Favorites I have seen many times but enjoyed again on HBO; TCM;or FX:
My Man Godfrey (1936) William Powell, Carol Lombard, Gail Patrick, & MGM's stable of character actors. Wonderful screw-ball comedy. 9/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028010/
The Doctor & The Girl (1949) Glenn Ford, Janet Leigh, Charles Coburn, Gloria DeHaven, Nancy Davis. A-listers in a B melodrama. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041300/
Rhapsody (1954) Elizabeth Taylor. The director has the camera linger on closeups of Liz, parted lips, heaving bosom, for frame after frame. She was a smasher! Wonderful music to have with the pictures. Our girl is loved by two musicians, a violinist and a pianist, but not enough to satisfy her. Oh, woe! 6/10
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047408/
Enemy Of The State (1998) Will Smith as a young lawyer who is erased from everything in a matter of a few hours. Fun to run along with him trying to figure out what is happening to his life. Gene Hackman is the old pro who helps. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120660/
Robin Hood (2010) Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchette, Mark Strong, William Hurt, Max von Sydow. After watching this film over in full twice and parts numerous times, I have upgraded my score a point. The more realistic clothes, buildings, etc. and the prequel story of how Robin of Locksley became Robin of the Hood is really interesting and true or not, fun to see. And Marian, as one of many women left to run estates while the men go off to battles, is strong as she had to be to keep hearth and home together. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0955308/
HBO Premier:
Game Change (2012) Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Ed Harris, Sarah Paulson. Story of the selection of Sarah Palin as the running mate for John McCain in the 2008 election. Moore is fantastic creating a image of Palin right out of the news shows. Main cast are all really good and since we have seen so much of this story as it unfolded, seems more or less accurate. How smart guys - "the smartest in the room" - could have not asked any questions about foreign policy when vetting Sarah, is amazing. Half to time she is obsessing about what is being written and said about her in Alaska, and then she just zones out completely at times. At least that is what this film shows. America can't afford people this shallow running the government. IMHO. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1848902/
My desk top computer had a hiccup and my daughters friend had to get a new motor for it and - it works again! I had my laptop, but this is better. Need to get some flash drives, my daughter tells me. Oh, boy! Something new to learn.
March 25, 2012
March 14, 2012
79 years between films---
1933 to 2012, and both are fine:
20,000 Years In Sing-sing (1933) Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis. Almost 80 years old, but as topical as ever. About who goes to prison and who gets the death penalty. A tidbit from the host of TCM: Warner's wanted James Cagney, but he was shooting another film, so they gave Tracy one of his first starring roles. And he is fascinating. Bette, in an early role, is very good also. Fun finding a film I've never heard of that is this good. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023731/
Assassination (1987) Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Michael Ansara. Bronson is Jay Killion on the Presidents Secret Service squad, who has been reassigned to the new First Ladies team. The Lady is not amused, or anything else, but mad. Jay has to be constantly getting her back, or out of trouble. But after a few things blow up and people are killed, she finally believes Jay when he tells her she is in danger. However, she still continues to use the phone to call her father and is traced that way. The usual action scenes and shoot outs. Okay to liven up a quiet afternoon. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092585/
We'll Take Manhattan (2012 TV) Aneurin Barnard, Karen Gillan, Helen McCrory. Story about the meeting and pairing of photographer David Bailey and teenager Jean Shrimpton. He immediately sees she is a perfect camera face. They are hired to go to New York and do a fashion spread for Vogue. His photos do not please the magazine's fashion editor Lady Clare Rendlesham. She veto's all his work and has him start over doing it her way. But the photos had already been sent by wire to the home office and she is overruled. Thus, the sixties fashion darlings Shrimpton and Baily became the toast of the world and started a new 'look' for magazines. Film is interesting, but some of the acting is dreadful. McCrory is snotty and mean, and good at it. Barnard is charming and a bad boy. Gillan is just barely able to stay in the picture, she is so bland. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1885440/
