Category Archives: Genre

Day 20 – 30 Day Movie Challenge

Favorite Movie by Your Favorite Actor and Actress

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I like this category so much that I am going to break it into two days and do my favorite legacy actor and actress today, and my favorite modern actor and actress tomorrow. Of course, this will turn the 30 Day Movie Challenge into a 31 Day Movie Challenge, but I don’t mind. I have no criteria to separate these except that the classic stars must no longer be making films. Tomorrow, I will get around to my favorite modern actor and actress, but in the meantime…

My favorite classic actor is Jimmy Stewart. He was a tremendously prolific studio actor who worked with all the famous actors and directors of his day. He was known for his performances as an everyman, much like Tom Hanks today. And his beautiful co-star in Rear Window just so happens to be my favorite classic actress, Grace Kelly. She only acted for five years from 1951-1956, but she made a tremendous impact in those five short years even winning an Oscar for acting alongside Bing Crosby in the 1954 film The Country Girl. Sadly, her acting career was cut short by her untimely marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco. By becoming a princess, she gave up her acting career. However, I don’t know that I have ever seen a more beautiful or talented actress grace the screen.

In Rear Window, Jimmy Stewart plays a professional photographer named L.B. Jeffries who breaks his leg while getting an action shot at an auto race. Confined to his New York apartment during a heat wave, “Jeff” spends his time looking out of the rear window observing the neighbors. He begins to suspect that a man across the courtyard may have murdered his wife. He enlists the help Grace Kelly’s character (a high society fashion-consultant girlfriend named Lisa Freemont) and his visiting nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) to investigate the situation. Rear Window is currently listed on the IMDB top 250 at #22. It is one of my favorite movies, it has comedy, suspense, and romance.

Day 19 – 30 Day Movie Challenge

Favorite Movie Based Upon a Book

This category is very close to what could be another category. It would be a similar category but I think the results would be very different. That category would be looking for the best book that has been adapted to a film. Since this is a movie challenge, it is only right for the questions to focus on a film instead of a book. My favorite book that has been turned into a film is the Lord of the Rings, but my favorite film (that happens to be adapted from a novel which I have never read) is One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). It was the first film to sweep the 5 major awards at the Oscars: Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay since Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night did it 41 years earlier.

The film is based directly upon Ken Kesey’s novel of the same name. The film asks a profound yet difficult sociological question. What is the proper balance between freedom and order? Randall P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) is being transferred to a mental facility for evaluation from the state prison where he is serving his time for statutory rape. This transfer is coming after complaints of aggressive behavior. Once on the ward, McMurphy makes it his goal to upset the status-quo. He butts heads with his head caretaker Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) and provokes rebellion among the other patients. This rebellion is at times uplifting and we cheer as we see these patients grow, but at other times it’s destructive especially during the ending of the film. Nurse Ratched is often portrayed as an unflinching power hungry authority figure. But in her own way, she does seem concerned for the well being of her patients.

I don’t want to spoil the ending which will leave you weeping while you grin from ear to ear, because I know that this is a treasure that far too few people have seen. But I can say that both sides of the original question of freedom and order are balanced out. The film inquires about how much individual freedom is necessary, and how much social control is necessary. But it doesn’t give any answers to these questions. On the other hand, George Orwell’s 1984 raises this same issue, but the answer is clear in that classic, whereas here Director Milos Foreman lets us decide for ourselves. It also differs from 1984 in its modern-day setting, as opposed to the future of 1984. This makes the question more timely and realistic as opposed to the more speculation of Orwell’s work. Foreman expects us to exercise our freedom and bring our own assumptions, feelings and thoughts to the film, so that we may interpret it according to our values instead of having another view thrust upon us

As I said before, I have not read Ken Kesey’s acclaimed novel, so I cannot judge the film as based upon the book. In my opinion, it is a fruitless endeavor to compare a film and a book, they are distinct forms of art and have their own advantages and drawbacks. That being said, one way to judge the quality of an older film is to look at some of the supporting cast that Found their fame by using the film as a diving board. This one produced a few, namely Danny Devito and Christopher Lloyd. Do you have a favorite film that is based upon a book or some other form of literature? I’d love to hear your picks or you can comment on One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest if you have seen it. You can leave your comments below or on Twitter or Facebook.

