The Dictator

Actors:  Sacha Baron Cohen, Anna Faris, Ben Kingsley, John C Reilly
Rating:  7 out of 10, a Netflix rental because I’m not a huge Cohen fan but the trailer looked hilarious.  I was truly and pleasantly surprised by how consistently funny this movie was.  So many stereotypes were attacked and exposed that this movie had me laughing from start to finish.  Cohen was prefect as a clueless despot forced to live a normal New Yorker’s existence for a while.  Some of the funniest bits were A-list movie stars portrayed as selling themselves to foreigners.  You really had to pay attention to catch some of the funniest lines and almost hidden cameos.  Cohen is so funny in this type comedy that I wonder why he does the reality shock thing so relentlessly – he has real talent as a comedic actor which is rare.
MVP:  Cohen – as Admiral General Aladeen, so funny when he wants to be and not trying to just shock people

Lawless

Actors:  Shia Lebeouf, Tom Hardy, Jason Clarke, Guy Pearce, Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska, Gary Oldman
Rating:  9 out of 10, The Bondurant brothers enters cinema history as a collection of entertaining characters delivered by great actors in supremely nuanced performances.  This was another great outing by Tom Hardy who steals every scene he’s in while saying virtually nothing – talk about screen presence.  I think this is what Ryan Gosling is going for in his staring mode but he’s not the actor Hardy is who carries it off with élan here.  Hardy is perfect as the quiet but indestructible head of the family bootlegging business. I’m sure a lot of critics will complain about the mumbling but if they really looked beyond the points of their noses they’d see that he’s made this an effective part of his character. I loved the interplay between him and Jessica Chastain. It takes two really good actors to depict the subtle progress of the romance portrayed here. Guy Pearce is the villain and I was amazed once again at his versatility going from the hero mode in the last movie I saw him in to the totally evil scoundrel here. I’m not a big fan of Shia Lebeouf, especially when he tries to be an action guy, but here he plays a “poser” who’s not tough and it worked.  There was a real texture to this movie which transports the viewer back to depression era Appalachia.  From the previews you would think Oldman played a big part in this movie but I think he had more screen time in the previews than he did in the actual movie.  This movie is a clear win, action, drama, and a serious amount of heart. 
MVP:  Hardy as the indestructible older brother Forrest Bondurant

The Grousers

Actors:  Tab Hunter, Cherie Latimer, Nadyne Turney, Linda Leider, Isabell Jewell
Rating:  2 out of 10, the Grousers AKA The Arousers AKA Sweet Kill was a joke gift from my friend who remembered this from our high school days as a racy film from the “naughty” drive in located in a nearby town.  It acquired the name Grousers when the drive in misspelled the name on its marquee and we were all trying to figure out what a “Grouser” was.  We watched it together on Saturday and marveled at just how bad this movie was and how tame it seemed by today’s conventions.  This was a Roger Corman produced movie with no real plot other than 1950s heart throb Tab Hunter killing girls.  Interestingly this was written and directed by Curtis Hanson who went on to have some real success in main stream Hollywood.  A really bad movie that brought up a lot of really funny memories from my youth.
MVP:  Whoever the actress was who was drying her hair in front of a mirror– still scene stealing

With Six You Get Eggroll

Actors:  Doris Day, Brian Keith, Patt Carroll, Barbra Hershey, Jamie Farr, William Christopher, George Carlin
Rating:  7 out of 10, this was Doris’ last film and you can see the years starting to impact but she was still at the top of her game.  I guess she had a lot of personal issues because she never made another film after this which is a real shame.  She plays an appropriately older widow in this one where she meets widower Brian Keith and they embark on a romance and elope.  All of this is to the horror of the very controlling children of each.  I’ve always loved Keith’s understated acting and he shares a great deal of chemistry with Day.  He seems a much more appropriate pairing for Day than her usually “too pretty” leading men.  There is kind of a hand off between acting generations as Barbra Hershey debuts in this movie and reminded me why I had the childhood crush I had on her. The funniest thing about this movie is the comment on the social scene of the late 1960s as Hollywood tries to portray flower power and the hippies.  Jamie Farr and William Christopher, before their MASH days, play hysterically (and unintentionally) funny leaders of a motor cycle gang with psychedelically painted helmets.  George Carlin looking impossibly young also has some funny moments.  Overall just a fun look back into the 1960’s with the iconic actress of that era in her swan song.
MVP:  Keith as Jake Iverson proves a perfect foil and holds his own with Day’s character

