It’s Lenten week, so it means… it’s gonna be a looong weekend, and while I am grumpy about the delay on my passport, I am preparing my favorite heartwarming movies for my movie marathon in the next two days, and I’m sharing you some of the best heart-tugging, feel-good and love and life affirming films that you can share with your family if you would be staying home over the holidays.
Beasts of the Southern Wild disheartened me with the premise it presented but won me over with the lead little girl’s portrayal. Her intuitive role carried the heart-wrenching tale of a young girl, Hushpuppy, living with her temperamental and dying father thriving in a small community away from the modern world. Putting Hushpuppy’s world into a film, had me on pensive mood after, because the bareness, and the story’s conflicts were told from a young girl’s perception making it so emotionally evoking. An unpolished and genius story, you will be immersed watching this little girl’s under-ordinary-inner-and-outside world.
Django Unchained is cheeky, violent, but interestingly amusing. Tarantino’s tailored cleverness stretches all throughout the movie. It tackled black slavery pre-American-civil-war in a brazen way courtesy of a dauntless bounty-hunter and an equally intrepid black slave he helped to be freed. Clearly narrated with ostensively riveting characters and OMG-that’s-bloody scenes, Django has so far satisfied my curiousity amongst the 2013 Oscar Contenders. I liked the music, the cinematography and the twisted-Leo-DiCaprio-dressed-like-Rhett-Butler. And of course I liked that Django got his ever-after. *chuckles
P.S not suitable for tweens below 15 though
This CHASING-BIN-LADEN movie started slow but made me hang on to my seat when the “Mission Kill Bin Laden” was on its culminating scene. It was narrated in CIA’s perspective, but it didn’t shadow the evil brilliance of the villain who has made them incapacitated even with the best intelligence and top notch technology for 10 years. The strength of “Zero Dark Thirty” was its way of triggering human emotions to root for the joint brain and brawn force of CIA and SEAL in capturing the fiend in the story. I don’t know if I’m just used to the fast-pace catching of sociopaths in Criminal Minds, but be prepared because you have to empathize with Maya’s almost obsession to catching the elusive terrorist… Her immersion to the case in real life stretched to a decade so her contemplation took a quarter of the story… but then again, the climax for me sufficed some dallying excessive strategy thinking on the movie. *chuckles I appreciate the pondering but let’s get into our tactical mission to pursue the baddie! — that’s my philosophy when I watch action films. *giggles
Chatty, feisty, angsty and troubled… I love the dynamics and chemistry of the characters in this movie. Limitless fun, weirdness and bickering… Silver Linings Playbook is a transparent love story between two people recovering from their emotional and psychological mishaps and moving on from the pain of their broken hearts. Their weaknesses and frustrations surprisingly led them to finding love again. Not cheesy, bubbly and very straightforward… if you like the unconventional romance, this is a very nice watch. ^_^
When my favorite basketball team failed in their mission to go to the Finals once again… I ended up consolidating all the TOP 100 Movies of All Time Search results on the web. I ended up tallying all the films as part of my bucket list before I say goodbye to my 20′s.
I got the outcome of this list from online polls, movie websites, film critics, film festival results, directors’ picks and a whole lot of more. I’m still working on finishing all the movies, and I hope that before July 25th 2013, I’m done with all of it.
