Great Cinema
Thaddeus was telling me about a video he watched recently called Tin Man
Unlikely Candidate
I remember seeing this mini-series touted on the SciFi network, and I thought it looked kind of stupid, but Thaddeus was quite impressed with how well it was done. Eventually he will bring it home so I can see it.
Does anyone else have any movies out there that they think are brilliant? Any “sleepers” that may have slipped under the radar, but that Thaddeus and I shouldn’t miss?
I’d be interested to know what readers think.
Current Knitting
I started of going great guns on the Ichida lace project, but then ran into a snag. But I still made it through round 89 (of 140).
Sorry for the crappy picture…I’ll post a better one later this week.
Actually, I made it up to row 89 on Friday. I made a mistake, and had a lot of difficulty un-knitting my work. I ended up just putting it down for the remainder of the weekend, and finally picked it up late last night to fix my error.
I spent the rest of the weekend putting stuff back into place after the carpet installation and knitting on my secret project.
Readers’ Comments/Questions
Lynn writes, “I just wanted to tell you that this piece you are working is absolutely beautiful! I think I’d like to test it out, so I’ve been searching on google for the book you mentioned, but with no luck so far.”
The book is available through Lacis. Do a text search for Ichida on this link and you can find it. My lace is in the second book.
Well, I don’t know what you usually watch, but I really enjoy(ed) “The Interpreter” and also “The Lake House”.
“The Italian Job” was nice, Sliding Doors is kind of cool. I liked “The Last Samurai” because of the beautiful scenery, but I guess that movie is very mainstream 😉
The irish musical “Once”- not so much a sleeper anymore because it won the Oscar for best song, but a beautiful little movie. Very sweet, (In a good way) very simple, but very satisfying. I think it was my favorite movie of last year. The chemistry between the two leads is amazing.
Also I just saw “Amazing Grace”–about the English abolition of the slave trade. I have to say, for a political drama, I was riveted. The acting was fantastic.
One of our very favorite “sleeper” movies is “A Murder of Crows” starring Cuba Gooding Jr. It’s action-packed, very suspenseful, just the kind of movie for a rainy Friday night. It can be ordered from Netflix. It’s about a disbarred lawyer who publishes a best-seller that he stole from a dead man. It’s really, really good.
For a really oldie sleeper, and it may take some searching to find it, try “Still of the Night” starring Meryl Streep. It was made in the early 1980’s and has not yet made it to Region 1 DVD. It’s an old fashioned whodunit. Roy Scheider and Jessica Tandy also star. It’s occasionally shown on TV, or you can do what I did and buy a used VHS from eBay.
Joe and Thaddeus, this is so obvious you’ll probably sigh heavily, I mean, does she think we don’t know THAT: but have you seen Robert de Niro in “King of Comedy”
Jean
Very few have heard of it, but I love the movie, “The Lemon Sisters” it stars Carol Kane and Diane Keaton. Quirky but oh so sweet. There’s a scene with Carol Kane singing that cowboy song “Rolling, Rolling, Rolling” that cracks me up every time!
Diane Keaton collects bad Roman/Greecian sculpture from casinos. Very weird and I think I need to buy that movie!
We liked the Tin Man (*** out of 5). We have seen and liked these recently:
“Gone Baby Gone”, a tragedy.
“The Wire”, TV series on DVD.
“The Secret Life of Words”, Irish and with Tim Robbins.
“Knocked Up”, good predictable fun.
“Away from Her”, with Julie Christie.
“Easter Promises”, violent but good with Viggo Mortensen.
“The Lives of Others”, good, 1980’s E. Berlin.
… and there’s more.
How about Black Cat White Cat, a film by Emir Kusturica. Really zany.
My favorite unsung movie is “Funny Bones,” with Oliver Platt and Jerry Lewis (!). It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, so maybe I’ll put it in my Netfliz queue.
You have seen Firefly and Serenity, right?
If you haven’t seen it then you should watch the original Italian Job.
Are you interested in old crochet patterns in French? Or old pieces of crochet, you get them very easily here.
We just rented “Scenes Of A Sexual Nature” and enjoyed it. No real plot in the classical sense, more like a series of overheard conversations, but some big (and small) laughs. This was one of those films that we liked along with 6 critics and somewhat less of the general population. Might serve as a warning to ignore my movie recommendations…
Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”: Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly wearing costumes designed by Edith Head