In Theatres Now...

1. The Social Network. Very good movie, the script is some of Sorkin's best work since the West Wing. Eisenberg and Garfield do an excellent job. 5 out of 5.

2. It's Kind of a Funny Story Cute and relatable. Zach Galifianakis deserves to be a much bigger movie star than he is now. Its rare when fat comedy guys can actually pull off the dramatic. 4 out of 5.

3. Easy A Not the next Mean Girls. Luckily not the next [insert almost any other teen comedy], either. Emma Stone is funny and not afraid of looking like an idiot. Funny moments here and there, entertaining throughout. 3.5 out of 5

4. The Town Ben Affleck's best acting since Daredevil. Jokes. He is good in this movie though, as is the rest of the cast. Except beautiful Blake Lively. Her acting is fine, her accent is distracting, her tits are glorious. 4.5 out of 5

5. Legend of the Guardians:  The Owls of Ga'hoole It's for kids. It is not a complicated story and has plot holes here and there, but the 3D is beautiful and the owls are cute. Jim Sturgess has a very nice voice and owls being british just seems right for some reason. A little too simple though. 2.5 out of 5.

009. The Blind Side

Watch Academy Award winning actor Sandra Bullock here

So I'm sure most of you have at least heard of this movie considering it just won Sandra Bullock (Miss Congeniality, Speed 2: Cruise Control, Gigli ok maybe not that last one but she might as well have!) an Academy Award. If you live in a cave and have not heard of this scintillating tale of white saves black, here it is in a nutshell: generous christian white woman saves poor black boy's life. There was no sarcasm in that sentence. I'm not the biggest fan of organized religion. I blame it for basically everything that is wrong in the world. It is made up of corrupt people taking advantage of naive lost followers who want an explanation or guide map to life. Women like Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock's character) are the very refreshing exceptions. She is a woman who is probably much more "Jesus"-like than the pope or anyone else with more power. She sees this tall imposing man and doesn't hesitate for once second to give him a bed.

The movie itself seems a bit self-gratifying. It is very possible that the events happened as is and I'm just being cynical but the truth is that it seems so embellished at times. Tuohy threatening a drug dealer and the drug dealer actually backing down? Yeah ok, unless Tuohy had a police badge attached to her ass, I see no reason why the drug dealer would look at her nervously as she walked away. There are other little scenes here and there that sort of reek of idyllic history-rewriting. It seems like its unavoidable when it comes to Hollywood, but frankly in this movie (probably more than most) it was completely unnecessary. This story is interesting enough as is. Even as I write this last sentence I fail to see its purpose. Do I imagine some young hollywood exec is going to read this blog and think "Gosh darn it, he's right! Let's stop this trend." If anything I entirely expect some young exec to read this blog and think "Hmm, clearly he means he wants this movie remade in 3D."

So is the movie worth all the hype? Honestly, no. Sandra Bullock's performance is no Meryl Streep or Cate Blanchett. This isn't a movie that we will all be replaying for years to come. The only reason Bullock's performance is note-worthy is because we're used to her looking like an idiot on screen, babbling like a babboon, exposing absolutely every flaw of movies relying on slapstick comedy. She is the female Kevin James. Or was, rather. She does a decent enough job with this role but her Academy Award suddenly seems very Tomei-esque.

One of these things is not like the others...

What's worse is that she's not alone in the subpar acting. Quinton Aaron (the other leading actor) is not very exceptional. This, however, is much more understandable. I don't think the Hollywood acting pool is exactly overflowing with large black men, so I can give them a pass for this one. Tim McGraw as the dad though? What were they thinking? No. Just kidding. As much as I want to bash the guy, he did a good job. He was totally believable. Absolutely no complaints. I mean, not many praises either but his role was minimal. He did a good job at not annoying me. You know who didn't do a good job? The annoying child actor whose name I refuse to learn. I hate child actors. They are not "cute" or "funny" or any of that stuff, and yet they are always supposed to be the "scene-stealers". This kid almost ruined an otherwise good movie for me.

