I finally saw Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder last night. I picked up a Criterion disc on sale. I’d wanted to see this film for a long time. When I was a ki I remember seeing it listed in our Catholic newspaper , rated as “Condemned”, and wondered what could have been so terrible as to earn that rating. But the film never showed up at the theaters in re-release and I don’t recall ever seeing it on television, or even at video stores later on.
It’s a very well-constructed court drama based on a book by a judge that was based on real case. Evidently it’s considered one of the better courtroom dramas. Jimmy Stewart plays the lawyer for the defense, aided by Arthur O’Connell playing his somewhat drunk friend and confidante). Eve Arden is his secretary. Ben Gazzara is the accused soldier who murdered his wife’s rapist (Lee Remick, playing very flirty). Kathryn Grant is in it as a significant character. She’s almost unrecognizable as the same actress who played Princess Parisa in Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, the only other movie I’ve see n her in. She has a persecuted, deer-in-the-headlights look. A very young George C. Scott (his credit is in even smaller typeface than Eve Arden’s) plays an additional prosecutor from the state AG’s office. The judge was Joseph Welch, who was the real-life lawyer famous for publicly dressing down Joseph McCarthy. He does an excellent job for a non-actor.
The reason the film caused such a furor when it was released was its frank discussion of the facts concerning a rape trial, including use of the terms “orgasm” and “spermatogenesis”. This got the film banned briefly in Chicago, and was probably what got the bishops responsible for that “Condemned” rating worked up. Today, after the Sexual Revolution and the popularity of books like “Everything you always wanted to know about sex (But were afraid to ask)” and “The SEnsuous Woman”, these seem almost quaint. There’s a point at which the judge makes the decision to allow the word “panties” to be used (there was an at-the-bench argument about what term to use; “I’m a bachelor,” says Stewart’s character, when asked his opinion) , and the spectators break out in laughter upon first hearing it. The judge chides them to not do so again. My wife turned to me in surprise at the reaction. 1959 was a very different time. This seems beyond quaint. No wonder Preminger’s The Moon is Blue was virtually condemned in 1953 for simply using the word “virgin”.
Two teen girls meet up in a NY neurological hospital - Nicky is a troublemaking street kid and Pamela is the daughter of a local commissioner running a campaign to clean up the city. They escape together, steal an ambulance, and hide out in an old warehouse on the pier. People start assuming that Pamlea was kidnapped but radio DJ Johnny LaGuardia (Tim Curry!) realizes that a letter he received is from her. The two girls bond and start writing poetry together and then form a band that they call the Sleez Sisters. Eventually, they start to fall out, Nicky has a breakdown, but LaGuardia helps them reunite and Nicky holds an illegal concert on the marquee of a grindhouse before escaping from the police into the crowd.
Interesting movie that’s very “1980 New York City” and It has some great songs on the soundtrack. Worth a look, imo.
Love Hurts (2025)
This one was disappointing. Ke Huy Quan stars as a realtor who turns out to have a shady past as a hitman. His former life is revealed when his old girlfriend comes back into town. She had conspired to rob Quan’s mob boss brother, Quan was supposed to kill her and leave her in the desert (near Milwaukee, I think?) but he couldn’t do it so he lets her go and tells her to never come back. The bad guys get wind of it and assassins start coming out of the woodwork, including Mustafa Shakir and Marshawn Lynch. There’s a final showdown, lots of karate fighting, and the villain gets his in the end.
It has a lot of over-the-top fighting and much of it is inventive, where the characters use some crazy weapons - both ones they’re carrying and picked up during the fights. Some of it is funny and everyone has good distinctive characters. There’s not much more to the movie than the fighting though and some of the non-combatant side characters get cynically dispatched just to show how badass the fighters are.
One of two movies I’ve walked out on in the theater! [it was playing on our college campus sometime after the initial release] The other was “History of the World, Part I”, so that might be a guide to my/our tastes.
