Juror # 2 (2024)

Clint Eastwood directing in his assured, lean but thoughtful style, the best moral quandry film I've seen in awhile. 'Juror # 2' stars Nicholas Hoult as an expectant father who fails in his attempts to get out of jury duty. Once empanald he realizes he may have inadvertently caused the death for which an innocent man is being prosecuted. He wants to do the right thing, but when his lawyer friend Keifer Sutherland advises him that if he steps forward he'll go to prison, Nicholas attempts to stear the jury, which starts out 10 - 2 in favor of conviction, towards an acquittal. Very well done, a solid cast including Zoey Deutch, J. K. Simmons, Toni Collette, Amy Aquino, Leslie Bibb, and Clint's daughter Francesca Eastwood as the dead woman. This movie feels like it's from 30 years ago, but in a good way.  ***1/2

The East (2013)

 Brit Marling co-wrote and stars in 'The East', in which she plays an employee of a private security firm who goes undercover to infiltrate an anarchist collective/ eco terrorist group. The time she spends with them weighs on her thinking and changes some presectives. This is a very smart movie and there were times when I was expecting the obvious, then it went in unexpected directions. I was really impressed. It's sociological character study meets 1970s style conspiracy thriller. ****

The Stone Creek Killer (2025)

 In a small Minnesota town two teenage girls go missing, a professional 'psychic' shows up to help, and the girls bodies a found ritualisticly displayed, the sheriff and the only two other officers on the force face what appears to be a serial killer. Filmed on location with a largely no name cast, in 10 days for $300,000, 'The Stone Creek Killer' is bland, "filler" "entertainment". It is also what comes from my mother, my sister and me selecting a movie based on what could get consensus as an acceptable choice. * 

I also watched the Irish mini-series 'The Dublin Murders' this trip and that was great. Watch that, skip this. 

Drowning Mona (2000)

 Mona Dearly (Bette Midler), the most hated resident of Verplanack, New York (a real small town, that was largely not happy with its portral in this movie) dies in what at first seems like an accident, but may have been murder. Sheriff Danny DeVito has no shortage of suspects, including Mona's son, her husband, the husband's mistress, and DeVito's perspective son in law, who had a buisness dispute with the woman. Great cast includes William Fitchner, Neve Campbell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Casey Afflick, and an SNL era Will Farrell as the town's sex addict funeral director. I found it quirky, likeable, unchallanging, and enjoyably small scale. **1/2

Sugar Cookies (1973)

 An arty, erotic crime thriller produced by a young Oliver Stone. Director George Shannon murders his star actress/ lover Lynn Lowery as part of an errotic game. His casting director, friend and sometimes lover Mary Woronov helps him to cover it up; but she then proceeds to hatch a plan to bring him down with the unwitting aid of a woman she finds who looks just like the lady he killed, also played by Lynn Lowery. Pretty nihilistic stuff, some social commentary, lots of boobs. **1/2

Paranoia (1969)

 Also known as 'Orgasmo', 'Paranoia' is a Gialo film which features actress Carrol Baker (still with us at 94) going nude as an American widow who travels to her late husband's Italin villia to recuperate after his death. While there her life is slowly taken over by step siblings who use their sexual wilds, to slowly turn her into a reclusive drunk, who they then try and manipulate into suicide. Pretty racey and decades ahead of its time in depicting bi-sexuality.  ***

The Lady in Red (1979)

 This is a lose adaptation of the life of Polly Hamilton, a farm girl with musical aspirations, who becomes a prostitute and later the girlfriend of John Dillnger. Pamela Sue Martin, a child star who played Nancy Drew in the early 70's, closes out the decade in a much more adult role. Pulpy explotation fair from Roger Corman's New World Pictures has some surprisingly big names involved, from screen writer John Sayles, composer James Horner, to actors Louise Fletcher and Christopher Lloyd. For what this is, it's unusually good. ***