All in all, this movie is ok. It's above average but it is not one of the best movies of all time. Sandra Bullock's performance is not better than anyone else she was up against. The best thing it has going for it is that it is based on a true story, which makes Tuohy's actions that much more admirable. Good for her, and people like her, for giving organized religion a good name. May her god bless her with good fortune. As for the movie? Solid, not breathtaking.

Recommended. Especially if you're a lot more forgiving of sappy utopian stories than I am.

No longer cuttin' mah veins in the dark, listening to evanescence, playing kingdom hearts.

I didn't want to stare at that super dark blog no' mo'. Also I'm watching a movie as we speak so there will be a new review up soon! Meanwhile stare at a cute puppy:

Super cute puppy

008. Dreamgirls

I just had to use this poster that managed to pull a real life Effie on poor Jhud.

Watch and sing along to the trailer here.

Dreamgirls, also known as "Beyonce: The Musical", is about the struggles of Effie "And I am telling you" White as she goes from back up singer to Donkey from Shrek to back up singer to Beyonce to being totally ousted from her group, all of this while never giving up her dream of making it big. Truly inspirational.

 Despite the snark, I actually enjoyed this movie a lot. It's probably a fictitious take on the life of the Supremes and Motown but it's still interesting to imagine things going on similarly in real life. Jennifer Hudson does a good job as Effie White. Yeah, she's super annoying at times but I don't really think thats Hudson's fault, Effie is meant to be a larger than life diva.

 The pacing in the beginning was a bit slow but that's about my only complaint about this movie. The acting was pretty solid and Hudson is more than competent enough to handle this role, I clearly underestimated her. Beyonce herself is actually a surprisingly good "singer-actress". Eddie Murphy was as close as he'll ever be to creating a character that can compare to Donkey but sadly he fell a little short. Good stuff all around. The music is really good and I even preferred Beyonce's Listen to Effie's  (overplayed) signature song  (in the context of the movie, I mean).

As a side not I want to mention that this could just as easily be reinterpreted as Beyonce's life story. I can imagine the people in charge of casting had themselves a laugh when they decided to cast "Singer clawing her way to the top while receiving preferential treatment among the girls" Deena. They probably looked far and wide before settling for "Singer clawing her way to the top while receiving preferential treatment among the girls" Beyonce. Then they cast Kelly Rowland-esque secondary character Lorell with some chick who often looks like Kelly Rowland. At this point they decided to fuse LeToya and LaTavia into one character (not personality wise, just mass) and bam, you got the Effie character. Effie is later replaced by some character no one remembers (the parallel to that Destiny's Child member no one remembers). While I am aware that this is movie is not about Beyonce and her climb to the top (even going so far as taking time away from Taylor Swift) but rather a fictional take on Diana Ross and the Supremes the similarities are undeniable.

In any case, recommended. If you're a fan of good movies, musicals or both this movie is for you. If you hate musicals on the other hand go watch Kramer vs. Kramer or Austin Powers Goldmember  in case you are jonesing for something good or something Beyonce and can't get your fix from Dreamgirls.

Journalism Week 1 is over.

My first week as a Journalism student is over! Okay maybe not really since I had no Monday class this week but it feels like it so I decided to blog. So far my classes and instructors seem pretty cool.

Canadian History is definitely promising to be the least interesting but to be fair there is only so much you can do with a history that was based on signing a bunch of treaties . At least Mike Walsh, my instructor who constantly refers to himself as a dinosaur but drops more Jersey Shore references than anyone I know, has a fun sense of humour and has structured the classes  in a very engaging way. Today we discussed the burning of the qur'an, Canada's freedom of speech and enlisting in wars.

My other class today, Writing for Newspapers, was just an in class assignment that was actually more fun than I expected it to be, even though I still found it a bit challenging. Kathy, our instructor, seems to really know a lot but for some reason I can't exactly pin down yet, I'm frightened of her. I think it has to do with the fact that I don't feel my English is at the same level of everyone else's and it just makes me super paranoid.

