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Reviews
Out of Omaha (2007)
Should Come With A Warning To Protect The Depression-Prone
Forget the RV never making it out of Omaha - the script is the thing that should have been buried in Nebraska(If you thought that line was funny, you're gonna love the movie). It's a first for me - the first comedy I have ever seen that made me want to kill myself. You know it's fiction, because if anyone as unrelentingly horrible as Lea's character were real, we wouldn't be watching her in a family road comedy, we'd be watching her husband on some true crime show avoiding eye-contact with the interviewer and saying things like: "...and then she left, uh, on foot, and I haven't seen her since..." How did they get these actors to agree to do this movie? Blackmail? Really good catering? What? Huh? Huh? Huh?
American Beauty (1999)
Art
I'm not a critic, and don't know any more about the process of film-making than what I've garnered from years of watching movies, but I know what I like, and I know what art is, and this movie is truly art. One of the many things it's about is the masks we all wear, and how well they protect the secrets that they were designed to hide. It touched me, excited me, made me so restless to explore the concepts within it that I didn't sleep much the night I saw it because my mind was so super-charged with ideas. It forced me to look at myself and everyone around me in a way I had neglected, or shied away from in the past. It gave me a new perspective - made me wonder if those masks we all so carefully-craft to protect us are really that: protection, or a prison we can't escape from. It changed me, and that's a priceless gift. I think Alan Ball's screenplay was genius, and Sam Mendes deftly drew something amazing out of the fine actors who populate this film, and then served it up unflinchingly. I am grateful for this movie. It will always be in my top ten. It's why I look at art-read-watch movies-listen to music...because there is always the chance - the perfect hope - that I will feel something like what American Beauty made me feel.
The Black Stallion (1979)
Visually, this movie is #1! Gorgeous! Captivating!
Visually-speaking, there are three movies that I would call my favorites: No. 3: Peter Jackson's King Kong. No. 2: American Beauty. No. 1: The Black Stallion. I saw this movie in a theater when it was first released. When I got my first glimpse of The Black through the porthole on the doomed ship as he screamed and snorted and fought like a lion to be free - well, he was so beautiful, I instantly burst into tears and made a complete fool of myself! And as I watched this movie unfold...boy and horse, alone on a desert island, forced through their loneliness to bond together, I saw something I had never seen before: perfection. As the two happy souls cavorted in the surf in that fabulous setting, I found myself thinking: 'This movie is absolutely 100% PERFECT'. And it was...right up until they were rescued. Not even the acting talents of Mickey Rooney and Teri Garr could ease our disappointment or save our jangled nerves caused by the jump from the gorgeous sand, sky, and sea on the island to the jarring ugliness of the world back home. But that's an important part of the experience: the contrast.
The World According to Garp (1982)
The Arc of One Man's Life
It's the only movie I have ever liked more than the book it was based on. In this case, I'd say "loved". This movie was my #1 favorite for years, and, considering how much I love movies, that's saying something! In his early years, Garp keeps pushing and pulling, and trying to steer, but life doesn't work that way, and all he can really do is hold on for dear life and watch out for the undertow. I love the symmetry - the comforting idea that life's experiences are all woven into a circle that eternally repeats, it's all coming around again, you know -for better or worse. Jenny Fields, Garp's mother, is a hilarious and wonderful character - strong and wise, but with blind-spots in the strangest places(Garp: "What does she know about lust? She's never felt it - not once!"). My favorite character is Roberta Muldoon, Jenny's transsexual friend and protector, and Garp's best friend. Even though Roberta used to play for the Philadelphia Eagles(Roberta: "(I was)Number 90 - Robert Muldoon. I had a great pair of hands")he traded in his football(among other things)to bat for the other side. John Lithgow brilliantly-embodies this complex person in a way that is both subtle and endearing. There are lines in this movie I will never forget, and moments that still make me tear-up after 25 years of repeat-viewings(Garp and Jenny on the front porch - I call it "The Undertow Look" - it's one of the best "Life is a Circle" moments in the film, thanks to Glenn Close and Robin Williams' ability to communicate volumes in a single glance). Anyway, don't take my word for it; watch it yourself. Find your own special moments. There are plenty to choose from.
Eddie and the Cruisers (1983)
Michael Pare' appears so lifelike!
Every time I watch this movie(and I do - over and over), the scene where Frank introduces his first song to the band - nearly whispering it in a high, cracking falsetto: "...from out of the shadows she walks like a dre-eam...", and while the other band-members giggle and squirm as though they're in 8th grade and just saw Mary Ellen's tidy-whities when the wind blew her skirt up - Eddie's silencing them and kindly guiding Frankie The Wordman's stumbling efforts toward something that can really get your blood moving("This is Rock 'n Roll!" he exclaims joyfully)always makes me marvel at the unexpectedly-good acting coming out of pretty boy Michael Pare'. I always think the same thing: 'How did Martin Davidson get that out of him? Why, in every other movie I've seen him in, did other directors fail to tap into that?' When you see this movie, you absolutely know that it isn't Pare's fault that he's so wooden elsewhere...because if he can do it here - he can do it anywhere, right? With the right director, the answer is yes. The proof is here; right here, in his very authentic portrayal of an artist trapped in the too-confining skin of a 60's rock star(Eddie: "If we can't be great, then there's no point in ever making music again!"). But don't just watch this movie for Pare'. Everything works. Everybody rocks. It all goes together just like...yeah, I'm gonna say it: words and music.