Crazy Movie Lady 14

April 19-25, 2009
213. So I Married An Axe Murderer. Pretty bad. Obvious twist and really drawn out story line. I was bored after 11 minutes but kept watching because I'm way behind in my quest for 750 movies this year.
214. Clockers. Spike Lee Joint. I'm knocking these out of the park like Alfred Hitchcock films this year. Can you believe this was my first time seeing it? I liked this one.
215. Sabotage. Hitchcock movie about sabotage. There were some cool twists. This movie falls somewhere in the middle among his films. Not one of the worst, not one of the best.
216. Risky Business. Amusing-ish teen comedy about a brothel-- I know-- which made Tom Cruise famous. I think I would've liked it a lot more about 5 years ago.
217. Land of Silence and Darkness. An early Werner Herzog documentary about people in Germany who are both deaf and blind, how they communicate. I liked it. It was both sad at times and intriguing.
218. Lifeboat. Another Hitchcock. This one about the 8 people who survive an attack on a naval ship and how they survive at sea. I liked it. 4 stars. The ending was a bit trite, though, in keeping with the time it was made.
219. Misery. Amazing movie in which Kathy Bates most certainly earned her Oscar for this role. She was CA-RAZY!!! I was cringing the entire movie. I recognized some scenes from commercials and knew immediately to brace myself for a movie full of psycho. I was right. I loved it. Don't want to see it again but I loved it.
220. Roman Holiday. My first Audrey Hepburn film. It was cute, but I'm not sure why she won an Oscar for this role. I think knowing that skewed my view of the film less favorably. Like I said, cute, but the more Oscar-winning films I watch, the less I think that means anything. I still want to win one, but (obviously) I don't really need that.
221. Jonestown: The Life and Death of People's Temple. Wow... AMAZING documentary about what is considered the largest mass suicide in recent history where 909 people literally drank the kool-aid. I knew the phrase originated from that but had no idea it entailed all of this. Amazing footage and access to former members, some of whom lost as many as 19 family members that day in 1978. The story was skillfully executed. It built suspension. If there was one flaw I could point to easily, it would be that the exposition was so lengthy in explaining how it got to that point. That may be my impatience because I didn't want to wait to find out the details of this story I knew very little about. Overall, a fantastic film.
222. Young and Innocent. Hitchcock. It was pretty boring until the blackface. Seriously? I can barely focus on the rest of the meandering plot because of the blackface. God forbid we give a black actor a job. And don't say, "Well it was 1937." I don't care.
223. Body of Lies. Movie about a CIA spy in the Middle East during the Iraq war with Russell Crowe and Leo Dicaprio. Both had HORRIBLE southern accents. Why? Why couldn't they have neutral accents? It did nothing to advance the film's plot. Not a good movie.
224. White Diamond. Documentary by Werner Herzog about airship tests by a British engineer in Guyana and the people involved. It veered off course into the nearby waterfalls and the lore surrounding them and previous tests which killed an earlier filmmaker. It was weird but sometimes beautiful and yet didn't really hold my attention very well once it started wandering. The most interesting parts were oddly about the dead filmmaker.