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October 28, 2010

Life As We Know It

Life As We Know It tells the story of a single man and woman that discover they have been chosen to be the guardian for their mutual friends' baby daughter. This is very easily one of the popular movies as I would call it. There is no life changing story line or award worthy acting, but I was surprised at how good this movie was. Movies like this one tend to be highly predictable and completely cliche. This one was pretty cliche, but I was surprised that it wasn't as predictable as others. Katherine Heigl's films tend to fit into this highly predictable category, so I am glad this one branched out a tiny bit. I say a tiny bit, because Heigl's character is the same as many other characters she has played. Alternatively, her co-star Josh Duhamel continues to impress me. I have always wondered how he is not the male lead in every female-oriented, date night movie made right now. He is gorgeous; therefore, I assumed he had very poor acting skills. The opposite was seen in this movie. He appears to have a range of abilities as he showed many different sides of the same character in this movie.

Overall, this is the perfect date night movie. The story has a unique twist to it. The acting is good and the writing provides just the right amount of humor. The underlying message that life doesn't always happen the way you imagined is always a good reminder (and up-lifter in my opinion). If you are going to the movies, this one would be a great choice, especially if you have someone special to go with you.

October 18, 2010

Catfish

Intriguing, unusual, and sad. That is the only way I can describe this film. This is a documentary about a guy who starts an online relationship with  a family of artists. As you would predict, things are not quite as they seem. The idea that you can't believe everything you see on facebook or the internet is not a shock, but the extreme that this story reaches is rather surprising. 

Intriguing- Throughout the entire film you know that something big and shocking is coming, but you never know quite what it's going to be.  The trailer shows this film as a real-life horror flick. This is completely inaccurate. There was not point during this movie that I thought a mass murderer with a meat cleaver was going to appear.

Unusual- At it's core this film is very odd. The story as a whole makes you wonder what kind of people would act in such an crazy way. The relationship between the main character and the family is weird. The film makers seem to have an odd desire to push their colleague to do out of the ordinary things. Throughout the entire film you are wondering what the real story is with this internet family. It is all just very unusual.

Sad-The reality of the film does come out when the whole story is revealed at the end. The result is very surprising but also very depressing. It's almost sad to watch as the extent of the falsities are discovered.

Overall, this is a weird movie. Most people I know do not like weird movies. I thought it was interesting and don't regret paying for the ticket but I wouldn't recommend most people to see this film in theaters. If you are a nut who really enjoys the quirky, odd-ball films, then get yourself to the nearest theater tonight! Otherwise, you have to determine your personal level of interest, at best I would recommend it as a rental.

October 9, 2010

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

This movie tells the story of a young trader on Wall Street getting involved with a veteran recently out of prison. The story overall is interesting and the cast portrays it well. But it was boring. The Wall Street insights, jargon, and conversations didn't help with this, because I have no interest in these topics. It was more than just these scenes that lacked my interest though. The Wall Street story line was intermixed with an "emotional" deadbeat dad/heartbroken daughter drama story line. This felt very forced though. It was as if the writers included this story line just to appeal to a greater audience or add some depth, but it didn't accomplish either. On top of that this movie felt very long. I would have guessed it was four hours when in reality it was only two.

Don't miss the last five minutes of this film. Because the writers decided they didn't want you to leave disliking Michael Douglas's character. They made an attempt to reconcile what seems like an ended relationship, but they did it in a way that was completely unrealistic for this character. It ended up being a last minute attempt to create a happy ending. Maybe they had a time limit and didn't have time to wrap up the both story lines. I guess the emotional father/daughter drama got the short end of the stick.

If you have an interest in Wall Street and stock market trading, you might enjoy this movie. Overall, it wasn't terrible. But at best I would recommend it as a Redbox/Netflix option (if nothing better is available). There's no need to rush out to see it now or spend the extra money on a theater ticket.

October 7, 2010

The Social Network


Before seeing this film, I knew this was an amazing story that was current and exciting; therefore, I had very high hopes for this film. It had to be done perfectly. Luckily, it was! There were two areas that stood out most. First, Jesse Eisenberg is perfect for the role of Mark Zuckerberg and the writing for this character was flawless. Many critics have noted that this character is socially awkward and ends up being some-what unlikable. This is portrayed in the movie, but the writer puts the perfect spin so that you like the unlikeable character. You are rooting for him while also waiting for him to fail (especially since most people know Zuckerberg had to pay for his actions in the end). This should be the goal of every writer for the antagonist, which was met perfectly in this film through Eisenberg’s portrayal of the character. Second, the productions perfectly created seamless transitions between the “present” scenes showing the legal depositions and the events that are being discussed in said depositions. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this done in a way that requires no identification, no pause in events, and no explanation. It flows perfectly in a way that makes you even more intrigued. The legal scenes set you up to ask questions about the events that caused them. Then the cycle continues to keep you on your toes.

This film gave an amazing portrayal of a story that is so current everyone can relate to it. Facebook is such a major part of current pop culture that it almost feels unreal to be seeing the story on screen already. This alone made this film extraordinary!

Overall, the film used the perfect actors to tell an extraordinary story that is unbelievably current. That sounds like a recipe for success to me! I would recommend this film to anyone and everyone. It has suspense yet evokes so much emotion. It is a story for the ages that just happens to be set in the current age.