I haven't taken time to sit down and write so I figured a Saturday night when I'm half tired already is perfect. Not really, I'm more than half tired, I'm really tired. I am awake enough though to write my thoughts for the last few things. So in this post I will talk about three movies and a hole in the wall place to eat. Sounds like fun right.
First up, I saw The Host a week ago when it first came out. I have never read the book by Stephenie Meyer, I have it, just haven't actually taken time to read it. So I went in blind knowing nothing. I found it humorous when Melanie would have conversations with Wanderer in her head, it took me awhile to get over it and deal with it. The acting, was at times, cheesy. The story was interesting though, alien beings coming to Earth and using humans as hosts for their living. Small insurgent groups exist that are fighting to regain control and live in hiding. I just don't know, I think the book might be better, I'll have to read it to find out. My mom did say that the movie was not quite like the book, the story was the same, but she believed the ending was different. I'm kind of glad that we went to the matinee and didn't pay full price. That's a plus.
Flash forward to this past Friday, I know you can. I had lunch with a long time friend that I hadn't seen in quite a while. We decided to meet up near his place in Culver City. At first we had no idea what or where we were going to have lunch. I have just started using Yelp so went there to check out restaurants in the area. I came up with a list of four places. We agreed on Victor Jr's, a pizza place on Washington in downtown Culver City. I love pizza so most are OK with me and this place has OK pizza. I would eat it if it were an option. The downfall, not a lot of seating. There's a small bar inside and about four tables outside. The tables and chairs make for a crammed area so you either have to hope no one is there or be super skinny to fit. Other than that, not a bad place. I think either take out or delivery would be a better option though. Pizza and movies are always good together.
That brings me up to last night. My sister had read in the paper about the Egyptian Theater showing some classic movies, in particular Friday night kicked off their month long Film Noir festival. It is presented by American Cinematheque and the Film Noir Foundation. The first film we got to see was Try and Get Me, which had a young Lloyd Bridges. The film was originally released as The Sound of Fury and was a flop. Try and Get Me is the original name of the picture.
The film is timeless to me. It revolves around a man trying to do good, find a job, support his family, that is lured in to a way to make easy money. People today are in the same boat. The money he brings in is good until his partner decides that they need one big score to be set-up for good. It is a botched kidnapping. Then the media gets a hold of the story and turns a couple of simple and one major crime into a spree and condemn the men before a trial is even on the calendar. A character named Vito is kind of the conscious (I called him the Jiminy Cricket character) trying to convince his media friend to be easy and not pass judgement because it will give rise to mob rule. The film's ending is poignant because the mob rule wins over the legal system.
I have to say that one of the best parts of the film was Lloyd Bridges. My favorite scene is of him in the lock up of the jail. Hanging on the bars and looking like a stark raving mad man. I can see how he could make the transition to comedy, since to me that scene was kind of humorous with this acting. Overall a good film and the copy that was shown was wonderful.
The second film (yep a double feature) was Hell Drivers. This movie was exciting and dangerous. It also has a host of actors that soon would become stars in their own right including Sean Connery and David McCallum (Ducky from NCIS or to others they would know him from a show called The Man from U.N.C.L.E.). I had to lean over and ask Tony if he had spotted anyone of the guys, there are more, and I had not realized which one was Sean Connery, he looked way different and I couldn't even recognize his face. I knew David McCallum as soon as I saw him, his eyes and smile haven't changed (and yes I do have a small crush on him).
In this movie our main character is a recent parolee from prison who takes a job driving for a corrupt company (kind of sounds like many of the large companies today). Again a man trying to do right that ends up in a bad situation. There's a sort of romance in the movie too. I love how in old movies they had to be careful with kissing scenes so they wouldn't get censored. The film is really about the drivers and overcoming the corruption and those involved in the corruption to win and of course the hero gets the girl and the crowd cheered when the bad guys went down.
I know it is a long post but I had so much to get in because I haven't been keeping up. I'm sure many have had that problem. Just have to keep coming back and keep with it.
One more thing, I would like to recognize Roger Ebert who passed away on April 4 from cancer. I haven't read many of his books, Tony has though, but I remember watching him on TV and giving reviews of movies with the famous thumbs up or down. His insight and genius will be missed by many movie lovers around the globe.
No comments:
Post a Comment