20,000 Years In Sing-sing (1933) Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis. Almost 80 years old, but as topical as ever. About who goes to prison and who gets the death penalty. A tidbit from the host of TCM: Warner's wanted James Cagney, but he was shooting another film, so they gave Tracy one of his first starring roles. And he is fascinating. Bette, in an early role, is very good also. Fun finding a film I've never heard of that is this good. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023731/
Assassination (1987) Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Michael Ansara. Bronson is Jay Killion on the Presidents Secret Service squad, who has been reassigned to the new First Ladies team. The Lady is not amused, or anything else, but mad. Jay has to be constantly getting her back, or out of trouble. But after a few things blow up and people are killed, she finally believes Jay when he tells her she is in danger. However, she still continues to use the phone to call her father and is traced that way. The usual action scenes and shoot outs. Okay to liven up a quiet afternoon. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092585/
We'll Take Manhattan (2012 TV) Aneurin Barnard, Karen Gillan, Helen McCrory. Story about the meeting and pairing of photographer David Bailey and teenager Jean Shrimpton. He immediately sees she is a perfect camera face. They are hired to go to New York and do a fashion spread for Vogue. His photos do not please the magazine's fashion editor Lady Clare Rendlesham. She veto's all his work and has him start over doing it her way. But the photos had already been sent by wire to the home office and she is overruled. Thus, the sixties fashion darlings Shrimpton and Baily became the toast of the world and started a new 'look' for magazines. Film is interesting, but some of the acting is dreadful. McCrory is snotty and mean, and good at it. Barnard is charming and a bad boy. Gillan is just barely able to stay in the picture, she is so bland. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1885440/
March 09, 2012
Flying Down To Rio (1933) First time Fred and Ginger were paired in a film. The "Carioca" number was fun. Story has Delores Del Rio the object of Band Leader Gene Raymond's desire. But she is engaged to a homeboy and wants to break away. Gene gets the band fired from their job, but they are then hired to open a new Rio hotel. Fred is in the band; Ginger the singer. The usual mixups - and this is the film that has the girls of the chorus line attached to the wings of planes doing the big title number, with trapeze acts also. Crazy! Everyone should see it once! 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024025/
Glenn Miller Story (1953) James Stewart, June Allyson. The music is divine. Story of the beginning of the swing era and one of the all-time great orchestras. Jimmy is Glenn and June his wife. The star is the music and Glenn's struggle to come up with the sound he heard in his mind. Uniquely his, people danced to it for years. Moonlight Serenade became his theme song and String Of Pearls, Little Brown Jug, Pennsylvania 6-5000, and many others part of our lifetimes. Worth it for the music alone. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047030/
The Right Stuff (1983) Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, Sam Shephard, Scott Glenn, Fred Ward. From the book by Tom Wolfe, about the original 7 Mercury Astronauts and the beginning of the U S space program. Also the story of Chuck Yeager, test pilot, who flew jets faster, higher and farther than any man alive. They all had 'the right stuff' and the film is filled with great scenes of the preparations. The scene near the end when President Johnson brings the space program to Houston and a Texas size bar be que, with Sally Rand doing her fan dance to Clair de Lune, intercut with Yeager in his jet going for outer space, and the guys sitting looking at each other, as if to say "we did it" is one of my all time favorite scenes in a film. 9/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086197/
Emma (1996 TV) Kate Beckinsale, Mark Strong. Recently viewed and commented on. I enjoy revisiting this Jane Austin story with this cast. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118308/
Evening (2007) Claire Danes, Toni Colette, Vanessa Redgrave, Natasha Richardson, Patrick Wilson, Hugh Dancy. Episodic story of dieing and remembering. As she lays in bed, ill, a woman remembers her attendance of her best friends wedding at her seaside home. The intense feelings that the wedding arouses in the bride, her best friend, her brother and the man both women really love, is played out in short scenes as she drifts in and out of sleep. Beautiful setting and cinematography. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0765447/
The early jonquils are blooming; my leftover pansies are blooming; so even if the wind is still cold, Ma Nature is ready to Spring forth. I'm ready....
