Joe Kidd (1972)

Don't recall seeing this one before now. A rich land owner (Robert Duvall) hires tracker Joe Kidd (Clint Eastwood) to hunt down Mexican revolutionary (John Saxon). Enjoyed this, although I wish they had expanded Saxon's role as he is one of my favorite character actors.

I don't remember if I have ever watched that either. I was on a Clint Eastwood run a few years back and I bought the Kino Lorber Blu-ray edition, which features an Alex Cox (director of Sid And Nancy, Repo Man, and Straight to Hell, and film professor of spaghetti westerns) commentary, and which I was also really into for a while. So I suspect I have seen it and am just old and forgetful.
But you inspired me to get my disc out to watch again for the first time.

Before I get to Joe Kidd, I just watched Call Northside 777 (1947), a noir-ish docudrama directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Jimmy Stewart and Lee J. Cobb. Stewart plays an investigative reporter looking into a possible false conviction of a cop killer.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006UEVV8/?tag=imwan-20

The Eiger Sanction (1975)

This film is in the same box set as Joe Kidd and I had never seen it before, not sure how I missed it. College professor/retired-hit man Clint Eastwood is called back into action to eliminate the killer of an old friend. Really enjoyed this movie, especially the mountain climbing scenes. Fans of trashy drive-in flicks will appreciate a brief appearance of cult actress Candice Rialson.

When I was doing my Clint Eastwood marathon a couple years ago, this was the film I was least interested in watching; everything I'd read about it sounded like it was not going to be to my taste, but it was really entertaining, it seemed to take itself far less seriously than I expected. .

Zotz! (1962)

Tom Poston as a college professor who comes across a magical, ancient coin, which gives him powers. A change of pace comedy for horror/mystery director William Castle. It was an okay way to kill an hour and a half.

I 've never heard of that movie, sounds like fun. I'll have to check it out. My favorite Poston role from the 60s was as mad scientist Dr. Zharko in the 1969 Get Smart episode "Shock It To Me". He was hilarious.

Sid Haig was also great as Zharko's dim-witted henchman, Bruce.

Haven't seen Get Smart in ages. Great show from what I remember

Zotz is in the William Castle DVD box set, which is way over-priced these days. Glad I bought it when it first was released.

Is this the one you have?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0024FAG3U/?tag=imwan-20

babygirl - last night

nicole kidman is very good..

the film itself is ok

That's the one but at a quarter of the price it's listed for now.

A Complete Unknown (2024)

Excellent! This film should have swept the Oscars, easily beating the nominated garbage. Great performances, soundtrack and direction. 2 hours 21 minutes which flew by.

No.

I watched it last night and gave it a 3/10. I see the woman who directed this also did Bodies Bodies Bodies, which was another 3/10. I don't think I'll be going back for any future releases.

Now that the major studios want to keep everything for their own steaming services, and won't license anything out to the HBO's/Showtime's, I am seriously considering dumping all these premium movie channels. It's like the only new movies that pops up on these channels now is A24 poop. I'm probably up to having seen 30 A24 films, and there is only 1 that I thought was good (Enemy, directed by Denis Villeneuve, starring Jake Gyllenhaal).

interesting.

Logan's Run (1976)

One of my favorite sci-fi films. Don't remember much about the short lived TV series it spawned and I'm glad Hollywood hasn't remade the movie, the original is good enough.

novacaine - last night - entertaining.

I watched A Confucian Confusion last night and wow, what a good film. Another winner from the late Edward Yang.

I watched this a few nights ago. I thought Nicole Kidman was excellent - as much as I like her, I hated her character. Actually, I hated most of the characters in this, but especially the primary characters. I don't need a happy story - I can deal with an ending that doesn't leave me with a happy smile on my face. But give me a character I can root for. Antonio Banderas was about the closest thing to that in this one.

Kidman has played some less-than-honorable characters very well the last few years, but at least some of them had some redeeming quality. I didn't get that from her character in this one.

The Vikings (1958)

Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh. Kirk is the son of the Viking king (Ernest Borgnine), Tony a slave with a secret past, and Janet a Welsh princess captured by Kirk. This is a fun flick, one I'd never seen before. Filmed mostly in Norway, the cinematography is as great as the cast and story.

Affectionately Yours - (1941)

When people talk about how movies didn't write well for women, this could be exhibit A. Dennis Morgan is a foreign correspondent for a US paper, married to Merle Oberon, but fooling around with any woman who'll buy his "if I wasn't married..." line, chief among them Rita Hayworth. Then he receives a telegram that says his wife divorced him (apparently w/o his knowledge). He lies to his editor to get shipped back to the US so he can win her back, while she's in the final stages of planning her wedding to Ralph Bellamy. A series of lies ensues where Morgan tries to juggle all his interests while outer forces try to manipulate things in their own favor. This all culminates with Morgan's photographer calling the church just before the wedding to tell Oberon that Morgan was hit by a car and is dying in the hospital conveniently across the street from the church. Morgan finds an empty bed in the maternity ward (nothing suspicious there!), smears strawberry jam on his head to fake the injury, and bandages his head. Surprise - Oberon leaves the wedding (proving she really loves Morgan), comes to his "deathbed" and proclaims her love for him. Then she notices that it's not blood but jam on his head and does what any woman would do - laughs away, and presumably they live happily ever after.

Really? More likely she'd beat the shit out of him, if she'd even left the church in the first place.

I love Merle Oberon, and she's good with what she's given here, but this is not one I'm likely to revisit.

House of the Long Shadows (1983)

Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Vincent Price, John Carradine. A writer (Desi Arnaz Jr.) spends the night in an old Welsh manor to write a novel on a bet with his publisher. It's best to see this movie with low expectations although I've seen much worse films starring aged horror actors.