Farr and Christopher - I Had to Add this One - Too Funny

Send Me No Flowers

Actors:  Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Tony Randall, Clint Walker, Paul Lynde
Rating:  5 out of 10, Back to Doris last night with a movie that came as an add on to one of the others I wanted to see.  This was not a good movie.  Day was good as always as the bright, perky housewife this time.  The problem was casting Hudson as a hyper-hypochondriac.  He was just not believable and neither was the notion that Day would put up with the incredible nonsense from her husband.  This is not how you expect from Hudson and he was not a good enough actor to pull this off.  Clint Walker, one of my favorite Dirty Dozen guys, tries to play a romantic rival but he’s even worse than Hudson.  He was nothing but big and should have stuck to action roles.  This is a totally forgettable movie with a contrived plot and most of the actors just going through the motions, definitely a pass.
MVP:  Day as Judy the long suffering wife of the idiotic Hudson

Expendables 2

Actors:  Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Terry Crews, Chuck Norris, Dolph Lungren, Jet Li, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Terry Crews, Jason Statham, Liam Hemsworth, Nan Yu
Rating:  8 out of 10, I decided to break up my Doris Day retrospective by going in a slightly different direction.  This is a completely guilty pleasure movie but boy does it rock.  It’s obvious that the 1980s action stars (and every single one of them still alive is featured) are well beyond their prime but this still is a hell of a lot of fun.  The movie starts off with a bang and doesn’t let up for small things like plot continuity.  It’s also great to have the governator back but its obvious politics were not kind to him.  This is a movie in two parts with some straight forward action for the first half but jumping into cartoonish when Norris appears.  This reaches its “high” point when Arnold rescues the Expendable from a mine driving the boring machine from his Total Recall movie.  But that’s alright because this movie was made for people like me who just want to see things blow up and the good guys win every now and then.  That’s what best about this – it doesn’t take itself too seriously (at all) and repeatedly pokes fun at the stars and their 1980s selves.  Nan Yu was kind of a romantic inetrest and she is a very ineretsting actress and can kick ass as well.  I think they realized any romance between her and Stallone would be kind of creepy (for her) and thankfully didn’t go that way.  Supreme popcorn fare, and that’s all right.
MVP:  Nan Yu as Maggie, holding her own with the action and keeping her head above water in this sea of testosterone

Lover Come Back

Actors:  Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Tony Randall, Donna Douglas, Edie Adams
Rating:  7 out of 10, my journey with childhood crush Doris Day continued with a film I never saw before.  It was another send up of the battle between the sexes that was fomenting in the early 1960s and features Day and Hudson at the peak of their careers.  Hudson plays another Neanderthal that thwarts the go getter Day as rival advertising executives.  Hudson really was an alpha male type despite his later revelations.  Day doesn’t often get credit for it but she was a ground breaker in the movies as a smart, confident professional female in a male dominated work environment.  The movie takes on the role of sex in a very straightforward manner which is surprising for a 1961 film.  There is also another fleeting reference to Hudson’s sexuality when he walks in wearing only a female’s mink coat that is only notable for what we learned later on.  Randall is incredibly funny as the spoiled rich son and Hudson's supposed boss.  This was another fun trip down memory lane that had my wife in stitches.  Over the past week she has become a devoted Doris Day fan, who knew?
MVP:  Day as Carol Templeton, the smart, sexy, and frustrated foil to Hudson’s cad