Life of Pi (2012)

Nominated for:  Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Best Production Design, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Adapted Screenplay   Finally got around to seeing this one!  And, boy, was it not worth the wait.

On the plus side:  it's really pretty.  The CGI, which is mostly everything in the movie, looks great, very seamless.  As far as human performances, young lead Suraj Sharma does a fantastic job of looking like a starving castaway and falling off the boat a lot.

The negatives are pretty much everything else. 

Pi Patel (Surej Sharma) and his family are moving from Pondicherry, India to Canada with their zoo animals when the freighter they are on sinks over the Marianas Trench.  Pi finds himself the only human survivor, forced to share a lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and a tiger.  Fairly quickly, only Pi and the tiger are left.  For nearly a year, Pi drifts across the Pacific with only a fully-stocked-for-40 lifeboat and an 800-lb carnivore.  Every time it seems like hope is lost, some sort of miracle occurs until finally, Pi washes ashore in Mexico. 

That's not a spoiler.  The whole movie is narrated by adult Pi (Irrfan Khan) to a writer (Rafe Spall). 

Have you ever seen a movie about a castaway?  It's pretty much the same thing every time.  Shipwreck, lost supplies, fishing, going a little crazy, storms, beauty of nature, blah blah blah.  The whole thing is supposed to be an allegory for faith but I found it to be handled with all the subtlety and nuance as a wet fart in church. 

Christy and Christina liked it, though, so your mileage may vary.  As is, I think it's probably a contender in several categories but no way would I have nominated it for Best Picture. 

Searching for Sugar Man (2012)

Nominated for:  Best Documentary Feature    I really needed to see this after The Invisible War.  It reminded me that there are still good people out in the world.  I know that sounds lame, but trust me.  This movie will make you want to be a better person.

In the early 70's, a musician known as Rodriguez released two critically-praised albums in the US that were commerical flops.  For whatever reason, they just didn't sell and he was dropped from his label. 

Thousands of miles away in South Africa, a copy of his first album, Cold Facts, ignited a musical revolution.  At the height of apartheid, no foreign acts were allowed to visit South Africa and it was hard to get any real news out of the country either.  Cold Facts went on to sell at least a half million copies, and that's just the legal number.  God knows how many bootleg albums there were.  Rodriguez was bigger than Elvis, but nobody knew anything about him.  There were wild rumors that he had committed suicide on stage or died of a drug overdose, but nobody knew the truth.

Then, in the mid-90's, a journalist and a record store owner banded together and decided to track down what had happened to their idol.  After tracking the royalties to a dead end, it seemed like all hope was gone.  It wasn't until the artist's daughter reached out to them via a web forum that they got anywhere.

The documentary features a soundtrack composed entirely of Rodriguez songs and I have no idea why they weren't more popular.  After all the buzz this has gotten, I would not be surprised to learn they're having a renaissance.

A Royal Affair (2012)

Nominated for:  Best Foreign Film    This was a really pretty, though ultimately sad, movie.  It at least came off as an original, as I am not intimately familiar with Danish history. 

Back in the 1700's, Europe was going through the Enlightenment.  Princess Caroline Matilda of England (Alicia Vikander) is married off to King Christian VII of Denmark (Mikkel Boe Folsgaard) around this time.  She arrives to find a divided court, with the king more interested in acting than in ruling.  She quickly grows to hate being married to him.  A newly appointed court physician (Mads Mikkelsen) is brought in to help with the king's "madness" but figures out that what Christian really needs is a friend.  The new Queen starts to notice the beneficial changes in her husband, then starts to notice the new physician.  Hence the title. 

Of course, this is not welcomed by many in court, especially not by the king's stepmother (Trine Dyrholm) who wants to have Christian overthrown and her own son, his half-brother, as the figurehead. 

It's a really pretty, well-done movie and it made me like Mads Mikkelsen more, although it was really weird to see him play the leading man instead of the villain. 

The Invisible War (2012)

Nominated for:  Best Documentary Feature    This was an extremely difficult movie for me to watch.  It made me so angry.  And it should.  It should make everyone angry until something is done about it.

I don't know most of you readers so let's pretend you're a woman (if you're not already).  You're applying for a job and the prospective employer is very interested, very enthusiastic, and assures you you'll be perfect.  Right before you stand up to leave, you're shaking his hand and he says "oh, by the way, you should know that if you take this job, there's about a one in five chance of being raped or sexually assaulted by a co-worker.  It's just an occupational hazard."

Do you take the job?

Hundreds of thousands of American servicewomen did.  They found themselves bullied and brutalized by the very people who were supposed to stand next to them in combat, the people they were to trust with their lives.  When they reported, like they were told to do, they were punished.  Several women featured in this documentary were forced to work everyday alongside their attacker.  They were never given any options other than "suck it up".  All of them contemplated suicide.  And those were just the ones who reported the crime.

Having been a woman in the military (Army), I can say that I was never raped by a co-worker.  There was an attempt by another soldier, a friend of a friend's boyfriend, but I managed to fend it off.  I didn't report it because, the way I saw it, nothing happened.  Now I wonder how many girls he found that were deeper sleepers than I was.  The sad truth is that most rapists will never get the punishment they deserve, if they get any at all.  Because the unit commander has the final say in whether or not a case is even pursued.  It's not like you can just go to the police, have the guy arrested, and then have your day in court.  Your unit commander decides whether or not to start an investigation and whether or not it's substantive.  For many of the servicemembers (because men get raped too) in this documentary, that meant their abuser gets a slap on the wrist and is released to torment others. 

The "occupational hazard" line up there?  That's not a joke.  That's what the Supreme Court decreed when they dismissed the injured servicewomen's suit against the government.  They were not eligible to sue because rape was an occupational hazard.

This is probably the most painful documentary I've ever had to watch and it makes me soul-sick to think that this culture is being perpetuated.  The one bright spot:  apparently, the Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, watched this movie back in April of 2012 and immediately took authority out of unit commanders' hands.  Now cases have to be adjucated by impartial parties.  It's a step in the right direction.

I think this is an important film for everyone to see because no matter what your thoughts on war or politics, I think we can all agree that nobody deserves to work in a field where the possibility of getting raped is ever just part of the job.

Psycho (1960)

  I know, I know, it's not an Oscar nominee.  This year.  In 1961, however, it was nominated for four.  Didn't win any, but I think history has vindicated this film.  After watching Hitchcock, I was telling Rob about it and learned that he had never seen Psycho.  So in it went.

