30 Day Movie Challenge - Day 15 - A character who you can relate to the most
I can identify with both:
and
First, fuck off, I love this movie. It’s good. Everyone is good in it. Gus Van Sant’s direction storytelling is tight and that screenplay is amazing.
On the topic of Ben Affleck, I think his direction on Gone Baby Gone more than proves that there is a storyteller inside him. The Good Will Hunting script did not, as some have theorized, fall out of the sky.
Chuckie. I identify with Chuckie because I like to think I’m the kind of friend that would rather lose a friend than see them unhappy. I “get” what he is talking about when he tells Will, in likely the most honest moment in the whole movie, that, “maybe I’ll get up there and I’ll knock on the door and you won’t be there. No goodbye. No see you later. No nothing.” It breaks Chuckie’s heart to watch his friend sell him self short, but fuck, he’s powerless to do anything about it, so all he can do is keep getting him drunk.
Plus, in the past, I’ve been the only asshole with a working car, so I’ve played Chuckie’s role of part-time taxi driver too.
Then, Will. I’m likely going to flash my huge, planet-sized ego (and likely some short-sighted over-privileged whiteness too), but I’ve always identified with Will’s battle to move beyond what the world has given him. I also know what it’s like to feel like there is something special in you, but not know how, or even if, you can let it out. I wear my need for a father-figure on my sleeve too. Will’s smart, but like he’s told in the film, he doesn’t have a clue on what to do with himself. No one understands why he just doesn’t do it: go to Harvard, be rich, be a genius— he’s so tightly wound in being from Southie, for being on the demolition team, for being what he is, he can’t figure out what he can be.
Ever hear me talk about Detroit? You see what I mean?
30 Day Movie Challenge Catch-up
Day 09 - A movie with the best soundtrack
Hackers. Hands down. I didn’t even have to think about it. It introduced me to a genre I still love today. It introduced me to many artists I still listen to today, and it has 2-3 songs that could appear in a top 25 favorite jams list.
Day 10 - Favorite classic movie
This is a tough one for me because I, mostly by accident, have not watch many classics. I liked The Birds. I really enjoyed White Christmas. West Side Story is a hoot. I’ll say It’s a Wonderful Life.
Day 11 - A movie that changed your opinion about something
Another tough one. I’ll go with Fog of War. It didn’t change my opinion about the Vietnam War, it created it.
Day 12 - A movie that you hate
I hate Empire Records. I’ve met so many people that love this movie and I just can’t figure out why. Is this what teenagers were supposed to be like in the 90’s? Precocious and half-retarded? And what’s with the cheesy lounge singer, sex subplot? I’ve seen it, more or less, three times and each time I try to figure out the appeal and each time I turn it off in a fit of confusion and rage. Also, what’s with Suburbia? That sucked to.
Day 13 - A movie that is a guilty pleasure
The Rock starring Nick Cage.
Day 14 - A movie that no one would expect you to love
Many people close to me know that I don’t watch horror movies. It’s something I picked up from childhood and it’s always stuck with me. There have been a number of occasions, however, that a scary movie has slipped through the cracks (network TV versions, especially). Knowing how much I dislike horror movies, people might be surprised to know how much respect I have for the original Halloween. When Meyers is following Jamie Lee Curtis, in the daylight, as she walks home from school? Brrrrrr! I still get freaked out.
30 Day Movie Challenge - Day 08 - A movie that you’ve seen countless times
Don’t ask me to pick one.
- Mallrats
- Goonies
- Chasing Amy
- Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels
- Batman Begins
- Dark Knight
- Star Trek: First Contact
- Star Trek: Abrams
- PCU
- Ace Ventura
- Clerks
- Serenity
- Ghostbusters
- Fight Club
- Die Hard with a Vengeance
- Die Hard
- Dodgeball
- Talladega Nights
- Swingers
- Fifth Element (Drunky got this one too.)
- Good Will Hunting
whatevermethinks replied to your post: 30 Day Movie Challenge - Day 07 - The most surprising plot twist or ending
Did you and Drunky plan on doing this at the same time? Your posts are always next to each other on my dash. Coincidence??
Yes! Coincidence. I also think we are reminding each other to actually write the posts.
