Three more films for summer: 1) Armando Iannucci's In the Loop (2009) with Steve Coogan, James Gandolfini, et alia. Who in hell would want to start an elective war in the Middle East? Ha!
2) Michael Mann's Public Enemies (2009). With Jonny Depp as John Dillinger, Billy Crudup as J. Edgar Hoover, Marion Cotillard as Billie Frenchette, and so on. Shot on location in and around Chicago, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Love how the film shows Hoover's embracing of the tactics of Mussolini and fellow Italian fascist thugs in his own campaign against "subversives" -- a point rarely made in mainstream American films, certainly.
3) Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker (2008) follows an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) detail in Iraq. Based on the book by Mark Boal, who also produced the film. Looks harrowing, exciting, and right on.
Today's Rune: Movement.
Erik, tho not really deeply appealing films to me, anything with Jonny Depp and Woody Allen interest usually pans out. Hope you enjoyed the 4th.!
ReplyDeleteWhoops! I meant to say topics instead of films......
ReplyDeleteI didn't make the connection until this weekend, reading Manhola Darghis' review in the NYT, that the movie is based on the book by the same name; I clipped the review and made put the book on the short list of books to read.
ReplyDeleteFamily lore has it that my grandparents were at the Biograph that night-- I keep hearing conflicting stories. I do know that my grandparents and everybody else in the neighborhood knew that Dillinger lived in the neighborhood, and considered him a folk hero.
Reading the review, I know that the movie reveals how incompetent the FBI was initially; during the Little Bohemia raid, FBI agents gunned down three innocent men who were leaving a bar. And they failed to cover the back entrance of the inn-- basic procedure. Dillinger and most of his people got away easily.
Dillinger was a momma's boy compared to the Purple Gang.
ReplyDeleteI probably will see Public Enemies eventually.
ReplyDelete