Movies you saw for the 1st time. August 2011

Moby Dick (1998)

really well acted two-part Hallmark TV movie. the complete movie without commercials was on the new PixL HD movie channel on Dish-TV. would say it's a close 2nd to the Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, Leo Ginn version. supposedly follows the Herman Melville book plot more closely than the 1956 version. I would definately recommend viewing IF your a Moby Dick (1956) fan just for comparison.

Patrick Stewart as Ahab is even more psyco than Gregory Peck's original and Ted Levine (who played Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb in Sillence of the Lambs) was outstanding as Starbuck as was Hugh Keays-Byrne as Stubb

one mistake I think they made is that early on in the movie when Ishmael (Henry Thomas) and Queequeg (Piripi Waretini) meet the waterfront "prophet" Elijah (Bruce Spence who played the autogyro pilot in Mad Max 2 and the sky truck pilot in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome), Elijah just implies that something bad will happen to the Pequod (as in the book) instead of the famous Royal Dano as Elijah monolog from the 1956 version "A day will come at sea when you'll smell land where there'll be no land, and on that day, Ahab will go to his grave, but he'll rise again and beckon, then all... ALL save ONE, shall follow" which is one of the GREAT movie lines of all time.

one time where trying to be completely faithful to Melville was a mistake.

btw, I tried to watch the latest Encore-Starz version with William Hurt as Ahab and and Ethan Hawke as Starbuck. couldn't get thru it. definately NOT up to the Gregory Peck or Patrick Stewart portrayals

joshua

sam rockwell is a great actor

Emperor of the North (1973)

just happened to catch it on the Fox movie channel saturday

originally released as Emperor of the North Pole it stars Lee Marvin as "A Number 1" as Emperor of the North Pole (the king of the hobo's) and Ernest Borgnine as Shack as sadistic freight train conductor who delights in killing hobos who try to ride his train. also staring Keith Carradine as Cigaret, the young smartass "tenderfoot" hobo with deams of becoming "Emperor of the North Pole".

one of Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine's best ever. Borgnine said the Shack was the BEST villain roll he ever played, even better than "Fatso" Judson in From Here to Eternity.

has one of the BEST "mano on mano" fights EVER between A Number 1 and Shack at the end of the movie. also the great line "Kid, You Got NO Class" by A Number 1 to Cigaret after the latter trys to act like he was in the fight too instead of just watching from the top of the caboose.

GREAT story with pretty much non-stop action and also some really funny moments. under rated acting by Charles Tyner as Shack's brakeman Cracker.

definately recommend

Water for Elephants ......Another one of those movies with a goofy title that usually doesn't catch your interest.....But I thought it was pretty good.

Christoph Waltz  [ The Nazi in Inglorious Bastards ] and Hal Holbrooks part steal the show. 

Jakob the Liar (1999)

watched the other night on the new Sony Movie HD channel. critics threw rocks at it but I thought it was well acted by Robin Williams, Alan Arkin, Liev Schreiber, Bob Balaban (Dr Chandra in the 1984 sequel to 2001 A Space Odyssey, 2010) and esp Hannah Taylor-Gordon as the girl Lina. I would put her acting close to that of then 13 year old Natalie Portman as Mathilda in The Professional with Jean Reno.

think it's worth watching just to see Williams excel in a non-comedy roll BUT, like Harvey Keitel's 2001 movie The Grey Zone, the subject matter IS depressing and disturbing.

on Sony Movies again Monday Aug 29th @ 3:00 pm pacific and Friday Sept 2nd @ 9:05 am pacific.

The Pianist (2002)

I seem to be getting swamped with WWII holocaust themed movie lately. this one is pretty well acted by Adrien Brody (Best Actor Academy Award) as Wladyslaw Szpilman the Polish person virtuoso piano player who survived the war in Warsaw. my only complaint is that it's WAY long and Roman Polanski (Best Director Academy Award) could probably have told the story just as well in under three hours.

it's on Starz Edge in HD again Thursday Sept 1st @ 9:45 am pacific time and Starz Cinema (standard def) a couple other times too.

has Inside Job been on any of the movie channels yet? heard nothing but good things about this movie. as for actually criticized Obama which shocked me, there is plenty to criticise esp by  liberals who feel betrayed by his "presidency" 

Heaven's Gate (1980). watched on the Sony HD channel the other night. had never seen this "western" based on the Johnson County War, a dispute between land barons and (mostly eastern) european immigrants in Wyoming in 1890. it's infamous as one of the great box office disasters of all time along with Waterworld, Leonard Part 6, Ishtar, and Howard the Duck.  

SO I wanted to see IF it was REALLY that BAD. other than being overly LONG because of many scenes, esp at the beginning, that drag on and are NOT really germane to the plot, found it a decent action drama and might have been a success IF they had kept it under 2 hours by cutting out the bullshit. many of the characters are, or were based on, actual people involved in the Johnson County War. page thru the bullshit and it's actually worth watching. the "2nd half" has some really good ordnance and action.

Dirty Work (1998). just happend to start watching as it ran after Heaven's Gate on Sony and it's pretty funny esp early on when the Mitch and Sam characters excel at getting back at people that have wronged them when they were kids SO they start a "revenge-for-hire" business as adults because they screw up every other job they have had. bunch of GREAT sight gags and lines. short flick that runs under an hour and a half. check out the late Chris Farley, as Jimmy the crazyass Vietnam vet, in his last movie role before his untimely death.