First of all, it was good to go back to watching movies again, but I am going through some serious TV withdrawals. It has been very hard for me not to start any new tv series, and even reruns don’t help anymore. I have trouble sleeping and functioning. It has been just 5 days, but it is long enough. All I have to do is survive till the 18th of September, then to 25th, and I will have 6 shows each week. But till then at least three films a day. This is what I watched or rewatched this month.
Steel Magnolias
I guess I decided to watch it again, when I heard there will be a remake, which is disastrous, how the hell can they replace THAT cast? And the funeral scene? Sally Field’s performance in that particular scene. Shirley MacLaine’s character. There are many charming scenes and all the ladies are extremely likeable. Everyone is full of class, and the story is filled with adorable jokes. Not replaceable.
10/10
Enter Nowhere
When I am writing my thoughts on this one, I would like to say that Sara Paxton books very good movies. Every actress in 18-25 category should aim for carrier like hers. Since Wes Craven’s remake she has done a lot of good works, and as I’m looking at her IMDB page right now she already has 9 films booked and filmed coming out in 2012. She doesn’t take comedies or pseudo horrors like most of the starlets her age do. Her carrier right now is as good as Kristen Stewart’s before Twilight. She is 24, but still can pass 18. Sure she did some weaker films too, but who didn’t. Enter nowhere and The Innkeepers are examples of a satisfactory carrier. The scenery was mysterious, the acting average, and the plot was promising, till it crashed, hard. For me the scene that cracked me up the most was ‘It looks like Poland.’ The coming in and coming out of the house is a trick well known for the genre, but usually less disappointing. The whole we’re all related idea should definitely be replaced by something else. Even some well know but simple, someone kidnapped us and wants to kill as idea. Unfortunately, filmmakers want to shock people, and there are more and more films which plot’s purpose is to save the world or change destiny. That is how ideas like this, or the recent The Cabin in The Woods are created. I think the rhythm of the film suddenly sped up, and killed the not too good in the first place tension. The atmosphere was good till some point, that’s why the grade is that high.
7/10
Sybil
Sybil will always be my in my top ten favourite films, and Sally’s Sybil will always remain among my top ten favourite performances. This film is the perfection in every second. My definitely favourite display of the multiple personalities character and one of the intriguing cases of child abuse, the toxic mother/daughter relationship which is so rarely showed on screen. We can learn a lot from this film, and come on, we would all want to have a psychiatrist like Sybil’s, the one who actually cares and listens.
Nothing will fit perfect anywhere until I fit perfect.
Is it fun talking like a little girl, Ms. Dorsett?
What the hell did that monster do to you? What happened in the green kitchen?
In accepting Peggy into her arms, Sybil began the deepest healing of her selves. In embracing Peggy, she embraced herself. In calming her, she was calming her own heart. As I watched her becoming mother to herself, I felt my own long motherhood ending. I released what I had held so long. I celebrated the beginning of her emancipation. I let go. Our work together lasted eleven years. Today, Sybil lives peacefully in a small college town where she’s a professor of art. There’s not enough time in the day for her to do everything she wants, but that time in every sense, is her own. She tells me she’s happy. I know she’s free.
10/10
Carriers
I have absolutely no notes from this film, which clearly says something. No, seriously, there are so many viruses films out there that they all start to look the same, just like zombie films. This one, on the other hand, was just okay at the beginning, then very good, when we meet Christopher Meloni’s character, then we have the amazing scene where the kid wants to pee, and the father has to chose between dying with the daughter or living alone. As the car drives away, there’s the beautiful scene when the father walks with the daughter, we prepare ourselves for the inevitable truth, the plot will fall so suddenly, we will not be able to sit in our sits. Then we are just driving. Till that point film was surprising good, we were actually into the story, as we compare it to all the other virus films that we have seen before, like, let’s take Resident Evil for example, and we think ‘oh, this virus film is actually good’. Then the action suddenly stops, there is this one satisfying scene when the older brother leaves his girlfriend behind because she’s infected, and then just nothing. As for the rest of the film, nothing interesting happens.
