2005, Acceptable Trash, Chick Flick, Comedy, Detective

Miss Congeniality II (2005)

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From NetFlix:

After her triumph at the Miss United States pageant, FBI agent Gracie Hart
(Sandra Bullock) becomes an overnight sensation — and the new ‘face of the
FBI.’ But when the pageant’s winner, Cheryl (Heather Burns), and emcee Stan
(William Shatner) are abducted, Gracie springs into action with the help of
skeptical, businesslike agent Sam Fuller (Regina King). John Pasquin directs
this girl-powered buddy flick.

Every now and then it is important to watch “acceptable trash”. At the very least I got a few good laughs from the movie. Enough said.

But I get a kick out of seeing TV actors appear in movies, to wit:

  • Regina King was ‘Sandra Palmer’ in 9 episodes of ’24’
  • Enrique Murciano is ‘Danny Taylor’ in ‘Without a Trace’
  • Ernie Hudson was in ‘Bones’
  • Diedrich Bader was in ‘CSI’
  • Elisabeth Rohm is ‘Serena Southerlyn’ on ‘Law and Order’
1984, Could Be Sad, Documentary

The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)

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From NetFlix:

Harvey Fierstein narrates this documentary by Rob Epstein about San Francisco’s
most colorful — and unfortunately, tragic — political figure: Harvey Milk. A
staunch fighter for gay rights, Milk helped forge a presence for the city’s gay
community in city hall, becoming the first openly gay member of San Francisco’s
combative city council. But his life, along with Mayor George Moscone’s, was
cut short by infamous fellow politico Dan White.

The New York Times suggested that before watching the Hollywood ‘Milk’ it might be worthwhile viewing the actual film footage from that era. For an hour and a half you can see for yourself what those days looked like in San Francisco, especially in the Castro. You watch interviews, television newscasts, parades, protests, and above all you get to see the almost always smiling Harvey Milk. At certain points you look at Harvey Milk and see how closely Sean Penn has made himself resemble Harvey Milk. I was impressed by Mayor Mascone (also murdered).

I could see how a jury might sympathize with the young, handsome, sincere, devoted family man Dan White. But the facts show clearly how he plotted very carefully to commit two brazen and deliberate murders. The sight of an immense nighttime candlelight march in memory of Milk and in protest of the extraordinarily light sentence given to White is something you don’t forget. And remember, this isn’t a staged Hollywood extravanza, it really looked that way.

There is NO lurid film footage, no nudity in parades, nada! Because of the unusual issues at stake and footage of the dead bodies covered in sheets being carried out of the building this film is probably not for young children.

I confess I have no memory whatsoever of these events. In 1984 I was working as a software engineer at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman busily raising a family. Kathy doesn’t remember the events either. How important was it ?

Where is Dan White today ? And if this isn’t an invitation for a comment, what on earth is ?

2002, Could Be Hard To Watch, Detective, Redemption, Revenge, Suspense, Violent

The Salton Sea (2002)

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From NetFlix:

Punk-rocking speed freak Danny Parker (Val Kilmer) freelances as an informant for brutal narcotics cops Al Garcetti (Anthony LaPaglia) and Gus Morgan (Doug Hutchison). But when he’s not assisting the cops on drug busts, Danny gets high and leads a double life as a talented, mild-mannered trumpeter named Tom Van Allen. One personality is in search of his wife’s killer, but reality is evasive in director D.J. Caruso’s neo-noir crime thriller.

Welcome to the first of a two-film festival featuring Vincent D’Onofrio who has been called an “actor’s actor”. In this violentissimo!!!!! film, D’Onofrio steals the show as the incredibly psychotic Pooh-Bear. Tell me, did this character lose his nose due to sniffing entertaining substances ?

In theory this is Val Kilmer’s film and he broods well throughout. But low and behold there are small parts for the young Anthony LaPaglia and even younger B.D. Wong. For me, however, the best and most moving supporting actor was Peter Saarsgard as a slow-witted but faithful friend.

We cannot fail to note that “Law and Order” counts D’Onofrio, B.D. Wong, and Saarsgard among its cast. LaPaglia instead appears in “CSI” and of course “Without a Trace”.

Warning: This is an especially brutal film with some disturbing sequences.

