ANATOMY OF A MURDER (1959)

In this superior courtroom drama directed by Otto Preminger, a small town Michigan lawyer (Jimmy Stewart) defends an Army lieutenant (ever-scowling Ben Gazzara), who killed a bartender who raped his flirty, trampy wife (Lee Remick). He works uphill to establish a "temporary insanity" defense for his client, against a special prosecutor (bent-nose George C. Scott), brought in from the state capital to nail the lieutenant. The acting (especially Stewart) and the legal jousting carry this film. The ending is something of a letdown and the plot is encumbered by several generally extraneous characters. But, the film is almost stolen by a real lawyer, Joseph N. Welch, who plays the judge. Welch was the Army's lawyer in the famous, televised Army/McCarthy hearings (1954), and he cut down McCarthy in what was arguably the most dramatic moment in live television history. He's brilliant here. A good watch.

Ur wrong Turn..it's not a good watch......it's a GREAT watch..just watched on TCM 4 the 4th or 5th in my life..& u forgot 2 mention how beautiful Ms. Remick is as well as an accomplished actress..

"a womans panties is not a humorous matter"

Noah, starring Russell Crowe. It's storyline is something of a different take on the typical Bible story with which we grew up. For one, from catechism, I don't recall a stoweaway on the Ark nor the tree-like creatures who defend Noah and his family. An interesting film.

I streamed the excellent Harrison Ford thriller "WHAT LIES BENEATH" on demand on Pluto TV tonight.

I completely forgot that movie existed even though I saw it in theaters when it came out. I remember it being pretty awful.

COMA (1978)

A surgery intern at a big Boston hospital (Genevieve Bujold) gets suspicious because a large number of young patients having routine surgical procedures emerge from anesthesia in irreversible comas. She single-mindedly tries to investigate despite patronizing tut-tutting from hospital bigshots and discouragement from her fellow surgical intern and boyfriend (Michael Douglas), who's afraid her persistence will threaten his plans to become chief resident. Things turn deadly against her, but after some hair-raising escapes, she uncovers a vast plot by hospital doctors to harvest the comatose patients' vital organs and sell them to the highest bidder. The villain-in-chief is the hospital's top surgeon (Richard Widmark, my favorite bad guy), who tries and almost succeeds in putting her into a coma. Despite straining credibility at times, this is a very good thriller, with fine performances by the principals.

Scarface

I saw this for the first time in about 15 years. 3 hours long and never lags. It's enjoyable from start to finish. In fact I feel like watching it again right now.

I'm in the mood to watch it again. This is one of my top 5 favorite movies of all-time and Al Pacino's greatest performance IMO. The Godfather at one point was my favorite movie of all-time until I saw this. I still have trouble believing to this day that Michael Corleone went on to play Tony Montana!

It has been years since I seen it. There were a lot of young and unknown actors in it, Rip Torn, Ed Harris, Michael Douglas, there is one more I can't remember but was a patient. It based on a Robin Cook book. Some great moments in the film.

Tom Selleck.

St. VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE (1967)

Fans of Roger Corman will have a field day with this tour de force treatment of the infamous Prohibition bloodbath. It has everything you'd expect from the King of the B's: Garish sets. Cut rate snowfalls (cars make no tire tracks in the snow). Six-minute, no-holds-barred fight between a gangster and his moll. Huge ketchup blood spatters. Ponderous, documentary style voice-overs by the mellifluous Reed Hadley (full of historical errors, too). Inspired miscasting of the principals: Jason Robards as Capone (with rubber-cement scars), George Segal as Pete Gusenberg, both compensating by frenzied overacting (Segal out over-the-tops Pacino in Scarface, if you can imagine such a feat). And, with it, a great supporting cast of Hollywood's most familiar thugs and plug-uglies: Ralph Meeker, Clint Ritchie, Frank Silvero, Joseph Campanella, David Canary, Harold J. Stone, Paul Richards, Joe Turkel and Alex Rocco. Bruce Dern and, yes, Jack Nicholson have bit parts. All of this brought off with Corman's usual verve. Love it? Hate it? Up to you.

