What's on your Daily Viewing List? (2 Viewers)

[Adam Lenhardt]

Term Life
Originally Released: 04/29/2016
Watched: 08/31/2020
HDX (1080P) digital streaming on Apple TV app, upscaled to 4K via Roku Ultra

Oddly enough, this was the second action-packed crime drama I've seen where Hailee Steinfeld played the estranged 16-year-old daughter of a man many, many people are trying to kill. The other was 3 Days to Kill with Kevin Costner. Both are deeply flawed movies, but in different ways.

This was the softer, more grounded of the two with a lot more time spent on developing the relationship between father and daughter. Vince Vaughn and Steinfeld play well off each other; other thing I took away from the movie was that a really excellent family drama could have been made starring them, with a much better script and without the whole "caught between corrupt cops and a Mexican drug cartel" complication.

The movie is one of the rare 0% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. In a way, it's a movie the highlights the limitation of that site's scoring metric. I agree with the consensus that it doesn't deserve a positive review, but I've seen a lot of movies that were worse. It's a textbook example of a two star out of four film.

It has a couple key things working against it. Probably the biggest thing is how it wastes a really terrific cast. In addition to Vaughn and Steinfeld, it has Bill Paxton as the Big Bad on the corrupt police side and the great Spanish actor Jordi Mollà as the Big Bad on the Mexican cartel side. Jonathan Banks, Jon Favreau, Taraji P. Henson, Terrence Howard, Annabeth Gish, Mike Epps, and Shea Whigham all show up in supporting roles. It's like director Peter Billingsley cashed in every favor he's accumulated over his long career in Hollywood to assemble this cast, and then didn't know what to do with them.

The other thing working against it is that it wants to be a cerebral thriller, but it's being made for WWE Studios. Vaughn and his daughter are supposed to be really smart, but the screenplay has so little trust in the audience that it telegraphs everything so deliberately that the audience is always ahead of the characters. The only surprising thing for me was how few surprises there were; all of the various characters' motivations are established early on, and then the movie never deviates from what the audience knows. To the extent that there's any tension, it's just a question of whether the Mexican cartel will learn what Vaughn's character learns before it kills Vaughn's character.

In short, it's a movie that feels like it was designed to be only half paid attention to on basic cable some Sunday afternoon while the viewer is nodding in and out on the couch.

 

[Dave Moritz]

August 31st, 2020 Monday

The Prodigy
HD Digital upconverted to 4K
Dolby 5.1 upmixed to Auro 7.1

 

[Robert Crawford]

This morning on HBO Max:

 

[bujaki]

Have I the Right to Kill? aka The Unvanquished aka L'insoumis (TCM) 1964. Where was this film all my life? Shown in its original French and OAR, and starring two actors in unforgettable performances: Alain Delon and Lea Massari. Directed by Alain Cavalier and shot in B&W by master Claude Renoir, the film is based on a true story of a kidnapped French lawyer in Algiers; her liberation by her captor; his flight back to France, mortally wounded; the nascent love story between them as he tries to reach his home in Luxembourg, where his mother and child live, where he was happy once. Violent, brutal, touching. the final moments are haunting.
Ashes in the Snow (Peacock) 2018. Lithuanian film (in English and Russian) depicting Lithuanians deported by in 1941 to Siberian labor camps by Stalin's forces as seen through the eyes of a gifted 16-year-old girl. These people are not Jews, so this is not a Holocaust film, but their lives are harsh, and the latter part of the story takes place in the Arctic circle. The film also shows the slow degradation of the human soul when it follows in blind allegiance a leader devoid of moral virtues and stature. Affecting, though it could have been better.
Tumbleweed (Peacock) 1953. Named after the most intelligent creature of the movie: the horse. Nominal lead, Audie Murphy, has to prove his innocence after the wagon train he was leading was massacred by Yaquis. Of course, in true American spirit, the townspeople wanted to lynch him on sight. Anyways, he flees on Tumbleweed and is proven innocent by film's end. He gets the girl and the horse. The horse nudges him towards the girl. Smart horse. Photographed in Technicolor by Russell Metty for producer Ross Hunter, a team who'd go on to greater glory alongside Douglas Sirk. Old transfer with combing.
Streets of Laredo (Peacock) 1949. Technicolor remake of King Vidor's The Texas Rangers, which I saw many decades ago during MoMA's Vidor retrospective. Ray Rennahan provides the fine cinematography hampered by a very old transfer with combing. The 3 Amigos are a personable lot, with Bill Holden and Macdonald Carey standouts as a bad boy turned good, and a bad boy charming till the end. This remake and the original were recruitment posters for the Rangers. Alas, how the mighty are fallen, even in Texas! Oh, the film is actually quite enjoyable.