Man, I love this movie.  It's my absolute favorite Hitchcock film.  More than Vertigo, more than all his British ones, this is the top.  Of course, seeing as it's such a classic, nothing in it is new.  It's like Casablanca.  Even if you've never seen it, you still know everything there is to know because it's a part of popular culture.  It's ingrained in us.

You should still watch it though.  If you can, show it to someone young.  Try and get them before they have it spoiled for them by the countless ripoffs.  It was too late for Rob, although he still enjoyed it.  Try to put yourself in the mindset of someone from 1960, seeing all this for the first time.

Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is involved in a passionate affair with a recently divorced man (John Gavin).  Tired of sneaking off on her lunchbreaks, she decides to run away with her lover.  Facilitating this is the $40,000 she stole from her job.  However, the best-laid plans of mice and men oft go astray, as she finds out when she stops at a run-down little motel run by a man named Bates (Anthony Perkins). 

5 Broken Cameras (2012)

Nominated for:  Best Documentary    I try not to get political on this blog.  I am not interested to hear every armchair politician (or even real ones, for that matter) discuss everything they think is wrong with society.  I don't care what motivations they have, whether they are earnestly expressing a belief or just trolling.  I don't want to hear it.

So I'm going to talk about this movie and I'm going to avoid any and all mention of the politics in the area.  Mmmkay?

Emad Burnat, his wife, and their four sons live in a village named Bil'in on the West Bank.  Emad and the other villagers are farmers, having tended olive trees on that land for as long as anyone can remember.  However, the Israeli government has recently erected a barrier illegally infringing on the village's land in order to build settlements.  Emad had initially gotten a camcorder to document the early days of his youngest son's life, but decides to also use it to film the villagers' non-violent protests against the barrier.  Over the next five years, through five different cameras, Emad watches friends and relatives get arrested, beaten, and shot and witnesses his village become the epicenter of worldwide protests against incursions into the West Bank.

You will note that I said the Israeli barrier is an illegal one.  The villagers, which comprise Jews and Palestinians, sought legal justice and received an injunction against the settlement from an Israeli court.  So I'm going to pull an A Time to Kill moment and ask you to pretend they are a town in the Midwest fighting encroachment from a corrupt development group.  Because it's the Middle East, it's a huge issue.  But what if they were white?  Would anybody give a shit?  Would it be nominated for an Oscar?

I have sympathy for them, the same as I would if they were from Nebraska.  It sucks to see a group of people ground beneath the wheels of a huge corporation, despite being legally in the right, simply because they are too small to fight back.  It is a shame that their homes and livelihoods are being destroyed in the name of progress.  I have no answers. 

I wish I could say this was a gripping, tear-jerking call to action, but it's not.  Hell, it took me two days to watch it because I fell asleep halfway through. 

Hitchcock (2012)

Nominated for:  Best Make-up    This is really going to make me rethink my stance on character dramas.  I don't think that it should have gotten a nomination for make-up, especially not over Looper, but I really wish it had been nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.  And Michael Wincott would have been my dark horse for Best Supporting Actor.  Holy Jesus.  He's only onscreen a few minutes total but he stole every scene he was in.

In 1959, Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) was fresh off his success with North by Northwest but was struggling to find a new project.  He comes across the book Psycho, based on the crimes of murderer Ed Gein (Michael Wincott) and decides that's the picture he wants to make, despite his wife Alma's (Helen Mirren) exhortations to read her friend Whit's (Danny Huston) screenplay.  Paramount Studios refuses to finance the film, fearing it's a flop.  So Hitch mortgages his house and pours his own assets into it.  He soon finds the paranoia and base urges of the story seeping into his own life, as he begins to suspect Alma of having an affair with Whit. 

I can imagine that it's difficult to play someone who was actually alive, especially one with such an iconic image.  Anthony Hopkins is a great actor and he nails the speech cadence, but falls short of the voice and appearance.  A fatsuit will only take you so far.  Likewise, Scarlett Johansson doesn't look terribly like Janet Leigh, but she does try very hard to sound like her.  Of all of them, James D'Arcy was the only one who really owned his character.  He looked and sounded just like Anthony Perkins.  Jessica Biel doesn't look anything like Vera Miles and I'm a little confused as to what she's doing in this movie.  That could just be because I don't think she's a very good actress.

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Nominated for:  Best Original Screenplay    I will be shocked if this wins.  Especially over Zero Dark Thirty or even Django Unchained.  

Wes Anderson's movies have always been hit or miss for me.  I liked The Royal Tenebaums and Fantastic Mr. Fox but I thought The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was a complete snooze.  This one falls more to the middle right of that line.  It was better than Life Aquatic but I still didn't really like it. 

Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward) are 12-year-olds in love who decide to run away together.  The year is 1965.  Sam deserts his Khaki Scouts troop and Suzy runs away from home on the island of New Penzance.  Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton) notifies the island police officer (Bruce Willis) of the missing boy but when they call the mainland, they discover that Sam is actually an orphan in foster care and his foster family no longer want him.  They refer the authorities to Child Services (Tilda Swinton), who informs them that the boy is looking at a future in Juvenile Refuge and possibly electroshock therapy.  Once the young pair are caught, but a last minute change-of-heart by the Scout Troop sees them freed and runnin again, this time into the teeth of a major storm.

Honestly, I didn't find this movie to be funny or quirky or charming.  I found it to be saccharine and almost unbearably twee.  Not to mention that part of it seemed almost pornographically exploitative of the two child leads.  Kara Hayward spends most of the running time in either a borderline indecently-short dress or in her underwear.  Granted, she is 14 not 12, but it's still an underage girl in her underwear.  I don't consider myself a prudish person, but I also don't think children should be sexualized. 

Maybe you'll watch it and think that it's silly and I'm making a big deal out of nothing.  That's your right.  For me, I'd never recommend this to anyone.

Lincoln (2012)

Nominated for:  Best Picture, Best Lead Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Costumes, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Production Design, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Adapted Screenplay     I will admit, I thought this was just pure Oscar bait.  And I wasn't wrong, but that's not all it is.  It's also a damn good character study.

There's almost zero real action in it, so don't go in expecting some big Civil War pieces.  There's a very short scene in the opening credits but that's about it.  Everything in this movie relates to President Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) trying to get the 13th Amendment passed through the House of Representatives.  Even on a good day, this is not an easy task but complicating matters is the rumor of a delegation from the Confederate States.  Lincoln wants the bill passed to secure his legacy but the Democrats, led by Representative Wood (Lee Pace), refuse to consider it if there is a peace offer on the table.  The Republicans, led by Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), do not have enough of a majority to simply run the bill through, so the Chief of Staff, William Seward (David Strathairn), recruits several men (John Hawkes, James Spader, and Tim Blake Nelson) to offer lame duck Democrats valuable appointed positions in exchange for their Yays.  Not to mention, the President has to deal with a son who wants to enlist (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a son that hasn't even left home yet (Gulliver McGrath), and a wife (Sally Field) who is still not over the death of her other son and is still suffering severe headaches from a previous carriage accident.

