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Post by rick on Apr 15, 2020 14:54:49 GMT -5
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Post by erik on Apr 17, 2020 21:17:48 GMT -5
My DVD binge continues: CARRIE: The original 1976 horror/suspense classic from director Brian DePalma, based on Stephen King's first novel, of a tormented high school student (Sissy Spacek) who is eventually forced to use her telekinetic powers against those who have tortured her. Very much a precursor to Columbine and Virginia Tech, the film features early performances by Nancy Allen and John Travolta; but it is Spacek who holds your attention (so much so that she almost won an Oscar for this role). LAWMAN: Highly underrated 1971 psychological Western from English director Michael Winner about a hardened marshal (Burt Lancaster) who is seeking out the group of ranchers who tore up his town in a drunken spree and, unwittingly, killed an old man without taking responsibility. Lee J. Cobb, Robert Duvall, Sheree North, and Joseph Wiseman co-star, but Robert Ryan, one of the most underrated actors in Hollywood history, does an incredible job as the aging, pragmatic sheriff of the town that Lancaster ventures into.
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Post by erik on Apr 20, 2020 19:52:19 GMT -5
Today's COVID-19 Lockdown fare: LOLITADirector Stanley Kubrick's ultra-controversial 1962 film version of Vladimir Nabokov's notorious novel (adapted to the screen by the author himself) of a European professor (James Mason) who makes the dubious mistake of falling for a nymphet (Sue Lyon) who is one-third his age. This may seem tame by today's standards, but it wasn't in 1962. THE OSTERMAN WEEKENDThe final film for director Sam Peckinpah ( THE WILD BUNCH), based on Robert Ludlum's novel of the same name, this 1983 espionage thriller stars Rutger Hauer as a TV news host who has been convinced by the CIA that his three old friends (Craig T. Nelson; Chris Sarandon; Dennis Hopper) are involved in Soviet-sponsored sabotage of America's germ warfare program. Psychological paranoia, and the usual slow-motion violence (though not overtly explicit) result, with a particularly hair-raising episode in a swimming pool.
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Post by Partridge on Apr 20, 2020 22:09:25 GMT -5
I've been watching much TV during the shutdown of the country.
This weekend I watched the entire 6th season of Bosch. I actually prefer TV shows to be presented one episode at a time, so you have time to digest what you watched. But I started watching Bosch and ended up finishing the season in one weekend.
Looking forward to the final episode of The Plot Against America tonight. In fact, I'm going to watch that in the next few minutes.
Recent movies I've watched: Queen and Slim The Invisible Man
And I've been watching some shows on BET: American Soul (about the life of Don Cornelius and the Soul Train TV show) Twenties Boomerang
I haven't been reading any new books but I've kept up with magazines with Apple News.
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Post by rick on Apr 20, 2020 23:49:10 GMT -5
Hi -- Erik, I saw the cover of "The Osterman Weekend" and thought that that looked like Meg Foster so I checked and, yes, that's her!
Last night, I watched the documentary "The Wrecking Crew" (for free!) on YouTube. Am sure you all saw it when it was released but I'm glad that I saw it finally. It felt as if some of the interviews were shot earlier as they were in standard format and then it would go back and forth between HD/widescreen to standard and back again. The interviews with Dick Clark and Cher seemed from quite some time ago. Am guessing to use all of those audio samples that they had to pay a fortune in licensing fees alone.
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Post by erik on Apr 21, 2020 21:57:10 GMT -5
Today's COVID-19 Cinema: THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATEOne of the great political thrillers of the Cold War era, this 1962 film examines the psychological brainwashing of a Korean war veteran (Laurence Harvey) by the Red Chinese, and how Harvey's politically twisted mother (Angela Lansbury) is using it to her advantage in a rather nasty way. Frank Sinatra stars as Harvey's compatriot, who tries to break the brainwashing. Brilliantly directed by John Frankenheimer, and based on the novel by Richard Condon. 10/10. INSIDE JOBCharles Ferguson, whose 2007 film NO END IN SIGHT examined America's failure in Iraq, three years later took on the financial crisis of 2008 that led to a worldwide recession, and how the lack of reforms to come from that recession may make another economic collapse inevitable (nowadays, due in no small part to COVID-19, that may very well turn out to be the case). 10/10.
