thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably

Average rating: 7.75. Good stuff!

Bull Durham (1988) - "In Durham, N.C., the Bulls minor league baseball team has one asset no other can claim: a poetry-loving groupie named Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon). As the team's season begins, Annie selects brash new recruit Ebby Calvin LaLoosh (Tim Robbins), whom she christens 'Nuke', to inspire with the religion of baseball. Nuke also receives guidance from veteran player Crash Davis (Kevin Costner), who settles Nuke's erratic pitching and teaches him to follow the catcher's lead."
length: 1 hour, 48 minutes

source: I own the DVD
I watched it because: I saw an interview with Costner recently, and have been thinking (longingly) of this movie since then

    (previously described here, among many other posts)
IMDB: 7.0/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 97% Audience: 82%
my IMDB: 9/10

AFI:  100 Years…100 Laughs (2000) #97

    10 Top 10 (2008) Sports #5

MPAA rating: R

notable quote: "'How come you don't like me?'

    'Because you don't respect yourself, which is your problem. But you don't respect the game, and that's my problem. You got a gift.'

    'What do I got?'

    'You got a gift. When you were a baby, the gods reached down and turned your right arm into a thunderbolt. You got a hall-of-fame arm, but you're pissing it away.'

    'I ain't pissing nothing away. I got a Porsche already; I got a 911 with a quadrophonic Blaupunkt.'

    'Christ, you don't need a quadrophonic Blaupunkt! What you need is a curveball! In the show, everybody can hit a fastball!'

    'Well, how would you know? You been in the majors?'

    [pause] 'Yeah, I've been in the majors.'"

directed by: Ron Shelton

my notes: funny, sexy, and some surprisingly good baseball, plus poetry. Love it.

Academy Award nominee: Best Writing, Screenplay written directly for the screen—Ron Shelton
overall:  recommended

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) - "Orson Welles' acclaimed drama follows two generations in a well-to-do Indianapolis family. Isabel Amberson receives a proposal from dashing Eugene (Joseph Cotten), but opts instead to marry boring Wilbur. Time passes, and Wilbur and Isabel's only son, George (Tim Holt), is loathed as a controlling figure in the town. When Wilbur dies, Eugene again proposes to Isabel, but George threatens the union. As George in turn courts the woman he wants to marry, a string of tragedies befalls the family."

length: 1 hour, 28 minutes

source: I borrowed the DVD from the public library
I watched it because: I'm in Orson Welles mode
IMDB: 7.6/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 89% Audience: 84%
my IMDB: 5/10

notable quote: "I know what your son is to you, and it frightens me. Let me explain a little. I don't think he'll change. At twenty-one or twenty-two, so many things appear solid and permanent and terrible. Which forty sees are nothing but disappearing miasma. Forty can't tell twenty about this. Twenty can find out only by getting to be forty."

MPAA rating: Approved (TV-PG)

directed by: Orson Welles

my notes: those Ambersons are not magnificent. The older men are ineffectual, the women are passive/passive-aggressive/enabling, and the younger man, George Amberson Minafer, is an overgrown toddler monster brat from Hell. 

    I think this is just a very outdated story that would have made sense when it came out but as time passes it becomes less and less logical or appealing. I liked the way it was filmed, which I'm coming to understand is 'Wellesian'. I liked the performance of Joseph Cotton (Eugene Morgan). Overall, though, it was not an enjoyable film for me.

Academy Award nominee:
• Best Picture

• Best Supporting Actress—Agnes Moorehead

• Best Cinematography, Black and White—Stanley Cortez

• Best Art Direction - Interior Decoration, Black and White—Albert S. D'Agostino, A. Roland Fields, Darrell Silvera
overall:  recommended for completists

Gilda (1946) - "Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) is a small-time American gambler, newly arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina. When he is caught cheating at a game of blackjack, Farrell manages to talk his way into a job with the casino's owner, the powerful Ballin Mundson (George Macready). The two form an uneasy partnership based off their mutual lack of scruples until Mundson introduces Farrell to his beautiful new wife, Gilda (Rita Hayworth), who just happens to be Farrell's ex-lover."
length: 1 hour, 50 minutes

source: I borrowed the DVD from the public library
I watched it because: it's on an alternative best list
IMDB: 7.6/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 90% Audience: 89%
my IMDB: 8/10

notable quote: "'Got a light?'

    'Yes, Mrs. Mundson. It is so crowded and yet so lonely, isn't it?'

    'How did you know?'

    'You smoke too much. I've noticed. Only frustrated people smoke too much, and only lonely people are frustrated.'"

MPAA rating: Approved (TV-PG)

directed by: Charles Vidor

my notes: marvelous! Catty, tricky, and sexy. Hayworth was wonderful, proud and vulnerable. Ford was solid, handsome, and arrogant. And George Macready plays a marvelous sort of character, much more complicated than he seemed. I liked it a lot.

overall:  strongly recommended

Much Ado about Nothing (1993) - "In this Shakespearean farce, Hero (Kate Beckinsale) and her groom-to-be, Claudio (Robert Sean Leonard), team up with Claudio's commanding officer, Don Pedro (Denzel Washington), the week before their wedding to hatch a matchmaking scheme. Their targets are sharp-witted duo Benedick (Kenneth Branagh) and Beatrice (Emma Thompson)—a tough task indeed, considering their corresponding distaste for love and each other. Meanwhile, meddling Don John (Keanu Reeves) plots to ruin the wedding."
length: 1 hour, 51 minutes

source: I own the DVD
I watched it because: I wanted something light to play while working on something tedious
IMDB: 7.3/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 90% Audience: 86%
my IMDB: 9/10

notable quote: "I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is that not strange?"

MPAA rating: PG-13

directed by: Kenneth Branagh

my notes: I love this movie. Beautifully filmed in a gorgeous setting, it is a pleasure just to look at. The cast is really good—except the wooden Don John (Reeves) and the insane, gibberish-spouting Dogberry (Michael Keaton). It makes me sigh, and sing along ("men were deceivers, ever"), and tear up just a little bit.

overall:  highly recommended

 

[the title quotation is from Much Ado about Nothing]