Movies you saw for the first time Febuary

just happened to watch the early Humphrey Bogart movie Black Legion  (1937) on Turner Classic Movies last night. pretty good drama based true incidents about the KKK style group that terrorised immigrants in the industrial midwest in the 1930's. the murder in the movie was based on the 1935 murder of a WPA worker Charles Poole by the group in Michigan. has some scary parallels with modern racist anti-immigrant right wing groups.

about the group style group SHOULD be "about the K K K style group"

A Time to Kill (1996) excellent John Grisham courtroom drama with an all star cast including Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson, Matthew McConaughey, Oliver Platt, Ashley Judd, Kiefer Sutherland, Donald Sutherland, Kevin Spacey, Charles S. Dutton and Patrick McGoohan. it's ma bit long @ 2 1 /2 hours BUT their is no "filler" and it's every bit as good as Grisham's The Rainmaker and well worth watching   

Half Nelson (2006)---must of been one of Ryan Gosling's first films. He plays a drug addict teacher that develops a strange relationship with one of his students...not really my cup of team and probably a sub par movie but you never know until you try. 

Copycat (1995) excellent crime suspense drama with Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter. very well acted and worth watching. it's on the HD Network Movies channel again all day Wednesday Feb 13th. IF you don't have the channel, I think it's worth getting from NetFlix it's that good. both Harry Connick, Jr and William McNamara as seriel killers Daryll Lee Cullum and Peter Foley are scary dudes   

rewatched Phoenix (1998) with Ray Liotta, Anthony LaPaglia and Daniel Baldwin. excellent fast paced crime drama. it's on EPIX again Sunday Feb 10th @ 8:15 am pacific   

 

I liked that movie a lot. I thought dude should have won an award for his acting.

saw the 5 year engagement on HBO, i'm not usually a big fan of Rom-Coms but this made me laugh a few times, it helps to be a fan of Apatow/Jason Segal movies too, good supporting cast too.

Battleship (2012) first half hour is BS and definate "page thru" without wrecking the plot BUT when the aliens finally show up it's pretty much non-stop action. double leg amputee Colonel Gregory D. Gadson, who is still on active duty as commanding officer of the U.S. Army Fort Belvoir Garrison in Virginia, was excellent as the character of Lieutenant Colonel Mick Canales. on the other hand, Rihanna as Gunner's Mate Second Class Cora Raikes was completely miss cast and ridiculous.

the CGI was fantastic and as a Vietnam ere Navy vet I really enjoyed the USS Missouri scenes with the "old salts" taking on the alien "sea machine". I will bet those old geezers really enjoyed filming the movie. overall, ex for the 1st half hour, it's an EXCELLENT SciFi war movie and MUCH more entertaining than recent SciFi's I have seen like Prometheus

the moral in this story is "STOP sending electronic messages into SPACE!!!"

I give it    of three and it's on HBO channels again Sunday feb 10th, Wednesday Fed 13th, Thursday Feb 14th, Sunday Feb17th and Monday Feb 18th

Barb Wire was on last week so I did the DVR routine. Pam Anderson was at her hottest sex symbol peak around the time that movie was shot.

I admit I saw it years ago but wanted to go over it again with the luxury of fast forward.

There are some kinky scenes, and Pam looks really good in her leather sexy outfits.There are some wierd interesting characters that pop up and the movie is off-beat and somewhat clever Not the best movie ever made...but entertaining never the less in its own semi-titillating way with sexy Pam involved in most scenes showing off her assets.

Barb Wire + Pam Anderson + kinky scenes

COUNT ME IN!!!

it was "on last week" WHERE?

The Killing room  2009 thriller  Chloe Sevigny Tim Hutten Nick cannon.

Four individuals sign up for a psychological research study only to discover that they are now subjects of a brutal, classified government program.

Brutal and disturbing movie. It drags a just a bit in the middle but great ending.  Well worth your time to watch it and think after words .

The Sitter (2011) so called "comedy" staring Jonah Hill (the "numbers geek" in Moneyball). a few good sight gags and funny lines but VERY few. pretty much a waste of time

Django Unchained

Pretty awesome. QT never lets me down. Not sure if it's as good as some of his other classics, but was an excellent movie.

don't know IF you have seen Lincoln yet. if you have, my question is "is Christoph Waltz as the character of Dr. King Schultz REALLY better than Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens?" after seeing Lincoln, I thought Jones was a LOCK for Best Supporting Actor BUT he has lost to Waltz in every awards show going into the Oscars.

