The Pawnbroker, 1965 drama starring Rod Steiger

Some heavy subject matter. Strong performance by Steiger. Not a lot of wasted dialogue. Music by Quincy Jones; remember when the soundtrack was a large part of the storytelling process?

4 / 5 stars

The Sentinel - Could of been much better. In the end, it was rather bland, strange plot holes, and I can't say I'd recommend seeing it.

Sentinel - I watched it because some scenes were filmed on the floor I work on (empty office on other side of floor).

Average movie though.

The Boondock Saints - Hilarious movie about 2 avenging Irish "angels" and the eccentric FBI agent (played by Willem Dafoe) who is trying to catch them. This movie showcases Willem Dafoe's acting which IMHO is better than in any movie I have seen him in including in Platoon and Spiderman 1.

I bought the newly remastered release of this DVD... the PQ is pretty good for a 1999 movie and the 5.1 sound is outstanding especially in the Cathedral scenes.

Good Night, And Good Luck - CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow challenges the legitimacy of Senator McCarthy's communist "witch hunt" in the early 1950s, both to defend the Constitution and to impress upon those around him the responsibility the media have to inform and to educate the public.

A well-scripted, intelligent film with an excellent performance by David Strathairn as Murrow.

Das Experiment (The Experiment) - A group of men are recruited to participate - some as guards, some as prisoners - in a psychological "prison simulation" experiment. What starts off as a game among the participants quickly devolves into a dangerous and abusive situation.

Irrelevant and unfortunate "artsiness" and a somewhat thin script mar an otherwise interesting film.

Monster House This was a good Haloween movie for my 10 year old, original enough to hold our interest, and a great workout for our surround system!

My wife and I watched Shark Tale this evening. Well, we started to, but the first ten minutes were so bad that we stopped. (I watched "The Warriors" instead.)

This is, I believe, only the second movie we have ever given up on (the other one being "Dogville").

HD-DVD versions of Batman Begins, V for Vendetta.

V for Vendetta doesn't officially come out until this Tuesday. Batman was good in HD.

Road to Guantanamo - Director Michael Winterbottom, who's forged quite a reputation for his guerrilla style of filmmaking, recreates the harrowing true story of three Muslim friends from Britain who travel to Afghanistan to help one of them find a wife but instead find themselves imprisoned with suspected Taliban soldiers and then eventually shipped to Guantanamo Bay. The film is based upon testimony and interviews with the three friends; it's a powerful indictment of some of the human rights' abuses that are being executed in the name of the "war on terror." Sadly, there's a dearth of extra features on the dvd.

Mission: Impossible 3 - It had lots of guns and explosions and running around and stuff.

HD DVD versions of: Mission Impossible, Mission Impossible 2 and Mission Impossible 3

In terms of story, the first was the best, the second was the worse.

In HD, Cruise's nose is huge.

M
Criterion Collection, restoration of 2000.

People did know a thing or two about cinematography even before most of us were born. ;)

Diogen.

Once in a Lifetime - A documentary about the rise and fall of the New York Cosmos in the late 1970s - early 1980s, and, by association, the league in which they played, the North American Soccer League.

Having counted myself amongst the tens of thousands of newly-minted soccer fans who flocked to Exhibition Stadium in those heady days to see the Toronto Blizzard play the likes of the Cosmos, the Tampa Bay Rowdies, the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers, and the Chicago Sting, this is a fun trip down memory lane when soccer seemed poised to finally conquer North America with glamorous superstars, network television, even the occasional headline-grabbing scandal. But, alas, it was all a house of cards.

The film dredges up great archival footage of the early Cosmos and some fun stories as told by the personalities who were there, along for the wild ride, Giorgio Chinaglia, Shep Messing, Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto, and by some of the movers and shakers who helped make it happen, Clive Toye, Phil Woosnam, Ahmet Ertegun. Interestingly, the catalyst for the team, and the league's, meteoric rise, Pélé, declined to be interviewed for the film (have subsequently read he demanded $100,000 to appear in the film, which the filmmakers didn't want to pay).

The Great New Wonderful - A quirky little film that drops in on five stories of New Yorkers dealing with their own emotional fragilities a year after 9/11. Nothing really happens, but it has a beguiling cast and some funny and revealing moments.

Cars - On his way to a championship race in L.A., hot-shot rookie "Lightning" McQueen winds up lost in a small, derelict town where he is forced to perform community service for the damage he inadvertently caused upon his arrival. Over the course of his stay, he learns all about friendship, humility and love.

This isn't one of Pixar's stronger entries - maybe because machines aren't as endearing as other types of characters, maybe because of the fairly routine storyline; nevertheless, it was a fun movie with the usual top-notch animation.

Cars - Typical classic Pixar film.


The Third Man (50th Anniversary Edition) - Criterion Collection - Orson Welles classic Noir film.

Joyeux Noel - Scottish, German and French soldiers take time out from shooting at each other in the trenches of WWI to celebrate Christmas and each other's humanity. Despite some wonderful, emotional scenes, this film didn't connect with me quite as well Keith Gordon's 1992 film about a similar Christmas ceasefire in WWII, A Midnight Clear.

My version of Noel just shipped. Wasn't this movie nominated for best foreign language film?

NOTORIOUS - Criterion Collection - Classic Hitchcock, Ingrid Bergman is stunning, Cary Grant is, well, Cary Grant and a few Nazis thrown in for good measure.