90 minute running time … this was a made-for-TV movie shot in 12 days and I think 90 minutes is actually too long, it would have been better at 60 or 75 minutes … this is early Spielberg, his first full-length movie. It’s a classic in a way and deserves a green-go, I suppose. Dennis Weaver is well cast as the every man and he drove a 1970 Plymouth Valiant. John Farr recommends this movie too.
Get that fat-ass truck out of my way.
108 minute running time so at least 10 minutes too long, but this is a classic, a psycho roommate tale, and I’m shocked that John Farr didn’t include it on his Best Movies list, it’s certainly a green-go. Maybe the gay neighbor getting smacked with a golf club put John off?
Scrawny Bridget Fonda (Peter’s daughter, talk about a nepo baby) and the wonderful Jennifer Jason Leigh both look great in their twenties … Barbet Schroeder said they had to tone down the sexiness to get nationwide release, but there’s still plenty of nudity.
Loved the cutting edge technology on display here, with an old Apple Macintosh and Compuserve getting a plug. Schroeder said he had a friend who lived in The Ansonia (2109 Broadway) so as he read the script he could picture all the scenes in the building (of course it was all filmed on set). I forgot how graphically violent it gets at the end, pretty over the top girl fight.
113 minute running time so 20 minutes too long … the Australian Outback in the 1920s and the roughnecks who lived out there and the poor native people they enslaved (and raped and murdered) … I liked this movie, but because of its length, I can’t give it a green-go, though John Farr did. Solid yellow rating though (consider).
Some sweet country out there. Cattle country. [said upon returning from Outback where his colleague had been murdered by savages]
111 minute running time so about 20 minutes too long … gritty early 70s Newcastle, Michael Caine as tough guy, a hit man for the London mob who travels back to the north to investigate and then avenge his brother’s murder … about the criminal class, pornography, and there’s some humor in this to leaven the violence, which is always good. Shock ending. If they had shaved off 20 minutes then this would be a recommended movie, but it runs too long so I have to give it a yellow rating. John Farr recommends it though.
Be good. And don't trust boys.
99 minute running time but felt much much longer … Peter Jackson movie about murderous lesbian teen couple from 1950s New Zealand, a true story … nepo baby Kate Winslet’s debut movie … I wasn’t thrillled but John Farr loved it.
Do you like girls?
130 minute running time so at least 30 to 40 minutes too long. Smarmy Richard Gere with his close-set eyes and expensive haircut. Laura Linney and her resting bitch face. Frasier’s dad playing a bad cop. Chinless Francis McDormand as gullible shrink. Star of the show was Edward Norton, who plays a very believable baby-faced dolt with fake southern accent.
Did the story make any sense? No. Why did Edward allow himself to get caught? How did he know Gere would defend him? Was he going to use the Jekyll and Hyde thing with a $40K a year public defender?
By the way, Gere’s car is a 1978 Mercedes-Benz 300 CD. Linney: “I don't need an old Mercedes. I don't need to see my resting bitch face on the evening news.”
But what a breath of fresh air that the Catholic archbishop was simply directing the kids from Savior House in his pr0n productions instead of molesting the altar boys himself.
They were able to check off two boxes by making the pushover judge both black and female, check check! John Farr recommended this, but it was way way too long and dumb for me (but funny in its own way).
It’s raining!
91 minute running time … I saw this in the theater and interestingly it was subtitled, which was essential since it featured these working-class British kids on holiday in Malia (which is on Crete, a Greek island) and I wouldn’t have understood half the dialogue without subtitles … anyway, I wasn’t thrilled with this … the blurb says it’s about these kids “navigating the complexities of sex, consent and self-discovery … and how first sexual experiences should – or shouldn’t – play out.”
It also touched on the topic of female jealousy and rivalry among “friends,” which I always find interesting. I guess it was realistic, but what was the message here? Tara’s experience was sort of awful, but not really that awful, as it is for a lot of, even most?, girls. I guess I was too dense to get that Tara’s “consent” wasn’t really consent. (See Jessica Kiang’s review below.) It’s complicated for sure. I thought the girls were all 18 years old, not 16 … the actresses were all in their 20s anyway.
It’s a W.D. By movie … “Molly Manning Walker” looks like a gay Millennial trust fund kid, but who knows. There was a homosexual relationship casually thrown in, which is a very Millennial thing to do.
From Jessica Kiang’s excellent review: “‘How to Have Sex’ is a different kind of Greek tragedy — no grand myth, just a heart-sore, everyday observation of what the world does to girls and what the world makes girls do to themselves.”
122 minute running time so 30 minutes too long … disc didn’t have subtitles so I was unable to watch / read it on fast forward … looked heavy and depressing and apparently based on a true story. This was a W.D. By movie by that goofy pinko Tim Robbins (half joking) … Susan Sarandon has nice even features and a terrible fake southern accent … this was a John Farr reco, but I couldn’t watch it, esp. at over two hours long. I did spend 25 minutes fast forwarding so I’m counting it as “watched.”
Lots of niggers down where you live. They knock each other off like beer cans off a fence.
111 minute running time so 20 minutes too long … it’s a cute story, good for the whole family if you ignore the constant sexual double entendres … ageing Sean Connery and goofy, gawky Donald Sutherland … John Farr recommended it, but it only gets a solid yellow rating (“consider”) from me.
132 minute running time so around 40 minutes too long … this was way way too long, they tried to cram in all kinds of ideas and scenes and side stories (including a love story!) … it started out OK, sort of interesting, this innocent young couple chattering away, but everything quickly spiraled out of control once the key tragedy happened and it became a fugitives on the run thing … none of it was realistic, I mean their reactions, etc. I wasn’t thrilled with the politics of it either — a bunch of mixed and confusing messages and when the SPOILERS little boy shoots the black cop, it just took an awful turn. This was a bad recommendation from John Farr, who wrote it was “sadly all too believable.” Yes, the awful traffic stop was believable, but none of what followed was. Badly done movie about racism (that’s what it was about, right?) and just way way way too long.
