Here’s a question for you — what’s the best movie you’ve seen by accident?
I remember going to some multiplex, finding that the movie I was planning on watching was sold out and stumbled into this instead.
Breaker Morant is a movie about how, as the director once put it, wartime atrocities can be “committed by people who appear to be quite normal”. It’s also about the difficulty of a government putting its own soldiers on trial for murder for acts performed in the field.
The acting is superb and the ending is one of the most moving I’ve ever watched. Try to keep a lump out of your throat.
“Shoot straight, you bastards. Don’t make a mess of it.”
So, what’s yours? Share in the comments.
Get The Picture 
The princess bride. Planned movie was sold out and I grudgingly agreed to see it. Great movie with so much subtle humor.
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If my memory is correct, I didn’t go to the theater intending to see Tombstone. I watched it on accident once, and then on purpose…about once a month ever since. Every one of my kids has been subjected to it. I’ll be damned if any child of mine ever has to google “I’m your huckleberry.” This frees them up to google things like “so your dad is completely insane and yells at inanimate objects – treatment options.”
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Breaker Morant was a damn good movie. I stumbled upon it on HBO. I had never heard of it before.
The best movie that I stumbled upon, having never heard of was “A Christmas Story” on HBO many many years ago. It reminded me a LOT of my childhood. Especially the old man, he was a dead ringer for my dad.
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Both of those movies I stumbled upon. Breaker Morant on cable, and Christmas Story at a friend’s house on VCR.
I can’t remember seeing a movie in a theater by accident. Maybe Jeremiah Johnson? That was a good movie, and saw it in the theater, but I’m pretty sure I planned to see it.
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The qualifier here is the accidental movie. The one that comes to mind for me is Quigley Down Under. I stumbled on the movie and saw that Tom Selleck starred. Being a fan I decided to watch but the music gave the impression it was a comedy. I was pleasantly surprised as it is a man’s man type movie. The long gun was impressive. Also, a white westerner standing against the abuse of racists for a people he did not know was admirable.
“Well, we already ran the misfits out of our country”. LOL!
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Alan Rickman always made for a good villain. And that ending is great. “I said I never had much use for one…”
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Rickman is a great villain. While not really a pure villain, his portrayal of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series was great.
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He’s also great in comedies too. I loved him in Galaxy Quest and Dogma.
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I did some quick research. Rickman almost quit after The Chamber of Secrets. J.K. Rowling personally convinced him to stick with the role by giving him some of what she was thinking of Snape’s role later in the books. She must have known he would be the perfect Professor Snape.
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I really enjoyed that movie. I thought the music for the opening scene was one of the best ever.
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Everything Must Go..Will Ferrel.
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“Pitch Perfect”
As a review said: “You’re gonna like this movie whether you want to or not.”
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My crazy hippy aunt (a lifelong best pal) took me to downtown Atlanta to see “The Godfather” when it was just out. I was seven. (Seven.) It has improved greatly on many subsequent viewings. Same goes for “2001”, which baffled me the next year on a 1973 re-release (remember those?).
In college we got cable my junior year and one morning I stumbled into the beginning of “A Face in the Crowd”, uninterrupted. I skipped class to see it all, just blown away, and then turned everybody I knew on to it.
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I wish I could find a video of “2001” before the edits.
The movie lasted about 3 1/2 hrs originally, with an intermission. I might be the only person who liked the longer version better.
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Not exactly by accident, but I’d say Lucky Number Slevin. My friends and I wanted to check out this Cinema Café that served food & booze during the movie. This was over a decade ago when those places were a little less common, and we were more interested in checking out the venue than the film. We hadn’t really heard much about the movie beforehand, but decided on it because it had some big name stars in it. It probably has something to do with the fact that I didn’t have any expectations for the film, but I thought it was outstanding and it’s still one of my favorites. And I developed a huge crush on Lucy Liu as a result.
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“Hell or High Water”. It was on one of the premium stations during a fit of insomnia at 2ish in the morning. Great movie.
On the flip side? My wife and I watched “Wine Trip” Sunday afternoon. It could be the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Definitely top 10.
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Flip side for me was “Cowboys and Aliens.”
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Believe it or not, that movie was based on “true” events.
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Lord of the plains.
