Pale Flower - 8/10
This was really good. Fine editing - not a minute wasted. I like taboo subjects, and I was interested in the characters. I really loved the reasoning behind the gambling (or other things), “Life is boring”.
That looks really interesting. Where were you able to see it?
We just watched Give Me Liberty. Very unusual, crazy, fun, sad too. It’s about a young man driving a van for people with disabilities. It keeps you interested.
Thanks. I see just about every at-least-halfway-thoughtful sf epic sooner or later, so I’m sure I’ll get around to Ad Astra someday.
My favorite line was from the public defender who’d come out of law school, eager to save the world, but later admits, “I just didn’t know that all of my clients would be so guilty.”
So the theaters there aren’t closed, huh? Good to know.
Anyway, I’m mostly housebound and watching more movies these days. My latest five:
The Two Popes
A fine character study, with Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce both excellent as Benedict and Francis, a once and a future Pope: talking, arguing, reasoning, empathizing, and eventually coming to, at least in some small measure, understand each other.
The King’s Speech
Also very good, as King George VI (Colin Firth, excellent in the role although he looks nothing like him) is helped by a sympathetic Australian speech therapist (Geoffrey Rush, never better) to deal with his severe stutter.
Cast Away
Tom Hanks is terrific as a FedEx manager, a slave to the clock, finding himself with nothing but time on his hands as he struggles to survive on a desert island after surviving a plane crash. “WILSON…!”
The Iron Giant
Another favorite, with a little boy in the sleepy Fifties town of Rockwell, Maine befriending a towering alien visitor. Beautiful animation and an important anti-violence message.
Laputa: Castle in the Sky
My favorite Miyazaki anime film. A scrappy kid helps a lost princess against government secret agents and sky pirates who all want her magical amulet. Magical, mysterious, fun and funny, with remarkable animation.
I wasn’t sure if you were talking to me, but I found it online after a few searches. It was VERY good.
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.
I bought the DVD last year, and finally watched it for the first time last night. What a wild ride! Over-the-top sex, drugs & Rock & Roll. :eek: 
Crafter Man writes:
> Over-the-top sex, drugs & Rock & Roll.
From a script partly by Roger Ebert and partly inspired by the Tate-LaBianca murders.
Finally got around to watching Ip man and Ip man 2 based on above recommendations.
Ip man was fantastic; not just great choreography, but rising beyond the level of most action movies with an engaging story and characters with genuine motivations.
The second falls rather flat by comparison, IMO, with a plot that comes down to “boys be brawling” turning into Rocky IV.
However, the Twister character was absolutely on point: as a Brit living in China, I could really relate to him. His experiences are exactly what a day in my life is like.
Kidding 
Rolling Thunder - 6/10
Good start, but got real boring the last 30 mins or so.
Watched two foreign language films recently:
The Insult (on Amazon Prime), which illuminates the strife in Lebanon between Lebanese and Palestinian people. Very well acted, edited and directed.
TOC TOC (on Netflix): a Spanish comedy about a group of people with various versions of OCD in the same room at a psychiatrist’s office. Very funny, and with a twist at the end. TOC is the shorthand for OCD in Spanish.
Another old classic that I was familiar with, but had never actually watched: The Great Escape (1963). To say I was familiar with it is to say that I knew it took place in a German POW camp and that Steve McQueen jumped a motorcycle of some barbed wire. I really enjoyed it, to a point. I mean the movie is great. It’s got the typical 60’s “why I oughta,” acting hamminess here and there, but despite the occasional comic relief it’s a very serious film. I was quite impressed with the pluck and organization and flat out balls it took to pull something like that off. Oddly, it gave me new perspective in considering movies like Stalag 17 and even Hogan’s Heroes.
I was also impressed with the badassedness Steve McQueen. Motherfucker is cool.
Then, not being overly familiar with the facts of the case - do I spoiler an almost 60 year old movie? - I learned that of the 76 prisoners who made it out, 23 of them were captured and returned to the camp, 50 of them were caught and executed outright and only 3 made clean escapes. Jesus, what a bummer.
But at least Steve McQueen got to keep his baseball in the cooler.
Have you seen The Tao Steve with Donal Logue? A must for the Cult of Steve members.
The Killers (1946) - 6.5/10
I’ve got a t-shirt emblazoned with a picture of Steve McQueen on a motorcycle, and the background looks like the interior of the camp. Since in the film he never rode a bike inside the camp, I have to assume the picture was just taken while he was fooling around between shots. Because he was just that cool.
There’s a documentary about the making of Great Escape called “The Greatest Guy Film Ever Made”. The documentary doesn’t look very good, but it nailed the title.
The Great Escape is also briefly - and with a bit of CGI gimmickry - referred to in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Watched “Indian Horse” on Prime last night. It’s the life-based story of a Native kid who grew up in a Canadian religious school designed to beat the red out the indigenous folks, much like what happened in the US. The boy became intrigued with the game of hockey and became a minor star in the area, then was recruited to a minors’ team with high potential for the NHL. His fall from that status is an all-too-common story among Native peoples.
“1917.” We’d heard very good things about it. We weren’t that impressed.
Head, the 1968 film with The Monkees. Never got around to seeing it and it’s never on TV, so I went looking for it. It’s available online, and you can check the IMDB trivia notes to look for scenes with Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper and others. Good for a chuckle or two if you like seeing 60s and 70s culture on film. Interesting and weird assembly of collaborators. Some of the music is okay, although the theme song (penned by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, who divorced that same year) now seems more like a parody of psychedelia. The antiwar message replays a little better today, IMO. All told, my only complaint is the inordinate amount of scenes of the Prefab Four jumping about in slow motion. Too blatant a rip-off of The Beatles for this kind of project, which one assumes was meant to give The Monkees some street cred.
This film might amuse you if you get a kick out of that scene in the psychedelic bar in Coogan’s Bluff (Lalo Schifrin song “Pigeon-Toed Orange Peel”). Both films were released in 1968 and California features prominently in both.
Dr. Cyclops
Wanted to watch this again because it was my first horror film. I must have seen it in 1943. It was an interesting nostalgia trip.
Lone Star
Classic western motif split into intricate puzzle pieces. Enjoyed it.
Lives of Others
Unusual spy drama. Definitely recommend it.
Ikiru
My favorite Kurosawa. A very slow, thoughtful film.