7/10
Detention
I have never been that disappointed with a film in my life. I was actually waiting for it to come out for two years now, and what do I get for my patient wait? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Do not get me wrong, I did enjoy the 90s references, but the rest was just wrong. I enjoyed the humour, till some point, so I am not giving the film zero points.
Every morning I try to remember that I’m only the second biggest loser to walk Grizzly Hills High. First place goes to the drunk slut who screwed the dead mascot in 1992. But the 90’s are history, and so am I.
I know it looks like such a lighthearted feel-good comedy, being an expecting teenage mom. But let me tell you something, I’ve been principal at this school for five years. Let me tell both of you something, pregnant teenagers are never funny, ever.
I’m not pregnant.
Cut the carbs.
3/10
The Art Of Getting By
Screw love, I was surprised by the existential aspect of this film. Freddie’s character was so… to identify with. There is that, and I am an artist too, so there’s another point. Though I did not like Emma’s character, she’s recently booking good films. This, It’s kind of a funny story, Lymelife or Scream 4. When it comes to Freddie, I really enjoyed August Rush, Finding Neverland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but that was some time ago. Rita Wilson always plays my favorite mothers, and she’s the main reason I watched the film. If I’m right, I know I am, that’s that kid from Speak. Why do girls always fall for unemployed struggling artists, like painters or musicians, will never figure this out.
Just be careful, they have an easier time of getting by than you do.
I have no idea what I’m doing here.
I don’t think anybody does, at least you admit it.
I have fears but I thought they were pretty run-of-the-mill: pain, death.
Not me. I fear life.
You’re going to have to start using that brain of yours to access that talent of yours to show that beautiful heart of yours.
“Since the dawn of recorded history, something like 110 billion human beings have been born into this world. And not a single one of them made it. There are 6.8 billion people on the planet. Roughly 60 million of them die every year. 60 million people. That comes out to about 160,000 per day. I read this quote once when I was a kid, “We live alone, we die alone. Everything else is just an illusion. ” It used to keep me up at night. We all die alone. So, why am I supposed to spend my life working, sweating, struggling?…For an illusion? Because no amount of friends, no girl, no assignments about conjugating the pluperfect or determining the square root of the hypotenuse is gonna help me avoid my fate. I have better things to do with my time.”
“Some people say its brilliant, some people say its bullshit and honestly I can’t tell the difference. So you just do it and hope that you’re not fooling yourself.”
“I actually felt something. That doesn’t always happen, it hasn’t happened in a very long time… and I have lived long enough to know that when it does, you should act on it.”
“If you speak even the most rudimentary form of the English language then you’ll understand this: Leave me alone.”
I just can’t shake this awareness of my own mortality. Everything seems meaningless. I just feel like I’m full of shit. I have no idea what I’m doing here…”
Happiness is like something you have to look after.
“Women like being desired. Just throw her up against a wall and start kissing her. Chances are she’ll kiss you back, and if she doesn’t, at least you tried. You’ve got to do something or else you’ll lose her.”
“Every time I think about a subject, or even try to visualize an image of what I think I should paint, I just.. I just feel like I’m full of shit. Like I’m trying to be something I’m not.”
What were you like as a child?
I was such a better person that I am now. I’m serious. I was happy, I was open, I was curious. But I’ll tell you this – I knew it was ending. I was overwhelmed with sadness when I realized I was gonna change, and it’s all most likely gonna get worse. Like a nostalgia for the present, I couldn’t shake it.”
It’s a long life. We’re not done.
I was nothing. I felt like nothing, less than. You changed that.
I have a real problem with motivation.
