My 1/2-Ass Movie Blog

 MARY REILLY Julia Roberts, John Malkovich, Glen Close, Michael Gambon. Dir. Stephen Frears, Columbia-TriStar, 1996 On twitter tonight people in my timeline doing one of those film challenges where they post a different movie daily, each corresponding to a different subject, posted on "Movie You Wish You Could Get Others to See."  I spent Sunday watching and analyzing one such, John Dahl's ROUNDERS, but I've already defended it. I'm not part of the game & I don't want to crash their party with a one-off reply. The idea got me thinking, though, of movies that few others like or will even explore though I think they should. In my world that's a list of strange & unlikely titles. Few, however, are as unlikely as Stephen Frears's 1994 Jekyl/Hyde mess, MARY REILLY.  Let me be clear. MARY REILLY is not a good movie. It is not a misunderstood film struggling to find its audience. It is not a new lost classic. (It's not even new. It's 28 years ...

 ROUNDERS Matt Damon, Edward Norton, Martin Landau, John Malkovich. Dir. John Dahl, Miramax, 1998 First things first. I had Rounders pretty much wrong the few times I saw it before today. I thought it concerned things it sort of concerns, but in poker talk I left a lot of money on the table. I didn't see it there, or couldn't see it might be there if I had the right eyes.  I won't say I ever disliked ROUNDERS, or its cast, or even the Counting Crows song playing at the end credits. It's more that I never liked it as much or as well as it deserves.  Placing myself in unearned company, I think I saw John Dahl's gambling movie as Roger Ebert did, a colorful but well concealed Disney sports movie, following all the same plot points any of Team Rodent's inspo-sports yarns do. It's more than possible to see that. It's there. Today, though, I think Dahl knows that story's there & plays to it enough to satisfy our love of triumph-of-the-underdog, but...

SUPERMAN II Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Terence Stamp, Sarah Douglas, Gene Hackman. Dir. Richard Lester, Warner Brothers, 1980 Upon first seeing Richard Lester's 1980 SUPERMAN II, the followup to 1978's SUPERMAN:THE MOVIE, I would have fought anyone who said it wasn't one of the best movie sequels. Though I last saw it around the same time I last saw its predecessor, 20ish years ago, I could not remember last night if I held the same opinion in my 30s as I did in my teens. Today, in my mid-50s, I think it's good, enjoyable fun, but not great, not quite the equal of Donner's film.  In my writeup of SUPERMAN '78 I argue that its ending, sometimes criticized as being ludicrous, is no more ludicrous than the idea that being from a planet with a different center of gravity would give Kal El special powers on earth, or than Jor El's ban on influencing human history when Superman's very existence on Earth does just that, is even possible. SUPERMAN II comp...

SUPERMAN:THE MOVIE Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman, Ned Beatty. Dir. Richard Donner, Warner, 1978 I think Nick Hornby said that pop music must serve more than nostalgia to keep us playing it over & over again. That's true of films, too. Watching Richard Donner's SUPERMAN for the first time in 20 years tonight, I found myself almost as giddy as the 11 year-old me seeing it on a big screen 44 years ago, yet I also found its story still resonant, somewhat to my surprise. Look at the film's gorgeous opening scenes on Krypton, in which Marlon Brando's Jor El warns its rulers the sun will go full nova in days. They retaliate, censuring & silencing him, evoking our leaders' response to Dr. Anthony Fauci or Greta Thunberg & the legion of scientists behind both. Dystopian futures ideally reflect our present in some way, but screenwriter Mario Puzo, with help from Laraine & David Newman & BONNIE&CLYDE's Robert Benton, presents a dyst...

 Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore Timothy Hutton, Judd Hitsch. Dir. Robert Redford, Paramount, 1980 I have been fortunate - I suppose that's the word - to see my story on the big screen. Twice. We talk of identifying with movies, with characters, of moviegoing being our identity, but I never went to the movies expecting to see my life reflected back to me. The second time it occurred, with Jonathan Demme's RACHEL GETTING MARRIED, it at least had the benefit of being about a woman, so I can't get all theatrical about how I totes get Rachel. I don't, but I went home from treatment for family events and man, it looked a lot like that movie. The first time it happened, with Robert Redford's directorial debut, ORDINARY PEOPLE, it was a guy, and that guy, if older than my 13 years, lived a life that looked a whole lot like mine, minus the dead brother. In my case, my brother, my parents' biological son, is extravagantly the favorite, and my Mom & I know the...

 Henry Rollins, Ian MacKaye, Keith Morris, H.R. Dir. Paul Rachman, Sony Pictures Classics As an '80s teen, I loved punk rock. First Wave acts like Sex Pistols and Ramones, hardcore bands like Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and Husker Du - didn't matter to me. If it sounded as angry as I felt, if it moved fast and howled like a cat in heat, if it pissed off my parents or any authority figure close to hand, I loved it and I wanted more. Many of my friends felt much the same but, unlike me, they took it further. Much further. They went to the Jockey Club, a one-time nightclub/casino in Newport, Ky., and hung out, underage, any night there was a punk show, which was most nights. They got into booze, drugs, sex. They ran away from home, got bounced into early treatment cults like Straight, Inc., dropped out of high school, got pregnant, arrested, and in a few cases dead. Not all of them, of course, but the Greater Cincinnati punk rock scene in the 1980s consisted largely of the kids ...

 THE CLINT EASTWOOD COLLECTION A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY HANG ' EM HIGH When I started this blog in January 2021 I had been collecting and writing about movies for about 3&1/2 years on Facebook. Hundreds of those reviews went with other Fb accounts - I had a genius for locking myself out of my own account for awhile - which a friend and I thought I'd be able to easily access and port over to the blog. We were not correct. Though a relatively simple solution likely exists, I've had the blog for six months and I'm not finding it. Which means I'm going to have to replace that content with new writeups. Which means re-watching a lot of movies. If I'm going to do that, I may as well go back to the start and do some writing about the first two years of collecting, when I made Clint Eastwood a primary focus, buying any movie he starred in, directed, or produced. Last week, I watched all eight movies from th...