Day 18 – 30 Day Movie Challenge

A Movie That You Wish More People Would’ve Seen

Today’s challenge was simple. If I can only recommend one movie to anyone, it is this delightful gem from Roberto Benigni. And it is a rare occasion that they have already seen it. I wonder what prevents people from seeing this film. Is it the fact that it is a foreign film or maybe that there are no recognizable movie stars in it? Perhaps it is the fact that the subject matter is generally so depressing. But the funny yet haunting Life Is Beautiful, is quite possibly the best most satisfying movie I have ever seen.

Life Is Beautiful is the story of clever Italian waiter named Guido Orefice (played masterfully by writer and director Benigni himself). Over in Germany, Hitler is making his malevolent preparations, but for the first half of the film, world politics are only a backdrop to Guido’s comic attempts to woo a beautiful schoolteacher named Dora (Nicoletta Braschi), away from her fiance. Benigni’s brand of physical comedy reminds me of Charlie Chaplin. He even has touches of political satire a la Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, for instance, Guido’s automobile has malfunctioning brakes and his frantic waving people out of the way is mistaken for stiff-armed salutes. But where Life Is Beautiful turns into something rare and extraordinary is not until midway through the film.

Fast-forwarding a few years, Guido, now owns a small bookstore. Guido and Dora have married and have a young son. It wasn’t until writing this review that I found that his son’s name is “Joshua” spelled Giosue (Giorgio Cantarini). A Nazi presence is now creeping into their Italian town, and signs have begun to appear in shop windows: “No Dogs or Jews Allowed” Guido, who we learn is Jewish himself, jokes to a confused Giosue that he should put up a sign on their store: “No Spiders or Visigoths Allowed.” The film shifts gears when his family is arrested and sent to a concentration camp. Dora, who is not Jewish, chooses to follow her husband and child. It is at this point that Life Is Beautiful changes into a very different film. I was impressed at how seamlessly the comedy moved into the world of the death camps.

It’s a risky transition, as Guido continues to struggle to shield his son from its harsh realities and atrocities of the Holocaust, but Benigni handles it with class. He accomplishes this minor miracle by shifting the focus and audience of his humor to Giosue. He makes the camp and its officers look foolish not to make us laugh but to spare his beloved son from the trauma of this horror. Some detractors see it as making light of tragedy, but they fail to realize is that its humor does not make light of the genocide but rather exalts the sacrifice of a parent.

Do you have any lesser known gems in mind that you would recommend to everyone? I watch a lot of movies that every one else passes up. I hope you will share some with me in the comments below or on Twitter or Facebook.

Day 17 – 30 Day Movie Challenge

A Movie That Disappointed You

You would think that with 20 years to work on a worthy follow-up to the Indiana Jones Trilogy that Steven Spielberg and his collaborator George Lucas could create an entertaining and exciting film. However, it seems that instead of becoming sweeter with time, this one just became rotten. In Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, we see an elderly Indy (or should I say Henry because he is rarely called “Indiana” or “Indy” in this film) in his baggy grandpa pants with locks of grey-white hair peeking out under a crisp and rarely-dirty brown fedora you really don’t get the feeling that you’re watching anything historic. This is a movie that obviously misunderstood its audience, it’s exactly the type of summer blockbuster developed to make money at all costs: things blow up; there are aliens; and an unnecessary youthful sidekick.

The film tries too hard to convince its audience that it’s set in the 1950s. You have Russian spies, nuclear testing, Howdy Doody, and Communist blacklisting all in the first act of the movie. While the earlier Jones films were an attempt to capture the magic of 30s and 40s adventure films, this one is an attempt to capture the feel of a 1950s action romp. You have campy dialogue, Shia LaBoeuf playing the Fonz, and a run-of=the-mill soda fountain brawl that plants this film in that era. In the previous Indy films, even with their date stamps, the adventures that took place are universally exciting and timeless.