Regarding my other classes I really don't have much to say. Design for Print seems fun and unlike anything I have ever done before. Also this is my teacher. Yup. Part time wise newspaper man, part time cool punk rocker in a band called Jam Toast. Go, him!

Intro to Desktop Publishing reminded me a lot of high school computing class except you know, programs people in the biz actually use. We didn't get too into it (most of the class consisted of us taking mugshot pictures so our instructor can remember our names...what did people do before computers?) but the little she did talk about promises great things for my life. Soon your eyes won't be offended by the awful blog design I stole from someone else. Before you know it, employers won't glance over my boring resume thinking I'm just one more of a bunch (unless the rest are also indesign-knowledgable people in which case I'm screwed).

And finally there is Research Techniques. From what I heard through the grapevine it was one of the least liked class by my fellow journalism students but I loved it. Andrew clearly knows a lot about his field and his documentary really reassured me I was in the right field. Its the sort of thing I want to be doing some point in the future. Fingers crossed.

Technically I have one more class on monday but its History of Journalism so I'm not exactly expecting great things from a history class.

Regarding my movie project I'll probably get back on schedule sooner or later. Currently I'm battling a deadly case of common cold and I am too weak to piratebay search the next movie. I have (black) musical Dreamgirls which seems like a good movie so I'll watch that and a couple more over my long weekend and I should be good. Plus we all know black musicals are the best kind of musicals because they deal with real things (I still have my fingers crossed for Precious!: Based on the Film Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, the musical about a fat black girl who is precious inside and out. She will be played by Kelly Clarkson in blackface).

All in all, life is good and is best expressed by a chibi peace sign which I googled and instead found this chibi effeminate Link from The Legend of Zelda. You're a beautiful girl, Link. Date me.  

007. Taxi to the Dark Side

Stomach the trailer here
Taxi to the Dark Side is a documentary that tries to understand the circumstances that led to the death of Dilawar , a taxi driver that along with his 3 passengers was captured and sent to Bagram, an air base where suspects of terrorism were held. There his head was covered and he was submitted to stress positions and severe beatings to the legs until his body gave out. Dilawar died in Bagram. He was 22 and had a daughter and a family that were given a death certificate in a foreign language and no real explanation of what had just happened. The worst part is that Dilawar is not an isolated case.

Taxi to the Dark Side explores the American policy on torture and it is a really eye opening documentary that while graphic and at times very difficult to watch, is essential to understand if the human race ever wants to better itself.

Throughout the movie , vaguely familiar scenes of dehumanization of suspects in Abu Ghraib are shown and peppered with interviews of former soldiers (most of which were discharged), its the sort of stuff we saw on the news and decided maybe its best if we changed the channel. We hate torture, it disgusts us but lets not ruin our dinner by paying it too much attention. I think this sort of attitude passive allows this sort of intrinsically human, disgusting behaviour to carry on unchecked. You need to want to throw up. You need to hate humanity a little for what its capable of. This is the gasoline that lights the fire.

I think its easy to look at this documentary and conclude "Those Americans are awful people." You have people that are almost caricaturesque in appearance and fit the role of villain perfectly. From Yoo to Rumsfeld (who is quoted as saying "I stand 10 hours a day, why do terrorist suspects stand only 4."), these are the people that are destined to fill all circles of hell. Regardless of how easy it may be to cast them as the dark side, the USA are not alone in doing these awful things. They were using old torture chambers that belonged to Hussein. Canada is currently investigating claims that Canadian soldiers also took part in similar scenarios. Tony Blair gets called "war criminal" more often than he gets called Tony Blair. And the list goes on and on. I don't think the US, nor those military people responsible should get to wash their hands of what they did, but to simplify the situation is to minimize its real effect and that's the last thing families of victims, such as Dilawar's would want right now.