 

[Thomas T]

 

[Toronto Argonauts]

Tonight :

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Fighting with My Family
Originally Released: 02/14/2019
Watched: 09/01/2020
1080P HD digital streaming on Hulu, upscaled to 4K via Roku Ultra

How do you make a sports movie about the WWE, which is famously staged? You showcase the journey to even make it into the ring as the competition that drives the story.

While the broad outlines of Saraya Knight's evolution into Paige are apparently true to life, this is a WWE Studios production centered around the WWE. While the movie spends a lot of time on the extreme physical demands of becoming a professional wrestler, it avoids the seedier and less reputable sides of Vince McMahon's empire.

Writer/director Stephen Merchant is best known for his very British comedy like original UK version of "The Office", so he wouldn't have been the person I would have guessed would make this movie. But the final product definitely works. The best parts of the film take place in Norwich, a bleak city in the East of England, well north of London. It reminded me a lot of vast stretches of Rust Belt America: a once prosperous place, left behind and long ago forgotten. Merchant strikes a delicate balance depicting the local wrestling scene there; the whole thing is inherently ridiculous, but the movie is careful to laugh with and not at the characters that populate it. All of the actors take their roles seriously; the Knight family is very unconventional, to say the least, but the movie takes the time to understand them, where they come from, and what they're striving for. As Saraya's parents, Nick Frost and Lena Headey present a very loving, functional, and mutually supportive marriage. Jack Lowden gives a deceptively intricate performance as, Zak, the family's golden boy until Saraya surpasses him and leaves him behind.

After her breakout successes in Lady Macbeth and "The Little Drummer Girl", Florence Pugh could have settled into a career of making prestige costume dramas. Instead, she took on this role and completely obliterated the box that casting directors might have wanted to keep her in.

* * *​

Lucy
Originally Released: 07/25/2014
Watched: 09/01/2020
4K UHD disc via Panasonic DP-UB820

It is an oft-stated and widely believed falsehood that human beings only use 10 percent of their brains. Luc Besson takes this idea as his premise and then extrapolates out what would happen if we began to use the other 90 percent.

Anchored by a terrific performance by Scarlett Johansson that becomes gradually less human as the movie rolls on, it is a triumph of Besson's style over substance philosophy.

And the image, particularly in the nature photography that the movie cuts away to from time to time, is absolutely stunning in 4K and HDR.

 

[Robert Crawford]

On HBO Max:

 

[Toronto Argonauts]

Tonight:

 

[Thomas T]

 

[bujaki]

Sierra (Peacock) 1950. Very nice transfer of this Technicolor western shot by Russell Metty. Stars Audie Murphy, Wanda Hendrix, Dean Jagger and Burl Ives (singing quite a number of ballads). Jagger and Murphy have lived in the hills, hiding since Jagger had to flee the town, accused of murdering his partner. Murphy has basically lived a virginal life, so Hendrix is his first contact, besides his mother, with a female. What to do, what to do...I keep thinking, what is it about these nice people who immediately want to resort to the lynching rope? Now it's the lynching gun or rifle. I guess nothing really changes.
Lost Command (TCM) 1966. Anthony Quinn playing a French Basque peasant. Why not? He played Greek, Inuit, Pope...And George Segal plays an Algerian in very heavy makeup. Alain Delon plays the soldier with the conscience who is duped by Algerian freedom fighter, Claudia Cardinale. Mark Robson directs this story of a unit of French soldiers who are demobbed after their loss of Indochina, but are regrouped to fight in Algeria. Exciting battle sequences and brutal episodes that were covered in depth in the magisterial The Battle of Algiers. The film ends while the French are still the masters, but not for long, as history tells us.
Merrily We Go to Hell (TCM) 1932. Pre-code drama well directed by Dorothy Arzner. Solid performances from Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney (she's my June Allyson of the '30s). Very good transfer.
This was the first night of the TCM's Women Directors' Festival. I watched the first part of the documentary series as well. Another film shown, Olivia, I'd seen before. It's an outstanding entry.

