Three Days of the Condor
Boy, what is it with you people? You think not getting caught in a lie is the same thing as telling the truth?
Three Days of the Condor
Directed by Sidney Pollack and also starring Faye Dunnaway as the love interest this is a nicely paced, complex, spy thriller.
In fact perhaps a bit top complex as I had trouble keeping up in a couple of places (that could have been the wine though), everybody seemed to be working both sides and it was tricky to remember who you could trust or who was a bad guy. This was obviously intentional on the director and screenwriters part.
The “basic” plot is Joe Turner (Robert Redford) is a low level CIA operative, a reader, who basically trawls through magazines and books from around the world to see if there are any hidden messages or plots similar to actual spy missions (this is before the Internet, these days he could probably have just set up a google alert and put his feet up).
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Dirty Dancing
Nobody puts Baby in a corner.
Finally, after 23 years, I got around to watching the 1987 Patrick Swayze movie, Dirty Dancing.
I’d always avoided it because I had no interest in watching a chick flick about a 16 year old girl falling in love with a dance instructor at a Butlins style American holiday camp..
But after a stream of guys films, The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Parker, Chinatown and All the Presidents Men, it was time to give my wife a break, and watch a girly romance film.
I was actually pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t the cheezy, falling in parentally disapproving love, 80s predictable romp I was expecting. Well, alright it is, but in a fairly ok, kind of way.
The film is set in the 1950s and sees younger daughter “Baby” (Jennifer Grey) go with her family to a rich holiday resort in the woods by a lake somewhere in the US for a couple of weeks during the summer, where she discovers the staff party – the staff who consist entirely of professional trained dancers it seems. Is this where the students from Fame go for their summer jobs? – and most importantly she meets the good looking but arrogant Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze), who predictably she falls for but he doesn’t like her as she’s a rich, spoilt daddys girl.
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The Graduate
Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me.
The Graduate Movie Poster
The classic Mike Nichols movie from 1967 starring Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock and Anne Bancroft as Mrs Robinson, about a rich, spoilt American graduate coming home from university and having an affair with his dad’s business partners wife.
Perhaps more famous now for the “Mrs Robinson” song by Simon and Garfunkel, and the temptress lady being a role model for cougars everywhere.
Brief synopsis, graduate (Dustin Hoffman) comes home, is miserable and bored, has an affair with a married woman and falls in love with her daughter leading to obvious problems.
It’s a very well photographed movie with iconic shots, such as Mrs Robinson appearing in the doorway of Bens bedroom seen through a fishtank, Ben standing in front of a bedroom door seen through Mrs Robinsons stockinged leg, and Ben banging on the church window at the finale.
It’s almost like you end up playing “iconic shot bingo” while watching it…there’s one, there’s another, bingo!
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Blog Ranking – Show Some Love
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