Movies

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Rusty
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Re: Movies

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245 - The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929) - 6.5/10 - Norma Shearer and Basil Rathbone star in this film about a con artist who works her way into wealthy social circles to try and steal jewelry from them. It was an adaptation of a stage play and it showed. The pacing was pretty slow and the acting somewhat exaggerated. It was watchable, but it wasn't that good.

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246 - The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) - 8/10 - Ramon Novarro stars as Karl Heinrich, a prince who grew up secluded and lonely in his father's castle. His tutor helps arrange for him to go off to Heidelberg for college where he finally makes friends, becomes more outgoing and falls in love with a barmaid named Kathi (Norma Shearer). Ernst Lubitsch directed this silent film and while it isn't as good as Trouble in Paradise or Heaven Can Wait, it is a pretty solid and enjoyable film. It makes me wish again that The Patriot wasn't a lost film.
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Re: Movies

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:810:
247 - Peter Pan (1953) - 8/10 - Disney's animated adaptation is pretty entertaining. Maybe a bit non-PC these days, but still a good movie.

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248 - One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) - 8/10 - Another Disney classic. Very entertaining and certainly much better than the live action version.
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249 - Harriet - 8/10 - I thought that this Harriet Tubman biography was pretty entertaining.

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250 - Jojo Rabbit - 9/10 - Jojo is a ten year old boy who is a member of the Hitler Youth near the end of World War II. He is infatuated with Hitler and swastikas, but is a pretty decent boy overall. His perspective on Nazis starts to change when he discovers that his mother has been hiding a Jewish girl in their house. I thought it was an excellent film.
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251 - Maleficent: Mistress of Evil - 7/10 - The special effects were pretty good, but the story seemed to be lacking somewhat in the sequel. Still, It was entertaining enough.
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252 - Marriage Story - 8.5/10 - Adam Driver plays a theater director who is achieving success in New York. Scarlet Johansson plays his wife, an actress who got her start in his theater company, but is moving to L.A. for a tv show. She files for divorce and what was amicable, becomes heated once the lawyers get involved. I thought it was well acted and very well done.

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253 - Corpus Christi - 8.5/10 - A 20 year old man has become much more spiritual while in a juvenile facility. However, when is released on parole, he finds out that his criminal background means he won't be accepted in a seminary. He is sent to work at a sawmill, but takes a detour to a small local church where he pretends to be a priest and helps the community begin to heal from a tragedy. I thought that the movie was excellent and the performances were excellent as well.

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254 - Bombshell - 7.5/10 - Nicole Kidman stars as Gretchen Carlson in this story about the downfall of Roger Ailes (played by John Lithgow) at Fox News due to sexual harassment. Carlson is fired by Fox News and soon after she files a lawsuit against Ailes. Charlize Theron stars as Megyn Kelly, another Fox News personality who had her own issues with Ailes 10 years earlier and has to decide whether or not to come forward. I've never really watched Fox News, but do remember reading about this story when it happened. The acting was pretty good and it was a decent film.
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255 - Sonic the Hedgehog - 7.5/10 - I've never played the games and have only read a few of the comics, but I thought that this was a fun movie with plenty of humor and action. I've seen the earlier design for the Sonic character and am glad that they redesigned it.

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256 - Guns Akimbo - 7/10 - Daniel Radcliffe stars as a video game developer who likes to troll people on the internet. He gets abducted and forced to participate in an underground death match that is streamed live on the internet to millions of viewers. If he doesn't kill the reigning champion Nix (Samara Weaving), she will kill him. His solution is to try and run away from her, but finds that evading the game is difficult. This isn't a particularly good movie, but it has tons of action and a fair amount of humor and is entertaining to watch.

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257 - Bad Boys for Life - 7.5/10 - Marcus is contemplating retirement, but Mike has no interest in that. Mike's past catches up with him when the wife of a Mexican crimelord escapes from prison and sends her son to get revenge on Mike for his role in her and her husband's capture 25 years earlier. I enjoyed the movie quite a bit and it was a lot better than I thought it would be.
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258 - Jumanji: The Next Level - 7.5/10 - The cast from the previous adventure reunites three years later for another trip into Jumanji along with Spencer's grandfather and his grandfather's best friend. It was fun.

