Well, maybe not “goes”,I am too cheap for that (please refer to the title of this blog) but I do watch a lot of movies thanks to my long-time Blockbuster Online subscription. Here are a few movies that recently showed up in my mailbox.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – one of the best movies ever made and one of the very few that I watched more than once. I saw this movie long time ago in Russian, read the book, then watched it here in English several times. One of the more revealing scenes is where Nicholson’s character finds out that many people in the psychiatric ward are there voluntarily, quietly enduring the slow mental torture unleashed on them by nurse Ratched, but never consider leaving. Reminds me of my work: I bitch but I never leave. 5 Oscars well deserved.
In a strange way it also reminded me of another movie I watched recently – Cool Hand Luke – an unlikely hero becomes a legend despite a failure and demise. Women should enjoy half-naked and sweaty Paul Newman. Good ol’movie.
Across the Universe – I didn’t like this movie at first. Maybe because I was treating it as a movie not a musical and when some actor suddenly started belting out another Beatles’ song it didn’t seem natural. After some time I stopped paying attention to the story and was just listening to the songs. Long time ago I knew every Beatles’ song without understanding much more than “hello” and “good bye”. Many years later I still enjoy the music and understand few more words and now my daughter is becoming a fan. The movie has great soundtrack and enough Beatles references to keep you busy. Some songs are paired with visuals that give them totally different context than I previously envisioned, after the movie I read some interesting Beatles’ song trivia. I had no idea… Not a bad movie.
3:10 To Yuma – if the old cowboy movies of your childhood seem outdated and unsophisticated, this is the movie for you. Russel Crowe is great and all the other elements are there to make it a fun and exciting cowboy thriller. You may be surprised that even in such an unlikely place as the old USSR cowboy movies were very popular but they were for some reason made in the East Germany and our #1 Indian was played by a Serbian actor. When you are 10 you don’t seem to pay so much attention to detail and a feather and a headband is enough to be an authentic movie Indian. “3:10 to Yuma” takes cowboy movies to a new level. Very good.
Talk To Me – based on the true story, this move is about the Washington DC talk show host Petey Greene, who rose from ex-con to a popular community leader during race riots of the 1960’s. Don Cheadle shines and makes this movie great. Also I am a sucker for a true-life story. Very good.
Ocean’s 11 (the original), Ocean’s 11,12,13 – I meant to watch these for years and now I did, the original with Frank, Deano and Sammy for some reason is not as light-hearted as the remakes. As a matter of fact one would be hard-pressed to call them remakes, they just borrowed the original idea but the look and the feel of the movie are way different. All three new ones were fun, the original was OK and no happy ending.