I mentioned it upthread, but what did you make of the girl pointing with her pinky in News of the World?
It didn’t really register, and I have to admit it’s not something I’ve seen before. I’ve read that Native Americans point with their lips as finger pointing is considered rude (although I don’t know if this is universal); you’d think she’d do more of that.
I watched The Rhythm Section a few days ago whilst exercising, basically Blake Livley wears a lot of wigs and it was only 100 minutes long. A predictable action movie even by action movie standards.
Last night we watched The Dressmaker. It was quirky to say the least and took a fairly hard turn at the last 1/4 or so of the movie, overall it was good.
Air Force One is preposterous but great fun. I’ve seen it, I think, three times. Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman are both terrific in their roles. I also like that several scenes of the capture of the Kazakh president were filmed near here.
I completely disagree. I thought it was one of the best films of that year and I knew nothing about it going in, and did not feel I had to read anything about it afterwards either.
I’m glad you enjoyed it.
I have to disagree with the “predictable” aspect. I would say the ending was predictable, but I thought other aspects were more realistic than most action movies.
Instead of being transformed into (yet another) uber-killer, Blake ends up…like an average person who has had like 3 weeks of training. Some skills, but not like a seasoned killer. (Compare this to “Peppermint”). And psychologically she is not a stone-cold, emotionless killer.
What I found most unexpected was that they managed to make Lively unattractive ! Like they did the Charlize Theron “Monster” treatment to her. I hardly recognized her at the beginning, and they didn’t “transform” her very far from how she started.
When I saw the trailer for The Rhythm Section, I assumed it was an Americanized version of In The Fade (2017), with Diane Kruger.
If you want a bone-chilling version of an average person turned into an avenger, In The Fade is for you. I can barely remember The Rhythm Section, but there are still scenes from In The Fade stuck in my mind.
TCM ran The Manchurian Candidate tonight. I’d heard about it, and never watched.
It’s a bit weird and certainly an artifact of The Cold War. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the screen. The movie is quite compelling and very disturbing.
I regret not watching years ago.
I had no idea Angela Lansbury could play such a evil and twisted character. The **implied incest scene turned my stomach. I found the movies ending very satisfying.
She’s one heck of an actress.
**The book makes the incestuous relationship more clear.
We watched Death in Venice. I had seen it in a theater when it first came out (in 1971), but didn’t remember much. I can best describe it as “haunting.” Very slow-paced, introspective and depressing, with beautiful music and period costumes, and of course the city of Venice.
Not for those of you who are into action flicks.
The Little Things (2021) - All star cast - Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto. Denzel is a detective who was washed out of LA and is now a deputy sheriff in a northern county. He is sent on an errand to LA to pick up evidence and ends up getting sidetracked into an investigation of a murder that bears a resemblance to the case that ended up washing him out. Malek is the lead, strait-laced, by the book detective who likes Jared Leto for the perp - and so does Denzel.
The movie is tense and it kept me riveted until it started going off the rails. The story’s focus cleverly shifts at one point from an investigation to a cover-up, but there were just too many, “why the fuck would he do that?” moments in the final act.
The final 20 minutes sees Malek (by the book, remember) willingly get into the suspects car, believing he is going to show him where a body is buried, while his partner (Denzel) is just down the street getting coffee for them, forcing him to hunt for where they were going rather than be in on what was going on. Then when they get to the spot that Leto drives them too - an open dirt field in the middle of nowhere - he starts playing games with Malek - “Oops, I guess it’s not there, better dig another hole” - which he does … repeatedly. Why the ever-loving fluck would a detective start digging holes in the middle nowhere, in the middle of the night, at the bidding of a suspected murderer? Ridiculous.
Anyway, to fully spoiler the thing … Malek gets pissed at the games and flatly murders Leto with a shovel. He’s mortified by what he’s done but Washington shows up to walk him through how to hide all the evidence of what happened, getting rid of the body and all other evidence, and putting all behind him. In the process we learned the reason Washington was drummed out of LA in the first place was under similar circumstances where he accidentally shot an innocent bystander but had it covered up.
Admittedly, I watched this one in stages as I kept trying to watch it before bed and I kept falling asleep, but I think I caught all the pertinent plot points.
Fine performances but a rage-quit type ending if you ask me.
The Little Things felt like someone watched Se7en and decided to write a their own film. I don’t know if all the similarities between the two films would be a homage or a ripoff.
We watched Wonder Wheel last night (we seem to be on a kate Winslet roll right now).
Well acted , looked gorgeous great sets and production. The story wasn’t quite what we expected, I was expecting a more light hearted caper. It felt very claustrophobic and was a bit depressing . Good movie , just not a light hearted off beat woody Allen movie I expected.
I had only seen parts of this, and last night I watched it from the beginning. Very gripping, paranoid, and non-conventional movie. I could see how this would have been pretty disturbing at the time (or…maybe subtle ploy to gain backing for involvement in Vietnam ?) It is a classic Cold War movie right up there with “Failsafe” (and “Dr. Strangelove”). I particularly liked how they showed the various communist powers at the time, China, North Korea, and Russia - all in cahoots with each other against the common enemy: the US. Even though the reality was there was great distrust amongst them.
What was unclear to me was whether Iselin’s character was meant to be a parody of McCarthy or not. That is, were they deliberately taking a jab at McCarthy and his witch hunt ? Even going so far as to show that Iselin was merely a puppet for the (evil) wife.
Agreed. And god forbid we get a serial killer/police procedural where we actually find out whodunnit at the end.
I think there was no doubt that Iselin = McCarthy. McCarthy was famous for having precise numbers of communists in the State Department; we see Iselin getting his number from a Heinz catsup bottle. By the time of Manchurian Candidate, McCarthy had been in disgrace for 5+ years - it’s not like the producers were taking a huge risk.
I remember there was some discussion in Roger Ebert’s column about Janet Leigh’s character in The Manchurian Candidate and her relationship with Frank Sinatra’s character. She is the woman he met on the train. Their conversation was a little weird, and I think someone who wrote into Ebert suggested that she was his handler.
I had the same reaction to Janet Leigh’s character. Her interaction with Sinatra’s character seemed forced. I expected her to control him in case he learned too much about the plan.
Maybe Sinatra just wanted a love interest in the story? Laurence Harvey’s character romanced Leslie Parrish. She was the queen of diamonds at the party.
The Book Thief
Really liked this movie. Very moving tale of a child’s perspective growing up through the atrocities of Nazi Germany.