Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, a fave 1974 movie starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, and George Kennedy, is a bank heist thriller elevated to cult status by the lyrical genius of Michael Cimino (his best picture is the financial failure Heaven's Gate, and among his projects stalled in development were an adaptation of The Yellow Jersey(!), a novel about a bicycle marathon, and a proposed film about the Tour de France). The key artefact around which Thunderbolt and Lightfoot pivots is a rocket* which they use to blast open a bank vault. The rocket was US military surplus sold off to a dealer in Mexico, who catalogued it and would you send a fully working example to a US address if you sent the money. It was apparently perfectly legal, and no one kept track of these rockets, nor did Customs & Excise have a mandate to stop them.
>
What's your favourite underrated movie?
>
Andre Jute
*Or, for car people, a 1966 Cadillac convertible about which I cannot tell you any more without interjecting a spoiler for those who'll watch the movie.
>

On Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 9:30:02 AM UTC-7, Andre Jute wrote:
> Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, a fave 1974 movie starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, and George Kennedy, is a bank heist thriller elevated to cult status by the lyrical genius of Michael Cimino (his best picture is the financial failure Heaven's Gate, and among his projects stalled in development were an adaptation of The Yellow Jersey(!), a novel about a bicycle marathon, and a proposed film about the Tour de France). The key artefact around which Thunderbolt and Lightfoot pivots is a rocket* which they use to blast open a bank vault. The rocket was US military surplus sold off to a dealer in Mexico, who catalogued it and would you send a fully working example to a US address if you sent the money. It was apparently perfectly legal, and no one kept track of these rockets, nor did Customs & Excise have a mandate to stop them.
> >
> What's your favourite underrated movie?
> >
> Andre Jute
> *Or, for car people, a 1966 Cadillac convertible about which I cannot tell you any more without interjecting a spoiler for those who'll watch the movie.

My wife puts on the worst possible movies so I tend to end up liking series like Jessie Stone, Night Agent and that kind of thing that has far more development of characters than full length movies do now. Amazon released a Jack Reacher movie which followed Child's book pretty closely. They're suppose to release another fairly soon.

On Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 9:31:15 PM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
> On Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 9:30:02 AM UTC-7, Andre Jute wrote:
> > Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, a fave 1974 movie starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, and George Kennedy, is a bank heist thriller elevated to cult status by the lyrical genius of Michael Cimino (his best picture is the financial failure Heaven's Gate, and among his projects stalled in development were an adaptation of The Yellow Jersey(!), a novel about a bicycle marathon, and a proposed film about the Tour de France). The key artefact around which Thunderbolt and Lightfoot pivots is a rocket* which they use to blast open a bank vault. The rocket was US military surplus sold off to a dealer in Mexico, who catalogued it and would you send a fully working example to a US address if you sent the money. It was apparently perfectly legal, and no one kept track of these rockets, nor did Customs & Excise have a mandate to stop them.
> > >
> > What's your favourite underrated movie?
> > >
> > Andre Jute
> > *Or, for car people, a 1966 Cadillac convertible about which I cannot tell you any more without interjecting a spoiler for those who'll watch the movie.
> My wife puts on the worst possible movies so I tend to end up liking series like Jessie Stone, Night Agent and that kind of thing that has far more development of characters than full length movies do now. Amazon released a Jack Reacher movie which followed Child's book pretty closely. They're suppose to release another fairly soon.
>
I liked the earlier Jack Reacher books but recently they've been a bit limp, like the vein is running out. Same thing with John Sandford's Lucas Davenport books, though he's now given the adopted daughter Lettie a series of her own.
>
The big problem with movies made from full length novels is that a movie works best at 80-120 minutes, while a "good read" novel is 256 pages or so, which is space for much more action than you can fit into even the maximum of 120m screen time. Which makes me all the more pissed off when wannabe "auteurs" take a successful book and shoot entirely different scenes. Which made the two Jack Reacher movies with Tom Cruise pretty satisfying because the events the director chose encompassed the logic of the books pretty closely, as you say. We also watched the Jack Reacher series on Netflix and will watch the second series if and when it appears.

Recently we watched 24 all the way through, and are currently watching Designated Survivor, which isn't quite as good. I'll tell you, a series with plenty of scope for character development that I watched on my treadmill, though not as good as the Kiefer Sutherland series, was Alias with Jennifer Gardner; at least I could tell the actresses apart because they didn't all look like Valley Girls.

On Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 2:32:31 PM UTC-7, Andre Jute wrote:
> On Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 9:31:15 PM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
> > On Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 9:30:02 AM UTC-7, Andre Jute wrote:
> > > Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, a fave 1974 movie starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, and George Kennedy, is a bank heist thriller elevated to cult status by the lyrical genius of Michael Cimino (his best picture is the financial failure Heaven's Gate, and among his projects stalled in development were an adaptation of The Yellow Jersey(!), a novel about a bicycle marathon, and a proposed film about the Tour de France). The key artefact around which Thunderbolt and Lightfoot pivots is a rocket* which they use to blast open a bank vault. The rocket was US military surplus sold off to a dealer in Mexico, who catalogued it and would you send a fully working example to a US address if you sent the money. It was apparently perfectly legal, and no one kept track of these rockets, nor did Customs & Excise have a mandate to stop them.
> > > >
> > > What's your favourite underrated movie?
> > > >
> > > Andre Jute
> > > *Or, for car people, a 1966 Cadillac convertible about which I cannot tell you any more without interjecting a spoiler for those who'll watch the movie.
> > My wife puts on the worst possible movies so I tend to end up liking series like Jessie Stone, Night Agent and that kind of thing that has far more development of characters than full length movies do now. Amazon released a Jack Reacher movie which followed Child's book pretty closely. They're suppose to release another fairly soon.
> >
> I liked the earlier Jack Reacher books but recently they've been a bit limp, like the vein is running out. Same thing with John Sandford's Lucas Davenport books, though he's now given the adopted daughter Lettie a series of her own.
> >
> The big problem with movies made from full length novels is that a movie works best at 80-120 minutes, while a "good read" novel is 256 pages or so, which is space for much more action than you can fit into even the maximum of 120m screen time. Which makes me all the more pissed off when wannabe "auteurs" take a successful book and shoot entirely different scenes. Which made the two Jack Reacher movies with Tom Cruise pretty satisfying because the events the director chose encompassed the logic of the books pretty closely, as you say. We also watched the Jack Reacher series on Netflix and will watch the second series if and when it appears.
>
> Recently we watched 24 all the way through, and are currently watching Designated Survivor, which isn't quite as good. I'll tell you, a series with plenty of scope for character development that I watched on my treadmill, though not as good as the Kiefer Sutherland series, was Alias with Jennifer Gardner; at least I could tell the actresses apart because they didn't all look like Valley Girls.

Try Jesse Stone from beginning to end. This must be derived from a book series but I've never seen the books.

On Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 10:51:02 PM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
> On Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 2:32:31 PM UTC-7, Andre Jute wrote:
> > On Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 9:31:15 PM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
> > > On Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 9:30:02 AM UTC-7, Andre Jute wrote:
> > > > Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, a fave 1974 movie starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, and George Kennedy, is a bank heist thriller elevated to cult status by the lyrical genius of Michael Cimino (his best picture is the financial failure Heaven's Gate, and among his projects stalled in development were an adaptation of The Yellow Jersey(!), a novel about a bicycle marathon, and a proposed film about the Tour de France). The key artefact around which Thunderbolt and Lightfoot pivots is a rocket* which they use to blast open a bank vault. The rocket was US military surplus sold off to a dealer in Mexico, who catalogued it and would you send a fully working example to a US address if you sent the money. It was apparently perfectly legal, and no one kept track of these rockets, nor did Customs & Excise have a mandate to stop them.
> > > > >
> > > > What's your favourite underrated movie?
> > > > >
> > > > Andre Jute
> > > > *Or, for car people, a 1966 Cadillac convertible about which I cannot tell you any more without interjecting a spoiler for those who'll watch the movie.
> > > My wife puts on the worst possible movies so I tend to end up liking series like Jessie Stone, Night Agent and that kind of thing that has far more development of characters than full length movies do now. Amazon released a Jack Reacher movie which followed Child's book pretty closely. They're suppose to release another fairly soon.
> > >
> > I liked the earlier Jack Reacher books but recently they've been a bit limp, like the vein is running out. Same thing with John Sandford's Lucas Davenport books, though he's now given the adopted daughter Lettie a series of her own.
> > >
> > The big problem with movies made from full length novels is that a movie works best at 80-120 minutes, while a "good read" novel is 256 pages or so, which is space for much more action than you can fit into even the maximum of 120m screen time. Which makes me all the more pissed off when wannabe "auteurs" take a successful book and shoot entirely different scenes. Which made the two Jack Reacher movies with Tom Cruise pretty satisfying because the events the director chose encompassed the logic of the books pretty closely, as you say. We also watched the Jack Reacher series on Netflix and will watch the second series if and when it appears.
> >
> > Recently we watched 24 all the way through, and are currently watching Designated Survivor, which isn't quite as good. I'll tell you, a series with plenty of scope for character development that I watched on my treadmill, though not as good as the Kiefer Sutherland series, was Alias with Jennifer Gardner; at least I could tell the actresses apart because they didn't all look like Valley Girls.
> Try Jesse Stone from beginning to end. This must be derived from a book series but I've never seen the books.
>
We did the Jesse Stone TV set a couple of years ago. It's from books by Robert B. Parker, who created the character in the nine original books, and more books by other writers brought in by his publishers after Parker died. Parker is also the creator of the Spenser series, which was the basis of a long-running TV series also called Spenser. Hardboiled Raymond Chandler/Ernest Hemingway style, which he did better than all the other would-be tough writers. He was a professor of English lit, and had learned in writing advertising in earlier years to "kill his darlings", which is the secret of literary work as tight as his. -- AJ
>

On Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 4:31:15 PM UTC-4, Tom Kunich wrote:
> My wife puts on the worst possible movies so I tend to end up liking series like Jessie Stone, Night Agent and that kind of thing that has far more development of characters than full length movies do now. Amazon released a Jack Reacher movie which followed Child's book pretty closely. They're suppose to release another fairly soon.