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Somewhat related, but I remember we finally got cable while I was in college (around 1980). I was home for the summer and cable was so new in our house that we would talk about what we watched “on cable” the night before. My mom chimed in and said she watched “Richard Pryor: Live in Concert”. My mom never cursed and was very much a lady. I’m thinking this was the end of our cable experiment. She said “that was the filthiest, funniest thing I’ve ever seen”.
🙂
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For a recent movie, I accompanied the family to see Knives Out with really no desire to go other than to be with the family. I didn’t know anything about it … of course, the women in my household wanted to go see America’s Ass. Darn good underrated movie.
I stumbled onto The Shawshank Redemption one night at home (didn’t see it in the theater). I watch it every time now when it comes on. Red and Andy are my favorite movie duo.
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I’ll add another recent movie. Crazy Rich Asians. The Delta entertainment offerings were pretty slim for me on an European trip in February and I stumbled upon it. Was pleasantly surprised and have subsequently watched it once or twice more.
I have no idea why I find it so entertaining.
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I saw Knives Out on purpose, but I was still surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I was a little apprehensive because the only other thing I knew the director from was The Last Jedi (I later learned he also directed Looper which I enjoyed). It definitely exceeded my expectations.
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I had heard The Shawshank redemption was good, so I recently sat down and watched the whole movie. Thought it was excellent.
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Knives Out was great.
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Agree. But I’m a Daniel Craig fan. Best Bond ever IYAM…
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No.
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Yes.
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National Treasure with Nick Cage. The rest of the family want to take the kids to a movie (young kids) and they all were going to see the Spongebob Movie – I said screw that and picked National Treasure (after reading the poster in the theater) instead. Very pleasantly surprised.
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Not sure if this qualifies as “accidental”, but this is the best I’ve got. I’m not an avid movie watcher, and somehow I had never heard of Super Troopers, I was awake at like 1 am one night and there was nothing on, but I saw it was coming on so I flipped over to it. I seriously thought it was a sci-fi movie, I think in my mind I thought it was the same movie as Starship Troopers, which had been widely panned, so I flipped it over thinking it would be a terrible movie but at least it would put me to sleep.
I laughed so dang much at that movie. Like 2am, laughing out loud all alone in my living room, the combination of it being funny in the first place, plus not what I thought I was going to be watching at all, it was the most pleasant surprise of a movie I’ve ever seen.
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meow that’s a good story
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“Last Picture Show”
Highly rated, yet underrated in some ways.
My high school showed “American Graffiti” one night and was taken to see “Body Heat” in old PJ at UGA. There was no theatre on campus!
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Saw Rosemary’s Baby at the PJ complex. Also The French Connection.
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I know we brought food, I think drinks (ahem, alcoholic) as well. The fun was the gang being together, not the venue.
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Anybody else remember the Saturday midnight pornos at PJ? Deep Throat, Behind the Green Door, Alice in Wonderland, Misty Beethoven. Damn, the 70s were grand!
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I saw ‘Snatch’ which was probably Jason Statham’s first lead role. It’s a terrific movie and Brad Pitt is hilarious.
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Statham wasn’t the lead in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, but that’s another great movie I saw accidently.
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I went back and saw that one later.
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Breaking Away. Man, those Cutters finally had their day.
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Love this movie!
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Some of us were extras when they filmed the “Breaking Away” TV show at UGA/Athens area in 1980/81.
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Still have my W-2 for $25.00 pay for sitting around all damn day on Reed Quad waiting for a 30 second tracking shot.
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The Usual Suspects. Our original choice was sold out and this had the next closest start time, so we “settled” for it. Great plot twists and storyline with some (at the time) relatively unknown actors who gave a great performance. Keyser Sose! Highly recommend if you haven’t seen it.
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Fandango with Kevin Costner. Judd Nelson in it too. Roommates and I stumbled on it on cable right before graduation. We dug up Dom too one night.
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We accidentally watched Raising Arizona when we first got HBO. They ran ads for it constantly and it looked unappealing, but because of the was of ads we gave in and finally watched a showing. Been quoting it 30 years ever since.
Breaker Morant is a damn fine film, watched it for the first time a few years ago with my dad and loved it.
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84 Charlie MOPIC
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I watched that. What struck me was how the ending resembled a clip from the shockumentary Faces Of Death. Combat footage shows Victor Charles I’mupI’mseenI’mdown sweep spraying automatic rifle fire, camera drops and then a jungle boot of the soldier turning the camera off.
