I had one from Netflix that's been here forever, and once I watched it, I could have kicked myself for not puttin' it in the player as soon as it arrived. The Castle starring Robert Redford and james Gandolfini is womderful. Mark Ruffalo does a superb job in a supporting role. DelRoy Lindo has a small role and does his usual outstanding job. Lindo has such a commanding presence that it's easy for him to overwhelm his fellow performers. However with Redford and Gandolfini, he is evenly matched, both by presence and performance levels.
It is the story of a Lt.Gen {Redford} sent to a military prison run by a martinet, played supremely well by Gandolfini. Having been a prior 6 year resident of the "Hanoi Hilton", Gandolfini's accomodations are like checking into a spa. But within 30 minutes of arriving, the conflict between their characters is set up. I won't give away any more details, I will just urge you to see this movie. It has tons of actors you are used to seeing in character roles in movies and on TV, but they do a much better job here than I've ever seen them do before. I haven't seen Gandolfini do anything this good in ages. It's as good dramatically as his comedic performance was in Get Shorty. Mark Ruffalo's performance was astounding. I have only seen him do comedy. I purposely did not see him in All the King's Men because I can't stand Sean Penn's politics and will not willingly put any money in his pocket or support him in any way.
However, when it is broadcast on network TV, I'll watch it, so I can see all the supporting cast performances, Ruffalo among them. His performance in The Castle was just awesome.
The other movie I saw this weekend was Deja Vu with Denzel Washington. Another great supporting cast. I just wish Matt Craven's role had been larger. Craven's an excellent actor, always in a supporting role, and I'd like to see him get more screen time. Elle Fanning, Dakota's little Sis, has a teeny-tiny role, I'd have liked to see more of her, too. {she was on an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims last week and was a scene stealer} Adam Goldberg, whom I first noticed in The Prophecy is a supporting character in this movie. Does a DARN good job, too. Plays a sexy/nerdy scientist. Val Kilmer is a co-star. Kilmer is not aging well, is he? But he's a blonde and they often don't age well. Redford is an exception, but he's more of a strawberry blonde, than a true blonde. But Val does at least give us a decent performance. Not as good as Denzel, but who can hold their own playing next to him? Well, Dakota Fanning comes to mind in Man on Fire and his female lead in this movie is pretty good, too. Her name is Paula Patton. She is lovely and gives us a haunting performance. I can't tell you who the other actors are w/o giving away a bunch of plot spoilers, and then you'd hate me, or I'd have to kill you, so just take my word for it, and go see the movie. It's worth it just to watch Denzel settle the "Federal Alphabet Agency" pissing contest over who's gonna run an investigation. LMBO, along with some other audience members who must have also been there, done that, first or second hand.
There were the trailers for a movie I must see on big screen. I went over to IMDB and got this on The Good Shepherd : Edward Wilson, the only witness to his father's suicide and member of the Skull and Bones Society while a student at Yale, is a morally upright young man who values honor and discretion, qualities that help him to be recruited for a career in the newly founded Central Intelligence Agency. While working there, his ideals gradually turn to suspicion influenced by the Cold War paranoia present within the office. Eventually, he becomes an influential veteran operative, while his distrust of everyone around him increases to no end. His dedication to his work does not come without a price though, leading him to sacrifice his ideals and eventually his family.
Sounds interesting, yes? This gem was directed by Robert DeNiro, who also co-stars with Matt Damon. Damon has the role of Wilson. Angelina Jolie plays his wife. Others on the cast include Joe Pesci, William Hurt, Jason Patric, John Turturro, Alec Baldwin {I wish he'd leave the country like he promised to do if Bush was re-elected}, and Timothy Hutton. What the above summary doesn't say, but what was in the trailer I saw, was a description of the CIA as the most powerful intelligence gathering agency in the world. Given our recent {the last 6 years or so} lapses in HumInt and reliance on elint instead, I wonder if that isn't dramatic license. We have, overall, an excellent intelligence community. IMHO, there's still not enough cooperation between all the different agencies, CIA, FBI, DIA, MI,NSA, and all the other alpha agencies in the soup. But that's another blog.
There's a comedy due out starring Ben Stiller. It may be a bit too frenetic for me, but it may be right up your alley. It's called Night at the Museum and co-stars Robin Williams and Owen Williams and a host of others. Go on over to IMDB and read the plot summary. I think I'll probably wait for it on Netflix. I like Ben Stiller, he's just a bit too "busy" for me sometimes.
Well, that's it for the HollyB movie review and recommendations blog. Go, enjoy I'm gonna try and switch to beta version. If Flo can do it, maybe I can, too.
1 comment:
Ta da, see, you can do it, too! Hooray. (Add your sitemeter back in.)
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