The Conversation

Posted on December 27, 2015 by jaycluitt

In San Francisco, profession surveillance expert Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is working on his latest assignment, recording a discussion between a man and a woman in a busy courtyard. Having successfully recorded their conversation, Harry begins to grow suspicious that passing on the recordings to his employer may result in some dire consequences for those involved, as happened to Harry on another job sometime ago, which directly caused the murders of three people.
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Lolita (1962)

Posted on December 26, 2015 by jaycluitt

Professor Humbert Humbert (James Mason) has a job as a French Poetry teacher lined up in Ohio in autumn, but until then he plans to spend the summer in New Hampshire, staying in the spare room of the widow Mrs. Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters). It’s clear Charlotte takes an instant liking to Humbert, but he is instead infatuated with Charlotte’s 14-year-old daughter Lolita (Sue Lyon), who relishes this sudden influx of attention.
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Traffic

Posted on December 20, 2015 by jaycluitt

Two Mexican police officers (Benicio del Toro and Jacob Vargas) become embroiled in a corrupt drug investigation. Meanwhile a judge in Ohio (Michael Douglas) is tasked with heading the Office of National Drug Control, whilst his daughter (Erike Christensen) becomes more experimental with her own drug use. Even more meanwhile a DEA investigation (led by Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman) arrest a dealer (Miguel Ferrer) and keep him in custody to testify in court against a drug lord, whose wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) suddenly finds herself having to deal with her husband’s way of living with the help of her lawyer (Dennis Quaid).
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The Wages of Fear

Posted on December 19, 2015 by jaycluitt

In an unspecified town in South America, a multi-cultural group of men strive for a means to leave their location, but none of them can afford to exorbitant fares for air travel, and they cannot earn much working for the town’s sole business, a major oil company. However, when the opportunity arises to earn big bucks transporting trucks full of barrels of unstable nitroglycerin 300 miles as quickly as possible, in order to cause an explosion to put out an oil fire, four of the men set out to get the job done.
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Inside Out, or Why I Should Never Have Kids

Posted on December 3, 2015 by jaycluitt

Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) is an 11 year old girl living in Minnesota with her parents (Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan). She is a normal girl who enjoys hockey, spending time with her friends and having fun with her family. All that changes when they move to San Francisco, and Riley finds herself having to deal with some unfamiliar emotions and situations. Most of this plays out in her head, where Riley is operated by her five core emotions, Joy (Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Fear (Bill Hader) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith). However, when Joy tries to prevent Sadness from interfering with Riley’s memories, the two find themselves lost in Riley’s long term memory, leaving Anger, Disgust and Fear at the helm.
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King Kong (1933)

Posted on November 29, 2015 by jaycluitt

Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) is a film director, planning to make a moving picture on Skull Island, a mysterious land in uncharted waters, to which Denham has obtained a map, but he is short one lead actress. Scouring New York he finds penniless Ann Darrow (Fay Wray), and convinces her to take part before whisking her away and setting sail along with first mate Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot) and a large crew. On the way to the island, the crew become wary of the legend of the great Kong, a mythical beast who, upon arrival, turns out to be a giant gorilla worshipped and rightfully feared by the native tribesman on the island. When the natives kidnap Ann – blondes being something of a rarity to them – and offer her up to the beast, he takes her back to his lair, prompting Jack, Carl and the rest of the crew to attempt a rescue mission.
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Goldfinger

Posted on November 10, 2015 by jaycluitt

This review was originally written as part of my USA Road Trip for French Toast Sunday.

British secret agent James Bond (Sean Connery) has been assigned a mission to investigate a gold smuggler, Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe). However, as the investigation deepens and Bond becomes embroiled within the plot, Goldfinger’s plan leads to plans to break into the U.S. Gold reserve in Fort Knox. Continue reading →

Poltergeist (1982)

Posted on November 9, 2015 by jaycluitt

The Freeling family – Steven (Craig T. Nelson), his wife Diane (JoBeth Williams) and their kids Dana (Dominique Dunne), Robbie (Oliver Robins) and Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) live in a large house within the new-build residential community Steven works as a real estate agent for. They lead a normal life dealing with everyday family problems, but shortly after work begins on the digging of a new swimming pool they begin to experience strange goings-on within the house. Carol Anne is found talking to the television static late at night. Chairs being to rearrange themselves in the kitchen. The tree outside Robbie’s bedroom window seems more menacing than usual. Then one day, when Robbie’s tree attacks him, Carol Anne is left alone in her room and, when her family goes to find her, it appears she has been sucked through a portal in her closet.
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Let the Right One In

Posted on November 7, 2015 by jaycluitt

Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) is a lonely, outcast 12 year old boy living with his mother in a small apartment in 1980s Sweden. He gets bullied a lot, but is too frail, weak and introverted to fight back. That is until Eli (Lina Leandersson) moves in next door with an older man assumed to be her father, Hakan (Per Ragnar). She hangs around outside at night, doesn’t seem to feel the cold and gives off a feeling that there’s more than a little different about her. Mainly because she’s a vampire.
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Chinatown

Posted on November 4, 2015 by jaycluitt

Los Angeles, 1937. Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is a private detective specialising in domestic cases. One day a woman (Diane Ladd) shows up at Jake’s office and hires him to follow her husband, Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling) who she suspects is having an affair. Jake tracks Mulwray and does indeed photograph him embracing a much younger woman. He gives the photos to Mrs. Mulwray, and soon sees them printed on the front page of the newspaper, only to discover that the woman who hired him wasn’t Mrs. Mulwray, and the real one (Faye Dunaway) is somewhat irked that her husband has been publicly humiliated and has now disappeared, and all this is just the start of a web on intrigue that leads further than Jake could have imagined.
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