8/10
The 19th Wife
The first fought that came to my mind was, the music is highly inappropriate. I enjoyed Patricia’s character, the scene when they were cutting her hair and she was crying was really moving. ‘Did they give you a choice? Then it’s not a sin.’ Through most of the film, I was all in tears because I fought they will kill her. Don’t we just all love how Lifetime movies squeeze the tears out of us? I have not read the book, I just read some articles on the topic, and I do not get something. The film says she disappeared in 1907 and was possibly murdered? When all the articles I read said she died in 1917?
7/10
Brake
A guy waking up buried in a box is my favourite kind of thriller. All the ‘slow it down, asshole’, ‘doggie, doggie, come here’ and ‘there’s someone at my window’ really helped to set the tension. The whole idea was very compelling, till the last act, when everything falls apart. Claustrophobic box and dozens of bees, that might have been too much, but no it was just perfectly balanced. When I heard about the car bombs, I knew he was in one. I have been asking myself the question who would die through the whole film, and I thought it would be her, because that would ruin him. Then I totally believed Henry drowned or was blown up when his time was up. If I was the main character I would check photos and messages on that phone, that might have given some hint. ‘Go fuck yourself.’ The idea with her being in an ambulance and him being in a cop car was nicely played. I might have been naive, but I really fought his friend is not a part of this. Every single thing was absolutely perfect about this film, until we find out he somehow survived. When I was thinking that was the stupidest training ever and was all ‘are you kidding me? ‘ and ‘he drowned right, right?’ Tom Berenger you always play a villain so fine. Ah, Washington monument, should have seen that one coming. I was really willing to give it a 10 if he drowned and it was all an after death dream, or if Molly died, and a 9 if there was a big catastrophe. The ending ruined the most perfect thriller.
8/10
The Awakening
Another example of an appealing ghost story idea going wrong. The tension was pretty ample until it all fell into pieces. In the first part I was mad at myself for not seeing it at the cinema and happy to get the poster, but then I realized when it was all heading. One thing I cannot say this film lacked was a beautiful location, the mansion too. Music was discernible at the beginning, then I just forgot about it. The dummer was pleasing. I really enjoyed the idea of her looking at the doll version of herself, that was creepy enough for a ghost story. ‘Lock the door.’ I think most of the people who saw the film figured out who the ghost was when the Tom was following her everywhere. ‘Stop bossing me around.’ ‘She’s very troubled, you have to understand that.‘ I am pretty sure this guy with glasses has some significance that I cannot figure out, which is killing me. I was right to think there were no children there. The whole explanation is highly far-fetched. I knew the scars on her collarbones where significant. I can understand that she has blocked all the bad memories, but she has seen the photo and the kid million times how could she not recognize him? People really try to be more creative and finds some new plot, not a person being the ghost or being the second kid that survived some massacre. The way I read it is she is alive, and I think her death might have actually save the story.
6/10
Doubt
I have decided to go through my film collection, and as It has been more than four years since I have seen this film at the cinema, and as I have been buried under the cushion with my lovely cold, I said why not Doubt? It is not the best priest/boy abuse film, with my personal best and a true masterpiece Bad Education. Here the story is nor proved nor we see the boy suffering, or meet priest’s other victims. We are just chasing the priest and making him confess. ‘God Bless you sister.’ ‘I love this song.’, Meryl’s reaction. The dance looks even more terrible than the previous song. I thought nuns shout pretend they do not see and cover for a priest. Sister James annoyed me then and still does a little, how can she be so naive? I really do believe she just wanted to get rid of the problem to go back to living simply. Why on Earth would she tell the priest that she really believes he is not guilty? ‘Well go back and shut up.’
Though it has been I will step outside the church if that’s what needs to be done, ’til the door should shut behind me! I will do what needs to be done, though I’m damned to Hell! You should understand that, or you will mistake me.
Where is your compassion?
Nowhere you can get at it.
I don’t think Father Flynn did anything wrong.
You just want things to be resolved so you can have simplicity back.
Then why do you look like you’ve seen the devil?
Did you ever prove it?
To whom?
Anyone but yourself?
I have doubts. I have such doubts.
