A Thousand Words

    On the internet, I saw a lot of bad reviews for this particular movie. They said it was done before. You know, I see a lot of reviews like that. People saying they hate the movie because it was like other movies they have seen. I guess Solomon in Ecclesiastes was right; "There is nothing new under the sun."

  Well, despite what critics have said, I can positively report that the plot of this movie was new to me. I haven't seen anything quite like it before. Eddie Murphy plays a guy who finds out he will die when all the leaves fall off this magical tree in his back yard. Every time he speaks a leave falls off the tree. Eddie is basically trying to not talk in much of this movie for this reason. The comedy part is the silly ways he tries to live his life without talking.

 "It was not realistic!!!" Another common criticism of movies, (And of this one.) a criticism that I make sometimes too. But realism is not what this movie was aiming for. It had a fairy tale like aspect. Disney could have done this movie in cartoon version. They would just have had to change a few of the main characters to a prince and a princess and they would have been set.

   I liked the feel and vibe of the movie. I liked the moral of the movie, and the message it conveyed. It was not only a silly comedy, but it was trying to tell us some moral and message. It was well executed. I liked the main characters and the side characters. They were fun to watch.

   People say this movie is stupid, no good. But, I like the fairy tale, clean, moral atmosphere it created. I enjoyed it. Only thing that I can think of is that I was a little bored in a middle part of the movie. Not too many things can be perfect.

The Accidental Tourist (the movie)

     This movie is from the 80s! I grew up seeing the book, the Accidental Tourist on the bookshelf at my parent's house. My dad read a lot of books by the author Anne Tyler, who of course, wrote The Accidental Tourist. I haven't read the books. But, I watched the movie! I really did like this movie a lot.
     I might read the book that was written in 1985. It won a Pulitzer, and other awards. The movie was made just a few years later in 1988. I love the eighties. I don't know what it is, but even eighties movies, have something special about them. 


     I really ragged on the movie Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. If you read my recent review of that movie, you would know I don't particularly care for it. I bring up that movie because it was hysterically and painfully, grasping at straws trying to show exactly what this movie, The Accidental Tourist showed, with much more realism, grace, finesse. This movie rung much truer to me. It did exactly what Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close tried to do and failed; to show the pain and remorse of the loss of a loved one, and how they found a way to heal from it. 


   Sorry the to the people who made Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: You don't have to show someone crying and screaming and having tantrums and write the most ridiculous inconceivable plot, and have the most obnoxious main character to convey the pain of death and coping with the loss. 


   What this movie did was show pain and coping with it in a much realer, realistic, reasonable, way that really resonated with me and spoke deeply to what is true to me and in my own life. At least to me. It was well written, and acted. I really enjoyed this movie. 

The Vow

    My boss at work said that this movie was good. I decided  to check it out. I don't have any really strong opinions about this movie. I can't say it was good or bad, or if I liked it or not. Sorry, lame review I have got going. Don't have the magic movie reviewing mojo going on.

   This movie is really loosely based on a true story. When I looked up the true story, the plot seemed more interesting than this movie. I wondered why they didn't stay truer to the real life story it was based on. The movie is about a husband and a wife that get into a car accident. The wife looses her short term memory and can't remember ever even being married to her husband. She doesn't remember her husband, or that she is married. She is very apprehensive about going home with this strange man when she wakes up from her coma.

   The movie is about the husband fighting to keep their marriage together, when his wife frankly doesn't even seem interested in him any more.

   In a way, come to think of it, I did like this movie because I found it to be very interesting, and not for what it is at face value. Though this is a romance movie, or a testimony to keeping the faith in marriage in love, I was much more interested in the other facets of this movie, that didn't even have to do with the boy girl relationship.

   This women was a completely different person five years ago. She forgot the last five years of her life, and waking up to the decisions she made in the last five years were a true shock to her. She didn't know or understand the person she had become. She wasn't even sure liked her new self. She wanted to go back to her old life altogether. Seeing her go back to her college friends, and spending time with her family, it really was like a whole different society and standing from the new life she made for herself. 


   Other than her self exploration, I found her relationship with her family and rebuilding that even more interesting than the relationship with her husband as well. She hasn't spoken to her parents and siblings in years. When she wakes up in the hospital, she is shocked when she figures this out. She realizes her husband and her parents never met. She doesn't believe that he is her husband. She questions him, if you were really my husband, why haven't you met my parents? This was a big part of the story line. 

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

I know that I am supposed to feel very touched by a movie about a kid coming to terms with the loss of his father. I know that I am supposed to feel very sympathetic and open minded for the main character, who has Aspergers Syndrome.

I saw a lot of very positive reviews for this movie. They praised how emotional the movie was, and how good the acting was, and how it shows people overcoming death and moving on. I thought the acting was bad, I have seen better on ABC family TV Shows! I'm serious. I don't know why so many people said the acting was good. What?!

 As for the main character, the little boy, I am empathetic, and open minded usually, but I had trouble feeling that way towards him. I just couldn't stand him. He was annoying, bizarre, strange, and very smart, but super dumb. He was also very rude and obnoxious. He was in almost every scene. He was the MAIN, MAIN character, and I just couldn't take it. He drove me up the wall. The kid didn't strike me as having a syndrome, or a "problem." He just was really, really, weird to me. He seemed like a normal kid that decided to be weird, rather than someone that had a real issue. In a number of reviews, people said "I have a kid with aspergers," and his acting really accurately portrayed the syndrome. If you say so.

