Change Your Image
jimprideaux2
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Old Henry (2021)
Improbable plot but worth watching Tim blake Nelson
First of what the farmer doing digging a trench in his field. More important things to do I would think. Second what's with the house that looks like its been there forever. Oklahoma was opened for settlement 1889 less than 20 before the time period here. House should be newer. So that is the setting for a mish mash of odd coincidences and circumstances. Sheriff office goes outlaw. Outlaws pose as law men. Dirty sheriff in Oklahoma was with Billy the Kid when supposedly he was shot.
But I liked it just to watch Tim Blake Nelson play an aged Billy the Kid.
The Liberator (2020)
Band of Brothers on the Cheap
The story, characters, dialogue are top rate, I' give it a 9 or 10. The CGI, or what ever the call it, is a real minus for me. I don't think even its defenders say it enhances the story. So is this the future? Movies made for folks who grew up playing first or third person shooter computer games like Call of Duty? Maybe they are used to this. I think it is cheaper to produce. No need for expensive sets or location, just draw them in. But if made traditionally, like HBO did Band of Brothers, it would be serious competition for that mini series.
Your Honor (2020)
Scottish Mafia
Crime in New Orleans is run by the Baxter Family. What the hey? Reminds be of the movies and TV shows from the 50s and earlier where gangsters had Anglo-Saxon names. So this series tries to be politically correct in this regard by diverting attention from, I guess, an overly picked on group -- the Italians. New Orleans, of all cities, is run by the Scottish Mafia. The head of the family explains how he grew up tough eating haggis.
Riphagen (2016)
Some suspense without resolution
The movie was pretty well paced with loads of suspense in the final episode. But in the end, and here comes the spoiler, Riphagen gets the drop on the relentless pursuer and drives off. Well of course the real life Riphagen gets away escaping to Argentina. So I wasn't expecting to him face justice. But for me as the viewer there was no satisfactory payoff in the final confrontation. I'm not even sure it historically correct. Do the Dutch like this kinda stuff?
Also, there is not much insight into what makes Riphagen tick. He is resourceful enough in squeezing money out of Jews, but so what. The only apparent motivation is to make money until he can't do it any more. Why not make a movie about a school yard bully who takes lunch money from the weak until he is stopped because the school goes to a cashless system.
My Favorite Wife (1940)
All the funny scenes thanks to supporting actors
I thought the funniest scenes involved the judge, the front desk manager, the insurance agent and the Randolph Scott character.
As someone else said Gail Patrick was more or less a prop - no personality good or bad. Irene Dunn couldn't make up her mind whether her character was in a comedy or a drama. Cary Grant thought he was in a home movie and enjoyed making faces at the camera.
The main character just didn't behave as if they were in the situation they were supposed to be in -- wife lost at sea for years, husband not knowing what to do - really? Also, lets not tell the kids but just kinda bring them in as a joke.
Little snappy dialogue and something off with the timing and delivery.
Watching it I thought this was not the Cary Grant from His Girl Friday and Arsenic and Old Lace.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
At one time avant-garde
With the demise of the Hays code in the late 60s many movies took an anti-establishment tack. Altman called this movie not a western but an anti-western. But there is nothing here Deadwood doesn't do in spades. If the movie were to be released today it would labeled a typical western.
The overall plots not bad. Small mining camp grows and shows enough potential profitability that a large mining interest wants to buy out everyone cheap. Weak hands fold. But the strong, stubborn and stupid decide to stay and fight. The two buyers who were sent in by the company do not have the patience to stay in town but are anxious to get back to the comforts of home. They go to plan B, bring in the hired killers. Realistic enough but the implication of a Plan B is that either McCabe's signature or his brains are on the sales contract. But Butler, the chief killer, says he's not there to make a deal (BTW, Hugh Millias plays the intimidating Butler to perfection and steals every scene he is in). There is no explanation how the company gets McCabe's holdings by killing him.
Of course that's not what the movie is about. No western is about proper filings at the county clerk's office. This western, like many westerns, is about armed confrontation, the shoot out! The trio of bad guys are about as good as you'll find in any western. Butler, the swaggering leader, the silent "half-breed" who could kill with a stare and the crazy "kid" who goes off at the slightest provocation.
On the other side McCabe is kinda an odd bird. He is savvy enough to earn his living as a gambler and enterprising enough to build as saloon and whorehouse. Otherwise Beatty plays the role like the village idiot. There are doubts as to whether McCabe can handle a gun much less has killed a man. No Al Swearengen here.
The final shoot out is not bad. It's suspenseful enough with an ending similar to that in Hamlet.
Otherwise the mood and setting were great. I pretty much was drawn in to the authenticity of a cold dank muddy mining camp far up the mountain from anything civilized. I put on my sweater just to take the chill off.