Thursday, August 15, 2019

Thursday Movie Picks: Witness




For the 33rd week of 2019 as part of Wandering Through the Shelves' Thursday Movie Picks. We focus on the subject of witness as it relates to witnessing an event or a murder. All of which play into some kind of suspense or something else to have happened. Here are my three picks:

1. Some Like It Hot



From Billy Wilder is a remake of an obscure French film that takes place on the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of the 1920s in Chicago. Two musicians trying to find work would unknowingly witness a murder and had to hide from the gangsters but how? Well, they would dress up like women and join a women’s band featuring Marilyn Monroe and go down to Florida where Tony Curtis tries to woo Marilyn while Jack Lemmon realizes the upside of being married to another man.

2. Sleepers



From Barry Levinson is one of the 1990s most overlooked films of the decade as it play into the life of four young boys in the 1960s whose prank had unfortunately killed someone as they spend their time in a brutal juvenile hall where they endure abuse of the worst kind. Yet, the witness in hand revolves around the events of the second act where two of the boys kill one of their abusers at a bar/restaurant although the witness wasn’t there but had a moral dilemma into what he had to do for two of the boys as one of the boys is also the prosecutor. It is an incredible film that continuously gets better with every re-watch.

3. Inherent Vice



Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of the Thomas Pynchon’s noir-based novel set in 1970 is definitely one of the weirdest films that a major Hollywood studio would ever produce. Yet, it is definitely a film that has all of the qualities of a cult favorite as it follows Joaquin Phoenix as a hippie private detective who is asked to find a few people including an undercover agent who is unable to get out of assignment as he’s also a witness to the events that is happening around Los Angeles. It’s a film that gets better with each viewing as well as maintain its sense of ambiguity.

© thevoid99 2019

5 comments:

Brittani Burnham said...

I've seen all of your picks this week, I liked the first two but I did not understand Inherent Vice. That entire movie just went over my head, I couldn't get into it.

Sonia Cerca said...

I can't believe I haven't thought of Some Like It Hot! I'm hating myself so much right now. It's a masterpiece and would have made a nice theme with two of my other picks.

ThePunkTheory said...

I haven't seen Sleepers in ages but that was a seriously haunting movie. Brilliant choices!

Birgit said...

We match with SLIH which I can rewatch any time. I totally forgot Bout Sleepers which is an excellent film. Glad you gave it a mention here. I haven’t seen your last choice but know about it.

thevoid99 said...

@Brittani-Inherent Vice is a bizarre film as I do think it's worth re-watching as I was able to find something new though I can understand if it isn't your cup of tea.

@Sonia-That's OK for overlooking it as I wanted to do something totally different and have some fun.

@ThePunkTheory-It's worth re-watching again as I think it needs to be in the conversation more often.

@Birgit-I'm glad to know someone thought of Wilder's film as it's a film that I can re-watch at anytime and enjoy myself.