Last movie you watched......

The mention of Seven above reminded me of a movie I had never seen before until recently. I'm a fan of the late Roy Scheider and watched The Seven-Ups. A lot of similarities to The French Connection. When Bill Hickman appeared, I figured I was in for a heck of a car chase. Not as good as the ones in Bullett and TFC, but not bad.

 

I recently finished Erik Larson's book on the sinking of the Lusitania. They had cracked the Germans code in WWI, too, and could intercept and decipher all the "wireless" communications sent, incuding from the submarines.

Of course, they never acted on any of the intelligence (including warning or escorting the Lusitania when they knew a sub was right in the waters) because they were afraid the Germans would figure out they had the code.

Which is a sad Catch 22.

 

A Walk In The Woods

OK, not as good as the book. The screenplay deviates quite a bit from the plot of the book, but it really had to for the sake of continuity.

Redford, blah, starting to look like a dried up prune.

Nick Nolte - uh, wow, very good performance, and he looks like shit. All bloated up, big nose, alcoholic looking puffed up shit. His part was originally planned, by Redford, to be played by Paul Newman, but Newman's schedule and later on health (cancer) kept him from being able to play the role. Nolte did a great job with it though.

The film has its funny moments.

First film in awhile that I have seen on the big screen. 20 fucking minutes of previews. The new Spielberg movie with Tom Hanks sounds interesting - Bridge of Spies or some title like that. All the others, meh.

 

Sadly, there are a lot of examples like that in the war-time intelligence arena.
If you make a pre-emptive move in every instance, the enemy knows you have their info and can adjust.
You have to pick and choose, which means knowingly allowing casualties that could be prevented.
I'm glad it's not a decision I have to make.

 

Haven't seen it ye, because it isn't out, but I'm pretty fired up for The Martian after reading the book.

I started reading Sunday after lunch and finished it that night. The plot and pacing is incredible and based on the trailers, Ridley Scott has made a version faithful to the book.

But, yeah, Scott as the director and that cast, I just don't think there's anyway it could be a dud.

 

Saw "The Intern" last week with my wife and my parents. I was pleasantly surprised I enjoyed it. Thought I would hate it.

Ending sucked, though. And while the funeral scene was funny in parts, it was unneeded and pretty much unexplained. I know they had a date set up for Saturday and the funeral was on said Saturday, but you'd think they could have rescheduled.

And one of the four interns brought it was shown at the beginning and never again. He was "Token" for our South Park friends.

And that Anne Hathaway's character seemed to be OK with making up with her husband and keeping their marriage together even though he had an ongoing affair seemed bizarre. Surprised there hasn't been more uproar about it. ... However, did read one review that bashed the movie for that very reason (although the reviewer liked other parts).

 

Mickey Rooney as upstairs Japanese neighbor was horrific on many levels and the only stain on a great movie.

 

I was wtiting about Breakfast @ Tiff.

 

Mad Max: Fury Road
Really fun action movie. I imagine the actual script was 20 pages and the rest was story boarded. The redhead, I read later, is Elvis Presley's granddaughter.

 

Well done. In fact, Miller actually had the storyboards completed before the screenplay was written.

 

That bothered me, too. This is supposed to be a smart, successful woman, but she's a complete mess. Didn't she pretty much admit one reason she was staying with the husband was fear of dying alone?

 

Had the same reax when I watched it for the first time recently. I mean, that had to be blatantly offensive even then, no?