106 minute running time … this was recommended by an old lady named Sunny and I wasn’t thrilled with it, though I do like Walter Matthau and his face … had a 1970s vibe and I was surprised that there were quite a few F-bombs dropped… you can give it a miss.
Antiques in trade
129 minute running time so 40 minutes too long … a Spike Lee movie about life in the projects, drug dealing, violence, crime, desperation, the pathology of Black life … it’s depressing. Non-stop swearing, every other word is the F-bomb, it’s tiring. Harvey Keitel is good as a tough cop. Not fun to watch, esp. the opening sequence which was filled with graphic, crime scene photographs. You can give this a miss.
Yo, shit is mad rough when you livin' in the city
In French. 79 minute running time. A story about degenerate gamblers… it wasn’t terrible, but it also wasn’t very good. What could be worse than playing roulette on the French Riviera, just depressing… Jeanne Moreau has a beautiful mouth but otherwise looked oldz… you can give this one a miss.
Gambled away her little boy…
94 minute running time … the story of Morris Berg, who was a pro baseball player who became a WWII spy … Jewish (non-practicing), handsome, homosexual? (bisexual?), brilliant and not just at throwing a ball from home plate to second base … it wasn’t terrible but I guess in the end the story was sort of underwhelming though they did bring in fog machines and wet down all those city streets … lots of smoking and fedoras … Paul Rudd can learn long strings of foreign language dialogue apparently. This had a lot of A-list actors and must have had a pretty sizable budget… I bet they lost money on it. Rex called it “a juicy true story told blandly .... [with] Sluggish, follow-the-dots direction.”
Post-coital 1940s cigarette
In French. 102 minute running time. Black and white. Heist movie. I wasn’t super thrilled, but it was interesting to see that the chemin de fer scene probably inspired the casino scene in the James Bond movie, Dr. No. There’s also a safe cracking scene using a stethoscope, which made me laugh. High Rolling Bob was a Silver Fox, a tough guy with a soft spot, yada yada … I like the loose morals in these French movies, maybe why they were shocking or popular in 1956 America, assuming you could see it.
No kiddie slaps in French cinema
Sarah Jarosz sings “Morning” … I dig it:
110 minute running time so at least 20 minutes too long … I wasn’t in the mood for this, and I don’t think it would have been very good even if I had been … pointless violence … Malkovich once again as psychopathic killer … Ray Winstone plays Ray Winstone … I was attracted to both of the lead actresses (Lena Headey and Chiara Caselli), but overall I wasn’t thrilled, you can give this one a miss.
Harpsichordist wife
In French. 90 minute running time. I made it about 25 minutes in before quitting, I hated this… only thing interesting was Jean Seberg and her haircut … I can’t stand Godard or any of the French New Wave crap … it’s just garbage … it was terrible then and it’s terrible now. Farr says: “One of the more fascinating and important works in all cinema,'“ but I say spare me…
You make me wanna puke….
101 minute running time … Hitchcock movie based on a Patricia Highsmith story, script by Raymond Chandler … this movie was a winner, a green-go recommended movie … what interested me most was the sexual innuendo and imagery throughout, very risque for 1951 I thought … Farley Granger’s wife says she should have eaten a hot dog first to satisfy her cravings before sucking and licking her soft ice cream cone … Barbara, Ruth Roman’s little sister, distracts the detective by tossing her face powder on his crotch then kneels before him to clean it up, then assumes the doggy position to see him off … these things all made me laugh, Hitchcock was a really horny old bastard for sure. And it is hinted that the villain played by Robert Walker is a homosexual, you know, a sexual deviant … Ruth Roman is absolutely gorgeous, I wondered if she had some Persian or Italian blood, but it turns out that she was a Lithuanian Jew. See this movie for sure if you haven’t already…
Craving hot dogs
Assuming the Position I
Assuming the Position II
Here are my brief stream of consciousness bullet points on episode three (SPOILERS), where the Muldoon family is fleshed out a little:
Harry tails grandma Muldoon the mainland (all filmed in Nova Scotia, not Maine)
She’s taking brown envelopes from guys on construction sites
We meet Percy’s mother, again no Maine accent, teenage mom abandoned baby, has decent second life, “Grandma Muldoon is a tyrant”
Bowdoin College name-checked
We meet Percy’s coke snorting roommate from Portland, chunky, cue Pacino, “cuz she got a BIG ASS”
Are there nightclubs in Portland where kids snort coke on the bar? I doubt it
More mysterious objects arranged artfully in the woods
Bill gets Sonya to come with him to Grandma Muldoon’s
Dinner is pretty weird and awful, two Muldoon brothers don’t get along
Sean was Percy’s teenage Dad
Sean hurt his shoulder working the boats, that’s why he crushes and snorts 600 milligrams of Oxy a day
Show closes with homosexual mouth kiss on the beach, I’m praying they don’t become characters on the show
Whose body is that floating there? You guessed it: not Percy
But tune in next week!
Manager at the Gap, can afford cocaine