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259 - Terminator: Salvation - 7.5/10 - In 2003, Marcus Wright is executed by the state. He wakes up in 2018 after Judgment Day to find a world he doesn't recognize. He soon meets Kyle Reese and a young girl named Star. John Connor is one of the leaders of the resistance and a plan to attack Skynet is in the works. I thought that it was a decent film.

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260 - The Greatest Showman - 8/10 - I watched this again and enjoyed it just as much as before. It's a fun show.
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261 - The Way Back - 7.5/10 - Jack Cunningham was a star high school basketball player who threw away a college scholarship. He's an alcoholic who works construction now and is distant from his family. He is offered the opportunity to coach his old high school basketball team when their coach suffers a heart attack. Coaching helps turn things around for the team and for himself, at least for a while. I thought it was an entertaining film. Good, but not great.

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262 - Richard Jewell - 8/10 - This biopic covers the security guard who discovered the bomb in Centennial Park at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 and the turmoil that surrounded his life after being falsely accused of planting the bomb. It started a bit slow, but I thought the acting was pretty good and it is a good movie as well.
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263 - Monsieur Lazhar - 8.5/10 - An Algerian refugee in Montreal takes over for a grade school teacher who committed suicide. His time in the classroom helps the students, but also helps himself deal with his own losses. I thought it was an excellent film and the performances by the children and teacher were excellent as well.

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264 - Jonathan Livingston Seagull - 5/10 - A young seagull is cast out of the flock for trying to break the limits of how fast he can fly so he goes his own way. 90+ minutes of seagull footage with voices dubbed for the seagulls gets a bit monotonous. The Neil Diamond soundtrack was okay.
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265 - Joan of Paris - 7.5/10 - Five fliers are shot down over France during WWII and one of them makes his way into Paris to try and arrange their escape. He meets a young woman named Joan who aids him and falls in love. I thought it was pretty good.

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266 - Y tu mamá también - 8/10 - This Mexican film is directed by Alfonso Cuarón and is about two teenage boys who go on a road trip in search of a beach known as Heaven's Mouth. They invite a woman in her late 20s (the wife of the cousin of one boy) and she declines, but later accepts for her own reasons. The film takes place at a time of political unrest. There is sex, drugs and plenty of interesting scenery along the way in a very good film.

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267 - Summer of '42 - 7.5/10 - Hermie is a 15 year old boy spending the summer with his family on Nantucket Island. He hangs around with two other boys his age and the topic of sex is never far from their thoughts. He falls in love with a young woman whose husband soon goes off to fight in WWII, though the love is one sided. It was a decent coming of age tale and is based on a true story.
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268 - No Way Out - 8.5/10 - In his film debut, Sidney Poitier plays a young doctor named Luther Brooks at a mostly white hospital. When two criminals are brought into the hospital with minor gunshot wounds, one of them dies and his racist brother blames Brooks for his death. Brooks wants an autopsy to determine the cause of death, but the dead man's brother won't permit it. The film is an interesting glimpse on race relations at the time as well as a very good movie. Richard Widmark is pretty convincing as the racist brother and Linda Darnell has an important role as the dead man's ex-wife.

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269 - Bulworth - 8/10 - Warren Beatty stars as Senator Jay Bulworth who is up for re-election, but is depressed due to financial problems and the state of politics. He invests in a large insurance policy and then puts out a contract on his life. This leads him to speaking bluntly and adopting a hip hop style of speech and dress. He also becomes involved with Nina (Halle Berry), a young black woman from the poorer side of town. I thought this was a very good and entertaining satire.

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270 - El Norte - 8.5/10 - Enrique and his sister Rosa are Mayans who live in Guatemala with their family. After government troops murder their parents, the two flee north with dreams of living like Americans. They make it to Mexico and then finally to Los Angeles where they find the dream is not as easily achieved as they hoped. They find jobs, but not acceptance. I thought this was an excellent film.
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271 - Roommates - 7/10 - Peter Falk plays a 77 year old grandfather whose son and daughter-in-law die in 1963. He takes in his young grandson and raises him. Twenty years later, it is his grandson's turn to take in his grandfather after being evicted from his apartment. It's not a great film, but I thought it was enjoyable. DB Sweeney plays the grandson as an adult.
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272 - Bloodshot - 7/10 - I thought that this was a decent adaptation of the Valiant comic. The action scenes and story are merely adequate. I might have enjoyed it more than others will since I've been reading the comics since they first premiered 28 years ago. Diesel does a good enough job in the title role.

