The Hunt for Red October (1990)

When Gary and I first got married, we bought of those huge "sit on the floor" console TVs for like $10 at a garage sale. One of the tubes was bad, so everything we watched had a pinkish hue and that's how I originally saw this film. All of the underwater missile scenes were impossible to decipher because it came over as just an unbroken wash of mauve. This viewing was much more interesting!

Great tension in this story about a handful of men in a Russian submarine executing their plan to defect to the United States. They have to hope that the Americans are smart enough to realize this while the Russians (including the bulk of the men on board their own craft) are kept in the dark. They're also having to deal with an on-board saboteur! Luckily, Jack Ryan's figured it all out. Now, will the American brass listen?

Though the special effects look a bit silly now, everything else still works pretty well. I did, however, get a little tired of the repetitive scenes that boiled down to Jack arguing that his gut is telling him they're defecting only to be slapped down by his superiors with the "too risky" argument. 

And wow -- Alec Baldwin was such a pretty young man.

B-

Asteroid City (2023)

A playwright is working on a story about a small town in the desert hosting a kind of nationwide science fair that turns into a quarantine. We get scenes about the writing, the backstage happenings, and the play itself. I was disoriented for quite some time, but then I finally stopped trying to understand what was what and the frustration melted away.

It's your basic Wes Anderson nonsense: visually impressive with prevailing twee.

C+

The Candidate (1972)

Bill McKay, though son of a former governor, has no political ambitions but is hand-picked by a strategist to run for senate. Rather than winning, the goal is to simply shake up the race, giving McKay freedom to be bold. Welp, boldness works a lot better than expected.

The acting is strong and the pseudo-documentary style works, but it's too dated to be anything other than a time capsule at this point. What was probably groundbreaking and audacious when it came out simply cannot retain that now that we're so used to unqualified, unpolished everymen running for office and winning.

C+

Merrily We Roll Along (2025)

A three-way friendship told in reverse: we see the sad end, then the growing apart, eventually working ourselves back to the joyful dependence on each other only to end on the first time the three were ever together. And I simply did not think it worked. I couldn't be devastated by the breakup of a friendship between bitter, angry people I've never met. 

Maybe it could've been saved by some catchy songs, but -- alas -- this has none, which really surprised me since it's Sondheim. I mean, sure, I'll probably always remember the oft-repeated time jump title tune (Nineteen Seventy-Twooooooooo!), but I don't really want to.

C

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Though it's full of over-the-top personalities -- a hypochondriac television writer, an ex-addict flitting from job to job, a happy husband who nonetheless cheats with his wife's sister, boozy, elderly ex-showbiz parents who can't stop recounting their glory days -- it's also grounded in realism. None of these people seem like fictions, just unsatisfied and unsure.

Even though I was frustrated at the messiness of these lives and annoyed with their dissatisfaction, it's still a hopeful film. Yes, it's worth it to pursue happiness because, every once in a while, we catch it.

A-