Glenn Miller Story (1953) James Stewart, June Allyson. The music is divine. Story of the beginning of the swing era and one of the all-time great orchestras. Jimmy is Glenn and June his wife. The star is the music and Glenn's struggle to come up with the sound he heard in his mind. Uniquely his, people danced to it for years. Moonlight Serenade became his theme song and String Of Pearls, Little Brown Jug, Pennsylvania 6-5000, and many others part of our lifetimes. Worth it for the music alone. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047030/
The Right Stuff (1983) Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, Sam Shephard, Scott Glenn, Fred Ward. From the book by Tom Wolfe, about the original 7 Mercury Astronauts and the beginning of the U S space program. Also the story of Chuck Yeager, test pilot, who flew jets faster, higher and farther than any man alive. They all had 'the right stuff' and the film is filled with great scenes of the preparations. The scene near the end when President Johnson brings the space program to Houston and a Texas size bar be que, with Sally Rand doing her fan dance to Clair de Lune, intercut with Yeager in his jet going for outer space, and the guys sitting looking at each other, as if to say "we did it" is one of my all time favorite scenes in a film. 9/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086197/
Emma (1996 TV) Kate Beckinsale, Mark Strong. Recently viewed and commented on. I enjoy revisiting this Jane Austin story with this cast. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118308/
Evening (2007) Claire Danes, Toni Colette, Vanessa Redgrave, Natasha Richardson, Patrick Wilson, Hugh Dancy. Episodic story of dieing and remembering. As she lays in bed, ill, a woman remembers her attendance of her best friends wedding at her seaside home. The intense feelings that the wedding arouses in the bride, her best friend, her brother and the man both women really love, is played out in short scenes as she drifts in and out of sleep. Beautiful setting and cinematography. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0765447/
The early jonquils are blooming; my leftover pansies are blooming; so even if the wind is still cold, Ma Nature is ready to Spring forth. I'm ready....
March 01, 2012
Irene, Ginger, Gene, Anne, Kate & Jodie---
March comes in with the Lionesses:
Roberta (1935) Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Randolph Scott. Roberta's is a high fashion shop in Paris, and Dunne is the manager. Fred and his band come to Paris looking for work. Ginger is posing as royalty. Scott is ---- Scott, posing as a football player and the nephew of Roberta.! Who cares? It is the Jerome Kern music and the dancing we want to see. One of the loveliest songs "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" is done straight - no gimmicks - by Dunne and reprised for our kids to dance to. Other highlights: Lovely To Look At, Yesterdays, and I Won't Dance. Dunne is luminous. Just see it! 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026942/
The Razors Edge (1946) Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, Clifton Webb, Anne Baxter, John Payne. Somerset Maugham(played by Herbert Marshall) story of Vet returning after WWI and finding his life meaningless. He breaks up with his fiancee and goes off searching - for he knows not what. Sorry to say it is as boring now as when I saw it in 1946 as a teen ager. But Power is good to look at; Webb great as a snob; Gene hateful as a spoiled deb who never grows up. But Baxter is the tension and heart of the film. Strung like an arrow in a bow, who finally is launched into eternity. Gene and Anne's scenes together show women as heartless as they come and as vulnerable. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038873/
In the Heat of The Night (1967) Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Lee Grant. Great film about a police detective from Philadelphia who is accused of a murder in a small Mississippi town. When the sheriff talks to his superiors, he lets Mr Tibbs go and over the next few days and nights forms a grudging partnership to solve the crime. Whole cast is top notch with Grant's rich mans wife, on the edge of hysteria because of the racism when all she wants is her husbands killer found, perfect. Holding on, until like she says "I can take my engineers and get out of this town." 9/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061811/
Z (1969) Yves Montand, Irene Papas, John-Louis Trintignant. Great film showing how fascism or any other 'ism' takes control and manages what the citizens see and hear and read. Frightening. About the turmoil in Greece and how it happened. Almost like a newsreel. 6/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065234/
Alex & Emma (2003) Kate Hudson, Luke Wilson. He's a novelist who gambles and owes a fortune to mobsters who will kill him if he doesn't pay up. He has a year to write a best seller or he's a goner.. She is a stenographer who comes to his apartment thinking it is a law office. He needs to dictate as fast as possible. Will she or won't she stay and work? Will they or won't they fall for each other? Ninety minutes and all will be known. 6/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318283/
Flightplan (2005) Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean, and in a small role, Matt (White Collar) Bomer. Okay mystery story of a child gone missing. Or is she? Is her Mother having a breakdown? The air marshall is assigned to help. Then when the crew decides she is nuts and dangerous, to guard her. But this is no usual Mom. She is a designer of these big suckers and knows all the systems. Interesting, but is not as exciting as is supposed to be. Great effects. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0408790/
Brideshead Revisited (2008) Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Emma Thompson, Hayley Atwell. Great cinematography. A young mans climb up the social scales and how he affects others and what it does to him. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412536/
Happy Ever Afters (2009) Shown on Sundance Ch. Filmed in Ireland with all Irish cast. Quirky woman and her daughter are part of a wedding party. The wedding reception is held at a hotel which has also booked another wedding party at the same time in another banquet hall. There is intermingling and some hostility among all the guests and wedding parties. Entertaining. 6/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1324053/
Mild weather for February in the Heartland USA. Hope that doesn't mean storms for March.