1997, British Mystery Series, Detective, Explicit sex, Gritty, Revenge, Suspense

Painted Lady (1997)

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From NetFlix:

Just when everyone thought she was down for the count, lost to drugs and unable to afford anything, Irish folk singer Maggie Sheridan (Helen Mirren) avenges the death of her landlord, who was killed for her vast art collection. Unable to let the criminals literally get away with murder, Sheridan pretends she’s an art dealer and hunts them down. Along the way, she pulls her wrecked life together and even falls in love with a dashing count.

Masterpiece Theater offered this Helen Mirren drama in two parts. Kathy and I needed at least 3 sittings to get through the more than three hours. But it was worth the effort. All the actors, including Helen Mirren, do a wonderful job. At one critical point you think the story is over, but it continues on in a significant way. There are a few murders but the gore (including blood) is minimal. As usual Kathy hid her eyes in the really suspensful parts. See if you can recognize which actor plays the dashing count.

2008, Acceptable Trash, Comedy, Explicit sex, Vulgar

Choke (2008)

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From NetFlix:

With his mother (Anjelica Huston) suffering from Alzheimer’s, medical school
dropout Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) devises a plan to pay her hospital bills.
At high-class restaurants, he pretends to choke, waits to be rescued and then
later asks his saviors for money. In addition to being a con man, Victor is a
sex addict who works at a colonial theme park. This film is based on the novel
by cult literary phenom Chuck Palahniuk ( Fight Club).

Sex is the subject, pure and simple. The film is so vulgar that after awhile you don’t even notice all the sex talk and acts. In fact that is the point: a sex addict learning to really love someone. Nonetheless, you could easily be offended by this film (especially if you are Christian). Just as some contemporary films use violence to a comic end, the sex is so outrageous that it comes across as comedy.

A challenge to anyone who takes a chance and watches this crazy film: at the sexaholics anonymous meetings there is an old man. Without taking a peek at IMDB, do you recognize this actor ? I nearly dropped dead, he has changed so much!

2002, Could Be Hard To Watch, Horror, Suspense, Violent

28 Days Later (2002)

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From NetFlix:

A killer virus (it turns those it infects into homicidal maniacs) is accidentally released from a British research facility. Carried by animals and humans, the virus is impossible to contain and spreads across the entire planet. Twenty-eight days later, a small group of London survivors are caught in a desperate struggle to protect themselves from the infected.

Thanks to Brian St. Pierre (my personal trainer at Cressey Performance) for suggesting this film directed by Danny Boyle. Since this film got an R rating for violence, nudity, language, and gore , it sounds like a winner.

You’ve seen this theme before in several guises: Charlton Heston in “The Omega Man” and Will Smith in “I Am Legend”. The prototypical plot is that most of the world population has disappeared or is fatally inflicted with some dread malady except for one or several protagonists who must reach some safe refuge where there is still hope. And so far this describes “28 Days Later”. But wait … there’s more! Usually reaching that safe refuge is the end of movie. But in this case that safe refuge is only the half-way point. Plot is important and I will say no more.

On the down side there is an awful lot of running and fighting in dark passages with enraged mutants. These scuffles are part of the plot but could be tiresome.

So tell me, if your loved one suddenly becomes infected with this rage and will therefore bite you so that you too beome infected, would you immediately kill that loved one ? Now are you interested ?

1988, Horror, Imperfect, Suspense, Unusual, Violent

Apartment 0 (1988)

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From NetFlix:

Adrian LeDuc (Colin Firth) is a cash-strapped loner eking out a living running
a revival cinema in modern-day Buenos Aires. With interest in classic films waning,
he’s forced to rent out his insane mother’s room to a seemingly harmless stranger,
Jack Carney (Hart Bochner). They quickly become friends, but as Adrian displays
the same problems that plagued his mother, he also begins to suspect his roommate
is a killer. Is he right, or is he just plain mad?

