First up was "Sully", the Tom Hanks starring and Clint Eastwood directed movie about the forced landing of a disabled US Airways passenger airplane in the Hudson River in January 2009. Hanks, who is always good in anything he does, stars as Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the pilot of the craft. The events depicted in the movie are recent enough that most people will remember them, and Eastwood does a great job in turning an event that last 208 seconds into a full length movie.
Much of the movie focuses on the NTSB investigation of the event that followed. Did Sully do the right thing in making the forced water landing? (All 155 people aboard survived, so I'd say, yeah, he did.) Should he have tried to return to one of two airports available to land? These are the issues facing the NTSB, who it must be said were doing what they needed to do, but Eastwood makes them the "bad guys" in this one in such a broad fashion that I am surprised he didn't have then wearing black hats during the board hearings.
I give this one three stars, and I am looking forward to discussing this one with my buddy Tim Baker at some point in the future.
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Next up was from 1965, Blake Edwards' "A Shot in the Dark", perhaps the best of Peter Sellers Inspector Clouseau movies. To be honest, some of the gags in this one go on too long and become almost annoying to watch, but there are enough honest-to-God laughs in this one to make it worth watching. Watching Sellers trying to return a pool cue to the rack of cues in the billiard room is hilarious.
It also stars the beautiful Elke Sommer, the single most beautiful woman I have ever seen in person (I've told the story before), and she is gorgeous in this one.
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On Friday night I tuned into TCM to watch Woody Allen's 1988 drama, "Another Woman" that starred Gena Rowlands and Mia Farrow. Rowlands plays a college professor who accidentally overhears another woman, Farrow, while she is visiting a psychiatrist. Hearing they stranger's story makes Rowlands take another look at her own life, both past and present. I had never seen this one, but I am always anxious to "discover" an Allen movie. As I said, this one is no comedy, but rather an adult drama, one that makes you really think. Maybe it's not for everyone, but I thought it was quite good.
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The final Friday movie, also on TCM, was "I Never Sang For My Father" from 1970 starring Melvyn Douglas and Gene Hackman.
Hackman plays Douglas' adult son who returns home after the death of his mother, and is faced with dealing with an aging father. Lots of unresolved father-son issues come to light. Again, not always an easy movie to watch, but excellently done - both Douglas and Hackman received Oscar nominations for this one - and a movie that probably everyone, to one degree or another, can relate.
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Still have one more movie on the DVR that I want to watch soon, another Blake Edwards/Peter Sellers comedy called "The Party" from 1968. Maybe after the Steelers game tonight. More on that one later, after I watch it again.
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