Movie Reviews

Hudsucker Proxy — Interesting movie. Watched this one due to an extreme recommendation from Brandon. It was visually stimulating and the story was fun. Seeing Paul Newman was a pleasant surprise as well. I think my favorite part about this movie was how all of the great ideas were simply a circle on a piece of paper, which at the time seemed silly, but turned out to be legitimate ideas. The reporter in the movie was really annoying, but I suppose she nailed her part, and should get credit for that.

American History X — Tonia and I sort of accidentally got caught up in this one the other night on TV. It’s probably a good thing that we caught the TV version as I’ve since seen it was once dubbed one of the most violent films of all time by Entertainment Weekly. Regardless, it’s a very well done film with a great story. I’m sure it’s been done before, but I really loved how the paralleled back-story was done in black and white. That really helped keep track of things. Edward Norton was amazing in this movie.

Borat — Um. If you haven’t seen it, don’t. Sasha Cohen is incredibly talented, and mildly funny, but it’s wasted in this movie. For some reason he relies on extreme vulgarity, shock, and junior high humor to get laughs. (Didn’t Tom Green do this schtick already?) And I don’t believe that even 10% of this movie was done without scripting. I’d love someone to prove me wrong on that. Final thoughts… this was the most vulgar and disgusting rated R movie I’ve ever seen in my life! It’ss niiiicee… … … … NOT!

Shaun of the Dead — Not a first viewing for me, but I insisted Tonia check it out with me since she liked Hot Fuzz so much. This movie might turn into an annual Halloween viewing for me, much like Escanaba In Da Moonlight is for me on Thanksgiving, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is on Christmas. Simon Pegg and cast are hysterical, and for some reason the over-emphasized squirting blood all over just makes me laugh. And I’m a big fan of the overall editing techniques used here. Great fun.

We Are Marshall — Another true story, which I love. It was a really nice movie and filled in a lot of questions I had about the story yet never looked into. Not a fan of Matthew McConaughey in this one though. His over-acting to sound like the real Jack Lengyel—including accent, talking from the side of his mouth, and physical appearance—really got annoying after about 10 minutes. Matthew Fox on the other hand was awesome (minus his ridiculously red hair). Overall, this was another nice true sports story that translated into a good movie. To be brutally honest, I’m really surprised that kind of thing hasn’t happened more often.