The Verdict, True Believer, The Believer, The Girl Who Knew Too Much, & High Society

The Verdict had a great performance from Paul Newman and an interesting David Mamet script. Too bad that it's a typical lawyer gets a last chance at redemption plot. Well done, but nothing too special. Good cast though.

True Believer has a good performance from James Woods as a former idealistic civil rights lawyer who defends a Korean accused of murdering to join a gang. I decided I was going to have a little themed string of movies, with these two lawyer getting back to their jobs. Then I went for the next movie because of their similar titles. Robert Downey Jr. was also pretty good, and Kurtwood Smith is one of those That Guy guys. I never remembered his name.

The Believer was really good, and Ryan Gosling was very good. Billy Zane will always be funny (The Phantom stars Billy Zane, which very few people will get). Interesting and fascinating look at self-hating Jews, and watching the interview with the writer-director made it a little less offensive, but it explained the movie well. Probably not as interesting to a non-Jew, but just a good movie.

The Girl Who Knew Too Much I saw is not, repeat not, the Adam West film from 1969. I saw the Mario Bava film with John Saxon (my favorite actor I've met, on the set of a Nike commercial in 1999). Hitchcock ripoff, and it had too many non-sensical aspects. Plus, it felt very long at less than 90 minutes. Boring. And there were scratches on the DVD print.

High Society was a musical remake of Philadelphia Story, with Grace Kelly, Bing Crosby, and Frank Sinatra replacing Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart. Plus, the entire rest of the cast wasn't as good as the original either. The best bits were the parts directly from the original. And as hot as Grace Kelly is, she's no Katharine Hepburn from 1940. Well, actually, Grace Kelly is one of the most attractive women ever, but Charles Walters just can't make her as attractive as Hitchcock was able to.