Man on Wire

This weekend I watched an amazing movie. Man on Wire won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, and I believed that it deserved it. It was an interesting film that was amazing and captivating. I often found myself thinking and saying out loud “wow.”

I thought “wow” a lot when Philippe Petit (the man this documentary is about) was talking about his passion. Wire walking is a unique hobby, and he has perfected this skill. He was 16 when he first learned about the World Trade Centers and that is when his dream began. So he started to build his reputation. He put a wire between the two towers of Notre Dame, and he put a wire between the two towers of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. He successfully walked in each of these places and he successfully brought attention to himself and people liked him. So then he put his dream into motion. He had dreamt of walking between the Trade Centers and now he was actually making this a possibility. His dream was tangible, and he was about to achieve it.

Most often when I said “wow” out loud was when Philippewas actually walking on his wire. This man is completely amazing. The movie is about his quest to string a wire between the World Trade Centers and walk between them, without any harnesses or safety equipment. He literally was balancing a quarter of a mile above the earth on a rope that was less than one inch thick. I was completely shocked that anybody in their right mind would put themselves in that kind of situation. But, when I look at the big picture, Philippe’s life story and his childhood, I realize that this is not a normal person. He is a wirewalker. This is somebody that walks on tightropes stretched out between two points (trees, buildings, et cetera) and performs for a crowd. He can lie down, walk backward, do summersaults, and juggle while he is on the wire. This kind of person has a sense of balance unlike anything else. There is some home footage in the movie of Phillip practicing wire walking, and his friends are jumping up and down on the wire and pulling it and doing anything they can to make him fall off. But he doesn’t. He stays on the wire and walks from end to end with the wire bouncing and shaking and swaying. The concentration on his face is intense. His face is a stone mask and nothing can be done to disrupt him. He is a man that belongs on a wire.

Two Great Movies

This past week was my spring break (which may have been noticed by my lack of posts, or not because that is not an unusual occurrence). Spring break means two things: 1- spring weather is approaching, even though the snow hides that fact, and 2- there is a little extra time to watch movies. So this past week I had the opportunity to watch a couple of very good movies.

In Bruges and Let the Right One In are the two best movies that I have seen recently. Both easily make it into my top 10 favorite movies of all time, and come very close to the top five. This is not an easy task, but these movies deserve it with every ounce of sincerity that I have.

In Bruges is a very dark, very funny movie. It is about two Irish hit men who are sent to Bruges, Belgium because the younger one made a mistake and killed a little boy. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson (the two hit men) perform beautifully together and have the special connection that portrays to the audience the emotion going through their minds. This movie was unexpectedly funny, but not the Anchorman/Zoolander funny, it was dark and witty. The dialogue was incredible, and the Irish accents gave it just the right sound to make me laugh harder to it than to a movie like Anchorman (which is one of my favorite comedies of all time). This movie also took many unexpected twists. In the beginning, the audience gets a general idea for the movie and a mood is set that has humor, but remorse (he kills a little boy, come on). But after a while I started to realize (with the hints that were given along the way) that there were two hit men for a reason. I’m not going to spoil the ending, but I would recommend that you view this film sooner rather than later, you are really missing something if you don’t.

The next movie that I watched was absolutely amazing. Let the Right One In is a low budget, non-Hollywood (key), Swedish film. Doesn’t really sound promising, and just to add to that, it’s about a 12-year boy and the young girl vampire he meets. Great, right? It truly was. I was completely and utterly impressed by this movie. There was something about the innocence of the relationship, and the caring for one another that drew me in and never let go. I came in skeptical, but left dazzled. I’m not sure what else to say about this movie, it’s hard to explain and doesn’t sound very good when I try. But trust me, this film is worth seeing. Just a side note, if you get this on DVD, watch with the English subtitles, not dubbed. When it’s dubbed, the acting loses all of its emotion. Don’t be lazy, and just read what they are saying to get the full effect intended.

Christmas Movies

I haven’t seen any movies recently. It’s really a shame. I just haven’t had the time with basketball and homework that teachers decided to load up on before Christmas break. But I plan on watching plenty on my 5 days off from basketball and the rest of the break. My mom will want to watch the old classics that have become a “tradition” in our house. Which brings up the topic of holiday movies.

Good holiday movies are becoming more rare as years pass. They are becoming clichéd with ideas being repeated. I have not seen a holiday movie in the last two or three years that has been decent. The most recent movie that I enjoyed a lot was Elf. Will Ferrell was great in this movie. This idea was original and very creative. Any time somebody is raised by elves and thinks that he is in elf even though he is 6 foot 6, turns out to be interesting. This was a funny movie, but had its sincere moments too. If you have not seen this film, I would highly recommend it during the holiday season that everybody in the family will enjoy.