 

[Robin9]

Sierra (Peacock) 1950. Very nice transfer of this Technicolor western shot by Russell Metty. Stars Audie Murphy, Wanda Hendrix, Dean Jagger and Burl Ives (singing quite a number of ballads). Jagger and Murphy have lived in the hills, hiding since Jagger had to flee the town, accused of murdering his partner. Murphy has basically lived a virginal life, so Hendrix is his first contact, besides his mother, with a female. What to do, what to do...I keep thinking, what is it about these nice people who immediately want to resort to the lynching rope? Now it's the lynching gun or rifle. I guess nothing really changes.
Lost Command (TCM) 1966. Anthony Quinn playing a French Basque peasant. Why not? He played Greek, Inuit, Pope...And George Segal plays an Algerian in very heavy makeup. Alain Delon plays the soldier with the conscience who is duped by Algerian freedom fighter, Claudia Cardinale. Mark Robson directs this story of a unit of French soldiers who are demobbed after their loss of Indochina, but are regrouped to fight in Algeria. Exciting battle sequences and brutal episodes that were covered in depth in the magisterial The Battle of Algiers. The film ends while the French are still the masters, but not for long, as history tells us.
Merrily We Go to Hell (TCM) 1932. Pre-code drama well directed by Dorothy Arzner. Solid performances from Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney (she's my June Allyson of the '30s). Very good transfer.
This was the first night of the TCM's Women Directors' Festival. I watched the first part of the documentary series as well. Another film shown, Olivia, I'd seen before. It's an outstanding entry.

I'm waiting for Sony to release Lost Command on Blu-ray disc. I'm surprised they haven't already done this.

I've never liked Silvia Sidney either. I was startled when I read Richard Fleischer's autobiography that he'd revered her from a young age.

I watched the Robert Wise The Haunting yesterday. It didn't grip me as intensely as it did the first time I saw it but it's still a masterful exercise in suspense and atmosphere.

 

[Thomas T]

I've never liked Silvia Sidney either. I was startled when I read Richard Fleischer's autobiography that he'd revered her from a young age.

Of course, you don't like Sylvia Sidney because I adore her Clearly our taste in actresses go in different directions.

 

[Bert Greene]

I guess I'm also an odd man out, because I've always liked Sylvia Sidney, an affection that goes back to when I was twelve years old and seeing her hillbilly gal prancing barefoot along a creek in "Trail of the Lonesome Pine" (1936) on a late-show. I still give props to her... the perennially grouchy New Yawk hoyden so adept at playing delicate flowers of femininity, as in "Trail's" rural lass.

I like most of those 1930s starring vehicles she made for Paramount. Particularly, "The Miracle Man" (1932), the talkie remake of the lost Chaney silent, with Chester Morris as leading man. A very affecting film. Sidney's also quite good in "Ladies of the Big House" (1931), a 'womens prison' film that I much prefer over WB's rather tacky "Ladies They Talk About" (1933) with Stanwyck. Offhand, the only film starring Sidney that I don't care much for is the rather stagey and gratingly flippant comedy "Accent on Youth" (1935), opposite Herbert Marshall, whom I also tend to like. But both of their characters tended to annoy me in that film.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I guess I'm also an odd man out, because I've always liked Sylvia Sidney,

Perhaps, Robin is the odd man out as I always like Sylvia Sidney since first watching her on TV showings in the movie you referenced and "Dead End" back when I was a lad in the 1960's.