I couldn't stand the Jack Reacher movies. Yes, they follow the books, but the casting is awful, and the real Jack didn't talk in long speeches.

I've read all the Mick Herron Slow Horse books, and highly recommend them, especially for anyone who's ever worked in government and put up with incompetent workers. Apple TV now has the first two seasons of a series based on the books with a third due out this year. To my surprise they follow the books AND the casting is superb. Well worth watching.

On Friday, April 7, 2023 at 8:20:06 AM UTC-7, Tim R wrote:
> On Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 4:31:15 PM UTC-4, Tom Kunich wrote:
> > My wife puts on the worst possible movies so I tend to end up liking series like Jessie Stone, Night Agent and that kind of thing that has far more development of characters than full length movies do now. Amazon released a Jack Reacher movie which followed Child's book pretty closely. They're suppose to release another fairly soon.
> I couldn't stand the Jack Reacher movies. Yes, they follow the books, but the casting is awful, and the real Jack didn't talk in long speeches.
>
> I've read all the Mick Herron Slow Horse books, and highly recommend them, especially for anyone who's ever worked in government and put up with incompetent workers. Apple TV now has the first two seasons of a series based on the books with a third due out this year. To my surprise they follow the books AND the casting is superb. Well worth watching.

The very thought that a guy barely 5'10" tall could play Reacher who is not just 6'5" and HUGE makes any attempt by Tom Cruise ridiculous. I see him as a good actor but that is terrible casting.

On Friday, April 7, 2023 at 4:55:49 PM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
> On Friday, April 7, 2023 at 8:20:06 AM UTC-7, Tim R wrote:
> > On Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 4:31:15 PM UTC-4, Tom Kunich wrote:
> > > My wife puts on the worst possible movies so I tend to end up liking series like Jessie Stone, Night Agent and that kind of thing that has far more development of characters than full length movies do now. Amazon released a Jack Reacher movie which followed Child's book pretty closely. They're suppose to release another fairly soon.
> > I couldn't stand the Jack Reacher movies. Yes, they follow the books, but the casting is awful, and the real Jack didn't talk in long speeches.
> >
> > I've read all the Mick Herron Slow Horse books, and highly recommend them, especially for anyone who's ever worked in government and put up with incompetent workers. Apple TV now has the first two seasons of a series based on the books with a third due out this year. To my surprise they follow the books AND the casting is superb. Well worth watching.
> The very thought that a guy barely 5'10" tall could play Reacher who is not just 6'5" and HUGE makes any attempt by Tom Cruise ridiculous. I see him as a good actor but that is terrible casting.
>
You wanna get with the woke, Tom! (Pause for hurling a long duke.) See, it is shortist to notice that Tom Cruise isn't 6ft5in. People who have a height handicap deserve to be celebrated! Heh-heh! -- AJ
>

On Friday, April 7, 2023 at 9:48:19 AM UTC-7, Andre Jute wrote:
> On Friday, April 7, 2023 at 4:55:49 PM UTC+1, Tom Kunich wrote:
> > On Friday, April 7, 2023 at 8:20:06 AM UTC-7, Tim R wrote:
> > > On Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 4:31:15 PM UTC-4, Tom Kunich wrote:
> > > > My wife puts on the worst possible movies so I tend to end up liking series like Jessie Stone, Night Agent and that kind of thing that has far more development of characters than full length movies do now. Amazon released a Jack Reacher movie which followed Child's book pretty closely. They're suppose to release another fairly soon.
> > > I couldn't stand the Jack Reacher movies. Yes, they follow the books, but the casting is awful, and the real Jack didn't talk in long speeches.
> > >
> > > I've read all the Mick Herron Slow Horse books, and highly recommend them, especially for anyone who's ever worked in government and put up with incompetent workers. Apple TV now has the first two seasons of a series based on the books with a third due out this year. To my surprise they follow the books AND the casting is superb. Well worth watching.
> > The very thought that a guy barely 5'10" tall could play Reacher who is not just 6'5" and HUGE makes any attempt by Tom Cruise ridiculous. I see him as a good actor but that is terrible casting.
> >
> You wanna get with the woke, Tom! (Pause for hurling a long duke.) See, it is shortist to notice that Tom Cruise isn't 6ft5in. People who have a height handicap deserve to be celebrated! Heh-heh! -- AJ
> >
Being 6'4" I know what a reach advantage it gives to you. I also know that "martial arts" is stupid. Someone that is a practicing expert couldn't beat an equal expert at boxing. In his prime, Ali could flatten anyone in the first round except another heavyweight boxer. You can put kick-boxing in the same category as "professional" wrestling.