mchl88

This was not nearly funny enough to be a comedy or exciting enough to be a thriller, I was disappointed by this. It's written by the same guy (William Rose) who penned Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (an intriguing drama) and It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (a slapstick comedy) but here the script falls flat and the laughs are just too few and far between (the famous "Emehrgancy! Everybody to get from street!" scene is by far the funniest).

Maybe this was relevant back when Russia was our biggest adversary and not just meddling in our elections, but almost sixty years later it was a bit of bore for me.

There's really not much of a plot to this movie. It's kind of a slice of life of one night following a bunch of kids in the early sixties. The only real "tension" is will the boy (Richard Dreyfuss' Curt) meet the girl (Suzanne Somers)?

The charm here (today, as it was in 1972 when the film was released) is the incredible soundtrack and the awesome Hot Rods. Plus Wolfman Jack's funny banter betwixt songs. And though you wouldn't have known it when the movie first came out, it's amazing today to see so many future stars (Ron Williams, Harrison Ford, Mackenzie Phillips etc etc) in some of their earliest roles.

It's hard to imagine Grease! Or Happy Days without this movie. And without Happy Days we don't get Laverne & Shirley or Mork and Mindy (not to mention Joanie Loves Chachi). Plus, without the success of this movie, George Lucas may not have been able to make his next film (a little sci-fi thing you may have heard of). So the legacy of this movie is pretty amazing.

The film itself is a 6 out of 10 (IMO of course) but I gave it a 7 stars for its impact on pop culture. Definitely worth checking out if you can.

Dad really liked this film. I remember watching it with him as a kid and not really understanding it. 40 years later, while I might have missed some of the symbolism, I think I get the messaging here. For me there are two main takeaways. Sure it would be nice to avoid "adulting" by staying forever young, but even still the burdens of living will catch up with you.

And, war is horrifying.

I like how this movie takes the viewer from the German invasion and annexing of Danzig and then shows the optimism of those (like Oskar's dad) who support the Reich as the Germans won victory after victory early in the war. They'd seemingly backed the right horse and there was reason to celebrate. Until there wasn't. And that for me was the best part of this movie. The random choice they all made of which side to take led either to an early death or one a few years later.

Meanwhile, Oskar's grandmother, the steady rock of this film, just heads back to the potato fields.

There's dark humor in this movie as well as some sexual scenes of questionable appropriateness, and some gruesome destruction. Wish my dad was around now to discuss this with.

This is the 1952 movie, not the Baz Luhrmann film from 50 years later.

Despite the title, and the marketing on the movie poster, this isn't really about the famous Paris club but more of a biopic of artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Jose Ferrer is brilliant in his roles as the artist as well as the artist's father. The fact that he learned to walk on his knees to portrait Toulouse, who suffered from pycnodysostosis which caused his legs to stop growing at a young age, is pretty incredible. It's amazing how movies worked things out long before CGI.

The rest of the cast shines as well, including Zsa Zsa Gabor as singer Jane Avril. I only really know Gabor from seeing her on Johnny Carson in the 70s and 80s where she was still beautiful but a little past her prime. Here she is stunning and, along with that accent, I get why she was a sex symbol back in the day.

Towards the end of this film Toulouse is on his death bed. He's just been informed that his paintings have been chosen to hang in the Louvre which is funny because earlier in the movie he called the museum a graveyard. He then fantasizes that the Moulin Rouge dancers are performing for him one last time. It's a beautiful moment as the film fades to black.

8 stars for me on this one. Very well done.

Like most roasts it was inconsistent. There were some hysterical moments and some boring moments. The professional comics were all pretty good with Nikki Glaser and Jeffrey Ross really standing out. The athletes were ok too with some of them (Julian Edelman and Drew Bledsoe) being surprisingly funny. Ben Affleck was a complete waste of time (what's he so angry about?). Brady's closing was solid!

You can't watch something like this if you're easily offended. As Kevin Hart said in his intro, sometimes you just have to make the uncomfortable comfortable. Not everyone can do that or even wants to and that's ok. But for those who think offending everyone means offending no one, you'd probably enjoy this, especially if Netflix releases a 90 minute edit of the best moments

If you watched it, what are your thoughts?