'Red Lights'

Not sure how I missed hearing about this one..Had Robert Deniro, Sigourney Weaver and the dude that played Scarecrow in the last few Batman movies.

The ending is complete shyt. But it's worth a free watch on Netflix.

Rat, I'll be honest.  I thought Waltz absolutely OWNED that movie.  From my friends I heard a lot of Leo praise, some Sam Jackson praise, even a couple Jaime Foxx and Don Johnson praises, but watching it last night I thought Waltz stole the show.  I'm not even sure why he is up for supporting actor.  IMO he was the lead and carried the film.

But I didn't see Lincoln yet.  I'm home in bed sick and my buddy is bringing me a USB card with Argo, Silver Playbook, and Lincoln on it.  So I should have Lincoln(and every other Oscar flick I haven't seen yet) digested in the next day or two.  I'll let you know what I thought of Tommy Lee Jones as soon as I finish it. 

thanks for the review, glyde69. looking forward to your review of Lincoln. get well soon  

Highly recommend Robert Zemeckis "Flight" great story and sensational acting with a tour de force performance by Denzel Washington. Flight tells the story of William "Whip" Whitaker, an airline pilot that saves a plane and nearly all it's passengers from a certain death. When an investigation is carried out to look into the details of the crash, Whip's troubling lifestyle begins to surface.  This is a difficult movie to sit through. Yet it's tough to decide which is more gut-wrenching, watching a doomed airliner packed full of passengers buckled down in a nosedive headed for near certain death or the central character played by Denzel whose personal life is just as out of control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnVNNR6CEOE

I give it a

Lincoln

Uhh, what a borefest.  Not sure what I was expecting in this movie, but certainly not 145 minutes of Lincoln going here and there and his various methods to get votes for the 13th Amendment.  I realize in the scheme of things that it is a very well written and well acted film(DDL was brilliant as usual), but just bored the pants off me and I am a sucker for anything history.

Rat, Tommy Lee Jones was excellent as T Stevens.  As for whether he deserves the Best Supporting Actor trophy over Waltz, I'm not sure.  I think in the end Waltz just had much more material to work with.  Both were great in their roles, but while Waltz IMO pretty much was the lead and carried Django for 120 of its 165 minutes, Tommy Lee Jones had a much smaller role and had maybe 15-20 minutes of screentime.  Could be why Waltz has been sweeping the awards.....

Silver Linings Playbook

What a cool movie.  I was blind going in so didn't have any idea of the plot and stars outside Bradley Cooper.  First time seeing Jennifer Lawrence(I hear her name all the time) and she was excellent.  A bit of a frump, but she was good.  DeNiro was awesome.  Nice seeing Chris Tucker.  Just a cool original flick. 

Alex Cross - meh was okay fox was a pretty crazy serial killer

Silver Linings Playbook has been getting a LOT of "underdog" press BUT I doubt I will watch it. just sounds "arty-smarty" to me.

as for Lincoln being "a bore fest",  I guess it's what your looking for in a movie. I though it was the BEST acted movie I have seen in decades by all involved.

Without a doubt, Lincoln's acting was incredible. DDL is one of the few guys who can actually "become" who they are playing. Tommy Lee Jones was great. Hal Holbrook. The guy from Boardwalk Empire. Sally Field. JG Hewitt.

All of them were really good, but the movie just didnt grab me.

Rat, give Silver Lining a shot. Bradley Cooper was really good. It was dramatic. It was funny. It was REAL. The very ending was a bit "Hollywood" and formulaic, but doesn't ruin the 110 minutes that proceeded it. IMO deserves all the hype its been getting.

ARGO

Excellent movie. Acting was pretty solid. They did a great job portraying the atmosphere of 1980 Iran and assuming that it is historically correct without too much BS to make it entertaining, it was pretty cool how the "extraction" was pulled off. Tension was decent especially knowing how it ends. Also the slideshow during the credits was a nice little way to end it. Out of the Oscar "hyped" movies so far, definitely my favorite.

Just have The Master, Zero Dark 30, and Movie 43 to watch this weekend and I'm pretty much caught up for the Oscars.