Jack Lemmon was for many years my favorite American actor. His versatility was legend. He went from “Some Like It Hot” to “The Apartment” to “Days of Wine and Roses,” all vastly different roles, in the space of three years (with a few stops in between.)
I saw him on Inside the Actors Studio where he confirmed he was an alcoholic in real life. I’m not sure he discussed it before or after that interview, but it was a powerful moment to see him mention it to Jim Lipton.
I hope he was a pretty nice guy. Such a great actor, I have no real idea what he was like.
Murder and misunderstandings in a small Texas town (that actually exists IRL).
The two actors in it that I am most familiar with are Steve Zahn (comic relief bad PI) and Dylan Baker (go to Big Bad in so many things). Note that Matthew Del Negro seems to be deliberately channeling a more famous Matthew from Texas.
It’s basically a dark comedy and usually I hate dark “comedies” since they often have no comedy at all. This one does have some quite funny bits (like a scene in a law office toilet) but also a lot of Really Bad Things.
The plot is expertly interweaved so that all sorts of links are created and well put together. (Although it does leave out explaining the pics that Zahn has near the beginning.)
As would be expected for a film of this ilk set in a town like that the locals aren’t exactly Rhodes Scholars (with almost one exception).
Give it 4 tiaras.
True Lies (1994). I’m sure most have seen this James Cameron blockbuster. It was at least my second viewing after many years. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis go after a bunch of jihadist bad guys with a few subplots in between. Over-the-top action, spectacular special effects, and sprinkled with humour – this is perfect pure entertainment. Very highly recommended.
Just to be clear, the film is “LaRoy, Texas”, and there’s no town by that name. There is however a Leroy, Texas.
Let us not forget his masterpiece The Great Race!
“Push the button, Max!”
We watched Lion last night. Best film I’ve seen in a log time. I can’t stop thinking about the first half of the movie, when he’s lost in India; I am still haunted by many of the scenes. It’s just a fantastic (and true) story that sticks with you. To everyone else, if you haven’t seen this, watch it. It’s on Amazon prime.
The Royal Tenenbaums
Not recommended.
It certainly has style, but I don’t know that I enjoyed the movie or even laughed a single time. I’m not sure if comedy is the correct genre, but I also wasn’t particularly amused or engaged. Just very stylish and distinct, but not particularly interesting to see.
I’ve seen The Life Aquatic, Fantastic Fox, and Grand Budapest Hotel and really only liked Fantastic Fox and most of Grand Budapest Hotel.
I have a feeling Wes Anderson just isn’t someone I am on the same wavelength with.
That’s weird, because The Royal Tenenbaums is probably my favorite Wes Anderson film.
I never really like but a couple scenes in The Royal Tenenbaums - probably my least favorite Wes Anderson’s movie. On the other hand The Grand Budapest Hotel is one of my favorite moves, period.
Absolutely agreed. My all-time favorite action comedy! And my favorite lines in it:
Jamie Lee Curtis (coming to grips with the fact that her husband is a badass secret agent): “Have you… killed people, honey?”
Ahnuld (earnestly): “Yeah, but they were all bad.”
There’s a lot of great lines in that fantastic movie! Another one:
Ahnold has his arms handcuffed behind a chair and Extremely Creepy Guy is about to start torturing him for information.
Ahnold: I’m going to break your neck and then I’m going to put a knife through that guy over there.
Extremely Creepy Guy: And how are you going to do that?
Ahnold: [Puts his arms casually in front of him] I picked ze lock on ze handcuffs!
(Arnie being drugged up with a truth serum during this exchange)
Lion made me weep. I won’t say when but anyone who’s seen it will know.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
Guy Ritchie is apparently a huge fan of 1970s WW2 action adventure films (like Where Eagles Dare) so he set out to make his own with a big helping of Inglorious Bastards in terms of style/tone. The result is a perfectly okay action film but lacks the excitement of either. Being based on a true story made Ritchie think would make his film stand-out but rather being forced to have the same ending as the real mission means you don’t get as impactful of an ending since in real life the mission went off without a hitch. This is no Dirty Dozen where you see characters drop like flies rather the characters actually seem almost completely invulnerable (due in part both for real life reasons but also they spend a large part of the action just shooting enemy soldiers who don’t really seem to put up any fight). What you get is some really cool action sequences surrounded by a bunch of rather pointless feeling scenes (there’s a certain character whom I feel contributes absolutely nothing to the mission and all screentime to them is completely gratuitous, which makes so much more sense when you read they didn’t actually go on the mission in actuality). On the plus side the set pieces are rather well done and I do think they nail the sound design with the suppressed STEN guns having such a distinctive pop from the theater speakers.
Overall it really does emulate it’s inspiration rather well, like a lot of WW2 action movies from the 1970s you’ll watch it, enjoy your time with it, then never think about it again.
Leave the World Behind (2023) - Getting tired of preachy misanthropy. It isn’t edgy or clever to whine that people don’t care about others enough anymore and technology plays a role in that. We all know. You may as well make another film about how the Holocaust was bad.
This thing, like many others, is so large and bright like the Sun Hollywood thinks we can’t look at it directly so instead are lulled into our seats with these obvious analogies like Don’t Look Up and I have to ask who are these films for? Who is looking at these philosophical debates written in crayon and is in anyway swayed? Is the intent to avoid offending those that see current modern American political messages everywhere?
The director clearly wanted you to see his vision about our world portrayed through is characters. But his characters where like finger puppets and I just hated everyone in it. Recommended for future theatre goers looking back on this bizarre dark era in America Cinema.
Mister Roberts is my bid.
Saw Civil War over the weekend. Lots to be impressed with.
The movie is following 4 journalists going from New York to DC. One thing I loved was that the movie was the actions of and around these 4 people. You weren’t jumping to this army encampment or that war room or to DC to see what the President was doing, except for the very very very beginning being the President preparing for a national broadcast praising battlefield victories. This was effective, because you never knew the entire situation until the very end. You would meet new groups, and you didn’t know if they were aligned with the US, with the Western Alliance, or were just random… people. Army uniforms were without insignias, so you didn’t know if they were US soldiers, Alliance soldiers, or random people wearing camouflage. You pieced together the situation from conversations if you were paying attention. If you weren’t, that was OK, too - it became very clear at the end. You never hear specifics of how we got to this point; we’re there, we’re dealing with it.
This and the subsequent conversation here about the movie prompted me to see it again after many years. Depressing as hell but I fully agree about the fine performances. Jack Lemmon is particularly magnificent.
I watched this for the first time about a year ago, after re-reading the play.
I’d never seen the movie, because I’d seen the play on Broadway. But the play doesn’t have the scene made famous by Alec Baldwin (“coffee is for closers”) – Mamet wrote that scene specifically for the movie.I agree it’s powerful and hard-hitting, and it’s a terrible work environment. But I’ve known salesmen and situations like that, where it’s considered acceptable to downright lie to the clients. Apparently Mamet did, too, from personal experience.