Movies Seen 2011-2012 School Year

Here are all the movies I have watched during my freshman year of college and the ratings I have given them out of 4 stars.

Fright Night - 2.5
The Winning Season - 3
Just Go With It - 0.5
Megamind - 3.5
Source Code - 3
50/50 - 3.5
Thor - 2.5
Limitless - 2.5
Trust - 3.5
The Terminator - 3.5

Blow Dry - 2
Arthur - 2.5
Bad Lieutenant: Call of Port New Orleans - 3
Attack the Block - 3.5
Resident Evil - 1
Win Win - 3
Your Highness - 1
Awakenings - 4
Gnomeo & Juliet - 2
The Change-Up - 1.5

Larry Crowne - 2
Green Lantern - 1.5
Soul Surfer - 2
Monte Carlo - 3
The Visitor - 3.5
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - 2.5
Everything Must Go - 3
Eyes Wide Shut - 3
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol - 3
New Year's Eve - 1.5

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - 3.5
Stone - 2.5
*Any Given Sunday - 3
We Bought a Zoo - 2.5
The Darkest Hour - 1
Aquamarine - 2
Rio - 3.5
Cinema Paradiso - 4
*Amadeus - 4
Patton - 3.5

Young Adult - 3
Hanna - 3
City of God - 4
The Squid and the Whale - 3
Falling Down - 2.5
Pulp Fiction - 4
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close - 2
Haywire - 3
The Majestic - 3
Hero - 3.5

The Descendants - 4
Life Is Beautiful - 4
Drive - 3.5
Cowboys & Aliens - 2
The Tree of Life - 3
The Help - 2.5
Chronicle - 2
Hugo - 2.5
Warrior - 3.5
Real Steel - 2.5

The Artist - 3.5
Moneyball - 3
What's Your Number? - 1.5
Water for Elephants - 3
Project X - 2
The Debt - 3
John Carter - 2.5
The Ides of March - 3
A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas - 2
The Hunger Games - 2.5

21 Jump Street - 3
Take Me Home Tonight - 2
Contagion - 3
Beginners - 4
True Grit - 3
Footloose - 2
Tower Heist - 2.5
In Time - 1.5
Another Earth - 3.5
The Muppets - 3

My Week With Marilyn - 3
Margin Call - 3
The Avengers - 2.5
Analyze That - 2.5
Friends With Benefits - 3.5
The Vow - 2.5

Review of Warrior

3.5/4

I remember watching the trailer for this movie awhile back and thinking that Warrior would just be another cliched sports movie. Now, this movie stars Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton as two brothers competing against each other in a MMA tournament called Sparta. This premise makes Warrior unlike any other sports movie, because there isn't one person or team that you're supposed to root for. These two brothers each have their own reasons for trying to win the $5 million prize. They have their flaws and complicated history, but as viewers, we grow to like them both. Just by simply making the movie about two separate characters breaks down all sports cliches. The first hour or so establishes each character, and we learn that the two brothers have been estranged for a long time due to their father's abusive upbringing. This movie is a true story of forgiveness and redemption. Everybody is seeking forgiveness from each other, and what you get is an emotionally satisfying and gripping movie. The fights are well choreographed, and each characters is an interesting one. I enjoyed all three main actors' performances. Nick Nolte is pretty well-deserved of his Oscar nomination for this movie. We don't see him as much as I would like in the second half, but it's fine. Some might not like the ending, but I found it very satisfying. I really recommend this movie to fans of boxing/fighting movies. I have Warrior in my top 5 favorite movies of 2011. It wouldn't normally be a contender for Best Picture in most years, but I think this movie should have got a nomination over the likes of The Help and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

