First rewatch in decades for the movie that made me and everyone who saw it afraid to sit in a dentist's chair. 😨🥵 Dustin Hoffman plays Babe (!), a super-smart Columbia U. college student and marathonist-in-training with a troubled past (his father offed himself after being targeted by Joseph McCarthy's communist witch hunt) whose brother 'Doc' (Roy Scheider, unafraid to show his rockin' dad bod while in his undies) is a contraband courier for Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier), a Nazi war criminal operating out of Uruguay. The unexpected death of Szell's brother forces Christian to expose himself by coming to New York, leading to covert American operatives putting the squeeze on Babe after Doc also comes to visit his baby brother. Screenwriter William Goldman (adapting his own novel), director John Schlesinger ("Midnight Cowboy") and cinematographer Conrad Hall ("Butch Cassidy...," "Road to Perdition") put on a clinic about how to make a perfect NYC-set (with side trips to Paris and South America), 70's conspiracy thriller that only dabbles vital information when necessary. Only Marthe Keller as Babe's "girlfriend" feels wasted, but that's how Bechdel Tests rolled in the 70's. 😡 3.90 RETRACTABLE BARAKA WRIST KNIVES (out of five).
Dressed To Kill (1980) dir. Brian De Palma
ReplyDeleteA masterclass in the use of visuals and sound with an excellent cast including Dennis Franz as, you guessed it, an NYPD cop.
Beaten! 🥺😭🤪
ReplyDelete047.- MARATHON MAN (1976, 4K UHD)
First rewatch in decades for the movie that made me and everyone who saw it afraid to sit in a dentist's chair. 😨🥵 Dustin Hoffman plays Babe (!), a super-smart Columbia U. college student and marathonist-in-training with a troubled past (his father offed himself after being targeted by Joseph McCarthy's communist witch hunt) whose brother 'Doc' (Roy Scheider, unafraid to show his rockin' dad bod while in his undies) is a contraband courier for Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier), a Nazi war criminal operating out of Uruguay. The unexpected death of Szell's brother forces Christian to expose himself by coming to New York, leading to covert American operatives putting the squeeze on Babe after Doc also comes to visit his baby brother. Screenwriter William Goldman (adapting his own novel), director John Schlesinger ("Midnight Cowboy") and cinematographer Conrad Hall ("Butch Cassidy...," "Road to Perdition") put on a clinic about how to make a perfect NYC-set (with side trips to Paris and South America), 70's conspiracy thriller that only dabbles vital information when necessary. Only Marthe Keller as Babe's "girlfriend" feels wasted, but that's how Bechdel Tests rolled in the 70's. 😡 3.90 RETRACTABLE BARAKA WRIST KNIVES (out of five).