The other aspect of the film that disappointed me was the role that extra-terrestrials play. The original trilogy uses religious artifacts as the treasure the Indy is hunting. But as with the abominable Star Trek prequels that George Lucas thrust upon audiences, all of the religion and mysticism was replaced by science-fiction. Why don’t film-makers understand that audiences want to encounter something inexplicable in the theater. We don’t want midichlorians to give a scientific explanation of the force or science to replace our religion. The presence of the aliens is strong, but there is no dialogue between the two parties, much like Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The adventure sequences are hit-or-miss. Some of the car chases and fight sequences are good, and a lot of the side jokes are on the mark, but there are times that it’s hard to follow what’s going on as they try to pack too many characters and subplots into a fast-moving sequence. Ultimately, there are too many diversions like the plausibility of surviving a nuclear explosion by climbing in a refrigerator, the CGI prairie dogs, and Mutt’s own private army of monkeys. Dr. Jones doesn’t get very much solo screen time. Everyone around Henry seems to have become more like Indiana Jones, while he has become more cautious in his old age.

Ultimately, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a film that, while not entirely bad, is nowhere near worthy of its lofty pedigree. As generic action films go, it may have provided some level of entertainment in the vein of National Treasure..But with the attachment of “Indiana Jones” to the title and the involvement of Harrison Ford, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg my expectations were raised and my standards were set to a level that these individuals can sadly no longer meet.

What about you? Did you have expectations for a film that fell short? Have previews and the raves of critics left you expecting a masterpiece only to find a film that failed to thrill your cinematic sensibilities? I’d love to hear your rants about these lackluster experiences. Leave a comment below or on Twitter or Facebook.

Day 16 – 30 Day Movie Challenge

A Movie I Used To Love But Now Hate

Yikes! I only have an hour to give you this day’s challenge before my carriage turns into a pumpkin. There is that word “hate” again. As I said a few days ago, hate takes too much energy. These are movies that I used to like but have put out of my mind or forgotten about. When looking back at some movies that I enjoyed in my childhood and youth, I was amazed at how many I still enjoy. I didn’t watch most of the crap that passed for film in the late 80s and early 90s. But one of the films that I kept coming back to was Batman and Robin. I mean, George Clooney with bat-nipples and two inept sidekicks. I probably watched it originally because I loved Alicia Silverstone. But I could really just say any Batman film made in the 90s. That’s right, even Batman Returns. The first Tim Burton Batman was tolerable, but having seen Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, even it has lost a great deal of its original appeal.

What do you think? Did you enjoy Bio-dome, Jury Duty, In the Army Now, Son in Law, and Encino Man, but now think that Pauly Shore and his comedy is awful? You wouldn’t be alone there. If you have an opinion then share it in the comments below or on Twitter or Facebook.

Day 15 – 30 Day Movie Challenge

A Movie Character To Whom You Can Relate

Considering my current line of work, my mind immediately went to two films about security guards. Paul Blart Mall Cop and Observe and Report. In case you don’t know, I work security for UPS at their Worldport facility. But I don’t take my job as seriously as either of those characters. Then I thought of the numerous caricatures of ministers in popular culture and couldn’t in good faith (pardon the pun) align myself with the likes of the cross-dressing, peep-show visiting, homicidal Rev. Peter Shayne (played by Anthony Perkins) in Crimes of Passion, to the faith-challenged Father Karras in The Exorcist, and the fornicating Rev. Russell in Simon Birch. If I could choose a television character, I might pick Rev. Camden from 7th Heaven. I always liked him.

