no shooting friends, Joseph!

Taking advantage of access to my parents' collection - usually a good thing, sometimes surprising results. Always fun to see what comes up!

The Sand Pebbles (1966) - "Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat U.S.S. San Pablo, assigned to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China. His iconoclasm and cynical nature soon clash with the 'rice-bowl' system which runs the ship and the uneasy symbiosis between Chinese and foreigner on the river. Hostility towards the gunboat's presence reaches a climax when the boat must crash through a river-boom and rescue missionaries upriver at China Light Mission."
source: I borrowed the DVD from my parents' collection
I watched it because: Steve McQueen is always worth seeing
IMDB: 7.6/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 89% Audience: 88%
my IMDB: 5/10

notable quote: "Hello, Engine; I'm Jake Holman."

MPAA rating: PG-13

directed by: Robert Wise

my notes: complicated, very political, and more interesting than it might seem to be. Candice Bergen is really good.

Academy Award nominee:
• Best Picture

• Best Actor—McQueen

• Best Supporting Actor—Mako

• Best Cinematographer, Color

• Best Art Direction - Set Decoration, Color

• Best Sound

• Best Film Editing

• Best Music, Original Musial Score
overall: recommended

The Three Faces of Eve (1957) - "Eve White is a quiet, mousy, unassuming wife and mother who keeps suffering from headaches and occasional black outs. Eventually she is sent to see psychiatrist Dr. Luther, and, while under hypnosis, a whole new personality emerges: the racy, wild, fun-loving Eve Black. Under continued therapy, yet a third personality appears, the relatively stable Jane. This film, based on the true-life case of a multiple personality, chronicles Dr. Luther's attempts to reconcile the three faces of Eve. multiple personalities."

source: I borrowed the DVD from my parents' collection
I watched it because: it's a classic
IMDB: 7.2/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 94% Audience: 77%
my IMDB: 7/10

notable quote: "'Don't you want to get me one?'

    'Well, I've never seen you take a drink before.'

    'Honey, there are a lot of things you've never seen me do before. That's no sign I don't do 'em.'"

MPAA rating: [approved]

directed by: Nunnally Johnson

my notes: engrossing, a little clinical, but worth watching

Academy Award winner: Best Actress—Joanne Woodward
overall: recommended

Unbreakable (2000) - "David Dunn (Bruce Willis) is taking a train from New York City back home to Philadelphia after a job interview that didn't go well when his car jumps the tracks and collides with an oncoming engine, with David the only survivor among the 131 passengers on board. Astoundingly, David is not only alive, he hardly seems to have been touched. As David wonders what has happened to him and why he was able to walk away, he encounters a mysterious stranger, Elijah Prince (Samuel L. Jackson), who explains to David that there are a certain number of people who are "unbreakable"—they have remarkable endurance and courage, a predisposition toward dangerous behavior, and feel invincible but also have strange premonitions of terrible events. Is David "unbreakable"? And if he is, what are the physical and psychological ramifications of this knowledge?"
source: I borrowed the DVD from my parents' collection
I watched it because: its a twisty suspense film that I haven't seen - and I'm firmly in the throes of BruceWillisMania
IMDB: 7.3/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 70% Audience: 77%
my IMDB: 8/10

notable quote: "'I had a bad dream.'

    'It's over now.'"

MPAA rating: PG-13

directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

my notes: a good one!
overall:  recommended

Swordfish (2001) - "When the DEA shut down its dummy corporation operation code-named Swordfish in 1986, they had generated $400 million which they let sit around; fifteen years of compound interest has swelled it to $9.5 billion. A covert counter-terrorist unit called Black Cell, headed by the duplicitous and suave Gabriel Shear, wants the money to help finance their raise-the-stakes vengeance war against international terrorism, but it's all locked away behind super-encryption. He brings in convicted hacker Stanley Jobson, who only wants to see his daughter Holly again but can't afford the legal fees, to slice into the government mainframes and get the money."
source: I borrowed the DVD from my parents' collection
I watched it because: John Travolta's movies are sometimes pretty good
IMDB: 6.5/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 25% Audience: 59%
my IMDB: 1/10

notable quote: "He exists in a world beyond your world. What we only fantasize, he does. He lives a life where nothing is beyond him. But you know what? It's all a facade. For all his charm and charisma, his wealth, his expensive toys...he's a driven, unflinching, calculating machine. He takes what he wants, when he wants...and disappears. "

MPAA rating: R

directed by: Dominic Sena

my notes: really, really terrible. Like an explosively backing-up sewer system teeming with rattlesnakes, C4, and rabid weasels.
overall: not recommended

[the title quotation is from Unbreakable]