9/10
Funny Games US
A very solid thriller composed as a game. ‘Why are you doing this?‘ ‘Why not?‘ The film was good, and the suspense was on the normal level, but the film sped up when they told her to take off her clothes, then it all started spinning, and suddenly the kid is dead. I do not recall any thriller at this moment where the kid is actually killed, not like in The Amityville Horror where the whole family is killed at the beginning, but when we get to know the kid and their parents, the kid and usually the mother survive, thankfully not here. I really did not like when they rewinded the game, that ruined the credibility of the story, a lot. Sure let’s just sit with that Nokia waiting for it to magically start working…and eat a baguette, cause there is no danger and we are all good, and our son did not just get killed. That may have disturbed me a bit. If my son was shut, I think I would be so devastated, I would beg them to shoot me too. I really expected them to kill the father, not the son. When she shot the guy I was happy, and I was utterly disappointed when they rewinded it. The ending was my definitely favourite kind, everyone dies and the game starts over, with a new family.
8.5/10
The Hunt for the Unicorn Killer
Well spent four hours of my life, based on the true story is a very well made documentary. First he forces her to have an abortion, then he forces her to strip and dance in a club, he treats her very badly and then he kills her. ‘To kill what you can’t have it is a very natural thing.‘
9/10
Mulholland Drive
Let me just start with how much I enjoyed this one. I loved how Rita basked in taking advantage of Diane and making her feel useless and replaceable. That brought a great explanation to the too colourful act two. The only thing that I am still trying to figure out is the meaning of her grandparents (I assume) in the story. The way I see it, they were disappointed with her not succeeding? Some people form the sexual abuse accusation, but I cannot see that. Okay, maybe they were highly demanding, but sexual abuse, what, both of them? I do not see that.
9/10
World Trade Center
The true story of John and McLoughlin and Will Jimeno, 9/11 shown from the side of the rescuing team and their wives and bringing hope to the victims.
We’re not leaving, We’re the Marines, you are our mission.
We prepared for everything. Not for this. Not for something this size. There’s no plan.
This guy. He’s gonna die if you don’t get him out soon. And the only thing in the way is my leg. I want you to cut it off. Just cut if off. I can live without a leg.
I’m not cutting your leg off. I can’t. You’re coming out in one piece, you hear me?
You gotta… Look it’s my leg. Just juice me up and cut it off. If he dies, I die. That’s just the way it is.
Look Will, your partner must be 20 feet deeper. Probably more compacted than you. Even if I cut your leg off, he’s not gonna get out of there for hours. I’m sorry, man. Now, let me do my work.
It’s like God made a curtain with the smoke, shielding us from what we’re not yet ready to see.
“9/11 showed us what human beings are capable of. The evil, yeah, sure. But it also brought out the goodness we forgot could exist. People taking care of each other for no other reason than it was the right thing to do. It’s important for us to talk about that good, to remember. ‘Cause I saw all of it that day.”
8/10
The Accused
My personal favourite Jodie Foster’s performance, and a well deserved Oscar. Also one of my top ten favourite lead performances by any actress. The film is heartbreaking, and the topic of rape is very well portrait.
What the hell are you talking about? You saw me at the hospital, what you think I asked for that? Is that what you think? If that’s what you think then you get the fuck out of my house!
This is what the jury is going to see. And they are going to see the girl too and you can’t tell it from these. But she’s tiny. She’s the most defenceless looking thing you you ever saw.
You don’t understand how I feel! I’m standing there with my pants down and my crotch hung out for the world to see and three guys are sticking it to me, a bunch of other guys are yelling and clapping and you’re standing there telling me that that’s the best you can do. Well, if that’s the best you could do, then your best sucks! Now, I don’t know what you got for selling me out, but I sure as shit hope it was worth it!
