71 minute running time so super tightly written and filmed … loved this movie! Real noir … dark and dangerous, everyone in shadow, snappy dialogue, smart story … just really well done from start to finish. Highly recommended. Definitely a top ten movie from 1952 (oddly missing from this list).
Miss Utah eyeing the officer’s gun
106 minute running time so just over the sacred 100 minute mark. More homosexual propaganda from Hollywood … movie was written and directed by a Jewish lesbian. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore play a lesbian couple with two lovely, well-adjusted kids … the kids want to meet their sperm donor, who turns out to be the gorgeous Mark Ruffalo. The kids like Mark and Julianne even starts sleeping with him, thus throwing the “family” into total disarray. No worries though, the goofy straight hunk Dad is cast aside by all, and the gay family lives happily every after. There are a lot of funny bits, it isn’t badly made, but of course it’s morally reprehensible (I’m only half-joking). Avoid.
Tony Lane wasn’t thrilled either: “… by an irony that Cholodenko may not fully have intended, the climax of ‘The Kids Are All Right’ grows suddenly humorless, and close to vengeful, in its moralizing glare.”
Sperm worth $60 bucks a pop
We visited Toronto over the Columbus Day weekend and thought these were the best five places we saw. They’re all available using CityPASS, which is a real money saver. The photos below are all ones I took on the trip.
CN Tower … impressive views. Go first thing in the morning to avoid the crowds. We had a two minute wait for the elevator. We did go up to the “SkyPod,” which is another 100 meters above the main observation level, which I think cost another 20 bucks? per person, but it wasn’t really worth it, you can skip that bit.
2. Ripley’s Aquarium … not the second best place to visit, but it’s right next to the CN Tower so I included it here. Again go early in the morning before the crowds get there. If it’s crowded, it’s not very pleasant.
3. Toronto Zoo … nice zoo, big enough so that even if there are a lot of people around, it doesn’t feel crowded. Has a great zip line down a gorge, which the whole family enjoyed, and I strained it to the max with my Falstaffian bulk — hit top velocity for sure. There’s a small ropes course at the end of the zip line which the kids enjoyed and their aging parents suffered through. They also have “excursions” (forgot the name) which are like short, private tours of various animals … we did the caribou — well worth the money.
4. Casa Loma … crazy mansion built by a guy named Pellatt, who, like Jesse Livermore, was called a Boy Plunger. Dad was a stockbroker and he was too, made first fortune in Northwest Land shares, reinvested in electrification of Toronto, got richer, government seized his company (the bastards), he invested in all kinds of companies, got richer, but eventually went broke (Home Bank of Canada failure), died poor and ignored by son and old “friends” … fascinating story … anyway he built this giant house along the way in 1914, which is definitely worth a visit.
5. Royal Ontario Museum … this place reminded me of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London … just chock full of stuff. My approach to museums is you should go see only one section at a time, otherwise you’ll get overwhelmed. You could spend many days exploring the different sections, one at a time. We did a whirlwind tour.
96 minute running time so the perfect length. Korean POW camp drama … sort of, an after the fact thing. It was unusual … more of a legal drama … neat to see Governors Island in the 1950s (shots of Manhattan in the background). I can’t recommend it, but it wasn’t terrible. I’m sure that many officers were threatened that the men under their command in the camps would be murdered if they didn’t cooperate, so I didn’t really buy it.
Corporal Evans, Phi Beta Kappa
110 minute running time … could have easily cut 10 to 20 minutes and that would have helped a lot, but this was an unusual one, I didn’t hate it … a story in three parts… little black boy growing up in Miami (Liberty City), impoverished, crackhead mom, etc. … he’s taken in by the world’s sweetest drug dealer (played by Remy Danton) … part two are his teenage years (Remy is dead), which are esp. horrifying since he’s gay and terrorized for the fact (he was terrorized as a kid too, but it wasn’t as bad then) … part three he’s in his twenties, a drug dealer in Atlanta.
I’m pretty sure the screenplay was written by a gay black man … I don’t think the black director is gay, but I could be wrong. The score has a key underlying power … the language is very black, “street” maybe? Foreign to me, but I appreciated it.
It was a sensitive, thoughtful movie … not terrible. Unusual for sure, I don’t know what a mainstream American audience would make of it … mainstream critics will of course go ga-ga over it … I’m a little more mixed about it, cut 15 minutes out and it would probably get a green rating from me. Undecided here, but I didn’t hate it and that’s saying a hell of a lot. I see it’s still the #1 movie on RottenTomatoes from 2016, and that makes sense, but I’ll withhold my green rating for now.
Moonlight turns black boys blue
Bless Father and Mother and Alien Child
88 minute running time, so the perfect length. No idea why this one was in my queue… it’s a slasher (mainly sexualized violence) movie from the early ‘80s… super low budget … I ended up fast forwarding through most of it … the disc had terrible audio quality and no subtitles, so…. “Only for the slasher genre faithful.”
Pitchfork a nice touch
22 year veteran of the Bayonne Police Department, quick with a fashion tip, and always knew which bottle of wine to order … he will be missed.
110 minute running time but five minutes of credits so it was a decent length… I watched all the deleted scenes and was glad they cut them out… probably could have cut out five more minutes and made it the perfect length, but…. anyway, this was not bad, pretty good in fact. Chris Cooper plays a traitorous FBI agent (based on a true story) and he’s good (it’s more or less a one-man show) … the kid FBI agent who is tasked with watching him is a weaker actor. Laura Linney is better at playing her part of a cold, spinster agent running the sting.
This guy Hanssen was selling secrets for 22 years!?! Twenty-two! What level of incompetence is there within the government that would allow that to occur? It boggles the mind. Anyway, I enjoyed the movie and can recommend it as a sort-of thriller and psychological investigation into a turncoat. A rare green rating and another good recommendation from John Farr (who also turned me onto Foxcatcher and several other really good movies I’d never heard about).
In the name of the Father … and of the Son … and of the Holy … Spirit. Amen.
125 minute running time so at least a half hour too long. Very funny in parts, hilarious in fact, but this is a movie written by a woman directed by a gay man (I think Paul Feig is gay, no?) directed at women … it is funny, but it’s just too long, and there is some gross-out, teenage boy humor (most of which I enjoyed since I’m not averse to shitting in a sink in a pinch). I realized while watching it that Melissa McCarthy is Ricky Gervais trapped in a woman’s body.
Lou Lumenick also wasn’t thrilled with the movie’s length.
Off to Vegas