I walked out of Knocked Up as the swearing was just too much. When Seth Rogan started yelling at the OB-GYN over the phone just because Katherine Heigl started having contractions, I was like ‘what a bunch of losers, I don’t care about them or their baby’, and left.
Have fallen asleep many times. I think I fell asleep during every single one of the Harry Potter movies, my favorite being the time the kids were in a rainy forest, I fell asleep and woke up to the kids being in the same rainy forest, with my daughter telling me that I had been asleep for 30 minutes or so (it was one of the movies where they stretched out the last book into 2 films, but cannot remember which one).
I fell asleep watching Unforgiven, and I love that movie.
Sleep deprivation does funny things. When I was a kid, I was able to go on a school trip to Italy, and one of the events was to watch a video on violin making. I was a nerd and thought it was really interesting, but I fell asleep anyway because 13 year old kids on a trip stay up all night, and the chaperones chose to put us in a dark warm room for 30 minutes. They were PISSED because so many of us conked out.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Recommended.
Wow, I really liked this movie, a prequel(about 65 years before) to Hunger Games. We learn about President Snow as a young man, how he was a mentor to a tribute in Hunger Games #10, and a pretty compelling story as to how he went from a pretty good guy to a villain.
This was excellent. Even if you have never seen a Hunger Games, check it out, though I did spoil the bit about this being a villain origin story.
The best of the three “28….Later” movies. At its heart, a story about a boy dealing with very difficult circumstances and trying to learn how to live. Reminded me, just a bit, of Come and See.
The ending does just a bit of sequel baiting(its sequel hits this January) and I thought it was a bit lame, but almost all of the movie is excellent.
No need to have seen either of the other two movies, but you probably should as they helped usher in the big zombie resurgence that led to the Walking Dead.
First. If you have come because you are an HG Wells fan, you are in the wrong place.
The whole film is framed in the monitor of a government intelligence analyst who has access to every device and camera on Earth. Kinda stinks of low budget, but still effective at telling its story. This thing exhausts every trope about what you can do with just a keyboard and a mouse with family drama and crass Amazon worship to boot. An embarrassing film…unless it’s brilliant satire. It would make a passable extended episode of Black Mirror.
Forgot I bought a used standard Blue Ray set of GofT was annoyed as the first disc was very hiccupy tho it always recovered. It had some handling marks on it but think the rest are fine.
Second half of the disc and the second disc are fine and questioning my decision to buy 4k Blu Ray instead of the much less expensive standard Blu Ray.
I finished reading the cycle and watched it on the laptop but the upscaling on the new 4k screen and the HDR makes for a much more satisfying cinematic experience.
Terrific sound too.
Either the player or the TV upscales 1080P to near 4k…there is lots of chatter on line if 4k Blu Ray is enough of an upgrade.
Certainly in this case even sitting near file at a meter I’m completely engaged and immersed in the sound and image and have no technical annoyances at all.
Last night I rewatched Street Kings (2008) starring Keanu Reeves, also Forest Whittaker, Chris Evans, and other decent names. I love this movie. Yes, it’s derivative. Crooked cops with one flawed anti-hero is being set up by his crooked superiors but ultimately brings the whole house of cards down. But it is recommended. Keanu, especially, pretty much plays against type and though he is the good guy, he isn’t particularly good.
Rewatched “The Big Clock”, a noir based on a Kenneth Fearing novel, and (very loosely) remade as “No Way Out” with Kevin Costner. A fun noir with Ray Milland under the gun, Charles Laughton as his fuming boss, and various other folks (including a young Harry Morgan as a brooding masseuse/dogsbody). An excellent little film
In some countries, public domain happens when the book is 95 years old. Since it was published in 1896, it is public domain in those countries. In other countries, public domain happens when the author has been dead 70 years. Since H. G. Wells died in 1946, it is in public domain there. There are some with slightly different rules:
And the copyright might be owned by different entities depending on the country. Paramount owned the US rights when it made the Tom Cruise film, but had to release it under the title “Invasion” in some countries where they didn’t.
