.

              Sometimes it’s the smallest—

              less often the largest—

              aspect of the enterprise

              can be its salvation.

              It could be a sexy shower scene,

              or a swashbuckler sword fight.

Maybe a cameo appearance by Merv Griffin,

              or a supporting actor chewing up scenery

              like Jada Pinkett stealing the show

              in A Low Down Dirty Shame.

              This movie, Extraction, tests this dictum.

              I could literally be at a loss

              to explain why it must exist.

              It’s functionally a dead carcass

              laying prone on a tv screen slab.

              If forced to pick something,

              maybe the hand to hand combat

              between the good guys and bad guys.

              There was skill in spurts,

              but nothing to write a poem about.

CHILD 44

                It’s an inherently fascinating premise

                to portray an absorbing quest

                for a serial killer of children

                in an Orwellian worker’s paradise

                where such a tragedy would be anathema

                to a contented communist society.

                Obviously, the investigation is thwarted

                and our reluctant Soviet war hero

                goes rogue in his imposed exile;

                somehow going off the grid

                in a world where the grid is omnipotent

                and, consequences be damned,

                he tracks down the psychopath

                to an obscure factory in Rostov.

                As far as the tension goes,

                the Sovietisms get in the way

                of our clear line of sight.

                Betrayals by party officials,

                paranoia by brigadier generals,

                marital strife caused by mutual distrust—

                all this is a miasma we wade through,

                but the power of immersion is potent.

DENIAL

              Let’s discard the question

              About doing the subject matter justice

              Because that task is heavy lifting

              Left to academics or clerics.

              The point is whether a straight treatment

              Of this historical event is preferable

              To a more imaginative treatment

              That takes the vexed topic

              Of Holocaust deniers in its totality

              Rather than expend the elbow grease

              In going through the plot machinations

              Of this rather plodding courtroom drama.

              There is validity in either course,

              And I admit the sinister figure

              Of Timothy Spall champing at the bit

              To be both intellectually patronizing

              And morally condescending

              While explicating this ahistorical garbage

Was a feat of acting worthy of approbation.

VALLEY OF VIOLENCE

              Unlike some contemporary westerns

              that like to employ a gimmick—

              like the Tarantino Treatment

              in The Hateful Eight,

              or the uber extreme violence

              enjoyed in Bone Tomahawk—

              this one seems to play it straight,

              if not quite down the middle.

              A simple story of a stranger

              passing through a Deadwood town

              and tripping through the usual miasma

              of revenge killings and damsels in distress.

              As the hapless town marshal

              flailing around to keep a lid on chaos,

              John Travolta is having a ball

              chewing up scenery in a southern drawl.

              He is the factor keeping it off center,

              but there’s enough ballast here

              buried in the Potter’s Field of western cliché’s

              to consider this endearing in a grimy mood.

BOMBERS B-52

              What is a father to do

              when after twenty years

              of steadfast labor and sacrifice

              your own daughter wakes up

              and is suddenly ashamed

              of her social standing

              and the vocation you selected

              to provide food, clothing, and shelter.

              Karl Malden faces this conundrum

              and looks it squarely in the eye.

              On the one hand there’s his duty—

              presented to him as a sacred duty

              by the military chain of command

              who judge the fate of the free world

              as dangling in the balance if he quits

              his job as a jet engine maintenance man.

              On the other hand, is ambitiousness

              and alluring private sector employment

              paying in the high six figures

              that would automatically insert his family

              into the social set of San Francisco

              and the upward mobility that ensures.

              The wife says precious little.

              After so many years as Malden’s maid,

              her ambitions have been squashed;

              affection crumpled into mechanical loyalty.

              It being the mid 1950’s,

              there’s ultimately a predictable outcome.

              Patriotism and Cold War vigilance

              trump the yearnings of an ungrateful daughter.

              The bombers keep flying upward,

              high into the tawny troposphere,

              abetted by dedicated ground crews

              and the army brats they spawned.

WIENER-DOG

              When a bunch of short subjects

              are crying out to be seen

              in the feature film format,

              I see nothing nefarious

              with stringing them together

              upon a necklace as adorable

              as a daschund pooch.

              The narrative kind of hangs there

              tacked up by black humor

              that is surprisingly consistent

              despite the disparate levels

              of circumlocution in the storyline.

              Sadly, there is no restraint

              when it comes to the gross-out stuff,

              with ample ladlings of diarrhea

              and one inexcusable car accident

              (used to make one hell of a punch line)

              undercutting the low-key appeal.

              It seems apropos when an artist—

              a pretentious abstract artist named Fantasy—

              twists the lid on this goddamned movie.

CROSSING DELANCY

              Besides the inevitable aesthetic differences

              In fashion, hair style, and technology,

              Why would anyone have temerity to describe

              This sweet romantic comedy as dated?