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Regulation 303
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Man From Snowy River. That movie ran in my hometown theater for at least a year. I was a teenager at the time and didn’t go to many movies. I was stuck at my mother in law’s house for a couple days years later. Bored, I pulled out the video and loved it. Kirk Douglas plays a dual role. I go back to that movie at least once a year and make my wife sit through it
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The Outlaw Josey Wales. Not sure how I had previously overlooked it; I’m a Clint Eastwood fan, especially Dirty Harry, but I caught it by accident about 15-20 years ago. Some of the best lines you will find in any movie.
My all time favorite is Diner but I’m pretty sure I wanted to see that one. Great start for so many future stars.
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Fargo – had no idea what it was about and watched it out of boredom.
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I was in Nashville attending a training class by myself in the seventies, class was out and I had no car and time to kill, so I just strolled down the street from the hotel looking for something to do. I came across a movie theatre playing some sort of science fiction flick, so on a lark I went in to see it. I came out amazed. The name of the movie was Star Wars.
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Was going to the theatre to see a movie my wife had picked out but it was sold out so we ended up in “Oh brother where are though.” I think I pulled a muscle laughing. My wife found it amusing There was some absolutely brilliant acting in that movie and the dialogue was as good as I have ever seen for a comedy. Coen’s are twisted for sure.
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Straight Time. Was looking at UGA campus and made my decision to attend quickly. Caught this at a matinee downtown. Wasn’t impressed then.
In retrospect it’s a damn fine movie. Harry Dean Stanton and M. Emmet Walsh. Jake and Gary Busey. Theresa Russell is always a fine ‘Whore’.
Hoffman plays a convincing ex-convict who can’t catch a break.
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The Mission
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I remember when I was 14 my dad wanted to take me to movie that I had no interest in seeing. I went begrudgingly and now it’s one of my favorite movies and I’ll watch it whenever I see it on……Legends of the Fall.
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The best movie I ever accidentally saw in a theatre was “Head Above Water”. It was a little known Dark Comedy with Cameron Diaz and Harvey Keitel. Excellent movie with lots of twists. I never remember exactly how it ends.
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A Fish Called Wanda. My brothers and I had just finished watching Cocktail in the theater (1988). As we were walking out, my oldest brother grabbed me and my middle- brother by the shirt and threw us into another theater. We had no idea what we walked into, but caught the opening credits. Movie was great and being a kid that had just “snuck” into a double feature was even better.
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Fake News pundit, Rachael Maddow, successfully used the fact that her show is Fake News as a defense against a defamation law suit by One America News Network (AKA “The Alex Jones Defesne”). Their argument was that you should have no expectation of hearing the truth or actual news on the Rachael Maddow Show. Instead, the show consists of “opinion and rhetorical hyperbole” and “exaggeration of fact”. Now if OANN could sue everyone else on TV so they can we can all finally agree that all TV punditry is Fake News, that would be great.
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bullshit
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No shit. Her lawyer wrote, “Use of the word ‘literally’ here is the kind of figure of speech that connotes opinion and thus cannot give rise to a defamation claim.”
As everyone who owns a dictionary knows, the word “literally” literally has no meaning. It either means true, or not true.
What does this mean for our #LiterallyHitler hashtag?
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Sorry, but this actually happened. The judge ruled that a reasonable viewer would not take her statements seriously. According to the court, if you believe Rachel Maddow, you are not a reasonable person.
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And I’m sure you were warning everyone about this when the Fairness Doctrine was eliminated and Rush started making his fortune on drug addled bullshit.
Maddow cannot be the point at which you first said: wait a darn minute! This is outta hand!!
Or it could I guess if you’re an idiot.
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Ugh, I don’t know why your tribalism is so ingrained that you continuously forget that that I am not a Conservative / Republican / Trump Supporter / Whatever other bullshit you hallucinate. You may think that you know other people’s opinion better than they do, but you don’t. No one here thinks you are ingenuous in you comments, and you give them ample proof every week.
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I was just asking: Did Rush offend you in the 1980’s or not? Yes or no?
He certainly was Maddow before there was Maddow. I only ask because irrespective of your desire not to commit to a group of two or more, you tend to fall on the right side of the political perspective, which I’d hate to tell you, has millions of like minded people in it.