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Post by erik on Apr 24, 2020 21:30:30 GMT -5
More from the COVID-19 Cinema (LOL): HANG 'EM HIGHClint Eastwood's first truly "American" western starring role has him as a former lawman almost lynched in Oklahoma for cattle rustling by a group of vigilantes, led by Ed Begley, who make the mistake of hanging the wrong man and then not finishing the job. He is thus hired on by the local judge (Pat Hingle) to bring his would-be murderers in for a trial...and maybe even a mass hanging. This 1968 western co-stars Ben Johnson, Bruce Dern, Inger Stevens, and Alan Hale, and has a great score by Dominic Frontiere (the title music became a big hit at the end of 1968 in a Memphis R&B version by Booker T. and the MGs). FROST/NIXONMichael Sheen and Frank Langella go head-to-head in this 2008 Ron Howard-directed film, based on Peter Morgan's stage play, about how the once-frivolous British talk show host David Frost waggled an interview with our disgraced 37th president in the spring of 1977...and won! This film has the genuinely photogenic look of the 1970s, and really captures the era, not to mention both Frost's seeming frivolity and Nixon's faux aura of invincibility.
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Post by rick on Apr 26, 2020 1:52:00 GMT -5
Like a number of shows that are trying to release new programs during the pandemic, "Saturday Night Live" put on its second "SNL ... At Home" episode last night (4/25/20).
This skit made me smile given how difficult it can be sometimes to find what you want at the market --
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Post by erik on Apr 27, 2020 21:08:04 GMT -5
Still keeping on with the DVDs: PASSENGERSChris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence find themselves on a starship headed for a new Earth-type colony 120 light years away...but they have woken up too soon. Well-made science fiction opus from director Morton Tyldum ( THE IMITATION GAME), with Pratt and Lawrence very good as the couple who come together under potentially tragic circumstances, and Michael Sheen as the android bartender Arthur (who looks, not so coincidentally, like Joe Turkel's supernatural bartender Lloyd in THE SHINING). GERONIMO: AN AMERICAN LEGENDWalter Hill ( THE LONG RIDERS) directed this fine 1993 retelling of the legendary Apache warrior Geronimo (with Wes Studi in the title role), and the Army's campaign of subjugating him and his people in the Arizona of 1886. Jason Patric and Matt Damon are the two young Army officers charged with bringing him in, and Gene Hackman (as Brigadier General George Crook) and Robert Duvall (as Al Sieber, the veteran Army scout) co-star.
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Post by jhar26 on Apr 28, 2020 1:47:55 GMT -5
I'm watching the Star Wars movies. Starting with the three prequals, than the three classics from the 70's and finally the three more recent ones, so that you get one continuous story over nine movies. I must admit that it's an incredible experience. I've watched eight now, so one more to go. Leaving aside a few spin-offs which I intend to watch later.
I like Passengers too, Erik. I wouldn't mind being in a space ship with Jennifer Lawrence for the rest of my life. But what man wouldn't?
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Post by erik on Apr 28, 2020 9:01:21 GMT -5
Quote by jhar 26 re. Jennifer Lawrence in PASSENGERS:
It may be as close as she ever comes to making a Kubrick-type film, because, aside from the aforementioned reference to THE SHINING in Sheen's bartender and the look of his interstellar barroom (much like the Gold Room in Kubrick's classic 1980 horror film), PASSENGERS also has a few choice homages to 2001, including that film's cold and seemingly perfectionistic technological and geometrical confines, and its ideas of life and death in the cosmos. I don't think these were totally accidental on either the part of Tyldum or screenwriter Jon Spaihts, especially not after films of recent vintage like GRAVITY and INTERSTELLAR paid homage to 2001 with equally great and successful aplomb.
