So does that mean you’ve watched All the President’s Men? 
It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but yes it’s almost dreamlike in its execution. Highly recommended.
Well that was the COVID year of films, so it was a pretty sparse bunch. Wasn’t really much memorable from that year. All the nominees that year were pretty meh. Had Nomadland come out any other time it likely would have quickly been forgotten. (It’s a perfectly fine film, it just wasn’t really competing with much.)
And Nomadland connected with the zeitgeist of social isolation created by COVID.
After an extended period (2 weeks!) without seeing a movie, I managed find time on Sunday for one (in theater) movie. Calculating what was going to stick around for another week or or so and what wasn’t, I chose Hope, a 2026 Korean sci-fi joint.
I chose wisely (YMMV). If you are in the mood for a bonkers monster hunt crossed with an alien apocalypse, this is the one. It has loads of semi-chaotic action, gory deaths, and typical Korean comedic bits. It starts slow (or is it that it starts ominously?) and then goes non-stop action through to the end (with a mid-credits scene that is important). The 2:42 runtime flies by (but again, YMMV). It also firmly sets up a sequel, which I will eagerly await.
Best over the top bonkers sci fi since The Wandering Earth 2.
Prime occasionally has some good stuff in its library but does a poor job of promotion. So it was entirely by accident last night that I stumbled upon Mystery, Alaska, one of my favorite sports movies ever.
A stretch of a plot, to be sure, but a great cast, humorous personal relationships and an overall setting that will put some in mind of Northern Exposure. Russell Crowe, Burt Reynolds and Colm Meaney doing his customary solid work. Highly recommended.
Ooooooooooooooh! I loved, loved, loved it! The fact that two of my favorite actors, Brosnan and Mirren, were in it certainly was a big factor.
We watched The Alphabet Murders (1965) on Britbox, starring Tony Randall as Hercule Poirot! I can’t think of a worse case of miscasting. I’m not a huge fan of Randall, and I’m less of one now.
The film is apparently trying to capitalize on the popularity of The Pink Panther, and makes Poirot a semi-bumbling detective, like Clouseau. Randall’s Belgian accent is all over the place, and the story has only superficial similarities to Agatha Christie’s The A.B.C. Murders, on which it is nominally based. She hated it.
It is so bad my wife wouldn’t let us watch more than about half of it.
Apparently, the project was originally intended for Zero Mostel, also a somewhat questionable casting choice. But not only does Mostel more closely resemble Poirot physically as described in the books, he was a much better actor than Randall, and very likely could have pulled it off more successfully. He certainly would have been funnier, if that was called for, but could also have played it straight more effectively.
It gets a 5.2 rating on IMDb.
In this vein (and a lot of vein leakage), I thought the new Elegance Bratton film By Any Means well worth watching, though stressful as hell in a lot of places. In a scenario fairly loosely based on actual events, a Black FBI agent teams up with a New York Mafia hitman in mid-1960s Mississippi to, um, persuade conspirators in KKK terrorist murders of voter-registration activists to confess their involvement.
The film may not be entirely sure how much it wants to be an odd-couple cop-buddy movie and how much it wants to be a searing expose of racial oppression in the crumbling white-supremacist South, but the two themes are pretty well integrated, so to speak. Anyway, if you’re looking to top up your craven-racist-monster-comeuppance schadenfreude, this’ll do you.
I can’t recall whether or by whom Mae West’s 1933 vehicle I’m No Angel was recommended in this thread, but it was a fun watch, at least if you can get past the carefree insouciance of the purportedly “happy and comical” flipside of all that systemic white supremacism. Okay, the maids’ performances are funny (and I was pleasantly surprised that one of them in a court appearance was addressed with full name and honorific), but yikes, the stereotyping.
Anyway, less systemically, it seemed like whoever was in charge of developing the plot was having such a good time just watching the (admittedly superb) Mae West character scenery that they kept drifting sideways and having to abruptly yank the steering wheel to get the narrative back on track. Then they forgot where they’d been going and started drifting again in a different direction. But what the hell, Mae West, amirite? Come up and see her sometime.
Labor activist on the lam Pedro Armendariz runs into former flame (Andrea Palma), now unhappily married to his old pal Ignacio. Based on a stage play and taking place over a single night, there’re some Casablanca-like undertones to the set-up, but the story is told mostly from the woman’s perspective. It is she who decides who goes with whom at the climax. Unfortunately, Ms. Palma’s performance was largely one-note and her decision at the end gave the film an unpleasant aftertaste for me. Despite several scenes of well-played tension, fine – and at times, exceptional - cinematography (by Gabriel Figueroa), I would not recommend this except to those interested in “Mexican noir.”
You made it about twice as far as we did. God it was awful.
The Founder (2016) - I saw it a few years ago; tonight I re-watched it with mom. As I said to dear mamere, I didn’t really have any sort of feelings about Ray Kroc one way or another before I saw this movie, but now … yeah, what a prick that guy was. If there is any sort of truth to the movie, he completely rogered the McDonald brothers right up the McMuffin chute. I mean, they didn’t really go out of their way to make Kroc look good, they didn’t really go out of their way to declare him a prick, either. They sort of present the whole thing as (and as my mother reminded me) … well, that’s business.
Michael Keaton’s performance was top-notch.
Yes! Outstanding all around.
The Great Flood on Netflix (Korean with subtitles)
Seoul is flooded and a mother and her young son must climb to the roof of their skyscraper apartment through many obstacles. This starts out as a standard disaster movie, then shifts into cheesy science fiction, then shifts again into still slightly cheesy but at least more interesting sci fi. It doesn’t always work and some of it doesn’t make much sense, but it was kind of fun.
Hope impressed upon me that South Korea has… well, yokels. Guys who would be perfectly at home in rural Arkansas.
Everybody’s favorite stop-motion action hero Shaun the Sheep is baaaaack in The Beast of Mossy Bottom! Amazing what you can accomplish with Home Made Science!!
The Core 2003 Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci
Paramount+
I liked the movie. I quoted Ebert because he can explain why much better than me.
The earth’s in̈ner core isn’t rotating. Natural disasters are occurring. The mission, drill into the earth and nuke the core.
How this concept got greenlighted is beyond me. It certainly helps that the film doesn’t take itself too seriously.
7 out of 10
Resident Evil (2026)
Highly recommended.
In a way, this is just about a man having an incredibly bad day. Yes, it’s a video game movie. Yes, it’s a zombie movie. But it is an excellent example of both.
I also appreciate how funny this movie was.
Have fun seeing this; it’s terrific.
Seconding the recommendation for Resident Evil! I’ve seen it twice already (both IMAX and Dolby) and it’s just a fun, gross & scary time. It’s like a much better Evil Dead film than the actual recent Evil Dead films! It’s a very tight 90 mins, there is no fat on this story, each set piece is great.
I would also compare it to a good Evil Dead film. I think Evil Dead Rise is its equal or even better, but this was actually better than Evil Dead Burn.
I hope Sam Raimi sees Resident Evil. He’d love it, especially how far it goes in the final 10 minutes.