Enjoying his life working as a lifeguard since he was a teenager, thirty-something Sam Elliott reevaluates his priorities after reuniting with a high school girlfriend at his fifteen year high school reunion. There’s a lot of awful misogyny and a really problematic sexual relationship, which some might be able to wave it off as being of a particular time. I had a hard time doing so, but it really speaks to the cool of Elliott that he still manages to be a charming protagonist despite all that.

I haven’t seen this film since it first came out, but when I tried to skip ahead to The Bourne Ultimatum, I had a hard time following so thus begins a small Bourne marathon. Italian fishermen rescue Matt Damon, with two gunshots in his back and total amnesia, from the Mediterranean Sea. Discovering he has a vast array of unexpected skills, he takes on the name of Jason Bourne and begins the search for his true identity. Matt Damon makes for a strange action hero, but that accentuates his early confusion as he realizes his abilities. It’s a solid actioner with an impressive cast, including Chris Cooper, Franka Potente, and Brian Cox, but it’s still easily forgettable by the time it’s over.  

Florida Keys police chief Denzel Washington races against his detective estranged wife Eva Mendes and the DEA in finding out who murdered his mistress Sanaa Lathan and her abusive husband Dean Cain before he becomes the chief suspect in the case. Fairly predictable with a dumb ending (just take the money, idiots), it is sold on a solid performance by Washington. A somewhat Hitchcockian protagonist, he is in way over his head before he even realizes he’s near the water.   

Low level publishing colleagues Chloë Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale spend their evenings meeting yuppies and discoing at New York City nightclubs. Not one of the characters in this film is likeable and very little actually feels of the disco era other than an excellent soundtrack. It is reminiscent of Whit Stillman’s other film Metropolitan with its talkiness and upper class manners. Not much happens, but there’s quite a bit of reflection on relationships of both the romantic and friend/enemy varieties.

I had not intended to watch another David Lynch film so soon after Mulholland Drive, but sometimes what happens when you rely on the whims of the library hold system. Saxophonist Bill Pullman and his wife Patricia Arquette begin receiving VHS tapes showing surveillance of their house. While on death row for the brutal murder of his wife, Pullman somehow transforms into Balthazar Getty and is released from jail. With its Los Angeles location, changing personalities, and gangster characters, it feels somewhat like a mix of Lynch’s Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive and I admittedly understood it even less than that latter film. I have dug its soundtrack for many years.

On the same night attorney Gene Hackman is scheduled to give a speech, San Juan police captain Morgan Freeman brings him in for questioning with regards to the rape and murder of a young girl. Inconsistencies in his story make him a prime suspect, a situation that is not helped by his much younger wife Monica Bellucci’s willingness to cooperate with the cops. While it’s by far not the best work either of the actors has done, especially with the torridness of the story, it’s still a chance to see the great actors play off of each other. Regardless the strength of the film lies in its twists which do not lay out the solution to the mystery until the end.