Movie/film suggestions.

Oops!  Too late for an edit, @bassbuyer , I typed "desk top" but what I was referring to was the "desk-pop" scene in The Other Guys.

I am not usually crazy about westerns, but I enjoyed Tom Horn (1980) with Steve McQueen as Tom Horn and costarring Richard Farnsworth and Slim Pickens. Set in Wyoming, Tom Horn is hired by the cattle ranchers to curtail cattle rustling by whatever means he chooses that will work.

lol all cops have to do a desk pop!  Bang! 

That literally had me laughing out loud, @bassbuyer !  The reaction of the other cops, particularly Michael Keaton, was hilarious.  Will Ferrell does such a graet job of playing the role of a gullible naive individual.   

I think many of us got the joke, but the thread is so fun we didn't want it to go in that direction and get deleted.

That's possible; I had a beauty of a satirical movie title in mind, but I held back. 

Ha ha!  Nope.  And I am not going to put it out there and be the one who drives this thread over the cliff.

LOL!  Nope.  And I am not going to be the one to send it into loony canyon.  

I thought that Black Hawk Down was a pretty intense movie.

I remember a while back ago I watched Richard Jewell and I really was not expecting much, but I wound up thinking that it was a pretty good movie.  Sam Rockwell probably had a lot to do with that.

Speaking of Sam Rockwell, I watched The Way Way Back some time ago and I really enjoyed it.   It urns out to be a feel food drama with some moments of comedy woven in.  Sam Rockwell of course plays a laid back protagonist, but the role I was really interested in seeing was Steve Carrel's who basically played the antagonist of the story.

Did Sam Rockwell dance in that movie?

If he did, @thecarpathian , I do not remember that part.

Did he have a famous dancing scene in another movie he was in, or was that a not serious question?  (I am not super familiar with most of his movies..)  Anyway, in The Way Way Back, Rockwell portrays the nonchalant cool guy role, a water park employee, who takes a teenager under his wing for the summer.  So you can probably tell where that movie was going. But there are a lot of heart warming moments for those of us who like having our hearts warmed, and as I typed, Steve Carrel's portrayal  of the controlling condescending a-hole  boyfriend of the teenager's mother was  what I found interesting.  

Yes, it was a serious question.

I ask because I read an article that said he finds a way to dance in most movie’s he’s been in. He’s quite good.

Okay, @thecarpathian , I was not aware of that, and I will look for that from now on.

As I typed, if he did, that was not a part that I remember. But I can see where it could have been worked in. Basically he plays the role of this teenager’s mentor/role model for the summer. As I typed, he is a water-park employee, and as such he acts goofy and irresponsible and he plays pranks and can be quick with one liners and he has a relationship going on with the female manager of the water-park, so I can see where having a scene where he does some type of dance (I would think it would have been an exhibition of silliness) could have happened.

Speaking of Steve Carrel....check out Foxcatcher.

I totally agree, @slaw ! Foxcatcher was one of my previous picks. Besides Steve Carrel’s excellent portrayal of the increasingly unhinged heir to the Dupont family fortune, Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum were good together as David and Mark Schultz (Olympic wrestlers). I didn’t know it until I googled it a while back ago, but the surviving brother, Mark Schultz, played a role in the movie as a weigh in official. But Steve Carrel was great in that one--he is versatile.

Rewatched "Capote" recently. We lost a great actor in Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Agreed, @slaw . I liked him in most everything I’ve seen him in. Almost Famous and The Ides Of March immediately came to my mind, but there are so many others.

I don’t know why I had avoided or put off watching these two before, but this week I finally watched Kill The Irishman and The Doors.  I guess I finally watched them due to Val Kilmer’s recent death.

I thoroughly enjoyed Kill The Irishman, and I do remember when I was a teenager hearing about all the bombings that were happening in Cleveland sometime in the ’70s, so I also enjoyed it for that reason.

