Steam: The Turkish Bath (1997) rating: 7/10

Better than expected. A married Italian man goes to figure out what to do with the Hamam left him by his aunt in Istanbul. Off on his own in a strange place, he finds a warm welcome in the family keeping up the building including especially the son.

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I did a little investigation and Wikipedia does not do spoiler warnings. I was surprised to find the entire synopsis of the film on Wikipedia. I'll have to remember next time.

The Ghost Writer (2010) rating: 7/10

Ewan McGregor is great in this film about a writer of an ex-British prime minister's memoirs which is a bit of a conspiracy theory. Tony Blair is the film's de facto target, and it fully derides Blair as a puppet of the Americans and gives an (implausible?) explanation for why he might have done that. I watched this film end to end without much ffwding, so there's something to it. The only other Roman Polanski film that I've seen was Frantic which was also a fine thriller.

The Good Guy (2009) rating: 6/10

Rather blah, but why am I remarking on this film? A couple remarkable things: I found the portrayal of Tommy, the Wall Street hotshot strangely sympathetic. On the one hand, doesn't seem to respect his girlfriend and takes her for granted, though, to be fair, she refuses to have sex with him for some strange reason. On the other hand, he helped out the hopeless with the girls, but no obvious personality, honest guy underling, Daniel. I guess to some extent Tommy is being practical because he sees Daniel as a relatively unambitious but hard working guy who could never compete with him for his job (or his girlfriend). Still, it seems unnecessary and confusing for a shark like Tommy to be so nice to him. Sort of an unexpected display of gentlemanly and generous behavior.

The other remarkable thing is the surprise generated by the movie marketing materials and how weirdly effective it is...

** spoiler, read only if you don't plan to see this movie **

What I mean is that the materials try to indicate that Daniel himself could be kind of a duplicitous, dishonest guy also. I.e. things are not what they appear. I was always looking out for him to be a killer, blackmailer, or have some dark past, but he turned out not to be. Why was that effective? I guess it was one of those cases where I wanted to be able to cheer for someone and it turned out to be the right guy.

Cut Sleeve Boys (2006) rating: 7/10

Watched on Logo (turns out you can stream many movies and tv shows free from their website http://www.logotv.com, but I watched this on a DVR).

A couple of gay Chinese friends attempt to continue life in London after the death of their best friend, another gay Chinese. One guy has so absorbed the idea of (gay) class that he thinks he's better than everyone else because of his looks, including a significantly cuter white guy who says he loves him. (A casting error.) The other has such a low opinion of himself that he's willing to cross dress to get his guy. It's curious how it all turns out.