The Movies I Watched in October

11.22.63 2016  7/10

 

12 + 1 1969  5/10 

45 Minutes From Hollywood 1926  5/10 

Amrum 2025  7/10

 

The Battle Royal 1916  5/10 

Below Zero 1930  7/10

 

Big Business 1929  8/10

 

Dark Winds. Season 1 2022  7/10

Dark Winds. Season 2 2023  7/10 

 

Detained 1924  5/10

The Egyptian 1954  6/10 

Ercole al centro della Terra 1961  6/10 

Escape From New York 1981  8/10

 

The Flying Deuces 1939  6/10 

Frankenstein 2025  7/10

 

Golf 1922  5/10 

Hard Eight 1996  7/10

 

His Day Out 1918  5/10

His Wooden Wedding 1925  6/10 

Hop to It! 1925  5/10 

House of Guinness 2025  7/10

 

Is Marriage the Bunk? 1925  5/10 

Isn't Life Terrible? 1925  5/10 

The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case 1930  6/10 

Love and Duty 1916  5/10 

Mud and Sand 1922  5/10

The Music Box 1932  10/10

 

My Father, the BTK Killer 2025  6/10 

One Battle After Another 2025  7/10

 

Oranges and Lemons 1923  5/10 

Our Wife 1931  6/10 

La petite Lise 1930  7/10

 

The Rent Collector 1921  5/10 

Scram! 1932  7/10

 

The Servant 1963  7/10

 

Shanghai Express 1932  7/10

 

The Show 1922  5/10 

Something in Her Eye 1915  5/10 

Starvation Blues 1925  5/10 

Strange Days 1995  7/10

 

Twins 1925  5/10

The Wizard of Oz 1925  5/10 

The Woman in Cabin 10 2025  5/10 

New Stuff: Great Expectations

 

Gwyneth Paltrow

 

Gwyneth Paltrow

 

Gwyneth Paltrow

Hush (1998)

A young bride becomes the emotional pawn of her controlling mother-in-law.

A standard and fully predictable plot with an unconvincing ending is hardly redeemed by good performances.  

Not really worth the second viewing...

Halliwell (no star): ""Dire, risible domestic melodrama with action and sex asides, from a rock bottom bestseller. It long outstays its welcome even for unintentinal hilarity."

Maltin *1/2: "Viewers could read a novel watching this "thriller" and still not miss anything. Lange appears to believe doing Blanche Dubois all over again."  

Contagion (2011)

Healthcare professionals, government officials and everyday people find themselves in the midst of a worldwide epidemic as the CDC works to find a cure.

Realistic, grand-scale and star-cast catastrophe movie manages to keep multiple stories and locations  seamlessly in line with the major plot; however, the matter-of-fact approach underplays the doom of a pandemic.

Maltin***: "Pulse-pounding account...Scott Z. Burns' screenplay is scary  because it's all so credible. Soderbergh handles the material in utterly straightforward fashion; there's no poetry here."

Gwyneth Paltrow

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

An estranged family of former child prodigies reunites when their father announces he is terminally ill.

Elaborately produced and obsessed with details, the story itself hardly goes anywhere, and the star cast is treated like pawns in a game of chess.

Halliwell*: "The fun here lies in the details - dalmatian-spotted mice, battered taxicabs, the elegant pages of an imaginary book - rather in the disjointed narrative, which sets the scene deftly and then collapses."

Maltin**1/2: "Rambling comedy has the same likable, eccentric qualities as the filmmakers' BOTTLE ROCKET and RUSHMORE and benefits from Hackman's savvy performance, but strains for effect and essentially has no story."

Gwyneth Paltrow

ph: Mario Testino

Proof (2005)

The daughter of a brilliant but mentally disturbed mathematician, recently deceased, tries to come to grips with her possible inheritance: his insanity.

There are many kinds of insanity, but the makers of this movie chose the enervating kind; and don't expect to learn anything about mathematics, they didn't either.

Maltin***: "David Auburn's challenging, provocative, and cerebral play (a Pulitzer Prize winner) is well translated to film by director Madden, with fine performances all around."

Gwyneth Paltrow

ph: Steven Meisel

Hush (1998)

 

A freshly married couple moves to the husband's mother on her estate who has other plans about her son's marriage.

A standard and fully predictable plot with an unconvincing ending is hardly redeemed by good performances.

Halliwell (no star): ""Dire, risible domestic melodrama with action and sex asides, from a rock bottom bestseller. It long outstays its welcome even for unintentinal hilarity."

Maltin *1/2: "Viewers could read a novel watching this "thriller" and still not miss anything. Lange appears to believe doing Blanche Dubois all over again."

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)

After New York City receives a series of attacks from giant flying robots, a reporter teams up with a pilot in search of their origin, as well as the reason for the disappearances of famous scientists around the world.

Wonderfully recreated sci-fi adventure in the style of 40/50s B pictures.

Iron Man (2008)

Well made comic adaptation, not a masterpiece, but fun to watch.

Gwyneth Paltrow