Movie/film suggestions.

And I made a passing reference to Phil Spector (2013) before in this thread, but I’ll mention it again because HBO is featuring it, and comcast has seen fit to give me free HBO this week.  Al Pacino played the starring role of Phil Spector, and as an Al Pacino fan, this was one of my favorite performances by him (Donnie Brasco and Scent Of A Woman are way up there on my list as well).  The movie focuses on Spector’s defense in the first trial which ended in a hung jury, and presents an alternative theory to that of Spector sticking the barrel of a .38 special in Lana Clarkson’s mouth and pulling the trigger. 

Helen Mirren played his lead attorney who started out quite skeptical but later became convinced of reasonable doubt.  Jeffrey Tambor was also cast as Bruce Cutler, the attorney who got Linda Kenney Baden (Helen Mirren) to represent Spector.  What I found interesting was that Rebecca Pidgeon was cast as Dr. Fallon who I believe (because I have not rewatched the movie yet) was a consultant for the defense.  I found that interesting because on Pidgeon’s Chesky produced CD, The Raven (1994), she performs a hauntingly beautiful cover of Spanish Harlem.

The Brutalist (2024) with Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce  was a long movie (over 200 minutes) and I had not intended on watching the entire movie in one sitting, but it was kind of like a book that keeps you turning pages and you don’t put down because you want to see what happens next and where it ultimately winds up going.  After it was over, I did think that maybe it was based on a true story, but a cursory google came up with AI saying "no."  However, it was an interesting movie that dealt with historical events.

And speaking of Adrien Brody, I always thought that Summer Of Sam (1999) was a fantastic movie with a good cast that included Brody, John Laguizamo, Mira Sorvino, Mike Starr, Ben Gazzara, Jimmy Breslin and Spike Lee who had an acting role and I believe he also directed the film.  It’s been quite a while since I’ve watched it, but it was one I wouldn’t have a problem watching again.  

I was looking for any other Adrien Brody movies that I thought might be interesting, and of course the star studded The Thin Red Line (1998) came up, but the one I thought was more thought provoking was Detachment (2011) with a cast that also included James Caan and Lucy Liu.  Brody plays an educator who makes a career of substitute teaching, and in this setting he is subbing at a low achieving high school  where most of the students don't have any desire to be there or to learn anything.  In this dark film with a secondary underlying dark layer (which was not a comedy although James Caan did elicit a snort of laughter from me two or three times) he tries to do the right thing and although he does see some results, there are also what seem to be two major backfires. It really appears as if there will be no redemption whatsoever at the end, and imo it would have been more impactful if there wasn't, but the ending offers a glimmer of something that the viewer can make up her or his own mind on how heart warming it actually is.

@immatthewj the Brutalist was loosely based on Marcel Breuer. His designs were in the movie. 

I thought it was terrible, incoherent, boring, I suffered through the second half. I was told by Hungarians that his Hungarian pronunciation and accent was unintelligible. You wouldn't know what he said, only from the subtitles. His English accent was also horrible. Yes, Marcel Breuer was brilliant, yes, he was a jerk to people, not sure which point the movie succeeded with and if it had to. I want my 3 hours back.

@immatthewj I am not a huge Pacino fan but Dog Day Afternoon is irresistible. 

Glengarry Glenn Ross and the Heat are also ridiculously great performances. 

I like that he is very consistent, no weird embarrassing roles like De Niro would do. 

@gano , I do not know why I was drawn into The Brutalist . . . but I was. (I was surprised that AI told me that it was not based on fact, thanks for clearing that up.)  As far as DeNiro goes, I think he has gotten better with age, and I’d say the same for Pacino.  I forgot about Glengarry Glen Ross, yes, a great movie, but Heat?  A typical good guys/bad guys bang bang shoot ’em up that although I have been told was based on fact, came off as totally and completely unrealistic to me.  Good special effects and cinematography though.  I’ve watched it once completely start to finish, but have not ever been able to get through another complete viewing.

I like that he is very consistent, no weird embarrassing roles like De Niro would do. 

How about Dick Tracy?

As far as Detachment, what I didn’t say about that was that it had too many unrealistic depictions of events in it to be what I would consider a real good movie, but since I was on a Adrien Brody kick at the time, I threw it in there.  Not a great movie, but an okay watch.

