Pork Chop Hill (1959)

I've hardly seen any depictions of the Korean War outside of M*A*S*H, which involves little to no onscreen battle. For more of that, I figured on Lewis Milestone to do a good job. And it's based on a soldier's account, so I stood to learn true history.

In 1953, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army seizes the American outpost on the titular hill. Lt. Joseph G. Clemons (Gregory Peck) leads K Company in an effort to recapture it, starting before dawn. But higher-ups have not prepared them well. For example, one border is much better defended than was said, keeping L Company too busy to meet up as soon as expected. It soon becomes apparent that heavy losses will follow.

The Hateful Eight (2015)

I previously mentioned my friend's interest in this movie. He had seen the first maybe half of it before. Now he would know that it wasn't all predictable from there.

In an 1877 Wyoming blizzard, former Union soldier Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) hitches a ride on the stagecoach of fellow bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and John's captive, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), toward the nearest town to collect rewards. Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), who claims to be the town's imminent sheriff, joins later. They and their driver, O.B. Jackson (James Parks), seek shelter at a haberdashery already occupied by Señor Bob (Demián Bichir), Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), and former Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern). Marquis smells something fishy, and John is sure that at least one man there plans to either help Daisy escape or claim the bounty himself.

Ride the Pink Horse (1947)

For a moment, I expected a quirky western. As it is, I barely understand where the title came from. A character does ride an allegedly pink carousel horse (we can't tell in black and white), but that's not important to the plot, and any symbolism in it is lost on me. Maybe the filmmakers just wanted something that didn't sound like a cookie-cutter noir.

Ex-soldier "Lucky" Gagin (Robert Montgomery, also directing) comes to the New Mexican border town of San Pablo to confront Frank Hugo (Fred Clark), a mob boss who ordered the killing of Gagin's friend "Shorty" over a blackmailing. Gagin's lucky charm is his pistol, but he wants to try his own hand at blackmail rather than vengeful murder. FBI Agent Retz (Art Smith), who's kept tabs on both Gagin and Hugo, advises against this, but given Hugo's historical pull with the government, Gagin doesn't readily trust Retz. Hugo's moll, Marjorie (Andrea King), asks Gagin to raise the ransom and cut her in, but he's not sure what to make of her either.

Police Story (1985)

Had I realized I was about to see another action flick, I would not have put this next on my queue. Still, it's not all that similar. No sci-fi here, just the slightly off physics of Jackie Chan.

Hong Kong policeman Chan Ka-Kui (Chan) gets some positive attention for arresting crime lord Chu Tao (Chor Yuen), but convicting him will be tough. Ka-Kui is assigned to guard a reluctant witness, Chu's secretary (Brigitte Lin), who manages to slip away, disbelieving his claims of danger. A subplot involves his girlfriend (Maggie Cheung) getting the wrong idea about the two of them. Not content to beat the charges, Chu arranges to frame Ka-Kui for murder. Chief Inspector Raymond Li (Lam Kwok-Hung) trusts Ka-Kui but is too by-the-book to forgo an arrest, so Ka-Kui runs off to deal with matters irregularly.

Mission: Impossible -- Dead Reckoning Part 1 (2023)

What a trickily punctuated title. Someone must regret that the original had a colon. Anyway, since the past three sequels had been going strong and Christopher McQuarrie was still directing, I figured it was a worthy way to fill an evening. Kinda surprised there weren't more people in my theater on its U.S. debut.

What can possibly challenge Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) anymore, when even age doesn't seem to slow him down? An online AI gone self-aware and rogue, now known only as "the Entity," has been infiltrating all kinds of sensitive information systems. Ethan's mission is to collect the two halves of a key that promises access to the Entity somewhere, but once he understands that the government wants to control rather than destroy the Entity, he himself goes rogue. Not only does he once again have Impossible Missions Force support only from Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg), with the rest of the IMF after them, but they can't rely much on their state-of-the-art equipment with the Entity compromising things. To make matters worse, sadistic terrorist Gabriel (Esai Morales), a personal foe from before Ethan joined the IMF, is serving the Entity's interest.

Pitfall (1962)

This has nothing to do with the 1948 U.S. film noir, let alone the Activision video game series. It's another Hiroshi Teshigahara adaptation of a Kōbō Abe novel. Had I realized as much, I would have put this viewing off longer. Still, this feels pretty different from what I saw last month.

The Netflix description is misleading again. Yes, a stranger in white (Kunie Tanaka) pursues a hapless miner (Hisashi Igawa) in the area of a ghost town near an exhausted mine, but it's not just to "imprison" him there: He murders the miner in the first act, after which the miner is a ghost of the type who can't be sensed by the living or move anything. Despite a warning from a fellow ghost (Ton Shimada), the protagonist wants to find out what the murder was about. The answer is quickly plain enough to me: The miner just happened to look exactly like a union leader (also Igawa), and the killer bribes a witness (Sumie Sasaki) to blame a rival union's leader (Sen Yano). Let's just say there'll be more than two ghosts by the end.