- Movies
Fight Club
Mature audiences
A movie whose theme is rejection. No, not being rejected by someone. Rejection as a human state. Rejection as a response to the human condition. A story in which the main character rejects himself, rejects the world, rejects comfort, rejects rules, rejects reason, and starts his own little apocalypse. if you're over eighteen and you haven't seen this movie, watch it at least once.
Watchability:5
Staying power:5
Rewatchability:4.5
Serenity
Based on a series called "Firefly", see must see television, above, this science fiction movie answers several of the questions that were posed by the series, but which couldn't be explored before the series ended. I think it's one of the better space-based science fiction stories I've seen. Personally I find the way they show the future amazingly enlightened. Technology has changed, but the people using it are still the same. Lots of fun, lots of fighting.
Watchability:5
Staying Power: 4.5
Rewatchability: 4
Dark Knight
With five hundred million in ticket sales, chances are you've seen this. Excellent movie.
Watchability: 5
Staying Power: 4
Rewatchability: 4.5
Thank you for Smoking
The story of a man paid to promote tobacco. At its heart, though, the show isn't about tobacco. The show is about spin, and about figuring out what's important in life. It's quality. And it's funny as hell.
Watchability: 4.5
Staying Power: 5
Rewatchability: 4
Frailty
If you've never heard of this one, you're not alone, most people I talk to haven't. It's one of my favorites, but unlike some of the others listed, I think it's because it appeals to my sense off humor, and because the ending makes me think of 'the twilight zone' which had a profound impact on me when I was little.
Watchability: 3.5
Staying Power: 4
Rewatchability: 3.5
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Based on a play of the same name, the story follows two characters who appear, I think, twice in Hamlet. The characters, more or less irrelevant in Shakespeare's play, except in so much as they die, thus increasing the body count, are followed as they try to figure out who they are and what they are. Two things you need to know to understand this are a.) This is not the story of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, this is the story of the CHARACTERS of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. These beings were called into existence for the sake of the play, and they will cease to exist when it is over. b) Hamlet. okay, I should qualify, you don't need to understand hamlet, but it helps to have read it once or twice. The movie versions tend to be all jumbled up, and knowing what is happening in hamlet when we're watching these guys, is helpful.
Watchability: 4.5
Staying power: 4
Rewatchability: 4
Dragon Wars
How the hell did this peice of crap get made? Easily one of the most craptastic, unredeemably terrible movies I've ever seen in my life. An epic failure, on every level.
Watchability: -4.5
Staying power: -4
Rewatchability: -5
Mr. Brooks
I have to say, with Kevin Costner it seems to be hit or miss. Mr. Brooks is, in my opinion, a definite hit. I might have felt differently if I'd gone into it with high expectations, so I might just be ruining this one for you, but I do have to admit, I liked this. Kevin Costner as a serial killer with a family works better than I would have expected, and giving us a physical embodiement of the darker side of his soul, rather than disrupting the story with endless voice over work was a great call.
Watchability: 3.5
Staying power: 3
Rewatchability: 0
Despicable Me
It's funny, action movies, and dramas are becoming less and less interesting to me these days. There was a time when I would spend months in breathless anticipation of an upcoming summer movie. I loved Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, and when 300 came out, I spent the entire movie on the edge of my seat. These days, though, its the animated stuff that I look forward to. I think it was Pixar that got me back into animation, and the subtle, multi-layered humor that can have three different age groups each laughing at three different things inside of the same joke is just fantastic. Despicable me is another fine movie in the tradition, though not, I think, as fine as it could have been. As usual, the comic relief stole the show, this time in the form of 'the minions.' It's the first movie I saw in the theater in a long time, and while I'm happy to have seen it, I'll admit that, unlike several other animated movies (The Incredibles, Shrek, Monsters Inc.) I'm not planning on buying it when it comes out. At least, not before it hits the five dollar bin.
Watchability: 3.5
Staying Power: 2
Rewatchability: 1.5
Let the Right One In
A foreign horror(ish) film about a young boy, a loner, who makes a friend with the new girl in town. The new girl in town who doesn't go to school or, for that matter, go out at all when the sun comes up. Filled with human cruelty, both in the immediate form, and as suggested through subtle, fleeting moments, it's one of those movies that you can watch several times, each time seeing something you've never seen before, or watch once and never want to see again. To put it in simpler terms, this is not a film that means the same thing to everyone who sees it. The film is a conversation between the director and his audience.
Watchability: 4.0
Staying Power: 4.5
Rewatchability: 3.0
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
Weird ass movie. Narrated by Robert Downey Jr., staring Robert Downey Jr, Val Kilmer, and Michelle Monaghan, the story, filled with flashbacks and bizarre, surreal coincidences, there is nothing remotely realistic about the story, except the people, who are too weird to seem made up. I have to admit, I love this film, though I'm not always sure why.
Watchability: 4.5
Staying Power: 2.5
Rewatchability: 4.0