Seen a good movie lately?

[JoeProBono]

[Minus_The_Bear]

Seconding Red Cliff... best movie I have seen in a long time.

Only saw the longer version though. What did they cut in the western release?

[JoeProBono]

[Cloverfarm]

We all really enjoyed “Secretariat,” especially since the family farm and elderly dad story line is one we are living out.

[redhead]

“Kolya” is one of my all-time favorites. Hubby and 3/4 of our neighbors were Czech, so they didn’t need subtitles. Simply an awesome little movie.

[RetSignman]

I googled that film and saw clips of it...it stuns the brain with it’s brutality.

[Jack Deth]

Hi, Darkwolf:

I agree with your opinion of Between The Lines. A great little near forgotten gem loaded with LOTS of talent that would blossom years later.

Also enjoyed The Gambler, which I believe started out as an ABC Movie Of The Week. I liked Peckinpah's The Killer Elite for its attention to detail. Though the novel the film is based upon is London based and so much better.

For Walter Hill, one need go no further than Extreme Prejudice with Nick Nolte as a modern day Texas Ranger fighting his best friend in an across-the-borders drug war. With a stellar supporting cast lead by Rip Torn as Nolte's mentor and Michael Ironside, Clancy Brown and William Forsythe as Black Ops GIs ending in a full blown Shoot 'Em Up that rivals The Wild Bunch.

Continuing in the Nick Nolte vein, I'll toss out Who'll Stop The Rain. A little known, flip side of Forrest Gump. Involving a few kilos of Laotian Heroin, a dirty DA and a Who's Who of character actors on a trek from San Fransisco to LA and down to the Mexican border. Incredibly faithful to Robert Stone's novel Dog Soldiers

I'll also offer Dustin Hoffman's little seen Straight Time. Where Hoffman, in a very Un~Hoffman turn, plays a smash and grab convict out on parole and trying to go straight in LA. With M. Emmett Walsh as Hoffman's parole officer. Teresa Russell, Kathy Bates and Gary Busy and Harry Dean Stanton as his partners-in-crime. Solidly based on convict's William Bunker's No Beast So Fierce .

To offset your splurge of John Wayne/Howard Hawks films. I'll bump and check with John Wayne and Donna Reed in John Ford's They Were Expendable. One of the most under~rated WWII films ever made.

And to round out your Lee Marvin fix, I suggest The Professionals. With Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode and Jack Palance. Or Hell In The Pacific with Toshiro Mifune.



Jack.

[FelixFelicis]

Normally I'm not a DiCaprio fan. (Like you, apparently, I still don't find him believable as an adult - even though he's older than me!) But I must say he was rather good in the role of a mentally retarded teenager in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape." A pretty decent movie and an outstanding book - if you're not averse to really dark, sardonic humor. (The movie is more mild in that regard.)

[Jack Deth]

D’Oh!

That should be Edward Bunker instead of William Bunker.

Jack.

[Darkwolf377]

I saw Extreme Prejudice in the theater. It was pretty good, a little too much of a Wild Bunch ending that lost me because it was Hill trying to replicate that ending without the weight of the story Wild Bunch had behind it. I still listen to the Jerry Goldsmith score.

I saw Who’ll Stop the Rain—I think Tuesday Weld played the female lead? It was directed by Karel Reisz, who also directed The Gambler (as well as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, which I recommend, and Everybody Wins, which I’d recommend if I knew your taste better—got slaughtered by the critics but a very good flick). Who’ll... had an appropriately druggy tone as it progressed.

I liked Straight Time—I keep thinking about the final shot—and only learned recently that Dustin Hoffman was originally going to direct it. I thought Theresa Russell would have a bigger career than she ended up with. One of my favorite David Shire themes.

Haven’t seen They Were Expendable, will check it out.

I liked The Professionals, even though I’ve always found Burt Lancaster very annoying. Claudia Cardinale was gorgeous in that.

If these films are an indicator of what you like, I’d suggest you check out Hammett, with Frederick Forest, Night Moves, with Gene Hackman, Fingers, with Harvey Keitel (directed by the writer of The Gambler, and superior to it), and Duck You Sucker with Lee Marvin and Rod Steiger (originally supposed to be Eli Wallach and...I forget, directed by Sergio Leone, after Peter Bogdanovich backed out)—it’s a weird revolutionary western, but there are some really beautifully odd scenes, and one of the largest explosions ever set off for a movie.

[Borges]

I liken it to Hitchcock’s Marnie. A great film with a lackluster ending. A lot of great Victorian novels had too-tidy endings as well.

[EveningStar]

Dolly, it’s a shame that you had to put up with this ignorant garbage. A lot of these people are unhinged.

[Eeyore4651]

Welcome to Paradise.
Crystal Bernard and Brian Dennehy.
Faith and Spirituality.
Watched it last night. Very nice.
Netflix has it.

[DollyCali]

yes, you are correct. Controlling ..narrow minded....and generally Pharisaical in attitude

[JoeProBono]

[EveningStar]

It’s frustrating.

I like to tell folks on the left that they have stereotypically distorted our image. We’re not narrow minded, bigoted and culturally ignorant.

And then we have people here saying, in effect, oh yes we are! And we’re proud of it!

[Jack Deth]

Hi, darkwolf:

I think we're running close to the same wavelength here.

I read Joe Gores' Hammett long before it became a film. Was impressed with Frederick Forrest's lead, the setting and shadowy mood of the film. And the cameos by Elisha Cook Jr. and assorted mystery writers. Been looking for it on DVD for awhile.

Raved about Gene Hackman in Night Moves. A great little Private Eye film that doesn't end the way you expect it to.

Tuesday Weld finally got to play an adult in Who'll Stop The Rain and her interplay with Nolte added leading man cred early on to someone I'd first saw on TV in Rich Man. Poor Man. Though it's Nolte and Weld who are the focus of attention. The supporting cast of Anthony Zerbe, Michael Moriarty, David Masur and Ray Sharkey really move the film along.

I'll see Duck, You Sucker! when it shows up on AMC or TCM. It's a kick to decide whose accent is worse. Coburn's or Steiger's. Reminds me a lot of one of Jack Higgin's very early novels come to life.



Jack.