Movies, Mom & Me

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  Commentary:  Under construction.
    In 1998 Roger Ebert wrote an interesting and thoughtful retrospective of Akira Kurosawa's work. If you're a fan, it's a great place for suggestions of other Akira Kurosawa movies to watch and contemplate.
    

  Actor	Role	Actor	Role	Actor	Role	Actor	Role
  Toshirô Mifune	Kingo Gondo	Tatsuya Nakadai	Insp Tokura	Kyōko Kagawa	Reiko Gondo	Tatsuya Mihashi	Kawanishi
  Kenjiro Ishiyama	Chief Det Taguchi	Isao Kimura	Det Arai	Takeshi Katō	Det Nakao	Yutaka Sada	Chauffeur Aoki
  Tsutomu Yamazaki	Ginjirô Takeuchi	Takashi Shimura	Chief of Investigations	Susumu Fujita	Mgr of Investigations	Yoshio Tsuchiya	Det Murata
  Jun Tazaki	National Shoes Publicity Dir Kamiya	Nobuo Nakamura	National Shoes Design Dep Dir Ishimaru	Yunosuke Ito	National Shoes Exec	Kamatari Fujiwara	Incineration Worker

  
    Here's a link to the Wikipedia write-up of the film.
    Release Date: 1963
    Directed by Akira Kurosawa.

Labels: akira-kurosawa, Criterion5, neo-noirA, police-procedural, tatsuya-nakadai, toshirô-mifune

# posted by gail @ 19:16    0 comments    email......this post

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  Commentary:  Under construction.
  
  
  
  
  
    

  Actor	Role	Actor	Role	Actor	Role	Actor	Role
  Al Pacino	Det. Will Dormer	Robin Williams	Walter Finch	Hilary Swank	Det. Ellie Burr	Maura Tierney	Rachel Clement

  
    Here's a link to the Wikipedia write-up of the film.
    Release Date: 2002
    Directed by Christopher Nolan.

Labels: al-pacino, christopher-nolan, neo-noirB, police-procedural, psychological2, robin-williams, thriller2

# posted by gail @ 01:14    0 comments    email......this post

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  Commentary:  Under construction.
    This film was remade by Christopher Nolan, starring Al Pacino, and released in 2002, to excellent reviews.
    

  Actor	Role	Actor	Role	Actor	Role	Actor	Role
  Stellan Skarsgård	Jonas Engström	Sverre Anker Ousdal	Erik Vik	Bjørn Floberg	Jon Holt	Gisken Armand	Hilde Hagen

  
    Here's a link to the Wikipedia write-up of the film.
    Release Date: 1997
    Directed by Erik Skjoldbjærg.

Labels: §3, neo-noirB, police-procedural, thriller2

# posted by gail @ 17:24    0 comments    email......this post

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  Commentary:  I just added this movie to my collection today, 8/25/21. I haven't watched it yet but I don't think I'll be disappointed. I'll report back within the next few hours, or days, depending.
    It should be noted that this movie was written, produced and directed by Edward Norton and stars him, as well. This is one of the reasons I wanted to add it to my collection, since I'm becoming interested in Edward Norton's work. The critics were impatient with, and mostly downgraded their reviews because of, its length. The length of a film never bothers me, unless it's because it wasn't well edited, which no one accuses this film of being. As well, according to Wikipedia, Edward Norton's "personal engagement" with this film is immense, and, might I add, compelling to me, at least.
    

  Actor	Role	Actor	Role	Actor	Role	Actor	Role
  Edward Norton	Lionel Essrog	Bruce Willis	Frank Minna	Gugu Mbatha-Raw	Laura Rose	Alec Baldwin	Moses Randolph
  Willem Dafoe	Paul Randolph	Bobby Cannavale	Tony Vermonte	Cherry Jones	Gabby Horowitz	Michael K. Williams	Trumpet Man

  
    Here's a link to the Wikipedia write-up of the film.
    Release Date: 2019
    Directed by Edward Norton.

