1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die - As seen in October 2011
1) The Breakfast Club (1985 - John Hughes) 8/10 - A previous, personal favorite that held up when being viewed for this journey.
2) Bonnie and Clyde (1967 - Arthur Penn) 6/10 - Certain scenes and performances worked really well, but the overall picture just isn't worthy of the accolades that it gets showered with.
3) Festen (1998 - Thomas Vinterberg) 8/10
4) Splendor in the Grass (1961 - Elia Kazan) 5.5/10 - In retrospect, this one barely gets a recognition of average. The performances are solid, but the movie itself is very forgettable.
5) The Shop on Main Street (1965 - Kadar, Klos) 9.5/10 - There's something stopping me from giving it a full out '10', but I'm not sure what. Nonetheless, I'm almost sure it will make an appearance on the next TOP 20.
6) The Evil Dead (1982 - Sam Raimi) 6.5/10
7) One-Eyed Jacks (1961 - Marlon Brando) 6/10
8) The Blair Witch Project (1999 - Myrick, Sanchez) 10/10 - Not backing down on my rating!
9) Reversal of Fortune (1990 - Barbet Schroeder) 7/10 - The type of movie you'd expect to garner Academy Award noms. Technically solid, great performances and hey, I even learned something about a landmark court case that I previously knew nothing about.
10) Scorpio Rising (1964 - Kenneth Anger) 1/10
11) David Holzman's Diary (1968 - Jim McBride) 7/10 - It stuck with me for the remainder of the month, so I had to inch it up at least a half a notch.
12) Rosemary's Baby (1968 - Roman Polanski) - 8/10
13) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 - Don Siegel) 6.5/10 - Can definitely see the appeal of the film and understand it's inclusion, it just didn't appeal to me as much as it did to others.
14) The Exorcist (1973 - William Friedkin) 7.5/10
NON-1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die - As seen in October 2011
1) Everything Must Go (2010 - Dan Rush) 5/10 - I’d wanted to see this film ever since I saw the trailer for it and thought it looked really good. I was also excited to see Will Ferrell tackle a more serious role. As far as Ferrell himself goes, I would say that his go at a serious film was a partial success. It’s not that he really did a bad job, it’s just that, in my opinion, he didn’t transform enough to really get over with me as a serious actor. When I watch “Punch Drunk Love”, Adam Sandler does a good enough job to make me totally forget about “Billy Madison” and “Happy Gilmore”. When I watch “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” or “The Truman Show”, Jim Carrey does a good enough job to make me totally forget about “Ace Ventura” or “The Cable Guy”. However, in Ferrell’s case, as I was watching “Everything Must Go”, I just couldn’t erase the images of “Anchorman” or “Elf” and therefore it just wasn’t AS enjoyable. As for the film itself, it was a little too cliché for my tastes. In fact, it was more than just a little cliché. Here we’re handed a story that we’ve all seen a thousand times before – “By gosh, this guy’s just having a rough go of things, but dammit if he’s not gonna’ grab life by the horns and make lemonade out of lemons”. It’s a story that has been committed to celluloid more times than I care to count and here we are again, traveling down the same road. Toss in the added plotlines of making the main character an alchoholic, having him befriend a kid and giving him a female interest to play off of and you’ve got yourself something that every Hollywood executive would be proud of. It wasn’t a total loss and actually for the most part it was fairly solid, but I’ll warn you, you’ve seen this film before in other incarnations.
EDIT - My original rating for "Everything Must Go" was a '6.5/10', but in retrospect, it was very forgettable and very plain.
2) Jack Goes Boating (2010 - Philip Seymour Hoffman) 6.5/10 - **SPOILER ALERT**
With not enough energy last night to devote my attention to a movie from THE BOOK, I turned to the streaming portion of Netflix to check out Philip Seymour Hoffman’s directorial debut, “Jack Goes Boating”. After watching this film, I had the thought, that if I’d seen this movie five years ago, I’d have loved it. It seems like it’s something that would’ve appealed to me back then, but with my filmic palate growing and having seen more and more movies over the years, I’m starting to get more picky and thus, “Jack Goes Boating” didn’t do THAT much for me. Sure it had it’s moments and Hoffman’s acting was fine, as usual. It just wasn’t all that structurally sound, if you ask me. In the film, Jack (Hoffman), a very mild-mannered, extrememly shy man, working for his uncle, is set up with Connie (Amy Ryan), another fairly shy person. The duo were made for each other and while walking in the winter snow of New York City, they make a future date to go boating together. In the end, Jack and Connie witness the demise of their friends’ relationship, a married man and woman, something that you’d think would turn these two emotionally void people against the idea of making a go at a relationship. There were some scenes that made me cringe. This film had trouble deciding if it wanted to be a melancholy or happy affair. The music, atmosphere and situations seemed to indicate melancholia, while certain scenes, like when Jack locks himself in the bathroom after burning the meal he was preparing and being lured out by his three singing guests, seemed far too peppy for a movie like this and really, actually made me cringe. I did like the idea of having the character of Jack be very childlike, being taken care of by his friends (the married couple). His friend Clyde (John Ortiz), was almost like a father to him (and oddly enough, we never hear of Jack’s father in the entire picture), teaching him how to swim and hooking him up with a culinary instructor. In the end, Jack is waved off, ready to face the world without being looked after by his friends, but turns to wave back at the man who has basically taken care of him in his adult life. “Jack Goes Boating” may be something I need to revisit again someday and my opinions of it seemed to be still forming even as I write this, but for now, call it a “just above average” night at the movies.
November 1, 2011 11:21pm
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