Ladies and Gentleman, Mr. Paulson has told you the testimony of Sarah Tobias is nothing. Sarah Tobias was raped but that is nothing. She was cut, bruised, and terrorized but that is nothing. All of it happened in front of a howling crowd and that is nothing. Well, it may be nothing to Mr. Paulson, but it is not nothing to Sarah Tobias and I don’t believe it’s nothing to you. Next, Mr. Paulson tried to convince you that Kenneth Joyce was the only one in that room who knew that Sarah Tobias was being raped. The only one. Now you watched Kenneth Joyce, how did he strike you? Did he seem specially sensitive? Did he seem so remarkable that you said to yourselves, “Of course. This man would notice things other people wouldn’t.” Do you believe that Kenneth Joyce saw something in that room that those three men didn’t see. In all the time that Sarah was pinned down on that Pinball machine that other people didn’t know? Kenneth Joyce confessed to you that he watched a rape and did nothing. He told you that everyone in that bar behaved badly and he was right. But no matter how immoral it may be, it is not the crime of criminal solicitation to walk away from a rape. It is not the crime of criminal solicitation to watch a rape. But it is the crime of criminal solicitation to induce, or entreat, or encourage, or persuade another person to commit a rape. Hold her down, stick it to her, make her moan. These three men did worse than nothing. They cheered and they clapped and they rooted the others on. They made sure that Sarah Tobias was raped, and raped, and raped, and raped. And tell me, was that nothing?
10/10
Taxi Driver
Maybe instead of why I loved the film, obviously, I will say what I did not like about it, like when the main character takes Betsy to the ‘grown ups’ film, that screamed trouble loudly. Sure, I loved how he wanted to take care of all the street trash, but the ending is just too unlikely to happen. All his thinking, Jodie’s performance and everything else was an absolute perfection.
The days go on and on… they don’t end. All my life needed was a sense of some place to go. I don’t believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention, I believe that one should become a person like other people.
I think someone should just take this city and just… just flush it down the fuckin’ toilet.
June twenty ninth. I gotta get in shape. Too much sitting has ruined my body. Too much abuse has gone on for too long. From now on there will be 50 push-ups each morning, 50 pull-ups. There will be no more pills, no more bad food, no more destroyers of my body. From now on will be total organization. Every muscle must be tight.
All the animals come out at night – whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets. I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn, I take ’em to Harlem. I don’t care. Don’t make no difference to me. It does to some. Some won’t even take spooks. Don’t make no difference to me.
Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars, in cars, side walks, stores, everywhere. There’s no escape. I’m God’s lonely man… June 8th. My life has taken another turn again. The days can go on with regularity over and over, one day indistinguishable from the next. A long continuous chain. Then suddenly, there is a change.
Listen, you fuckers, you screw heads. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is a man who stood up.
Each night when I return the cab to the garage, I have to clean the cum off the back seat. Some nights, I clean off the blood.
9/10
Nell
What’s not to love? The bar scene was perfectly uncomfortable.
7.5/10
The Dangerous Lives of the Altar Boys
A well discussed issue of brother/sister incest.
I used to let Donny do… things to me.
What kind of things?
Everything.
Wait, Donny who? Donnie, your brother?
First few times I felt smarter than everyone else, sort of dangerous. Do you know that feeling? Then I just started feeling like a monster. Look I was going crazy keeping my secret, I had to tell you. And I’ve been practising what to say ever since we met.
Don’t hurt yourself.
You hate me.
No. I just don’t know.
She told me a secret, you cannot tell anyone.
I think I’m ugly and I’m awful and I don’t know why I came here.
You’ve got to aim lower.
That low enough?
Not as low as fucking your own sister.
I’m the bad one, all right? You can hate Donny and think he’s an evil asshole, but I made him do it. I tricked him one night when he was stoned and then I blackmailed him to doing it all the time. And I loved it. He was all I thought about.
When you look at me, I can hardly breathe.
