by ·Comments Off on Deep Cover (1992, Bill Duke)

The dialogue in this movie is just okay (except when flashy drug dealer Roger Guenveur Smith is described as having “a life expectancy of about half an hour”) until Jeff Goldblum gets a hold of it – this is my second movie this month that he’s rescued. Larry Fishburne is undercover, takes over the late Roger’s job and teams up with lawyer Goldblum, who gets off on the power and money. “Being a cop was never this easy.” An extremely cynical movie and as great as Hoodlum. Be careful who you pretend to be, etc. LVP Glynn Turman in an opening scene with its own weird tone. Surprising to hear Snoop Dogg in 1992.

The boys:

by ·Comments Off on No Sudden Move (2021, Steven Soderbergh)

A few guys get a job to camp out menacingly in a family man’s house until he retrieves some documents from his workplace, but the documents aren’t so easily retrieved, and somebody dies, and who’s really working for who? It’s that sort of movie, and I could do a whole plot rundown but it’s twisty and fun so I’d rather just forget the particulars and watch it again in a few years. I’ll say that everyone’s sleeping around, all the women are dangerous, the documents are about the auto industry wanting to avoid pollution regulation, and Soderbergh shoots the action with a widescreen lens that perversely distorts everything on the sides.

Besides the superstars, we’ve got family man David Harbour (star of the Hellboy remake which I accidentally bought on blu-ray for a few bucks thinking it was the original, dammit)… his wife, hostage Amy Seimetz (director of last year’s finest film)… and Ray Liotta’s wife is Julia Fox (Uncut Gems).

Not how you want to meet Don Cheadle:

You do not impress Bill Duke:

You don’t want Brendan Fraser pointing his napkin at you: