86 minute running time, so the perfect length. This is my first Karloff movie and it wasn’t bad, not cheesy at all. Interesting story, decent acting, well plotted … it was really pretty good. It’s in the Criterion Collection for a reason. See it if you get the chance.
Resurrection Joe Looms
Nice live version of Call Off Your Dogs at 32:38 (I don’t think the embed will skip to there).
94 minute running time, but I had to watch it at 2x ffwd. Mid-60s remake of the 1946 movie. More explicitly violent, esp. smacking women around. Lee Marvin plays a good bad guy, Angie Dickinson as femme fatale, President Reagan (who smacks Angie pretty well), John Cassavetes plays Don Draper, Norman Fell looking super Jewish. Soundtrack heavy on the conga drums and blaring horns. Story told in flashbacks again. Pretty lame, no idea why Criterion included it in their collection. Avoid.
Let Ronzo do all the talking
113 minute running time, at least 20 minutes too long. I like Chandler, lots of snappy dialogue (via Faulkner), but the story lost me, too complicated, I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I like Lauren Bacall and her sultry smoker’s voice, her sister (Martha Vickers) was cute too. A complete mystery to me why Humphrey Bogart was a sex symbol, he does nothing for me. Another noir movie from the 1940s that Criterion has put in their collection, but I wasn’t thrilled.
A lot depends on who’s in the saddle
Sort of a weird video, but I love the song. Nearly a billion plays on Spotify and a half billion on YouTube so one or two people heard it before I did:
105 minute running time so about five minutes too long. Starring big handsome dummy Burt Lancaster with Ava Gardner and her cleft chin as the femme fatale. Story told through multiple flashbacks, which can get tiring. It’s OK, not great. Included in the Criterion Collection probably because it’s classic noir made right after the War.
If there's one thing in this world I hate, it's a double-crossing dame.
97 minutes so the perfect length. Nat Geo documentary about Alex somebody’s insane free solo climb of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. He’s a weird guy, clearly smart but also cold … has some sociopathic qualities that I appreciated… cute California-style girlfriend … it’s pretty well made, I enjoyed it.
The filmmakers are this beautiful Tibetan/American-Indian looking guy named Jimmy Chin (so he’s at least part-Chinese) and his wife, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, who is also beautiful and part-Chinese (her Dad was one of my professors at Rutgers, small world).
Cameraman can’t bear to watch
I wore Teva Mush flip-flops for many years and loved them, but they had one big problem: they stained the soles of my feet black. (I wear them all day every day from June to September.) The girl in my local shoe shop, disgusted by the look of my soles, suggested I switch to OluKai flip-flops instead. These ‘Ohana are the bottom of the line for OluKai and cost $65 (well over two times what I paid for Teva Mush), but they’re comfortable (nice footbed) and water-resistant.
If you had trouble with stained feet with the Teva Mush, I recommend you check out these OluKais instead.
137 minute running time so way way way too long, at least 40 minutes too long. Stars bug-eyed Emma Stone. Another Racism for Dummies movie, and a W.D. By (written and directed by the same guy). Lots of heartstring music and mawkish piano to make the tears flow. Jessica Chest-ain plays a Marilyn Monroe type, she’s not bad. I wasn’t super thrilled, it’s simplistic and sentimental, and it’s way too long. Yellow rating at best, but I recommend avoiding it.
Skeeeeter
92 minute running time. Documentary about the obesity “epidemic.” Wasn’t super thrilled with it. Features several obese kids and their fat parents. The interesting thing to me is why aren’t the siblings of these fat kids similarly fat? They’re all eating the same crap food in the same amounts, yet only one of them is 250 pounds at age 14. It’s obvious to me that the super fat kid has some metabolic issue which is preventing him from processing the junk food in the same way his siblings are.
Everyone knows sugar is bad, processed foods are bad, Pizza Hut and carbonated sugar water in the public school cafeterias are bad. There’s nothing new here. And they didn’t explore the metabolic root of the fat kid problem, which would have been truly interesting. I can’t recommend this one.
Pass the Nutella & Go! (23 grams of sugar and 13 grams of fat)
