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tomarx7
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Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Seen a few times, very good movie...
This movie is a classic and deservedly remains an icon and one of Paul Newman's best roles by far. However on this viewing and having lived in this country now for almost five decades, I have to point out the inaccuracies in this movie...From what I have learned, the prison system in this country jails disproportionately much more black and Latin men, in this movie, I don't think I saw any evidence of that little nugget. The other interesting thing about this movie, is the most memorable scene with the hot blonde woman played by Joy Harmon...in my memory, she really grinds herself into that car's window while wet and soapy for awhile, on further review, the scene only lasts about three seconds!!! I think they should probably do a remake and extend that scene and play some really great hot and heavy music, or maybe somebody should just make a cool music video with the scene and play it in slow motion for the greatest effect!!! But over all this movie stands up to time and I am actually amazed that they haven't done a remake with Denzel Washington or Will Smith playing Paul Newman's part and Forest Whitaker playing the big dudes part...
The Outsiders (1983)
A classic for the ages...
I read the book when I was around 12 I think in junior high. For awhile I really idolized the whole image of gangs. Then when the movie came out, I was around the same age as the median age of the actors. This group went on to become some of the biggest stars of their generation and Patrick Swayze did great things too. Growing up I was lucky to have grown up in a very nice town, that actually had kind of the same divide between the Preps and the working class blokes. But the people who actually dressed like greasers in my school all mostly came from the right side of the tracks. So it was just an image that was'nt backed by the class and racial divide that the movie hints at.
After growing up I realized that the movies about gangs and violence are so far from the real world sometimes. I've talked to people who were involved in gangs and it does'nt seem like there are ever any fair fights out there hardly and honor among a lot of these groups is just an illusion, that is propagated by the whole entertainment business.
But besides this little quibble, the movie is and will always be a classic!!!
Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)
Wow, what a difference twenty five years can make!
The first time I saw this movie, I was very inexperienced, as far as relationships and everything else. The movie bugged me, I did'nt appreciate it at all. But tonight watching it as someone who has now lived through much of what Peggy Sue did, I totally enjoyed the movie. The main message of this movie is to live in the present, and not to think so much about the future. Unfortunately in our current world, we tend to think about the future too much, to the point of not living in the moment ever hardly. This is why this movie resonated with me so much this time around. But I did find it irksome how old everyone looked, most of the cast were well over twenty playing teens. But their performances were pretty good. I remember really not liking Nicholas Cage for around ten years after this movie, I found his nasally falsetto voice very irritating. Now days he is one of my favorite actors. He still seems to be pretty much a regular guy and that is a quality I think a lot of the stars lose pretty quickly after a certain amount of time at the top.
Saturday Night Fever (1977)
Movie that inspired a generation and more!
When this movie came out, I was a teen and still in school. It seemed like just a simple movie about a simple guy. But it ended up inspiring me and probably millions of people to embrace the nightclub scene. Unfortunately the end result is'nt that positive, most of my friends who are serious club kids did'nt necessarily turn out all that successful.
Ironically the friends of mine that have stayed out of this lifestyle are doing much better than the ones who got seriously enmeshed in it.
But the question you have to ask is who is having a more exciting and fun life? If you can survive the life without turning into a raging alcoholic or drug addled dancing fool, or survive getting into the fights that sometimes erupts, or the potential for car wrecks after you leave the scene, the club scene is a very exciting and fun time.
This movie still inspires and excites many people, but beware! The lifestyle can be very dangerous and the trick to surviving it is the leave a lot more earlier than everyone else and you'll miss most of the dangerous aspects of this lifestyle!
The Departed (2006)
Very confusing plot, but somehow still somewhat entertaining...
I have read quite a few books about the events detailed in this movie. Even with this encyclopedic information at hand, I still found the movie very very confusing and I think it was because they tried to make it an amalgam of all the Infernal Affairs movies and also incorporate the real stories into one coherent story.
The one big noticeable thing that the movie does not cover is how the BPD probably had the most moles working for all the different factions. Since a lot of the BPD are drawn from all the different neighborhoods in Boston, the complexities of their various clan and ethnic loyalties probably deserve a movie of their own.
The acting was pretty good, but I have definitely seen better performances from all the principals in other movies. With a plot so byzantine, their heads must have been spinning trying to keep things straight!
Fast Five (2011)
Pretty entertaining...
Only watching four movies a year at the theaters now, I went to see this movie out of my vestigial interest in fast cars left over after years of owning sports cars and fast cars...
The plot line is pretty much just an excuse for insane chase scenes that defy the laws of physics and just all the other laws out there.
The target audience will enjoy the movie, but this movie did not really bring anything new to the table as far as the cars, it brings in cast members from the previous sequels and does'nt even try to explain the connections.
Besides these little quibbles, I have never seen a movie where they used so little actual real natives. They only used Rio as a backdrop and huge set, clearing the streets almost completely for all the scenes.
But now that I think about it, that was the way all of the movies have been made. Tokyo drifts main Japanese protagonists were all either mixed or Korean!
Year of the Dragon (1985)
Pretty good movie, considering the stereotyping involved...
When I watched this movie the first time, I did get offended by the stereotyping and the white man dominating the Asian theme of so much mainstream movies. But besides all that, now that I watch it a couple of decades later... I grew up in the Boston area too, like a previous reviewer, and spent a good amount of time in the 80's at the college parties and the nightclubs in the area, and so did my cousins. There was definitely a lot of this kind of stuff happening, in fact I sometimes look back at those days and wonder how we survived them. Only one of my cousins got jumped a couple of times by Asian gangs in the course of his college years. One time by Korean gangsters in a Korean club in N.Y.C. Another time at the Palace in August 1988, a local gang jumped him because he tried to intervene, when one of them threw a drink at my back on the dancefloor. Luckily a girl he had dated also happened to be connected to the group and she stopped the melee.
Unfortunately the stereotyping was based on true archetypes, and there definitely was plenty of this stuff happening. The sad thing is now Boston's Chinatown is not nearly as busy as it used to be, because of the continuing expansion of the Asians into the surburban areas, there is now less and less reasons to have a Chinatown in a lot of places.
This movie is basically a snapshot of a time that is thankfully gone and hopefully in the near future, we won't need Chinatowns at all anymore...
Moon (2009)
Great movie for thinkers...
This is the best Science Fiction movie I have seen in a long time. It has bits and pieces of Alien, 2001 and a couple of other science fiction movies. The acting was superb, the plot tight and the premise very realistic. The most unrealistic part of the movie was the robot. By the time we do put a station on the moon, we would not stick a robot that looked like a mobile compactor. If it was a straight man we put on the moon, the android would be female and have all the moves and parts that the dude would need. Or to save some money they would just stick a gay dude up there and build an android with male parts. Which would be the less expensive option probably. Actually I think they would not stick just one person up there, it would just be too boring and all that isolation is a recipe for disaster.
But besides that little quibble, this movie has made my top fifteen science fiction movies of all time...