Movies I watched in April
My monthly project was three films about J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover was a muckraking biography made five years after Hoover's death by 70s exploitation king Larry Cohen. It did a lot with a low budget and a cast including Broderick Crawford and a bunch of "that guys". Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar covered a lot of the same ground with a much more serious tone and a greater focus on Hoover's character. I don't know if Leonardo DiCaprio's performance was brilliant or terrible. Hoover's personal project The FBI Story was probably my favorite of the three. It's pure propaganda but it was put together in a very entertaining package with James Stewart's agent and family man as an idealized avatar for Hoover. The script included an amazing number of film tropes and cliches--a character turns on a radio for no other reason than it'll announce the bombing of Pearl Harbor at the end of the scene.
Nice to hear that the Stewart FBI Story movie was solid. I have that DVR'd to watch. This month I did a couple themed watches
Fascism: The Conformist (twice actually, once on the big screen), Rome Open City, Germany Year Zero, Cabaret, The Damned, Army of Shadows and The Night Porter.
80s (inspired by the threads here): Terms of Endearment, When Harry Met Sally, The Stepfather, The Goonies, Predator, Bull Durham, The Burbs
Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward: The HBO doc The Last Movie Stars, Rachel Rachel, Cool Hand Luke, The Long Hot Summer
100th Anniversary of Warner Brothers: Cool Hand Luke, The Maltese Falcon, Rebel without a Cause, Svengali, Land of the Pharaohs, A Lion in the Streets
The 3 I enjoyed most were The Conformist, The Stepfather (new watch, B thriller) and Terms of Endearment
The 3 that I least enjoyed were unfortunately all new watches- A Lion in the Streets, Land of the Pharaohs and Rachel, Rachel