It Could Happen to You (Andrew Bergman, 1994) 7/10
Modern fairy tale holds up better than you might expect. Nicholas Cage, when he was still a serious actor, is the good-hearted NYC cop who shares his lottery ticket with the waitress he didn't have enough money to give a tip to the day before. Bridget Fonda (whatever happened to her?) is OK as the waitress, but it's the one in a million supporting cast - Rosie Perez, Isaac Hayes, Seymour Cassel, Stanley Tucci, Richard Jenkins, Red Buttons, Ann Dowd - that makes it fun.
My Name Is Julia Ross (Joseph H. Lewis, 1945) 7/10
Compact Hollywood noir often mistaken for a British film featuring a star-making performance by Nina Foch as a woman being held hostage in an English seaside mansion by crazy George Macready and his nefarious mother, a delightfully sinister Dame May Whitty.
Father Brown (The Detective in the U.S.) (Robert Hamer, 1954) 8/10
Alec Guinness is at his bumbling best as G.K. Chesterton's near-sighted priest on a quest to capture a master criminal and save his soul at the same time. Peter Finch, Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker and Ernest Thesiger are also in top form.
Edited By Big Magilla on 1236065913
Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Yeah, I've always thought of To Kill A Mockingbird as a very traditional movie, which is part of what makes it so moving.
One thing I've wondered since seeing them in the past year or so, is if Harper Lee was inspired by similar scenes in Intruder in the Dust and especially Stars in My Crown when she wrote the scene where Scout talks down the lynch-mob. When I saw Stars in My Crown, I was stunned by how similar the two scenes were. To Kill A Mockingbird makes the child the active party, while it's Joel McCrea's preacher who takes on the mob in the Tourneur film.
Edited By dws1982 on 1236052128
One thing I've wondered since seeing them in the past year or so, is if Harper Lee was inspired by similar scenes in Intruder in the Dust and especially Stars in My Crown when she wrote the scene where Scout talks down the lynch-mob. When I saw Stars in My Crown, I was stunned by how similar the two scenes were. To Kill A Mockingbird makes the child the active party, while it's Joel McCrea's preacher who takes on the mob in the Tourneur film.
Edited By dws1982 on 1236052128
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Mister Tee
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Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder - 7/10
This is not a great capper to the series. When it hits the sentimentality it aims for, it doesn't feel climactic but instead rushed. The characters deserve a little better than this. But like the best Futurama movie The Beast with a Billion Backs, it feels paced like a very strong episode. The motifs are pretty easy (feminism, conspiracy theorists) but the movie grooves on the show's very special wavelength very nicely.
Very clearly, this franchise is not done.
This is not a great capper to the series. When it hits the sentimentality it aims for, it doesn't feel climactic but instead rushed. The characters deserve a little better than this. But like the best Futurama movie The Beast with a Billion Backs, it feels paced like a very strong episode. The motifs are pretty easy (feminism, conspiracy theorists) but the movie grooves on the show's very special wavelength very nicely.
Very clearly, this franchise is not done.
"How's the despair?"
/The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford/ (dir. Andrew Dominick) - 10/10
One of the ten best films of the decade. I am so utterly dwarfed by this film's daring. To watch this film is to launch between centuries. Brad Pitt's death wish is pretty prominent and it may be the actor's finest moment. Affleck, brilliant; Paul Schneider and Sam Rockwell are at their absolute best. Epilogue = some of the strongest filmmaking I've ever seen. Question asked a decade from now? "Why wasn't this film nominated for everything?" Answer: "Why wasn't Badlands, Mean Streets, McCabe & Mrs. Miller..."
/WALL*E/ (dir. Andrew Stanton) - 10/10
Again: one of the ten best. Kate Winslet could only win the Oscar for doing something that at least looked different. It's a shame then that Thomas Newman, a composer I find trying at times (especially in Finding Nemo), was passed over this year. Like the film itself, the music is to swoon to.
One of the ten best films of the decade. I am so utterly dwarfed by this film's daring. To watch this film is to launch between centuries. Brad Pitt's death wish is pretty prominent and it may be the actor's finest moment. Affleck, brilliant; Paul Schneider and Sam Rockwell are at their absolute best. Epilogue = some of the strongest filmmaking I've ever seen. Question asked a decade from now? "Why wasn't this film nominated for everything?" Answer: "Why wasn't Badlands, Mean Streets, McCabe & Mrs. Miller..."
/WALL*E/ (dir. Andrew Stanton) - 10/10
Again: one of the ten best. Kate Winslet could only win the Oscar for doing something that at least looked different. It's a shame then that Thomas Newman, a composer I find trying at times (especially in Finding Nemo), was passed over this year. Like the film itself, the music is to swoon to.
"How's the despair?"
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Big Magilla
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Australia (Baz Luhrmann) 6/10
Better than I expected, but far from great. Hugh Jackman, the supporting cast and the production values are fine but Nicole Kidman doesn't have the acting chops of a Vivien Leigh or Deborah Kerr to bring off her "great lady" role. And it goes on too long with a rather blah ending, a last minute add-on for the original one in which Jackman's character dies.
Better than I expected, but far from great. Hugh Jackman, the supporting cast and the production values are fine but Nicole Kidman doesn't have the acting chops of a Vivien Leigh or Deborah Kerr to bring off her "great lady" role. And it goes on too long with a rather blah ending, a last minute add-on for the original one in which Jackman's character dies.