Michael Clayton
I have no idea why I missed this one in its original run and equally no idea how I’ve never seen it, but like so many things the urge arrived at just the right time in my life where I can truly appreciate its world view. I loved it and hope to see it on film at some point in the future. For a slow burn legal thriller this had me utterly captivated from end to end. Good stuff.
The Matrix (1999)
A classic by every conceivable metric (I refuse to even address the awful sequels even if Monica Bellucci is in them). The final 20 minutes of The Matrix might be 20 of the greatest minutes ever put to film.
Jason Bourne - the last one to date.
Definitely once too often to the well, which is a bit of an irony to write that on a Bond board. There really was no more story to tell here and Mr Damon seems to have about seven lines.
Dull.
Yes, what a waste of time…and to think with so much material unused from Ludlum 
AVALANCHE EXPRESS (Mark Robson; 1979)
The last film of Robson and Robert Shaw; both died before the production was finished. Which lead to a seriously flawed, disjointed direction and editing. AVALANCHE EXPRESS has Robert Shaw, Lee Marvin, Maximilian Schell, Horst Buchholz, Vladek Shybal and Mike Connors in its cast; sfx by John Dykstra staging a gargantuan avalanche on a Märklin model landscape; multiple shootouts on a train in deep winter conditions.
All this to its credit, none of it worth a lot. It was done by Lorimar’s film department, based on a Colin Forbes novel, basically a Russian defector flushing out the KGB underground agents in Western Europe and their terrorist buddies in one prolonged train journey from Milan to Antwerp. Or Rotterdam? I forget. Let’s put it this way: logic wasn’t the main goal this film’s script was aiming for.
I have never seen it, am aware of its complicated production history - but I remember the trailer making my younger self very interested back then, so I should give it a chance for pure nostalgia reasons.
I am a sucker for movies taking place in mostly one location, so that’s working in its favor already 
It has a few 70s shots of Milan in winter, quite moody, and their huge cavernous train station. I have to confess it would have interested me more had they shot entirely in Milan.
So this is what I thought of Richard Gere:
charismatic, cocky, mannerisms, one trick pony.
Then I rewatched PRIMAL FEAR and was impressed how nuanced and courageous his portrayal of the main character was.
Next I saw ARBITRAGE and I was floored by his masterful performance which manages to feel lived in and honest, turning another unlikeable character into a human being I felt for and wanted to get away with despite everything he did.
And in THE DINNER Gere completely turned the tables by making one overpowering guy the conscience of the story, stealing the film from Steve Coogan in the leading role with such driving force every minute he wasn’t on screen I missed him.
From here on I dove into Gere‘s films, most of which I had skipped during the last three decades, discovering how he had turned around his career from being typecast as a leading man to playing interesting and more dimensional characters in a lot of independent films. What an impressive body of work, most of which got shamelessly overlooked and neglected by the guardians of prestigious awards. I also found out that in the early 90‘s he got banned from the Oscars for twenty years simply because he mentioned truthfully the plight of the Tibetan people, suffering under Chinese dictatorship.
I can only strongly recommend Richard Gere‘s work in so many great films of the last years: as a man finding himself homeless on the streets of New York in „Time out of mind“, battling grief over a son he did not know he had in „Longing“, getting lost in the web of lies he himself tried to build as a fixer whose best years lie behind him in „Norman“ or as the con man writer in „The Hoax“. Even the glossier mainstream films, the American under suspicion for murder in China-thriller „Red Corner“ and the tragic romance „Nights in Rodanthe“ prove how Gere not only commands the screen through his energy, his rage, his frustration and determination, but how he can find the most subtle shadings even in roles which lesser actors, even stars, would struggle to make interesting.
Yes, I can only underline this: Richard Gere is one of the best and compelling actors of his generation.
Gere is fantastic, as are Laura Linney and Will Patton, in The Mothman Prophecies, a criminally underrated horror/psychological thriller from the early 2000s.
Absolutely agreed. And that finale on the bridge - how was it possible to film that without a mega budget? Totally intense.
Good filmmaking is how it’s possible. Between that, as well as perfectly capturing the look and feel of West Virginia (even though they didn’t film there), and the simple dread the ringing of a phone can deliver, Mark Pellington directed the hell out of that movie.
I wish more studios gave him mainstream work. The Mothman Prophecies and Arlington Road are both films that are completely captivating without needing to spend a zillion dollars on special effects.
I wonder why that film did not get the recognition it deserved.
I think there are a few reasons. The main one is that it’s often thought of as a creature feature, but you never see either of the two entities that are terrorizing the main characters and the town at large. I do wonder how the film would have ultimately been different had they actually shown Indrid Cold in the film, because the way he’s described in the book is terrifying and nothing like the very quick glimpse you get of him (if you’re paying attention) in the film.
Another reason I think is that, while Gere, Linney, and Patton are all outstanding actors, they’re not exactly box office draws that people go to see the film simply because they’re in them. A lot of the horror films of the time banked on younger casts with recognizable names from TV, like the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and House of Wax, and they were also pretty in your face with the action and gore, whereas The Mothman Prophecies is light on all of that and isn’t so much a horror film as it is a story about two men descending into madness and being pushed towards it by supernatural forces that may, or may not, exist. It also leans heavily on an older cast, which bucked the trend at the time.