Oscar time and I have seen only one nominee for best pic - The Help. I was happy for Octavia.
Roberta (1935) Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Randolph Scott. Roberta's is a high fashion shop in Paris, and Dunne is the manager. Fred and his band come to Paris looking for work. Ginger is posing as royalty. Scott is ---- Scott, posing as a football player and the nephew of Roberta.! Who cares? It is the Jerome Kern music and the dancing we want to see. One of the loveliest songs "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" is done straight - no gimmicks - by Dunne and reprised for our kids to dance to. Other highlights: Lovely To Look At, Yesterdays, and I Won't Dance. Dunne is luminous. Just see it! 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026942/
The Razors Edge (1946) Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, Clifton Webb, Anne Baxter, John Payne. Somerset Maugham(played by Herbert Marshall) story of Vet returning after WWI and finding his life meaningless. He breaks up with his fiancee and goes off searching - for he knows not what. Sorry to say it is as boring now as when I saw it in 1946 as a teen ager. But Power is good to look at; Webb great as a snob; Gene hateful as a spoiled deb who never grows up. But Baxter is the tension and heart of the film. Strung like an arrow in a bow, who finally is launched into eternity. Gene and Anne's scenes together show women as heartless as they come and as vulnerable. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038873/
In the Heat of The Night (1967) Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Lee Grant. Great film about a police detective from Philadelphia who is accused of a murder in a small Mississippi town. When the sheriff talks to his superiors, he lets Mr Tibbs go and over the next few days and nights forms a grudging partnership to solve the crime. Whole cast is top notch with Grant's rich mans wife, on the edge of hysteria because of the racism when all she wants is her husbands killer found, perfect. Holding on, until like she says "I can take my engineers and get out of this town." 9/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061811/
Z (1969) Yves Montand, Irene Papas, John-Louis Trintignant. Great film showing how fascism or any other 'ism' takes control and manages what the citizens see and hear and read. Frightening. About the turmoil in Greece and how it happened. Almost like a newsreel. 6/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065234/
Alex & Emma (2003) Kate Hudson, Luke Wilson. He's a novelist who gambles and owes a fortune to mobsters who will kill him if he doesn't pay up. He has a year to write a best seller or he's a goner.. She is a stenographer who comes to his apartment thinking it is a law office. He needs to dictate as fast as possible. Will she or won't she stay and work? Will they or won't they fall for each other? Ninety minutes and all will be known. 6/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318283/
Flightplan (2005) Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean, and in a small role, Matt (White Collar) Bomer. Okay mystery story of a child gone missing. Or is she? Is her Mother having a breakdown? The air marshall is assigned to help. Then when the crew decides she is nuts and dangerous, to guard her. But this is no usual Mom. She is a designer of these big suckers and knows all the systems. Interesting, but is not as exciting as is supposed to be. Great effects. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0408790/
Brideshead Revisited (2008) Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Emma Thompson, Hayley Atwell. Great cinematography. A young mans climb up the social scales and how he affects others and what it does to him. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412536/
Happy Ever Afters (2009) Shown on Sundance Ch. Filmed in Ireland with all Irish cast. Quirky woman and her daughter are part of a wedding party. The wedding reception is held at a hotel which has also booked another wedding party at the same time in another banquet hall. There is intermingling and some hostility among all the guests and wedding parties. Entertaining. 6/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1324053/
Mild weather for February in the Heartland USA. Hope that doesn't mean storms for March.
Oscar time and I have seen only one nominee for best pic - The Help. I was happy for Octavia.
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