As far as The Doors, other than Wonderland, I was never a big fan of Val Kilmer.  However, I thought that his portrayal of Jim Morrison was at least okay if not better.  I guess one of the reasons that I put off watching that movie for over 30 years was that I remember reading Nobody Gets Out Of Here Alive on a 747 over the Pacific in ’83 when I was in the Air Force and after reading that I  always felt that I did not need to see the Hollywood version.  I remember after the movie first came out, I was talking to one of my old Air Force buddies on the phone and he was telling me what a good movie it was; I remember telling him that after reading Nobody Gets Out Of Here Alive and watching the VHS tape of The Doors Live At The Hollywood Bowl I didn’t feel the need to watch actors do a portrayal of the group.  The movie touched on a lot of what was in the book in some way/shape/form and for the most part it held my interest.   

On edit:  I just now did a google of Val Kilmer movies, and although his part does not stick in my mind on these two, I also enjoyed True Romance and Masked And Anonymous.

I finally watched Oliver Stone's Snowden.  It kept my interest throughout. 

Just rewatched Glengarry Glen Ross. Some great acting!

Oh hell yes!   Good pick, @slaw !  What a cast:  Pacino, Lemmon, Spacey, Ed Harris, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin. . . .

I haven't watched Pacific Heights recently, but that's another one I've watched more than once.  Matthew Modine and Melanie Griffith with a particularly good performance by Michael Keaton.

I stayed up late last night and watched what I thought was a real good movie on Tubi.  Limbo (1999) was so good that maybe it was better than real good.   David Strathairn and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio played the leading roles, and Kris Kristofferson (who did not dominate the movie) played a smaller role that turned out to be critical to the movie.  The movie lasted two hours but it kept me so engaged that it didn’t seem that long; the first hour set up the second hour, and in case anyone has not seen it and wants to, I will not spoil it, but it went somewhere different than where I thought it was going when it got started.   I did a google and apparently Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio did her own singing, and she has a very nice voice.

Absence Of Malice with Paul Newman, Sally Field, Melinda Dillon  and Wilford Brimley.

I'll see if I can find that one, @slaw , Woody can be very good.  He did an outstanding job with his role in No Country For Old Men.

Watched on Prime recently 

@slaw , I found it on Tubi.  I watched about the first five minutes, and that was enough to be able to tell that it should be dark and funny.  My kind of movie.  I may stay up late tonight and watch it, but if not tonight, definitely later this week.  Thanks for the tip.

That was a pretty good movie on several levels, @slaw ; after it got going it wasn’t quite what I expected, but it did make me laugh several times.  It was well cast; Woody gets into his roles and Elias Koteas did a good job as a corrupt cop.  (He was why I was expecting the dark comedy that did not exactly materialize.  But it did make me laugh, and overall I’d say it was dark.)  The crack addicted prostitute, Kat Dennings, made me think of Cedar Rapids (Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Isiah Whitlock, Alia Shawkat) which was another entertaining movie, but in a different manner. 

Watched "Child 44" yesterday. Very well done. Stars Tom Hardy.

I did a google and it looks interesting.  It appears as if I can get it on Peacock, so I'll probably give it a look.  Texas Killing Fields was a movie that I enjoyed enough to watch more than once.  Small cast but I felt that the acting was decent it came off as intense and believable.  

Watched "The Wrestler" again with Micky Rourke. I thought it was still really good.

+1.   

Interesting to watch "Quiz Show" again after all these years. John Turturro is great.

Totally.

Bad Education with a cast including Ray Romano, Hugh Jackman and Pam Gluckin was quite entertaining, well acted, and at times I found it to be hilarious.   Apparently it is based on actual events and relates a tale regarding "waste, fraud and abuse" in the New York public school system.

Watched "Spotlight" for the second since it was released. Really well done.

I couldn’t remember if I had seen that one or not so I did a google and yes, now I remember it.  That was a pretty good movie and having Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton was a plus.

I recently watched American Woman (2018) with Sienna Miller and Amy Madigan.  It was a well put together drama with good acting that evolved from a crime/tragedy and was set in a working class town with everyday people somewhere in Pa. (it was filmed in Brockton Pa. and I think I remember Bucks County being mentioned in the movie).  The script, characters and plot were believable/realistic and it kept me engaged from beginning to end.

