Just like the Jeopardy category Before & After.
The answer is a combination of two movie titles.
First one...
Matthew McConaughey is a lawyer who teams up with Uma Thurman to exact vengeance.
BullSchmidt had our inaugural correct answer with...A Time to Kill Bill
This one is a triple.
While investigating a young couple who are wreaking murderous havoc on a number of small towns in a dystopian future, two Washington Post reporters stumble onto a scandal -- a secret organization polices and monitors extraterrestrial interactions on Earth, including those of the President of the United States who is, unknown to the general public, an alien. Their published story forces the POTUS to resign. "Jesse Lee Renfro (I)" plays "Some Guy With Only One Acting Credit On Hit IMDB Resume."
EDIT: It's been a full day with no response, so here's the answer under a spoiler cover.
The three movies are:
All the President's Men (1976)
Men in Black (1997)
Black Velvet (2011)
So ... All The President's Men In Black Velvet
In a future world devastated by disease, a convict is sent back in time to gather information about the man-made virus that wiped out most of the human population on the planet; instead of doing his job, he recruits one more team member so he can pull off three major European heists.
shareOceans 12 Monkeys ;)
Nice touch getting two of the same actors (Willis, Pitt) in both clues!
That's it!
Thanks for pointing that out; it's been so long since I've seen either movie that I had pretty well forgotten them both. Although with 12 Monkeys I was paying more attention to Madeleine Stowe than to anything else. ;)
Twenty-seven years after their first encounter with the terrifying Hal, the Losers Club have grown up and moved away, until a devastating phone call from the Monolith brings them back.
It Chapter 2010: The Year We Make Contact ;)
shareI had forgot about the 2010 movie, I was thinking of "It Chapter 2001: A Space Odyssey." But given the "past events then present movie" element, yours works better. Nicely done!
shareIt's not as good as 2001, but I've always had a soft spot for 2010. Maybe because I've always been a Roy Scheider fan.
shareScheider gave a strong performance, as he always did. He and John Lithgow turned what could have been a mediocre movie into a solid, good one. And he certainly did a better job with the Heywood Floyd character than William Sylvester did. There were moments of that performance I found a little bizarre, for example, the "morale building" speech at Clavius Base. "Well," chuckling, "you're stuck here in total blackout from your loved ones until we Earth-bound bureaucrats say you are. And I completely understand your frustration at knowing your families don't know whether you're alive or dead. It's been difficult for me too. The cover story of an epidemic caused me a mildly awkward moment with some Russians about an hour ago." Yep, Heywood, that'll really boost their spirits!
Have you read Clarke's books? He wrote a novelization of 2001, which is worth reading. Then he did three sequels, 2010, 2061, and 3001. The quality declined as he went. 2010 is merely OK, 2061 is plain silly in places, and 3001 is just bad.
I've never read any of Clarke's work, but I've read a few interviews with him. He was an excellent predictor of the technologies that have become part of our daily lives. I've always been impressed by those thinkers who can see things that seem like pure fantasy in the present. It's a bit dispiriting that we seem to have gone from grand thinkers like Clarke to tech CEOs who love describing their new companies as the "Uber of [insert industry here]."
Random sidenote: I've always thought that the best performances in 2001 were by the actors who played the apes.
The ape performances were good, but the best? I don't know if I'd agree -- the monolith gave a standout performance too. ;)
I'm trying to remember something but am not sure of this. I just went to the IMDB trivia page for 2001 and looked but can't find it there, but OTOH there are about a million items people have contributed and I could only skim them. The apes were played by professional dancers, weren't they? IIRC that's why their movements look so convincing.
There's one moment with the apes that's always struck me as funny. At one point, there's a medium to long range shot of a group of apes howling, and they're facing the camera. Then, their rival group comes into view, closer to the camera and with their backs to the audience. It looks to me as if that rival group aren't in the movie at all; rather, that several apes sitting in the theater have become excited and are howling in anger/symapthy/whatever at their on-screen counterparts. https://youtu.be/strWmj-vZ88?t=50
You are correct! It was a mix of actors, dancers, and mimes.
Fascinating interview with the lead ape:
https://www.vulture.com/2008/04/dan_richter_on_playing_the_ape.html
For my money, it's one of the best opening scenes in movie history. All done without a single line of dialogue. Great example of that old movie maxim--Show, don't tell.
Interesting interview. Although I lost a little respect for him when I found out he was good friends with Yoko Ono!
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