Movie Tab II

And what did you think of those two flicks, Ðèstîñy?

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Wait............. Wendy's has a .99 cent chicken sandwhich?



Catch and Release: A bit cliche', but I liked it, and the sound track was not so bad either. I just saw this on Blu Ray and the scenes during the fishing excursion were amazing.

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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

Serpico (Sidney Lumet, 1973)



This is a powerful, true-life story of a New York cop who finds corruption everywhere he turns, and since he won't become part of it, he becomes a pariah, who even starts the film off in an ambulance with a gunshot wound to his face. Frank Serpico (a perfect Al Pacino) has always wanted to be a police officer, but he's heartbroken by the fact that he learns that most all NYC plainclothesmen in the 1960s are collecting payoffs to look the other way from crime. He has a good cop friend (Tony Roberts) who tries to help him get this info to the higher-ups, but it just seems that the corruption has been ingrained for too long, so Serpico can't get anywhere. This makes Serpico a marked man: an honest cop who won't take money is dangerous, or so his fellow officers believe.



Sidney Lumet, who was a last-minute replacement as director for Joe's John Avildsen, brings his expertise of location filming in New York City into play in this tense, gritty film. The script, which is basically a collection of dialogue by Midnight Cowboy's Waldo Salt, structurally supported by Joe's Norman Wexler's re-write, gives plenty of opportunities for the huge cast to shine, but Pacino really excels and is allowed to create a strong character who is not only heartfelt, but also witty, light-hearted (when possible), sexy and justice-seeking. The brief, yet evocative, Mikis Theodorakis musical score is a major asset in making the film affecting and so easy to relate to. This is one of the true classics of the '70s which unfortunately seems to be lost in the shuffle of all that decade's great films. If you've missed it thus far, do your best to correct that oversight.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

The great Sidney Lumet (who was beat out of his Oscar for Network by Avildsen's Rocky at the 1977 ceremony) has made four films thus far centering on Police corruption. Serpico was the first and it is still the best, the gold standard by which all others must be judged forever. That it is based on a true story and a real guy makes it all the more remarkable. A great movie and a fantastic performance by Pacino before he slipped into easy self parody.



The subsequent Lumet flicks that deal with the same basic subject matter are Prince of the City (1981), Q&A (1990) and Night Falls on Manhattan (1997). Prince is also based on a true story but the other two are fictions, though full of authenticity. Prince of the City is good and has the best film work of both Treat Williams and Jerry Orbach, but its a bit overlong and could have used more focus.

Q&A I like a lot, especially for Nick Nolte's towering performance as an over-the-top psycho cop who is a racist, gay-bashing monster and Nolte has fun with every second of it. It was Timothy Hutton's last shot to be a movie star, but the movie fizzled even though it got critical raves. It did introduce me to a new generation of great character actors including Luis Guzmán and Charles S. Dutton. It's based on a book by real New York Judge Edwin Torres, who also wrote the novels that Carlito's Way was drawn from.

Night Falls On Manhattan really tanked, and while it's kind of a mish-mash of Lumet's previous corruption pictures I like it and it does focus more on the Justice System side of things this time. Andy Garcia never became a movie star either, but he's well cast as the new Assistant District Attorney who is thrown onto a big case when his father (Ian Holm) is one of the wounded cops at a seeming drug bust gone horribly wrong. Another great supporting cast with Richard Dreyfuss as an Alan Dershowitz-style defense attorney and Ron Leibman having a blast chewing up the scenery as the District Attorney. It also has some great character actors to-be including Tony Soprano and Uncle Junior themselves: James Gandolfini and Dominic Chianese. The main thing that holds this one down a bit in quality from the others is that the basic material is by now so familiar there's no new direction to go with it, really. And the opening action scene always seemed really badly staged to me, the kind of stuff you get on an average episode of middling TV fare like "Hunter". But the outstanding cast definitely makes it worth a look, despite the flaws.