 

[bujaki]

Starting tonight through Saturday, I'll be spending my days at this site:
cinecon.org
It'll be streaming, FREE, rare films from private collections. See the complete schedule at the link provided.

 

[Bert Greene]

Starting tonight through Labor Day, I'll be spending my days at this site:
cinecon.org
It'll be streaming, FREE, rare films from private collections. See the complete schedule at the link provided.

I've always particularly wanted to see "Lorraine of the Lions" (1925), a Tarzan-like confection, featuring Patsy Ruth Miller, the Hunchback's own Esmerelda. Future silent cowboy star (for Universal) Fred Humes actually plays a gorilla in it, many years before Ray 'Crash' Corrigan went the simian route. I'm hoping my creaky computer can handle the streaming.

 

[bujaki]

Maedchen in Uniform aka Girls in Uniform (TCM) 1931. Amazing film directed by Leontine Sagan, based on a play (Yesterday and Today, written by a woman) that begins with a military fanfare, granite statues of military and mythical heroes, soldiers marching and cuts to girls in uniform marching. It ends with the head schoolmistress receding in shadows, accompanied by the military fanfare, defeated. She is yesterday; the younger teacher and her pupils are today. The film is daring as one of the first to approach the forbidden topic of lesbianism in a sensitive way. The film was recently restored and was shown in its OAR. Kino sells it. Get it. It's a CLASSIC!
Death of a Gunfighter (Peacock) 1969. One of the best films directed by Allen Smithee (cough, cough, Don Siegel). Widmark plays a sheriff, a good one. John Saxon plays an honest county sheriff in brown makeup. The white civic leaders are a corrupt bunch who actually conspire to execute the good sheriff, the symbol of law and order. Oh, those good, decent people...what can one say?
Posse from Hell (Peacock) 1961. John Saxon plays white here and a decent man once more as he teams with Audie Murphy to go in pursuit of 4 bad hombres who terrorized a small town and took with them money and a young woman. Bank robbery, murder, rape...dastardly men, they must be brought to justice. The posse is really ineffectual save for an Indian, who is reviled by the townsmen, Saxon and Murphy. It is a sad, brutal tale that ends on a note of possible redemption. Very good transfer in its OAR.
Showdown (Peacock) 1963. First Audie Murphy film that I've seen shot in B&W (supposedly he was not happy about it). Shot mostly on location with Murphy playing a really decent guy who will do anything to save his buddy's life: go against a dangerous band of criminals, a woman who is tough as nails (but soft inside), and return stolen money to clear everybody's name. Very good transfer in its OAR.

 

[Thomas T]

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The Judge
Originally Released: 10/10/2014
Watched: 09/03/2020
HDX (1080P) digital streaming on Apple TV app, upscaled to 4K via Roku Ultra

It's a cliché in Hollywood that "you can make a bad movie with a good screenplay, but you can't make a good movie without a good screenplay." This movie really puts that theory to the test,

There are a few moments that are really powerful, but generally speaking the script is dreadful. The story feels assembled out of tired and well-worn parts: the amoral big city attorney who must returns to his rural small town roots to rediscover his sense of right and and wrong; the older brother who had a career-ending sports injury; the younger brother with special needs, whose abilities and limitations vary based on the needs of each scene; and so on. Where it ventures off the beaten path, the result is uncomfortable and tone deaf, like when he makes out with his ex's daughter and spends most of the movie thinking she's his daughter -- only to learn that the truth isn't much less icky.

But the movie isn't nearly as bad is it should be based on all of that. That's largely a credit to the immensely talented cast, which is excellent from top to bottom. Robert Downey Jr., Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga, Vincent D'Onofrio, Billy Bob Thornton, Denis O'Hare, Dax Shepard, Leighton Meester, and Ken Howard all elevate the material they're given. Even Emma Tremblay, as the young daughter of Downey's character, spins straw into gold.

It's also a credit to cinematographer Janusz Kamiński, who makes rust belt Indiana look idyllic.

The core of the movie, this father-son relationship shattered by events beyond either of their control, is strong. If it had been executed better, if the material around it were better, this could have been a really great movie. As it stands, it's decent enough but disappointing.