I never really thought about the families of the guys who ran the concentration camps. That's what this movie was about, showing them trying to raise their kids when just over that wall, Jews are being slaughtered daily. It's a sickening thought for the viewer but apparently the wife and kids seem unfazed.

This was a very slow moving film, attempting to juxtapose the mundanity of family life with the horrors of the holocaust. Except we never see those horrors. They're alluded to from the sounds drifting into the backyard and the conversations we witness (like when one character says, "he won't send them all up the chimney").

I guess the point here is how evil Nazis were. But then we know that. Most of us do anyway. And the problem is holocaust deniers aren't watching a movie like this. I mean, I'd guarantee Kanye hasn't seen it. So yeah, it was spooky and dark and gut wrenching, but it didn't really do much for me.

I'm not a film noir connoisseur (say that three times fast) but for my money this is the quintessential film of the genre.

It's got all the elements: overly dramatic dialogue, tons of shadows, of course in black and white, a diabolical plot that features a coupla double crosses, and plenty of dames.

There's a scene halfway through this movie where the wife and the insurance guy commit the murder at the heart of this movie. When they attempt to escape her car doesn't start right away. She can't get it to turn over. And the viewer finds themselves wanting it to start. I yelled at the screen, "C'mon, start the car!" That moment, IMO is the sign of a great film. Because I shouldn't be rooting for these people. They're murderers and they just killed an innocent man for money. But we do. We want them to escape. And that's great storytelling. Getting the viewer on the side of evil without them even realizing it takes a ton of talent.

9 out of 10 stars for me on this one. I can watch it time and time again and love it even more with each viewing.

If memory serves me correctly (and it may not, I was 12) we (as a family) went to see Grease! At a drive-in theater. But someone must have misread the movie time listings in the newspaper because this is the movie that was playing. We (as a family) stayed and watched it and I remember loving it. I was playing Pop Warner football at the time and falling in the love with the sport so while the romantic part of the storyline probably bored me I ate up the football footage.

I watched it again this morning during my workout. Sure it's completely farfetched, (and I don't even mean the afterlife stuff). I mean, what are the odds that 3 quarterbacks for the same team would die in the same season? Or that someone could but a football team (for $67 million btw) and the deal go through instantly? But all that aside, I still loved it. The cast is amazing, including Jack Warden (who is as good a supporting actor as there's ever been) and Charles Grodin (who is a very underrated comedic actor). And of course Warren Beatty in his prime, has there ever been a handsomer leading man?

This is probably a 6 or a 7 but I'm giving it 8 out of 10 stars and I fully admit that some of that is for sentimentality but isn't all art about what it does to your emotions?

I'm not crying you're crying.

An excellent sports film and the ultimate buddy film, it's hard to believe this was a "made for TV" movie. When it set the ratings record at that time they released it in theaters abroad and even a few here in the states.

It's a miracle we even got the two main actors in their roles. Gayle Sayers actually wanted to play himself but he was still an active player so his schedule wouldn't allow it. In stepped Billy Dee Williams. And James Caan initially turned down the role in order to focus on theatrical films but eventually decided he liked the script so much he'd do it.

Weird how times have changed. The N word is used quite a few times in this movie yet in real life Brian Piccolo actually died of testicular cancer which is only alluded to in the film because "testicule" was a censored word in the early seventies. 60 years later you'd never hear the N word on television yet you can say testicules or balls or family jewels or gonads (etc).

It's weird. This movie kept growing on me till I really liked it in the end.

It started out a little trite. I've seen the "drunken celebrity who makes everyone else's life a pain in the ass" plot before. But Peter O'Toole, who plays Alan Swann (the drunken celebrity, in this case an actor) is endearing. And Mark Linn-Baker, who plays Benjy Stone, the young man tasked to make sure Swanson shows up sober to his TV taping, has just the right amount of "aw shucks" innocence without being obnoxiously sweet. Lainie Kazan, who plays Stone's mother, shines in her limited role, as does Bill Macy who plays head writer, Sy Benson.

