Juror #2

 

JUROR #2  (2024)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Clint Eastwood

    Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons,

    Chris Messina, Zoey Deutch, Cedric Yarbrough

    Amy Aquino, Kiefer Sutherland, Leslie Bibb

Clint Eastwood's latest (and possibly last) movie is a riff on "12 Angry Men", about a murder trial, an ambitious prosecuting attorney, a defendant who seems guilty but might not be, and a  juror (Juror #2) who knows more about the case than he should. I'm not sure it all adds up, but it's an effective piece of cinematic storytelling, a reflection on the imperfect nature of justice, and the scenes in the jury room, for anybody who's ever sat on a jury, are right on the mark. Clint fans will note that some key flashback scenes take place in and around a roadhouse - a signature Eastwood location - and that the place is called Rowdy's Hideaway. A coincidence? Probably not. 

Way For a Sailor (1930)

 

WAY FOR A SAILOR  (1930)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Sam Wood

    John Gilbert, Wallace Beery, Leila Hyams,

    Jim Tully, Polly Moran, Doris Lloyd

A broadly played, early sound comedy starring John Gilbert and Wallace Beery as merchant seamen on shore leave. Various factors contributed to the collapse of Gilbert's career in the 1930s. His voice, his alcoholism and the wrath of Louis B. Mayer were all part of it, and so were movies like this. He made a couple of decent talkies, but "Way For a Sailor" wasn't one of them. The boys shoulda stayed on the boat. 

Hard Luck (1921)

 

HARD LUCK  (1921)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Buster Keaton, Edward F. Cline

    Buster Keaton, Virginia Fox, Joe Roberts

Buster Keaton spends the first few minutes of this two-reeler trying to commit suicide.  Then other stuff happens. The gags involve a fish, a bear and a horse.

Lake Michigan Monster (2018)

 

LAKE MICHIGAN MONSTER  (2018)  ¢ ¢

    D: Ryland Brickson Cole Tews

    Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, Beulah Peters,

    Erick West, Daniel Long, Wayne Tews

A crackpot comedy, shot cheaply (in Milwaukee and Muskegon), about a sea captain obsessed with hunting and killing a monster lurking offshore in Lake Michigan. It's the kind of thing the Marx Brothers and Monty Python excelled at, but pure zaniness can be hard to pull off. I watched it with a receptive crowd at Seattle's Grand Illusion, and beyond about the half-way point, the laughter really died away. (It loses something when the captain's "band of rowdy cutthroats" leave the scene and the captain takes over the story.) It's in black and white, and there are some imaginative, low-grade effects. 

His Majesty O'Keefe (1954)

 

HIS MAJESTY O'KEEFE  (1954)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Byron Haskin

    Burt Lancaster, Joan Rice, André Morell,

    Benson Fong, Abraham Sofaer, Archie Savage,

    Philip Ahn, Charles Horvath, Tessa Prendergast

Cast adrift by a mutinous crew, a dashing sea captain washes up on a tropical island and immediately sees that there's a fortune to be made in coconut oil. Now all he has to do is secure some financing, find a boat and a crew, and coax the islanders into harvesting their coconuts. A colorful South Seas adventure, more leisurely than Lancaster's other swashbucklers, but still a passable showcase for Burt's distinctive brand of derring-do. If the '20s had Douglas Fairbanks, and the '30s and '40s had Errol Flynn, the '50s most emphatically had Burt Lancaster. 

Bikini Bloodbath (2006)

 

BIKINI BLOODBATH  (2006)  ¢

    D: Jonathan Gorman, Thomas Edward Seymour

    Debbie Rochon, Leah Ford, Robert Cosgrove,

    Sheri Bomb, Katie Gil, Anna-Karin Eskilsson,

    Natasha Nielsen, Olja Hrustic, Russ Russo,

    Dana Fay Ensalata, Margaret Rose Champagne

An empty-headed slasher flick about a bunch of bikini girls being stalked and chopped up by a killer wielding a meat cleaver and wearing a chef's hat. This movie tests the notion that there's any limit at all to how dumb 72 minutes of video footage can be. References to "Citizen Kane" and "Dazed and Confused" notwithstanding, the evidence suggests that there's not. 

The Accountant (2016)

 

THE ACCOUNTANT  (2016)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Gavin O'Connor

    Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons,

    Jon Bernthal, Jean Smart, Cynthia Addai-Robinson,

    Jeffrey Tambor, Allison Wright, John Lithgow

A good, tricky thriller in which Ben Affleck plays a guy on the spectrum with two extraordinary skills: crunching numbers and killing people. That has  made him a lot of money, but his sense of perfection and obsession with leaving no mission incomplete have consequences. Ben and Anna Kendrick are the stars, but the standouts are J.K. Simmons and Cynthia Addai-Robinson as the federal agents working the case. A sequel was released in 2025.