I thought that Lions For Lambs was pretty good.  It had three rotating parallel stories going on simultaneously and a shorter flashback story.  Set in the period a few years after 9/11 while the subsequent middle east invasions/wars were happening, Robert Redford plays a professor in one of the stories giving counsel to a privileged and intelligent but lackadaisical student.  At the same time, in another story. Meryl Streep plays a journalist interviewing a GOP senator with a neocon world view played by Tom Cruise.  I enjoy Tom Cruise when he is out of his usual type cast roles.  In the other simultaneous story, two students (Michael Pena and Adrian Finch) that Redford had in his class prior are in Chinook helicopter over Afghanistan.   The brief flash back story shows the two students when they were in Redford’s class back before they joined the military and there is the contrast to be made.  Redford’s acting was strong in this movie.

. . . after reading your response/reaction, @gano , I engaged in further thought and I still cannot explain why I didn't mind watching The Brutalist.  I guess it struck me the way I imagine some old Russian novel would . . . twisting and dangling in a seemingly pointless and off beat way down seemingly pointless off beat paths, and I guess I just wanted to find out where the paths ultimately would end up.  I will say that I often watch a movie that I enjoy more than once, and I seriously doubt that I will ever watch this one again, but that still  doesn't mean that I found it to be a bad movie.

A couple of observations:  it struck me as unrealistic that the protagonist would be as productive as he was and also be an IV opiate user, but I guess there are exceptions to every rule.  I was left wondering if Zsofia's child was a product of interaction being forced upon her by Harry Lee Jr.  And the whole scene in which Van Buren Senior raped Laszlo left me clueless.  But leaving me clueless generally is not hard to do.

@immatthewj I am curious to anyone's opinion who liked The Brutalist. If I may say, especially yours because you are a very intelligent and strange (in a good way) individual. 

As I said, the second half was painful. Which implies the first half was OK,  for me, even enjoyable at times. The rape was symbolism I guess, I didn't like it but understood it. I am big architecture nerd which kept me going but it wasn't very entertaining on that front either. I wish the proceeds would have gone to save some buildings designed by Bauhaus people like Breuer and his contemporaries. They are actively deteriorating and being sold to build shopping malls in their place, so that bother me more than the movie. 

 I guess it struck me the way I imagine some old Russian novel would

That is spot on because the movie was very Eastern European in many ways. One: the dialogs and language were authentic - despite the pronunciation. 90% of the movie was shot in Hungary if not all. The style, cinematography was also very typical of Menzel, Forman, Jancso, Gothar, and I'd add Kusturica, my favorite but he is a bit less gloomy. Brody's character is spot on, the genius who is always unhappy and revels in his misery - Eastern European to the core.

Thank you for your kind words, @gano ; "very intelligent" is no doubt a stretch, but I am sure "strange" may be appropriate.  Back to The Brutalist quickly:

generally if a movie starts to bore me and does not develop into something that is going somewhere relatively quickly, I don't hang with it very long before I am switching channels.  Therefore I have been thinking and wondering why I sat through two hundred and some minutes of this film in one sitting.  All I can say is that I guess the acting was good enough and to me the plot was believable (considering the historical period that it was based on) and there was something about the dark and depraved nature of the whole ordeal that the protagonist was enduring (and this is what makes me think of a Russian novel) that held my interest.  (And my experience with Russian novels is limited, but the only one that I did read had sort of the same effect on me, but did not leave me with the burning desire to read more of them.)

A successful story usually has to have a protagonist and an antagonist that create conflict (I'd say that they had that base covered) and the protagonist should be one that the viewer or reader truly cares about (or "gives a damn about what happens to him or her" as one critic once told me), and I confess didn't feel an exceptional amount of that. But although I did not feel a tight connection to anyone in the film, it kept me engaged and interested enough  to not turn it off. For me it was quite watchable, maybe even good, but nowhere near approaching great.  For me, anyway.

BTW, have you been following the Karen Read?  Jury is out and from the questions they have sent the judge, the annalists all feel ng on murder 2 is a done deal and the jury wants to go ng on manslaughter but they have some differences on DUI.  And, apparently the way the verdict sheet reads, if they hang on DUI then they also default to hanging on manslaughter?  Seems pretty messed up if that's the way it is, but I do not have a legal mind.  I know a couple of things:  I have no desire to live in Ma. (which is not on the table anyway), and if I did, I'd stay a long way from Canton.

@immatthewj there is a saying: "women hate women". The judge is doing everything she can to put her away. Either that or she is an incompetent judge. Maybe both. It's not looking great for Read, but at least the jury doesn't seem to think she killed him

I’ve been watching quite a bit of the retrial as it has been live-streamed, @gano , and Judge Cannone does seem to be prosecution friendly.  At least going by the number of objections for each side that she sustains and over rules.  But with that typed, I do not have a legal mind and I do not understand what forms the legal basis for these rulings that she makes.  The pod-casters seemed to be overwhelmingly biased for Read and against Cannone’s rulings, but I think their biases may make them an unreliable source.