As far as anyone here thinking I was ingenuous, I’d be insulted if anyone here felt they were capable of assessing my sheer unadulterated brilliance.
And we need to investigate the case of the dozens of dead bodies under Napoleon’s house!!! Big things happening there and he knows it!
I think my braggadocio and conspiracy theories are “presidential” don’t you?
Now if I could only kill 100,000 Americans without apology or a hint of humanity and I’d be a shoe in for the 2024 GOP nomination!!
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Hell, you could win the Nobel Peace Prize!
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Don’t you mean Noble Peace Prize…?
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Freedom of speech is overrated. We need to go back to the simpler times when unbiased folks like Dan Rather controlled, I mean reported, the news.
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That’s a bit of an overreach. The judge said that, because she was
A federal judge on Friday dismissed a $10 million defamation lawsuit by One America News (OAN) against Rachel Maddow, finding that a “reasonable viewer” would know the MSNBC prime-time host was only offering her opinion when she called the right-leaning network “paid Russian propaganda.”
“Maddow had inserted her own colorful commentary into and throughout the segment, laughing, expressing her dismay (i.e., saying ‘I mean, what?’) and calling the segment a ‘sparkly story’ and one we must ‘take in stride,'” Judge Cynthia Bashant wrote Friday.
“For her to exaggerate the facts and call OAN Russian propaganda was consistent with her tone up to that point, and the Court finds a reasonable viewer would not take the statement as factual given this context,” Bashant added.
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/499294-judge-dismisses-one-america-news-defamation-lawsuit-against-rachel-maddow
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Oops, I got going a little too fast with my copy/pasting there. In any case, that’s what the judge was quoted as saying.
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We agree on something. Infotainment is not informative. I watch none of it and haven’t since Olbermann went off his meds.
“Fox news left” isn’t superior to rw media.
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One of the all time great trolls was Ann Coulter hoisting Olbermann on his own petard over his non-Ivy League Cornell degree as opposed to her Ivy League Cornell degree.
Olbermann’s reaction was immortalized by Robert Wagner.
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TV punditry is no longer Infotainment as the information component is no longer factual. 70% of the adds on TV news are from pharmaceutical companies. IMHO, TV “News” is nothing more than a complicated version of Medicare fraud.
Olbermann was shit too. The only show I remember being rigorous with factually correctness was “The Independents” on Fox Business. It was a niche show though.
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It is “infotainment.” Its distorted current events to suit an agenda and packaged in such a way as to keep the morons watching. It is to news what McDonald’s is to food. Stewart did a great job years ago underscoring the problem with it:
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Snark is every bit the substitute for substance.
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The Lives of Others. German flick about the Stasi and how they had virtually the entire country spying on each other out of fear. Ran across it on cable on day and have watched it a few times since. It’s fiction, but they should show that one to our kids in high school.
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“Sexy Beast”…not what I thought it was going to be
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But better right? Great flick. How can one guy play Gandhi and Don Logan?
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I did submit it in jest, but it is truly an awesome movie. I remember I had zero expectations for it and it just rocked.
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all on tv…
– Man from snowy river
– MadMax
– breaker morant
– gallipoli
strangely, all aussie films
another aussie connection was stumbling onto aussie rules football during the good, early days of espn. was mesmerized by that sport.
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Try “The Odd Angry Shot” if you can find it.
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Jeremiah Johnson
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Godfather II. We saw Longest Yard at Alps, then on a whim went across the street to late night show at the other theater, can’t remember the name of the place.
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I once got the Aristocrats mixed up with the Aristocats.
One is a Disney movie, and the other is a documentary on the famously vulgar joke.
The kids loved it.
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ForWhat it’s Worth:
Apocalypse Now
Jeremiah Johnson
Open Range
First two I was buzzed and didn’t have a clue, the third what ever I was going to see was a sell out so Open Range was a side gig.
Further reference of note through these were my looking up Robert DuVall at 89 years old it was a shock to see that his first film was “To Kill a Mockingbird “. As many times as I saw that film I didn’t remember DuVall in it. Perhaps that was a younger me and still need to watch again. For the time there was a lot of shock and awe with the time of that movie. I saw where it was reproduced in 2012. Also in looking I saw were DuVall had a child by his 42 year old wife at the age of 84. That was 6 years ago and I guess ole’ cowboys don’t stop going to town to get a poke. I am not sure I could deal with a 6 year old and I have another decade or so hopefully in front of me.