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Post by germancanadian on Apr 28, 2020 9:07:15 GMT -5
I'm watching the Star Wars movies. Starting with the three prequals, than the three classics from the 70's and finally the three more recent ones, so that you get one continuous story over nine movies. I must admit that it's an incredible experience. I've watched eight now, so one more to go. Leaving aside a few spin-offs which I intend to watch later. I like Passengers too, Erik. I wouldn't mind being in a space ship with Jennifer Lawrence for the rest of my life. But what man wouldn't? Jennifer Lawrence is okay, but I'd prefer Christina Hendricks or Sofia Vergara.
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Post by fabtastique on Apr 28, 2020 10:09:59 GMT -5
I’ve been over watching lots of European cinema and series on Netflix during the lockdown ....
Strangely for the first 3 or 4 weeks I have been busier than usual at work, not all of it pleasant work under the circumstances but in the last couple of weeks it’s gone back to a more normal level.
Working from home is ok by me - my employers are flexible as long as I get the work done and as I’m an early riser I tend to start at 6 / 6.30 and can finish by 2pm .... weather has been so good that I’ve been chilling in the garden enjoying the sunshine before hitting Netflix !
Hope everyone is well 😷😉
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Post by erik on May 1, 2020 18:44:10 GMT -5
Today it was.... SILENT RUNNINGBruce Dern stars as the very determined deep-space botanist out to save the last remnants of Earth's plant life on the Valley Forge out near Saturn, even if it means disobeying orders and killing his fellow crew members. This 1972 science fiction drama marked the directing debut of Douglas Trumbull, the special effects genius behind the Star Gate on 2001, and he managed to make his $1 million budget look more like $10 million. Besides all this, and Dern acting less psychotically than some might want to believe, the film is noted for a music score by Peter "P.D.Q. Bach" Schickele and songs sung by no less than Joan Baez.
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Post by erik on May 7, 2020 19:27:08 GMT -5
Still coping, and watching DVDs, with these two films in their original incarnations ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13John Carpenter's second film as a director (following the 1974 cult film DARK STAR) is this extremely gritty 1976 crime drama in which a soon-to-be-abandoned police station in southwest Los Angeles comes under assault from a multi-ethnic gang known as Street Thunder. Austin Stoker stars as the rookie officer tasked with protecting the remaining personnel and a group of visiting convicts. Something of an urban reworking of the 1959 Howard Hawks western classic RIO BRAVO, this was made for a mind-busting $100,000 (which doesn't even cover the cost of catering on most films these days), and is quite scary, but not overly violent. CAPE FEARGregory Peck is the upstanding small-town Southern lawyer who is faced with a menace from his past: a sadistic ex-con (Robert Mitchum) out for revenge for having been sent to prison for eight years on a sexual battery charge where Peck was a prime witness. Mitchum learned a lot about the law while in jail, and he uses it to force Peck to cross the line and to menace Peck's wife (Polly Bergen) and daughter (Lori Martin). Peck and Mitchum are well-matched antagonists in this classic 1962 combination of film-noir and horror directed by the English-born J. Lee Thompson. Martin Balsam and Telly Savalas co-star, and the menacing music score is by no less than Bernard Herrmann.
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Post by erik on May 8, 2020 18:03:47 GMT -5
Today: PLAY MISTY FOR MEIn his first film as both director and actor, Clint Eastwood stars as a Carmel, California radio disc jockey who unwittingly gets involved with a female fan (Jessica Walter), and, once he gets back together with a former flame (Donna Mills), soon finds out how Walter can react to "bad news"...and it's not good. More or less remade in 1987 as FATAL ATTRACTION, this 1971 thriller is incredibly scary at times; and Eastwood is more nuanced as an actor here than his Dirty Harry/Man With No Name personas might suggest.
