Kick-Back Friday: October 2008 Archives

Not Without My Daughter (1991): Based on the true account of an American woman's unexpected, indefinite stay in Iran with her husband and his family during the Islamic revolution. Recommended because Alfred Molina (Frida, Boogie Nights, Enchanted April), as the husband, is so incredibly good at morphing from a sympathetic foreign medical grad in the US to a conflicted monster in his native country. I also really (really) like Sally Field.

On a period-piece roll...

There are at least 7 movie versions of Jane Eyre out there, including the classic with Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles, the Timothy Dalton version (now who decided he'd be a good Bond?), and the recent "Masterpiece" version with Maggie Smith's son. But my favorite, far and away, is the A&E film with Samantha Morton and Ciaran Hinds—primarily because Ciaran Hinds can do no wrong.

P.S. I'm astonished to find that this version has been roundly panned at Netflix. They're mistaken.

North and South: Definitely not the Civil War mini-series with Patrick Swayze, but a very fine BBC adaptation of the Elizabeth Gaskell novel of the same name—which can be described as (if I were pitching this story to a distracted, coke-snorting producer) a Pride and Prejudice for the Industrial Age.

The title's probably better than the movie itself, but Kansas City Confidential (1952) still offers solid noir fun. An ex-con, mistakenly nabbed for an armored car robbery, sets out to find the real culprits...and maybe the money, too. Hmmm.

Featuring the great character heavies Lee Van Cleef and Jack Elam, both of whom appeared in too many westerns to name.

Good and campy, Dangerous Crossing features an interesting mix of actors whose careers, characteristic of the early 1950s, straddled the motion-picture and television industries. Twenty-eight-year-old Jeanne Crain (State Fair), a little long in the tooth by then-Hollywood standards, doubts her sanity when her new husband, played by Carl Betz ("The Donna Reed Show," "Judd for the Defense"), goes missing on their honeymoon cruise. The ship's doctor, Michael Rennie (The Day the Earth Stood Still), tries to sort it all out.

Don't spend a whole lot of thought on this one.