Review of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

2/4

I only watched Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, because it was nominated for Best Picture this year. I was very surprised, because the movie only has 46% positive reviews at the moment. Apparently, this is the worst reviewed movie to have been nominated for the prestigious award. Interestingly enough, the second lowest rated movie was The Reader at 62%, also directed by Stephen Daldry. The Academy must love this guy or something. I looked at Eric Roth's resume, and I like what I see. He recently wrote The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, one of my favorite movies. Maybe then, the source material was the reason why this movie was pretty unbearable for me. It's usually pretty hard to adapt books. I never read the book, but I definitely dislike that title. For a good amount of the movie, I was looking away or covering my face, because it was just too nauseating to watch. I guess it was the kid, Thomas Horn, who kept making me cringe. There's a lot of screaming in this movie from him, and it's very irritating. I always admit bias, so I'm going to say I have never experienced a close death. I guess I don't know how a person really reacts in that situation. However, other critics have also pointed how the situations the kid is put in seem forced, which I totally agree with. The kid is a very unlikable character. I guess that's the main reason why I find it hard to enjoy the movie. It's hard to feel sorry for him when he's acting all crazy. I really hated it when he cursed at the doorman of his building, who doesn't do anything wrong. The worst is when this child tells his mother that she should have been the one to die. The premise is so strange and silly that I don't really want to follow this character in his journey. He randomly finds a key and decides to walk around all 5 boroughs NYC to find somebody who can be connected to it. Are you kidding me? He's living in a delusion. Another thing, how does he get around without public transportation? NYC is not a small town. I was kind of surprised that Max von Sydow was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. He didn't speak, and I felt like he wasn't in the movie much. He played the most interesting character, but his story wasn't really concluded. The character left before we could find out more about him. The whole story just seemed ridiculous to me. Roger Ebert said it seemed like a fairy tale, and I think that is a perfect description. Another big problem for me is that I feel like the movie exploits the 9/11 tragedy. Does the father dying in the towers really move the story any better? He could have died any other way. A more inexplicable way to die would be some terminal illness like a cancer. You see, a theme of the movie is that some things such as 9/11 can't be explained. I really felt the exploitation when the movie showed images of a man falling or jumping out of the towers. The thing that really drives this exploitation thing home for me is that the kid introduces himself as a son of a 9/11 victim to everybody. Of course, it's going to be sad when a kid constantly brings up that his father died in that awful tragedy. I wanted to give the movie a lower rating, but I can't really say it's a bad movie. To give it less than 2 out of 4 stars would be doing just that. My favorite part of the movie is towards the end with Sandra Bullock. It's too bad she wasn't in the movie more. Tom Hanks was hardly in the movie, too, but I liked him a lot in that role. I liked all the supporting cast, including John Goodman and Viola Davis, a contender for Best Leading Actress this year. I guess I'm saying that I like everybody in the movie, except for the main character, the annoying kid. Maybe, it wasn't a good idea to give a job like this to a kid without any acting experience. The whole movie, including the dialogue and everything about 9/11, seem to have all been done for Oscar bait. It'a hard not to feel for somebody who has been affected by the worst tragedy in history, but even the kid's name is Oskar! Come on, now!

Movies Seen Summer 2011

This is a list of the movies I've seen in 2011 between high school and college. I have also listed my ratings of them. I rate movies out of 4. An asterisk beside a title means that I did not watch the theatrical version of the movie.

Love and Other Drugs - 1.5
Red - 2
I Am Number Four - 1.5
No Strings Attached - 2
Blue Valentine - 3.5
Thor - 3
Unstoppable - 3
Buried - 3.5
The Mechanic - 1.5
Rabbit Hole - 3.5

The Hangover Part II - 1.5
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 - 3
Takers - 0.5
Burlesque - 1
Country Strong - 2.5
Hereafter - 3
The Adjustment Bureau - 3
Mo' Better Blues - 3
Rushmore - 3
Mao's Last Dancer - 3

*Close Encounters of the Third Kind - 4
Trainspotting - 3.5
X-Men: First Class - 3.5
Bridesmaids - 3.5
Kung Fu Panda 2 - 3
Bad Teacher - 2
Somewhere - 3.5
Skyline - 0.5
Scream 4 - 1.5
*Donnie Darko - 3.5

*Independence Day - 2.5
Midnight in Paris - 3.5
Transformer: Dark of the Moon - 1
High Fidelity - 3
Get Low - 3
Battle: Los Angeles - 1.5
Rango - 3
Sucker Punch - 1.5
Bad Santa - 3
Cars 2 - 3

Super 8 - 3
Horrible Bosses - 2.5
The Messenger - 3.5
Salt - 2
That Thing You Do! - 3
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 - 3
Twilight - 1.5
The Good Girl - 3
The Twilight Saga: New Moon - 1.5
Scream - 3

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse - 1.5
The Fountain - 2.5
Captain America: The First Avenger - 2.5
Sliding Doors - 2
The Green Hornet - 1.5
Tangled - 3.5
The Lincoln Lawyer - 3
Better Luck Tomorrow - 3.5
Barney's Version - 3
Short Cuts - 3

Black Swan - 3.5
Scream 2 - 2.5
Witness - 3
*Repo Men - 1.5
Step Up 3D - 1.5
Crazy, Stupid, Love - 3
Friends With Benefits - 3.5
Heat - 4
Field of Dreams - 3.5
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - 4

Glengarry Glen Ross - 4
I Love You Philip Morris - 3.5
Blow Out - 3.5
Scary Movie - 1.5
The Bone Collector - 3
Vampires Suck - 0.5
Into the Wild - 3.5
The Ghost Writer - 3
Moulin Rouge! - 3.5
Good Hair - 3

The Next Three Days - 2.5
The Rookie - 2
Blow - 2.5
Rise of the Planet of the Apes - 3
30 Minutes or Less - 1.5
A Bronx Tale - 3
Barton Fink - 3.5
Cedar Rapids - 3
Unknown - 2

Movies Seen Summer 2010

I have watched 160 movies in total from June 25, 2010 to September 30, 2010.