Yes, even whith his lighter (popcorn) fare like Internal Affairs, First Knight, The Jackal or The Double he is always very watchable and captivating
Maps to the Stars (2014 David Cronenberg film starring Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, Olivia Williams, Evan Bird, Sarah Gadon, John Cusack and Robert Pattinson): We were 10 minutes in and seriously questioning whether we wanted to continue watching. The characters are all that unlikable.
However, the mystery surrounding Mia Wasikowska’s character, Agatha, was enough to keep us interested, so we continued watching. The film’s interweaving storylines reminded me a bit of Magnolia (1999 film also starring Julianne Moore; her self-absorbed Magnolia character shares many characteristics with this one).
Maps to the Stars is an acrid skewering of Hollywood, examining what it does to people (and what people do through that system). It’s not subtle, and it is a David Cronenberg film, so there are scenes of violence. But it was absorbing enough that I’m glad we watched it to the end.
Yesterday afternoon I watched Operation Kidd Brother aka OK. Connery!
It is very strange and curious movie, not all bad, but not great either!
The most strange thing I found was that Neil Connery plays someone who’s name is… Neil Connery! What the heck? And they talk about his brother a few times the great spy… Connery! Not Bond, but Connery! Probably because they couldn’t use the name of Bond and didn’t want to get a battalion of lawyers after them, but it is a very odd thing to just call him by his own real name.
He plays a plastic surgeon annex hypnotist annex lip reader becoming a spy! And that makes common sense, right….right?!
An a lot of people we know from the real Bondmovies:
Daniela Bianchi is the main Bo… eh… Connery girl and she looks absolutely gorgeous, much more beautiful and sexy than in FRWL, maybe it is the longer blond hair and the clothes.
But also ex Bond villian Adolfo Celi, but his face was welknown in the sixties/seventies for Italian movies with an international cast (Ad Ogni Costo/Grand Slam, L’ Homme de Rio, Sandokan etc.), Anthony Dawson (Dial M for Murder, Dr. No, Red Sun, The Count of Monte Cristo), but the most strinking casting is ofcourse Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell. How did Saltzman and Broccoli react to this? I can imagine that they weren’t amused?
Neil Connery is …well.. OK.. but he lacks the charisma and talent of his older more famous brother. The music is also not bad, but especially the maintitles song sounds more that it is for a Spaghetti western and that is not so strange, because the music was composed by Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai, who both made the scores of many Italian westerns.
The German blu ray is good, but not outstanding.
SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (John Badham, 1977)
The soundtrack to this was omnipresent during the end of the 70s - together with that of GREASE and Miloš Forman’s HAIR - and kicked off a string of music/musical/dance films. Strangely enough, while I must have watched most of what came during that brief revival of the genre, in 50 years I never got around to watching this.
From today’s perspective it’s an unapologetically offensive film, not just in its casual depiction of everyday racism, drug and rape culture, but also in its characters who sail perilously close to being unlikeable. Yet it’s just this authentic, often unflattering depiction that leaves these roles their dignity. The film doesn’t betray them by going easy on their prejudices and misfortunes. There’s a lesson for many current writers and directors here.
You can imagine how SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER hit the market like a bomb with its semi-documentary disco subculture theme; probably more shocking - and more influential - than the independent ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW two years earlier. There’s a fascination in the direction, in the small scale ordinary folks, in the choreography of dance scenes that picked up the vibe of the times.
Altogether a cultural snapshot of its day.
Your Purple Heart medal is in the mail. I tried to watch it last week and did not get far at all. It was not my first attempt. I tried 25 or 30 years ago and now suddenly I’m decades older for attempt #2. The moral of the story being: life goes by too fast to waste 2 hours of it on this film.
but the most strinking casting is ofcourse Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell. How did Saltzman and Broccoli react to this? I can imagine that they weren’t amused?
I don’t remember hearing about their reaction, but I can imagine they’d have been miffed as Lois and Bernard were playing essentially the same characters they did in the Bonds, and years later Eon would forbid their lead actors so much as wearing a tuxedo in another film. Possibly it was this film (along with Cannonball Run) that inspired them to police their cast’s extracurricular activities.
I do know Lois said Sean Connery was furious with her and Lee for participating in the film, and apparently had a falling out with Neil, as well. But over time, brotherly love won out between the Connerys and Lois said Sean forgave her, as well. And on the plus side, she was paid better for this than for any of the Bonds she did.
Another interesting bit of trivia: if you think it’s weird having Lazenby dubbed by George Baker for the whole middle part of OHMSS, consider Neil Connery’s voice is never heard at all in “Operation: Kid Brother.”
Another voice I wish we never heard: whoever sang that awful theme song.
For Your Consideration (2006 Christopher Guest mockumentary): Being a comedy, this is a much more lighthearted take on Hollywood than the previous film we watched, David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars. But it still effectively skewers the Hollywood film industry, its media machine and its self-serving Academy Awards.
For Your Consideration follows the filming of a film within a film, Home for Purim, during which three of the actors get wind of Oscar buzz that nominations may be afoot. How poignant it is to see the late Catherine O’Hara. Even though she’s part of the usual stellar ensemble cast, O’Hara shines in her starring role. Watching her character’s fawning desperation to receive an Oscar nomination, and the crumbling of her façade as bitter reality sets in, is an incredibly moving reminder of her brilliance.
(Note: There were several deleted scenes that we wish had made it into the final film.)
My favorite entry in Christopher Guest’s mockumentary series remains Best in Show. There are so many memorable scenes, but the line that still slays me is: “She looks like a cocktail waitress on an oil rig.” 
Oh, thank you for bringing that one back into my mind – and into my ear… 