It's a crime film: four career criminals decide to make a big strike; three know one another well, and one of them recruits his Italian compatriot, César, a premier safe cracker. They decide to go for a big heist. 45 minutes into the film, the plan is executed, and for twenty minutes there is no dialogue or music. Some people like it (François Truffaut praised the film), some don't (Jean-Luc Godard regarded the film negatively); no surprise there. Roger Ebert gave it four stars (calling it "a milestone in movie history"), and I humbly agree. The film's director, Jules Dassin, was an American film maker blacklisted during the McCarthy panic; he moved to France to make films.
Dovetailing with Dassin's real-life story is the plot of Guilty by Suspicion. Here, the cruelty and cynicism of red-baiters of the House Un-American Activities Committee is revealed. Those soulless politicians, of which Richard Nixon was one, damaged the fabric of this country. The film is not simply an examination of the past, but a warning for the future, a clarion call often ignored (at our own peril). Far more eloquently than I can say it, Ebert states the film teaches a lesson we are always in danger of forgetting: that the greatest service we can do our country is to be true to our conscience. De Niro and Benning and Wendt are superb.
Ant-Man and the Wasp is not my usual fare. Not even close. But I know Paul Rudd from Perks, and decided to try it. I loved the film. It's basically a good versus evil tale, with a love story appended; true to the modern day, Ant-Man, or Scott Lang in 'real life,' is a good dad. Michael Douglas, whose work I like, mostly, does a bang-up job, and Evangeline Lilly, whom I don't otherwise know, both were great. Michael Peña was sublime. I really enjoyed the film greatly.I can't say the same for Lean on Pete; I tried, twice, but just couldn't get through it. The other two I didn't watch. I got all five DVDs from the Phoenicia Library, my local library upstate. Getting films right off the shelf, or going online and reserving them, is so easy, and joyful.
When I come across a film I think I'll enjoy I simply go on a computer and access the library website to reserve it. I do it downstate also. It's easy, and convenient. When I worked at the Hewlett-Woodmere Library I would scan the shelves now and then, if I didn't have any particular film in mind, and occasionally landed gems. I found Definitely, Maybe that way, and perhaps even Perks of being a wallflower.
Some libraries have mobile apps (HWPL and QBPL), some do not, yet, but will soon, I hope (Phoenicia, which is part of Mid-Hudson Library System).
Watching films in a theater is unique; in that I do agree with Steven Spielberg. But to sit at home and watch a film has its own beauty.