Average Hollywood fair. Not overly sentimentalist and formulaic, but nothing important. The acting was a bit above average too.
“Celebrate” is not the word.
Try Little Big Man, hands down my favorite western.
I second Little Big Man. A fine, funny, revisionist Western with a bittersweet heart. And Faye Dunaway!
If the kid likes war movies and courtroom dramas, see Breaker Morant - the best of both worlds! One of my all-time favorite flicks, about three Australian soldiers on trial for war crimes during the Boer War. Gorgeous scenery, great acting, crackling dialogue and some exciting combat scenes.
Presumed Innocent is a great courtroom drama. Liar Liar is a great courtroom comedy.
In the Line of Fire has Clint Eastwood as a grizzled old Secret Service agent matching wits with a psycho assassin wannabe played by John Malkovich. Great film.
No Way Out is a nifty spy drama/romance with a twist.
Excalibur is a violent, sexy retelling of the King Arthur legends. Good sword and sorcery.
Have you shown him Notorious? B&W, but a great espionage thriller and love story. And of course there’s always Casablanca.
I’d also suggest The Hidden, a violent but fun sf thriller about an alien fugitive here on Earth.
Black and white movies are a tough sell in my house. Casablance is my faourite movie and I watch it often … but always alone.
Loved Excalibur and will add that one.
Little Big Man rings a bell, but I can’t quite place it. Will investigate.
Likewise, Presumed Innocent. I feel like I am confusing it with Witness. Maybe I should add both!
There is a colorized version. The opening market scene is cool in color.
The first is about a prosecutor (Harrison Ford) charged with killing his lover. The second is about a cop (also Ford) hiding among the Amish (including Kelly McGillis and Viggo Mortensen) from Philadelphia hitmen. IMHO, the first is a better film.
Then i was confusing both with yet another ford movie.
What was the one where he was a doctor accused of killing his wife and he is chased around the country by tommy lee jones?
How about Rocky?
Rocky scored a “meh”.
That’s it.
“The Story of Bonnie and Clyde” sounds pretty celebratory to me. Sure there’s some self-pity in it, but still Bonnie’s reveling in the infamous fame that the gang she’s in has created. She mentions how newsboys wish that Clyde would kill some more cops so that they can sell their newspapers. She insists that the pair of them are so notorious that the law hangs crimes on them that aren’t theirs. Even if that’s true, she’s still bragging about it.
Her vision of their death has all the romantic notions of “going down together” and “bury them side by side” (which didn’t happen by the way).
I call all this celebratory. That romantic notion of dying together tickled her fancy.
Missed the edit window. Here’s the poem.
I’m watching Ladyhawke for the first time in I don’t know how long. A prison break, swordfights, a couple living with a curse, and breaking back into prison should be an easy sell.
I second that recommendation.
The soundtrack, however, is likely to cause the young man to burst out laughing.
Goodfellas!
Chinatown (might be a meh but who knows).
I think you’re confusing the togetherness celebration, with the death celebration. She was writing a poem, and the end line was “it’s death for Bonnie & Clyde.” She didn’t say a ‘joyous jump into the dark domain,’ or anything like that. As a matter of fact, the ‘going down together’ could be an artistic device juxtaposing the death, which the two lines before the last line bear out.
Also, her saying that their being blamed for uncommitted crimes isn’t bragging: it’s complaining. Remember the scene at Moss’s house:“…I guess they hung that one on us just for luck!” That wasn’t Clyde bragging.
In addition, the accounts that I have read indicate that Bonnie, when with her family, was preoccupied and depressed about their sure deaths, in the few months before they bit the big one.
At any rate, the movie WAS good; I think the OP is judging the movie by his son’s reaction. Maybe. The movie was set in Depression times, and, one book I read points out that the movie portrayed the boredom, despair, and need for excitement that they were seeking, and was what the producer intended.
If we understand that the Barrows were a bunch of ingnorant hillbillies, with new technology, it may help see that the movie was quite realistic, and good.
Best wishes,
hh
The movie was great. You are in a great movie slump. It went like this for me, also. and I had foolish ideas of what was good, and what wasn’t. Example: I saw Top Gun and Iron Eagle, for the first time within a few months of each other. At the time, I thought that Iron Eagle beat out Top Gun on all counts. I even argued the point with my friends.
Today, I see that I was in a tragic downward spiral, but I pulled out of it. Hopefully, you can, too.
I still have to eliminate these friends, though-can’t have witnesses to my total breakdown around now, can we?
Best wishes,
hh