Eclipse Movies

Dolores Claiborne

Pitch Black

Salutations, my celestial beings, and welcome to another double feature you’re destined to feel perplexed by—or, at the very least, a double feature that might make you say “hmm, what?” In preparation for the extremely rare total eclipse of the sun that will be occurring on Monday, April 8th, I wanted to explore some films where eclipses make significant appearances. (There are more than you may think!) While ordinary solar eclipses occur semi-regularly, another total eclipse of the sun won’t be visible from the contiguous United States until 2044. According to NASA, a total solar eclipse can be described as the moment “when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, completely blocking the face of the Sun. People viewing the eclipse from locations where the Moon’s shadow completely covers the Sun – known as the path of totality – will experience a total solar eclipse. The sky will darken, as if it were dawn or dusk. Weather permitting, people along the path of totality will see the Sun’s corona, or outer atmosphere, which is usually obscured by the bright face of the Sun.” That “weather-permitting” part of the eclipse is what is profoundly frustrating to this witchy critic, given the fact that I’ve never experienced this solar event and Texas weather is known to get in the way of all sorts of cool stuff. If it’s not our government, it’s our damn, finicky weather. This climate uncertainty won’t stop the immense droves of solar-chasers that are planning to visit Texas for this event though, as a projected 200,000 to 2 million people are estimated to be traveling to the Lone Star State just to catch a glimpse of this spooky sky. Even a witch such as myself, I, like many others, had no idea how big of a deal this eclipse is—and yet several Texas cities are declaring April 8th to be a local emergency due to our state being in a prime viewing location. I will, personally, be keeping my pagan practices to myself and staying as close to home as possible during this chaotic eclipse (and might just stay home in general since Mercury is in retrograde as well 🙄) but for those of you making a trek to see this spectacle, I wish you luck! In the meantime, let’s celebrate this seismically spacey event with two eclipse movies that made the sun into significant characters. Up first was a popular but surprisingly not pulpy 1995 drama from director Taylor Hackford, an adaptation of Stephen King’s novel: Dolores Claiborne. As I’ve stated before, I am a massive fan of Stephen King’s books, though I don’t always think they translate to the screen well. And on top of this, I much prefer Stephen King’s horror stories to his dramas, but I’d heard such intriguing things about this one—and particularly its usage of a total solar eclipse—so I had to check it out. Dolores Claiborne follows my sorority sister Kathy Bates (adpi til the day I die even though I only lasted about two and a half semesters) as Dolores Claiborne—a simple, humble housekeeper with a laundry list of secrets. The film very cleverly opens on a confusing but troubling scene, where it would appear that Dolores has pushed her elderly boss, Vera Donovan (Judy Parfitt), down the stairs of her mansion in Little Tall Island, Maine. It’s hard to tell what exactly took place on this gloomy day, but detective John Mackey (Christopher Plummer) plans to spend the next several gloomy days proving that it was Dolores who killed Vera. Along with the town constable (a very young and cute John C. Reilly), Mackey is determined to bring Dolores to justice, but this is far from an open-and-shut case. Dolores’ daughter, Selena (Jennifer Jason-Leigh), is mostly estranged from her mother, and works as a high-powered journalist in New York City. But when Selena receives a mysterious fax with a newspaper cutout about her mother being suspected of murder, she packs up her alcohol, pills, cigarettes, dark shades, and cunty bob hairdo to go back to her hometown for a Sharp Objects-esque experience. Dolores is a tough but kind, no-nonsense kind of broad who doesn’t do herself any favors when speaking to the detective—she only makes herself seem more suspicious and unknowable. But Detective Mackey’s persistence is fueled by more than just his passion for police-work, as it would turn out, 20 years ago he was assigned to another murder case where Dolores was the suspect. Many moons ago, on a total solar eclipse that took place in the 1970s, Dolores’ husband and Selena’s father mysteriously turned up dead. Mackey is certain that Dolores killed her ex-husband, Joe (David Strathairn), and her sickly boss Vera, but he has little evidence to support these claims other than the fact that Dolores was clearly mistreated by both of these people. Forced to go back to their old, long-abandoned home, Selena, but mostly Dolores, are confronted with memories from the past that come flooding back the second they set foot into this place. It’s in these flashbacks of memories that we see the tricky but loving relationship Dolores once had with Selena, and the extremely fraught relationship that Joe had with both of these women. These flashbacks are interspersed into the scenes from the present, in ways that felt disorienting but also effective. Time and memory are very peculiar, malleable things that can be hard to predict or control, and this film does an impeccable job of highlighting this. Selena and her mother constantly butt heads but Dolores is clearly very proud of her daughter and her success at escaping this small, stifling town—one that she herself was never able to leave. Dolores can come across as warm and welcoming in one moment, and cold and hardened in the next. She has led a life full of hard work and heartbreak, and as she so iconically says to her daughter one day, “Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto.” It’s not until the end of this film that we really learn what happened to Joe and Vera, but every answer that Dolores Claiborne presents us with provides clarity, satisfaction, and the guarantee that women are the strongest creatures on the planet. I am rarely drawn to dramas, especially the ones that the sex-soaked try-hard 1990s had to offer, but Dolores Claiborne was full of shocks, stunts, and stellar performances that left me in awe. The story that is unraveled here is certainly heavy, even heavier than it may seem on just the surface, but there is a surprising amount of feminine empowerment at play here—not just from what is revealed by the end of the film, but from the fascinating female dynamics we see develop throughout. And while I’ll admit that Kathy Bates’ Peter Griffin accent cracked me up from time-to-time, her performance was nothing short of powerful, and the same can be said for Jennifer Jason Leigh. (And it’s just completely bonkers to me that they were both only nominated for Saturn Awards for their work here.)