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.

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.

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.)