As a side note, I was actually pretty ecstatic about how fundamental to this investigation journalists were. It's definitely something that I considered when choosing my new career path and I find it inspiring. As difficult as it may be to be the first to see these things, its necessary and it changes lives and the world. So go journalism!

Recommended, definitely recommended. You need to know and see this and let that disgust motivate you to do something about these sort of things.

006. Death Proof

You can watch the trailer here.

 In case I haven't made this clear I'm a huge Quentin Tarantino fan. I remember watching Pulp Fiction back in 1995 or so, and immediately falling in love with it. Scenes like Jules and the roommates, or Vincent and Mia's night out stuck with me for 15 years and I can still recite them in my head like it was yesterday-- although to be fair, I've seen this movie many times since then. There is just something about a good Tarantino movie that makes me feel good. His movie have a clear, recognizable identity no matter what sort of genre they are tackling. Its the sort of feature that speaks about the quality of a filmmaker; with Tarantino and his movies, its impossible not to see his love for the movie industry and the influence on that industry that will remain long after Tarantino writes his last dialogue scene. I guess its unusual then, once the previous love affair is considered, that I had not seen this movie up until now. Death Proof is the Tarantino half of a double feature homage to old exploitation films called Grindhouse. The other half belongs to Robert Rodriguez and it wasn't that good.  Sadly I watched that pretty early on, and that added to the disappointing box office, it just gave me the impression that Death Proof wasn't up the standard set and I decided it was maybe for the best if I didn't watch it.  Fortunately I was wrong to jump to that conclusion.

 Death Proof is an original twist on the straightforward slasher film. Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) has a deathproof car, a remnant from an era in which actual stunts were preferred over CGI, and he loves to use it--especially on beautiful young girls. The movie itself is kind of structured around two main arcs, and while it is a nice refreshing idea, ultimately it seems to work against the movie. The first arc did a nice job of setting up the plot and building up the momentum. The second arc just puts back at square one and it gives the movie a very slow paced, empty feel; which is not to say that there is nothing good going on in the second half. Oh no. The second half is good in its own way. The last scenes are among the most satisfying scenes I've seen since Up, although satisfying in a different sort of way. Unfortunately the slow beginning of the second half is a little too much to ignore and it really decreases the quality of the film.

  Another great facet of this movie is the music. I'm not entirely sure if its original score, or if its music handpicked by Quentin Tarantino (I'm leaning towards the latter, I'm sure google could answer this for me but I'm lazy), but each and every song or musical note in this movie fits perfectly. I can't imagine the sultry lap-dance by Butterfly to any other song. Its change of pace and raspy voice made the scene engaging, sexy and frankly even did wonders upping the "creepy-factor" of Stuntman Mike. If I were a filmmaker I'd imagine the sort of care and attention Tarantino pays to every small detail would be inspiring. Hell, I feel pretty inspired right now and I only like writing.

 All in all, Death Proof is a really good movie, even if it is nowhere near Tarantino's best. It is however, a beautiful love letter to the exploitation movies, a time when stunts were "bad-ass" and CGI didn't cheapen everything it touched.  It has a couple of nice little details here and there that give a hint of continuity if you're planning to watch both movies from Grindhouse together.

Definitely recommended if only for the climax of the first act, that is a scene that will very difficultly rivalled in cinema for a long time.

My Day at Orientation (incredibly original title thought up by Journalism hopeful: me)

  I am now officially behind (by 1 day, nothing too serious) and it because yesterday I had orientation for school. It was both somniferous and exhilarating at different times. The first part was more of a general "Oh hey, here is a bunch of information that everyone could easily access on our website but we'll make you sit on uncomfortable bleachers for roughly an hour and a half while we waste precious time of your life that you will never get back" kind of information.
 