Labels: §1, edward-norton, neo-noirC, police-procedural, willem-dafoe

# posted by gail @ 13:08    0 comments    email......this post

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  Commentary:  Here's a movie that had me so puzzled I watched it two and a half times, then looked online for a full, detailed summary of the story (linked to the title, above) in order to understand the the movie. Turns out, I was wrong about the identity of the man in chains and a jump suit being shuffled down the hall at the very end of the film who turns and smiles at Detective Bobby Gold. I thought that guy was the librarian, but it was the man at the beginning of the movie who had killed his wife and kid(s) [Did he have one kid or more?] and promised to tell Gold the nature of evil. Which makes more sense than my misunderstanding.
    For another take on the movie here's Roger Ebert's four star review. Frankly, I kind of have a feeling that men, in particular (versus women) have a special place in their hearts for the kind of hard biting male-to-male drama David Mamet incorporated in this film, and some others.
    Clearing that up, however, didn't really change my understanding of the bulk of the movie. Bobby Gold is a human who is stuck between a birth identity he didn't know he carried and a work/life identity he thinks he understands but doesn't. He thinks the two are intertwined in a way that they aren't, and doesn't really understand how they are intertwined until after he's more or less taken out of commission from his work/life. When he understands that the intertwining has nothing to do with him or his Jewishness, well, at the end of the film the camera catches him in the discomposure of being stunned.
    There are Mamet scripts I enjoy more than this one. This film is a hard row for me to mentally hoe. There are Mamet scripts that I think I don't understand because I'm not male and women suffer different identity crises than men. This movie is one of them. Glengarry Glen Ross is another. But I can say I loved the content and delivery of the dialogue, the extraordinarily clean presentation of Gold's internal conflict and the surprise ending, a double surprise because I had to amend my understanding of the entire film once I correctly identified the prisoner being walked down the hall. To certain death.
    Wow. Makes me want to watch Glengarry Glen Ross again and piques my curiosity about American Buffalo.
    

  Actor	Role	Actor	Role	Actor	Role	Actor	Role
  Joe Mantegna	Buddy Gold	William H. Macy	Tim Sullivan	Ving Rhames	Robert Randolph	Natalia Nogulich	Chava
  Vincent Guastaferro	Lt. Senna	J. J. Johnston	Jilly Curran	Lionel Mark Smith	Charlie Olcott	Rebecca Pidgeon	Rebecca Pidgeon

  
  
    Here's a link to the Wikipedia write-up of the film.
    Release Date: 1991
    Directed by David Mamet.

Labels: coming-of-age2, Criterion2, detective1, mystery2, police-procedural

# posted by gail @ 20:17    0 comments    email......this post

• 
  Commentary:  Under construction.
    This movie was originally listed in the post Movies I've Seen, Do Not Own but Can't Forget. I own this movie, now. Here is the commentary I wrote for it in my wish list post: "Okay. This is yet another of my juicy fetishes. I love the story: corruption galore, even within the best of the characters. Laurence Fishburne: come on, how can you resist this character of his?!? [How can you resist anything done by Laurence Fishburne?!?] And Goldblum's rendering of Jason, and the way the pair plays off one another, oh, my, my! This movie, for me, falls into the same category as the Equalizer movies and the John Wick movies. Although I enjoy all of them, I have to say, I favor this one because the character is not squeaky clean, like Washington's McCall, nor is he on a sacred rampage, like Reeves' Wick. In fact, at the end of the movie, you are left wondering about the content of Stevens' character. I can't help but think that Fishburne, Goldblum and their fellow actors had loads of fun making this movie."
    

  Actor	Role	Actor	Role	Actor	Role	Actor	Role
  Laurence Fishburne	DEA Agt. Russell Stevens Jr./John Hull	Jeff Goldblum	David Jason	Yvette Heyden	Nancy Jason	Charles Martin Smith	DEA Agt. Gerry Carver
  Victoria Dillard	Betty McCutcheon	Gregory Sierra	Felix Barbosa	David Weixelbaum	Chino	Glynn Turman	Russell Stevens Sr.
  Arthur Mendoza	Anton Gallegos	Clarence Williams III	Dt. Taft	Roger Guenveur Smith	Eddie	James T. Morris	Ivy

  
    Here is the Wikipedia write-up for this film.
    Release Date: 1992
    Directed by Bill Duke.

Labels: Criterion2, dramaD, laurence-fishburne, loose-cannon-cop, neo-noirB, police-procedural, violence3

# posted by gail @ 12:37    0 comments    email......this post