Son of Movies

My sister developed a system of reading books in order and not missing many. A long time ago, she started with the Card Catalog and picked her books in order of the index cards. She said that way she will not miss a good author that otherwise she probably would. But unfortunately, she will not miss a bad author either.

Now I find myself in a similar situation. We belong to the Blockbuster Videos by mail system. We can see as many fast as the Postal Service will deliver them limited to our own available times to sit down and watch them. If we return one by mail they send us another movie from our list the same day they receive it. Plus we get to get two DVDs per month from the Blockbuster walk-in store. I suppose it is possible to see over 15 movies a month. We are seeing about six movies a month. We are just trying to get the most for our money.

There just are not six movies a month that we care about seeing – so, we are picking some we never heard of – maybe because of the actor or the director or maybe subject content. We have picked some excellent unknown movies like that and also some very bad movies. Movies lately:


COLOR OF MONEY, THE with Paul Newman and Tom Cruise. I think this was a sequel of THE HUSTLER. The movie is very realistic. The pool hall reminds me of pool halls we went to Atlanta when I was a teenager. Paul Newman and Tom Cruise were excellent actors in it. Now, I know where Tom Cruise that jumping up and down on a couch on THE TODAY SHOW – himself in this movie. I thought the details and the acting were excellent however the story line was predictable. I knew within a minute after it was clear that Paul Newman (“Fast Eddie”) would be the hustler teacher and Tom Cruise would be the grasshopper that near the end they would have a clash and challenge each other. It was just too predictable.

INTO THE WILD Directed and screenplay by Sean Penn about Christopher McCandless with actor Emile Hirsch. This is based on a true story. A young positive man just graduated from Emory College near Atlanta. He had everything going for him but was obsessed with going into the wild country of the northern states and eventually the best of all wild states, Alaska. He kelp a journal and wrote into it his experiences and the characters he met and that is what the movie is based on. He died in the wilderness of Alaska in an abandoned bus. How did the bus in the middle of hills and a thicket of growth get there to begin with? Who knows? Who cares? That is not part of the story.


RENDITION with Reece Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard You remember Jake Gyllenhaal – he was the other "cowpoke" (if you get my meaning) in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. The investigating officials of the U.S. and I think Egypt believe an Egyptian-American is a terrorist because a known terrorist called him. The suspect was shocked when they told him that. He had no idea why the known terrorist called. It could have been a wrong number. The suspect had lived in the U.S. since he was 14, graduated from NYU, married a WASP (Reece Witherspoon), had a son, and traveled the world – he was an engineer. In this movie the only way they knew how to get information that he said he didn’t know anything about was to torture him. The authorities did not tell his wife they were holding him, he wasn’t allowed counsel – everything we Americans claim as rights. He finally gave them a list of names just to get them to stop electric shocking his testicles. It turned out the names were the names of an Egyptian soccer team that came to the U.S. many years ago (he was a soccer fan).
The movie raises the question just how good is torture interrogation if they will tell you anything just to get you to stop. It seems that kind of interrogation would do more harm than good.
It is the same with the Spanish Inquisition - the people would lie and say they are devil worshipers or anti-Christ, just to be able to get them to ease off on the stretch rack.


TWO DAYS IN PARIS Adam Goldberg and Julia Delpy. It is about two young lovers’ two days in Paris. Their interactions, their quarrels, her affairs, and self-realization. The girl played by Julia Delpy lived with her family in Paris before moving to New York. They are staying with her family. The movie gives a great tour of the back streets and alleys of Paris and a study of their social way of life… this is the 3rd movie that she plays the same self-analysis , same city, and the same kind of dialog and interacting. I guess they sell. psst! I did a google on Julia Delpy and found there are some naked pictures of her out there.