Miscasting indeed, TB. Stone was the best though. The documentary style was not what I was expecting. However, I liked it when the narrator would say "on the last morning of his life."

I agree, Oli. Stone was one of the most versatile ethnic portrayers. He did 'em all. A fixture in TV series.

DA 5 BLOODS (2020)

Four ageing African American veterans of the Viet Nam war return to the country, ostensible to find and repatriate the remains of their beloved squad leader (the fifth Blood) and also to retrieve a cache of gold bars they found and buried during a wartime patrol. Director Spike Lee kluges together flashbacks of 50-year-old battle scenes with the same actors, no attempt to de-age them; newsreels of the civil rights era and MLK's assassination; a love plot with one of the Bloods and a half-century-later mistress (and daughter from the relationship); betrayal; land mines blowing up; Paul (Delroy Lindo) cracking up, plus about a thousand MF-bombs. Lee clumsily tries to deliver several important messages at once, including PTSD, unfulfilled racial promises; police brutality--to say nothing of ripping off Apocalypse Now ("Ride of the Valkuries") playing while the Bloods boat upriver to their site) and Treasure of the Sierra Madre (leader of a group of Vietnamese bushwhackers telling them, "I don't gotta show you no stinkin' credentials"). What a mess!

I saw the trailer when it dropped and knew then and there I was passing on it. Glad to be proven right. I don't mind Spike, but when he (or Hollywood for that matter) get into their heavy handed liberal messages, it turns me off (see ESPN's 30-for-30 BE WATER about Bruce Lee).

During this virus related hiatus I've become quite familiar with Youtube and rediscovered Bruce Lee. Madonne! I've never seen any human being move that quickly.

Fire in the Sky

I vaguely remembered this movie from my childhood and randomly decided to watch it on a whim. It was better than I expected it to be. Well-acted, thoughtful, and with special effects that hold up reasonably well to this day. The scene on the spaceship is intense and terrifying, and it helps that the lead actor knocks his performance out of the park.

Good movie!

THE GOOD LIAR (2019)

An aged con man (Ian McKellen) inveigles himself into the life of a seemingly trusting, well-heeled widow (Helen Mirren). With help from his partner in crime (Jim Carter, posing as an investment adviser), he convinces her to merge her finances with his, the better to earn a higher return on both--and for him to make off with the total. But, it turns out that neither is who he/she seems to be, with complex, credibility-busting connections from the past.

It's a pleasure to watch these brilliant actors at work, and the pace and buildup are pretty good--up to a point. But, the movie spends way too much time with flashbacks at the end to make those connections from the past work with the denouement.

I've got this recorded. Haven't watched it yet but with Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren, I figured you couldn't go too wrong (I hope I'm right).

KNIFE IN THE WATER (1962)

In this Polish film, Andrezj and his wife, Krystyna, a well-off couple by Communist-bloc standards, pick up a young male hitch-hiker after almost hitting him with their car, and, presumably bored, invite him on their sailboat. The two men immediately set off on a subdued alpha-male contest. pitting the older man's knowledge of sailing with the younger one's refusal to knuckle under, and the woman switching sides at key moments. It's a typical European film of that era, full of subtle moves and psychological turns (think: "L'Aventura" and "Purple Noon"), plus crisp, deep-focus cinematography, but not much action. Ending leaves us about where it began. This was Roman Polanski's directoral debut and it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. I thought it was worth watching, but I'll take his "Chinatown" and "Rosemary's Baby" over it any day.

I just watched Polanski's REPULSION for the first time on Friday. A good film but not on the level of ROSEMARY'S BABY, which I consider his best film. Very strong performance by Catherine Deneuve as well. She did an absolutely amazing job displaying her fragile, vulnerable, "I'm going slightly mad" performance.

