One Missed Call 3: Final. This was awful and dumb. I fell asleep near the end. Honestly only the first One Missed Call movie (directed by Miike) is worth watching.

Icy Breasts (aka Someone is Bleeding) (1974) — Odd at times (mainly a woman giving a total stranger her number after he more or less stalked her), but effective French-thriller with fine performances from Alain Delon, Claude Brasseur and especially Mireille Darc. Pretty sad in the end but worth checking out. ***½/*****

I know though Stanfield was in Sorry to Bother You and decided to give it a chance. I don't watch a lot of TV shows and a movie is a less commitment than watching 10 hrs of a show.

I was not that excited to see this but it was not bad and a good time killer on a Sat night

The Devil’s Advocate Warner Bros BD
Keanu Reeves, Al Pacino. Directed by Taylor Hackford. 1997
An up-and-coming lawyer joins a prestigious law that he comes to realize might be run by Satan.

It’s a clever idea, and I really think there’s enough material here to re-boot it as a streaming series. It’s over-long by about 20 minutes, but I still found it entertaining.


Insomnia Warner Bros BD
Al Pacino. Directed by Christopher Nolan. 2002
A “cop on the edge” is loaned out to solve a murder in Alaska, but soon his “baggage” catches up with him.

This is one of Al Pacino’s better performances; he’s nicely restrained here and keeps the scenery-chewing to a minimum. Director Christopher Nolan is fairly restrained here as well, telling a straight-forward story without all the gimmicks of “Inception” or “Tenet”.

The November Man - Brosnan is good, and Kurylenko is always nice to look at, but the movie doesn't make much sense or amount to anything. (hulu)

The House That Jack Built - It's a Von Trier film. (hulu)

The Chase (1966) - Overly melodramatic film about an escaped convict (Redford) and the small town sheriff (Brando) who is charged with bringing him in. There was a lot going on in this movie that I didn't care a bit about. Worth noting this was the first Redford/Fonda pairing, but Redford is just way too good looking here to believable as a convict on the run. (VUDU)

Alice, Sweet Alice Arrow Video BD
Linda Miller, Brooke Shields. Directed by Alfred Sole. 1976
In 1961, a divorced catholic couple's life is turned upside down when one of their two adolescent daughters is suspected of her younger sister's brutal murder during her First Communion, and a series of subsequent stabbings.

Back in the days of VHS rentals, this was pushed as something of a “Slasher Film”, but it’s not as dependent on “cheap thrills” as that. It’s more of a fairly thoughtful Psychological Horror film. It’s thick with atmosphere and has much the same Italian-Catholic vibe as early Martin Scorsese films. It has a real sense of location and place and it feels like you’ve thrown “actors” (and these are clearly actors “acting” into very real places and locations, if that makes any sense. There are some very effective scenes of suspense and violence, but I couldn’t help wishing the pace had been a little tighter, the tension more effective. As usual, Arrow does a terrific job presenting the film and some meaty supplements.

He Knows You’re Alone Shout Factory BD
Don Scardino, Caitlan O'Heaney. Directed by Armand Mastroianni. 1980
On the eve of her wedding, a young woman and her friends are targeted by a serial killer.

It’s a generally effective low-budget Thriller, which actually fleshes out the characters a bit before killing them off, rather than just presenting them as targets of opportunity. On the downside, the killer is more of a plot device than anything else. The supplements give a good feeling for what the creatives were trying to accomplish here and left me feeling positive about the film.

Basic Instinct Studio Canal 4K UHD (Import)
Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone. Directed by Paul Verhoeven. 1992
A manipulative novelist snares a San Francisco detective with her insatiable sexual appetite during the investigation of her boyfriend's murder.

Excellent presentation of the film. There’s also a retrospective documentary that looks back at the making of film nearly thirty years later that’s very entertaining. Re-visiting the film, I was surprised that it seemed more solid and effective than it was in my memory.

Percy vs. Goliath (2021) - VOD


In terms of David vs. Goliath court battles, there aren't too many lopsided mismatches bigger than a Saskatchewan wheat farmer taking on Monsanto. Undoubtedly, there's an interesting tale to be told about this case...which is why it's so unfortunate that Percy vs. Goliath (aka Percy) is a largely lifeless dramatization.

The movie has elements that can be sensationalized, such as private investigators showing up on farms unannounced, Percy being followed by mysterious vehicles, arguments in court, and Percy reaching for his shotgun a couple of times. These parts of the story can certainly get blown completely out of proportion to give us theatrics that are so common in reality TV. Director Clark Johnson (from The Wire, The Shield, Homeland), though, goes to the other extreme so that the narrative rarely ever takes flight.

Since this case was big news and it's quite likely that anyone watching this movie is familiar with the outcome, Johnson really needed to make this story sing, but instead he delivers a rather flat film that's far too low-key for its own good. Where there should be big dramatic moments, we get anticlimaxes, the most horrendous of which involves the final court decision. Ironically, Percy mentions at one point that he's not fighting a person, like 'Joe Monsanto', but an army of lawyers, which is one of this movie's biggest problems as those people are nameless drones, so Percy's battle is against an abstraction rather than an identifiable adversary.

