2013, Clever Plot, Complicated, Crude Talk, DO NOT MISS, Political Suspense, Politicians, Suspense, TV Series, Unscrupulous drive to power, Wonderful acting

House of Cards (2013)

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From NetFlix:

A ruthless Congressman, Francis Underwood, and his ambitious wife Claire, will stop at nothing to conquer everything. This wicked political drama slithers through the back halls of greed, sex, love and corruption in modern D.C.

March 13, 2015: Having earlier streamed season Two, I have just finished streaming season Three from NetFlix. You MUST watch the series in order. Anything I would say might be a spoiler. At the very least, the plot and acting are worth the price of admission. Question: Do you think this political series is too cynical? Are our politics really that dirty? In fact, season Three rings true in light of events in 2015. Look out for the Russian president who is a dead ringer for Putin.

Kevin Spacey is perfect for this political page-turner. No one plays a smarmy corrupt personality better than Kevin Spacey.

To be more beautiful than Robin Wright (who plays Kevin’s wife) would be a tall order. That she is 47 years old during the filming seems hard to believe. Come to think of it, Kevin Spacey is doing OK at age 54 – just the right age to be Vice President.

Pay attention, the plot is a bit complicated but worth the trouble. Each of the three seasons ends leaving you scratching your head and possibly feeling somewhat disappointed (or should I say, apprehensive?).

For a political melodrama, I would call this series a DO NOT MISS!

2005, Animation, Comedy, Could be boring, Could Be Sad, Drama, FilmReview, Imperfect, Several languages, Short Films, Talking Heads

Shorts: Vol 3 (2005)

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From NetFlix:

Good things come in small packages, as evidenced by the 16 award winners showcased in this collection, which represents the best short films screened at Cannes, Sundance, Telluride, Tribeca and many other film festivals. This international collection includes Johan Brisinger’s “Passing Hearts Sweden,” Kathleen Na’s “L’Entretien,” Shawn Ku’s “Pretty Dead Girl” and many other superb shorts. Extras include extensive commentaries by the filmmakers.

These supposedly Award-Winning Film Festival Shorts are not very good, excepting for the poignant “Passing Hearts Sweden”. Instead try 2007 Shorts.

Shorts included are:

  • “Hyper” Oddly enough, concerns a really hyper young man. [Funny]
  • “Gowanus, Brooklyn” So slow I gave up watching.
  • “Passing Hearts Sweden” Slow, warm story about boy in 8th grade. Somewhat of a mystery until you understand the sadness behind the story. [Swedish with English subtitles]
  • “My Name is Yu Ming” Adventuresome Chinese student visits Dublin. He spent 6 months learning Irish only to discover that almost no one in Ireland understands Irish. [Mandarin with English subtitles]
  • “Seventeen” Grotesque depiction of young man who cannot find a sexual partner. Explicit sexual drawings. {Netherlands] [Drawn animation]
  • “Loose Ends” Two twenty something young men arguing about “Star Wars” [Norwegian with English subtitles]
  • “L’Entretien” Young man receives strange invitation to join the “Good Life”followed by a strange sequence of events. [French with English subtitles]
  • “Confection” Little girl has fantasies while holding onto a sweet from a bakery.
  • “Colorform” Little girl makes a mess with finger paints. Has a harp lesson with an Italian teacher. Throws spahetti at dinner. Etc.
  • “Date” Demanding girl friend changes her attitude.
  • “The Fridge” Tale of a mysterious refrigerator. [Greek with English subtitles]
  • “Clay Pride” The difficulty of being Clay in America. [Animated Play Dough]
  • “Pretty Dead Girl” Off-color hospital song and dance routing.
  • “Climactic Death of Dark Ninja” Kids in the woods.
  • “Archipelago” Acceptable short drama on a beach. [Spanish with English Subtitles]
  • “A Ninja Pays Half My Rent” Young man tries to get along with his new Ninja roommate.
2007, Acceptable for children, Animated, FilmReview, Short Films, Unusual

A Collection of 2007 Academy Award Nominated Short Films (2007)

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From NetFlix:

This anthology features the nominees for the 80th Academy Awards Short Film category, including the live-action winner, “Peter and the Wolf,” and the animated winner, “The Mozart of Pickpockets.” Other entries in the collection are “At Night,” “The Substitute,” “Tanghi Argentini,” “The Tonto Woman,” “Even Pigeons Go to Heaven” and “Madame Tutli-Putli.”

Shorts in foreign languages are subtitled. Production values are good and not amateurish as are some collections of shorts. But it was not possible to skip around to various shorts on the DVD.