I remember watching Out Of The Furnace, @nonoise . 

If you enjoy movies with a theme of despair, check out Animals (2014).  It is not an action movie and has no big names, but if follows two heroin addicts (Jude and Bobbie) from good families who are living in a car, and what they do to obtain heroin.  I wouldn't think it would have taken much of a budget to make this movie, but I thought it was surprisingly well done.  There is a scene I remember where the female lead says to the male lead something to the effect of "why would two kids from reasonably good families end up doing this," and the male lead answers something to the effect of, "I don't know babe; why do birds keep flying into picture windows?"  (I doubt I got those quotes 100% word for word.)

The Holdovers was pretty good.

I thought that I had mentioned Fatman (2020) in this thread, but I cannot find it, so just in case I’ll mention it again because Walton Goggins is supposed to be hosting SNL tonight and that made me think of it.  Anyway, it is a very dark comedy starring Goggins and Mel Gibson.  It’s hard to do justice to in  a paragraph, but it involves Santa and his elves taking on a government military contract and also a child who had received a lump of coal and then hires a hitman to bump off Santa Clause.  As I remember, it had me in stiches, and although I didn’t like the series The Shield, I generally enjoy Goggins’ performances.

@nonoise ,

I don’t know if this was already mentioned but Out of the Furnace is one unrelentingly somber take on family, drug addiction and poverty 

that makes me think of Winter’s Bone (2010), which I have previously mentioned and was about the effect of methamphetamine addiction and production on a poverty-stricken group of people in the Ozarks.  With Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes and Dale Dickey (among others) for a cast, I got a gritty and dirty and real vibe.  Given you enjoyed Blast Furnace, I think you would also find this to your liking. 

I can get Antlers for free, @nonoise ; it is queuing up as I type!

Dark and grim are accurate descriptors, @nonoise .  I was not expecting a happy ending, but that was sort of  like what would happen if Stephen King and Cormac McCarthy decided to collaborate on something.  

Roadie (2011) is a movie with a musical theme that I found to be easily watchable.  Ron Eldard portrays a member of BOC's road crew who has recently received his walking papers from the band’s management.  This was part of his identity, and in the movie he has returned to his hometown (Queens, NYC) where instead of admitting that he is no longer on the road crew, he tells people he is actually running the show.  He meets up with a hometown girl (Jill Hennessy of Law & Order fame) he seems to have had (and still does) and her alpha male a-hole bf, played by Bobby Cannavale.  

Wiki calls Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016 starring Tina Fey as a correspondent in Afghanistan) a "biographical war comedy-drama."  Although it was humorous and made me laugh a few times, I was not going to go as far as calling it an outright comedy, but I did find it to be a movie worth watching.

I watched The Revenant last night (my second viewing). Leonardo DiCaprio’s role must be the most physically demanding one I’ve ever seen! I found the film’s music subtle and effective.

I enjoyed The Revenant myself, @bdp24 , and theoretically it is based on a true story and in real life Glass supposedly let bygones be bygones.  I remember a reference to Colter (who I assume was the mountain man/trapper John Colter) (I remember when I was in grade school learning that Colter had spent some time in the area now known as Yellowstone National Park which had then been jokingly referred to as "Colter's Hell" because his stories about that area were viewed by some as outlandish).  After I watched that movie I tried to follow up on the Colter aspect, and I remember reading on the internet that this was one of the inaccuracies of The Revenant as John Colter was not present at the time and event depicted in the movie.  But despite that, I found it an enjoyable watch.

@nonoise , since you are a fan of movies depicting characters and situations in the margins (and outside the margins) of society, have you seen Gone Baby Gone?

With a fairly strong cast (including Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, Amy Ryan, Amy Madigan) it is a layered drama that explores a blurry line between right and wrong and revolves around the abduction of a toddler in a tough working-class neighborhood in Boston.  This was in my original top eight picks.

