I hate my Internet connection. It has been up and down all day; hopefully, it will still be up by the time I finish this post. If you can see this whining, then it worked!
Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993): A very fun, funny movie that reunites Woody Allen and Diane Keaton. (Woody of course plays a neurotic trainwreck of a husband, while Keaton plays an energetic wife who dives headlong into a murder mystery.) The most hilarious parts involve Woody being the worst detective ever and the worst poker player ever. I was rolling during those scenes. Keaton and Alan Alda, who plays the customary "Woody Allen's best friend" role and also has a crush on Keaton's character, have some nice chemistry during the scenes where they team up to unravel the mystery. And, uh, Anjelica Huston is kind of really hot as a writer who gains interest in what's happening.
The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2004): I was kind of annoyed with this at first, because it seemed as if it would be a one-joke movie (it's a tribute to the style of 1950s B-movie horror/sci-fi flicks), but after the first 10 minutes or so, the story becomes quite surreal and very funny. My favorite bits are anything involving the Skeleton (which is very rude and demanding, and becomes inert at the most convenient times for the plot) and the two aliens (Andrew Parks and Susan McConnell) pretending to be human so that they can get a meteor filled with the rare element atmosphereum from a scientist, Dr. Paul Armstrong (Larry Blamire). There are some jokes that fall flat, of course, but for the most part it is enjoyable, especially if you are a fan of B-movies.
The Savages (2007): Good movie starring Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman as emotionally stunted siblings who must move their father to a nursing home, because he is slipping into dementia. Through this process they come to terms with the lousy childhoods they had, and how it has affected their abilities to connect with other people. Linney got the Oscar nomination, but I think she and Hoffman are equally good. Linney's character is wracked with guilt because she wants to treat her dad better than he ever treated her and her brother, but her life is held back because she is the type of troubled character she would write about in one of her plays. Hoffman, meanwhile, is the type of guy who masks his pain with directness and pragmatism; you get the feeling he is holding everything in so that he never has to deal with it, but little bits of pain leak out of him every once in a while. The movie is driven far more by character than plot, and it works well because the Savages are flawed characters who are at the same time not completely unlikable.
On the queue for this week: Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Harold and Maude (1971), Spartacus (1960), Love and Death (1975), The Stranger (1946) and Scarlet Street (1945)
Total Movies: 18 (Gaslight, The Last King of Scotland, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Darjeeling Limited, This Film is Not Yet Rated, Diary of the Dead, Bullets Over Broadway, Interiors, Husbands and Wives, The Professional: Golgo 13, Lars and the Real Girl, Lolita, Quills, Hamlet, Iris, Manhattan Murder Mystery, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, The Savages)
