Two Cent Tuesday: The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia

 Two Cent Tuesday where I give my review of movies I have seen recently

In one week two people told me I should watch the documentary The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. Since it was on Netflix Streaming I decided to give it a try. What a crazy movie this was. Definitely one of the most outrageous documentaries I have seen in a while.

The movie follows the White family from West Virginia for one year. The White family is one of the most notorious families in West Virginia. A family of criminals the Whites live a very outrageous lifestyle. The head of the clan is Mamie White who introduces the family at the beginning of the movie. Mamie father was D Ray White who was mild celebrity for his tap dancing. After he was killed there seemed to be tragedy passed down to the rest of the family. Jesco White Mamie's brother is now a tap dancer and was the subject of a short documentary (by the same director) called The Dancing Outlaw. As we get introduced to the other people in the family we learn that violence and drug addiction is the norm. One of the most memorable scenes in the movie is when Kirk White crushes up some pills and snorts them while in the hospital just after giving birth. To see how completely dysfunctional the family is and how much they embrace the outlaw status they have is jolting. It's just a typical day for them to go and pick someone up from jail or go to the bar and do drugs. The movie does not shine a very good light on West Virginia as one of the people they interview says that someone from the area came out of the tough life and went to M.I.T. why isn't anyone following him around with a camera? I am not sure why that is but the movie definitely makes me want to stay out of West Virginia. Is the movie making celebrities out of these people, it does feel like that a little. The end when Kirk finally checks herself into rehab is one of the more sobering parts but you get the feeling not much is going to change with anybody.
Overall Rating: B

Braveheart

Watching Braveheart again I wasn't sure if it will stand up over time. It was released the summer after I graduated high school and of course being a 17 year old male I love the violence and gore.  So, being a bit older now I was wondering if I would still love it as much.  Turns out that it still is a great movie.

Braveheart is about the life of William Wallace a Scottish warrior who fights to free Scotland from England rule.  The film starts with Wallace as a child as he witnesses the cruel effects of living under English rule when his father is murdered during a battle.  After his father dies he travels with his uncle who teaches him to read and speak in many languages.  When he comes back to Scotland to settle down and start a family once again the English kill someone he loves. This time his wife Marron.  Fueled by rage he takes revenge on the English and in the process starts a revolution.  Uniting Scottish Clans and warriors from all around his takes on the might English Army.  The only ones who would not help him are the Scottish Nobles who betray his efforts to unite Scotland.  He eventually leads an army and attacks England before being completely betrayed by the nobles and captured and sent to London to be tortured and killed. 

The one thing I remembered and loved about this movie are the gruesome fight scenes and Mel Gibson knows how to film bloody battle scenes.  Besides all the fighting and gore the movie has a love story to it and everyone can relate to the idea of fighting for ones freedom.  The film is brilliantly filmed and looks great also the music captures the mood perfectly.  The speeches that Gibson gives now seems silly since they have been parodied so often and probably also because I had a roommate in college that would constantly recite the whole battle speech.  But you can still feel the intensity.  I remember seeing it with my girlfriend at the time whose biggest problem with the movie was all the horses that died. She didn't mind all the people getting beheaded but don't hurt the horses.  Still one of the most violent movies to win Best Picture. 

Braveheart winning Best Picture came as a shock that year for most everybody.  It did not win any of the critic awards leading up to the Academy Awards so it was kind of a dark horse victory.  There were a diverse group of nominees that year with no clear standout.  The other nominees were Apollo 13, Sense and Sensibility, Babe, and Il Postino.  So you have a kids movie like Babe against the first foreign language movie to be nominated in almost 20 years.  The biggest surprise are probably the movies that didn't get nominated. Movies like Seven, The Usual Suspects, Toy Story, Leaving Las Vegas, and Dead Man Walking.  Dead Man Walking and Leaving Las Vegas both were nominated for Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Director but did not get Best Picture. Leaving Las Vegas was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay so it was nominated in 4 out of the 5 top Oscars just missing out on the biggest one it did win Best Actor for Nicholas Cage.  Also of note Toy Story became the first animated film to be nominated for Best Screen Play. 