 Speaking of which, have you ever seen State of Grace with Sean Penn, Gary Oldman, Ed Harris and Robin Wright? Great cops and mob movie with the mob being of the Irish variety. Made in 1990 but still holds up. 

That was a pretty good movie, @nonoise ; family, friends, trust, betrayal and violence with a great cast . . . I couldn't ask for much more.  And I had forgotten what that cast looked like 35 years ago.

On the subject of violent movies revolving around the Irish mob, how about Black Mass 2015)?  This was one of my original top seven picks; with Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulgar and Joel Edgerton as the corrupted FBI agent who collaborated with him, it is intense and violent.  The great cast also includes Kevin Bacon, Peter Sarsgaard, Jesse Plemmons, Bill Camp, Juno Temple. . . .  Imo it is a must-see.

. . .  @gano , speaking of Whitey Bulger movies and  the Karen Read trial, doesn't it seem rather ironic that a lawyer who once represented Bulger in a murder trial  would now be a special prosecutor in a case against someone who is alleged to have run down a police officer?

I guess a job is a job and a paycheck is a paycheck.

As they say, @gano , one person’s art is another’s garbage.  Myself, I am generally not a huge Nicholson fan, but in The Departed I loved him. I’ve never been to Boston so I cannot comment, but it seemed to full fill what I thought Boston would be like.  Which could very well be a misconception on my part.  (Now I am killing a lot of time watching excerpts of the Karen Read trial, and I get a kick out of the accents.)  As far as the Whitey Bulger angle, when I first watched the movie I really didn’t know anything about that, but after watching Black Mass and some White Bulger documentaries, there does seem to be a take off on that happening.  At least in that there was a violent gangster in Boston who had a law enforcement agent on the inside (Bulger had the FBI agent, Connoly/and Nicholson had Damon) and was playing both sides of the game.

Anyway, I really enjoyed The Departed.  But speaking of Bulger and Boston and movies, how did you feel about Black Mass?

The Departed is on right now, and I've seen it enough that I am not going to watch it tonight (particularly with commercials), but what a great movie with a great starring cast (Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson), and a great supporting cast (including Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, and Alec Baldwin)  that did a great job.  This was also on my top seven list and was also the movie that turned me into a DiCaprio fan.

I too, rewatched recently. Really love all the supporting cast. They contribute highly to the film.

The violence in The Departed was necessary and well done, and that was another aspect that made it a great movie.  I'd say the same for Black Mass.

That's interesting, @gano , and I can understand where your personal perspective enters into it.  (As for myself, I cannot stand Yellowstone.)  I only have preconceived notions of Boston, but if I had the personal connection that you described, I would not be able to get enough of Black Mass.  As it is, I will watch it whenever it's on a movie channel without commercials and unedited.  (And not because of Johhny Depp.)  I really get a kick out of the interaction with the Halloran character that Sarsgaard portrayed.   In the Departed, I remember a scene that I enjoyed where Nicholson came out of the backroom of the bar to talk to DiCaprio and he (Nicholson) was all blood spattered and kind of happy looking.  Whatever was happening back there, the viewer knows it was bad but apparently business as per usual.  Another scene that I found memorable was the one (I think it was Nicholson and Dicaprio's first meeting) where Nicholson hands DiCaprio a severed hand in a freezer bag to dispose of.

Anyway . . . ramble on. . .   

@gano , well, we both appreciated Gone Baby Gone.

In The Departed, I also thought Alec Baldwin's role was convincing.

But as far as

But movies to happen in Boston and shot in Seattle is a crime - like a A Million Little Things...

that would ruin it for me as well, and I thought maybe you were referring to The Departed, and at that point I was going to scratch that movie off of my list of favorites.  I googled it and it appears that it was filmed in Boston and NYC.  That does knock it down a notch or two on my list.