I am generally not one for character dramas but I will be owning this film.  Everybody involved did such a good job with their roles, probably because every single person in this film is famous.  Every line spoken comes from the lips of someone you'll recognize.  There are so many That Guy's in this film, I started looking to see if the extras were famous too.

So, Day-Lewis is practically dusting a space on his mantle already for that trophy but the one I really think it deserves is Best Adapted Screenplay.  The writing in this movie is so sharp, so perfect, I wanted to dismember the people in the theater who dared talk over them.  It's almost definitely got the Supporting slots sewn up and, so far, it's the lead for Best Picture as well.  The rest of the noms I think are just wet spaghetti thrown at the walls.  We'll find out if they stick but there are probably more deserving films in those categories.

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

  I have to say, I was not looking forward to seeing this film.  It's one of those movies that every film nerd tells you that you have to see, but usually ends up being pretentious bullshit.  It's also nearly 3 hours long.  I don't know about you, but after the last year it seems like nobody can make a movie under two and a half hours any more.  I am epic movie-d out.

But I watched it anyway, and you know what?  It actually IS a classic.  And doesn't feel like you need an intermission.

The last of the great Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns, Once Upon a Time in the West concerns a young woman named Jill (Claudia Cardinale) who rides into town only to find that her brand-new husband and three step-kids have been gunned down.  The evidence points to local gangleader and ruffian Chyenne (Jason Robards) but, as he explains to the widow, he does not kill children.  Incensed at being framed, the gunslinger decides to take Jill's cause for his own and find out why her man was targeted.  Assisting him is a mysterious harmonica player (Charles Bronson) who has a private score to settle with the black-hatted assassin, Frank (Henry Fonda).  Turns out, the late Mr. McBain (Frank Wolff) had planned to build an entire town alongside the railroad but the rail owner, Mr. Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti), does not approve. 

Ok, so technically, this is not the last western Sergio Leone did but I have seen Duck You Sucker! and it is not nearly as good as this one.  Did it necessarily have to be two hours and forty-five minutes?  No, but it really does fly by.  It is absolutely a classic and I am seriously contemplating buying it just for that.

Frankenweenie (2012)

Nominated for:  Best Animated Feature      With this, I can check off one entire category from my list of nominations.  

It's a cute film, but I can't see it winning a statue.  I thought it was better than ParaNorman and Pirates! but not nearly as good as Brave or Wreck-It Ralph, which --let's face it-- is my favorite animated film of the year. 

After his beloved dog Sparky is killed by a car, Victor Frankenstein (Charlie Tahan) is heart-broken.  But a science experiment on electricity by substitute teacher Mr. Rzykruski (Martin Landau) shows him that perhaps all hope is not lost.  Victor hoists his dead dog into the night sky and allows Nature to pump 100,000 volts into him.  Miraculously, Sparky returns.  The local blabbermouth Edgar (Atticus Shaffer) sees the reanimated animal and threatens to tell the world about it unless Victor helps him with his science fair project.  Victor turns his dead fish invisible and Edgar immediately tells the rest of the kids.  Soon, the town of New Holland is overrun with science experiments gone amok and it's up to Victor to put everything back to rest.

There are references to pretty much every single black and white Universal horror classic here from The Wolf Man to Gojira and plenty of Tim Burton touches, too.  The face of grumpy neighbor Mr. Burgemeister (Martin Short) looks like they took the head off of the father of the bride from Corpse Bride, and several notable Tim Burton actors are back including Catherine O'Hara and Winona Ryder.  Your familiarity with these properties and/or tolerance of recycled material may affect your enjoyment of this film but there's absolutely one thing we can agree on:  this beats the shit out of Dark Shadows.

70th Annual Golden Globe Awards (2013)

Well, last night was the Golden Globe Awards, hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.  I didn't think it was as good as the one two years ago, but it wasn't terrible and it didn't run over time.

Best Motion Picture-Drama

Argo 

I have to say, I thought ZDT or Lincoln was going to take this one. 

Best Motion Picture-Musical or Comedy

Les Miserables

Not a surprise here.

Best Lead Actor-Drama

Daniel Day-Lewis - Lincoln

Best Lead Actress-Drama

Jessica Chastain - Zero Dark Thirty

Best Lead Actor-Musical or Comedy

Hugh Jackman - Les Miserables

Best Lead Actress-Musical or Comedy

Jennifer Lawrence - Silver Linings Playbook

She was one of the few actors that actually pulled off being funny during their speech.  Most of them were terrible.

Best Supporting Actor

Christoph Waltz - Django Unchained

Best Supporting Actress

Anne Hathaway - Les Miserables

Best Director

Ben Affleck - Argo

Best Screenplay

Quentin Tarantino - Django Unchained

Best Original Song

Adele - "Skyfall" from Skyfall

Maybe because she isn't an actress, Adele came off as one of the most genuine award-winners.  She was fresh, she was funny, and she looked great in her signature black.

Best Original Score

Mychael Danna - Life of Pi

Best Animated Film

Brave

Very surprised this won over Wreck-It Ralph.

Best Foreign Language Film

Amour

Best TV Series-Drama

Homeland

Best TV Series-Musical or Comedy

Girls

Somebody should have gotten a hold of series creator and star Lena Dunham.  She looked godawful.  Bad haircut, no make-up, no jewelry, a dress the color of stewed prunes, and a corset clearly laced way too tightly.  She could barely make it up the stairs.  I know it seems like I'm just picking her apart but there's no excuse for it.  If you know you've been nominated for a major award and you decide to wear a dress that requires a corset, you need to do corset training beforehand.  End of story.

Best Mini-Series or Made for TV Movie

Game Change

Best Actor in a TV Series-Drama

Damian Lewis - Homeland

Mmmm, my favorite ginger.

Best Actress in a TV Series-Drama

Claire Danes - Homeland

Apparently, Claire Danes has never lost a Golden Globe.  She's 4 for 4.

