God, I love the Vic Mizzy soundtrack!
We Have a Ghost follows a Harry and the Hendersons formula used in a lot of 1980-90s films but rises a bit above that.
Watched Hunt for Red October again, which was an okay movie. One interesting thing that jumped out at me: the name of the KGB guy on board who gets killed early on by Connery’s character was named Putin. 
Ouija
Best review I’ve seen of this movie nailed it.
Ouija Bored
What a lame generic movie. Witchboard 2 was a better “spirit board” movie than this.
Mind blown!! Will have to rewatch.
Putin isn’t a rare name in Russia. There are 6,288 people with that name in Russia. There’s somewhat more than a thousand people with that name in other countries. Vladimir Putin wasn’t well known when the movie came out. It is interesting that the character Ivan Putin in the movie is a political officer:
Yeah, I didn’t think it was a unique name, nor tied in anyway to Vlad. I just thought it was amusing.
Oh well I was impressed haha
I think Match Point is a great film. I love the way that Woody Allen just lays out the story with little obvious foreshadowing. He allows the story to simply unfold in front of our eyes. Does Woody Allen have any movies that compare to Match Point? From what I’ve seen of his it stands alone.
I watched Mad God the other day. That’s about what I thought as well. It’s like an 80-minute long Tool music video from the 90s. In fact I’d like to watch it again with Tool playing over it.
Just watched Marathon Man after many, many years. Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier doing a great job (especially the latter) in a story of stolen diamonds and Nazis and betrayal. The man who plays Olivier’s brother in the film is an actor by the name of Ben Dova, which get some childish glee from.
My latest five:
Nuremberg: Its Lessons For Today
A restoration of a post-WW2 US government film, intended to highlight Nazi atrocities and warn against the dangers of political extremism, racism and anti-Semitism. Some harrowing concentration-camp imagery.
Filmmakers for the Prosecution
Documentary about the making of that film, drawing upon German archival and propaganda footage, which also supported the Allied prosecution of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. Mostly interesting.
Brazil
Hadn’t seen this 1985 Terry Gilliam neo-Orwellian sf dark comedy in awhile, but it still holds up really well. My favorite bit: Robert De Niro, totally badass, as a commando plumber.
Backs Against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story
Documentary biopic about a black theologian, teacher and mystic who mentored MLK, among others.
Good Night Oppy
Documentary about the Mars rovers and how amazingly well they did, and kept on doing, long after they were expected to fail. The filmmakers shamelessly anthropomorphize the machines, but by the end you can hardly blame 'em. Worth seeing for any fan of space exploration, Mars, robotics or science generally.
Watched Videodrome last night for maybe the 100th time. It always delivers. Deborah Harry is in full vixen mode, and the whole movie is something else. One of the best cult films ever made, and the color is really good, everything looks juicy.
Movies from the 60’s thru 80’s were probably the Golden Age for film making. So many great directors and actors (from all countries) made that a special era, and the ideas were top notch. You didn’t need corporate money to make a film then.
People who love movies from the '30s through the '50s just might take issue with that.
My favorite movie once upon a time, and I’ve seen it at least a half dozen times (but not for twenty years). I watched it recently and while it’s still a great film I could believe how loathsome I found the character of Sam Lowry.
Tried to watch RIPD, but had to kill it. I like Ryan Reynolds, and both he and Jeff Bridges gave it a good shot, but it just didn’t work. On top of that, it was sort of a ripoff of MIB.
2MB, yes, I was much more aware this time of what a jerk Sam Lowry (a recent Botticelli subject of mine!) is. He’s incredibly unsympathetic to the grieving widow of the man who was mistakenly arrested, and then so single-mindedly pursues his (literal) dreamgirl that he puts her in great danger.
What is 2MB?
The Fabelmans. It was okay. Michelle Williams’ character and the way her behavior affected those around her was frustratingly relatable. The kid’s story wasn’t all that compelling (Sorry, Stephen!). I did like the last scene though, with the “secret” to all interesting visual art revealed.
2_More_Bits
What’s weird is that I’d been at the Los Angeles County Arboretum not long before I saw this movie, so, I recognized Olivier’s South American hideaway as Lucky Baldwin’s cottage (i.e. Mr. Roark’s house on Fantasy Island). I hate when that happens, because it really takes me out of a movie.