But O'Toole (as Swann) is the true star here. He's a gentleman through and through, even if he likes the bottle and the babes a bit too much. His "I'm not an actor I'm a movie star!" rant towards the end is pure genius. He lost the Best Actor Oscar to Ben Kingsley as Gandhi and if it hadn't been for that he would have lost to Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie or my personal favorite from that year, Paul Newman as Frank Galvin in The Verdict. But he certainly deserved the nomination and in a weaker year would have won.

8 out of 10 for me on this one.

Lots of overacting in this movie. And some pretty cheesy special effects (especially by today's standards). And every time Charles Gray was on screen I wanted to yell out "This man has no neck!" (and if you get that reference you're my people).

Despite all that, this was a pretty decent horror movie about a satanic cult trying to recruit some new members. Christopher Lee, who spent most of his career playing the bad guy (usually Dracula) is the good guy here, saving his friend from the dark side (as he says: "I'd rather see you dead than meddling with Black Magic!") while Gray is the antagonist Mocata, the head of the cult.

6 out of 10 for me on this one.

There is no doubt that Stallone and Schwarzenegger changed the movie industry. Whether it was a change for the better or worse is subjective.

The fascinating thing to me is that they were rivals, not only aware of the other bit driven to outdo the other. This led to bigger guns in their films and higher body counts.

I've seen both of their recent documentaries so I was aware of all this, but this interview was still interesting to me. Harvey Levin did a great job of bringing these two icons together and fleshing out their relationship; both the adversarial part as well as the admirational part. The story about Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot was the best part of this interview.

If you grew up like me, watching all the Rambo and Terminator movies, you'll enjoy this interview.

I'm reading a biography about Adam Ant and it mentions his appearance in this film. I'd never heard of it before but was able to find it on the World Wide Web and watched it today.

It's shite. A complete waste of time. It's actually less of a film and more a series of loosely connected vignettes that are at once obscure and nihilistic. There's needless violence and rampant nudity throughout, interspersed with the odd musical performance.

What I'm saying is, it's the perfect Punk Rock Film. Punk music was shite as well. It was imperfect and perfunctory and nihilistic. And just like punk captures the youth of its time at their glorious, angriest best this film captured some of the icons of the British punk movement in their glorious, angriest best, most notably Adam Ant whose beauty leaps from the screen.

Despite the DIY feel of this movie there are some great lines in it, my favorite of which was: "As long as the music's loud enough, we won't hear the world falling apart."

We're coming up on the 50th anniversary of punk's Icarus-like rise and fall. I suspect there'll be a lot of tributes in the next few years about that fact. I wonder if this movie will see a bit of a revival along with it. Whether or not, if you appreciate the era, I'd recommend watching this movie.

You'll hate it, and that's the point.

A friend of mine just started watching The Sopranos for the first time and I encouraged her to stick with it through the first few episodes. I don't think they knew what they were till about halfway through that first season. Even Gandolfini plays Tony differently early on.

I'm learning the same can be said about Jacques Clouseau. I watched the original Pink Panther earlier this week and thought it was just ok. This is the sequel where he is the much more bumbling and his French accent is much more, well, accented. There are way more laugh out loud moments in this one like the whole billiards scene and the "synchronize watches" routine.

Plus we meet Clouseau's assistant Kato and the love interest in Elke Sommer who you can't take your eyes off when she's on screen.

All in all a better film than the original for me.

This isn't Neil Simon's best but Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft's acting lifts this movie above the mundane.

Lemmon plays Mel Edison, who, when we meet him, is already unhappy with his life. But then he loses his job and his apartment is robbed and he deteriorates to the point of a mental breakdown. Bancroft plays his loving and devoted wife Edna who does all she can do to save her husband's sanity.

While the humor is a bit cliched I enjoyed their rapport as well as the exterior shots of New York City from the mid-70s. Plus the quick scene with a young Sylvester Stallone as a pick pocket.

I chuckle at these older movies sometimes because they point out how much times have changed. When Mel loses his job and Edna gets one (for the first time in a while), she comes home from work and cooks his dinner. The guys been sitting around the house all day while she's out working yet she has to get food on the table. Amazing!