Best Actor in a TV Series-Musical or Comedy

Don Cheadle - House of Lies

Best Actress in a TV Series-Musical or Comedy

Lena Dunham - Girls

Best Actor in a Mini-Series or Made for TV Movie

Kevin Costner - Hatfields and McCoys

Best Actress in a Mini-Series or Made for TV Movie

Julianne Moore - Game Change

Best Supporting Actor in a Mini-Series or Made for TV Movie

Ed Harris - Game Change

Best Supporting Actress in a Mini-Series or Made for TV Movie

Maggie Smith - Downton Abbey

Several winners and nominees were not in attendance, including Maggie Smith, Meryl Streep, and Ed Harris.  Apparently, the flu has been raging through Hollywood.  That might explain some of the lackluster reactions.  Or it could have been not enough booze.

Also, the Cecil B. DeMille Award was presented to Jodie Foster for her body of work, spanning 47 years in Hollywood as an actress, producer and director.  This is a great achievement and I am glad she was recognized for it.

However, she gave the most rambling disjointed speech I have ever heard.  I felt like I was listening to code.  Half of it was her coming out (which I'm pretty sure she did two years ago) and the other half sounded like she was basically retiring.  No idea what was going on with that but half the women in the audience were in tears after she was finished so I guess it's an insider thing.

Ted (2012)

Nominated for:  Best Original Song 
  I didn't really expect to like this movie.  I think Family Guy is okay in small doses but I wouldn't call myself a Seth MacFarlane fan.  Still, it's not terrible.

After a magical Christmas wish brings his teddy bear to life, John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) has a guaranteed best friend for life.  Unfortunately, Ted (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) is a pot-smoking, beer-drinking slacker who does nothing but encourage John to do the same.  John's girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) is starting to get a little tired of all the infantile shenanigans and begins pressuring John to cut some of the ties.  A creepy stalker (Giovanni Ribisi) is more than willing to help out with this.

Several of the jokes fell completely flat, including an absolutely inappropriate one about the Virginia Tech shooting, and every scene with the bear was like nails down a chalkboard.  Seth MacFarlane, while very talented overall, only has about 3 different voices and Ted sounds exactly the same as Peter Griffin.  There were also a ton of pop culture references so you better have loved Flash Gordon or there will be long stretches where you will be bored/confused.  It's almost like they were trying to pull a Harold and Kumar but with Sam J. Jones instead of NPH.  Not a good trade.

The amount of talent in this movie is impressive and it would be worth a rental just for Patrick Stewart's narration, alone.

Inocente (2012)/Fresh Guacamole (2012)

Nominated for:  Best Short Documentary    Ha!  I finally found one of the short films!  Do you know how hard it is to score one from that category if you don't live in L.A. or New York?  Thank God for the internet.

Apparently, this is an MTV-produced short documentary that aired back in August and is available in its entirety on their website.  It's about a 15-year-old girl named Inocente and her struggles to become an artist, despite being homeless and an undocumented alien. 

After her abusive husband is deported, Inocente's mother Carmela struggles to make enough money to provide for her three children.  They have never spent more than three months in the same place and bounce from shelter to shelter.  Inocente is sponsered by ARTS (A Reason To Survive), a reach-out organization, to produce her own art show.  It will feature 30 original pieces with the proceeds benefitting a college fund.

Honestly, she seems like a really sweet girl who's had a tough life so far.  I recognize that, but I found the documentary to be a little irritating.  It's hard not to dismiss some of her drama and heartbreak as just being a fifteen-year-old girl, especially some of the poetry readings.  She is obviously quite talented and I hope she makes a success of herself. 

Nominated for:  Best Short Animated Feature    So this one is only about a minute and a half long, with no voice work.  It's stop-motion animation about making guacamole.  With hand grenades and baseballs.  I give it points for creativity but Oscar winner?  No idea.  It's on YouTube if you want to check it out for yourself. 

The Impossible (2013)

Nominated for:  Best Actress 
  Why was this movie not nominated for Best Visual Effects?  Or Best Makeup?  This is some of the best disaster footage and wound prosthetics I have ever seen.  Best Actress?  Nope. 

The Bennett family decide to spend their Christmas holiday at a resort in Thailand.  While lounging at the hotel pool, the island is hit by one of the worst tsunamis in history.  Maria (Naomi Watts) and her oldest son Lucas (Tom Holland) are swept away by the force of the water.  Maria is injured pretty badly but forces herself onward to help her son, despite fearing that the rest of her family is dead.  Henry (Ewan McGregor) faces the same fears as he tries to care for the younger two children in the wreckage of the hotel. 

This is one of those movies that makes you want to give money to charity.  Harrowing is the adjective that comes to mind.  Rob actually visited Thailand as part of a deployment two years later and said the damage was still visible.  Nature is a bitch.

This movie caught a lot of flak because it's based on the true story of a family that survived the tsunami.  Thing is, the cast is British and the actual family is Spanish so a lot of people started throwing the word "whitewashing" around.  I'm not denying that's what happened here, but I don't think the movie necessarily suffers because of it. 

A View to a Kill (1985)

  I know, this isn't an Oscar nominee.  This is one of the two discs I had at home so I had to go ahead and watch it so Netflix will send me more.

It does drive me a little bananas to know that there are only two more after this and now I have to wait until after I watch the other 9 in my queue.

James Bond (Roger Moore, for the last time) recovers a Soviet prototype of a sophisticated new microchip from the body of 003 in Siberia, which is traced back to the mysterious polymath Max Zorin (Christopher Walken).  Other than hardware manufacturing, Zorin also breeds and races horses.  He is known in those circles for having extremely good luck with bloodlines considered inferior.  Bond goes to investigate with Sir Godfrey Tibbett (Patrick Macnee) and discovers that Zorin is implanting tiny booster shots into his racehorses, controlled by a microchip in the jockey's whip.  He also discovers the mysterious and beautiful Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts), but not what connection she has to Zorin.

Eventually, the trail leads him to California, where Zorin has been flooding his oil wells with seawater. Stacey, a geologist, has a lawsuit against Zorin for taking her family's business, since some of those wells used to belong to her grandfather.  Between the two of them, they figure that Zorin plans to flood the wells over the San Andreas fault, causing a seismic event that would destroy Silicon Valley, leaving him the sole manufacturer of all the microchips ever.

I'm pretty sure this is a dumb plan, but it's young, skinny, strangely hot Christopher Walken so I'm going to let it go.  I will say, you should never trust a man who owns his own zeppelin.  Pretty sure you're required to be a supervillain to even apply for a permit for one.

At over 2 hours, this is one of the longest Bond films I've sat through and it's not one of the best by a long shot.  Still, it's campy fun and Grace Jones is in it as Zorin's bodyguard/mistress.