P.S Pictures and my Personal Take are to follow. ^_^
2001: a space odyssey
12 angry men
A clockwork orange
Adventures of robinhood
Aguirre, wrath of god
All about eve
Amadeus
Amarcord
Andrei rublev
Annie hall
Apartment, The
Apocalypse now
Apu trilogy
Barry lyndon
Battle of algiers
Battleship potemkin
Best years of our lives, The
Bicycle thieves
Blade runner
Blow up
Body heat
Bonnie and clyde
Breathless
Bride of Frankenstein
Bridge on the river kwai
Butch cassidy and the sundance kid
Casablanca
Children of paradise
Chinatown
Close encounters of the 3rd kind
City of god
Citizen kane
City lights
Conversation, The
Double indemnity
Dr. Strangelove
Deer hunter, The
Duck soup
E.T
Eight and a half 8 1/2
Fanny and alexander
Fargo
Fight club
400 blows
The general
The godfather 1
The godfather 2
Gone with the wind
Goodfellas
Grapes of wrath
High noon
His girlfriday
Ikiru
Intolerance
It happened one night
It’s a wonderful life
Jaws
Kind hearts and coronets
LA Confidential
L ‘atalante
La Dolce Vita
Lawrence of Arabia
The leopard
M
Maltese falcon, The
Man with a movie camera
Manchurian candidate
Manhattan
Mean streets
The mirror
Nashville
Night of a hunter
North by northwest
On the waterfront
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
Persona
Psycho
Pulp fiction
Raging bull
Raiders of the lost ark
Raise the red lantern
Ran
Rashomon
Rear window
Rules of the game
Schindler’s list
The searchers
Seven Samurai
Seventh seal
Shawshank redemption
Silence of the lambs
Singing in the rain
Snowhite and the 7 dwarves
Some like it hot
Stage coach
Starwars: a new hope
Sunrise
Sunset boulevard
Stand by me
Taxi driver
The good, the bad and the ugly
The graduate
The third man
LOTR: The return of the king
Tokyo story
The treasure of sierra madre
The usual suspects
The wizard of Oz
To kill a mockingbird
Touch of evil
Trainspotting
Ugetsu
Unforgiven
Vertigo
Wild strawberries
Wild bunch
Wings of desire
STARRING: BRAD PITT
This is stimulating, brave and very well played. I was able to feel the story as it move along, and the climax sent me to the excitement and thrill I felt when I watch my favorite basketball game in a clutch moment for a championship game.
Billy Beane strategically revived the dying baseball team he manages amidst financial constraint and talent concerns. The result is a 20 game winning streak in the history of American baseball. His decisions on trades and sending off players earned him criticisms that his Math-based program will just kill his team. But he proved them wrong and his system has now been used by baseball companies.
I only have good words with this movie so I won’t prolong my musings. It has a lot of witty talking, daring moves and emotion driven moments. Out of all the movies I’ve seen in my recent 2011Oscar movie spree, this has been my favorite. It was just rightly done. No dragging moments, no overly weepy scenes… it focuses on the strength of the movie – the character portrayals.
So if you haven’t seen it yet, take a time to check it out. *wink
P.S The photos were taken all over the web through Google Images. ^_^
Starring: Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo
Classy and nostalgic but wasn’t enough to put me in wonder.
I like old movies but I don’t know I already conditioned myself that I will be embarking on a silent film. I did marvel at the costume and acting, but it failed to crawl in my system.
George Valentin was a famous silent film actor when the talkies emerged his prominence went downhill and was replaced by Peppy Miller whose career was indirectly given by Valentin.
The film production company ventured on the talking films leaving Valentin to part ways with them and carries on with working on Silent movies but his movie didn’t make it big. He drowned himself in alcohol and little by little he lost his fortune.
At the night of the movie launched of Valentin’s movie, he overhears Peppy Miller’s interview with the press. She jokingly mentions that it was time to make way for the young. Valentin made his presence known, and she felt bad about what she said.
During the times that Valentin was struggling financially, Miller silently helped him through buying on his auction events and even sheltering his loyal chauffeur.
In one of his frustrating moments he burned the old films of his movies and his place was caught on fire. His smart dog saved him and he was rushed to the hospital. When Peppy learned of it, she took him under her care in her residence.
When Valentin learned that Miller has been helping him after all this time, his pride kicked in and went back to moping on his sorry self. Peppy tried to convince the Film company owner to take a chance on Valentin again if not she will depart from them.
The film ended with Peppy and George in a dance number for a musical and we see a glimpse of Valentin in a short talking response, when they were asked to take another shot for their dance number.
I’m pretty sure modern movie watchers will not appreciate this movie… At times it’s funny but it just left me stoic after the curtains closed. I just felt that the story was confused whether to focus on Valentin or with the story. I’ll remember the adorable dog but not the movie.
P.S Photos are taken all over the web through Google image. ^_^