  The second part however was Journalism-specific and was pretty cool. There was actually plenty more people than I expected following around the yellow shirted individual carrying the "Journalism-Print" sign. We eventually reached the Newsroom (I'm basically Clark Kent now), where we sat down, received a copy of the Sheridan sun and were welcomed by our course coordinator and course instructors. The instructors seem (upon the shallowest of judgments) to know what they are doing, and the course load seems challenging but manageable. I'm mostly excited about actually working (albeit salary-free) for the newspaper at the beginning of next year; the experience is the sort of invaluable bonuses of college vs. university--at least for me. The only course I'm dreading at the moment is (and I am aware of the ridiculous contradiction) "Writing for Newspapers 1". It promises to be the most difficult--while at the same time probably the one I will be most helped by so its not all bad.

  At some point, after the instructors had introduced themselves and their courses, a second year student--invited by the course coordinator-- gave us a bit of a heads up as to what to expect and what sort of things to do to help ourselves move forward career-wise. Most of it was probably common sense, but she did mention that in journalism portfolios are very important. She suggested we contact websites that we like to visit and ask them if we can write for them--most of them will probably say yes. The idea of doing this sort of activity is something that never even crossed my mind and the mere mention of it was a bit nerve-wracking. Suddenly my brain began to scramble through my internet history trying to come up with a site that I could possibly write for-- I have yet to figure it out. I don't think adult oriented site cam4 needs any writers (although some more accurate descriptions would be appreciated, I bet) and I can't really think of any particular subject I would feel comfortable writing about. Perhaps music--although I must admit that I would probably have to read more about it. In any case, after the initial shock and general feeling of unpreparedness, I decided that I'm not going to allow myself to predict failure so fast. I'm going to read more websites, write fake articles in my spare time (what spare time) and eventually contact websites hoping they'll have me. Take that, general pessimism and tendency to self sabotage!

  Regarding the movie project, I'll probably watch 2 movies between today and tomorrow to get back on track. No big deal. Problem solving magic.

005. Kramer vs. Kramer

Please watch the trailer here.

When I decided to add this movie to the master list I did it for 2 main reasons. The first one was that my infinite amount of anal retentive rules for this project obligated me to watch a certain amount of academy award winning movies--easy enough had I already not made myself watch most of the recent ones. I had to go all the way back to 1979 for this one. The other reason is that I like Meryl Streep as an actor. She's amazing. She takes over whatever scene she's in and everytime she's on screen she makes me wonder what's going to happen to movies once her generation of actresses die out. Will we be left with Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan? Or will the Dakota Fannings and Jacob from Twilight prevail (I'm kidding about the Jacob part. Team Edward.)

   Anyway back to my original point, Meryl Streep is amazing. Surprisingly enough, she's not even the best actor in this movie. Dustin Hoffman plays Ted Kramer, abandoned husband, impressive father, survivor. It's really the best acting I've ever seen him in--the only other role my mind seems to remember at the moment is Bernie Focker from those awful Ben Stiller movies. Hoffman did an excellent job of showcasing his anger at his wife leaving, his patience (or sometimes lack thereof) for his child and his desire to do what he thought was best for his son--namely full custody. It's really disappointing he decides to link himself to Ben Stiller every now and then because he's a really good actor.

 The kid himself was really good, too and according to wikipedia is the youngest person to ever be nominated to an Oscar. So yeah. Go, kid! He doesn't seem to have a very active imdb so maybe this was a fluke for him.

 A cool aspect of Kramer vs Kramer was the weird contradiction (purposefully mentioned in the film) of the wife sort of embracing that wave of feminism from the 70s and finding her own purpose beyond being a mother/wife while at the same time the father that embraces his importance in child rearing doesn't get the same sort of respect even though in a perfect world he should. I hope nowadays the courts are much more fair independent of gender because I know from personal experience that fathers can singlehandedly do a great job at raising children.

Also for those who have been living under a rock or don't understand the title, this movie is about a custody battle. I'm not entirely sure how accurate this is legally-- Law and Order taught me that appeals don't usually involve new evidence and that seems to be somewhat important towards the end. I don't really care though. My parents divorced pretty early on and while I imagine they were more like the Roses than the Kramers, I know both my parents did what they had to do with our best interest in mind. The emotions portrayed by the Kramers during this movie are among the most real and relatable I have ever seen during a movie.