The best portrayal of a solid, faithful movie pastor that I have seen in recent years was Preacher from Because of Winn-Dixie. Played by Jeff Daniels, Preacher is a deep character with personal problems. He was abandoned by his wife because she no longer wanted to be married to a pastor, now he is lonely. He loves and wants to care for his little small-town flock. He has a sincere desire to find ways to make God’s Word meaningful to his congregation, and buries himself in his work. Because of this, he frequently lacks time for his daughter, but we can tell that he deeply loves her. He gets angry. He is unashamed to pray in public. In other words, he is human. He is flawed, but he is trying to do what is right. It is a shame that characters like Preacher, who accurately reflect many pastors, emerge so infrequently in film. But the fact is, most of the time, pastors simply don’t exist in the landscape of film. When these pastors do not appear where they should in the cultural landscape, it conveys the idea that they are irrelevant, inconsequential, or worse, completely absent from thought. The assumption is that pastors are unnecessary.

At this junction of my life I feel like an average Joe. I frequently give advice to a group of misfits. I’m a funny guy who tends to take a laid-back approach to life. With that being said, I can relate to Peter LaFleur from Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. Peter La Fleur, played by the excellent Vince Vaughn, operates a small gym called Average Joes. The opening scenes in Average Joes could have very well used the theme song from the television sitcom, Cheers, a place where everybody knows your name. Too bad Peter has been too busy developing genuine friendships to hone his business sense. Average Joes is in foreclosure unless they can come up with $50,000. To do this, these averages will have to become something extraordinary. And Peter La Fleur must step out in faith, and put everything of value to him on the line.

This is a tough question. It calls for a lot of introspection. Do you have a character from a film that resonates with you? Perhaps you are a history professor who searches for cultural artifacts in your spare time? Or maybe you are secretly harboring an extra terrestrial in your closet that badly wants to phone home? Either way, let me know in the comments below or on Twitter or Facebook.

Day 14 – 30 Day Movie Challenge

A Movie That No One Would Expect You To Love

I was interested in this topic from the first time I read the challenge because of the way it is worded. It is asking for a movie that no one would expect you to love. This doesn’t imply that you actually do love that movie. It forces you to put yourself in the shoes of those that know you. You have to inspect your own preferences. If the challenge was asking for a film that you actually liked, then it would say, “A movie that people would be surprised to find that you loved.”

I am running short on time because this weekend is my son’s 8th birthday and my aunt and uncle just came into town tonight so I have been entertaining this afternoon. But I must not neglect in my duty to the challenge. I think that people would be surprised to know that I actually like The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I think it is a lot of fun, and the musical numbers will be stuck in your head for days. Tim Curry as the transvestite from the planet of Transylvania is funny, creepy, and campy all at once. This is my favorite movie to watch on Halloween.

But I don’t think that anyone would expect me to like just about anything in the horror genre. I don’t particularly enjoy being scared. I only watch horror movies on my own terms. I can think of a few enjoyable horror movies that I’ve seen in the past few years, namely The Strangers and Insidious. But there is no way I would ever be caught dead watching the latest incarnation of the Saw franchise, Saw V. I actually loved the first Saw movie. I thought the twist at the end was fabulous and I didn’t see it coming at all.

So what about you? What do you hate so much that everybody knows it and what would people be shocked to know that you love? I want to share in your love and hatred of cinema. Leave me a message in the comments below or on Twitter or Facebook.

Day 13 – 30 Day Movie Challenge

A Movie That Is A Guilty Pleasure

I have to say that 1997’s Jerry Bruckheimer produced Con Air is an extremely fun ride, and it is one of my favorite action films. If I see this one on TV I will almost always watch it. The film is so over-the-top with its characters, dialogue, and situations that it can’t be truly believable and I don’t think it is meant to be. I know that this is not a high quality film, it doesn’t answer any metaphysical questions. But it is a good popcorn movie and it is endlessly re-watchable, even 15 years after it was released. True to most Bruckheimer productions Con Air is loud, crazy, and completely mindless fun during its 123-minute running time.