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Post by rick on May 11, 2020 2:48:41 GMT -5
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Post by erik on May 11, 2020 8:51:11 GMT -5
That thing in Arkansas strikes me as being...how shall I put this...really dumb.
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Post by erik on May 12, 2020 21:00:43 GMT -5
Meanwhile, back at the DVD player..... SOYLENT GREENSet in the Manhattan of 2022 (which, by the way, is just twenty months from now), this 1973 sci-fi drama stars Charlton Heston as the NYC cop investigating the murder of the chairman of the Soylent Corporation, a food conglomerate that makes cracker-like "food stuff" for the 40 million who occupy the Big Apple. What he finds out at the end about what exactly Soylent Green is is...how shall we say...infamous.
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Post by erik on May 15, 2020 18:24:26 GMT -5
And furthermore.... SPEEDOne of the better high-octane action films of the last thirty years, this 1994 smash stars Keanu Reeves as an L.A. cop battling like crazy to stop a deranged bomber (Dennis Hopper) from blowing up a transit bus as part of a homicidal extortion. The catch is this: The bus's speed can't fall below 50 miles per hour, or the bomb will detonate. Sandra Bullock became a star as the bus passenger who helps Reeves. Brilliantly done action scenes, and a whole lot of suspense in the manner of DUEL and THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE. STRAW DOGSDirector Sam Peckinpah's masterful but disturbing 1971 psychological horror film stars Dustin Hoffman as a mathematician looking to continue his studies by escaping the American campus violence of the time (Kent State, etc.) to the English countryside; but he soon finds that he can't exactly hide forever from what is inside him. The film remains controversial unto this day for the horrific rape scene involving Hoffman's wife (Susan George) that happens halfway through (many critics branded the maverick director a misogynist or a fascist); and the siege at the end still remains very horrifying. Nevertheless, it is a very insightful look at how far some people can be pushed before they are pushed to madness and violence.
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Post by erik on May 21, 2020 18:55:59 GMT -5
Well, for me, it is official:
Our library system here in Pasadena is beginning curbside pickup service on May 27th, and the staff is being asked to come back on the 26th to coordinate assignments. All of our branches will still be closed to public entry; but for all intents and purposes, the lockdown is just about over for me.
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Post by erik on May 25, 2020 23:42:12 GMT -5
Final day of the lockdown (at least this lockdown): SAVING PRIVATE RYANOn this Memorial Day, when we remember all the soldiers who fought in all of the wars America has had to fight, this 1998 Steven Spielberg masterpiece remains a touchstone American film. The opening depiction of D-Day (June 6, 1944) remains true to the actual surviving soldiers' memories of that day when the liberation of Europe in World War II started.
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Post by rick on Jun 26, 2020 0:18:39 GMT -5
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Post by erik on Jun 26, 2020 8:35:46 GMT -5
Here's hoping Jordan can pull it off. Pasadena's doing something similar to that at the Rose Bowl this summer in lieu of concerts and fireworks.
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Post by rick on Jul 3, 2020 5:32:15 GMT -5
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Post by erik on Jul 3, 2020 8:33:28 GMT -5
One wonders how long this can be kept up. I am worried that we will all be going into another lockdown in a matter of weeks because of the spread.
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Post by fabtastique on Jul 7, 2020 9:18:49 GMT -5
I’ve loved being at home but now the novelty is wearing off and I’m slowly venturing out a little more - I’ve been into work a couple of times for a few hours only but realistically not expected back until September / October ....
Hope everyone is still safe and sane !!
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Post by rick on Jul 28, 2020 3:10:57 GMT -5
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Post by erik on Jul 28, 2020 8:46:18 GMT -5
I really don't know what to say about people who do this kind of s**t during this pandemic, only to say that, whether they know it or not, they are potentially committing homicide.
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Post by rick on Aug 19, 2021 4:48:44 GMT -5
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