The Movie Crash Course

I actually was pleasantly surprised by this one.

On February 3, 1971, NYPD Detective Frank Serpico was shot in the face during a raid on a suspected drug dealer.

So – as I mentioned elsewhere, this project is based on the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die books.

When I got to the end of this film and saw Terrence Malick’s name pop up with a director’s credit, I was so surprised I said “Terrence Malick directed this???”

This was actually a second-time watch for me, but I’ll get to that later.

In the middle of watching this, I got so bored I got up and started making a complicated savory pastry for my lunch, leaving the DVD running and glancing at the TV from the kitchen as I worked.

I was lukewarm on this, but not for the reasons you think.

So…I innocently picked this as my next film because it was short.

This week, we lost two major movie-connected people within 24 hours of each other.

Jumping a bit out of order, but Roommate Russ offered to take me to see this on the big screen; it’s one of his favorites, and a nearby theater was screening the directors’ cut for a couple weeks and he invited several friends to screenings to justify some

Imperfect, but interesting.

I was putting this one off as long as I could.

There’s a detail about this film that you may have heard about, whether you’ve seen it or not.

Lenny Cantrow (Charles Grodin) is a newlywed, who’s just married Lila (Jeannie Berlin) and set off with her on his honeymoon in Miami Beach.

So…this was one of the films which I’m not into, but couldn’t necessarily tell you why.

Andrew Wyke (Sir Laurence Olivier), a genteel upper-class mystery writer, has invited a younger man, Milo Tindle (Michael Caine) to his country mansion for a chat.

I may have spoiled myself a bit for this – I saw the 2002 remake from Steven Soderbergh, which starred George Clooney and focused a bit more on a love story hiding within Stanislaw Lem’s original novel.