6 out of 10 stars for me on this but it woulda been lower without Lemmon and Bancroft's performances.

Not sure if I'd ever seen this one. I've seen plenty of the sequels where Peter Sellers plays Inspector Jacques Clouseau way more buffoonishly, but nothing in this original was familiar so this was probably my first time seeing it.

It was ok. Nothing earth-shattering, but ok. More than hysterical or dramatic, it was interesting as a time capsule of the Swinging Sixties with the fashions and vehicles and of course the perfect soundtrack by Henry Mancini.

Just 6 out of 10 for me on this one. I don't regret watching it but one time was more than enough for me. Now I'll have to revisit some of the sequels and see if they're as funny as I remember from watching them with my dad as a kid.

This was a beautifully shot movie. The cinematography, especially in the cooking scenes, was extraordinary. There wasn't much of a storyline to it, but sometimes tension and plot are extraneous.

If you love food and exquisite cuisine, you'll appreciate this movie. If food is food to you and you think there's too much time spent on simple sustenance, then I suspect you'll find this film tedious and maybe even boring.

If I'm being honest I'm somewhere in the middle. While I appreciate a good meal, I don't think I have a refined enough palate to know the difference between a well cooked meal and haute cuisine. I'm the same way with wine. I know a good bottle from swill, but can I differentiate a good bootle from a great bottle? Probably not.

Anyway, I enjoyed this movie. 7 out of 10 for me.

I'm not a big superhero movie fan so it makes sense that one of my favorite superhero movies makes fun of the genre.

I love everything about this film. Ryan Reynolds' snarky dialogue and constant shattering of the fourth wall is brilliant. Even the violence is funny. I mean he cuts off a dude's head at one point and then bicycle kicks it into another dude's head. That's not just gratuitous, it's hysterical.

And don't skip the closing credits either. There are more laughs there: "You're still here? It's over. Go home! Oh, you're expecting a teaser for Deadpool 2. Well, we don't have that kind of money. What are you expecting, Sam Jackson show up with an eyepatch and a saucy little leather number?

I started this movie as I hopped on the life cycle this morning thinking I'd do an hour spin. 90 minutes later I finally stopped pedaling and then watched the last 10 minutes of this as I cooled down. Which says a lot about this film.

It's a simple plot. Roonie Gill is kidnapped by the Feather family in a case of mistaken identity. The Feathers are currently at war with their neighbors, the Gutshalls (think Hatfield-McCoy) so Gill is literally caught in the crossfire.

It's hard to say what I liked so much about this. Everyone except Gill (and the innocent pigs who are also caught in the middle of the feud) is abhorrent. Even Jeff Bridges' Zack Feather, who's kinda nice to Gill, is still holding her against her will. I think I just enjoyed rooting against everyone, especially in the final faceoff where I was like, good, I hope they all kill each other. And I also loved seeing some of these actors (like Bridges and Gary Busey and Randy Quaid) at the beginning of their careers.

7 out of 10 for me on this. A solid movie that I'd watch again if it came back up on TCM.

I enjoyed this movie for a number of reasons.

Lauren Hutton is stunning.

Alan Alda will always be Hawkeye Pierce to me but I do enjoy seeing him in different roles.

The players. For authenticities sake they used a lot of actual NFL players in the film, and they did not embarrass themselves (especially compared to how much Alda's George Plimpton does on the football field). Most notably Alex Karras who would go on to a respectable post-playing acting career.

Did I mention Lauren Hutton? Hubba hubba.

Nostalgia. It was fun to look back on football in the late 60s. It was just emerging as America's number sport, slowing taking over from baseball as America's true pastime. There are similarities to today's game but vast differences as well. And the fact that the Cardinals' tight end was Jackie Smith gave me quite a chuckle. Any older Cowboy fan should understand why. Plus seeing the goal post in the end zone (which comes in to play at the end) was interesting.

Speaking of the end, I loved it. Rudy is one of my all-time favorite sports films and as time wound down on the exhibition game with the Cardinals I was expecting a Rudy type finale. Paper Lion provided the exact opposite. And it was a hilarious ending.