Two Cent Tuesday: Rubber

Two Cent Tuesday where I give my review of movies I have seen recently

I read about this movie in some independant film magazines I got at Sundance.  They praised this movie for being unique and creative.  So, I was excited to see that it was currently on Netflix Streaming. 

Rubber is about a tire who has a mind of its own.  He wakes up in the desert and starts rolling around. He realizes that he has these powers to blow things up with his mind.  He starts by blowing up glass bottles then moves on to a rabbitt.  When he gets to a hotel he watches some TV and when the maid throws him out of the hotel he blows her up too.  Then the police are on the case and begin to hunt him down.  The whole time there is this audience watching from a hill top with binoculars. 

Well it is fair say it is one of the most original movies I have seen recently unfortunately it is one of the worst movies I have seen in a while.  It starts off kind of cool with a guy explaing to this audience  that all movies don't make sense and things happen all the time for no reason.  Then the audience starts watching the movie with the viewer and making their own comments.  Up to this point the movie kind of works for me.  But it gets real boring real fast.  It basically is a tire rolling through the desert.  I kept falling asleep it was so boring. I kept waiting for something exciting to happen but nothing did.  I guess I expected some great chase sequences or some sort of action but nothing. 
When I was in college I was known for making people watch bad movies.  Glad I didn't make anyone else watch this one. It ranks up there as one of the worst movies I have seen.
Overall: F

Forrest Gump

1994 was a great year for movies. Three of the five movies nominated for Best Picture are also on AFI’s 100 Greatest Movies of All Time.  The three movies are Forrest Gump the eventual winner, Pulp Fiction, and The Shawshank Redemption.  The other two movies nominated were Quiz Show another good movie and Four Weddings and  a funeral which I have to admit I have never seen.  But how you choose one movie over the others is hard since they are all so good and represent different genres.  Forrest Gump is sometimes listed as overrated and not deserving of Best Picture like in a recent article from Entertainment Weekly it was on the list of most overrated winners of best picture.

Forrest Gump is a comedy/drama about a simpleton who unaware of what is going on around him manages to find himself in incredible circumstances.  He begins telling his story to anyone that will listen next to him on a bench at a bus stop.  He starts by telling about his childhood, his mother and his best friend Jenny.  To him his mother is always right and never does anything wrong and he often quotes things she said.   Always being different either for his lower mental abilities or for the braces on his legs he is mostly ignored by everyone at school except for Jenny.  To sum up the movie quickly is hard as so much happens but here is the quick version. As he grows up he meets Elvis Presley, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and John Lennon among other famous people. Also he becomes a war hero, a ping pong champion, a fishing boat captain, a rich stock holder, and a famous runner.  In the meantime Jenny becomes a stripper, hippie, and drug user and their paths cross a couple of times.  Never really comprehending what Jenny is going through Forrest always loves her unconditionally.  Besides Jenny the only other friend he has is Lieutenant Dan who he saved during the Vietnam war.  Lieutenant Dan was injured and lost both his legs before Forrest rescued him and feels that he should have died and is mad at Forrest for saving his life.  After Forrest starts a shrimping company Lieutenant Dan comes to work for him and finally finds some peace.

The movie is heartfelt and fun.  The circumstances that Forrest finds himself in are both funny and poignant.  The fact that Jenny doesn’t return the love that he has for her is tragic.  The variety of emotions that the movie takes you through is what makes it work. Also, all the acting is great. Tom Hanks won his second Best Actor award in a row.  Making him only the second actor to win two years in a row the first actor to do it was Spencer Tracy for Captains Courageous and Boys Tow in 1937 and 1938.  Gary Sinise was also nominated (but lost) for Best Supporting Actor as Lieutenant Dan.  The movie is also has lots of memorable quotes that helped it win the Best Adapted Screenplay award.  Overall the movie had 6 wins out of its 13 nominations.  Despite its great visuals and great use of computer effects I don’t think it should have won the Best Special Effects Oscar since The Mask has some amazing effects.

Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction each had 7 nominations.  Pulp Fiction won for Best Original Screenplay and Shawshank Redemption did not win any.  I remember at the time there was a lot of talk about which should win Pulp Fiction or Forrest Gump. I always thought that Pulp Fiction was the better movie. Since I own both movies I decided to rewatch both Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction again.  And it turns out I still think Pulp Fiction is the better movie of the three.  It is truly an original and is very shocking.  I remember watching it for the first time and just being blown away by the crazy stuff that happens in it.  I am glad it won Best Original Screenplay as it was one of the most original stories put on screen.  It also should have won Best Supporting actor for Samuel L. Jackson.  Shawshank Redemption is a great movie and any other year it probably would have won. And I am not sure how Tim Robbins did not get nominated for Best Actor. It seems that the movie has gotten more fans as time has gone by and it is now rated at number 1 on IMDB Top 250.  And it is the first movie based on a Stephen King book to be nominated for Best Picture. 

The other movie that was super popular that year was The Lion King had four nominations.  Three of the nominations were for Best Original Song “Can you Feel the Love Tonight”,  “Hakuna Matata”, and “Circle of Life” were all nominated.  This tied a record with Beauty and the Beast for most songs nominated for one film.  Another one of my favorite films form 1994 was Speed which won for Best Sound and Sound Effects Editing.

By the Numbers
Forrest Gump was ranked  number 71 on AFI Top 100 Greatest Films in 1997 and number 76 in 2007 and the line “Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.” was listed at #40 on their greatest quotes list.  It is currently ranked at  number 30 on IMDB Top 250.
The Shawshank Redemption was ranked number 72 on AFI Top 100 Greatest Movies in 2007 and is currently ranked number 1 on IMDB Top 250.
Pulp Fiction was ranked at number 95 on AFI Top 100 Greatest Movies in 1997 and 94 in 2007. It is currently ranked at number number 6 on IMDB Top 250.
The Lion King is currently number 130 on IMDB Top 250.

Whats your favorite movie from 1994
	Forrest Gump
	Pulp Fiction
	The Shawshank Redemption
	The Lion King
	Clerks
	Speed
	Natural Born Killers
	True Lies
	Dumb and Dumber
	The Mask
	Heavenly Creatures
pollcode.com free polls

Listomania Sunday: Most Disturbing Movies About Kids

Well in the next few weeks I will be having my first kid. So, I figured my next few lists will be kid related.  I thought I would start with the bad side of kids and the most disturbing movies about kids.
1. Kids -Definitely one of the most disturbing movies and one of the first NC-17 movies to be released. About a bunch of kids having sex and at the end almost all of them have HIV.
2.  Bully-Directed by the same guy who did Kids another NC-17 movie this one where a bunch of teenagers bored in Florida kill a bully for fun.  The most disturbing thing about this movie is that it is based on real events.
3.  Hard Candy-About a girl who reverses roles and picks up old guys on the internet to torture them.
4.  Precious -A truly moving movie but still  disturbing. About a teenage girl with who has two kids and got HIV from her dad.
5.  Thirteen- Another movie inspired by true events this one was a semi autobiographical written by one of the stars. It is about a girl who wants to be popular and begins a decent into drugs and sex.

Interesting fact I figured out after making this list is that two directors on this list ended up directing a Twilight movie. Catherine Hardwicke who directed Thirteen also directed the first Twilight and David Slade who directed Hard Candy also directed Eclipse.

Almost making the list was The Woodsman with Kevin Bacon about a man who was just released from jail for molesting young girls. Also almost making the list was The Good Son -One of the best Macaulay Culkin movies.  He plays a psychotic little kid. In one of the most memorable scenes he throws a dummy off of a bridge and causes a huge car wreck.