As far as whether it looks good or bad for Ms. Read, yesterday near the close of deliberations the analysts were mostly saying it was looking way good for her, and they were basing that upon the questions that the jury had sent to the judge.  As deliberations continue today, the analysts seem to be hedging their bets by a little bit.

Personally, until yesterday, the best I thought she was going to get was a ng on 2cond degree murder and another hung jury on manslaughter (and I wasn’t giving DUI any thought until yesterday), but the way it sounds is as if Ma. defines 2cond degree murder  (and I am going to paraphrase based on my possibly flawed understanding) as any intentional act that is reckless enough that a reasonable person should understand could result in death.  Meaning, to me, that if one was hauling ass down a two-lane highway at 120 mph and a fatal accident resulted, this would meet that criteria for 2cond degree murder.  If I am understanding the definition in Ma. correctly.

Regardless of that, I still think 2cond degree murder was a deliberate over charge by the commonwealth with the strategy being to make it more palatable for the jury to find her guilty of manslaughter.  But I could be mistaken about that as well.  

@immatthewj If it's a hung jury and another trial will happen, that's not good for her. There seem to be some jurors who can't acquit her so there may be a conviction and the judge can come up with a harsh sentence. That's what I mean by not looking good for her. 

It's also not looking good for the truth. She is on trial when the sleazy Canton cops should be. 

MA is a racist, good old boy's privileges open all doors state. Despite the liberal image. As they say it's all different outside 128.

@immatthewj If it's a hung jury and another trial will happen, that's not good for her. There seem to be some jurors who can't acquit her so there may be a conviction and the judge can come up with a harsh sentence. That's what I mean by not looking good for her. 

Well, what the analysts were saying yesterday, @gano , is that the questions the jury sent to the judge seemed to make them (the analysts) feel that the charge that they were hung on was the DUI (or OUI as they apparently call it in Ma), and that's why they felt it was looking good for her.  As in:  it's not perfectly ideal, but she can live with OUI a lot easier than with 2cond or 3rd degree murder.

But this is the wrinkle I do not understand, and I am not going to spend too much time attempting to understand it, they are also saying that the way the verdict form is constructed they cannot hang on OUI without hanging on manslaughter.  Which I agree is not good, but, still better than guilty of manslaughter and bond revoked and do not pass go and go directly. . . .

With that typed, they have been discussing a revamped verdict form today, so I am not sure whether they have rectified that problem.  The analysts are saying that the verdict form is confusing and that this is not the jury's fault, and being confused myself, I tend to agree.  I will repeat that I do not have a legal mind, nor have I ever served on a jury, but I would think that it should be possible to just have each charge stand by itself and each charge could be answered with a guilty or not guilty or undecided (meaning hung).  But from what some of the legal minds are saying, is that Ma. does certain things differently.

@immatthewj on the OUI charges: she was drinking with cops, driving a cop to a another cop's house with a drunken party, maybe it should have been their job to not let her drive?

@immatthewj on the OUI charges: she was drinking with cops, driving a cop to a another cop’s house with a drunken party, maybe it should have been their job to not let her drive?

This has been discussed by some of the analysts, @gano , and they have surmised that this may be why the jury may be having problems reaching consensus on the OUI.  Of course, this is all conjecture on their part, including on what actual charge the jury is having problems with.  All the analysts are going by is the questions that the jury has submitted to the judge.

On Ma. and specifically on this trial:  at least they have allowed cameras.  I have too much time on my hands and I do not use it productively so therefore I have been watching podcasts of coverages of trials that I find interesting.  Prior to the Karen Read trial, I was following the trial of Richard Allen (down the hill murders) in Delphi, In., and in that one the judge allowed NO cameras.  Therefore, all that was available there were the reports from the podcasters who were able to get in and take notes, and Judge Gull designed the rules pertaining to them getting in to be extremely rough/draconian.  There were podcasters who seemed to feel that a miscarriage of justice was going on, and without getting into all the details, that may or may not have occurred, but the thing is--no cameras so all we have to go on is the opinions and notes of the podcasters.  (And Nancy Grace, of course, but I find no value to her obnoxious bellowing.)

So as I typed, at least cameras are allowed in this trial.   And I will also say that the more of this stuff I watch, the happier I am that I personally have never been seriously entangled with the legal system.

I can't freaking wait, just acquit her already!

I can't freaking wait, just acquit her already!

There was the false alarm a while ago, but now Vinnie P. from Court TV is saying that "the word on the street" is that a verdict is in. . . .

