A pretty good month's viewing all told. A trip to the cinema with my better half and a fair few films and TV series enjoyed on the small screen in my front room.
Into the Wild is
a 2007 American biographical drama survival film written and directed by Sean Penn. It is an adaptation of the
1996 non-fiction book of the same name by Jon
Krakauer based on the travels of Christopher
McCandless across North America and his life spent in the Alaskan
wilderness in the early 1990s. The film stars Emile Hirsch as McCandless with Marcia Gay Harden and William
Hurt as his parents and also features Jena
Malone, Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn, Kristen Stewart, and Hal
Holbrook.
Hal Holbrook was
nominated for an Academy Award. I did kind of recognise his younger self from
the old days of black and white television growing up.
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During the Cold War, an American lawyer is recruited to defend an arrested Soviet spy in court, and then help the CIA facilitate an exchange of the spy for the Soviet captured American U2 spy plane pilot, Francis Gary Powers.
Tuesday night and a trip to the local library theatre with
my wife. I’m not a massive Tom Hanks
fan, but I’m slowly thawing towards the guy after this and his performance in Captain
Phillips, a year or so ago. We
both really enjoyed this and were gripped pretty much throughout all 2 hours
and 20 minutes. Spielberg directs,
the Coen Brothers wrote it and it’s
based on a true story and a few years from the life of American lawyer, James B. Donovan.
Defending Abel initially somewhat reluctantly, the film
follows the trial, the appeal and Donovan’s subsequent negotiation of Abel’s
exchange for a downed US pilot held by the Russians and a hapless American
student, caught the wrong side of the Berlin Wall.
You can find out more about James B. Donovan here. (Wikipedia)
A few years
later, he was involved in negotiating the release of nearly 10,000 held by Fidel Castro in Cuba after The Bay of Pigs fiasco.
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| I read the book last year and felt I should make the effort to watch the film, especially as it was quite controversial at the time. I think it was banned for the best part of 20 years. Total ban? I doubt it, but probably some cuts were made. My copy was the uncut version and I can see why it caused a stir. Susan George's character gets raped, but halfway through she seems to start enjoying it. Interesting to see a young Dustin Hoffman in action and also to note the marked differences between the book and the film. There was a remake of this Sam Peckinpah 1971 classic a couple of years ago, but I haven't seen it. I may look it up at some point in the future. Gordon M. Williams - The Siege of Trencher's Farm (1969) |
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| I think my youngest daughter chose this one from Netflix on a Saturday night and in truth you can do a lot worse than a bit of Sly and Arnie on a Saturday evening. Best film with either of these two? Probably not, but there was enough going on. Stallone goes undercover to test the fallibility of prison security, only one this latest job he gets set-up. I'm always happy to see Vincent D'Onofrio rock up in a movie and he entertains just as much as these two heavyweights. |
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| Episodes 3 to 5 with the finale of Shetland airing early in March. Based around Ann Cleeves' Jimmy Perez character. Much shenanigans revolving around witness protection, murder, drug dealing, rape, the Glasgow underworld and corruption. Sorry I missed the two previous series. |
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| A rainy Saturday afternoon in February, no kids around, just me and the wife, and this one popped up on the small screen. Initially trying to ignore it, I found I couldn't, so put the book down. A 1995 film starring Richard Dreyfuss as a struggling composer who goes into teaching and finds his vocation. A tad sentimental, but hey I wasn't the only one with a bit of grit in my eye at the end. I do like Dreyfuss, I kind of think he's under-rated as an actor. Make up was amazing, because when we start the film he's young and pretty much unrecognisable. |
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| Two hours of my life, I'll never ever get back. WTF! I love De Niro, I like Freeman, I like Douglas mostly, I'm indifferent to Kline. What we couldn't understand was who this film was aimed at. Youngsters - nope. Older men? Do they go to the cinema as a group. Women? Hardly. Kind of like an Inbetweeners for geriatrics. Four childhood friends grow old separately, but meet intermittently. Unresolved issues affecting two of the friends come to the fore at Douglas' last fling, old man bachelor party. Thank God we don't have Smellovision, because this absolutely stunk. We nearly aborted after an hour twenty, but decided to tough it out. Did it get better? Nope. |
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| BOOM - who doesn't like Clint as Harry Callaghan? Early 70s flick, first in the series. Seen it before, but a loooooooong time ago. Happy to watch it again. Did I feel lucky punk? Yep. Keeping my eye out for the next few in the series to turn up soon hopefully. |
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| A remake from a year or two ago. Michael Keaton and the dude I first saw last month in RUN ALL NIGHT - Jake Kinnaman and Gary Oldman star. Pretty good and I enjoyed it just as much as the original. |
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| I've had this on DVD for a year or so and decided to watch when my kids were out, fearing it would be a bit too slow for them. Well it was pretty pedestrian but in a good way. I had to concentrate which was no bad thing and ended up watching it over a couple of nights. Very, very good. Philip Seymour Hoffman is superb. A real shame he's passed. Time to dust off the John Le Carre book which this came from. |