Schindler's List

1993 was a good year of Steven Spielberg.  After having 7 movies nominated for Best Picture and 6 nominations for Best Director he finally won both with Schindler’s List.  In addition to that he had one of his most successful movies with Jurassic Park which in my opinion should have been nominated for Best Picture also.

Schindler’s List is about Polish Jews during the Holocaust.  The movie starts with the Jews first being round up and put in ghettos.  During this time a manufacturer Oscar Schindler(Liam Neeson) hires a Jewish  accountant Itzhak Stern(Ben Kingsley) to fix his books and hire him some staff. Itzhak helps his friends who would otherwise been killed for not having any “useful” skills and gives them fake papers so they can work at the factory.  At first Schindler doesn’t care as long as he is making money.  After he witnesses the destruction of the ghetto with senseless killing he begins to care for the workers.  He then regards them as his Jews and does everything in his power to help them.  He becomes friends with Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes) the man who oversees the labor camp where his Jews are kept.  Despite hating the man he is very convincing and becomes a trusted friend of his.  When the labor camp is being shut down and the Jews are being sent to a concentration camp Schindler uses his own money and purchases as many Jews as he can and sets up special arrangement for them. He uses the excuse that they are vital to the war effort as they help him manufacture bombs (it turns out the bombs weren’t made very well).  He manages to keep the façade up long enough for the war to end and the Jews were set free.

The three hour long movie is a very powerful and moving movie.  It had twelve nominations and seven wins. Everything in this movie is so good from the acting to the directing.  Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes were nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor and Ben Kingsley should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Neither of the two nominated actors won. Liam Neeson lost to Tom Hanks in his first of two consecutive wins for Philadelphia.   Ralph Fiennes surprisingly lost to Tommy Lee Jones for The Fugitive. John Williams won for the haunting score(he also should have been nominated for the score of Jurassic Park but wasn’t).

Jane Campion became the first female to be nominated for Best Director and have a movie nominated for Best Picture for The Piano.  Holly Hunter and Anna Paquin won acting awards for the Piano. Hunter winning Best Actress and Paquin winning Best Supporting Actress.  Holly Hunter was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress for The Firm. Also that year Emma Thompson was nominated for Best Actress (The Remains of the Day) and Best Supporting Actress (In the Name of the Father) marking the first time two actresses had to compete with each other in both categories.  At age 11 Paquin became the second youngest actress to receive the supporting award Tatum O’Neal won in 1973 for Paper Moon at age 10.

Biggest snub in my opinion was Jurassic Park being left out of the big awards.  It was nominated and won 3 technical awards including Special Effects but no other awards.  But the action movie The Fugitive was nominated for Best Picture and 6  other awards and even won Best Supporting Actor for Tommy Lee Jones. Maybe it’s just me but Jurassic Park deserved that nomination over The Fugitive.  Also, I don’t think Tommy Lee Jones should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor let alone win.  Denzel Washington should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor alongside Tom Hanks for Philadelphia.

Other Random Facts
Schindler’s List is Spielberg’s first Rated R film
Besides a few scenes the movie is in Black and White making it the first black and white movie to win since 1960’s The Apartment(which is still the last FULL black and white movie to win Best Picture).
The Wrong Trousers won Best Animated Short and is the first Wallace and Gromit movie to win.
Leonardo DiCaprio got his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.
Robert Altman was nominated for Best Director the second year in a row for a movie that was not nominated for Best Picture (The Player in 1992 and Short Cuts in 1993)

Two Cent Tuesday: Cowboys and Aliens

Two Cent Tuesday where I give my review of movies I have seen recently
Last weekend I saw Cowboys and Aliens on opening day. In fact I saw it at the first showing in the morning and watched it with a whole crowd of senior citizens. Guess I am getting old.