When Worlds Collide (1951)

In this early entry in the great Fifties sci-fi genre, a South African pilot (Richard Derr) is paid by astronomers to bring a top-secret cache of film to scientists in New York. The scientists confirm the astronomers' worst fear: A star will come close enough to Earth to cause floods, fires, volcanos, tidal waves, etc. A few days later, a new planet will crash into Earth, destroying it. The scientists recruit some industrialists willing to fund a Noah's Ark spaceship that will take just a handful of people and animals to a planet that might sustain life (one of the backers, played by John Hoyt, deserved an Oscar in the "Nastiest Character" category). The acting is pretty broad, except for Barbara Rush, who plays the obligatory love interest. Special effects range from impressive (Times Square NYC flooded by a tidal wave, the space ship launching) to cheesy (the host planet's landscape, looking like a kid's watercolor). But, the movie has good action and raises some thoughtful ethical questions. Not bad at all.

Once Upon a Time in America

Elegantly crafted and superbly acted. A beautifully filmed movie and a nice counterpoint to the romanticism of The Godfather. After watching the ending scene, I subscribe to the theory that everything after Noodles's betrayal in 1933 never really happened, and is all the result of his hallucinating on opium as a means to deal with his conscience. Take note of the surroundings after Noodles leaves Max's mansion; the symbolism and metaphors. Then compare them to what's in the opium den; the lanterns and, in particular, the opium pipe. It's the lingering shot on something that strongly resembles an opium pipe on the garbage truck that sells this theory for me.

One complaint is that Joe Pesci's character was underused, which is odd for such a long movie, and another is, perhaps, the gratuitous rape scenes. But De Niro is, as always, magnetic to watch, and James Woods knocks his role out of the park, too.

I highly recommend.

Great movie, I would have to have this in my top ten.

No shit Moe. I've never looked at it for more than face value. One off my favorite movies. Now, I will dedicate four hours to reevaluate. Good observations.

Becky,

Really good , 7.5
Kevin James did a great job selling himself as a really bad guy.

BODYGUARD (1948)

I took a flyer on this movie because it stars Lawrence Tierney, my favorite movie and real-life tough guy of the Forties. This time he plays Mike Carter, a LAPD detective fired for rough stuff and insubordination. He takes a job bodyguarding a rich woman who's head of a meatpacking company. Doesn't take Carter long to find he's been made the fall guy in the murder of his former boss. He spends the rest of the movie dodging his former colleagues and finding the real murderer, with considerable help from his former mole and girlfriend in the LAPD (Priscilla Lane, who's very good). Tierney is still tough, but he plays a good guy (barely) for once, and brings it off. The plot's kind of thin, but the action is good. Liked it a lot.

PROMETHEUS (2012)

In this Alien prequel, two scientists (Noomi Rapace, Logan Marshall-Green), study ancient cave paintings and conclude that a bygone race, whom they call "The Engineers," created mankind. A zillionaire funds an expedition (including a bunch of technicians. a predictably perfidious robot called David played by Michael Fassbender, and an icy Charlize Theron as the mission boss) to a distant planet where they think The Engineers may have lived. The anticipated chaos, violence and betrayal ensue. The plot is thin, the dialog weak, and the logic of David helping to impregnate Rapace with an alien life form is never explained. Nearly all the characters are forgettable; and even Idris Elba, a talented and versatile English actor (who's in more movies than the MGM lion) who plays the space ship's pilot, is trapped in an inner city patois that leaves him with nothing much to say except "Copy dat." Rapace is good, Fassbender better, but Marshall-Green is just-plain obnoxious. BUT: Director Ridley Scott shows a sure hand with the action and especially the special effects, CGI and soundtrack, which are just brilliant and at times, beautiful. This movie is pure eye-and-ear candy.

There's a little Western subchannel called Grit TV that makes it's living off B movies and black-and-white reruns. They've pulled out all the stops this weekend for their 8 pm ET movie: Silverado on Thursday, El Dorado last night, The Magnificent 7 (Edit: sorry, it's True Grit tonight) tonight, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Sunday night.

I hadn't seen El Dorado in several years. It has obvious weaknesses you could pick at if you wanted, like some clumsy dialogue, weird casting, and hokey stunts. But you have Wayne and Mitchum, the story is very tight, and just about every scene is entertaining.