To be sure, Christopher Walken shows up for the title role although it's a little difficult to picture anyone from Saskatchewan sounding like him. The best parts of the film are when Percy is out on speaking engagements (arranged by a rather self-serving anti-GMO crusader played by Christina Ricci). His connecting with other farmers and people concerned about corporate farming (Big Farma?) give the movie some emotional beats that it's missing otherwise.

Despite the presence of Walken, Ricci, and Zach Braff, this is a made-in-Canada feature (that for reasons I have yet to learn was shot in Manitoba which subbed for Saskatchewan). Having seen my share of Canadian films, I can assure everyone that Percy vs. Goliath is really far from being the most exciting movie ever to emerge from north of the 49th parallel, which is to say that you won't miss much unless you're dying to see what wheat fields in Manitoba look like.

Pacino had a good run of movies in the late 90's and 2001 with Insomnia

Netflx streaming

It expires on July 20 but I know nobody cares

Anything with Riz is worth checking out.

A decent crime thriller drama or suspense movie whatever you call it.

Hulu

A dark comedy

Blood Rage Tubi (Streaming)
Louise Lasser. Directed by John Grissmer. 1987
A young boy commits a gory "impulse" murder at a drive-in and frames his identical twin brother for the crime. Years later the innocent twin escapes from a mental institution and heads home, which provokes the guilty twin to go on a vicious Thanksgiving murder spree.

I caught Joe Bob Briggs' "framing sequences" regarding "Blood Rage" on Shudder (from the series "Just Joe Bob") and it made me want to check it out. It's just awful... but awfully entertaining if you're of the right mind-set. The film appears to be uncut (it's ridiculously gory), and the picture quality is quite good.

Dark Alibi. A 1945 Charlie Chan movie starring Sidney Toler. I thought it was pretty funny, mainly because of supporting actor Mantan Moreland. He was Charlie Chan's Black chauffeur, and he played that bulgy-eyed, cowardly, minstrel show character, but he did it really well. I didn't think it was really all that different from Lou Costello's coward, but Moreland comes with all that baggage. There's a brilliant bit with Moreland and Ben Carter having a cheerful conversation that makes no sense at all to anyone else.

Money Monster - George Clooney basically playing Jim Cramer who's money show gets taken over by a disgruntled investor with a bomb and a gun. It's....fine. I guess my biggest issue is they had to have a "villain" He couldn't just lose his money because of reckless corporate greed, but there also needed to be some malfeasance. (MA)

Guy Pearce shined but it could have been a better movie.

Nice to see that hot redhead pose nude in the chair

TCM - Noir Alley

Honestly discovered Robert Ryan through a lot of these Noir Alley movies and think he's fantastic.

Sing Street - Enjoyable film about a youth forming a band to try to win the heart of an older girl. I thought the basics of the plot were slight and not something you haven't seen done better, but the music made the movie worthwhile. (VUDU)

^ Terrific film. The original songs are absolutely capture an authentic '80s vibe and will be enjoyable for fans of that decade's music. Like many movies of this type where a lot of effort is put into the soundtrack, the story doesn't manage to reach the heights of the music, but in this instance, that gap is much narrower than most films that fall under this category.

42-Up. The next installment of a series which interviews the same people every seven years. Now they're 42 years old, have kids, have settled into careers, and their parents have passed away.

I think this is the best movie of the series so far. Director Michael Apted is no longer trying to create drama out of the situations, or forcing a narrative, but is doing something closer to honest reporting. The people he interviews are uncomfortably honest about how their lives are going. Everyone involved is aware of how interesting the project is, and most of them are willing to make the sacrifices to keep it going.

There was even a feel-good story. In previous episodes, Neil was about two steps away from being living on the streets. Now is wearing a necktie and is on the city council in his borough.

With the story, it felt more like they were checking boxes rather than actually being invested in those stories. But the music is great.

It was not bad but I wanted to love it instead of just liking it

Anything with Richard Jenkins I am game and Evan Rachel Wood sounded like a dude for most of the movie. She succceed in downplaying her looks.

The ending was strange.

I would give it 3 and 1/2 stars out of 5 instead of 4 but give it points for being original and unique and like to see more work from the director.

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 - Saw QT on Kimmel the other night, and it prompted me to rewatch this for the first time in a while. (VUDU)

All-Star Superman - Hadn't watched an animated DC film in a while. Thought this was a little all over the place. (iTunes)

SAS: Red Notice (2021) — Passable but very forgettable action-thriller. I liked the cast well enough but there's really not a whole lot that stands out from the action/fight scenes to pretty one-dimensional characters. **¾/*****

Only $.99 at Directv and it was not all sadness and melancholy

I will never listen to Going to California by Led Zep in the same way.

Ramble On was also featured and wonder how much of the budget was blown on Led Zep songs.