Someone asked me what Cowboys and Aliens is about. I said it is right there in the title.  It is about aliens invading the old west.  Simple but different concept.  I love the concept.  I have always loved alien movies while and have always been fascinated by the ancient alien theory which says that aliens have been visiting us since Biblical times.  So, it only makes sense that aliens had visited the old west and cowboys probably had seen them.  In the movie the aliens are not friendly and are kidnapping people from the old west town and stealing all the gold.  The only person who can save the town people is the fugitive Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) who has a mysterious gadget on his wrist.  He teams up with a rancher and ex war hero Col. Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) and a mysterious women(Olivia Wild) to fight the aliens.

There has been a lot made about this being James Bond meets Indiana Jones but people forget that it has happened before in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when Sean Connery played Indy's father.  But it is still cool to see these two iconic stars in the same movie.  The movie is exactly what you would expect fun with some cool effects. Daniel Craig looks very cool in the movie but Harrison Ford doesn't look as comfortable playing an aging cowboy.  Ford grunts and growls his way through the movie. They should have got Clint Eastwood to play the cowboy no one can grunt through a movie like him.  But overall the action was cool and it is a great concept.  And I highly recommend checking out Ancient Aliens on the History Channel great show with some crazy theories. In fact the first episode of Ancient Aliens Season 3 was about UFO's in the Wild West. Ancient Aliens Official Website
Rating B

Listomania Sunday: Dog Movies

I have been thinking about this list for a while. And I know there are probably lots of older movies I could have included. The obvious ones that isn't included are the Lassie Movies and that is basically because I have not seen any of them.  But I decided to make my list anyway.  I have a feeling there are some other good ones I am missing. Let me know what they are.

1.  Marley and Me- one of the few movies that had me crying at the end.
2.  Best in Show-One of the funniest movies around and I love how the dogs are the more normal then their owners.
3.  Antarctica-I know that very few people have seen it but I loved it as a kid. The remake version 8 Below is not as good but still not bad.
4.  Lady and the Tramp-even though the Siamese cats stole the movie for me. It is still a nice romantic movie about dogs.
5.  Cujo-I figured I had to have at least one horror movie on this list. 

Unforgiven

 
After watching 4 movies in a row in my best picture quest life got in the way I am behind in writing about them. So, a little late (not that anyone will notice) here is the 1992 Best Picture winner.
 
1992 The western got its third win for Best Picture with Unforgiven. The other two westerns to win (Cimarron in 1931 and Dances With Wolves in 1990) were not so much westerns as epics that took place in the West.  Unforgiven was a true cowboy movie and more typical of what most people think of when they think of a western.  Trying to watch this movie took a lot of work. I had it on my DVR but it was cut off at the end and as I later found out it was an edited version.  And Netflix had already sent me the wrong movie so I ended up going to the library and renting it on VHS.  This is the third movie that I had to watch on VHS since I started my Best Picture quest. 
 
Unforgiven is about a washed up cowboy William Munny(Clint Eastwood) who gives up the cowboy life to start a pig farm after his wife dies.  Trying to raise his kids and uphold the wishes of his late wife to lead a sober crime free life.  But after his pig farm starts doing poorly an offer comes along for one more job.  A young cowboy “Schofield Kid” asks for his help to collect a bounty for two guys who had roughed up a prostitute in the town of Big Whisky.  After the sheriff of Big Whisky "Little Bill" Daggett(Gene Hackman) learns that there is a bounty out for the two guys he bans all firearms in the town to stop any further violence.  Munny asks his old friend Ned Logan(Morgan Freeman) to go for one last ride with him and the kid.  When they get to Big Whisky they clash with the sheriff which leads to a violent climax. 
 