I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Cut Bank, but my advice is not to waste your time.  Just one of the many things that are wrong with it is that they made a movie that theoretically took place in Cut Bank, Montana, and they actually went as far as using that for the title, but it was filmed in a couple of towns quite a bit further north up in Alberta.  If that's what they wanted to do, that's fine, but I don't see the point in trying to dress the set up to look like Cut Bank (which they failed at) instead of titling the film Innisfree or Edmonton.  Out of curiosity, I googled the film, and according to The Great Falls Tribune, the residents of the real-life town of Cut Bank don't feel as I do.  Which I find interesting, because (again imo) the film makes them look like a bunch of hicks and Cut Bank more of a hick town than it actually is.  And I am not typing that because I have any wish to prop that town up.  Because I don't.

"Bugsie" Warren Beaty

I enjoyed Bugsy when I first rented the VHS tape a long long time ago, @slaw , and I rewatched it a year or two or three ago, and I still found it enjoyable.  I’ve been considering renting Alto Knights from "on demand" as it’s only a $5.99 rental now, but I pat Xfinity so effing much for my bundle, not paying extra for rentals has become a principle thing for me.

There’s a couple more I’d like to see that are rentals, but I might break down--Drug Store June (looks mildly hilarious), Winner (supposed to be about Reality Winner) and The Friend (a dog movie starring Bill Murray, and I like Bill Murray, but I like good dog movies even more).

Has anyone seen Alto Knights yet?

Btw I don’t know if Karen Read is guilty. Based on everything we know, she has no clue either. She was so wasted, she barely remembers getting home. What’s disgusting though is how the police acted. Just above the law all the way brotherhood.

@gano ,   I have formed an opinion, but my opinion does not matter.  With time on my hands, it does make for interesting viewing.  I give the defense credit for opting to start presenting their case Friday as opposed to waiting for Monday, and immediately following the prosecution's expert with their own.  All I can get from those experts is that I don't know who to believe.  Which may work for the defense.  Another interesting aspect that has developed is the prosecution not calling Procter and the defense doesn't appear to want to call him because (apparently due to the rules pertaining to direct and cross) they wanted him on cross and did not want the defense to get him on cross.  A bit of a chess match going on.

As far as Judge Cannone, the majority of the podcasters I have watched are calling her all the way from biased to corrupt.  I don't know enough about the system to form opinions on that, but what I did find interesting are the video clips (from the doc Ms. Read made) that the judge allowed the prosecution to present.  I am not sure that I can see the evidentiary value in them.

@slaw , I found A Single Shot to be watchable and engaging, and although I've never felt the need to see it more than once, I do remember that I enjoyed it.

I watched The D Train tonight (Jack Black, James Marsden, Jeffrey Tambor, Kathryn Hahn) and it was good for a few genuine laughs.  

I love the D Train. It is so uncomfortable

Yes, @gano , there were some uncomfortable sequences, but Jack Black made them hilarious.  I laughed out loud at least two or three times.  Probably more.

I enjoyed The Pledge, 2001 (starring Jack Nicholson and a great supporting cast which included Robin Wright, Benicio Del Toro, Dale Dickey, Aaron Eckhardt, Mickey Rourke, Sam Shepard, Harry Dean Stanton).

If you don't mind watching a two hour movie, I thought that Our Friend (2021) was a realistic and moving portrayal of a family effected by terminal cancer.  I didn't realize until the final credits that it was based on the real life story of Nicole Teague (played by Dakota Johnson), her journalist husband Matt Teague (Casey Affleck), and their friend Dane Faucheux (Jason Segel).  I learned in the final credits that Matt Teague wrote the nonfiction and it was published in Esquire titled as The Friend before being adapted for film.  A google revealed that there are some very minor nits between the film version and Matt Teague's original published nonfictional account, but all in all, quite minor.  For my own nits, there was one hole I couldn't quite resolve for my own understanding, but this may have been due to the quality of the audio on some of Affleck's dialogue and my own hearing limitations.  I would also say that for someone in the latter stages of terminal cancer, I would expect that person to look a lot worse (physical appearance wise) than Dakota Johnson did in the movie.

BUT:  the script was tight and engaging, the dialogue was excellent and well delivered by all of the actors, and the decline of Nicole Teague and the undying loyalty of Dane Faucheux was nearly heart breaking.  If not the best, certainly way up there with one of the best cancer movies I have ever watched.