Zero Dark Thirty (2013)

Nominated for:  Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Original Screenplay    This is the one everyone has been talking about.  Frankly, it's not great.

Maya (Jessica Chastain) is a young up-and-comer at the CIA, assigned to the Pakistani embassy after 9/11.  She gets a lead on the head courier for Osama Bin Laden and follows it obsessively, despite serious opposition from her superiors, eventually arriving at the compound in Abbottabad.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Honestly, this movie was a slog.  I don't know if Jessica Chastain should get Best Actress for this, since she basically just played a total bitch.  If she gets it, it'll be because everyone wished they could have given her and Octavia Spencer both the Best Supporting Actress statue for The Help.  Kathryn Bigelow didn't get a nomination for Best Director this time but I think this might be a lock for Best Original Screenplay.

This had a ton of recognizable people in it, but none of them got more than about 10 minutes of screentime.  It was like everybody wanted to be able to put "worked with Kathryn Bigelow" on their resumes.

This is pure Oscar bait, not a movie to own.

How to Survive a Plague (2012)

Nominated for:  Best Documentary Feature    So, I was born in 1982.  Growing up, I knew about the AIDS epidemic but in an empirical way, like I knew about the Cold War but I didn't live in the Cold War.  It was something that other people talked about.  Later, as an adult, I became friends with and hung out with a lot of gay people, many of whom still had a very real fear of the disease.  Again, I was aware of it and I knew that any unprotected sex could lead to STIs but it just seemed like prudence, not life or death.

This documentary contains mostly archival footage of activists in Greenwich Village, NYC during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 80's.  Specifically from 1983-1995.  These are not a bunch of scientists or researchers.  These are twenty-year-olds who have been told that they have no future because of a disease.  More, they are actively shunned in society, turned away from hospitals, and told that this is the punishment for being gay.  Like people were hoping that if they ignored it hard enough, AIDS would just go away.  Meanwhile, millions of people died without any real hope of treatment.

The community of victims and supporters came together to fight for their right to exist.  With the help of concerned citizens, like former chemist-turned-housewife Iris Long, who taught groups of willing volunteers how to basically break down the jargon surrounding clinical trials in order for them to effectively communicate with drug companies and the FDA and NIH.  They took to the streets in thousands to protest the neglect of their government and to demand that their voices be heard.

In 2013, AIDS is no longer the death sentence in this country that it used to be.  The fight is not over, worldwide it still kills millions a year, but there are treatments available now.  Maybe one day we'll see free drugs for AIDS, but that's still a ways off. 

I think it's important to see documentaries like this, even though they're difficult to watch and I'm glad the Academy see it the same way.

The Skin Game (1931)/Number Seventeen (1932)/The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

  Well, this was a depressing little film. 

The Hillcrests are a family of rich, landed peers in the English countryside.  Their self-made-man neighbor, Mr. Hornblower (Edmund Gwenn), wants to expand his pottery factory to the land on the other side of the Hillcrests, spoiling their ancestral view.  After a heated auction, the Hillcrests have their investigator (Edward Chapman) dig up as much dirt on the Hornblowers as he can.  He hits paydirt with the daughter-in-law, Chloe (Phyllis Konstam).  Lady Hillcrest (Helen Haye) has no qulams whatsoever about using this damaging piece of blackmail to coerce Hornblower into backing down.  Unfortunately, these secrets have a life of their own.

What's the moral here?  Rich people are dicks.  Don't mess with them.

  This is a much better film than the previous one, in that it didn't make me want to hug a kitten afterwards.  It's one of those nobody is who they say they are kind of films.

A man (John Stuart) sees a light moving around inside a house for rent, Number 17, and goes in to check it out.  He finds a bum (Leon M. Lion) looking for a place to sleep and a dead body.  After running around the house chasing every single noise, they find a girl (Ann Casson) who had climbed over from the house next door.  She's looking for her father, who disappeared from his locked study before she could give him a telegram.  The message contained therein was about a missing necklace that had been traced, with its gang of thieves, to No. 17.  Around this time, the corpse goes missing and several unsavory characters show up.  One of them just might be a detective, however, so tensions continue to run high.

  Probably should have been named "The Family That Knew Too Much" but that's not as catchy.  Also, this is a terrible poster.  It looks like Peter Lorre is Frankenstein's drug-addict cousin.  

While on holiday in the Swiss Alps, the Lawrence family is shocked when their friend (Pierre Fresnay) is killed on the dance floor.  With his dying breath, the friend tells Jill Lawrence (Edna Best) to take his shaving brush to the British embassy.  Her husband Bob (Leslie Banks) gets to the brush ahead of the police but before he can do anything, he receives the now-trite "If you ever want to see your daughter (Nova Pilbeam) alive again, you'll keep your mouth shut" note.  Turns out their friend was a spy and now they have key knowledge of an impending assassination, but should they risk their daughter's life to try and stop it?

People liked this one so much, Hitch rebooted it twenty years later with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day and in color.  That one I have actually seen but not this one.  Also, it's a little weird to see Nova Pilbeam here as a young child when I just saw her last week as the romantic lead in a different Hitchcock film, Young and Innocent.  It's like he walked up to the 15-year-old and said "Come back and see Uncle Alfred when you're legal and he'll make you a star."  /shudder

And THAT, my friends, is the last movie in the Alfred Hitchcock Legacy collection!  Yay!  Now we can begin all the Oscar nonsense.

Octopussy (1983)

  At last!  We've finally reached Bond films that were made in my lifetime!  Plus, I think this may have been the only pre-Brosnan Bond film I've ever seen previous to me Netflixing them.  Is that even possible?  I'm pretty sure I've seen this a half dozen times over the years and yet watching the others were like seeing brand new movies.  Somehow that strikes me as almost sad.

Bond (Roger Moore), showing a bit worse for wear this go-around, is put on the trail of a fake Faberge egg that had made its way out of East Germany.  Kids, Germany used to be two countries.  Wiki that later.  He plants a trace on the fake at an auction in Sotheby's and follows the buyer, a Mr. Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan), to India.  There he learns Kamal is in business with Octopussy (Maud Adams) who uses her traveling circus to move Russian Imperial jewels out of the country.  The jewels are supervised by General Orlov (Steven Berkoff), but he's not really interested in a bunch of Romanov trinkets.  He wants to provoke a full-out nuclear war between the Americans and the Soviets (that's what they called Russians in the 80's, kids) in order to prove communist superiority.  Kamal and Orlov double-cross Octopussy and switch the jewels with a nuclear warhead.  Then it's up to Bond to save the day.

