Let's see. The recent watchings.
Surf's Up. My MousePlanet review
here. Recap: went in with low expectations and was very pleasantly suprised.
Brewster's Millions. The vagaries of life resulted in us no longer getting the $60 cable package at the $13 price. Of course, now we are used to the $60 package so I had to kick in, and while kicking in might as well get the basic digital package so now we have On Demand. Used my inaugural On Demand viewing to watch this. Stupid movie but I got a kick out of it when I was a kid.
Whispering Smith. I believe this was Alan Ladd's first western, from 1948. Ladd is, as far as I'm concerned, the Ben Affleck of the 1940's. I just don't understand the appeal he had for people. But it was a lot of fun to watch Robert Preston chew up the scenery. It is always interesting to see actors etched in my brain as old being young.
The African Queen. On the big screen at the Stanford Theater in Palo Alto. Some sound issues and one really bad splice. I'd never seen the whole movie in one go (though I'd seen most of it in pieces) and I'd forgotten what a fun movie this is. It starts off pretty weak but, pardon the pun, builds up quite a head of steam by the end.
Oceans 13. Much better than the second one but still pretty pointless. I found it too predictable and too choppy for the style to come through (though it still did at points) but Lani had a lot of fun with it.
The Fortune Cookie. The first pairing of Matthau and Lemmon. It is interesting to think that I watched
Whispering Smith form 1948 in Technicolor and
The Fortune Cookie from 1966 in black and white ('66 was the last year of separate Academy Awards for color and b/w). Not a great movie and pretty much everybody in it is completely hateful with nothing to redeem them but when Matthau gets in a groove he was a thing to watch. Was surprised that "bitch" was used freely and had to remind myself repeatedly that it was 1966 even though my brain kept wanting to put it back a decade.