Wiendish Fitch

I'd say a little from Column A, a little from Column B.

Love and adore Rear Window, but, yeah, Jeff and Lisa make no real sense as a couple. Doesn't diminish my love for the movie (and huge word on Kelly's outfits!). I will never understand what Madeline or Midge saw in Scottie in Vertigo, but maybe that was the point.

Two for the Road is an underrated delight, one of my favorite performances by Audrey Hepburn. I love what a modern, flawed, take-no-crap woman Joanna is. Sad that we lost both Stanley Donen and Albert Finney last year.

Cautiously optimistic about this one! Good buzz at Sundance so far, and strong rating on Rotten Tomatoes (I don't usually take RT seriously, but I will make a rare exception). And the trailer is a thing of beauty. Carey Mulligan playing against type? Timely theme? Written and directed by a woman ( the fabulous Emerald Fennell)? Badass supporting cast including Alison Brie, Connie Britton, Bo Burnham, and Adam Brody, just to name a few? If nothing else, the trailer deserves some kind of an award! Please, please, please don't let me down, movie...

In the Heat of the Night: Early in the film after Virgil is arrested by the bumbling, unethical, incompetent bozo redneck Sparta cops and is given the go ahead to leave, he takes his cash that they earlier had confiscated and begins counting it out. Chief Gillespie snarks, "It's all there!". Virgil pauses, gives him an icy look (no one could give an icy look quite like Sidney Poitier), then resumes counting. Good for him! I love that because 1. Virgil isn't an idiot (if in doubt, always count out your cash), and 2. He doesn't owe these racist morons anything, least of all blind trust. I mean, come on, if the roles were reversed, do you think for one second Gillespie would just take Virgil at his word?

Bolding is mine, because so much "YES!" to this statement. City people are far from perfect, but the idea that all small town people are these secular saints who welcome strangers with open arms is such bullshit. I would love to see a Hallmark TV movie where the woman from the big city goes to a small town... sees it for the boring shithole it is, tells everyone off for being small-minded, Bible-thumping, sexist assholes, doesn't hook up the criminally bland, super-white, not even all that good looking or likable love interest, and goes the hell home and stays there.

It's been a while since I've mentioned my Old Hollywood crush (and this always bears repeating), Ronald Colman. Not only did he possess one of the most beautiful voices ever, but had such heart-melting brown eyes. He is so good in Random Harvest. He was also one of those fortunate individuals who was well-suited for aging (dude rocked the gray temples). I found this early headshot of his and damn.

Reason #852 why Brooklyn Nine-Nine is one of the best shows on television.

My UO is that I could not get through Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I found it offensively self-indulgent (even for Tarantino), and I stopped watching after the scene where Bruce Lee is depicted as a loathsome douchebag who gets his ass handed to him by Brad Pitt's character. Yeah, uh-huh, sure, 20-something, top-of-his-game martial arts god Bruce Lee gets successfully beaten up by a washed-up stuntman twice his age. Great googily-moogily, did Pitt blackmail Tarantino into including this scene just so he wouldn't look bad? Also, I have no idea what Bruce Lee was like in real life, but I'm amazed his surviving family members and friends didn't threaten legal action over this needlessly ugly depiction.

I'm so pissed off at the Academy this year (Joker got how many nominations?!) My impossible dream? That Little Women wins Best Picture and that Sairose Ronan and Florence Pugh win their respective awards, and everyone at the Academy who didn't feel that Greta Gerwig was worth nominating for Best Director spends the rest of their lives with their heads hung low and their tails between their legs.

Wait, what? Why the hell did they cut Leia's line of consent? They couldn't handle 3 seconds of Leia having agency and giving consent, which would have made the scene better, not worse? My god, what were they smoking?!

Re: The Piano Didn't Sam Neill's character And Harvey Keitel's character was an illiterate, Maori culture-appropriating dullard who just happened to be good in bed. I mean, good for him for not being an abusive asshat all willy-nilly, but he's still someone who's nowhere near Ada's league. Even worse, I don't get the feeling he's ever going to learn to read or play the piano or do anything to be worthy of her. Yay, a story where the man gets the girl without ever putting in effort! 'Cause those are always fun! Ada, for all her faults, deserved better than either of those guys, IMO.

I didn't like Looking for Alaska. I get- and greatly appreciate- what John Green was going for (a parable about not idealizing people, and not designating the girl you like as your Manic Pixie Dream Girl), but I feel that in the end...

That's fair. Just cast Adam Driver as the polar opposite of Kylo Ren, and I'd definitely give it a watch!