Netflix Chronicles: 6 more films...

I've been doing my "homework" and keeping up with my little red-and-white envelopes that arrive each week. However, I've been remiss once again in chronicling my thoughts on what I've been watching. Let's catch up, shall we?

Nothing But the Truth is one of those "ripped from the headlines" stories, but it's a damn fine one. It's ostensibly the story of Valerie Plame, the real-life CIA operative outed by the Bush administration, but this version has a number of twists and turns which make the story oh so much more compelling. Writer/director Rod Lurie gets one of the best performances I've seen out of eye candy/sometime action star Kate Beckinsale as the reporter--Rachel Armstrong--who writes the story on soccer mom/secret agent Vera Farmiga. When she's arrested by gung-ho U.S. Attorney Matt Dillon and sent to jail for refusing to reveal her source, Armstrong's life goes to hell, losing her husband and son, and a whole lot else. We learn why at the end she so zealously guards her source  in a neat twist. The film also contains an excellent performance by Alan Alda as Armstrong's attorney. This one is definitely worth a look: it's engrossing, well-written and media-savvy.

Last Chance Harvey pairs the unlikely duo of Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson as a romantic couple. In London for the wedding of his enstranged daughter, Harvey (Hoffman) loses his job and watches his only child being given away by her stepdad (James Brolin). Thompson plays an airport information gatherer who meets Harvey when both are at low tide. It's the last love story for either character and Hoffman and Thompson are so charming--as is wonderful London as a backdrop--that you root for them the entire time.

Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly and Will Smith's son remade the classic science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still. Why, I'll never know. As wooden as Reeves' performance, if you really feel you HAVE TO see this, just rent the original and bask in its 1950s Cold War zeitgeist.

What Doesn't Kill You concerns two small-time career criminals, Mark Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke, both of whom do a long stretch in the state pen. Ruffalo comes out and tries to get his life together, Hawke--his best friend--tries to convince him to stay a criminal, for at least one big last score. WDKY is a bit preachy at times, and comes off like an extended commercial for Alcoholics Anonymous, but it's still a compelling and well-acted film.

Somewhere along the line I got this memory of Peter Bogdanovich's Nickelodeon being a definitive movie about the early days of filmmaking in the United States. There are elements of that thread in it, but boy...is it a stinker. Made at a time when Bogdanovich was the current Golden Boy (coming off The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon, and What's Up Doc?), Nickelodeon features Burt Reynolds, Ryan and Tatum O'Neill, Brian Keith and others in a film that should have been called Slapstick, because that's the road it goes down. The new DVD release contains both the theatrical release (in color) and the "director's cut" in black and white. I chose the latter and probably wasted even more precious minutes of my life that I'll never get back.

Finally, Mickey Rourke was robbed. The Wrestler is a wonderful film, directed by Darren Aronofsky, chronicling the fading career of one of the '80s biggest stars of the ring, Randy "The Ram" Robinson. Reduced to high school gym weekend wrestling matches, sad autograph signings, and a grocery store day-job, Rourke is a tragic figure. Estranged from his only daughter, Evan Rachel Wood, and in love with an aging stripper (Maris Tomei), The Ram's problems are only beginning. All those years of physical and drug abuse are taking their toll. Everyone--especially the frequently naked Tomei--is wonderful, and Rourke should have won the Oscar for this film, not the other guy whom I've already forgotten.

Comments

[Term Paper]

It is utterly right. I admire your thoughts and perception. Hope to see new updates from your soon. Thanks for sharing.

[Pam]

They have done WHAT?
The day the earth stood still
is one of the absolut classic SF
God dam, they REALLY running out of storys...first Pehlam than this...(and others I glady forgot...(for ex. Psycho..)
I think one horror of getting older is seeing you fav movies done again and certainly ruined...so that the next generations will only remember the OH how sweeeet, Kenau Reeeeves and that GREAT actor Will Smith (actor?, those two are as much actors as a bunch of bolied potatoes)

[Shell]

Sean Penn won the Oscar for "Milk," and I was happy about that before I saw Rourke's amazing work in "The Wrestler".

Rourke was robbed.