. . . verdict is in!

oh boy.

so she's guilty of drunk driving?

Canton cops will be vicious tonight. 

I am not convinced that she is innocent, but I believe that reasonable doubt exists.  I guess the jury did also.  When I first started watching this retrial I would have put my money on a deadlock being the best she would get.  I would think that she is experiencing an incredible relief.

so she's guilty of drunk driving?

Court TV is calling that "a throw away."  She received the standard first time OUI conviction sentence--a years probation.

I am not convinced that she is innocent

I can list 10 reasons why it’s very unlikely she did it. Yes, that’s a possibility but very little compelling evidence was presented. The prosecution was about what the police provided, she is a crazy b%tch. Also, you can hit a large person in the snow from 15 foot with an SUV, 4 out 5 times he would survive - especially with the alleged injuries

As I typed, @gano , I believe that there was reasonable doubt.  Apparently the jury did as well.

Also, you can hit a large person in the snow from 15 foot with an SUV, 4 out 5 time he would survive - especially with the alleged injuries

. . . people have slipped and fell and sustained a brain injury that was serious enough to result in an intercranial hemorrhage that ultimately caused their death.  However, the commonwealth's own witness, the ME, would not testify that she thought the injuries were consistent with a mv/pedestrian accident.  Which, in my mind, was huge.  I don't have any experience in emergency medicine, but I would have expected there to be soft tissue trauma at the least, and quite possibly fractures.  Regardless of how I feel about the 3rd party theory, the way the evidence was theoretically found at the scene seemed suspicious, and although two things can be true at the same time, I did feel that there was reasonable doubt. 

I am watching NBC Boston, the defense team was graceful to say the least. 

I am watching NBC Boston, the defense team was graceful to say the least. 

She was represented by professionals, @gano .  She was fortunate for that.

they looked decent and savvy for sure, aiming - if not high but - the middle. I am not a huge fan of all lawyers but I won't politicize it @immatthewj 

 I am not a huge fan of all lawyers but I won’t politicize it

I understand that, @gano , but if you need one . . . well, you need one.  I am thinking that for the last few years Alan Jackson may have been Karen Read’s best friend.

Personally, I thought she had an uphill climb in front of her.

@gano I am not going to divert this thread to another trial after this post (the KR trial discussion evolved from a discussion about crime movies that were supposed to be set in Boston) but after the verdict, Court TV panned over to the Laurel Glen murder trial, aka "the preppy murder trial", which I don't know anything about and have no intention of following, but the prosecutor is questioning this preppy kid who was filming the altercation that evidently resulted in a murder, and this kid must have answered "I do not recall," about 20 or 30 times in the ten minutes or so I have been listening to it.  I don't know why that struck me as amusing or worth mentioning, but it did.  Okay, I will type no more about this.

@immatthewj I would say take a break from the court channel. It could be aggravating. Half of the world lies and they would do it on the stand too.

@immatthewj I would say take a break from the court channel. It could be aggravating. Half of the world lies and they would do it on the stand too.

Yeah, @gano , you are right; I am not going to follow this one.  But for some reason it just cracked me up hearing this spoiled looking/sounding kid say, "I do not recall," so many times.  The kid’s first name is Tanner, not that this is relevant to anything at all.

Okay, NOW I won’t say anything else about it.  But Jesus!  He just said "I do not recall" at least six more times!  He just said it two more times when I was typing that last sentence! Ha ha!

@gano , and back to The Brutalist and my comparison to a Russian novel and me saying I had only read one (Russian novel) from start to finish, I wonder if it is a coincidence that the novel was Crime And Punishment?

@immatthewj well it's a more than a novel. It's a masterpiece. It's a study in human nature, the big bang of how we process guilt. I am reminded of it all the time.

@gano , connecting all of this back to the movie thread, and alluding back to Al Pacino’s performance in Phil Spector, I just discovered (via youtube) that Karen Read’s lead attorney, Alan Jackson, was the prosecutor in the Phil Spector murder trial.  

And, as we had been discussing Black Mass (and crime in Boston), here is an interesting youtube from 2013 of Hank Brennan when he was talking about his defense of Whitey Bulger.  Just some interesting trivia is all.

Hank Brennan/Whitey Bulger

you are back to the Departed @immatthewj. Nice. I am listening to the interview now.

One other weird, or not so weird connection: Roy Cohn and the Rosenberg trial. 

Kentucky fried movie, and mature rated version of Caligula.

Outstanding classics.

the uncut version of "Reanimator."