I’m not even going to give a synopsis. If you haven’t seen this movie, it is a lot of fun and would be a great film for a date night. It has a great cast of extremely talented actors playing extremely colorful characters. Our leading man Cameron Poe (Nicholas Cage), Drug smuggler Joe “Pinball” Parker (Dave Chappelle), serial rapist “Johnny-23” (Danny Trejo), Nathan “Diamond Dog” Jones (Ving Rhames), mass murderer William “Billy Bedlam” Bedford (Nick Chinlund), the Hannibal Lecter wannabe Garland Green, a.k.a. “The Marietta Mangler,” (Steve Buscemi), and the notorious criminal mastermind Cyrus “the Virus” Grissom (John Malkovich). With a cast like that stuck on a plane together for at least half of the film, it has to be good.

Con Air is loud, brash, and over-the-top (did I say that it was over-the-top already?). It’s hard to believe that Michael Bay wasn’t in the director’s chair this time, since it contains many of his trademarks including fast editing, crazy characters, outlandish dialogue, stunning action sequences, explosions, car chases, and shootouts. In reality it was directed by Simon West, (who gave us The Mechanic this year and is currently working on The Expendables 2), in his directing debut. Con Air is one boldly energetic and exciting action flick. I’ve seen the movie well over a dozen times since it first came out in 1997 and it’s never lost its luster or ability to be exciting, brain-dead entertainment. It’s one wild ride that I am a bit ashamed to say that I love to take.

Great Quote: “What if I told you insane was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years at the end of which they tell you to piss off; ending up in some retirement village hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time? Wouldn’t you consider that to be insane?”- Garland Greene (Steve Buscemi)

Do you have a favorite movie that you are ashamed to say you like. Is it so bad it’s good? There were a lot of movies that I could have went with here, but probably because I love John Malkovich and Steve Buscemi, this one took the cake for me. What is your pick? Let me know in the comments below or on Facebook or Twitter. And if you decide to take the 30 Day Movie Challenge, please leave me a link to your quest so I can stalk you.

Day 12 – 30 Day Movie Challenge

A Movie That You Hate


Hate is an emotion that takes energy. I could list dozens of movies here that I didn’t care to see or didn’t enjoy seeing. But a movie that I hate is very rare. I am able to see the bright side of almost anything. Instead, I am going to talk about the only movie that ever made me walk out of the theater, which is Rob Roy. I went to see Rob Roy with my mom, probably because I mistook it for Braveheart (which was actually released almost two full months after this movie). But after only a half an hour, a woman (Jessica Lange) is punched in the stomach, hit in the face and dragged by the hair. She is then put over a table and raped in a very long and quite brutal scene. As a 12-year-old that was enough for me, and I was out of there. On a side note, this is one of the reasons that I love all the tools that are now on the internet so parents can know what objectionable material is in a movie before taking their kids. But this isn’t a movie that I hate, that scene simply dredged up some great emotions in me and that is to the credit of Tim Roth who plays a great villain. He is very good at making everyone in the audience hate him with a passion. This is a movie that I need to watch again because I have always spoken badly of it because of that scene.

Do you have a movie that you simply hate? Have you walked out of the theater? What happened? Let me know your story in the comments below or on Facebook or Twitter.

Day 11 – 30 Day Movie Challenge

A Movie That Changed Your Opinion About Something

I have two films that have changed my ideas about the food industry. It has made me question everything I put in my mouth. These are the Morgan Spurlock McDonald’s experiment, Super Size Me, and Food, Inc. that asks how much we really know about the food we buy in the supermarket. After watching both of these movies, I wanted to move to a big 40 acre farm in Montana where my family and I could grow crops and raise cattle and we could seclude ourselves. Of course, then I got hungry and couldn’t afford to be a vegan, so I settled for a double cheeseburger.

