"A Good Year for the Roses" (he makes it work), and the cover of "Patches" he did with B.B. King.

Also Emmylou Harris.

I didn't realize that until I read other comment threads; thanks.

As I said above, I would have been fine *not* caring about the plot, except the last 20 minutes or so of the movie is nothing but explaining the plot, and it turned what had been, as you said, a fun, pulpy movie into something boring.

I was fine with the movie when it was trash - it was very entertainingly tongue-in-cheek (pardon the expression). But when the movie slowed down to a crawl near the end to explain the plot, it did lose me a little. Still, this and Starship Troopers are the only decent movies Denise Richards has done, so there's that.

I have a friend who feels the same way you do (she's a film noir/private eye genre fan, and she found the movie too muddled), but I have to disagree. To me, it's The Long Goodbye - which also deconstructs the private-eye genre - that feels like a thesis (though it played for me better the second time I saw it). This…

Sort of ironic; there was a scene in tonight's episode of "The Americans" involving a character playing Pac Man.

Wish you had asked about "Watch It". A very funny movie, and McGinley is very good as a character who seems to just be an obnoxious asshole - he even describes himself as "one of those assholes", and is proud of it - but is more interesting than that. Plus, Peter Gallagher, Tom Sizemore, Jon Tenney, Suzy Amis, Cynthia…

Whatever your opinion of how Rory chooses to make her point with Dean in "That Damn Donna Reed", I do think the whole thing is worth it just for the scene when Lorelai sees her in the 50's housewife outfit for the first time, and teases her about it. It's a great scene.

To me, they were Heathers, albeit not quite as mean-spirited (Louise was close at times).

As much as I like him as an actor (in addition to The Opposite of Sex, The Portrait of a Lady, Nadja and Insomnia, he's also good in a thankless role in Living Out Loud, as well as a little-seen indie movie called Heaven (not the one with Cate Blanchett; this one has Richard Schiff and Joanna Going, and is about…

I should give Hartley another try; for some reason, his deadpan style never clicked with me, although he did introduce Adrienne Shelly to the world, which is in his favor.

He is good, but I feel the movie sort of takes easy shots at its target.

I actually did a double take at the library a couple days ago when I saw the DVD copy there, because it was out of print for so long.

"'Paris Is Burning' is also the first major effort to humanize Paris".
What about "Rory's First Dance", when you find out Paris has a crush on Tristan, and had to take her cousin to the dance (and became humiliated when she blurted that out for everyone to hear)? I thought that was a major effort. Certainly, it was the…

I can see the meandering part, but I kind of liked that, and given how well it created that time and what was going on, I was constantly engaged (plus, as I mention above, the part where Pryor tries to explains batting averages is hilarious). I hope you do get to give it another chance.

"Love the Natural, and everything you mentioned is spot on, but who doesn't have a soft spot for it."

I agree; this is a great movie, and that rare historical movie that doesn't feel like a history lesson. And Billy Dee Williams and James Earl Jones (as Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, essentially) are very good.

Oh, I think he's very funny in it. The scene where he's trying to explain batting averages is alone worth watching the movie for.

I haven't been able to bring myself to watch It's Kind of a Funny Story, because of my dislike for certain cast members. One of these days, I will break down and watch it, just because I liked Half Nelson and Sugar so much.