Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing about them!
I've been not feeling well and waited too long to do this this week, so let's dispense with the formalities and get down to business, shall we?
North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) One of the most enjoyable of all Hitchcock's films, with a winning leading performance by Cary Grant, a sultry, never-more-beautiful Eva Marie Saint, and a deliciously evil James Mason and Martin Landau. With special appearances by Mt. Rushmore and one PERSISTENT plane. I've probably seen this more times than any other Hitchcock film, because it's seemingly always showing on TV and I can't stop watching no matter when I start.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964) Kubrick's funniest, most enjoyable film, with indelible performances from Peter Sellers, Sterling Hayden, Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Peter Sellers, and Slim Pickens - not to mention BABY JAMES EARL JONES! The satire is black as pitch and absolutely hysterical, and like the best satires, only seems more prescient as the years go by.
White Nights (Taylor Hackford, 1985) It's been many years since I've seen this movie, about two dancers played by Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines, one who has defected from the Soviet Union and one who has defected TO the Soviet Union (unthinkable, right?), but I still remember how incredible the dancing is. It's also remembered as the film where director Hackford first met his wife, one Dame Helen Mirren.
Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join us each week as we pick three movies that fit the week's theme and tell each other about them. It's fun!
Uh oh.
You've just done something bad. Something wrong. Something you weren't supposed to. And the wrong person found out.
What do you do?
You go on the run.
Just like the people in this week's Thursday Movie Picks!
No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007) Poor Llewelyn Moss. He happens across the aftermath of a violent shootout with no apparent survivors and a briefcase full of money. He thinks it's his lucky day. Unfortunately for him, there's a tracking device in the briefcase, and both sides want it back. As do the police, naturally. And even more unfortunately, one of the men after the briefcase is one Anton Chigurh, a quiet, possibly insane, deadly force. The Coen Brothers' thriller won the Best Picture Oscar and it's a tense, brutal film with killer performances and beautifully bleak cinematography. It's too bleak for me to enjoy, but I do respect the hell out of it.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969) Butch Cassidy runs the Hole in the Wall Gang of outlaws. The Sundance Kid is his right hand man. After a train robbery goes awry, the two of them find themselves on the run without the gang and with Sundance's lady. I probably don't need to tell you what happens from there in this American classic with two devastatingly handsome star turns from Paul Newman and Robert Redford, but if you don't know, you should see this. The final standoff may feel a little tame after Bonnie & Clyde, but the film builds it up into a pretty emotional climax.
North By Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) Roger Thornhill is having a VERY bad time of things. First he gets kidnapped by some nattily-dressed thugs thinking he's someone named George Kaplan, then they drug him and send him home behind the wheel of a car after he fails to convince them of his true identity. Then his mother has to get him from prison, no one at the house the kidnappers took him to admits to recognizing him, and when he finds the man who owns the house, that man is stabbed in the back while in Roger's arms. Yeah, you'd run in that situation, too! Writer Ernest Lehman wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures," and by George, he just might have done it. I've probably seen this more times than any other Hitchcock film, and it's just as entertaining every time - probably the most purely entertaining film he ever made. Cary Grant is perfect as Thornhill, James Mason a deliciously suave villain, Eva Marie Saint the perfect Hitchcock blonde, and the entire supporting cast is chock full of great turns. An All-Time Favorite of mine, for sure!
Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Participate yourself by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and telling us about them.
This week's theme for Thursday Movie Picks correlates to the weekend's big release, the new James Bond film SPECTRE. Can I let you in on a secret? Up until Skyfall, I had never seen a Bond film. Not a single one. I'm not really sure why. I've just never been able to muster up the excitement for them.
But anyway, that's not really the point. The point is, there's much more to Secret Agents and Spies on film than Bond and his dirty martinis. Here are three of my favorites.
North By Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) Probably the most exciting film Hitchcock ever directed, in which Cary Grant is mistaken for a Mr. George Kaplan, a spy who, as it turns out, doesn't exist. Which is especially unfortunate for Cary after he's photographed taking a knife out of a U.N. diplomat's back. Someone else put it there, but try telling that to the police, especially when the secret government agency who created the persona of Kaplan won't get involved at the risk of exposing their real double agent, played by the gorgeous Eva Marie Saint. With James Mason as the big baddie and Martin Landau as his underling.
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (Jay Roach, 1997) Hands down the best thing Mike Myers has ever done, Austin Powers is a dead-on hilarious parody of the 60s and spy films. But you don't have to be particularly well-versed in spy films to enjoy it. It's pure silliness, but it's absolutely INSPIRED silliness. The jokes fly fast and furious from the lips of the inimitable cast (Elizabeth Hurley, Robert Wagner, and Mindy Sterling have never been better, to say nothing of Myers in his dual role as the titular spy and his arch-nemesis Dr. Evil), and the double entendres are the best I've seen in probably any movie ever. The later sequels, The Spy Who Shagged Me and Goldmember, are basically bald rewrites of this one, but why mess with perfection?
Mission: Impossible (Brian De Palma, 1996) One of the rare franchises that has kept up a pretty much even level of quality across each film, the Tom Cruise series is one of the best in film history. This is the one that started it all, and god DAMN is it fun. When Ethan Hunt's entire Impossible Missions Force (IMF) team gets killed, the agency assumes he's the mole they've been trying to find for a while. Except he's innocent, so he has to go rogue in order to prove his innocence. Cruise's "I do my own stunts" go-for-broke star power has never been put to better use than with this character, so it's no surprise that he keeps coming back to it. And given the great directors and scriptwriters that keep coming to the series, it's clear that someone behind the scenes knows what they're doing (for what it's worth, my pick for the best of the series is the fourth, Ghost Protocol). De Palma's original lays all the groundwork with flawless sequence after flawless sequence and a roller coaster pace that only lets up in just the right amounts to relieve the (at times considerable) tension.
BONUS PICK
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (Guy Ritchie, 2014) It's a pity so many people dismissed this film this summer, because it was really a blast. The cool retro vibe extended from the perfect costumes and hairdos of its (unbelievably good-looking) stars to Ritchie's filmmaking, which has never been slicker or sleeker. It's ultimately a lark, but it's a great looking one, and lots of fun. Plus, between Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, and Elizabeth Debicki, there really is something here for everyone.
