What was the last movie you saw?

[Jestak]

While Walter Hill was not on his best form when he made Extreme Prejudice, it still holds your interest pretty well; Hill's films have a way of doing that. Texas Ranger Jack Benteen (Nick Nolte) has a formidable pair of problems. His old friend Cash Bailey (Powers Boothe) has become a big drug dealer over in Mexico and is flooding Jack's border town with drugs; Cash is also making a play for Jack's girl Sarita (Maria Conchita Alonso). Meanwhile, a rogue CIA paramilitary unit is in town led by Major Hackett (Michael Ironside), and whatever they're up to, it's probably no good. The plot for this one is a bit murky, and there's one stretch where Boothe's character gets way too talky and things start to lag, but overall it's a pretty good, somewhat offbeat action movie.

[funkidiva]

Harry Potter Deathly Hallows part 2 - so now I know how it all ends! Really liked this film, I was very engrossed with it and found myself crying at a certain point. Good to know how it all ends and it didn't disappoint.

Juno - Saw this on TV and found it very quirky and interesting. Didn't end how I thought it would and it is an odd film at times. Well acted though with interesting plot. Bit of a heavy topic but well thought out.

The Proposal - This was funnier and more interesting than I thought it would be. Starring Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock. Romantic comedy with a predictable ending but well worth a watch still. Hilarious at times.

28 Weeks Later - This is a sequel to 28 Days Later and I found it just as scary and gory as its predecessor. If you like zombies and the world being doomed this is a film for you haha.

[Jestak]

Quentin Tarantino's films have always been far more about style than story or substance, but Death Proof takes that tendency further than any previous film of his. The story--about "Stuntman Mike" (Kurt Russell) stalking young women in his "death proof" car--is negligible. If you watch it, expect lots and lots of Tarantino-style girl talk, along with violent car chases. If those aren't what you're up for, don't watch it. Also noteworthy is the leading role given to stuntwoman Zoe Bell, more or less playing herself (she's known for doubling Lucy Lawless in "Xena," Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, etc.).

[Jestak]

Ang Lee's Ride With the Devil ranks among the best films ever about the Civil War era--it's ironic that it took a Taiwanese director to accomplish that. The opening plows some of the same ground as The Outlaw Josey Wales, as two young Missourians, Jack Bull Chiles (Skeet Ulrich) and Jake Roedel (Tobey Maguire) join up with Confederate guerrilas, the "bushwackers." We see them in action for a short period, but the core of the movie begins when the guerrilas split up to go to ground for the winter. Jack and Jake are sheltered by a pro-Confederate family, the Evans, along with two others, a freed slave named Holt (Jeffrey Wright), and George Clyde, the man who freed him (Simon Baker). Living with the Evans is their widowed daughter-in-law, Sue Lee (Jewel Kilcher), who becomes important to both Jack and Jake. What I found most compelling about the film is the way Lee manages to show the utter futility of the bushwackers' actions, while still making his protagonists sympathetic characters. Nice work from his cast helps, especially Maguire and Wright, and also Kilcher in her only film role to date.

[Jestak]

Tonight I watched a dark romantic thriller called B. Monkey. B Monkey is the London street name for Beatrice (Asia Argento), which she's earned in a career as a hold-up artist. One night in a bar, she gets into an argument with her erstwhile partner Bruno (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and Bruno's lover Paul (Rupert Everett); out of the blue she locks eyes with schoolteacher Alan (Jared Harris). Each is drawn to the other, but their romance may not survive the culture clash between their previous lives. Or, maybe it will after all. This one was pretty good, with nice performances from all the principals.

[Jestak]

Radio Days is one of Woody Allen's best films, a loosely-plotted, nostalgic, somewhat autobiographical film about growing up in the late 1930's and early 1940's in New York (of course), back when radio filled the place taken by television. Allen narrates, while a young Seth Green plays the child more or less based on Allen himself. The episodic story alternates between the Brooklyn home of Green and his large extended family and the lives of leading radio stars. There are some very funny moments in this one, such as when unmarried Aunt Bea (Dianne Wiest) has a date interrupted by Orson Welles' "War of the World" broadcast.

[Jestak]

When Robert Aldrich directed a film starring Burt Lancaster, the results were usually good; that's the case with Ulzana's Raid. When an Apache named Ulzana (Joaquin Martinez) and a small band of warriors break out from the Apache reservation in the 1880's, the local cavalry commander sends a new officer, Lt. DeBuin (Bruce Davison) with a troop to track them down. Fortunately for the inexperienced Lieutenant, he has the advice of two knowledgeable scouts, the veteran McIntosh (Lancaster) and the Apache scout Ke-Ni-Tay (Jorge Luke). This is a rather bleak film, especially in its ending, but it captures the moral complexities of the situation well, and Lancaster and Luke give excellent performances.

[Jestak]

Tonight's movie was Body Heat, a good contemporary noir from the early 1980's, written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan. The story owes quite a lot to Double Indemnity, but the execution is good, as is the cast--especially femme fatale Kathleen Turner and William Hurt as the lawyer ensnared in her scheming. Also watch for a young Mickey Rourke.

[Jestak]

Once upon a time, Tom Clancy was not the brand name he has long since deteriorated into, but just an insurance salesman with a novel that became one of the most unlikely bestsellers ever, called The Hunt for Red October. It's still by far his best book, and it was turned into a satisfactory movie about 20 years ago. Marko Ramius (Sean Connery) is a Soviet submarine commander, given command of a new submarine named, yes, Red October--with which he and his top officers plan to defect to the US. Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) is the CIA analyst who figures out what Ramius is up to. This one starts slowly, as a whole lot of exposition from Clancy's novel has to be compacted into roughly an hour of screen time. Tension starts to pick up at that point. Director John McTiernan is on surer ground delivering action than in developing character; he delivers a spectacular climax lasting about 20 minutes. Connery has lots of screen presence, but his Ramius sounds like James Bond has infiltrated the Soviet Navy; meanwhile, Baldwin is forced to talk to himself all the time so we can see how Jack Ryan figures everything out. There are several solid supporting performances: Scott Glenn, Courtney Vance, Sam Neill (a much more plausible Russian than Connery), and Fred Dalton Thompson.

[Jestak]

Tora! Tora! Tora! was the radio signal announcing the Japanese Navy's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which brought the US into World War II. It is also the title of a 1970 film about the attack. The movie was a joint American-Japanese production, with production units in each country. Richard Fleischer directed the US footage, while Kinji Fukasaku (of Battle Royale fame) co-directed the Japanese sequences. The story of the planning and execution of the attack is told in a semi-documentary fashion, and it plods through the former for a good 90 minutes before the action gets going. The battle sequences, however, are well-done; they're kind of hard to follow, but the confusion is, in a way, a realistic depiction of what that morning in Hawaii must have been like. There is an enormous cast, but very few of them are able to make much of an impression. James Whitmore is an exception, suitably gruff and aggressive as Admiral William Halsey, while George Macready has one memorable moment as Secretary of State Cordell Hull.