It's a very pretty film, with some beautiful shots of India.  Louis Jourdan made a surprisingly decent Bond villain.  I guess I've never seen him in anything other than Can-Can or Gigi, though, so it wouldn't be hard.  There's also a ton of eye candy in this, as Octopussy's floating island is staffed exclusively by hot women.  There are a few moments of all-out silliness, such as when Roger Moore goes full clown-face, but it's mostly a straightforward Bond adventure.

On a sadder note, this is the movie where they introduced Moneypenny's (Lois Maxwell) replacement, Miss Penelope Smallbone (Michaela Clavell), signalling an end to the plucky faithful-handmaiden's run.  Lois Maxwell had been in every single Bond movie up to this point, but after 20 years in the same part she was starting to get a little long in the tooth.  IMDb says she has one more run at it in the next one so we'll have to see if she goes out with a bang.  Honestly, it's the least Bond can do after stringing her along for two freakin' decades.

85th Annual Academy Awards Nominations (2013)

ERMAGERD, ERSKERS!

I know I pretty much whiffed on posting on Monday and I totally apologize but I justify it to myself by saying that it's totally because I knew I'd be posting the Oscar nominations today.  I look forward to this every year, even though I find it horribly stressful to try and watch 70+ movies in a month.  Let's see what we're up against this year, shall we?

Best motion picture of the year:
"Amour" 
"Argo"
"Beasts of the Southern Wild"
"Django Unchained"
"Les Misérables"
"Life of Pi"
"Lincoln"
"Silver Linings Playbook" 
"Zero Dark Thirty"

Performance by an actor in a leading role:
Bradley Cooper in "Silver Linings Playbook"
Daniel Day-Lewis in "Lincoln"
Hugh Jackman in "Les Misérables"
Joaquin Phoenix in "The Master"
Denzel Washington in "Flight"

Performance by an actor in a supporting role:
Alan Arkin in "Argo"
Robert De Niro in "Silver Linings Playbook"
Philip Seymour Hoffman in "The Master"
Tommy Lee Jones in "Lincoln"
Christoph Waltz in "Django Unchained"

Performance by an actress in a leading role:
Jessica Chastain in "Zero Dark Thirty"
Jennifer Lawrence in "Silver Linings Playbook"
Emmanuelle Riva in "Amour"
Quvenzhané Wallis in "Beasts of the Southern Wild"
Naomi Watts in "The Impossible"

Performance by an actress in a supporting role:
Amy Adams in "The Master"
Sally Field in "Lincoln"
Anne Hathaway in "Les Misérables"
Helen Hunt in "The Sessions"
Jacki Weaver in "Silver Linings Playbook"

Best animated feature film of the year:
"Brave" 
"Frankenweenie" 
"ParaNorman" 
The Pirates! Band of Misfits" 
"Wreck-It Ralph"

Achievement in cinematography:
"Anna Karenina" Seamus McGarvey
"Django Unchained" Robert Richardson
"Life of Pi" Claudio Miranda
"Lincoln" Janusz Kaminski
"Skyfall" Roger Deakins

Achievement in costume design:
"Anna Karenina" Jacqueline Durran
"Les Misérables" Paco Delgado
"Lincoln" Joanna Johnston
"Mirror Mirror" Eiko Ishioka
"Snow White and the Huntsman" Colleen Atwood

Achievement in directing:
"Amour" Michael Haneke
"Beasts of the Southern Wild" Benh Zeitlin
"Life of Pi" Ang Lee
"Lincoln" Steven Spielberg
"Silver Linings Playbook" David O. Russell

Best documentary feature:
"5 Broken Cameras" Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi
"The Gatekeepers" Nominees to be determined
"How to Survive a Plague" Nominees to be determined
"The Invisible War" Nominees to be determined
"Searching for Sugar Man" Nominees to be determined  

Best documentary short subject:
"Inocente" Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine
"Kings Point" Sari Gilman and Jedd Wider
"Mondays at Racine" Cynthia Wade and Robin Honan
"Open Heart" Kief Davidson and Cori Shepherd Stern
"Redemption" Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill  

Achievement in film editing:
"Argo" William Goldenberg
"Life of Pi" Tim Squyres
"Lincoln" Michael Kahn
"Silver Linings Playbook" Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers
"Zero Dark Thirty" Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg

Best foreign language film of the year:
"Amour" Austria
"Kon-Tiki" Norway
"No" Chile
"A Royal Affair" Denmark
"War Witch" Canada

Achievement in makeup and hairstyling:
"Hitchcock" Howard Berger, Peter Montagna and Martin Samuel
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater and Tami Lane
"Les Misérables" Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell  

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score):
"Anna Karenina" Dario Marianelli
"Argo" Alexandre Desplat
"Life of Pi" Mychael Danna
"Lincoln" John Williams
"Skyfall" Thomas Newman

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song):
"Before My Time" from "Chasing Ice" Music and Lyric by J. Ralph
"Everybody Needs A Best Friend" from "Ted" Music by Walter Murphy; Lyric by Seth MacFarlane
"Pi's Lullaby" from "Life of Pi" Music by Mychael Danna; Lyric by Bombay Jayashri
"Skyfall" from "Skyfall" Music and Lyric by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth
"Suddenly" from "Les Misérables" Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg; Lyric by Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boublil  

Achievement in production design:
"Anna Karenina" Production Design: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" Production Design: Dan Hennah; Set Decoration: Ra Vincent and Simon Bright
"Les Misérables" Production Design: Eve Stewart; Set Decoration: Anna Lynch-Robinson
"Life of Pi" Production Design: David Gropman; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock
"Lincoln" Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Jim Erickson  

Best animated short film:
"Adam and Dog" Minkyu Lee
"Fresh Guacamole" PES
"Head over Heels" Timothy Reckart and Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly
"Maggie Simpson in "The Longest Daycare"" David Silverman
"Paperman" John Kahrs

Best live action short film:
"Asad" Bryan Buckley and Mino Jarjoura
"Buzkashi Boys" Sam French and Ariel Nasr
"Curfew" Shawn Christensen
"Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw)" Tom Van Avermaet and Ellen De Waele
"Henry" Yan England

Achievement in sound editing:
"Argo" Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn
"Django Unchained" Wylie Stateman
"Life of Pi" Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton
"Skyfall" Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers
"Zero Dark Thirty" Paul N.J. Ottosson

Achievement in sound mixing:
"Argo" John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Jose Antonio Garcia
"Les Misérables" Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes
"Life of Pi" Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill and Drew Kunin
"Lincoln" Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Ronald Judkins
"Skyfall" Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell and Stuart Wilson  

Achievement in visual effects:
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and R. Christopher White
"Life of Pi" Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott
"Marvel's The Avengers" Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams and Dan Sudick
"Prometheus" Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley and Martin Hill
"Snow White and the Huntsman" Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould and Michael Dawson  

Adapted screenplay:
"Argo" Screenplay by Chris Terrio
"Beasts of the Southern Wild" Screenplay by Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin
"Life of Pi" Screenplay by David Magee
"Lincoln" Screenplay by Tony Kushner
"Silver Linings Playbook" Screenplay by David O. Russell  

Original screenplay:
"Amour" Written by Michael Haneke
"Django Unchained" Written by Quentin Tarantino
"Flight" Written by John Gatins
"Moonrise Kingdom" Written by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola
"Zero Dark Thirty" Written by Mark Boal

Juno and the Paycock (1930)/Sabotage (1936)

  More of Hitchcock's morality on display.