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| I was oblivious to this until my wife mentioned it. We watched all 10 episodes over a couple of weekends and were absolutely hooked. A true crime documentary filmed over 10 years. Steve Avery gets exonerated after serving 18 years for a rape he didn't commit. In the middle of a massive civil case for damages, he's thrust into the spotlight when a women he had an appointment with disappears and her vehicle is subsequently discovered on the 40 acre Avery family scrapyard. Avery and his nephew are arrested for murder. Very strange with lots of odd happenings. Probably biased towards the defence, but I'm still scratching my head at "American justice"....appalled, outraged, disgusted, but unsurprised! Recommended viewing. |
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| I'm starting to warm to this Hanks fella. Seen before but it was on when nothing else was, so we enjoyed. |
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| A month's viewing would be incomplete without a bit of action man Jason Statham. Sylvester Stallone wrote it. Statham is a former DEA agent whose past comes back to haunt him when he crosses paths with local meth-cooker and crime kingpin James Franco - someone I last remembered seeing as Harry in Spiderman. I'm sure he's been in lots more, I just haven't noticed. Statham does what Statham does best - he cracks heads and protects his daughter. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| Interesting adaptation of a case I can pretty much remember the headlines from. Not a massive fan of American sports, I knew OJ more from his acting in Naked Gun. Only two episodes from seven watched so far. Cuba Gooding Jr and John Travolta star, along with some chap from Friends - David Schwimmer. Travolta's face looks like it's been set in cement. It is his character, or has he had a treatment or ten too many? I am enjoying seeing Sarah Paulson from American Horror Story again. |
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A decades-old rape and murder case still haunts a retired court investigator in this Oscar winner for best foreign language film from Argentina. But perusing the facts again as the basis for a novel, the investigator unlocks memories and emotions that many hoped would remain buried. Not just a taut thriller with a hackle-raising, twisted moral climax, director Juan José Campanella's polished adaptation of Eduardo Sacheri's bestseller is also a tale of unrequited love and a damning indictment of Argentina's past military junta. Campanella (a director of US TV shows like House and Law & Order) draws out beautifully shaded performances from his regular star Ricardo Darín as the investigator, whom you really cannot take your eyes off, and Soledad Villamil as Darín's former boss, and the action zips through multiple time zones while never slacking in thematic resonance. A brilliantly staged chase scene through a Buenos Aires stadium during a soccer match is a suspense highlight in this intelligently touching spellbinder.
A bit of a punt taken when recording this late on a Saturday night. I watched it the following afternoon with my wife and really enjoyed it. Amazing story, superb acting. How do I feel about the ending......fair play, he got what he deserved.
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Not too sure how many episodes this is, but it's at least two and I've only seen the first so far. An interesting start, a lively bunch of lads on a hunting trip in a remote part of Scotland - not all of them survive the first night as the gamekeeper from hell doesn't appear intent on taking too many prisoners.
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Ending the month on a bum note, a film with Liam Neeson and Antonio Banderas. Neeson believes he has the perfect marriage, but he doesn't. I'll admit I missed possibly a crucial bit or two when I made a cup of tea. Cut a long story short. His now dead wife was playing away with Banderas, a con-man and janitor. Something his wife leaves clues for him to discover after her death - I think. WTF would you do that for? Initially Neeson wants to find Banderas and kill him, but eventually they become friends. I'd have stuck with Plan A myself. My wife enjoyed this, my daughter pretty much ignored it - her phone was more interesting, I wished I hadn't bothered.
Ah, you've had some good viewing, Col! I saw Bridge of Spies a few months ago and adored it. It really is a fine, fine film. And I liked Into the Wild, too, actually.
ReplyDeleteMargot, Bridge of Spies was excellent. Really engrossing, I deliberately didn't find out too much about it in advance. Into the Wild was very good as well, I just really felt sad for his family and friends TBH, more than I did for him.
DeleteLots of good films here, Col; some of which I have seen, others like "The Night Manager" and "The Other Man" I want to see. I didn't care for "Last Vegas." I thought Freeman and Kline redeemed the film for the other two. I'll also be looking out for "Bridge of Spies" and "Straw Dogs."
ReplyDeleteI'd hesitate to recommend THE OTHER MAN, my wife loved it, my daughter and myself - not at all. Do you get BBC TV series eventually in your part of the world? THE NIGHT MANAGER is a 6 or 7 parter airing on the BBC at the minute
DeleteBest bit of LAST VEGAS was the closing credits I reckon.
BRIDGE OF SPIES - definitely worth seeking out!
You watched a lot! We're watching and enjoying Night Manager too. I saw Mr Holland's Opus when it first came out, had forgotten all about it. I would like to see Bridge of Spies. And one of my friends has been very funny about the awfulness of Last Vegas, and her annoyance with her other half for making her watch it!
ReplyDeleteRe LAST VEGAS, I just don't get who the film was aimed at TBH and the cast aren't exactly thruppence-ha'penny actors either. I can't believe it made any money.
DeleteTHE NIGHT MANAGER is very good, we're an episode behind in our house at the minute. BRIDGE OF SPIES is worth making the effort to see, I reckon.
You watched tons of movies. We watch mostly TV episodes on DVD. I want to see Bridge of Spies soon. I have mixed feelings about Tom Hanks but this seems like a good movie. We did watch The Secret in Their Eyes a while back and I want to read the book and then re-watch it.
ReplyDeleteI'll look forward to hearing how you get on with BRIDGE OF SPIES.
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