Growing up, there were no cooler books than S. E. Hinton's books. And no cooler actor than Matt Dillon.

While I preferred The Outsiders over this, it's still a captivating story and the movie is very cool in a neo-film-noir sense. And as always with Hinton's stories, everyone's got a cool name/nickname (Rusty James, Smoke and of course, The Motorcycle Boy).

Francis Ford Coppola directs an amazing cast that includes Dillon, Mickey Rourke, a gorgeous Diane Lane, his nephew Nicolas Cage and Chris Penn (all in the prime of their youths). Plus there's Dennis Hopper who, like his Hoosiers character, can't seem to kick the bottle. And if that weren't enough, Tom Waits doesn't get nearly enough screen time as Benny, The Barkeeper. Add to that a trippy soundtrack from Police drummer Stewart Copeland and this movie is very unique and worth watching.

Saw this when it first came out and loved it. Aaron Sorkin writes such crisp and witty dialogue and David Finsher directs at such a breakneck speed. Plusthe soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross simply adds to the intensity. And in his limited screen time, Justin Timberlake steals the show.

I don't really care how much of it is true. It's a great story of ruthlessness and conniving and that's the enjoyable part. You want to hate everyone involved but you also have to admire their foresight. Maybe Zuckerberg did just start this whole thing to impressive an ex-girlfriend, but you can't deny he changed the world.

This was really really good. The acting and the writing were just spot on and incredibly intense, especially in the second act.

There's a scene where Sidney Poitier skips work to spend the day in a bar and his mother (the incredible Claudia McNeil) goes to find him. She stands next to him glaring at him and he lowers his head in shame. Without a word said there's so much emotion in those few seconds, it's just amazing. I rewound it three times because I was blown away by it.

What I loved about this movie is that it would been easy to make Poitier's Walter Lee Younger a perfect character. But he's not. He's the kind of man who will skip work to drink a day away. And risk his sister's education money on a risky business venture. Which doesn't mean that he and his family don't deserve to live in a "white" neighborhood. So when the local community watch group offers them more money NOT to buy the home they want, it's a true dilemma. Take the money and stay with "their own" or buy their dream home? That's the collision that propels this film forward and its resolution is very satisfying.

I don't give a lot of films a 9 star rating on IMDb but this one got it from me. I loved the characters (even the squirrely white guy who comes to make the family an offer they probably shouldn't refuse) and their familial relationships. And Poitier shines here in the lead role, displaying an incredible range of emotions as masterfully as anyone could. And as if to prove that the latent racism this film attempts to comment on was alive and well, Raisin in the Sun failed to land even one Oscar nomination. I'm sure all the pictures and performances of 1961 that did get a nod were incredible, but how a movie like this could be completely ignored by the acamdey is unfathomable.

We watched this movie yesterday while making Easter dinner. I've seen it produced on stage everywhere from Broadway to local theaters but I think I'd only ever seen the film adaptation once before. I'd completely forgotten that they shot it in and around New York City in the early 70s so besides the awesome music and retelling of Jesus' life from the Book of Matthew, it was a travelogue of my beloved city from my childhood. IMDb has an almost complete list of where all the scenes were shot so even the few I didn't recognize I was able to identify.

I posed the question last night of which people prefer: this or Jesus Christ Superstar. I'm going to split the baby and say I prefer the first act of Godspell and the second of JCS. Godspell is better at the happy, fun part of Jesus' life (his parables and teachings) while JCS captures the horrors of the trial and crucifixion more passionately.

8 out of 10 for me on this one. Highly recommended.

I saw this when it first aired as a Movie of the Week on ABC in 1976. I already knew John Travolta as Vinnie Barbarino from Welcome Back Kotter but little did I know he was about to star in two of my all time favorite films. Nor did I know anything about his strange and tragic on-set romance with Diana Hyland (who played his mother in the film). I just remember enjoying the movie.

As I did this week.

The movie itself is pretty good, especially if you judge it on a made-for-TV scale. The cast is superb, including Mike Brady (Robert Reed) as the ever-caring father (he knew his strength) and Glynnis O'Connor who I also just saw in Ode to Billy Joe. And the story line is emotional if a little forced at times.