he needs to think in the thinking room

If you were going to set up a filmfest for a weekend, this is a decent group to choose from. Choose carefully, my grasshoppers!

Night People (1954) - "Post WWII yarn about a young GI abducted by the Soviets in West Berlin and hauled off to the East. His recovery gets complicated as Colonel Steve Van Dyke tries to sort out the usefulness of informants, spies, bureaucrats, and the abductee's influential father."
source: I borrowed the DVD from my parents' collection
I watched it because: Gregory Peck!
IMDB: 6.5/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 86% Audience: 33%
my IMDB: 4/10

notable quote: "...this deal's gettin' trickier n'-a basket full-a eels."

MPAA rating: Not rated

directed by: Nunnally Johnson

my notes: a weird, weird movie. Peck's character is a cocky, misogynistic asshole. The missing GI has no personality and the viewer has no real impetus to root for his release. This is classic "cold war propaganda" cinema.

Academy Award nominee: Best Writing, Motion Picture Story
overall: not  recommended

The Gold Rush (1925/1942 reissue) - "A lone prospector ventures into Alaska looking for gold. He gets mixed up with some burly characters and falls in love with the beautiful Georgia. He tries to win her heart with his singular charm."
source: I own the DVD
I watched it because: I bought it to be the featured presentation at Easter with my parents
IMDB: 8.2/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 100% Audience: 93%
my IMDB: 10/10

AFI: 100 Years ... 100 Movies (1998 original list) #74

    100 Years ... 100 Laughs (2000) #25

    100 Years ... 100 Movies (2007 10th anniversary list) #58

notable quote: "Don't forget the bacon."

MPAA rating: (passed)

directed by: Charles Chaplin

my notes: I loved it. Surprisingly serious, intense, and sad - but mixed with beautiful hope and sweetness. Fantastic.

Academy Award nominee (1943 Oscars - this is for the reissue):
• Best Sound, Recording

• Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
overall: most highly recommended

The Mosquito Coast (1986) - "An eccentric and dogmatic inventor sells his house and takes his family to Central America to build a utopia in the middle of the jungle. Conflicts with his family, a local preacher, and with nature are only small obstacles to his obsession. Based on the novel by Paul Theroux."
source: I borrowed the DVD from my parents' collection
I watched it because: it's one of those movies that you hear about. it's got a good cast, and ... River Phoenix 
IMDB: 6.6/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 76% Audience: 61%
my IMDB: 2/10

notable quote: "It's an absolute sin to accept the decadence of obsolescence."

MPAA rating: PG

directed by: Peter Weir

my notes: god. awful. One of the worst movies of all time. The glorification of a hideous, terrible character, and ritualized emotional abuse. This is vomit on celluloid.

overall: not at all recommended

Mackenna's Gold (1969) - "The gangster Colorado kidnaps Marshal McKenna. He believes that McKenna has seen a map which leads to a rich vein of gold in the mountains and forces him to show him the way. But they're not the only ones who are after the gold, soon they meet a group of 'honorable' citizens and the cavalry crosses their way too, and that is even before they enter Indian territory."
source: I borrowed the DVD from my parents' collection
I watched it because: I'm stubbornly hopeful about Gregory Peck movies
IMDB: 6.7/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 20% Audience: 69%
my IMDB: 3/10

notable quote: "'It can work for the lord as well as the devil!'

    'Ai chihuahua!'"

MPAA rating: M

directed by: J. Lee Thompson

my notes: Lee J. Cobb as the editor is the one bright spot in this slop. It is a frenetic shitshow with a crazy cast (Telly Savalas? Omar Sharif?? Julie Newmar???)

overall: not  recommended - fehhhhhhh

Miller's Crossing (1990) - "Tom Reagan (played by Gabriel Byrne) is the right-hand man, and chief adviser, to a mob boss, Leo (Albert Finney). Trouble is brewing between Leo and another mob boss, Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito), over the activities of a bookie, Bernie Bernbaum (John Turturro) and Leo and Tom are at odds on how to deal with it. Meanwhile, Tom is in a secret relationship with Leo's girlfriend, Verna (Marcia Gay Harden), who happens to be the sister of Bernie. In trying to resolve the issue, Tom is cast out from Leo's camp and ultimately finds himself stuck in the middle between several deadly, unforgiving parties."
source: I borrowed the DVD from my parents' collection
I watched it because: it's another one of those films that everyone is supposed to see—and I adore Gabriel Byrne
IMDB: 7.7/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 92% Audience: 90%
my IMDB: 8/10

notable quote: "'All in all, not a bad guy - if looks, brains and personality don't count.' 

    'You better hope they don't....'"

MPAA rating: R

directed by: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

(based on the Dashiell Hammett novels Red Harvest and Glass Key)

my notes: I went into it thinking Byrne would charm me, but ended up blown away by Marcia Gay Harden's and John Turturro's performances, too. Strength, guile, brazenness, stupidity, foolishness, vice—all of it, in virtuoso achievements.

overall: strongly recommended

[the title quotation is from Miller's Crossing]