When I talk about classic Christmas movies, I am talking about two in particular: It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story. These are the two best Christmas films ever made and I do not think that there will be any more like them. I have grown up in an era of bad movies and even worse morals, but I realize how good of a film It’s a Wonderful Life is. Even though it is black and white (that was the beginning of my protest before the first time my parents showed this to me), it still is a, I hate to say it, wonderful film. Jimmy Stewart plays a man who never does a thing for himself and ends up breaking down, but a guardian angle, Clarence, comes down and shows him how the world could have been different without him. This opens up his eyes and he comes to realize that he loves his life. (That might have been the worst explanation of any movie, ever, so just watch it and you will realize that it really is a good movie.)

A Christmas Story is my personal favorite. It is funny and interesting and is an overall good movie. Ralphy really wants a BB gun (its more than just a plain old BB gun though) for Christmas but everybody tells him, “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid.” This movie is the trials that he and his family face leading up to Christmas, and the struggles he goes through in order to get this gun. Once again, you will have to take my word that this is a horrible explanation and, once again, have to take my word that the movie is actually good. 

Sometimes I Crave A Good Movie

Sometimes I crave a good movie. Its one of those things that every now and then I just want to sit down and watch a movie that when I walk away, I’m pleased. I’m pleased because it made me laugh, or it made me sad, or it made me sit on the edge of my seat with my heart racing. But most of all it has to make me think. Not think about how much of a waste of time it was or how it could have been completely different, which would have made it better. I want to think about the people in the movie. I say people because I want to feel that the characters are real humans, not some fabricated segment of somebody’s mind. I want to think about the decisions that these people made, I want to think about how they could have affected the outcome. Movies that leave me with different emotions and thoughts are good movies. I know then that I did not waste my time.

Sometimes I crave a good movie. I might be sitting in Spanish class thinking about nothing in particular and then the thought about wasting my time runs across my mind. I think about all the ways that I could possible be wasting my time: watching TV, reading, cleaning my room, the rest of the day at school, watching a movie…

When the thought of watching a movie wanders through, I pause, and think about some of the movies that I have just thought “why am I watching this?” But I also think about the movies that have not been a waste of my time. I think about Little Miss Sunshine, about Donny Darko, about Memento, about Son of Rambow, and about many more. I think about ways that I could possible sneak out of Spanish and get into some comfortable clothes and sit in my basement and watch these movies the rest of the day. If only.

Sometimes I crave a good movie. But sometimes all I have is 45 minutes. So sometimes I settle with the Nothing But Trailers show. This show is non-stop movie trailers and I love it almost as much as I love movies. I love it because I see new movies that aren’t out yet, and I also get to see trailers of movies that are classics and movies I have already seen. This was where I saw the original trailer for The Shining. It creeped me out so much, I couldn’t not watch the movie. I can say that I was pleased because The Shining made me think.

Sports Movies

Sports and movies. Those are the two topics that I said I would try to be consistent on writing about on my blog. These are two topics that I know a little about and that I am fairly interested in. So why not combine the two, and write about sports movies? Good idea, right?

Sports movies may be one of the hardest genres of movies to make. It is difficult to make them realistic, intriguing, and not cheesy. Most sports movies are feel good movies with the underdog winning in the end. There are a few good movies like that (Hoosiers most notability), but most are just follow the generic template of setting up the underdog story then showing them win. A lot of these feel good sports movies come from Disney. So when I sit down to watch a sports movie and I see the Disney castle come to the screen, I already have a biased view before the movie even starts.

Even with some of the most average or worst movies having the sports theme, some of the best movies ever produced revolve around sports. Sometimes these movies are feel good, they just have a different way of getting to that point, and some of the time these movies do not end with the “good guy” or main character coming out on top. These movies are especially moving because we are so used to seeing the underdog win, that when he doesn’t, it is unexpected and, I feel, appreciated more.

The two sports movies that stick out in my mind where the main character (or team) doesn’t win are Friday Night Lights and Raging Bull. Friday Night Lights is a good football movie that is fairly realistic for southern high school football. They main team gets to the championship but they fail to score a final touchdown and their season ends. I thought that this was a good movie and I was pleased when I walked away.

Raging Bull is one of the best overall films ever made. It is a tragic story of Jake LaMatta, the middle weight champion boxer of the 1940’s and 50’s. The movie is the struggles he faces in his life and in the end he basically loses everything. The end is dark because you had seen this champion on the top of his game with a great life in the beginning of the movie, but you see him as a bum with nothing, not even his champion belt, in the end.

So I have been talking about some of the best sports movies, but I have not mentioned all of them. So here are my favorite movies by sport:
Football- Remember the Titans
Basketball- Hoosiers
Baseball- Tie between Bull Durham and Field of Dreams
Golf- Caddyshack
Boxing- Raging Bull

My Relaxing Weekend

This past weekend was a nice relaxing weekend for me. I’m going to enjoy it while I can because basketball starts in a week, consuming everyday with almost no time to breath. Fun right?

I brought up this because on my nice relaxing weekends I have nothing better to do then to watch movies. I think that I watch a lot of movies, and most of that movie watching comes on weekends. My dad says how I need to be “movie educated” and watch all of the good old ones. I agree. I think that to understand and enjoy a good movie, you have to know what you are looking for.

