Really Old Spies, A Semi-Retired Spy, And The Mysteries Of Life [Movies]

No idea how this movie ever got on my To Watch list, but Alfred Hitchcock’s 1936 The Secret Agent is very interesting. For nostalgia purposes maybe more than any other. Just seeing a movie this old is something of a delight for me. Anyway, based on a Somerset Maugham story, a British officer/former famous writer, who had faked his death during The Great War, is sent on a secret mission to Switzerland. Wonderful to see Hitchcock’s early works.

Liam Neeson plays an understated badass in Taken when he is forced out of semi-retirement as a spy to retrieve his daughter who was abducted in Europe and pressed into an underground slave trade. It’s kind of a better done Seagal, less special effected Bond flick. It is likely to scare mothers of teenage girls greatly.

I love me some . . . Coen brothers. Their latest film, A Serious Man, is somewhat difficult to relate at first for this Oklahoma kid. See, it’s about a Jewish husband/professor, Larry Gopnik–and I didn’t actually see much of Jewish life as a kid. But as the Job-ish events unfold to poor, decent Larry, the dark comedy comes through. A thoroughly engaging looka the trials of life. Another wonderful and different movie by the Coens.