G Movies
Girl With The Pearl Earring (2003)
Who’s in it
Scarlett Johansson, Colin Firth, Tom Wilkinson, Cillian Murphy
Should you see this movie?
This one is pretty interesting, but not one I would probably watch again. It got some media attention even though it was a low budget film, because of the story. Johansson’s breakout role as a peasant woman who works in home of a well to do woman and her artist husband. For one of his final paintings he choses to paint Scarlett, and messes up so many lives because of the class system at this period in the world. The wife in the movie is a psycho, that is what I remember the most, a true nightmare of a wife. But, it is interesting if you can rent it free from the library, well paced and engaging story.
Good Will Hunting (1997)
I love this movie. This is as perfect of a movie as it comes for me. Humor, emotion, action, and relatibility. I owned this movie the day it came out, and I still cry in the end of the movie when Robin Williams looks at Matt Damon and says “It’s not your fault” over and over.
So, like I just mentioned, this movie has a who’s who list of actors. Williams, Damon and Ben Affleck before they were huge, Minnie Driver, Cole Hauser, and Casey Affleck. Damon and Affleck wrote this movie from what I have heard, and I wonder how long they worked on it. Whether the realistic and sensible story just came out of them, or if they went over and over it, trying to be original at every turn.
The story revolves around Damon’s character, who is an orphan that was beat up as a child. He is a super genious and works by day as a janitor at Harvard, but by night solves complex math theory on chalkboards. The math professor finds him out, and takes him under his wing, saving him from jail, in homes of opening his eyes to a better life. But it is only with an agreement that he seeks psychiatric help. Only after four other shrinks do we meet Williams. Williams has a similar background to Damon, and through perseverence and empathy he is able to reach Damon, and with a little luck and help from Damon’s gang of three other friends, Damon turns his life around.
The swearing in this movie is tightly woven with the setting and characters. For most people I know, that would not be the case. If you can’t handle all of the cussing, you will never enjoy this movie. It is a great movie, every adult should see it. But it is really vulgar at times in the humor and the anger. But Damon is more real than he has been since this movie, and Williams won an award for his role. Williams is such an under appreciated actor and is only second to Damon. Minnie Driver comes third for me. A little offbeat, she is Damon’s girlfriend who is trying to reach out to him, but doesn’t know how and gets burned. I feel bad for her, and the first time I saw this, I cried when Damon told her “I don’t love you”.
You’ll laugh a ton if you like guy humor, and you’ll cry. This movie will turn your day upside down if you have never seen it.
Guess Who (2005)
I really enjoyed this movie. Not a new concept, unspoken boundaries in culture in relationships that cause tension, but I think that the casting was perfect. Bernie Mac as the stern dad, and Ashton Kutcher as the mostly polite but proto-typical American male.
It does get a little sappy, but I think it fits the movie fine. From the start with stereotypes being flung out left and right, to uncomfortable jokes at the dinner table, to the awkward conversations between a father and a boy dating his daughter, just about anyone can enjoy this movie.
If you don’t like Ashton, you might want to skip this, but he isn’t obnoxious. He doesn’t seem to carry over any of his acting from “That 70’s Show” into any of the movie roles I have seen him in. He is a mature guy who is trying to be as politically correct as possible.
Check this one out. Lots of typical scenes with “Women Power”, and “We aren’t talking about the relations you had with my daughter” but perfect to wait to rent at home on a Friday night with the other grownups who can appreciate the possibly real world situation.
Guinevere (1999)
Hoo boy. This one was a little weird, and probably extremely weird if you are not an artist, nor have watched many movies about artists. Starring people you’ve never heard of, nor will again, this movie is about a young 21 year old girl who is enticed by a 38 year old photographer. She sons becomes his “Guinevere”, or his muse in a sense. The become aromatically involved, and she is an apprentice of art, learning some sort of artful skill.
Twisted not only because of the age difference between the two, you soon find out this girl is the fourth of fifth in a line of women who “Connie” has taken on. He takes in these scared and confused women and tries to open their eyes through emotional turmoil and some mind games. The whole movie is real, and that works to it’s benefit sometimes, because it doesn’t seem like acting. But at other times, like when a whole section of Connie’s bridge breaks off when he is eating, because he has poor dental health makes it a less than entertaining movie that you wouldn’t want to watch again.
Not as mad as Sarah that I watched this, I think that maybe I would recommend it to some of my friends from college, with a beer factor of one to two glasses. Otherwise, if you are my parents, or someone of similar tastes, you would despise this movie on so many levels.
Get Shorty (1995)
This is the second time I saw this movie, and I liked it better this time.
Kind of random, John Travolta is a Shilok, who is hunting down a target in Hollywood, when he gets into the throw of the movie business. As he meets different people trying to find his target, from Gene Hackman (B-Movie Director), Rene Russo (B-Movie Actress), to Danny Devito (Big time actor), he slowly becomes intertwined with local extortion and other shady dealings.
But it isn’t a heavy movie. It is very light and really funny with a ton of attitude. John Travolta is trying to intimidate people, and most of the time it works, but he is surrounded by people, who live in the movie capital of the world who have no cajones. Sarcastic, and a little campy, there were some extremely funny parts in this movie.
But it isn’t something I would recommend to people to watch a lot of times. There is only so much of the “Italian Gansta” type of talk that one person can take.
But to see John grab an ex-stuntman by the crotch and throw him down a flight of stairs is pretty humorous.
Guarding Tess (1994)
We wanted to see this movie after playing Scene It. I think I had seen it before, but it was a long time ago. I expected a comedy, it was closer to a drama really than a rip roaring funny movie.
Starring Nicolas Cage and Shirley MacLaine, Cage is a secret service agent who feels he has the worst job in the government security arena, guarding a old, hateful woman, the widow of a president, who day in and day out gives him hell. Cage acts tough, like he takes crap from no one, but when the president calls, he snaps too, and he is the one at the end of the whip.
There are some funny parts, and you really relate to the characters in this movie. The push and pull Cage has internally, the way that Tess becomes as bitter and old as she does, and the end when Cage is deathly scared when she is kidnapped and fears that she may be gone. I think this movie is ok, I wouldn’t ever own it other than for seeing Cage in his first of a couple breakout roles before he made it big. It isn’t a great movie to watch with a bunch of friends waiting for a ton of laughs, instead better to watch with a family. A good story and a solid movie.
Ghost World (2000)
Thora Birch, Steve Buscemi, and a relatively unknown Scarlett Johansson star in this peculiar movie that is about self imposed paranoia and how projecting fears on your friends can tear you life apart.
I didn’t completely get this movie. Thora and Scarlett are two young girls who do a string of random things after the graduate from high school, two dark goth like girls. But as the movie progresses, Birch stays dark for apparent reason and Scarlett moves on to responsibility and a job. Birch falls for Buscemi, a self professed geek, during a wretched prank gone awry. But by the end of the movie she has sabotaged the relationships with every person she cares about because she is too scared and confused to let them get too close to realize that she is just as fake as those she professed daily to hate.
A weird movie, I thought this was just ok. More about teen angst than any deeper concept. I wouldn’t recommend this movie to many people, unless you have a thing for either of these two young actresses. I watched it because I heard it was vaguely related to comics, a fleeting reference in dress up to Catwoman when Birch finds a cat like mask at a local sex shop. Pass on this one though unless you’re in the mood.