Recommended. If you will only watch one movie I recommended from this list, so far this is it.

004. The Host

This is the trailer!

  The Host is a korean monster movie that could have easily been the Godzilla of this generation if it really wanted that title.Clearly it doesn't want to, as over the course of its length, it dabbles into a little bit of comedy, and towards the second act shifts the focus from the monster to the much more down to earth "reconstruction of a broken family" theme. And that's totally fine. The Host makes this hodge-podge of genres work. In this sense, its very unconventional. It uses a funny beat to enhance one of its most dramatic moments. It skips forward in time instead of directly dealing with the aftermath of one of the sadder moments. All these things, while not very traditional, work perfectly for the Host and had me on an incredible high for most of the movie.

  Until the end of course. Without directly spoiling the ending (which I won't, no worries) its difficult to describe exactly what it was that changed how I felt about the movie, lets just saw that after being conventional for most of the movie at the very end they totally sold out and gave us the hollywood ending (not as hollywood as you might think, but given the circumstances it was the 'happiest' scenario.) In any case it's not a huge deal, I still liked the movie and I'm still dreadfully awaiting the dumbed down remake that Hollywood is probably going to throw at us eventually. (EDIT: WIKI TELLS ME THEY ARE ALREADY ON IT.)

 I'm not going to pretend the movie was exactly perfect before the ending. Several times, throughout the movie, it glosses over some of the more important explanations, letting you come to your own conclusions or leaving you completely perplexed and distracted. The premise itself is based on the supposition that Formaldehyde turned a fish into a giant ...fish I guess. I've seen the simpsons. I know how fishes mutate. Ultimately its not enough to take away from the enjoyment of the movie, but some plausible explanations could have truly added plenty to the experience.

One of the main driving forces behind the Host is the character work. Frankly, its excellent. Each member of the family is unique (almost to the point of being caricaturesque) and go through very different forms of growth throughout the movie. Hyun-Seo, one of the movies heroines, is refreshingly brave and way more "kick-ass" then Chloe Moretz ever was as Hit-Girl.

Another interesting (if not all that important) theme that's peppered throughout the movie is the anti-american sentiment. Although its not uncommon in countries all around the world (surprisingly even Canada), the predominance of american movies all around the world makes this feature kind of rare. Between the incompetent american scientist that causes the movie, to the trigger happy army/science team that fuck up more than they help to the thinly veiled, irresponsibly utilized "agent orange", clearly these Koreans are not your fans, USA-- and they are not even that kind of koreans.

Probably the main reason this movie works at all, is because we can let go of all our preconcieved "rules" that we (for the most part correctly) assume movies have to follow. Anything is fair game. The main character could die 5 minutes into it (Stop. I understand how thats illogical). For the most part this is a fun unexplored world and is probably one of the main reasons I'm a huge fan of foreign films. There is still a lot of innovation going out there.

Recommended unless you hate subtitles and asian people. This movie has both.

003. Quantum of Solace

You can watch the trailer here.

 In case you don't know, there has been a new James Bond for a while now. They got rid of Mrs. Doubtfire's Pierce Brosnan and replaced him with a much better guy named Daniel Craig. Anyway this is the second movie of the relaunched series--the first one being Casino Royale-- and it is good while remaining unable to match the quality of its predecessor.

 Now to be fair, I watched Casino Royale a couple of years ago and the constant callbacks to the plot of the previous movie were a bit jarring for me. I barely remembered Vesper, let alone whatever it was that led to her death. That turns out to be a somewhat important part of this plot. They also mentioned the americans being mad about Le Chiffre (or whatever his name is) and I have no idea what they meant. At some point Quantum of Solace does become its own movie and you can follow along easily enough with no prior knowledge but the first part could use some work. I'm looking forward to the next Bond film but I really wish they make it a bit more independent.

