Do you remember Hurley from the show Lost? Chilean-American actor Jorge Garcia, who portrayed Hurley, stars in the Netflix film Nobody Knows I’m Here, which is excellent! This film, made in Chile, features Garcia as Memo, an overweight, almost mute recluse living on a remote southern Chilean island with his supportive uncle. He is suffering from the effects of his difficult past while posessing a hidden talent…a spectacular singing voice. He dreams of becoming a singer, though he is trapped in his personal prison of solitude, shame and pain from a traumatic event from his childhood. Millaray Lobos is excellent as Marta, a young local woman who takes an interest in Memo, discovers his secret and gives him support as he pushes to escape his ordeal. Garcia is outstanding and this is a great film that will probably be overlooked.
Farce is a surprisingly difficult genre to pull off in film for some reason; it always seems to work better on stage. As film farces go, Clue isn’t the worst I’ve seen (I mean - consider Stallone’s Oscar) but it is pretty meh overall, redeemed as noted by a few of the personal performances.
I have recently re-watched the 1972 version of Sleuth, and seen 1980’s Tess and Toy Story 4 for the first time. I downgraded my rating of Sleuth from 8 to 7 on IMDb. And I’m still at a loss as to what that business with the red raincoat was about.
The original Sleuth was very much a stage play they just transferred to screen with little alteration. I find if you view it like that rather than expecting a proper cinematic approach, it works pretty well.
The remake…I don’t know what the hell that was all about. Trying to be cool, I think.
I watched the 1939 Wuthering Heights last night, mostly because my grandmother once told me she named my mom Cathy after the character in the movie. (I had read the book and was nonplussed). Having seen the movie now…well, Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier were very attractive people. (I know, that’s what I always say in my reviews!) It seems to me they could have pumped up the ghostly part a bit more, and the love story was ridiculous. Overall, the movie was Dullsville. In one scene, Cathy and Heathcliff look at each other across a crowded room, and other people look at them looking at each other. 
Perhaps you’d rather see it done by semaphore: Monty Python - The Semaphore Version of Wuthering Heights on Make a GIF
Oh yeah! That helped. 
Like others, we watched Knives Out. A great cast, all having a lot of fun with things. Even a cameo role for C. Emmet Walsh. Plummer was excellent as always, but it was really hard accepting Daniel Craig with a Southern accent. I didn’t even recognize Toni Collette.
We also watched Radioactive about the life of Marie Curie. Great job by Rosamund Pike in the lead role, and a good supporting cast. It didn’t stray too far from her actual life, other than the meet-cute between her and Pierre Curie.
Daniel Craig did at least one other film with a distinct Southern accent - Logan Lucky. He may have done others. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out a way to easily check what his accent was in each of his films.
If you want to see an honest documentary on Charlie Parker, there is an hour-long piece on American Masterpiece that features his friends and fellow musicians who knew him well.
An independent production about a small village in northern Nunavut.
Some claim it has a “white savior narrative.” I think that’s (technically) accurate. But it’s a true story, and I found it very well done and very enjoyable.
“Overboard” (2018) – A remake of the 80s version with gender role reversals. Rich dildo on a yacht and a struggling nursing student moonlighting as a carpet cleaner tangle before he falls overboard, and she claims his amnesiac ass to put him to work and recoup all the money he cost her. Very faithful remake, and very cute and cuddly production. I liked it at least as much as the Kurt Russell Goldie Hawn original (and I liked that one a lot). Didn’t know any of the actors, but they were all quite good.
I recently re-upped HBO, like a dope (it’s so much easier to navigate on Prime) so in the last couple of days, I’ve watched (among others):
Joker (2019) - Much different than I thought it was going to be. By the end of the movie I realized that I’d pretty much seen the whole thing in the trailers. It was a good flick, but it didn’t really go anywhere by the end. I don’t know. It wanted to be something more than an origin story, but in the end, that’s all it really was, so I care less about Arthur’s plight, for what it was.