Review of Love Actually

3.5/4

Love Actually is a 2003 British romantic comedy film with an ensemble cast. There has been several movies with a similar kind of deal like Valentine's Day and He's Just Not That Into You. However, the movie that started it all still reigns as the king of romantic comedies for me. I can proudly say that I have seen this movie many times since I was a kid, because it is one of my favorite movies of all time. This must be my fourth or fifth time seeing this movie. Every time I see this film, my heart melts. Now, I know that this review is starting to sound pretty gay. There were so many parts in Love Actually when I got goosebumps. When I watch a movie and get goosebumps, that means that the emotion in the scene was too overwhelming for me. There isn't any other romantic comedy that I can think of that gave me goosebumps. There may have been some, but I have seen so many bad and mediocre romances that I'm starting to get sick of romantic movies. Most romantic movies nowadays are forgettable so-called chick flicks that don't seem to know much about love. Here we have Love Actually, a movie with ten separate but somewhat intertwined stories that each concern a different aspect of love. I don't want to get into much detail, because there are a lot of stories. Most of the actors did very well in their parts and had great chemistry in each storyline. Also, the score and soundtrack are phenomenal. However, this film is not perfect. It suffers some of the same problems with Valentine's Day but not as drastic. There were just too many storylines in Love Actually, and one or two good ones didn't get enough attention. There are three storylines that should've been cut: the one with the two stand-ins for sex scenes, the one with the woman too shy to ask her coworker out, and the one with the guy going to America to get laid. The last one mentioned was only added in to give some humor to the British at the expense of Americans, I think. None of these three storylines were very interesting and had any notable performances. Thankfully, they were all extremely short, but together, they took too much screen time from the great actors and storylines. Also, there was some bad dialogue in this movie, mostly in the beginning and the three not so good storylines I mentioned. Despite these flaws, I gave Love Actually a perfect rating. All film critics have a movie that they hold very dear to their hearts. Love Actually is an excellent romantic comedy and remains to be my favorite romance. In fact, I consider it to be in my top ten favorite movies of all time, and there isn't any other romantic film that comes close to my top ten favorites. There was just so much emotion throughout the movie with the different storylines. I'm even going to admit that I almost cried at the end and teared a little. I really hope that one day there are going to be more romantic movies like Love Actually being made. There have been some other very good ones, but none that can compete to Love Actually in my mind.

Review of 2001: A Space Odyssey

4/4

2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 science fiction movie directed by Stanley Kubrick. It has been considered by almost all film critics as a leading contender for the greatest movie of all time. It consistently makes the top ten, at most top twenty, in lists of the greatest films ever. I have heard about this film many times, but I refused to see it for a long time. I have always tried to avoid watching movies made earlier than the 80s, and I still do. However, I am very glad that I took the time to watch this wonderful movie, and I regret that I have not done so before. However, I probably would not have appreciated this film at a younger age, because this movie is not for the simple minded. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a movie that makes us think about who we are as human beings, who we've become and who we might become. Somehow, it manages to do this with minimal dialogue. Now, I get bored easily while watching movies. There are tons of movies that I have sat through, wishing to myself for the movie to end, as well as several that I have turned off out of sheer boredom. As I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey, I kept wondering to myself why I wasn't getting bored. The reason is that this movie is the most beautiful movie I have ever seen in my life. Each sequence has been expertly crafted by Kubrick to inspire awe into the viewer. It is amazing how these images were so well done in the 60s. These images are so well done that I feel that they stand up to the likes of Avatar, the new technical achievement of the 21st century. Ironically, Avatar's director, James Cameron, was inspired to make movies from watching 2001: A Space Odyssey as a kid. Avatar immerses the viewer in a huge, exotic world, while 2001: A Space Odyssey captures the viewer in simple, wondrous images. What makes the images truly powerful is the music. Kubrick's selection of music is fantastic and has made several sequences very memorable. The Blue Danube is forever associated with images of things floating in movies, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra is forever associated with somebody doing something big in movies. The impact that 2001: A Space Odyssey has made in film is tremendous, and you may not even know it. 2001: A Space Odyssey continues to be referenced in many movies and TV shows to this day. Check out the IMDb page for the several hundred movies and TV shows it is referenced in.

Link:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/movieconnections

It has inspired many great filmmakers like George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, as well as Steven Spielberg, director of countless films such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Jurassic Park. It completely changed the way how filmmakers thought about making movies and inspired them to make very creative films. I don't even want to imagine how different films would be without 2001: A Space Odyssey. 2001: A Space Odyssey has greatly influenced the world of film, because the fact of the matter is that 2001: A Space Odyssey is truly a masterpiece.