Bridesmaids (2011)

Director: 

Paul Feig

Writers: 

Kristen Wiig, Annie Mumolo
This isn’t a movie that I would choose to see on my own, but some friends wanted to see it, so I went with them. It was a funny and enjoyable movie. I laughed out loud a lot, and I don’t normally while watching movies. I like comedy more in tv shows than movies, but this was good. Also, if you see this don’t get up and leave the theater quickly as soon as the credits start (like everyone else in the theater I was in did, besides my friends and I, WHY DO PEOPLE DO THAT?!) or you will miss something involving a very large sandwich. 
Quotes: Pretty much everything Melissa McCarthy’s character “Megan” said. 

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

Directed by: Charlie Kaufman

Written by: Charlie Kaufman

I could never remember the difference between synecdoche and metonymy, after watching this I will never get them confused again. Surprisingly I didn’t enjoy this film all that much. Which is strange because I like Charlie Kaufman, and I like Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Catherine Keener, and the idea of a play about everything, it’s an admirable script, but eh. I don’t know, it’s a movie that requires to be watched more than once I think, which I also like that about it that it’s difficult to understand, but I’m not willing to watch it again. It’s one of those weird films that has a bunch of elements that would suggest I would really like it, but for some reason my natural response is that I just don’t care for it. I mean I’m far from hating it and I don’t feel robbed of the time that it took me to watch it. The best way to describe my feelings toward this movie would be a lukewarm ehhh.

Quote: Caden Cotard: I know how to do it now. There are nearly thirteen million people in the world. None of those people is an extra. They’re all the leads of their own stories. They have to be given their due.

SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD (2010)

Directed by: Edgar Wright

Written by: Michael Bacall (screenplay), Edgar Wright (screenplay), Bryan Lee O’Malley (Oni Press graphic novels)

I so gleefully loaded this into my dvd player, I was not let down. The motif of cutting to continuity was so amusing.

Favorite Quotes:

Ramona V. Flowers: This is good garlic bread.
Scott Pilgrim: Yeah, I think garlic bread would have to be my favourite all-time food. I could eat it for every meal. Or just constantly, without stopping.
Ramona V. Flowers: Then you’d get fat.
Scott Pilgrim: No, why would I get fat?
Ramona V. Flowers: Because bread makes you fat.
Scott Pilgrim: Bread makes you fat?

Scott Pilgrim: We are Sex Bob-Omb and we are here to make you think about death and get sad and stuff.

Scott Pilgrim: I have to go pee due to boredom.

TRAINSPOTTING (1996)

Directed by: Danny Boyle

Written by: Irvine Welsh (novel), John Hodge (screenplay) 

I really liked this film because what I expected to happen (with the exception of the characters relapsing) consistently did not happen. For example (*SPOILER*) when baby Dawn is found dead, which was a very emotionally effective dolly shot, one would expect this would be the turning point that would motivate the parents of Dawn to stop using. But what happens is that the mom shortly after finding the baby uses heroin again. But then when I really thought about it, that’s what I would expect a person would do in real life, but not in a movie, so it was refreshing. Honestly I would most likely do the same thing because it would cause me to forget that I just practically murdered my own child, and it would numb the grief. In this respect the film doesn’t glamorize drug use, but it does convey the attractive reasons why people use drugs. When not using drugs “You have to worry about bills, about food, about some football team that never wins, about human relationships and all the things that really don’t matter when you’ve got a sincere and truthful junk habit.” But then the film shifts and shows all the terrible consequences. 

Favorite Quote:

Mark “Rent-boy” Renton: It wasn’t just the baby that died that day. Something inside Sick Boy was lost and never returned. It seemed that he had no theory with which to explain a moment like this… nor did I. Our only response was to keep on going and ‘fuck everything’. pile misery upon misery, heap it up on a spoon and dissolve it with a drop of bile, then squirt it into a stinking, puerile vein and do it all over again. Keep on going, getting up, going out, robbing, stealing, fucking people over. Propelling ourselves with longing towards the day that it would all go wrong, because no matter how much you stash, or how much you steal you never have enough. No matter how often you go out and rob and fuck people over, you always need to get up and do it all over again.

BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (1999)

Directed by: Spike Jonze

Written by: Charlie Kaufman

It’s strange how I really like this movie, but I don’t like any of the characters, probably because they’re not really affable people, oddly it doesn’t make me like the film any less. 

Favorite Quotes:

Dr. Lester: I’ve been very lonely in my isolated tower of indecipherable speech. 

