Knife in the Water (1962)

A man and woman, on their way to go sailing, pick up a hitchhiker, then invite him to join them on the sailboat. It’s The Talented Mr Ripley, but less complicated, almost all on the sailboat, and more about the slow building of tension than any quick acts of violence.

It’s only those three characters — man, wife, hitchhiker — with no other actors or extras. I’m not certain, but I think none of these three even mentions anyone else. It’s as if they’re the only people in the world, which adds to the tension.

It’s almost entirely talking, with very little action, and it’s fascinating. What I like best is that none of the three is particularly good or malevolent. Also, the dame is beautiful and wears a bikini in almost every scene.

Directed and co-written by Roman Polanski, who’s famously a bad man so be offended if you wish, but it’s a very good movie. This is his first feature, and the only one where the cast speaks his native Polish.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

Knife Point (2013)

This is a little less than half an hour, and opens with a guy sharpening a knife. He’s a sweaty white man, about 35, and maybe he’s a knife salesman. Has a collection of about 50, in a nice carrying case. Sweaty white guy gets proselytized by a Christian family, and eyes their teenage daughter, and everything is filmed eerie, unsettling.

From that setup, you probably don’t know where the story is headed, but it’s interesting all the way. This would make a good feature film, as these characters and events could stand to be fleshed out a bit more, but it’s effective as a short.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

Knight and Day (2010)

A rare bomb for superstar Scientologist Tom Cruise, this has him playing a spy guy named Miller, Roy Miller. He’s like Bond, James Bond, only moreso, and without the depth. Of course, James Bond has no depth, so we’re looking at something extremely shallow and empty here.

Knight and Day is basically a comic book — not a graphic novel, mind you, but something you buy off the spin rack for $2.95. When there’s a freeway chase, Miller jumps off his motorcycle onto the roof of a car, no worries. In the middle of a gunfight, his accidental sidekick (Cameron Diaz) says he doesn’t seem happy to see her, so he walks through the crossfire to kiss her. When both pilots on a passenger jet are killed, Miller casually steps into the cockpit to land the plane.

I don’t like Tom Cruise, and Knight and Day is aimed at 10-year-olds, but I am sorry to report that the film is enjoyable.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

Knight Moves (1992)
a/k/a Face to Face

All eyes are on two boys at a chess tournament, as they move pieces and slap the clock. When one of them decides all is lost, he topples his king to resign, then leaps across the table to stab the other kid in the hand.

Awesome! Chess tournaments are a lot of pressure for kids, and honestly, stabbing your opponent in the hand seems a fine closing move. But the dang grownups disapprove, and some silly doctor says, “The most important thing is that during his treatment he’s not allowed anywhere near a chess board.”

Flash forward twenty years, and one of the kids (it’s never clear which) has become Christopher Lambert, chess grandmaster. Somebody’s killing young women, and it’s one of those killers so common in the movies but almost unheard of in real life, who taunts the cops with cryptic clues. This killer, though, will only give clues to Lambert, and the clues are all chess-related.

The movie doesn’t really know chess, and Lambert as a grandmaster is, shall we say, difficult to believe. By the middle game it’s just dumb, and by the endgame it’s dumber. Those first five minutes, though, are pretty cool.

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦

Knight of the Dragon (1985)
a/k/a Star Knight

Klaus Kinski and Harvey Keitel, together at last! But alas, Kinski’s German-accented English is replaced by a voice actor who sounds midwestern. It’s a Spanish movie, and everyone’s dubbed poorly.

Keitel plays ‘Clever’, a 16th-century dragon slayer on horseback, though the townsfolk complain that he hasn’t slayed enough dragons. Eventually space aliens show up, and Kinski makes first contact.

As costume drama, as sci-fi, as everything else it attempts, this is almost unfathomably stupid.

Verdict: BIG NO.

♦ ♦ ♦

Nostalghia (1983)

Andrei is a Russian poet in exile, wandering the towns, churches, and ruins of Italy, looking for the faded footsteps of a Russian composer who’d made a similar journey long before. Speaking no Italian, he’s accompanied by a gorgeous blonde translator, Eugenia, who has the hots for Andrei, but he isn’t much interested. He misses his Mrs and kids, and hopes to return to Russia. Things somewhat simmer when the local village idiot has something to say.

The movie moves slowly, but you know that coming in — it’s by Andrei Tarkovsky, who made Solaris and Stalker and other heavy-thinking flicks. The action set-piece here is a guy trying to walk a lit candle across a small open space, but the wind keeps blowing it out, so he starts over again, and again, in a scene that lasts seven minutes.

You could plausibly argue that it’s tedious, that scene and the whole movie. I would counter that both are fascinating, and I’d win the argument because it’s my blog and it’s a fascinating film.

All the Tarkovsky I’ve seen before was sci-fi, but this has little otherworldliness, just a lot of conversation and rumination and poetry, and endlessly beautiful imagery. You gotta put some effort into this, but it’s art, not amusement, and it’s worth it.

Verdict: YES.

Seattle’s grooviest cinema, the Grand Illusion, lost its lease and closed almost two years ago. That’s their going away marquee, above. Since then, they’ve screened movies at other venues a few times monthly, and occasionally sent emails promising that they were still looking for a new location to reopen.

Now, they’ve announced that they’re coming back, moving into the recently shuttered Varsity Theater, five blocks down University Way. It’s a much bigger venue, hundreds of seats instead of dozens, and three screens instead of one. They’re hoping to reopen within the next few months, and I’m hoping to be there, chewing popcorn and watching great old or quirky new movies.

9/23/2026

Logo illustration by Jeff Meyer.
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If you can’t find a movie I’ve reviewed, or if you have recommendations, please drop me a note. And I mean it — if you ask, I will get you the movie.
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No talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff.