Girls, Can You Believe It Took Me This Long To See "Targets????????????????????????????"

                                     I had heard about "Targets" for years.  It was the remarkable debut of a promising then new director named Peteer Bogdanovich.  He went on to do "The Last Picture Show," in 1971, and then "Paper Moon," in 1973.  After that his career imploded.  What a sad end to such talent.

                                      "Targets" surprised me in several ways.  I had always imagined it was shot in black-and-white, but it was not.  Also, I had thought there would have been more of an interaction between Bobby, the killer, and Byron Orlock, the horror star played brilliantly by Boris Karloff in what was his final film role.  What a way to go out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                        Based on the Charles Whitman 1966 University of Texas shooting, the film shows Bobby evolving from having "funny ideas" into a full-fledged mass shooter.  The title is so apt, because the viewer sees him lining up his shots--as targets.  He starts with his family, then goes on to kill anyone he can.  It is chilling and disturbing to watch; it must have been in 1968, but you can bet this did not show up at any theaters in New Brunswick, New Jersey, back then!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                       What is even more chilling about "Targets" is its prescience, for who could have, then foreseen, Columbine, Sandy Hook, and the Virginia Tech shootings?  And the wheel keeps going, spewing out more victims, while some arcane laws do not allow for accountability or still fail to take these incidents seriously.  And how about gun control?

                                          Bobby, played by Tim O'Kelly, may be a serial killer on the make, but he is so amateurish, leaving an entire arsenal of guns atop the gas tower he poses during the day while committing his atrocities.  But it is the fall of night, the seediness of Los Angles, and the terror that can erupt in a seedy L.A. drive-in that Bogdanovich and his cinematographer, the talented Laslo Kovacs, capture so well.  The final dissolving shot is just brilliant and says it all.

                                             "Targets" is a must for those who take cinema seriously.  But it also demonstrates that as used to as we seem to be to such incidents, this film still has the power to unnerve.

                                                  Don't miss it, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!