Change Your Image
susanbassplayer
Reviews
Into the Wild (2007)
Worst Movie With the Best Soundtrack
First of all, I'd have to say that this movie is well made and well acted. That said, it's total crap. You know the plot. Self-indulgent kid with no real problems decides to chuck it all and make his way to Alaska. Apparently, he is angry at everyone and everything for no particular reason. Suffice to say, he meets his doom, freezing to death in an old bus in Alaska.
There are very few movies in which I wanted to slap the protagonist and this is one of them. Does he have a problem with his parents? Not really. He feels no relationship towards them, though. A good part of the film is narrated by his sister, evidently she is writing about him in a diary or something. I felt like screaming at the screen, "Dude, even if your parents don't love you, your sister does. She misses you and wants you to come home." On a brighter note, this gets my award for the worst movie with the best soundtrack. Eddie Vedder, turning to a more Bruce Springsteen/Woody Guthrie frame of mind, wrote some outstanding tunes for the soundtrack, including "Hard Sun". I'm a huge Pearl Jam fan, have been since I was 14, and this is some of the best stuff Vedder has ever written. Get the soundtrack instead.
Baby Geniuses (1999)
On a Bet!
Much has already been said about how truly rotten this movie is. So I'll spare you details in my review.
I watched this movie on a bet. That is to say, I bet my twin brother $20.00 on something unrelated and lost. I was broke at the time and couldn't pay him until payday. So my twin bro offered me this: Watch BABY GENIUSES 1 AND 2, back-to-back and start-to-finish and he would forgive me the debt.
I should have paid him the money. I could have stretched my grocery money and ate noodles the rest of the week. See, I adore my bro. He's a great guy, but he's awfully slick with things like this and I should have known better. These two movies were the most appalling things I have ever scene (and I'm a HUGE fan of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE).
Life of Brian (1979)
Biggus....
I hadn't seen this movie in quite some time, yet it never ceases to amaze me! I rented it recently because my twin brother was having dental surgery (I drove him home and spent the night at his place in case he needed anything). I thought that this movie would help cheer him up. Both of us agree that it is one of our favorites.
Much has already been written about whether or not this movie makes fun of Jesus. I don't think it does, and I am among those who say that it really makes fun of religious fanaticism. Much has also been written about how this film was criticized by those who had never seen it and therefore could not, as Brian says, figure this out for themselves. A very telling scene is when Brian addresses the crowd and tells them that they are all different. They reply, in unison, "Yes, we are all different...tell us more!" But my favorite scene is still the classic Michael Palin as Pontious Pilate "Biggus Dickus" bit. I can watch this movie and just smile at it until this scene. It still cracks me up. As I said above, I hadn't seen it in awhile, yet during that scene I lost it. I laughed so hard that tears were coming out of my eyes. Yes, I know it's juvenile! But the way Palin plays it, speech impediment and all (yes, I know, how un-PC) is what makes it. You can see that when he gets in close to the soldier, he is straining not to laugh. And the actor playing the soldier, well, he ain't acting folks. He is truly cracking up.
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
Missess The Mark
I rented this movie because my twin brother had dental surgery done. I drove him home and stayed the night at his place in case he needed something. Besides, we hadn't done anything together, just the two of us, in a long time. We have similar tastes in movies and music, so I thought by renting this movie, it would help him feel better.
Watching this movie, we felt that something was missing. We both managed a few laughs, particularly the fight scene between Farrell and Applegate. But what I thought would be a great parody of 1970s television news just wasn't so. It didn't quite go for parody. It didn't quite go fully over the top. I don't think the creators of the movie knew which type of comedy they wanted to do. So they tried to have it both ways and it fell short on all accounts. I have mixed feelings about Ferrell as an actor and so does my twinbro. I thoroughly liked him in STRANGER THAN FICTION and I kinda liked him in this. Applegate was wonderful in this and yet she seemed restrained too.
In fairness, there were some other great scenes. I loved the rumble between the different news teams. The bridge scene between Ferrell and Black was good too, until the part where Black punts the dog off the bridge. The flute scene was deliciously over the top too!