They Don’t Make Films Like this Anymore

The Professionals
A largely forgotten action-adventure gem, The Professionals teams Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan and Burt Lancaster with more star wattage than most Westerns have ever marshaled. Hired to retrieve kidnapped Claudia Cardinale from bandito Jack Palance, these pros shoot, rope and ride all over northern Mexico.
Directed by Richard Brooks.
I do enjoy Burt Lancaster on the screen. He just makes me smile.
This action filmed movie actually has action scenes that are not quick edited to give you a headache. The film lets the plot unfold instead of covering the absence of plot with a myriad of elaborate special effects. Yeah, I liked Avatar, it was a simple cowboys vs. Indians with a shitload of special effects. Not a great movie, and surely quickly forgotten. Was the acting good or great – hard to tell with characters that are essentially animated.
In The Professionals it is great to watch seasoned actors who don’t rely on gimmicks. Of course it helps if you have a good script, a solid plot, good direction, and great scenery. Good true scenery wins over enhanced or computer generated every time.
Of course I was distracted by how Claudia Cardinale’s flimsy robe managed to stay put over her exaggerated thrust out bosom. There’s a Hollywood secret I’m curious about. And this 1966 film suffers just a bit from the studio creations of that era, where Claudia looks rather freshly groomed after days in the desert, but then she is a star.
However I did like the ending to The Hunting Party just a tad more. Same plot of a wealthy man’s wife, Candice Bergen, supposedly kidnapped and he recruits a group to go after her. He, Gene Hackman, finds her with her lover/kidnapper, Oliver Reed. And he shoots both of them dead. He then dies out of exhaustion. No one wins.

Where are the Funny People?

Tried to watch the movie “Funny People”. I really wanted to try something funny and laugh instead of viewing my usual assortment of depressing movies (even my mother asked me how I can watch depressing stuff like that Afghan movie “Osama”). I kept waiting for the funny bits, then I started fast forwarding, always a bad sign. Then I decided fuck this and just stopped the DVD. Someone tell me what the funny bits were. Maybe I need to watch “In Bruges” again. Now there is a funny movie, even if I did need subtitles to make sure I caught all the lines, like I had to do with “In the Loop”. Definitely didn’t want to miss any delicious lines from this little gem.

District 9

This was a really good film. excitement, originality, not set in New York City – all the ingredients I require in a movie. Film is really more amazing when I learned it used a much smaller budget that those Hollywood epics manage to waste. And do I really care that the Nigerians were upset as to their portrayal? No. Actually they could use almost any African country in that context. Nigeria consistently ranks as one of the most corrupt countries according to Transparency International.
I also enjoyed the fresh portrayals by actors not familiar to me. I could view the film without preconceptions.
The plot is different from what I expected after all the press it got. There is a real plot that is not just about mistreatment of aliens drawing parallels with apartheid practices. Poor Wickers who sort of tried to help, a good-natured sort of fellow, got the ultimate payback! Watch the film to see.

They aren’t All this Wacky in Argentina, are they?

Just watched The Headless Woman on DVD. I live by Netflix. I’m constantly amazed by subtitle problems. Can’t they proofread? Why are there typos and bad English? Enven worse are subtitles on German movies where I can understand the dialogue and notice they aren’t translating what is said on screen. Can anyone shed light on this?
Back to the Headless Woman. Have to say dentists live better in the U.S. The lead character is a dentist, and we only catch glimpses of the house, not what I’d think a dentist anywhere would have. But they do have a lot of very attentive household help. They look indigenous, especially in contrast to the lead characters more European look. Are there still such class distinctions in Argentina?