Rare Birds
There’s something oddly endearing about this movie. While it’s sure to draw some comparison to Shipping News, it’s very much it’s own simple creation. Based in Newfoundland, it gives us a nice uncluttered landscape and a silly little script to play in it with. Just watch out for those cliffs. Available on Hulu Plus.
The Lightkeepers
Great romance/comedy movie based on a lighthouse at Cape Cod around 1900. Fantastic acting and wonderful scenery.
Mud
OK, this is a bit of a stretch. We’ll call it an inland coastal movie. Three things beg the allowance to make it on our the Coastal Movie list. One is the cast. Fantastic acting. Two is the cinematography. The third is the writing…powerful, simple and THANKFULLY we didn’t end the thing with a car chase (we were worried there for a bit). If you can, see it on a big screen with a good sound system. We have liked Matthew McConaughey since we first saw him in CONTACT, but this (in our opinion) is the best acting he has ever done. We’ll watch it again soon. This is one of those movies that transports you to a different place while you’re watching...
American Wake
Traditionally, an American Wake is the party for Irish immigrants before they leave to America…assuming they’ll never see them again. This is a coastal Boston story of two stories. Separate, but both trying to please their fathers while finding their own paths. I don’t pick the easy films to find!
The Russians are Coming
So you’re a sick kid. You are stuck home for the day (in the 1960’s) and you have nothing to do but watch the 4 channels on TV, We only owned one TV, a small black and white in my parents room. That is when Don watched this movie, based off a book by Norman Jewison and featuring folks like Carl Reiner and Alan Arkin. This movie stuck with him for years, he finally watched it again recently for the second time (in color). What talent!
Murphy’s War
When Don was growing up, World War II films were mostly about huge battles, epic dramas and big action. Then he saw Murphy’s War on HBO (when HBO first came out, in the early 1970’s) and it was his first introduction to the personal stories of WWII. Not every moment of the war was a huge battle. Some were minor stories. Even the fictional ones, like Murphy’s War outlined the human drama of war on an individual level. Murphy’s War was a visual entrance (the cinematography was stunning) to this genre. The lush film-making in the coastal region of Venezuela (where the story took place) was memorable. It also led to Don researching the subject and identifying wrecks off his own beach…tankers sunk by U-Boats during WWII that still lay a...