Advise and Consent, Death and the Maiden, Day for Night, Bus 174, & City of Hope

It's been a while, and I may not remember everything I've seen since the last entry.

Advise and Consent was definitely made a long time ago for a less informed public. A little too obvious, and I saw the gay thing coming a long time earlier. Ok, mainly because I read Frank Rich's column which mentioned it, but still. Anyway, really impressive cast that mostly does a good job with some mediocre material. The main problem is that it's completely unfocused. There is no main story, as it flips in the middle a couple of times to focus on new parts of the story. While this is more like real life, it doesn't make for a better movie.

Death and the Maiden had great performances, and was an interesting story, but it just was missing something, possibly no projected backgrounds at the climax. That was really distracting for me. Lots of other things were right, but Polanski could have done better. Somehow.

Day for Night is the best movie about making movies ever. Great movie. Not much is better than Truffaut, a true film lover, making a movie at the height of his talent about how amazing movies are. Wow.

Bus 174 was too long. But other than that little problem, it's a fascinating documentary which gives much needed background to social problems in Rio. Now, it's not nearly as good as City of God, but few movies could tell a better story than that, and the way the filmmakers connect the dots and look for the reasons for the hijacking.

City of Hope was damn good. John Sayles is one of the best directors working today. And this is a typical Sayles film. I can't recommend almost every one of his movies enough. And the cast of this one was great and full of Sayles's normal cast. And the young Angela Bassett was a surprise. Joe Morton needs much more work as well. Just an outstanding film. Weird that I saw it right before tonight's Sopranos, which was also about shady land deals. The 80's-ness of City of Hope was somewhat distracting, but maybe it was set then. Or maybe Jersey took a few more years to get to the 90s than other places in the county. Also weird that it was filmed in Cincinnati. Didn't recognize it.