Midway (2019) - It was better that Pearl Harbor. In fact, I’d say it could have been a really fine flick had their CGI budget not run out. Some of that shit looked like it was done in Microsoft Paint.
Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey (2020) - I really enjoyed this one. I wasn’t expecting much - I really didn’t have very much interest in this movie at all. I mean, I liked Suicide Squad just fine but I wasn’t ready for a rehash of that style. Fortunately, this one is done much better - pace, editing, performance, art style, dialog, everything was just better. And it was nicely rated -torso splattering, limb ripping, head exploding, F-Bombing- R … which I appreciated. Recommend.
BASEketball (1998) - Heart warming story; small town boy makes good.
&
Team America: World Police (2004) - Fuck yeah!
My five most recent movies:
Logan’s Run
Cheesy Seventies dystopic sf. Looks like it was filmed inside a mall… because it was. I’d just read the book, which is a lot different, and much better.
13th
Documentary about the 13th Amendment, structural racism, mass incarceration and criminal justice reform. Pretty good, but unavoidably grim.
The Matrix
Introduced my teenage son to this sf action thriller, and enjoyed it all over again. Great action sequences, a good cast, a nifty if preposterous premise and style out the wazoo.
An American Pickle
Disappointing comedy, with Seth Rogen playing both an Eastern European immigrant accidentally preserved in pickle brine for a century, and his struggling slacker great-grandson. A few laughs but it could’ve been a lot better.
Air Force One
Rewatched one of my favorite action thrillers. Harrison Ford is a heroic and badass POTUS, fighting to take back his hijacked plane from murderous Russian ultranationalists led by Gary Oldman (who’s surprisingly nuanced in the role).
Ya gotta have a montage!
Richard Jewell Clint Eastwood-directed about the security guard who discovered the bomb at the Atlanta Olympics and winds up falsely accused of planting it. Good cast - Sam Rockwell, Olivia Wilde, Jon Hamm, Kathy Bates, and the star whose name escapes me. But the story just isn’t very dramatic: the media are whores (literally), the FBI is evil. And then their case against Jewell just fizzles out. The end.
Drunk Parents (2019) (Netflix). Did you know that Alec Baldwin, Salma Hayek and Jim Gaffigan made a comedy last year? Me neither. I’m not sure if it went straight to Netflix or just got buried without a release. But for good reason: it’s really awful. Two wealthy parents fall on hard times … reasons … and try some scams to cover their financial needs and … hi-jinks ensue. At least, that’s what the writers hoped would happen but … no. It’s a stinker.
Some recent ones off Netflix:
Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story If you’re a movie buff, this is a must see. Harold Michelson became The storyboard artist for a ton of classic movies. I think he is responsible for taking storyboarding to a new level - actually framing the scenes as well as edits. The side-by-side storyboard-final movie cuts are amazing. And he was barely credited…because either the director or cinematographer would want to take the credit ! His wife, Lillian, by chance ends up in charge of (several) studios’ research libraries. So her contribution to many films’ details and authenticity is also hardly recognized.
Safety Not Guaranteed This is kind of quirky indie film about a reporter who takes these interns to investigate the story of a guy who places an ad looking for a partner…to join him in going back in time. I wasn’t expecting much (of course the time machine guy is strange), but it grew on me. And the ending was great.
We just watched In Bruges, again. Its one of my favorite movies and one of very few that I will watch more than once. Colin Farrell at his funniest. Black comedy at its finest. Two big thumbs up!
Greyhound Tom Hanks is the captain of the lead destroyer protecting a convoy from the west to England in WWII. I gets right to the action and pretty much stays there. Only a little over an hour and a half long, so not a great time investment. I think it’s only on Apple.
I love In Bruges! Funny, ultraviolent and oddly touching by the end. A zillion great lines in it, too.
This may interest you:
Thanks. I missed that.