NetFlix suggested “Apartment 0” to me. Since Colin Firth has been good in every one of his movies that I have seen, I gave it a try. Once again Colin Firth comes through well as a very disturbed person. I had not seen Hart Bochner before (or at least never noticed). He has an impressive resume in IMDB. However, I could not decide if his acting was acceptable. The setting is Argentina. Colin Firth speaks an impeccable British. But the American accent of Hart Bochner really grated on me and sounded cheap. Do we really sound that way ? Colin lives in an apartment building inhabited by a strange assortment: transvestites, etc. (If any one of you is a transvestite, my apology). This is one strange, possible flawed film. But its strangeness and the plot forced me to sit through to the really unexpected ending.

1000NYTimes, 100Unknown, 1987, Suspense, Unusual

House of Games (1987)

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From NetFlix:

Psychologist Margaret Ford (Lindsay Crouse) decides to help one of her patients out of a gambling debt. Margaret finds the person to whom the money is owed: slick-talking Mike (Joe Mantegna). Mike, who runs poker games, persuades Margaret to help him look for “tells,” or telltale body language, in a game. She falls for the con and for Mike, becoming deeply involved in his world. David Mamet wrote and directed this psychological thriller.

I was reading an Italian lawyer novel in which the lawyer protagonist mentions that “House of Games” is one of his favorite films. So I gave it a try.

Lindsay Crouse was married to David Mamet. She is a good stage actress. As soon as the film starts you realize that all the actors speak as though they are on a stage, not at all what you expect to hear in a film.

The plot is everything. At the very least you get to learn a few good “cons” just in case you were thinking of going into the business. Eventually it comes down to who is conning whom.

I enjoyed the film, but you are warned that it is very different.

1989, Detective, Not Feel Good, Redemption, Revenge, Violent

Johnny Handsome (1989)

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From NetFlix:

When a heist goes wrong, gangster John Sedley’s (Mickey Rourke) best friend is killed, leaving him alone to take the blame for the crime. But the disfigured crook gets a second chance at life after receiving a brand-new face from a prison surgeon. Ellen Barkin, Elizabeth McGovern, Forest Whitaker and Morgan Freeman co-star in this gritty action drama about one man’s hunger for revenge against those who wronged him.

“The Wrestler” has generated so much noise that I wanted to see a film with Mickey Rourke. First I tried “Rumble Fish (1983)” but did not even want to finish watching it. Rourke seemed to be one of those actors who act by not acting (i.e. he keeps his face still and you credit him, rightly or wrongly, with feeling certain emotions). But I tried again with “Johnny Handsome (1989)” and this 20-year old movie shows the actor in a better light. It’s one of those movies that you want to end in a certain way but you just have to ride it out to see what really happens. No more hints. So far for me Rourke is not a great actor.

Violent, not for children.

1000NYTimes, 1001BeforeDie, 100Unknown, Classic, Could Be Hard To Watch, German, Unusual, Violent

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)

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From NetFlix:

In the mid-16th century, after annihilating the Incan empire, Gonzalo Pizarro
leads his army of conquistadors over the Andes in search of the fabled City of
Gold, El Dorado. As Pizarro’s soldiers battle starvation, Indians, the forces of
nature and each other, Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski), ‘The Wrath of God,’
is consumed with visions of conquering all South America and leads his own army
on a doomed quest into oblivion.

All three film catalogs rave about this film. In fact it is one of a kind, slow, and mesmerizing.

First some history: Pizarro sends a “small” task force to continue down th Amazon to find the City of Gold. The commander Pedro de Ursua and his aide, Lope de Aguirre, take soldiers (always in metal battle gear), one priest, Inca slaves, cannon, horses, and two noble women carried in a covered transport box down the mountain and eventually on rafts in the Amazon. Aguirre murders Ursua in an act of mutiny and forces the others, by force of his homocidal mania, to continue on to find the City of Gold. Much of this we know from the priest’s diary. The end is conjecture.

The marvel is that these poor actors had to live and suffer just as the historical figures did. Werner Herzog, the megalomaniacal director, was a fanatic that insisted on realism. Aquirre, played by Klaus Kinski, is obviously “nuts” from the get-go. At one point Kinski tried to flee the jungle and Herzog brandished a pistol and promised to kill Kinski if he escaped.

Just sit and watch this “happening”. It is slow, beautiful, and unforgettable. Hearing Spaniards speaking in German is admittedly a bit unusual, but there are English subtitles.

Violent, not for children. But a genuine screen classic.