7/10
Flight Plan
It was a good thriller, not too good though. I have no idea why so many people call it Panic Room 2. Panic Room is perfection, and this is just another thriller. ‘Zawracamy na pokład, Zawracamy na ALTO airlaines’ that was cute, thank you. Through most of the film I was sure the kid died with the father, but then she did not carry two coffins, just one. So there, you got me. ‘Excuse me Ma’am, I’ve got two questions for you. What are the movies and how loud do these headphones go?‘ That is basically me, oh I laughed hard on this one, that is just me. Through the entire film I felt like Jodie was too over educated for this film, she’s a genius. When the masks started falling, I could not stop laughing, that was absolutely amazing, everyone started panicking, and no one knew what was going on. When she accused this Arab guy, and then this other guy wanted to beat him, that was, well, real. The best scene was when she walks with her daughter, that moment of proving everyone wrong. It was nowhere near as splendid as Wes Craven’s Red Eye, but it was good enough.
Miss Pratt, there are 425 passengers on this flight who are not receiving any attention at the moment because every one of my flight attendants are looking for a child that none of them believe was ever on board! If you think we could be doing more to meet your needs, then I suggest you take it up with customer service after we land.
Hey! Your husband didn’t jump off that roof! He flew!
Hey, are you watching this movie? Not too funny. ‘Course at 36,000 feet, you can’t just up and walk out of the theatre, can you?
You just scared the shit out of 400 passengers, people who didn’t plan on spending the night in Newfoundland!
A teddy bear does not constitute an inaccurate passenger manifest.
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry to interrupt, but we’ve got a first to report. It seems our aircraft is big enough to lose a child in. Her name is Julia Pratt, six years old, she is wearing a navy blue jumper. If she’s anywhere near you or perhaps playing with one of your kids, please press the call button now. We’ve got an anxious mom up here. Thank you.
What is she holding?
She’s holding her daughter.
7.5/10
The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane
Through half of the film I though she killed her father. I wish the paedophile/victim relation was actually picked up and better described.
How old do you have to be before people start treating you like a person?
School is having people tell you what life is and never finding out by yourself.
My father had given me a small bottle containing some white powder. He said if she should arrive, I should put it in her tea. Calm her, make her less aggressive. I looked it up based on it properties. Potassium cyanide. Father meant what he said about doing anything you have to to survive. I can still see her red nails holding up that cup. After a few sips she said that the tea tasted of almonds. It’s the almond cookies, I told her.
Maybe you don’t understand about poets: Edgar Allen Poe was a drug addict, Dylan Thomas drank himself to death, Sylvia Plath took her own life.
We worked out every detail, we knew it wouldn’t be easy. Here’s a letter from my father: Don’t give in and play their game, fight them any way you have to, survive. That’s what he said. Then he kissed me and walked off into the trees and down the lane.
7/10
The Brave One
What was that? Grown up Iris fighting the scum and criminals? Taxi Driver 2? Cause that’s what it felt like. The film lacked a lot, though not my favourite Jodie’s performance, her Golden Globe nomination was well deserved. The problem is, she was the only excellent thing about the film. The ending was entirely ridiculous. The second act was intriguing, how she tried to cope with the killing, and could no longer be a person she was before. The radio broadcasts were very good as well.
I always believed that fear belonged to other people. Weaker people. It never touched me. And then it did. And when it touches you, you know… that it’s been there all along. Waiting beneath the surfaces of everything you loved.
I should have walked out of that train. I could have just shown them the gun, they wouldn’t have hurt me. Why don’t my hands shake? Why doesn’t somebody stop me?
How did you… pull it back together after what happened to you?
You don’t. You… you become someone else. A stranger.
There is no going back. To that other person. That other place. This thing, this stranger. She is all you are now.
7/10
From today I’m starting watching or rewatching all the Oscar Lead Actress Nominees. I have seen most of the films nominated in different categories from 90s and 2000+, but just about twenty before the 90s, I think I will start with the 70s, and I chose the Lead Actress category first. I will most likely skip the romances/melodramas and historical films, but I will definitely watch all the dramas.
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