The Boyle family of Dublin have their share of troubles.  Captain Boyle (Edward Chapman) would rather drink with his buddies than work, a fact his wife Juno (Sara Allgood) despises.  But when a young English lawyer (John Longden) informs them that they're coming into some money from a rich distant relative, they finally see a way to put it all behind them.  They start buying things on credit and turning away from all their old companions.  Unfortunately, the lawyer turns out to be a lying bastard who told every single relative the dead guy ever had that they were going to get the inheritance.  He absconds back to England, leaving young Mary Boyle (Kathleen O'Regan) knocked up and the will tied up in probate.  Meanwhile, the Boyles' son Johnny (John Laurie) is executed by the IRA for informing. 

I wasn't expecting this story since I thought (silly me) that it was going to be more of an allusion to the title, which harks back to the mythical goddess Juno who had the eyes of her faithful servant Argos put onto the peacock's tail as a constant reminder of her husband's infidelity.  It takes forever to get into the story and the accent is hard to penetrate.  I'd say give this one a pass.

  This is a much more straightforward film that doesn't feel nearly as long as the previous one.  

When the lights go out in London, most people assume it's a malfunction.  The police know it's a deliberate act of sabotage and they're pretty certain they know who did it.  Mr. Verloc (Oskar Homolka) is a theater-owner by day but an undercover agent next door at the greengrocer's (John Loder) thinks he's also a terrorist.  Complicating matters is the presence of Verloc's young wife (Sylvia Sidney) and her little brother (Desmond Tester).  The cop is reasonably sure she has nothing to do with the plot but how much of that certainty is based on her pretty face?

There is a great suspenseful sequence around the last third of the movie where Verloc has sent the little brother off to deliver a package.  The boy doesn't realize he's carrying a bomb set to go off at 1:45 and has no real rush to arrive at his destination.  The camera does quick shots of clock faces, counting down the times, making you wonder if he's going to be a victim or get away.  Then, later, there's at least one great shot of Sylvia Sidney scanning the crowd for her brother's face.  She sees him, but at the last second he turns into someone else.  It's not a great film by Hitchcock standards but it's a lot closer.

Django Unchained (2012)

Nominated for:  Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Editing, and Best Original Screenplay    I have to admit, I was not looking forward to seeing this movie.  Tarantino is very hit-or-miss for me and I don't find Inglourious Basterds to be the classic others have.

I was really not expecting it to be as hilarious as it was.  The bag-head scene itself reached near-Blazing Saddles levels of caricature lampooning.  Now I see why this is on so many critics' "Best of the Year" lists.

Bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) buys the slave Django (Jamie Foxx) in order to help him track down a bounty.  As a reward for his part, Django gets his freedom.  He immediately confides his plans on finding and freeing his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington).  This touches the heart of the great German legend The Ring Cycle, and the good Dr. Schultz vows to help him.  Together, they track auction manifests to find that Hilde has been sold to plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).  Knowing that Candie would never part with Hilde if he knew she was important, the two men pretend to be interested in buying slaves for gladiator-style fighting.  This gets them an invite to Candie's cruelly-run plantation but brings them under the gimlet eye of his slave, Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) who just knows that there's something fishy happening.

I don't want to spoil anything that happens in the movie, but I will say that Don Johnson is a hell of a good sport.  I thought he was going to be the stand-out but he simply cannot compete with Samuel L. Jackson at full wattage.  Holy shit.  By turns hilarious and menacing, Jackson plays the role of a slave that has profited from his owners through three generations and is intensely loyal, gleefully informing on other slaves.  It's a despicable character and almost more evil than the primary villain. 

There is violence and gore aplenty, with bad guys practically geysering blood every time they're hit and an overabundance of a particular inflammatory word but it fits the world Tarantino has created here. 

Also, the soundtrack is badass.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)

  Here the Pevensie children go on their final adventure.

Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Edmund (Skandar Keynes) are forced to stay with relatives while Susan (Anna Popplewell) and Peter (William Moseley) go to America with their parents to see out the end of the war.  Their cousin Eustace (Will Poulter) is also none-too-pleased at the arrangement as he views the Pevensies to be dangerously unbalanced with all their talk of Narnia.  Then he gets sucked into a painting with them and finds himself unceremoniously dragged onto the deck of the Dawn Treader, Prince Caspian's (Ben Barnes) finest ship.  Caspian is looking to make things right with the seven Telmarine lords that knew his father and is sailing for The Lonely Isles to find them.

What they get is imprisoned to be sold as slaves.  The only remaining lord is a prisoner in the dungeon and explains that being sold at auction is still better than being given to the mist, a mysterious green fog that takes boats full of people as a sacrifice.  They narrowly escape and travel to a different island where Lucy manages to break a spell of invisibility and earns the goodwill of the sorceror Coriakin (Billie Brown) who tells them that they need to lay 7 swords, previously owned by the seven lords, on Aslan's Table in order to defeat the evil green mist.  He warns them that until the swords are on the table, they will be subject to temptations. 

Greed, Envy, and Pride all make their appearances.  I was half worried there'd be some weird creepy seduction attempt, but thankfully not.  Of course God and England prevail over all and everyone learns valuable lessons about friendship and blah blah blah.

I am consistently amazed that they managed to get Tilda Swinton and Liam Neeson back for the two sequels.  There are fewer animal effects in this one (half-humans and the like) and the ones they do have seem less realistic.  The minotaur looks more cartoony and less like a dude covered in yak hair, is what I'm saying.  The CGI in general is almost too bright and shiny, which detracts somewhat from the tone.