There have been a couple great to good Police corruption movies not made by Sidney Lumet, like L.A. Confidential, Narc, Lone Star and CopLand as well as some very overrated pieces like Training Day and Dark Blue in recent years but Sidney Lumet is the undisputed master and Serpico is the best of the best.

Marathon Man is coming on TCM, you all speak highly of it from what I hear, anything is better than The Breed on right now.

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I used to be addicted to crystal meth, now I'm just addicted to Breaking Bad.

Marathon Man is great. Did you just finish watching Three Days of the Condor on TCM, too?

No, I didn't get to catch it, I just tuned into the Breed after watching K-19 then the documentary on th Fargo special features, do you advise watching it?

Yes!

Also, I ♥ Hukabees or Singin' in the Rain?

Huckabees is a good flick but Singin' in the Rain, obviously.

I'm gunna go with Hukabees, because I can watch Singin' in the Rain on my Netflix instant view.

Then why did you ask?

I didn't know by the time I asked I saw it was on Netflix. sorry

Ah crap! I can't pay attention to this, I'll Netflix it later, I didn't take my medicine for ADHD and all I see is Roy in his undies beating on an asian guy, this will need some explaining, I;ll Netflix it again sometime

By the by, now that we're on the topic there was a nice interview with Sidney Lumet in Entertainment Weekly a month or so ago where he gave some impressions on his body of work and the Oscar nominations he and his films have received over the decades (Lumet never won Best Director and none of his films ever Best Picture though he did get a Lifetime Achievement Award a little while back). My favorite is when he's talking about Network and says, "It's embarrassing that Rocky beat us out. Chayefsky was so prescient. Everyone was saying we were going to take it all. And on the flight out to L.A., he said, 'Rocky's going to take Best Picture.' And I said, 'No, no, it's a dopey little movie.' And he said, 'It's just the sort of sentimental crap they love out there.' And he was right.''



HERE is that piece on-line.

Dumb and Dumber -

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Yeah sure, Cloverfield is all neat and stuff, but if you want to see real monster movies you need to go back to the beginning. I bet that the Cloverfield monster isn't even a guy in a rubber suit. I mean c'mon! I bet it got hot in those things.

I've often wondered who came up with idea for Gammera, Godzilla was already out there. You had this big fire breathing lizard stomping around erector sets and splashing around in pools of water. Crushing little plastic cars and such. And not to mention whoever had the job of melting the little tanks with a lighter and the big can of 60's hairspray. Ah Goodtimes, goodtimes...

But I digress. Was Gammera like, a brother's idea or someone else on the Godzilla production that was scorned in some way? "I'll show those sons of b*tches!" "They can shove their giant Lizard up the collective asses!" "I'm gonna make a real monster movie, yeah that's it." "A giant turtle that can kick Godzilla's rubber ass!" "Oh! And My monster is gonna fly too!" "Let's see that mutated reptile do that!"

Anyway, I'm just running (or foaming) at the mouth here, I don't really need anyone to give me any answers to this; one of life's many riddles. But if you know feel free to chime in.

Oh, and this almost goes without saying doesn't it?

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

Ladder 49- God, I cry every time

The Barefoot Contessa (this rating may be a little harsh, my viewing was immediately followed by the clearly superior Mankiewicz film, All About Eve, which made Contessa's flaws a little more obvious than they may have been otherwise.)
All about Eve
The Bourne Identity

I loved them. American Dreamer was great, and it ended perfectly. Maybe too perfectly for some people, but I need more like that. I could say a few things about her husband, but I won't. Wow!
I wonder how many takes they had to do on this scene? It is hilarious . . .





Oh, and it reminded me, in some ways, of the John Candy movie Once Upon a Crime. It's not very popular, but I liked it a lot.



A Slight Case of Murder, was insane. I didn't picture him going that far over the edge.



I still haven't said anything about those others I viewed, but I will in time. I do a dreadful job on these, so I hesitate.