Movie/film suggestions.

I had a 6' 9" Irish ex-rugby player staying at my house. He is a Richard Harris fan, so I streamed "This Sporting Life," which I had watched many years ago. It was a much more complex and interesting film than I had remembered. Recommended.

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.

Free HBO this week, so I killed two birds with one stone:  first bird was I watched Alto Knights (2025), and the second bird was I didn’t have to rent it.  The film portrays a version of the feud between Vito Genovese and Frank Costello and concludes with a version of the Apalachin meeting of 1957.  Robert Deniro played the roles of Genovese AND Costello.  I am not crazy about that kind of technique, but I guess he pulled it off.   

The Wizard Of Lies (2017), starring Robert DeNiro as Bernie Madoff and Michelle Pfeiffer as his wife (Ruth) was quite well done and rather fascinating.  I cannot imagine living in a world where people treat a million dollars more casually than I treat one hundred.  

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.