Contents:

  • “At Night” consists of the relationships among three young women cancer (?) patients in a hospital. [Sad] [Danish]
  • “Il Suplente” [The Substitute Teacher] Bizarre behavior of a substitute teacher and his students. [Funny] [Italian]
  • “The Mozart of Pickpockets” Two thieves teach a little boy to pickpocket. [Funny] [French]
  • “Madame Tutli-Putli” Sequence of bizarre, nightmarish sights during a train ride. [Animated 3-D characters] [Unusual] [No voices]
  • “Even Pigeons Go To Heaven” Priest sells old man a one-way space vehicle to heaven. [Animated 3-D characters] [French]
  • “Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf” Imaginative version of the classic. [Animated 3-D characters] [No voices]
Animated, Comedy, Dark, DO NOT MISS, Dysfunctional Lives, FilmReview, Nudity, Short Films, Violent

The 2005 Academy Award Short Films Collection (2005)

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From NetFlix:

This compilation of Oscar nominees delivers the best animated and live-action short films of 2005 in one collection. Selections include the winning films: “The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation” (animated) and “Six Shooter” (live action). In the former, a son explores his turbulent relationship with his late father, and in the latter, an old man’s grief is interrupted by a young stranger.

Quite a variety exists in this wonderful collection of film shorts from different countries (always with subtitles):

  • “Our Time is Up” (American) Comedy involving a psychiatrist who experiences a change of life.
  • “The Runaway” (German) Drama in which an architect connects with a young school boy.
  • “The Last Farm” (Scandinavian) An old farmer deals with the end of his life.
  • “Cashback” (British) Comic adventures of a college student working in a grocery store. Includes many naked women.
  • “Six Shooter” (Irish) Grieving widower (Brendan Gleeson) rides a train seated with a talkative (unbalanced ?) young man.
  • “Badgered” is an animated short about, well, a badger.
  • “The Moon and the Son” Cartoonist son talks to his hospitalized father and presents a cartoon version of their sad family life. (John Tarturro and Elie Wallach are the voices.)
  • “The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello” is a marvelous surreal animated (think “Triplets of Belleville”). If nothing else, the visual aspect is stunningly imaginative.

If you watch nothing else, the last animated is worth the price of admission. If you like shorts, DO NOT MISS!

2005, Conspiracy, Made For TV, Mediocre, Political Suspense, Suspense, Violent

Archangel (2005)

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From NetFlix:

After a visit from a Stalinist-era bodyguard who claims to have stolen a personal notebook belonging to Joseph Stalin, radical historian Fluke Kelso digs deeper to prove its existence in this made-for-TV thriller.

Daniel Craig plays the historian Fluke Kelso (rhymes with “so-so”) in this mildly acceptable political thriller. Expect scuffles in alleys, political assassinations, cabins in the woods, and lots of shooting. There is no sex whatsoever.

If there is an underlying and often repeated theme it is this: about 30 million Russions pine for the return of such a wonderful leader as Joseph Stalin. Never mind that he murdered somewhere between 20 million and 30 million people directly or indirectly (e.g. purposeful famines). There is a discussion of just how many deaths are attributable to Stalin in the Wikipedia article. One of Stalin’s biggest fans is Putin.

You can do better than to watch this “nothing special” TV film.

2012, Could be boring, Could Be Sad, Drugs, Explicit sex, Gay theme, Love Story, Nudity, Quiet

Keep the LIghts On (2012)

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From NetFlix:

The physical romance between a gay filmmaker and an attorney soon evolves into a more complex relationship, laced with conflicting desires. Over several turbulent years, both men struggle to build a true acceptance of the other’s strengths and flaws.

That the two protagonists happen to be two gay males is almost beside the point. Suppose they were a straight couple. Suppose they “hook-up” casually. Suppose they develop a friendship. Suppose A falls in love with B (and suppose B also loves A, but in this film that is questionable). Suppose B has a serious drug problem. Suppose the friends of B stage an intervention and B agrees to accept treatment. Suppose for awhile A and B are happy together. Suppose B falls off the wagon and disappears for awhile. If you were A, what would you do?

Forgive my hard heart, but if I were A I would run as fast as I could from the relationship. Now you have to watch the film to see what happens.

Perhaps this warning is unnecessary, but there is a lot of explicit male with male sexual activity. It might just as well have been male with female activity. And the sex is somewhat besides the point. Tough decisions is what this film is really about.

Some parts are boring or overly long. Some parts ring incredibly true to life. There is a lot of quiet conversation. Think of the plot as an ordinary story that is enacted over and over in much of the world and we are invisible spectators. Sometimes I yawned but for much of the time I was drawn to real people going through some really rough times.

