Hulu

So I've discovered the free video service Hulu.com (brought to us by the kind folks at NBC and FOX, apparently) has some awesome movies available to watch online. Recently, I watched The Taking of Pelham One Two Three on it (Thus reaching 2/3 of my 1970s Walter Matthau crime drama trifecta. Charley Varrick and The Laughing Policeman being the other two.) and it was all I ever hoped and dreamed for (especially since it's getting remade next year). Anyways I've put together a queue which amounts to films that should be good and mere curiosities and I've duplicated it here for your pleasure. Enjoy.

Good
Bedazzled
Blackula
Boomerang!
The Desert Rats
Eddie Murphy: Raw
Eight Men Out
Fiddler on the Roof
The Great Train Robbery
Hair
Hoop Dreams (it's in The Criterion Collection)
Kagemusha (it's in The Criterion Collection)
The Knack, and How to Get It
A Life Less Ordinary
Metropolitan (it's in The Criterion Collection)
Moonstruck
Nicholas Nickleby
Of Mice and Men (Malkovich-Sinise!)
Open Your Eyes (this was remade as Vanilla Sky)
Parents
Quest for Fire
Quills
Rob Roy
The Secret of NIMH
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Weird Science (John Hughes!)

Documentaries
Cosmic Voyage
Dinosaurs: Giants of Patagonia

Curiosities
Bulworth
Casino Royale (1967) (It's got Woody Allen... and Peter Sellers)
Frogs
Ghoulies II
Hercules in New York (Arnold Schwarzenegger's debut)
In the Mix (Usher!)
Killing Zoe (from Roger Avary hot off of Pulp Fiction)
Pumpkinhead
The Scorpion King
State Property
Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann
Troll 2 (this is at the top of my queue... OMGOMGOMG!!!1!1! I can't wait)
Underworld: Evolution
Undiscovered
When a Stranger Calls
Xanadu

The Rest (i.e. good stuff they have that I've already seen... there's still a lot more they have)
28 Days Later
Coffee and Cigarettes
Dressed to Kill
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Fifth Element
Ghostbusters
Groundhog Day
In the Heat of the Night
The Longest Day
Lost Highway
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Me, Myself & Irene
Men in Black
Naked Lunch
Near Dark
The Night of the Hunter
Raising Arizona
Requiem for a Dream
The Sand Pebbles
Sideways
Some Like It Hot
Spy Game
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
Von Ryan's Express

Film Review: Charley Varrick

Random Film Reviews: Short Reviews of What I Happen to be Watching As I Expand My Film Knowledge

Inaugural entry:

Charley Varrick

Directed by Don Siegel. Written by Dean Riesner and/& Howard Rodman based on a book by John Reese.

Starring Walter Matthau, Joe Don Baker, and John Vernon.

1973.

This, Siegel's first effort following Dirty Harry two years prior, is a tight little crime caper. The crime itself, a bank robbery, occurs relatively early in the film and the remainder deals with the getaway. Getaway not from the law, but the mob, that is. Matthau and his crew of diminishing numbers have inadvertently knocked off a money laundering operation in their attempt to hit another small time bank and end up with a take of about 3/4 of a million dollars.

We watch Matthau's bank robber squirm in his tightening noose as Joe Don Baker's mob enforcer follows the leads towards Matthau and the money. But Matthau, the titular Charley Varrick, is smarter than all of us, and we're always left with these threads that don't seem to connect, until Varrick ties them together in front of our eyes.

John Vernon plays the charismatic president of the bank chain doing the laundering who tries to find Matthau before he gets accused of being in on the take. Vernon has a standout scene, a condescendathon if you will, with the investigators who won't let him in his own bank., but Baker's Mr. Molly really steals the show. There's a certain straight-laced stoicism belying the true ruthlessness of his character.

Great lines abound as well-- Mr. Molly: "I don't sleep with whores. At least not knowingly."

Not too give too little credit to the director or lead, though, because I'll certainly be looking to catch more of Siegel's films and Matthau's dramatic roles (particularly The Laughing Policeman and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three).