Also, since I was recently nitpicking the legal stuff in Primal Fear in the other thread:
The scene where Margaret testifies and tries to give context to her answers that are favorable to Ted, but keeps getting shouted down by Joanna’s lawyer, is especially aggravating because she would obviously be subject to cross-examination by the other lawyer who would then be friendlier to her to get her side of it out. It wouldn’t just immediately jump to “leave the witness box or be found in contempt.” C’mon.
In fairness, going the movie bullshit route at the expense of the reality of a legal proceeding was almost certainly the right call artistically, so this is a nitpick.
Fun fact: Based on the email I just got from American Express, Disney+ appears to have refunded my entire annual susbscription (~$150), rather than the $34 or so of remaining subscription. I assume they’ll fix it, but I’m still happy with this unintentional lifehack.
Last year me and my wife got to see French Connection in the theater in NYC. I had seen it before, she had not. Hackman is so good in everything. No spoiler - there’s a scene in the movie where Hackman is on surveilence, he’s the street smart tough guy 70s cop, the bad guys are rich traffickers. Anyway, they go into a fancy French restaurant and eat a multicourse meal while he is literally out in the cold, cramped into a doorway across the street, watching them for hours eating fancy French food while he freezes his butt off and eats a hotdog and bad coffee. It is just such solid old school filmmaking and Hackman is perfect as the freezing cold, increasingly irritated, tough guy stuck there while the bad guys feast.
Had a similar thing happen to me with Amex. I have a Sharp Roku TV that I bought years ago. Within the Amex extended warranty period, so between 1 and 2 years, the remote conked out. I called Amex to see if I could file a claim to get the cost of a new remote refunded. They took the info, I sent them the receipt for the TV, and they refunded the entire cost of the TV.
I also thought French Connection was ok but not much more. Might be that I watched it after other old school Friedkin’s (Sorcerer, The exorcist, To live and die in LA) that are all so good that it had a high bar to clear.
Anatomy of a Murder is the real gold standard of combining textbook accuracy with strong entertainment value in a courtroom proceeding IMO. But I love My Cousin Vinny too.