2004, Barely Acceptable Trash, Car Chase, Grim, Imperfect, Serial Killer, Suspense, Violent

Highwaymen (2004)

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From NetFlix:

Wheelchair-bound serial killer Fargo (Colm Feore), whose tricked-out green Cadillac serves as his deadly weapon, rages loose on the highway, and the only man who can stop his rampage is Rennie (James Caviezel), the husband of a woman he’s murdered. When Rennie teams up with a survivor of one of Fargo’s rampages (Rhona Mitra), the pair vows to stop him before he flattens anyone else. Frankie Faison co-stars in this deadly game of cat-and-mouse.

In this car chase film the only novelty is that one of the chasers is an automotive serial killer who runs over people for the fun of it. If this sounds like a film to skip, you are absolutely correct.

You might recognize Rhona Mitra as one of the temporary employees in “Boston Legal”.

Try another film.

2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, Acceptable for children, Acceptable Science, Asperger's Syndrome, British, Could Be Sad, DO NOT MISS, Dog Story, Drama, Dysfunctional Lives, Feel Good For All, Love Story, Made For TV, School Teacher, Small British village, Small Town

Doc Martin (2004)

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From NetFlix:

Crippled by a sudden and inconvenient fear of blood, flashy surgeon Dr. Martin Ellingham abandons his bustling London practice and sets up shop as a country doctor in this medically minded British sitcom.

Are you looking for a warm, friendly, non-violent, comic, personal British sitcom? Look no further. Beginning in 2004 and extending over 5 years of wonderful episodes, you can relax and enjoy “Doc Martin”.

Doc Martin (played by Martin Clunes) is a very unusual character. For starters he is a family doctor who is sickened by the sight of blood (he looks away when he draws a blood sample). Most importantly he is completely hopeless in any social situation. My guess is that he is supposed to suffer from Asperger’s syndrome. Nowadays we would say that he “doesn’t have a clue”.

He has set up practice in a charming, small, British village on the sea. He is a brilliant diagnostician and much of each episode has him helping people in his impossibly brusque manner. In fact, part of the comedy in the series is his reaction (or non-reaction) to everyone, including his patients.

Do not misunderstand: the stories are not pablum. Some of the situations are harrowing. For example, we see his icy mother just once when she visits and explains that she never loved him because he “got in the way”. Along the way we see villagers afflicted with OCD, vertigo, psychosis, etc. Nonetheless the “cringe” factor is very low compared to today’s British TV plots.

All 5 seasons are available on DVD. NetFlix offers DVD or streaming for all the episodes.

In the area of family sitcoms I would rate this series a DO NOT MISS!

1980, Based on a Book, Based on true facts, Crude Talk, Dark, Detective, Gay theme, Grim, Mostly About Sex, Murder Investigation, Nudity, Plot Twist, Psychological Drama, Serial Killer, Sex Scenes, Suspense, Transvestite theme, Violent, Vulgar

Cruising (1980)

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From NetFlix:

After a serial killer brutally murders several gay men in New York’s S&M and leather districts, cop Steve Burns (Al Pacino) goes undercover on the streets, where he must learn the complex rules of the underground gay subculture if he’s to catch the psycho. Karen Allen co-stars as Burns’s girlfriend in this gritty 1980 thriller, which sparked protests from gay rights groups at the time of its release but has since developed a minor cult status.

“Lurid” is the first adjective that comes to mind. The Stonewall riots occurred in 1959. By 1980 the gay movement was strong enough to protest this film which depicts an aberrant side of gay culture. Indeed the strong gay protests are described in the Wikipedia article about the film.

Expect “grungy” scenes in this cult classic with a wonderfully ambiguous ending.

2012, Clever Plot, Complicated, Crime, Detective, DO NOT MISS, Drama, Finance, Lawyers, Marital Infidelity, Plot Twist, Sex Scenes, Suspense, Wonderful acting

Arbitrage (2012)

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From NetFlix:

As billionaire Robert Miller struggles to divest his empire before his fraud is brought to light, fate takes a nasty turn. Now desperate and running out of options, Miller turns to an unlikely source for help.

Richard Gere plays Robert Miller who has to be the coolest crook on the planet.

Call this well-written, well-acted film a suspense drama because throughout you will sitting on the edge of your seat wondering two things: Will our crooked hero get caught in his fraud and manslaughter and what lives will he ruin as he spins his web of deceit?

Pay attention as one development leads to another. Keep in mind what Miller espouses as his twisted philosophy: “The world is cold”.

Any hint of the ending would be a spoiler. But Susan Sarandon, who plays Miller’s wife, really comes through.

DON’T MISS THIS FINANCIAL THRILLER!