It's One-Word Movie Titles Reviews!

Last night my dad had us watch Klute. He said it was nominated for some Academy Awards, but I can't see it. Unless it was because it focused on the seedy world of call girls, drug use, and such. Scandalous and informative, but safely so. Obviously I was not impressed, but Donald Sutherland's* character doesn't help. I like him better when he's offbeat, but in a funny way. Here he's frequently expressionless. On purpose I'm sure, but when he's threatening to have Jane Fonda arrested for prostitution, and doing it so dispassionately, it hards to look at him as anything other than a jerk. Maybe because we only saw the man he was looking for in one for scene, for five seconds. Why should I care he's missing?

The movie did give me the opportunity to say 'Roy Scheider's doing a great Scarface there. All he needs is the desk covered in coke and an M-16 with a grenade launcher. The latter would come in really handy when he has to kill giant sharks.'

Lifeboat was better, but then it's Hitchcock, so no real surprise there. I thought Rope was Hitchcock playing with camera trickery, I wonder of this wasn't him seeing how long he could drag out the suspense on everything. Maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind, but even the bit at the end where they were trying to catch the fish with the bracelet seemed unnecessarily drawn out.

Hotel was a sort of ensemble cast movie, with Rod Taylor** as the manager of the independent St. Gregory Hotel, which is about to be purchased, but by who? That primary plot is underlaid with others, such as Karl Malden's attempts to loot the hotel, or the crooked hotel detective getting involved in a possible international incident. There's also a love story, and the plot behind the hotel buyout is more complicated than simply who is after, as there's also a why for one buyer. It was very good, moved between the plots well, having them intertwine where relevant, but often free to progress seperately.

* Point for debate: Donald Sutherland was the John Malkovich of his generation. Your thoughts?

** My dad's a big Rod Taylor fan. As for me, I can't get past the feeling something about his face reminds me of my maternal grandmother's. I don't know which of the two should be more insulted.