Olympics are here, so that will put a short-term stop on movie watching. Sports might not be greater than movies, but they are definitely more immediate.

83. (1942.) The Detective (1968)
I prefer Sinatra the actor to Sinatra the singer, and the more Sinatra films I see, the more that preference grows. His character here, in this neo-noir police procedural dealing with topics of homophobia and systemic corruption, seems like a real human being: flawed, perhaps, but relatable. That's no small feat for a man whose public persona was one of ultra-machoism. (By the way, this movie was based on a book series that also spawned Die Hard. So it's weird to think of Sinatra and Willis playing the same character at different points in his career.)

84. (1943.) The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)
A documentary about the later life and assassination of the first openly gay San Francisco city commissioner. I didn't know enough about him before, and his death is a true American tragedy story.

85. (1944.) The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
This is the only Alfred Hitchcock film that he remade later in his career, and its astonishing how alike and different the two movies are. I can understand why many of the changes were made (the second is a better constricted plot), but the first one is leaner. I don't know which one I like better.

86. (1945.) The Celluloid Closet (1995)
As a movie buff, I really enjoyed this documentary about how gay characters and themes have been expressed in movies through eras when American society was less accepting and often downright hostile to them. Personally, I never really gave any thought to homosexuality on screen until I saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show in high school. Just because I didn't see it doesn't mean it wasn't there.

87. (1946.) The Perfect Score (2004)
The first pairing of Captain America and Scarlet Witch! Chris Evans and Scarlett Johannsen are not at their best in this very forgettable MTV-produced by-the-numbers teenage comedy, but the dumb script doesn't ask much of them beyond being pretty faces. (I might even have liked it if I had seen it at 14.) Take the paycheck, actors.

More to come.

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