Movies on DVD thread 2

Oh yeah. I liked the ones when he was getting older better, especially The Cowboys. 

True Grit was OK. It was "The Duke". I don't know if I could watch it another time.  Kim Darby. I kept praying Wayne would shoot her, or at least nail her mouth shut.

Works for me.

Sigh, now I want to watch Rio Bravo or The Searchers.

Proof of Life - Michelle Phieffer, Russell Crowe, and David Morse and a good action adventure.  Kidnapping of an exec down in one of the northern South American countries.

As much as True Grit tickled me the other new one this week; The Company Men, disappointed me.

Be aware that spoilers follow; if you plan on seeing it by all means stop reading.

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Totally one dimensional and characters that drove me up the wall it was 2 hours of commie crap that should end up in the dust bin of failed social projects.

Firstly it's mostly about the Ben Aflack (sp?) character who works for a ship builder doing some sort of marketing. He makes $120k a year plus bonuses and 1) lives in a million dollar house, 2) drives a Porsch and 3) belongs to a swanky country club and 4) spends $600 a month on eating out and dry cleaning. Poor baby.

He has an MBA.

He gets fired and gets some severence pay, I think it's 3 months. Let's say it's at least 3 months.

Within 3 months he and his family (he has a wife and 2 kids) are back living with his parents. They've sold the house at a loss. He can't find a job and insults the person offering the only job offer he's given because it's in Little Rock and half his previous salary.

The Tommy Lee Jones character, who is the division head of the company Aflack works for, is a dumb ass always bitching about how much money his friend since college CEO makes in a year. Yet I never see Tommy Lee returning money to the company because it's clear that he's pulling down big bucks as well. In addition he's sleeping with the head of HR. And did I mention he's married?

By the end of the movie it's clear that the reason everybody got laid off is because the president's salary was too big and the company had a jet and were moving into new quarters. If only the president made less money they would have been able to continue to keep everybody on (all 5,000 or so of them). Yeah, sure, uh huh, you bet.

It ends with Aflack being hired by Tommy Lee (who's also been fired, seems the company fired everybody but the CEO) who is starting a new ship building company. All the fired employees are there and Aflack starts barking out orders including one to go hire all the union guys. Why a marketing guy is involved in operations is beyond me, perhaps he had out of work training as part of his severage package. Like the Aflack character is going to make the new company work when he couldn't make the old one work. Oh, wait, it only failed because the CEO was drawing too much of a salary.

I doubt the writer/actors/director have ever had an actual job, it's clear they have formed an opinion without knowing one fact. I realize that's not easy to do but they must have worked overtime because they managed to do it.

Secondly if an MBA ran their personal life as recklessly as Aflack did they'd never be hired, must less giving an opportunity to be such a financial disaster.

I guess, considering that most of these dolts make more per picture than the evil CEO did, that it could be considered a comedy.

Otherwise as anything resembling a story it's a total fail.

The fact that the director and writer was previously associated with The West Wing TV show should have tipped me off. Never saw it but from what I read....  

The funny thing is that once he has his revolution he'll be one of the first they put in a reeducation camp.

Both are good. It's been quite a while since I've seen a Ryan flick.

On my list. DVD  Might try streaming, I'm not sure. It really kills our router for one thing.

Edge of Darkness
Hmm...OK. Not great, not too horrible...surprisingly predictable almost like having seen it before...which I hadn't. 

Another Netflix instant view I should mention.

A Flash of Green

Never been released on DVD as far as I know and I probably like it because I loved the book which was written by John D MacDonald (I was a HUGE Travis McGee fan, even reread them from time to time). I've lost track of my copy of the book and it's out of print and kinda pricey for my frugal ways ($5 for a used copy that originally cost me $.25? I think not) so the movie has to suffice.

Made in 1984 I got the impression that it was set in Florida in the late 50s or so and reflected a very different time and place when Florida was probably very different than it is today. I was never there in that time period but it sure feels about how I imagine it. Yeah, in the movie the developers probably turn out to be more scummy than necessary and the "conservationist" probably more pure than necessary but some nice acting from Ed Harris in what might be his best role (and I like most everything I've ever seen him in).

Worth checking out, especially as it appears that it's never going to be released on DVD.