 This movie has Judi Dench-- who I love since watching Notes on a Scandal. She was born for this role and is in fact perfect whenever she's on screen.This woman plays M so well (and has been playing M for so long) that I often forget M has been a man in other movies. In Quantum of Solace, they give her a very maternal relationship with Bond (while retaining her edge) that works particularly well-- probably because of the chemistry between Craig and Dench.

 Now for the cons (and there are a couple). They replaced Eva Green's sexy Vesper with the inferior (still hot just inferiorly so) Olga Kurylenko. Olga also happens to be a much worse actor than Green, and there are a couple of scenes where the script really calls for some heavy emoting that just received some heavy eye rolling from me. Hopefully next time they find the right Bond Girl.

 There are a couple of over the top ridiculous moments that could be done without. The initial car chase is fantastic and already pushing several boundaries. The Bourne-esque chase on the rooftops, while not entirely original is still a treat. The fighting on the ropes conclusion of this very intense opening? That was too much for me. I can believe the 00s get trained in all sorts of thing but fighting while on a rope? C'mon.

Also the plot. And this next line is going to be a spoiler so skip this paragraph if you haven't seen the movie. The story revolves around the most secret of organizations simply known as the Quantum. This group is so fucking awesome that MI6 has no real knowledge of them (its implied that the CIA is also in the same boat) Cool build up right? They then decide to destroy all sense of "awesomeness" achieved in the first act by revealing that the group's plan is to sell water at a high price. A reveal met by me taking a huge swig of water and having most of it miss my mouth and just flow on my bed. Whatever. It's water. While it might make economic sense (I'm not even entirely convinced it does), one thing it definitely is not, is exciting sounding. I guess oil and diamonds are a bit of a cliché these days but there has got to be some middle ground between oil and water.

Ultimately Quantum of Solace is still a good movie and while its not as good as Casino Royale, its miles ahead of the Brosnan flicks (which I guess still have some cute corny moments but thats like saying Street Fighter is good. Its not.). Its enjoyment is probably enhanced if you remember the plot of Casino Royale when watching Quantum of Solace which I didn't.

Recommended if you liked Casino Royale. Also recommended if you're a huge fan of water.

002. Donnie Darko

You can watch the trailer here.

  Basically everyone and their mother told me to watch this movie. Apparently for a good reason because its probably one of the most unique and interesting movies I've seen in a long time.

  Acting wise, this movie is pretty solid which is actually a bit of a surprise considering that most of the cast is young people-- a particular subset of actors that tends to always come across as wooden and phony. Jake Gyllenhaal does a good job playing the psychologically trouble titular character Donnie Darko. Gyllenhaal's real life sister plays Darko's older sister Elizabeth, while Patrick Swayze, Drew Barrymore, Noah Wyle and Mary McDonnell play the adults in Donnie's life. Mary McDonnell, in particular, shines as Donnie's worried mother.

  In this day and age almost every plot seems tired and cliche, or even worse is a parody of a tired and cliche plot, so its always nice to find a movie with a very original plot. Its hard to describe Donnie Darko beyond sci fi suspense drama, but it would be a disservice to not mention the fact that it tackles very heavy themes like time travel, parallel universes, predestination vs free will, individuality vs collective thought, creationism. Richard Kelly did a great job with the writing and directing of this movie and whoever designed Frank should get some sort of prize because it sets the perfect tone for this movie. Cute from a distance, deeply disturbed once you're more familiar with it.

  Darko is a fascinating movie that was destined to never become anything more than a cult classic since it refuses to underestimate its audience. At the end of the day though, Donnie Darko will have a long long life on DVD and Blu-Ray and thats really all anyone can hope in the entertainment field: longevity.

  Recommended (unless you watch movies while listening to music and talking on msn, in which case you'll probably just find the movie random as fuck and pretty nonsensical.)

001. The Runaways

Watch the trailer for this movie here.

