Movies Watched -- Police Beat (2005)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

81 minute running time … this was a W.D. By movie (written and directed by the same guy), had sort of a Trust Fund Kid feel … it was bizarre, not a mainstream movie… a new immigrant from Senegal joins the Seattle Police Department and has to deal with all the usual “incidents” that police officers face, but he has an interesting perspective on them since he’s African … he also has a flighty white girlfriend who has left him (temporarily?) for an ex-boyfriend, and a lot of his internal dialogue is about how this tortures him. It’s not a terrible movie, but it’s also not good enough to recommend … it could have been much better done.

Farr recommended it, which I appreciate, and he wrote, “Devor's trippy, melancholy procedural is a unique film whose haunting after-effects will linger.” Yes, the capital A.R.T. crowd would go for it, see it if you qualify as an A.R.T. artist.

  • Discovers dead body

  • Retrieves wino from hedge

  • Confronts man with machete at property line dispute

  • Confronts girl offering blowjobs for a dollar a pop

  • Investigates assault by tree branch

  • Retrieves mentally ill man swimming in channel

  • Investigates man who asks to use couple’s home phone and later disappears

  • Investigates bloody suicide

  • Tickets reckless biker who is obnoxious and threatens president’s life

  • Investigates bullet holes in mail van

  • Ejects man from porn shop

  • Investigates mugging of woman

  • Investigates naked lady running through park

  • Discovers another drunk (or dying?) man in park

  • Investigates destruction of property by crazy girlfriend

  • Investigates burned man (from freebasing?)

  • Investigates intruder who masturbates in elderly woman’s house

  • Investigates man wearing bulletproof vest in backyard dollhouse

I confronted the bully tree

I confronted the bully tree

Movies Watched -- Desert Hearts (1985)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

96 minute running time .. a lesbian love story set in 1959, made in 1985, you know, the Dark Ages… both of the women are hot, but the story wasn’t very well done, you couldn’t really understand how or why they fell in love … I guess it’s just remarkable that this movie was made in 1985 (the Reagan years after all), so it has some lesbian movie cred, er, respectability (based on age). You can give it a miss.

Because she reached in and put a string of barbed wire right around my heart.

Because she reached in and put a string of barbed wire right around my heart.

Movies Watched -- Memories of Underdevelopment (1968)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

In Spanish. 98 minute running time. Sort of an interesting look at post-revolution Cuba from the vantage point of a gorgeous layabout named Sergio … his wife and parents have fled to Miami but he stays in Havana loafing around … I like when the Party people come to “register” his apartment and list his job as “ex-landlord.” After he’s accused of rape, his trial is amusing (“Once I would've been the respectable person and they the offenders.”) … he’s just so disconnected from reality. If you’re interested in Cuban history you should see it, otherwise skip it.

Did you take her to your apartment and have sexual intercourse with her?

Did you take her to your apartment and have sexual intercourse with her?

Movies Watched -- Breaking the Waves (1996)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

159 minute running time which I’d normally say is way too long, but I LOVED this movie … Emily Watson’s performance is … astounding. The first half of the movie is perfect and in the second half things get dark. You have to be a tough guy to watch this, but it’s all good. I have John Farr to thank for recommending this one, as well as Mike Portnoy. This isn’t just a green-go, this goes on my must-see list, the Top 500 list, etc. This is the best movie I’ve seen in a long time.

I’m touching your prick.

I’m touching your prick.