They lost Ben Barnes' horrible accent, though.  That's a major step up from last time.  Will Poulter's character provides a much needed dose of snark without coming across as too cynical.  Altogether, not a bad note for the franchise to end on.

The Ring (1927)/Young and Innocent (1937)

  Written and directed by Hitchcock, this one gets us back on track with the romance, but as a sports drama.

"One Round" Jack Sander (Carl Brisson) works as a boxer at a traveling fair.  The claim is that no one can go more than a round in the ring with him.  That is until Australian heavyweight champion Bob Corby (Ian Hunter) gets in the ring.  Jack manages to last four rounds before being knocked down.  His girlfriend (Lillian Hall-Davis) is pissed, at first, but soon finds herself won over by Corby's charm.  The boxing promoter (Forrester Harvey) tells Jack that the bout was to scout him to be Bob's sparring partner.  He accepts the job but starts to get very worried at the amount of time his girl is spending with the champ. 

It's no Rocky but it's not terrible.  

  This is another "wrongfully accused" film like The 39 Steps but with murder instead of espionage.

When famous actress Christine Clay (Pamela Carme) washes up strangled onto a beach, suspicion falls on Robert Tisdale (Derrick De Marney).  He knew the victim and was spotted fleeing the scene by two witnesses.  Protestations that he was going for help are unheeded.  After a lengthy interrogation by the police, Robert chances upon Erica Burgoyne (Nova Pilbeam), the daughter of the police chief.  At first reluctant, Erica is eventually brought around to the idea that Robert is innocent.  The two must evade capture as they try and find the real culprit.

Unlike in Blackmail, where the main character's problems could have been solved by the cops with one phone call, I can much more easily relate to Tisdale's flight from custody.  It's one thing to be able to claim assault and self-defense.  It's another to have two witnesses place you standing over the body of a dead woman who left you money.  I've never personally been subject to a miscarriage of justice but I'm pretty sure there's not a person alive that doesn't fear wrongful imprisonment.

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

   And we're back to Bond!  Hope everyone enjoyed their little hiatus.  The first time I tried to watch this the disc was cracked so I had to wait for a replacement from Netflix.  It allowed me to catch up on my Muppet Show episodes, though, which was nice. 

First, there's a brief throw-back to On Her Majesty's Secret Service, with Bond (Roger Moore) visiting the grave of his late wife (which would have been their 10th anniversary) and then having another run-in with Blofeld, now wheelchair-bound. 

I'm still claiming that the cat is the mastermind since he continuously gets away. 

After that bit of randomness, Bond is called in by the Minister of Defence (Geoffrey Keene) to recover an encryption device for the British submarines.  It had been lost in a shipwreck somewhere off the coast of Albania and a previous attempt to get it resulted in the death of the salvage specialist, Timothy Havelock (Jack Hedley) and his wife.  Bond starts with trying to track the money for Havelock's assassin but finds another person on the trail as well:  Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet), the victim's daughter.  She is determined to have vengeance for her parents' murder.  He traces the money trail to the Italian Alps where he meets Kristatos (Julian Glover), a neutral party who steers him in the direction of smuggler Milos Columbo (Topol who played Tevya in Fiddler on the Roof). But things are almost never as they appear.

As far as plot goes, this was way less complicated than some of the previous films.  Sometimes that's good, as it allows for character development and dialogue.  Not this time, though.  It just made the film seem kind of boring and realy showed Roger Moore's age, seeing as he was 54 at time of filming.

Holy shit.  I take it back.  For 54, he did a damn good job.

Easy Virtue (1926)/Jamaica Inn (1939)/The Lodger (1926)

   I was not a fan of this film.  I think it runs into the chasm of what used to be socially acceptable but isn't any more.  There was apparently a remake done in 2008 that Netflix keeps pushing on me.  I might give that one a try and see if it's any more palatable. 

Larita Filton (Isabel Jeans) is divorced from her husband (Franklin Dyall) after he accuses her of infidelity with a painter (Eric Bransby Williams).  Fanning the flames of gossip, the deceased artist had left all his fortune to Larita.  Publically shamed, she hides out in the south of France where she meets good boy John Whittaker (Robin Irvine).  They marry and he takes her home to meet his extremely disapproving mother (Violet Farebrother).  Mrs. Whittaker doesn't know why she immediately dislikes her son's new wife but she's willing to just go with the feeling and makes Larita's life as miserable as possible.  John's younger sister (Dorothy Boyd) finds a picture of Larita in a magazine and rats her out as fast as she can.  Mrs. Whittaker orders Larita to stay away from the party she's throwing but Larita is tired of taking her crap.  She has her maid cut her dress to be just shy of immodest, then swans out to the ball.  She decides her husband has suffered enough and goes to get a divorce.  The End.

No, seriously, that's it.  She decides that she's brought enough shame upon him and leaves him, presumably so she can go die alone like scandalous divorcees are supposed to do.  This seems so alien to me and it wasn't what I was expecting at all.

  Pretty much up until now, all the Hitchcock films have been romantic comedies of some sort or another.  Not this one.

Mary (Maureen O'Hara) has come to the Jamaica Inn on the coast of Cornwall from Ireland to live with her Aunt Patience (Marie Ney) after her family had died.  Unfortunately, the innkeeper (Leslie Banks) is slovenly, abusive, and also a wrecker.  Meaning, he and his crew intentionally douse warning lights, causing ships to crash on the rocks.  Then they recover all the merchandise and murder all the sailors.  The very night Mary arrives, the crew has decided to hang young Jem Trahearne (Robert Newton) for skimming.  Horrified, Mary cuts him loose and the two run off.  They seek assistance from the local lord, Sir Humphrey Pengallon (Charles Laughton), a cunning and fickle man who takes instant interest in our fair Mary.

This is a well-done film, especially the performance by Laughton, but I would have liked to see more humor as a relief from all the bleakness.  That may have just been a misplaced expectation on my part, however, after seeing so many light romances from the director.  

  Apparently, this was the film that launched Hitchcock's career.  It's still a pretty good one.

Someone known only as The Avenger is killing young blonde women in London.  Around the same time, a new lodger (Ivor Novello) takes up residence at the Bunting house.  The Buntings just so happen to have a young blonde daughter named Daisy (June, just June).  Mrs. Bunting (Marie Ault) starts to suspect that the young man upstairs might just be the killer.

Jealousy seems to be one of Hitchcock's favorite emotions, as it motivates a lot of his characters.  Malcolm Keen plays Daisy's cop boyfriend Joe as he is consumed by the green-eyed monster, becoming more and more suspicious of dark and brooding Ivor Novello.