"Edmund". A really interesting film. See William H Macy as never before, brilliantly portraying a middle aged, unhappily married man, disrupting his and other's lives, based on a fortune teller' reading. Many well-know actors.

BTW, was WHM’ wife, the female in the Seinfeld episode when she was attractive in the light but very unattractive in the dark?

In my opinion, Matt Damon is a talented and versatile actor, and although I do not like all of the movies he has been in, I have thoroughly enjoyed some of them.

One that I thought he did an excellent job in was The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) which also featured  Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and some musicians (trumpet player Guy Barker, Perico Sambeat/alto sax, Byron Wallen/cornet).

Syriana (2005) was a Matt Damon movie that I enjoyed even more than The Talented Mr. Ripley; Wiki says that the movie "was  loosely based on CIA agent Robert Baer's memoir, See No Evil." George Clooney played the CIA agent, Bob Barnes (who was apparently intended to represent the real life CIA agent Robert Baer) and also featured Chris Cooper, Christopher Plummer and Amanda Peet who plays the role Of Matt Damon's wife.

BTW, was WHM’ wife, the female in the Seinfeld episode when she was attractive in the light but very unattractive in the dark?

@slaw , I could not remember whether I had seen Edmond or not (it turned out I have) so I watched the first couple of scenes, and I did recognize Macy’s wife as actress and female vocalist Rebecca Pidgeon.  I haven’t seen many of the movies she has been in, but she did play a consultant for the defense team in Phil Spector (which I thought was an excellent movie) and she had an instrumental role in State And Main which was an okay (basically a comedy of sorts) movie.  I do remember the episode of Seinfeld you are alluding to; however I did a google and she was not credited with acting in any Seinfeld episodes.  I own her Chesky CD, The Raven (1994) which is a well produced/recorded CD and she does a beautiful cover of Spanish Harlem on that disc.

I would say Matt Damon doesn't have a huge range. You either like him or you don't. I think he is getting much better with age. Oppenheimer, Ford vs Ferrari, the Instigators were all stellar performances. I think he struggled with the Departed. 

I also know his classmate from Harvard who said he was a jerk with a giant ego. I don't trust her 110%, she also has a big ego, but sounds about right. Overall, with his activism, Jason Bourne dark charm, I take him any day over Vincent Vaughn.

One movie I like a lot starred Damon: Hereafter, directed by Clint Eastwood. A great story.

@gano , I remember you explaining the reasons that you did not like The Departed, and after I googled it and discovered that a lot of it was not actually filmed in Boston, that did knock it down a notch on my list.

But, I really enjoyed the actors, including Matt Damon as the corrupt Ma state trooper.  What I appreciate about Matt Damon is how he can portray an actor that gives everyone the warm and fuzzies (Will Hunting or Private Ryan . . . and this kind of role is not at all my favorite) or a quite despicable character (such as Mr. Ripley or the corrupt trooper in Departed) or just some type of character who comes off as not extraordinarily good or bad but just flawed to some extent and believable.  His character in Syriana worked for me on that level.

Based on your opinion of his performance in The Departed, I take you would not cast him to play Michael Proctor in the Karen read movie? I don't think I would either.  Maybe Amy Ryan as Karen Read. . . .

@immathewj I think he would be good as a lawyer. He excelled in those roles. For Karen Read: Robin Wright, Natalie Portman, Jessica Alba, maybe Amanda Peet.

The actress has to have a wacky image. Also an evil smile. It's a tricky role, scary and vulnerable at the same time.

Is the movie being cast already?

Look no further than Aubrey Plaza

All the best,
Nonoise

it's not a bad suggestion. I also thought of Cobie Smulders. But I'd probably go with Amanda Peet. 

Is the movie being cast already?

Probably only in my mind, @gano . 

I agree with you that Matt Damon plays a good warm and fuzzy lawyer, and I did think of him in that role, but definitely not for the Hank Brennan role.  Damon's past performances as a lawyer also strike me as a bit too warm and fuzzy for Alan Jackson, but I also think that he is a skilled enough actor to pull off whatever they hand him.  Maybe Michael Keaton for Hank Brennan?  For some reason, Karen Read made me think of Amy Ryan.

@immatthewj I like Amy Ryan - otherwise. First I was a hard no for this role for her. I almost pulled my sponsors and my 2 million I put aside because of this. I wasn't screaming but definitely raised my voice and the director asked for a 10 minutes break. On a second thought, Amy would be good, but she wasn't my idea. So, still a "no".

On Michael Keaton, semi-seriously, he is brilliant in everything. I don't know how he pulled off Dopesick. It is amazing.

Overall, we need to get good actors and actresses, not famous ones. Damon, Keaton are out.