"EXORCIST" TURNS HEADS

          Celebrating 45 years of horror's compelling box-office blockbuster.
          Adapted by William Peter Blatty from his 1971 novel, The Exorcist (which Blatty also produced) is a tale of demonic possession loosely based on the supposedly true story of a boy possessed in 1949.
          Ellen Burstyn plays Chris MacNeil, a famous actress renting a Federalist-style house in Georgetown while making a film. Her daughter Regan (Blair), is a perfectly normal, healthy 12 year-old girl--until gradually, inexplicably, she behaves increasingly strangely. So strangely, Chris takes Regan to a doctor.
          Meanwhile, a Jesuit priest named Damien Karras (Miller) is suffering a crisis of faith. The guilt-ridden son of an ailing mother, Father Karras is continually confronted by the dark side of humanity. Eventually, when the medical world can't do anything to help Regan, Chris asks Father Karras for help.
          In a special feature of the Extended Director's Cut of The Exorcist, William Friedkin reveals that the opening scene set in Northern Iraq was filmed in Mosul at an actual archeological dig. The scene is important because it establishes the mythology behind the film. "Out of this ancient land," says Friedkin, "a priest/archeologist gets a premonition."
          As Father Merrin, Max von Sydow (the knight who plays chess with Death in The Seventh Seal) seems venerable and vulnerable, frail with a heart condition, but incredibly the actor was only 43 or 44 when filming.
          The demon which possesses Regan is called Pazuzu. A Mesopotamian deity, Pazuzu was the king of the demons of the wind and brother of Humbaba. The voice of Pazuzu comes from Mercedes McCambridge, whom Orson Welles praised as radio's greatest actress.
          Boasting a Ouija board, green slime, and an invisible buddy named Captain Howdy, The Exorcist excels at planting subtle cinematic seeds which reach full fruition in a confrontation between good and evil.
          Little-known fact: Before penning the novel, Blatty--who died just last year--co-wrote with Blake Edwards the screenplay for the first Inspector Clouseau movie, A Shot in the Dark (1964).
          Following in the steps of Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Exorcist features Old-Time devilry in a modern urban setting, yet differs in that it focuses also on the special effects required to demonstrate the murderous demon possessing the innocent child.
          One of the highest-grossing films ever, it is the first horror movie to get nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.
          The film spawned four sequels and a TV series currently in its third season.

THE EXORCIST
Starring Ellen Burstyn,
Linda Blair,
Max von Sydow,
Jason Miller,
Lee J. Cobb,
Jack MacGowran
Directed by William Friedkin
Written by William Peter Blatty
Runtime 122 minutes
Rated R

"PANTHER" MAKES MOVIE MARK

          Because we like to see the under-represented and the never-repesented finally get represented, Black Panther scores yet another big Marvel success.
          Chadwick Boseman stars as T'Challa, King of Wakanda. See now, in the Marvel Universe, Wakanda is an African country where thousands of years ago a meteor landed containing the mightiest of all metals, Vibranium. So powerful, so rare, so weird, it's the all-purpose explanation for anything superhero-ish Marvel wants--including Captain America's shield.
          With Vibranium, Wakanda became high-tech long ago. So high-tech, Wakanda looks like Metropolis hidden by an invisibility cloak. Magnetic monorails zip around underground and talking holograms pop up in one's palm.
          To protect all this, T'Challa assumes the duty of all Wakandan kings by ingesting a special herbal medicine which gives him superpowers, and by wearing a Vibranium-threaded suit which gives him even more superpowers.
          The suit absorbs kinetic energy...then releases it back like a karma cardigan!
          When a wrongdoer named Ulysses Klaue (Serkis) does the wrong of stealing a quarter-ton of Vibranium, for the Black Panther, this time it's personal. And increasingly personal when T'Challa learns the identity of Klaue's associate, Erik (Jordan--whom Black Panther director Ryan Coogler directed in the Sylvester Stallone film Creed).
          High-tech tribal being an easier sell in stories set long ago in faraway galaxies, Black Panther entertains sometimes in spite of shiny special effects. There is visual appeal in seeing women win big fights onscreen because we still see it fairly rarely. Also appealing is Boseman's nobility as king. Ditto Andy Serkis (hard to believe he plays Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy) as a bad guy without CG. And Letitia Wright, as T'Challa's sister, Shuri, steals every scene she's in.
          Less to the good, depending on one's aesthetic, Black Panther is neither as hip nor as funny as Guardians of the Galaxy or Deadpool. Like with a lot of other superheroes, we don't really know the character. Whereas Stephen Strange undergoes a dramatic character change, and Peter Parker has relatable problems, T'Challa is more one-dimensional.
          But hey, trained rhinos.