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273 - Marjorie Morningstar - 7/10 - Natalie Wood stars as an 18 year old Jewish girl named Marjorie Morgenstern who takes a summer job at a girls camp to escape the boyfriend she wants to break up with. She sneaks off with a friend to a nearby resort and becomes involved with the social director, an aspiring playwright named Noel (Gene Kelly). I thought the movie was good, though somewhat pedestrian. Natalie was good in the film and there is a nice supporting cast, but Kelly underwhelmed me a bit in this movie. I loved Ed Wynn as Uncle Samson. Carolyn Jones, Martin Milner and Claire Trevor all had supporting roles.

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274 - Paris 36 - 7.5/10 - This French film has kind of an old feel about it and I ended up enjoying it, though it is a fairly predictable film. A group of aging performers try to save their beloved theater in Paris in 1936, a time when there is a lot of political unrest. An unsavory businessman looks to thwart them using underhanded tactics and also hopes to get his hands on the young ingenue who is their biggest star. Gérard Jugnot was good as the main lead, Pigoil, and the supporting cast was interesting, too. I also liked Nora Arnezeder, who played Douce, the young singer.
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275 - One, Two, Three - 8.5/10 - James Cagney plays a Coca-Cola executive in West Berlin in 1961 before the Berlin Wall was built. He is meeting with three Russian trade delegates to try and expand into Russia and earn himself a promotion. His boss in Atlanta saddles him with the care of his wild 17 year old daughter who has been exiled to Europe to get her away from her boyfriend. Lots of hijinx ensue in this very funny movie. I thought it was hilarious and very well done. The supporting cast is excellent, too.

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276 - The Buccaneer (1958) - 7.5/10 - Yul Brynner stars as Jean LaFitte in this story of how LaFitte and his privateers came to the aid of Andrew Jackson and the city of New Orleans toward the end of the War of 1812 in their fight against the British. There is romance, betrayal, and battles. There are a few big names in the cast, including Charlton Heston (as Andrew Jackson), Charles Boyer, and Lorne Greene. There may not be a lot of truth in this fictionalized version of events, but it was still pretty entertaining.

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277 - The Electric Horseman - 7/10 - Robert Redford stars as a former rodeo star who now does commercials and appearances promoting cereal, but spends a lot of time drunk. When he sees an expensive horse that has been mistreated, he rides off with the horse intending to set it free. Jane Fonda is a persistent reporter who tracks him down while trying to get the story. It isn't a great film, but Redford and Fonda have pretty good chemistry and the movie is a decent road trip/romance.

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278 - Up Close & Personal - 7.5/10 - Robert Redford is well known news director who takes a chance on hiring a new talent (Michelle Pfeiffer). She starts out pretty raw, but improves quite a bit due to natural talent and Redford's guidance. I thought it was pretty entertaining and Redford/Pfeiffer made a pretty good team.
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279 - Odd Man Out - 9/10 - This excellent drama stars James Mason as the chief of the Organization (IRA) in Northern Ireland. His cell has been planning a robbery, but something goes wrong during the getaway and he ends up injured and alone on the streets with the police searching for him. The supporting cast is also excellent and Carol Reed was the director. It is well worth checking out.

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280 - Otello - 7/10 - Placido Domingo portrays Othello in this staging of Verdi's opera. The costumes, sets and acting all seem pretty good. The singing didn't do much for me, but it seemed adequate. This wasn't really my thing, but some will probably enjoy it a lot.

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281 - La Traviata - 7.5/10 - Teresa Strattas and Placido Domingo star in this adaptation of the Verdi opera. I enjoyed this one a lot more than Otello - especially the singing and the rest of the music. The costumes and sets were all very good.

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282 - That Obscure Object of Desire - 8/10 - This French/Spanish film starts with an older man preparing to leave Seville for Paris by train. Just before the train leaves, he dumps a bucket of water over a young woman's head. He recounts the tale of his relationship with this mercurial woman to his fellow passengers. I thought the movie was very good. There is humor, drama and romance along with a number of terrorist attacks throughout the film. The woman was played by different actresses which was kind of interesting.
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