Let me start by prefacing that I'm not a Runaways fan. It's not like I hate their music or anything but I didn't really know them at all before this movie was filmed. The first song I heard by the Runaways was Dakota Fanning's version of Cherry Bomb. I am, however, a huge fan of music and I'm aware of the influence that the Runaways and I guess to a larger extent Joan Jett had on rock and roll and the presence of female rockers in the industry, so when I added this movie to the list it was actually one I was pretty excited to watch.

Sadly, the movie sucks. While there are plenty of interesting moments during the film that deserve some attention--such as a young Joan Jett stubbornly defeating other people's expectations of her by becoming an actual rock star despite her lack of penis-- the movie, in what I can only secretly hope is an homage to Cherie Currie (the lead singer) and the band itself, catastrophically crashes and burns. The pacing is almost incomprehensible and the plot is severely lacking ... a plot I guess. For a band with such a good reputation (a little Joan Jett humour there), this movie makes it come across as nothing worth noting happened during their somewhat short history. It's actually quite sad that you can accurately summarize this movie in 6 sentences or less. I'm really in awe as to what attracted so many people to this project. Dakota Fanning walks around for most of this movie looking like a drugged doe and Alia Shawkat doesn't even have lines (granted she's the one fictional member in the movie). Kristen Stewart looks a tad more constipated than she does when playing Bella in Twilight but her acting is maybe the one slightly above average thing going on in this movie. I don't know Joan Jett but I could believe that Stewart's interpretation of her is actually spot on.

The feminist in me wanted to like this movie. I mean c'mon it starts with a single drop of menstrual blood falling on the pavement and its about women succeeding in a man's world but honestly this movie isn't worth anyone's time. The best part of the movie is the last 10 minutes or so when they play Joan Jett's songs over the final scenes (also known as that song that Britney Spears covered to you younguns)

So not recommended. Do something better with your time...like anything. Anything is a better use of your time.

This is the Beginning.

This sad little blog will chronicle the absurd and unnecessary minutia of my life as I attempt to watch 182 movies in 365 days. It sounds easy enough and I'm sure many people watch more than that every year. I however usually don't. Besides the occasional movie at good old Empire Theatre I probably watch an average of 50 movies a year. And its not just the sheer increase but also the (stupid) rules that I'm following. There has to be at least a certain amount of dramas, documentaries, animated, etc as well as a certain amount from the last 4 decades. It means I'm watching Raging Bull, Dream Girls, Taxi to the Dark Side and Confessions of a Shopaholic (early contender for new favourite movie I'm betting) possibly all in the same week. Lets hope I can keep everything scheduled and organized or else that last month or so is gonna be fucked since I will probably be either way ahead of schedule or completely behind.

I'm not entirely sure why I decided to do this. The truth is that come September between school and writing classes and this and all the other stuff, its going to be a bit hectic. My brain will be fried, my will to continue with this project might disappear and this blog will probably have no more updates. Maybe its the very fact that I probably will feel overwhelmed that attracted me to the idea. The last couple of years have been filled with a lot of unnecessary drama created by my mind during nights that I had nothing to do. I'm really not in the mood of history repeating. I'm hoping that this project (and all my other activities) will keep my mind busy and unable to self sabotage my life-- as its become an expert in doing.

In any case, regardless of if it helps or not, at the end of the day its still 182 (hopefully) good movies that I will watch and its hard to see that as anything less than positive. I'll try to review every single one of them and anything else I actually watch plus, every now and then, the post of how this project is not only not helping but actually destroying my life.

The start date of this is August 23rd aka this monday aka 4 days from now.

Apropos of nothing here is a picture of a cat that will be living with me for one more day. It's pretty sweet!

PS. I totally forgot to add that I will not be doing this alone. My friend Maria (twitter.com/tokidokilolita if you're on the twitterz like betty white) will also be fucking her free time to watch movies with me. Different movies though. Except the ones that are the same. Sadly she lacks that cute cat as well.