A fun week of movie watching for me as I first watched John Cassavetes‘ The Killing of a Chinese Bookie on Hulu Plus, which I have twice added to the poll for the next Movie Club selection, but both times it came up short so I just decided to watch it on my own. After doing so, I’m happy to report, it’s good stuff and has an interesting feeling of isolation, matched with drive and passion.
The story is extraordinarily simple as a strip club owner played by Ben Gazzara ends up in hot water when his gambling debt piles up to $23,000. However, he’s given a small out, he can buy his debt down by killing a local Chinese bookmaker. As is plain to see, this guy isn’t one of those kinds of guys and yet, as the title implies, he decides he has no other choice. The key here, however, is his motivation, but I don’t want to say too much and spoil it for any of you that will check it out.
Like I said, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is on Hulu Plus, which I really I am really starting to want to recommend. Not only did I watch that film, I watched the first 30 minutes of the cult classic horror film The Brain that Wouldn’t Die and will finish it today. There are several small, cult films like this available along with tons of films from the Criterion collection. I believe you can get two weeks free if you click this referral link so if you have the time, give it a peek.
Otherwise, I also watched the new Blu-ray for Sunset Blvd., which I will be writing more about soon enough as well as this week’s Movie Club selection, Steven Soderbergh‘s sex, lies, and videotape… which I hope many of you watched as well.
Now it’s your turn, and I’m curious, how many of you saw Cloud Atlas, and what did you think?