(Also my grandmother’s name was Dolores so I think that also made me like her character, lol.) This film is bursting at the seams with quiet, feminine rage that manifests in the form compelling content and amazing lines like “I’m just about half past give a shit with your fun and games” and “Sometimes, an accident can be an unhappy woman’s best friend.” And on top of a brilliant, Sharp Objects-esque storyline, a solar eclipse is featured in a very memorable way in one of this film’s many climaxes—making this event seem even more significant and badass than usual. It’s sold as a mere backdrop for an eclipse party that Miss Vera hosts in the flashbacks, with the impending moment of totality looming over its characters, but when it actually occurs it is really something you have to see for yourself. All in all, I was blown away by Dolores Claiborne—a film that seemed depressing or even boring on the surface, but slowly revealed itself to be a masterpiece. And the same could be said for tonight’s second film, an unexpected thrill ride from the year 2000 directed by David Twohy called Pitch Black. Before appearing in the franchise-sparking film The Fast and the Furious, actor Vin Diesel made his debut in Pitch Black: a future-set sci-fi thriller that revolves around Richard B. Riddick: a notorious murderer and criminal who has surgically-modified eyes that are highly sensitive to light, but can see well in the dark. Riddick is catching a ride aboard a spacecraft with his captor, Officer William Johns (Cole Hauser of Dazed and Confused fame), and several civilians who are led by Abu “Imam” al-Walid (Keith David) who are all headed for “New Mecca”. When a storm of micrometeoroids attacks the ship and the captain is killed, the second in command, Carolyn Fry (Radha Mitchell), is forced to crash-land the ship into a nearby planet. Several citizens locked up in cryostasis are ejected from the ship, and only Fry, Johns, a handful of settlers, and Riddick survive. As if crashing on a strange, desert planet weren’t terrifying enough, the crew realizes that this planet has not one but three suns, meaning the odds of a necessary-cooling nightfall are unlikely. As if perpetual-daytime weren’t terrifying enough, Riddick escapes and the crew realizes that this ex-con is not the only thing to fear on this mysterious world, as spiky, hungry aliens begin to present themselves in frightening, underground tunnels that cover the entire planet. More troubling discoveries are made, as they stumble upon a solar-powered camp that was clearly once-inhabited by other humans, who have now all disappeared. Our crew eventually finds and reunites with Riddick, realizing that this supernaturally-strong ex-murderer may just be some help when battling these freaky desert-dwelling creatures. Fry also realizes that, shocker, this space cop may not be exactly what he seems, either. And when a surprising eclipse occurs, covering all three suns entirely, all of the creatures underground come up to the surface, hungry and unafraid of anything. Pitch Black does an excellent job of creating suspense, and the brutal, merciless ways in which its characters are killed off was truly shocking and fun to watch. The special effects were far better than I expected from the year 2000 and while it featured a space aesthetic that we’ve seen before, the creature design was mostly-unique and the characters were mostly-interesting. Vin Diesel clearly had fun playing Riddick, and his passion for this series sparked several sequels—spearheaded almost solely by Diesel. And I’ve never found Vin Diesel to be that attractive, but for whatever reason, he was incredibly sexy in Pitch Black, with his glowing chrome eyes, tight t-shirt, cool dark shades, and the bondage-type gear he’s forced to be strapped into. He also had decent chemistry with Radha Mitchell, which wasn’t difficult given that the only other viable male love interest, the suspicious cop Johns, was another-level of douchey in this film. The stunts and scares in Pitch Black were well-executed, and while it did fall victim to some chaotic editing (as in Swimfan), the weird, washed-out paleness of this film somehow worked. To convey the brightness of this three-sun planet and the darkness of it when these suns are eclipsed, the filmmakers used a bleach bypass process that gives nearly every frame a blue-and-white effect—which may sound off-putting but seemed well-utilized to this critic. Pitch Black is full of several twists, turns, and turbulence, and through it all, the dialogue is surprisingly-well-written and the story as a whole is completely compelling. I am a fan of sci-fi horror films from the late nineties and early oughts, but many of them are still a bit corny or oversaturated with chaos. But Pitch Black, while borrowing some aesthetic and narrative elements from other sci-fi stories, was mostly very unique, easy-to-follow, and felt like the full-package—even in the last five minutes when some truly insane things occur and I was left with no choice but to add the sequels to my watchlist. This film not only scratched my itch for good sci-fi horror, it gave me an entirely new appreciation for Vin Diesel—not just because I found him to be hot in Pitch Black, but because this project was so important to him that he really fought for it to be made. The film became a sleeper hit at the time and a timeless classic for those who know of its existence, and it gave us the gift of Vin Diesel: a man who has a legendary beef with Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, and a sweet song in his heart. Diesel has a handful of original songs but I’m personally partial to his cover of Rihanna’s song “Stay”, where his pretty-good falsetto makes a casual appearance. I’ll definitely be checking out the other Riddick films, but now I fear I must also check out other Vin Diesel films in general. Thank you so much for reading along this week, my solar sluts, and I hope your eclipse experience is safe, fun, and free of harbored-secrets and desert-dwelling aliens. Until next time, soak up the sun (responsibly!) ☀️