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Duvall was Boo Radley. Not a big part but that’s him.
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Second Hand Lions was a little known accidental find. Duvall and Michael Cain were epic. Thought it was gonna be a kid’s movie and was very pleasantly surprised.
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Bottle Rocket starring Luke and Owen Wilson from the mid 90s.
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Bottle Rocket for the win. Great movie.
(I almost said “film,” then I remembered I was among friends.)
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I saw Taxi Driver by accident during a free HBO weekend. Long story, but there was a guy in our apartment my roommate and I were pretty sure was going to try and kill us at any moment. Not surprisingly it was his idea to watch the movie to begin with. I spent the entire time with one eye on the movie and one eye on the guy. We sat there scared to death until the movie ended and the he left. Forty years later it’s still difficult for me to watch.
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The Revenant. I accidentally clicked on it in YTTV one night after a Braves game. Decided the watch the first minute. Hours later I was emotionally exhausted and also a changed man.
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Great movie! It’s far from my favorite Leo movie though.
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The Departed
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Sideways. If you haven’t seen it, put it on your list.
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Huh. I accidentally watched this in the theater and to this day declare it the absolutely worst film of all time. You don’t find the characters anything but whiney and sad?! I’ve hated Paul Giammatti in films until his role in Billions which is superb.
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I was so excited for the first launch of American Astronauts from American soil in 9 years, but the weather did not cooperate. I will be watching again on Saturday. This will begin the age of commercial human space flight.
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Its too bad Kennedy didn’t say this:
“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of finding a man wealthy enough to land himself, or his designee, on the moon and return him safely to the Earth.”
So much better an aspiration than the products of “collectivism” like NASA.
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Without the central planners of government allocating resources, how will the proles know what to spend their money on? Do you think private citizens would build a bridge to nowhere? Hell no! It takes real leadership to coerce that kind of spending.
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Crook Ted Stevens & fellow dummy traveler Palin would build it though… Take it up with them, Tiny Prick.
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The Road to Perdition. A great story, with an excellent cast including Paul Newman, Tom Hanks and Daniel Craig, among others. A great Depression era gangster movie.
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A carload of us were heading down to Columbus to lift weights and along the way, somehow, we all inhaled a bizarre substance that rendered a workout impossible. Somebody suggested that watching a movie was about all we were capable of doing. There was a new movie playing that I incorrectly thought was a documentary about aliens. That was the first time I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
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“Out of the Furnace” starring Christian Bale. It also has a good cast of established actors. I caught it at the $1 theater on a whim and was surprised how good it was.
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The Blues Brothers. I was all of 11 or 12, sitting in a hotel in Charleston waiting for my brother to do some Boy Scout thing on the Yorktown when it came on TNT. Watched every minute of it and didn’t leave town before making my mom find somewhere I could buy it and rewatch it when we got back home. One of the more flawless comedies/musicals ever filmed, just brilliant and perfect and started my love affair with the Blues.
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For what it’s worth:
John Lee Hooker, James “Dawg” Brown, Steve Cropper “The Colonel ) Steve was the guitarist for “Booker T and the MG’s”, “Aretha “the Queen”, Matt “Guitar” Murphy, “Blues Lou Marini “,Alan “Horns” Rubin ( Mr. Fabulous ) quite the cast.
Due to “Joliet Jake” Belushi’s ( R.I.P. ) drug issues and frequent absence from the set with time consuming car chases and crashes made The Blues Brothers one of the most expensive ( $30 mil. ) comedies of its time. (1980 )
Remake was tried and pretty much a failure.
Evan Almighty is the Most $$$ comedy at $175 that was in 2017.
Tip of the cap to the Blues Ricky……. Those artists were eclectic.
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Senator, what about movies that were widely acclaimed, but you hate list?
One movie that I stumbled upon, that was really good, was “The Pianist” with Adrian Brody. I had no idea what it was about before starting it on HBO.
A cheesy movie that was really entertaining was “Airborne” starring Seth Green. Very cheesy, but had surfing, hockey, and rollerblading down the Devil’s Backbone. It used to come on TBS all the time in the mid 90s.
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