Sunday night I got online and hunted around to see if any of my streaming services were offering up 1981’s The Howling. After one false sign that it was currently on Shudder, it wasn’t’, I moved to my fall back movie for the evening and re-watched get Out.

Jordan Peele’s first film has been described by the writer/director as ‘sociological horror’ with a tag line that I think many minorities could associate with, ‘Because you’re invited doesn’t mean you’re welcome.’ If follows Chris as he goes for a weekend with his girlfriend Rose back to meet her liberal and ultimately sinister parents. Chris, who is black, stands out quite a bit in the white New England suburb where Rose’s family lives. Both a horror and a science-fiction film Get Out won an Oscar for best original screenplay, a rare feat for a genre film.

This is a movie that fired on all cylinders when I watched in during tis theatrical run and I can gladly announce it still does a few. While Peele’s follow-up film US is a masterpiece of mood and tension that story and world-building doesn’t hang together for me as effectively as it does here with Get Out.

Martin Scorsese is one of the best living film makers and has produced films that will be studied and heralded as classic for decades to come but The Irishmanisn’t one of them.

Adapted from the book I Heard You Paint Houses the film proports to tell the organized crime life of Frank Sheeran, the titled Irishman, a teamster and his telling a hitman through which the most infamous mafia action occurred.

Let me get this out of the way, I don’t the story from this mafia Forrest Gump. There’s no documentary or corroborating evidence to support these wild claims and it all strikes me tall tales told by a braggart. So, the film as history is in my opinion bunk but how is it as entertainment?

Far too long.

I have no issue with long movies and there are several that live happily in my library. Endings are critical to stories be they film or prose and knowing when to end is vital. The central relationship in The Irishman is between Frank and Teamster Union President Jimmy Hoffa. Without getting into spoilers the relationship naturally ends with Hoffa’s unsolved disappearance and yet the film continues to roll for nearly an hour. No other relationship in the film, not with either of Frank’s wives or his estranged daughters, or with his friend and mafia boss Russell Bufalino carry the emotional weight or character arcs that come with Frank and Hoffa. The scenes with Frank and Hoffa provide a character arc that should provide a sense of completion, that informing us that from here there is no more character growth for Frank that really matters. Instead we meander through the waning years of his life, in prison, out of prison, the slow decay that come with age, all without any sense of meaning, purpose, or message. The film is narrated by Frank and throughout its run time we return to the nursing home where he spends his final days as he visibly tells us his life but there is no one he is telling it to. The author of the book isn’t present, there is literally no one to hear this fabrication save us.

Reuniting with many of his famous collaborators Scorsese shows is brilliance as a filmmaker. The faults in The Irishman are entirely in its scripting and its editing. Cut down to two or maybe two and a quarter hours this would have played as thoroughly entertaining fiction but at its present length it is a meandering mess.

Guy Ritchie movies do not always hit for me but more often than not when his films do work it is the ones centered on London and its criminal elements such as The Gentlemen.

The Gentlemen focuses on Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) an American crime boss whose has built an empire selling marijuana who now wants to retire. Pearson is looking to sell his operation to a fellow American coming into the UK’s criminal world, Matthew (Jeremy Strong.) Partnered with Pearson in his drug empire and operating a high-end automotive garage of her own his Pearson’s wife Rosalind (Michelle Dockery) and Pearson’s right-hand man Ray (Charlie Hunnan.) Things are complicated by a local and rival drug kingpin known as Lord George (Tom Wu) and his young protégé Dry Eye (Henry Golding.) the vast majority of the film occurs in flashback as told by the devilishly impish and overly greedy investigative reporter Fletcher (Hugh Grant.) Stray secondary characters including a powerful tabloid editor and various young thugs add further complications making it likely that Pearson’s retirement may be in the form a long cold dirt nap.

This film is much more like Ritchey at best such as Lock Stock, and Two Smoking barrels or Snatch than his more recent fare Aladdin or King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and we are all the better for it. This movie moves along at a fast clip never slowing down and risking audience boredom. The characters are lively, fascinating, and nearly impossible to ignore. This performance by Hugh grant is hands down my favorite and gives Grant more to do than a mere display of bumbling charm. Michele Dockery giver a performance that is utterly controlled and yet full of passion while Colin Farrell steals scenes with another talented accented turn.

Production design never forgot to be stylish but without ever letting style overshadow the story being told and while some of the music was not to my tastes it all fit the film perfectly.

Sunday Morning watching this film with my sweetie-wife was a perfect end to the weekend. While there is violence in this movie, it’s not overly graphic and shouldn’t be a reason for you to miss this gem.

Listening to the Shockwaves and Pure Cinema podcasts I discovered a social media site for cinephiles, Letterboxd. (No, the ‘e’ is not missing that is the site’s name.)

It’s a site dedicated to films. People post lists of movies that they have seen, reviews, and movies that they want to see. It seems like it might be a good way to get heads up on films that interest me that aren’t part of the main cycle of releases.

I spent some time yesterday figuring out how I could export the information from my database of films I own into a format that would allow me to import them into Letterboxd. I did eventually work it out and now I have a listing of over 400 movies that I have seen, since everything in my library is something I have seen. I have very rarely purchased a movie without having watched it. Now I will spend time her and there for the next few weeks rating the movies and adding to list movies I have seen but do not own. Luckily my AMC movie app keeps a full history of all the movies I see at my local AMC theater. Of course, I am happy to have another place to post my opinion and reviews of films. This should be fun.