BLACK PANTHER
Starring Chadwick Boseman,
Michael B. Jordan,
Letitia Wright,
Lupita Nyong'o,
Danai Gurira,
Forest Whitaker,
Angela Bassett,
Andy Serkis,
Martin Freeman,
Florence Kasumba
Directed by Ryan Coogler
Written by Ryan Coogler, Joe Robert Cole
Based on the Marvel Comics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby
Runtime 134 minutes
Rated PG-13

"BLACK MIRROR" WORTH LOOKING INTO

          Reflections on the disturbing Netflix series now in its fourth season.

          Featuring dystopian near-future stories emphasizing tech-dependence, "Black Mirror" at first blush plays like a contemporary version of "The Twilight Zone." 

          Created for British TV, the first episode aired Dec. 4, 2011, and the show continued on into 2014. In 2016, Netflix picked up the series. 

          As with "The Twilight Zone," some episodes are lighter in tone than the majority. However, "Black Mirror" is its own show, and differs from Rod Serling's creation significantly. For example, "The Twilight Zone" was the brainchild of a well-respected, much-honored writer looking to outsmart the censors with the protections afforded by speaking in the language of sci-fi and fantasy, whereas "Black Mirror" boasts no such background and faces no such censorship scrutiny. 

          In the first two episodes of the show, there is nothing of the TV classic's old school character or charm. "The Twilight Zone" is a just universe where bad things happen to bad people and the good are treated accordingly. The first episode of "Black Mirror," however, while well-written and excellently presented, seems specifically intended to anger and disgust. 

          Remaining deliberately vague to preserve the experience, suffice to say the Prime Minister of UK is terrorized with the execution of the nation's very popular princess unless he does something terrible--although it could have been really worse--on live TV. The second episode is also quite well done, even though the story seems, again, intended to disappoint. It is as though the dehumanizing problems of the 21st-century are too severe for stories concerning them to make folks feel great.

          So it comes down to an aesthetic. But certainly the writing for the anthology series is top-notch, as is the production value of the Netflix show which Netflix gives its highest rating. 

          From ETA Hoffmann's early sci-fi story "Automata" and Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, to the horrors in HG Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau and Stephen King's Cell, potential problems with technology prove great grist for the writerly mill, and often prophetically so. 

          The show has no clench-jawed, chain-smoking host with a penchant for alliterative lead-ins, nor the unforgettable theme music of Hollywood's greatest composer, but audiences will relate to the problems presented. Paying particular attention to detail and therefore verisimilitude, "Black Mirror" pulls the viewer into entertaining, thought-provoking tales reflecting our dark world.

Stewart Kirby writes for

ZUCKER, ZUCKER AND ABRAHAMS EXPOSED!

          Fact: 1980 will always be remembered as the year we learned Barbara Billingsley could speak fluent jive.

          Fact: Robert Stack wears multiple sets of sunglasses, so that when he removes one pair for emphasis, he's still got another pair of shades underneath.

          Fact: In his spare time, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar pilots commercial jet-liners...with one-liners.

          And how do we know these things? Why, Airplane! off course.

          Written and directed by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker, the original title of the screwball spoof was Flying High.

          Loosely, Airplane! parodies disaster films of the '70s. Specifically, it parodies the B-movie drama Zero Hour! (1957), starring Sterling Hayden. Dana Andrews plays Ted Stryker, a pilot with a past flying as a passenger on a jet where members of the crew suffer food poisoning.

          By contrast, in Airplane! Robert Hays plays Ted Striker, a pilot with a past flying as a passenger on a jet where members of the crew suffer food poisoning. The filmmakers couldn't get Sterling Hayden. So they got the next best thing: Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, and Leslie Nielsen.

          From the opening titles high in the sky with the theme from Jaws playing as the plane's tail fin cuts through the clouds, sight gags, puns, and cartoonish silliness abound.

          Old lady to nervous guy fastening airplane seat belt:

          "Nervous?"

          "Yes."

          "First time?"

          "No, I've been nervous lots of times."

          Like a live-action version of "The Simpsons" before "The Simpsons" existed, Airplane! packs the laughs into a well-stuffed Samsonite of cinema.

          Zucker, Zucker, and Abrahams grew up together, seeming perfectly normal, with a loving childhood, and then they made Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), which consists of irreverent sketches and is delightfully tasteless.

          The trio followed the commercial smash hit of Airplane! with Top Secret! (1984), which stars Val Kilmer and combines Elvis Presley musicals with Cold War spy films for double-barrel parody hilarity. When asked why his name is Nick, Kilmer replies it's just something his father thought of while shaving.

          It might be their funniest movie, but it wasn't commensurately successful. Two years prior, they had a show on ABC for six episodes called "Police Squad!" Starring Leslie Nielsen (this time as a detective), the show largely parodied a Lee Marvin cop show years prior called "M Squad." In 1988 the trio re-packaged the TV for the film The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!

          Nielsen's straight-man dead-pan delivery works in perfect contrast with the zany sight gags and puns of The Naked Gun, just as in Airplane! In subsequent films where he is no longer being a totally serious baritone authority figure, but instead acting silly, then there is nothing funny at all. Here though he is in his element, turning his career as a B-movie heavy completely inside-out.

Stewart Kirby writes for