30 Day Movie Challenge - Day 07 - The most surprising plot twist or ending
It’s not a favorite movie of mine or anything, but I caught it yesterday and it fits.
I picked it because I was genuinely surprised and delighted to find out the movie’s mystery villain. I thought it was a fairly brilliant stroke in the middle of a fuck-shit-stack of mediocrity.
Another thing, weren’t all of the kids in this movie supposed to be stars? What happened with the actors of my generation? Are they all talentless? Is it because they made 1,001+ shitty romcom’s for “slackers” that all went straight to DVD’s? Is it because of Jason Biggs?
30 Day Movie Challenge - Day 06 - Favorite made for TV movie
I was going to pick Saved by the Bell: Hawaiian Style, until my lady reminded me that the Battlestar Galactica relaunch is considered a TV movie.
If you’ve followed this blog (or my twitter) in the past few years, you’ve read about how much I loved this show enough. Here’s a search of the blog for Battlestar if you are at all interested in knowing how much I frakking loved this show.
A far second would be The Temptations movie that details the lives of the many men who would be called Temptations.
Its an interesting movie that, thanks to VH1, I’ve seen a thousand times. It chronicles the band’s early days in Detroit, to getting signed, to going to tour, to falling apart over and over and over and over again. Its a bummer of a movie to tell the truth, but enjoyable nonetheless.
Day 5 - Favorite Love Story in a Movie
This is kind of easy.
And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
30 Day Movie Challenge - Day 04: A Movie That Makes You Sad
I would really like to pick a movie that I thought I’d love, but ended up hating, but that’s too easy and there are too many to list.
This was a really hard one for me to decide. To help, I limited my choice’s to movie’s I actually own. Which led me to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has some of the most amazing action and martial art sequences to ever appear in film. It also has some of the most amazing acting performances. The scenes between Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh are… I can’t describe it! They display so much in the few lines and stares that they share in their scenes together. With a few awkward pauses and longing looks they tell a history, decades long, of battle, friendship, desire, and love.
Why is it sad? It’s sad because no one gets what they want. Every character in the film comes into it the story already having made tremendous sacrifices in their lives and they make even more in each minute. These sacrifices never led them to anything they actually want. All of these amazing people, who are capable of such tremendous feats, are hampered by their class, their sex, their abilities, and even their love.
There are no happy endings. There is peace and finality for everyone in the film, but no reward and no measure of happiness.
30 Day Movie Challenge
Day 03: Movie that makes you happy
Mine’s Uncle Buck, which I just watched, but I’m tired now, so ask me why later.
30 Day Movie Challenge 02: The most underrated movie
Ever? EVER?
I feel like The Fifth Element gets a lot of cult love, but not the respect it deserves for being a sexy, sci-fi romp. I’m going to in another direction though.
Zero Effect with Bill Pullman, Ben “Pre-porcelian Veneers” Stiller, and Ryan O’Neal is genius. Its hilarious and compelling, and no one ever saw it. Except for me.
Ben Stiller plays the consiglieri to the world’s greatest private detective and perhaps, the most brilliant man in the world and he hates it. Imagine your best boss— the boss that inspired you to work harder from their brilliance and dedication. Now wrap that in neurotic, pushy, scared-of-their-own-shadow, OCD saran wrap and microwave for 3 minutes. That’s Daryl Zero.
Its a great movie, despite being made in the 1990’s.
Scroll to the bottom of this AV Club review to watch one of my favorite scenes.
30 Day Movie Challenge 01: The best movie you saw during the last year
This is a really tough call but I’m going to go with Kick-Ass.
Fewer movies in recent memory have made me laugh more or and enjoy the experience of seeing a movie in a crowded theater more than Kick-Ass. People were hollering at the screen, laughing with one another, and cringing at all the right moments. It reminded me how much fun a movie can be when seen with total strangers.
I actually had stopped collecting the comic. I had stopped enjoying it and thought it was way over-the-top, so I was really pleased that the movie was able to create a more believable visual universe than the comic book’s art did.
Lastly, I felt it really captured “teenager-ness” better than most any other movie I’ve seen in the past few years. I walked out of the movie believing that the kids were indeed kids and not grown-ups shrunk down to a younger age and I say that fully aware that most of the kids in the movie were murderers and psychopaths.