I couldn't wrap my mind around the plot. It was just too stupid to make me even care about what was happening. I was super bored, and felt no sense of expectation or curiosity as to what would happen. It was so implausible and ridiculous. How could a boy of that age think that there was a sixth borough of New York City? How could he think that by visiting everyone in New York with the last name Black, he would find out what the key in his father's closet opened? Rhetorical questions. What was really dumb and unrealistic is that he did find a person, with the last name Black, which solved the mystery as to what the key was for. In real life, good luck with that. Someone writes the word black on a tiny envelope with a key in it. You visit hundreds of people named Black. Bingo. Make me vomit!

 Then, in the end, to paraphrase he said, "My father is never coming back, and I have to move on, and be okay with it. My father would be proud of me moving on." Huh?! Never coming back? Don't believe in Heaven? No wonder it's a year after the kid's father died, and he is still having a breakdown.

 It's just so odd that a mom would let her young boy, what he looked ten, but could have been older, go around everywhere by himself. In the end of the movie, it shows that she visited all the Blacks, before her son did, to check them out to see if they were okay. Really!! No one has that kind of time. She works full time. Just ehh. Come on now. Not even trying to make a reasonable plot anymore? Why didn't she offer to go with her son as an escort, instead of visiting all the Blacks in advance of her son?

 This movie seemed to try to control your thoughts and feelings, and manipulate you rather than let things just happen organically. I felt like a dumb ass puppet. I just found the whole thing boring and annoying. Oddly, I have found that boring and annoying often go together, like peanut butter and jelly.

J. Edgar

Now, I don't have a crush on Leonardo Decaprio, believe me, but when I see he is in a movie I am more likely to go see it. Leonardo says he really cares a about making classic films that will still be good one hundred years from now. Clint Eastwood also had something to do with this movie as well. J. Edgar was in charge of the FBI for many years. 49 or 48 years. He made the FBI science based and a more viable power. He really did some good things and made some contributions to society. J. Edgar Hoover was a bit of a shocking movie for me. Despite his contributions, he was a sad petty little man, with a sad life, who abused his powers by blackmailing people, getting them in trouble if he didn't like them. Blackballing people, etc. He was alive when communisim was a threat inside the USA. He would acuse people or blacklist people due to suspected communism. He ruined peoples' lives and careers. He had people deported. He fired people for petty reasons, if someone was mean to him, he would try to use the FBI to destroy them. I was shocked at the movie becausd he was the main character and I am used to the main character in most movies being a hero and not a villan. I was incredulous. He said what?! He just did what?! I was shocked over and over again. He was 't likeable as a main character, and I am also used to the main character being likeable. Even as bad as entertainment has gotten, with sex, violence, shallow materialism, other bad influences... I am still used to the main character being a hero. I was disturbed by this movie, but the historical aspect of it made it worth seeing. After seeing this movie, I realized how ignorant I am and that I need to educate myself more. I also feel ignorant when I watch Jeopardy.

Mission Impossible. Ghost Protocol.

I was impressed with the witty technology of this movie, and the athletism of Tom Cruise. I was really excited by some parts of the movie because of the stunts and intelligent plot changes. The beginning of the movie and how the story line unfolded made scense and I it worked out without being off the wall or overly unbelievable. I am embarrassd to admit that towards the end I got a little confused. I understood the general gist only towards the end. It was nice to see different parts of the world in this movie. It started out in Russia, then moved to Dubai and then finally in India. In the very, very end was a US city, but I am not sure which. Overall, it was entertaining, and thrilling with a good sustainable plot. My only issue was being confused in the end. I can't really go into much more detail about what took place because the tiniest mention of any event would just ruin most of the suspense. I guess you could say they were trying to stop a terrorist. But, it wasn't a religious terrorist so it's not getting into any of that type of drama. The terrorist managed to frame the Mission Impossible team for something they actually did. I will stop there. It is a movie that gets ruined if you know much going into it.

Thor

I went to see Thor today. It was about a monarchy on another planet. It's about the Father, who was almost about to give up the throne to his son, Thor, and of course the other son gets jealous. The aliens are from Asgard, and they know how to travel to other planets by creating a worm hole. That's how earth gets involved in the planet Asgard's monarchy family drama. Just about when Thor gets to be crowned, a situation ensues and one thing leads to another and Thor ends up on earth. I don't want to give too much away.

I explain it badly, but the movie is somehow cool because it mixes science and reality with magic, legend and "dumb" marvel comic characters. Basically, the Marvel movies like Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Transformers, could easily be very lame like the power rangers, and they almost get to that point at times, but they redeem themselves by mixing real people, scientists, and just what seems like a real world, and the wonder of science in with the crazy "power ranger" characters. They mesh the far fetched with reality and it comes off as very intriguing. Altogether, I liked most of the Marvel movies I have seen, especially Iron Man.

This movie had some very good special effects and some very beautiful scenes from Asgard and outer space.  The movie had plotting and treachery and betrayal and family dramas and a lot of fighting and excitement and special powers. Then the Asgardians had an alien enemy called the Frozen Giants which added extra intrigue to the movie. It had a good plot to go with all that power ranger action effects.

The one thing that was a put off for me was that the Asgardians seemed primitive. If they are from another planet and are smart enough to travel from planet to planet, how come they still ride on horses? Why do they dress like humans from six hundred years ago? Or a thousand years ago? If they are alien, should they have their own fashions? Not human fashions from back in the day? And, it was hard for me to see the aliens as real people or to take them seriously because of  the way they talked. No one talks that way. It was a distraction for me.

It was a good movie, but somehow embarrassing for me to watch, because it's not a real drama, or thriller, a serious movie for adults. But, it was very imaginative and well done with very good visuals. I'll be honest, I am not good at noticing if the acting was good the first time I watch a movie. I'm too caught up in the movie the first time around to notice if the acting is top notch.