The movie started a streak of great Clint Eastwood directed movies.  One of the things that I Eastwood is able to do when he directs is get great performances out of his cast.  Gene Hackman won the Best Supporting Actor for his role as the rough and tough “Little Bill” who only wants to protect his town from violent outsiders. The movie is notable for being a western that actually shows the negative side of violence.  There is no cowboy who is a perfect shot. One of the more interesting side characters is a guy who is trying to write about cowboys. Each cowboy he interviews tell about the same events from a different perspective. What we learn is that a lot of the tales from the old west are just that. While events actually happened they are usually told with a positive spin for the person doing the telling. 
 
The other nominees that year included the controversial The Crying Game and the courtroom drama A Few Good Men.  While A Few Good Men was nominated for Best Picture and also Best Supporting Actor for Jack Nicholson(his 10th nomination) it did not get nominated for Best Director for Rob Reiner or  Best Screenplay for Aaron Sorkin.  As with all of Aaron Sorkin’s movies the dialogue is great and fast. I don’t know how he didn’t get nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay although I have to admit I did not see Howards End.  The big upset this year was the surprise win for Marisa Tomei for My Cousin Vinny with other bigger stars in more dramatic movies it was a huge shock. There was some discussion about Robin Williams getting a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Aladdin which would have made him the first person to be nominated for voice work but that did not happen. There was similar discussion about Ellen Degeneres for Finding Nemo in 2003.
 

Two Cent Tuesday: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Too Big To Fail

Two Cent Tuesday where I give my review of movies I have seen recently.

I finally got to see Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps this week on HBO.  Which also reminded me of another movie I recently saw on HBO called Too Big To Fail.  Since both movies have similar themes I thought I would compare the two.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps starts with Gordon Gekko(Michael Douglas) getting out of jail in 2001 after being imprisoned for insider trading.  Flashforward to 2008 with the world on the brink of a financial crisis. Gordon Gekko is now an author and a icon to young stock brokers.  One of the young guys that idolize him is Jake Moore(Shia LaBeouf) who also happens to be in love with Gekko daughter Winnie(Carey Mulligan).   As the company that Moore works for gets caught up in a scandal and begins a quick decline into bankruptcy (loosely based on what happened with Lehman Brothers).  The head of the company ends up committing suicide and Moore takes it personaly and wants to take down the guy who he blames for the downfall of his company.  Moore and Gekko make a deal where Moore will help Gekko reunite with his daughter and Gekko will help Moore get his revenge.  The bad guy in the movie is Bretton James(Josh Brolin) who represents all that is greed on Wall Street.

Michael Douglas was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in the first Wall Street and he reprises it here.  He is back and just a ruthless and greedy as ever.  The dialogue is fast and furious even if a lot of the financial mumbo jumbo went over my head.  But the plot doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  The revenge aspect didn't work for me. Or it could be that I wasn't paying that close attention because I was putting together baby furniture.

There is a scene early on in the movie where all the head of finanial institutions are around a table trying to decide how best to stop the financial meltdown.  This scene was a reenactent of what happened during the financial bailout.  Too Big to Fail takes that one scene and makes a whole movie out of it.  In Too Big to Fail we get a behind the scenes look at the negotiations that went on to try and save Lehman Brothers in 2008 that eventually led to the TARP financial bailout.  The movie focuses on Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson as he tried to find a way to save Lehman Brothers and other banks and investment firms that are rapidly losing money.  The movie does a good job of explaining all the mumbo jumbo like derivatives.  The movie also has an incredible cast with James Woods, William Hurt, Paul Giamatti, Bill Pullman, Tony Shalhoub, and Topher Grace.  It really gives some insight to how intense those negotiations were and how close the whole financial system came to collapsing.  It is nominated for four Emmy awards including Best Made for TV Movie, Outstanding Lead Actor in a TV Movie for William Hurt, and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a TV Movie for Paul Giamatti and James Woods.

While the two movies revolve around some of the same issues I think Too Big To Fail is better and more engrossing.  Maybe because it is based on fact but also has a great cast.  Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps with all its snappy dialogue losses momentum part way through.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps: C+
Too Big To Fail: B+