Last weekend I watched The Shining (it was close enough to Halloween). The classic horror movie with Jack Nicholson and Shelly Duval in which Jack becomes the caretaker of some far off hotel for the 5 month winter and goes crazy. The original trailer for this movie is the elevator doors with the blood running through them. That’s all. After I saw this trailer, I couldn’t not see the movie, I was intrigued. I could not have pictured anybody but Jack Nicholson in that role; he plays the best crazy person, just watch One Flew Over the Coo Coo’s Nest. It is hard to explain why, but some parts are just plain creepy and make you never want to be with JUST your family again. There is just one last think I need to say about this movie, “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” was running through my mind, like it was running through the typewriter, for the at least week.

The movie that I saw this weekend was Apocalypse Now. Martin Sheen in the Vietnam War going up a river to kill an American officer gone crazy. It has many famous actors around Sheen, including Marlon Brando, Robert Duval, Dennis Hopper, and a 17-year-old Lawrence (“Larry”) Fishburne. I have seen my share of war movies, and I think this does one of the best jobs of showing the thought process going though soldier’s minds during the war. Insane. That’s all. It shows how war basically makes men go crazy. Robert Duval, as a commander early on in the movie, who wants to surf while an attack is taking place, and Lawrence Fishburne opening fire on a woman who just wants to save her puppy. These are small instances of insanity, but they are evident as you watch the movie, we see the characters go through the transformation from sane to crazy. There are two acts to the movie, and I liked the first act better. I think it was because there was more action going on, and the second act was just weird, it was when the craziness really showed its true colors. But the movie was really good overall, and it left me thinking, which is what I look for in a movie. 

5 Movies I Would Bring to a Deserted Island

  So I was sitting here trying to think of what to write about (I have a feeling this wont be the last time) and I was pretty stuck. So I jokingly asked my dad what I should write about because he asked what I was doing just sitting at the computer. His response was perfect. He told me to write about the five movies I would bring to a deserted island. I figured that since I wanted to write about movies on this blog, this was actually a fairly good idea. So here you go, the five movies I would bring with me to a deserted island. Note that these may not be my top favorite movies, just movies that I am thinking would be good on a desolate island.

1- Little Miss Sunshine. This is a great movie that is touching and heart warming. Every time I watch it, it gets better and better. The cast is perfect and work great together. The little girl (I don’t know her name, but she is Olive in the movie) I so sweet and innocent that I can’t not smile when I watch her do the stuff that she wants to do. The last scene is classic, I don’t want to give away the ending, but I must say that they are awesome dancers!

2- Castaway. I would bring this movie just to see how to be lonely. I think Tom Hanks is really good, and that supporting cast makes him look outstanding. If I was stranded on a deserted island, that is how I would learn to do all the stuff needed to survive.

3- Anchorman. I know I would need a good laugh eventually, and who better to deliver the performance then Will Ferrell as a newscaster? This has one of the best scenes out of any movie I have seen, the street fight. I’ll just leave it at that there is a bunch of guys from competing channels, fighting in a back ally, with homemade weapons.

4- Rocky (the first one). After I watch this movie, I want to go out and run a marathon. It just gets me pumped up. I think I would need that motivation if I were all by myself on a deserted island. It just goes to show that you can surmount insurmountable odds and come out on top.

5- Raising Arizona. Once again, this is just a great movie. There really isn’t a reason for bringing it, other then that it’s a classic. This has one of my favorite characters of all time in it. The bounty hunter. I don’t know his name, but he is just a big, mean, tough, grizzly bear of a man that is terrorizing Nicholas Cage throughout the movie. The scene where they meet in the end is just great. It’s just plain and simple with no background distraction (like music) and optimizes the way the movie was made. It’s a well written, well acted, and overall good movie. 

Movies

What is the funniest movie you have ever seen? What is the scariest? The saddest? The best? For me, it’s any that makes me think. Picking one movie to be the best is almost impossible. You can have more than one favorite movie, that not against the law. Unless there is just one movie that blows you away and you can’t stop thinking about it, it’s perfectly fine to have a list of your favorite movies. I think it’s almost a bad thing to pick a single movie as the best.

Making a decent movie is a daunting task. To be successful is very hard. This is because different people define being successful differently. To one person, successful may mean you make a movie that attempts to offend nobody. But to another person, successful may mean to make a movie that points out the flaws in society, offending a lot of people. I think that for a filmmaker to be successful, he needs to make the movie that he pictures in his head, and not let anybody change what he envisions.

Now back to favorite movies. Like I said before, I have not a single favorite movie, but a list of the top movies I have seen. All of these top movies are ones that make me think. After the movie is over, I’m thinking to myself about how it could have turned if this had happened or how it could have been different if the character chose to do this instead of that. A good movie leaves me feeling like I haven’t seen enough and I don’t want it to be over. I never can get enough of a good movie.

Now I’m going to start something. At the end of each post I will try to include a YouTube video to search for. I have that nifty little search YouTube thing on the side of my blog and I want to put it to good use. So here is the first one: Search “afro ninja” (its only on my mind because we were watching it in class today. I’m not even saying its that good, its just for a quick laugh).