movie club 2002

sunday june 9 "The Dirty Dozen" (Tom)
Non-conformist major (Lee Marvin) trains twelve death row prisoners (Charles Bronsan, Donald Sutherland, Jim Brown, Telly Savalas among others) for a suicidal mission during World War II. With Ernest Borgnine as the General. Preceded by a dinner of seared tuna steak prepared by Tom and a showing of "The Voyage of the Nobska Scout".

JD (before the movie) - I've heard of this one, it doesn't sound too bad. We can get Tom's movie out of the way and have four or five good movies!
TR (during the movie) - My lab is just like this group of prisoners!
AD (after the movie) - there were twelve cute guys and they grew beards. what's there not to like!
MT - it seemed like a comedy to me.
JD (next day) - That was a good movie last night. It didn't mean anything but that's fine with me! A dozen dirty guys got trained to fight for a special mission, they show up a colonel, and a lot of them got killed. And that's all! No hidden message or anything!

Sunday June 16 "Blade Runner"
A vision of the future, taking place in Los Angeles where a blade runner (Harrison Ford) tracks down androids gone amuck. Directed by Ridley Scott. Preceded by dinner of dosas prepared by Mark and items brought by others. The movie started around 10:30 so there were several people that bailed out at different times.

TR I loved that movie. But who was the fifth replicant?
JD Yeah, that's the point, you don't know.
AD: This was the first of the pomo movies of course
TR: ?
AD: post modern!
JP (who left half way through) I wish I saw more of it.

Saturday June 22 "Black Hawk Down"
Ridley Scott (see above) movie of elite American troops in a disastrous mission in Somalia 1993. The new Onkyo receiver was used for the first time, with digital 5.1 sound.

everyone (after the movie ended): " " (stunned silence)
TR: "this is an important movie!"
PM: "that was the most realistic war movie I've ever seen."
MT: "good thing we didn't show this on Sunday" (this was a Y chromosome showing only)

Sunday June 23 "Memento" (Jim)
Mind bending movie about an ex insurancer adjuster with short term memory loss. Preceded by a dinner featuring Tom's famous "coquilles st jacques"

MT: "I think I understood it!"
TR: "That was the worst movie I've ever seen. "
JG: "how can you say that? you were asleep 3/4 of the time!"
TR: "well, every time I woke up, I couldn't head or tail of it"
JP: "I liked it. I didn't know what was going on most of time though. I wonder how they write movies like this..."
JD "drugs"
PM "what was so clever about it was showing the scenes in backward sequence so that you would have the same kind of memory problems as Lenny"
TR: (amendation and elucidation, 2 days later): "that was the second worst movie I've ever seen. It was about framentation of identity. Younger people like that kind of thing, but to older people, it's a real nightmare. It was unbearable; I just didn't want to be reminded of it."

Sunday June 30 "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"
Ang Lee directed this tale of mythical warriors in ancient China

TR: (of the Zhang Ziyi character) "Is her name Jen?!?"

Sunday July 7 "Blow" (Joe)
Sympathetic bio-pic of "Boston George", who in the 80's / 90's supplied 85-90% of the cocaine in the US. His misfortunes included early death of first wife, getting turned in by his mother, divorce from a second wife, and getting busted on "one last delivery" in order to take his daughter away. With Pee Wee Herman as the "west coast connection".

JG: "very good movie, very interesting"
JP: "I liked it a lot, but it became really sad at the end."

Sunday July 14 special dinner
We invited Dick Backus, the former owner of 12 Cricket Lane (1954-1971) who told us some stories of the early days of the house. Also present were his wife Denise and across the street neighbors the Wards (Margery, Herman).

Sunday August 18 "Behind Enemy Lines" (Tom)
Another Cricket Lane first - this movie was shown outside in the back yard! And it really worked! The movie was about a navy jet navigator (Owen Wilson) shot down in Bosnia. With Gene Hackman as the admiral who gets him back.

TR: "I love to see old farts spring into action!"

Sunday, August 25 "Get Shorty"
John Travolta is Chili Palmer in the adaptation of Elmore Leonard novel. We watched this one outside too.

MT: "My favorite scene is when John Travolta tells Danny De Vito how to act the part of a loan shark!"

Who's Who
AD Ayse Dosemeci
JD Joe DiGiorgis
JG: Jim Galbraith
MT Mark Terasaki
PM Paul McNeil
TR Tom Reese