Super Size Me​ had great concept that I wish I was clever enough to think of: Eat nothing but McDonald’s food for 30 days straight… breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He will follow three basic rules: (1) If McDonald’s doesn’t serve it, he can’t eat or drink it. (2) He must Super-Size his meal if asked. (3) He has to eat every item on the menu at least once during his 30 days. He claims to have gotten the idea when he saw a news item about two teenaged girls whose parents were suing McDonald’s for making them obese.
This is an eye-opening and shocking look at the effects of fast food on the body, and it’s more important that ever with 60% of the United States being obese. We are literally eating ourselves to death.
Before he starts his experiment, he visits three doctors and has each of them conduct tests to get a baseline measurement of his health. He actually starts out healthier than average. He weighs about 185 lbs and stands at 6′ 2″. His cholesterol is well under 200 and his body fat is below 10%. The biggest surprise to me was the doctor’s nonchalance about his upcoming experiment. They predict minor effects: triglyceride levels will increase along with cholesterol. This suggests that even in the medical community, people didn’t know that too much easy cheap food is bad for you. Oh, and he won’t be exercising any of that fast food off, during the 30 days he will remain sedentary like most Americans.

During his first lunch, he sat in his vehicle with a Super-Sized Double Quarter Pounder meal. He is shown at 5 minute intervals attempting to complete his meal, which includes a 44 ounce Coke. He’s having a hard time, and at minute 22, loses it and vomits through the window and onto the parking lot. Gladly not every day was like this. By three days in, his mood is much better after his body adjusted to the high fat / high sugar food. Over the 30 days, he stops in for check-ups along the way. Nutritionists are surprised when he puts on about 10 lbs in one week. There are times in the 30 days that he feels palpitations, has trouble breathing, and feels constriction in his chest.
A little over halfway through the month, the doctors finally catch on to the danger and indicate that the side effects are going far beyond what they predicted. His triglycerides and cholesterol are up, but his liver also looks like he has been a heavy drinker all his life. By the end of the 30 days, he’s put on almost 25 lbs, and his body fat has increased from 10% to 18%. In the closing credits, we’re told that it took him 8 weeks to get his liver back to normal and over one year to get down to his previous weight.
Shortly after Super Size Me was released, McDonald’s announced it was going to discontinue its Super Size menu. They of course denied it had anything to do with the film. I would suggest you to buy this one so you can pop it in whenever you get that fast food craving and remind yourself that it is terrible, or you can watch the whole film online or from Hulu.

I consider myself pretty well educated when it comes to nutrition. I mean, I actually read and understand most of the stuff that is put on the nutrition labels. But I was shocked when I watched Food, Inc. and found out that some of those items that I thought were healthy could have been doctored to the point that they harbor franken-bacteria. And if I was this taken aback, I can imagine how many people who don’t take the time to educate themselves would really be stunned if they realized where their food comes from and what the food they are consuming could be doing to their bodies. Most Americans biggest concern about their food is that it is fast, cheap, and tasty. Food, Inc. examines the costs of valuing cost and convenience over nutrition and environmental impact.

Director Robert Kenner explores the profitization of food from all angles. He talks to authors like Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), who happened to co-produce the film, and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma). And he follows the story of farmers like Gary Hirschberg (Stonyfield Farms) and food standards advocates like Barbara Kowalcyk, who has been lobbying for more rigorous procedures since her two-year-old son died from E.Coli found in meat that was recalled 16 days after he had already passed. He takes his camera, much like Upton Sinclair, into slaughterhouses and factory farms where chickens grow too fast to walk properly, cows eat feed pumped with toxic chemicals, and illegal immigrants risk life and limb to bring these products to market at an affordable cost. Kenner presents this expose in such an engaging way that Food, Inc. it is relateable and accessible to the over-scheduled American who doesn’t have the time or income to read every book or to make sure that they aren’t eating eat non-genetically modified produce every day.

Food, Inc. isn’t quite as entertaining as Super Size Me, but I believe it made a bigger impact on me and although I am not as paranoid as the film probably wants me to be, I still think of these films every time I bring the fork to my lips. So how about you? Are there any movies that have changed your mind about something? Perhaps you hated blue people until Avatar showed you that they have a softer side? Let me kno in the comments below or on Twitter or Facebook.