Craig Schwartz: You don’t know how lucky you are being a monkey. Because consciousness is a terrible curse. I think. I feel. I suffer. And all I ask in return is the opportunity to do my work. And they won’t allow it… because I raise issues. 

The Thing (1982)

Director:

John Carpenter

Writers:

John W. Campbell Jr. (story), Bill Lancaster (screenplay)

This is a remake of the 1951 “The Thing from Another World”, of which I have not seen, and a 2011 remake is now in post production, of which I am not very interested in. In my opinion this is a nearly perfect horror movie, it’s score lacks a bit. It’s very effectively directed, and creative. And even though my eyes have seen incredible CGI, this is probably an unpopular opinion, but I much prefer, and appreciate more, the special effects used in movies like this. “Aliens” is another great example of non-CGI, animatronic/makeup special effects that are amazing.This is now a favorite movie of mine.

Quotes:

MacReady: Now I’m gonna show you what I already know.

Palmer: Childs, it happens all the time, man. They’re falling out of the sky like flies. Government knows all about it, right, Mac?

(*SPOILER*)

MacReady: I know I’m human. And if you were all these things, then you’d just attack me right now, so some of you are still human. This thing doesn’t want to show itself, it wants to hide inside an imitation. It’ll fight if it has to, but it’s vulnerable out in the open. If it takes us over, then it has no more enemies, nobody left to kill it. And then it’s won.

THE MACHINIST (2004)

Directed by: Brad Anderson

Written by: Scott Kosar

I liked the theme of discovering the truth about oneself in this film. Also the movement and placement of objects in this was clever. In our culture, the eye is used to seeing things or reading things from left to right, so in movies when characters or objects move from right to left it can imply many different things, such as breaking convention, or adversity. In this film it implies the ominous or baleful, get it Christian Bale? Ha. Nevermind I’m stupid. Also the bleak coloring, which I really liked, but the colorist was uncredited. The ending of this film didn’t feel like it completely paid off, but it was still pretty good. Also I can’t help but mention, Christian Bale was frighteningly thin, I read that he dropped to 110 pounds for the role. That’s pretty insane. Just sayin. And his character’s last name is Reznik, which made me automatically think of Trent Reznik, whom Bale’s character is actually named after! I felt special having caught that esoteric whatnot there.

THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940)

Directed by: John Ford

Screenwriting by: Nunnally Johnson (Based on the Novel by: John Steinbeck)

My only wish about this is that it would have ended the way the book ended. Especially the stillborn floating down the river to be a sign to those who’d find it. But I guess the film’s ending is much more satisfying, and inspiring (and less controversial for it’s time).

Quotes:

Tom Joad: Seems like the government’s got more interest in a dead man than a live one.

Ma Joad: Rich fellas come up an’ they die, an’ their kids ain’t no good an’ they die out. But we keep a’comin’. We’re the people that live. They can’t wipe us out; they can’t lick us. We’ll go on forever, Pa, ‘cause we’re the people.

MAGNOLIA (1999)

Directed and Written by: Paul Thomas Anderson

I really like movies in which there are many characters and they are all somehow related. I noticed in this film all the characters relate back to one single character, who has a great significance toward the end, which was intriguing. This movie is very cleverly written and shot. There are so many plants (especially with the numbers 8 and 2, relating to Exodus 8:2), allusions, and themes, such as the son paying for the sins of the father, regret, exploitation, mistakes and forgiveness for them, just so many themes. In ways the film is very explicit in terms of themes and ideologies, but there are also many subtleties laced through out.

Favorite Quotes:

Stanley Spector: This happens. This is something that happens.

Earl Partridge: Don’t ever let anyone ever say to you you shouldn’t regret anything. Don’t do that. Don’t! You regret what you fucking want! Use that. Use that. Use that regret for anything, any way you want. You can use it, OK? Oh, God. This is a long way to go with no punch. A little moral story, I say… Love. Love. Love.

Earl Partridge: Mistakes like this… you don’t make. Sometimes… you make some and OK. Not OK, sometimes, you make other ones. Know that you should do better.

ELEPHANT MAN (1980)

Directed by: David Lynch

Written by: Christopher De Vore (screenplay), Eric Bergren (screenplay), David Lynch (screenplay), Frederick Treves (book “The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences”) Ashley Montagu (book “The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity”)

This entire film is stunning. But the ending is really perfect, it’s so poignant with “Adagio” playing in the back. It amazes me how film and music, especially in combination, can be so moving. This is my second favorite final scene of a movie, the first being the end of “Fight Club”.

Favorite Quotes:

John Merrick: My life is full because I know I am loved.

John Merrick: I am not an elephant! I am not an animal! I am a human being! I am a man!