Meet Joe Black (1998)

MIMDB score: 7.5
Current IMDB score: 7.1
Director: Martin Brest
Main Actors you care about: Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Clarie Forlani

Why I liked it: It just seems meaningful. Thing kind of work out how they are suppose to.  There is a few great thoughts to have in this movie as well.  The ending is marvelous really.  I see how it could be cheesy but I still think it's really good.  "If this movie was 20 minutes shorter it would really be great."   I've heard someone say that about this movie.  I think that's the bias from making it have a higher IMDB score.  It is long but is also good.

What stands out:  Anthony Hopkins speeches are pretty great.  It just makes you feel good to hear him say those things even though they are somewhat obvious.  If it's your first time hearing that stuff it could really help you probably.

Thing(s) I would change:  Yea, a few things could be cut out.  It is longer than most movies and it's not like an epic movie.  It's probably only a few months long in movie time so it's hard to maintain attention I feel like in a short movie time movie like this.  They needed to add some comedy I think if you are going to make a movie this long.  Too much drama leads to boredom without some comedy.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:
Most of the deeper conversations focus around Anthony Hopkins character.

William Parrish: Love is passion, obsession, someone you can't live without. I say, fall head over heels. Find someone you can love like crazy and who will love you the same way back. How do you find him? Well, you forget your head, and you listen to your heart. And I'm not hearing any heart. Cause the truth is, honey, there's no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love, well, you haven't lived a life at all. But you have to try, cause if you haven't tried, you haven't lived.

Next conversation:
William Parrish: It's not what you say about Drew, it's what you don't say.
Susan Parrish: Maybe you're not listening.
William Parrish: Oh yes, I am. There's not an ounce of excitement. Not a whisper of a thrill. This relationship has all the passion of a pair of tit mice. I want you to get swept away out there. I want you to levitate. I want you to sing with rapture and dance like a Dervish.
Susan Parrish: Oh, that's all?
William Parrish: Yeah. Be deliriously happy or at least leave yourself open to be.
Susan Parrish: Okay. Be deliriously happy. I shall... uhh... I shall do my utmost.
William Parrish: I know it's a cornball thing, but love is passion. Obsession. Someone you can't live without. I say fall head over heels. Find someone you can love like crazy, and who'll love you the same way back. How do you you find 'em? Well, you forget your head and you listen to your heart. I'm not hearing any heart. Because the truth is, honey, there's no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love, well, you haven't lived a life at all. But you have to try, because if you haven't tried, you haven't lived.

Marvelous;
Joe Black: I don't care Bill. I love her.
William Parrish: How perfect for you - to take whatever you want because it pleases you. That's not love.
Joe Black: Then what is it?
William Parrish: Some aimless infatuation which, for the moment, you feel like indulging - it's missing everything that matters.
Joe Black: Which is what?
William Parrish: Trust, responsibility, taking the weight for your choices and feelings, and spending the rest of your life living up to them. And above all, not hurting the object of your love.
Joe Black: So that's what love is according to William Parrish?
William Parrish: Multiply it by infinity, and take it to the depth of forever, and you will still have barely a glimpse of what I'm talking about.
Joe Black: Those were my words.
William Parrish: They're mine now.

The biggest thing I want to point out with these conversations is the deeper feeling of love. I want to explore whether or not love is a made up emotion used by biology to make us reproduce happily.  These aren't the thoughts this movie first led me to but it's what they led me to in viewing it recently.  I've always thought because of movies like this that there is regular love and a deeper level of love that not many people feel or know about.

It's like Hopkin's daughter is "in love" with Drew the douchebag.  She doesn't know it could be better than what she has with Drew.  There's like this level of love where you just kind of find someone that is good enough.  He or she seems well enough, seems to fit in the family, seems to be smart, and seems like a lot of other things.  How are you suppose to see there is a better person out there for you without having met that person?  I don't know.  Then there's a higher level I used to think where you actually realize this person is so amazing for you.  You smile even when you think of them and smile every time you see them because you can't control your happiness around them.  When you see them you know a conversation is occurring between you and him or her without even acknowledging it.

I don't know though.  That second kind of feeling or level I think could be said to be fleeting or not long lasting.  Maybe (as with most things or levels) is you need to have both.  Maybe though the second version is just really rare.  It only happens a few times and a quote from a movie called Loser where the main girl says there are lucky people where love is like that second level forever.  I like to believe that.  Maybe only certain people who find the other certain people get to experience the second kind of love most of their lives.  It kind of makes sense.  You see the couples that or marriages that still look like super fun and loving as they get older and you see the marriages that are just like "Phew, we made it through another day."  Maybe it's just about both people having a perspective on life which is to be happy instead of being annoyed or mad with life?

William Parrish: I thought I was going to sneak away tonight. What a glorious night. Every face I see is a memory. It may not be a perfectly perfect memory. Sometimes we had our ups and downs. But we're all together, and you're mine for a night. And I'm going to break precedent and tell you my one candle wish: that you would have a life as lucky as mine, where you can wake up one morning and say, "I don't want anything more." Sixty-five years. Don't they go by in a blink?

Just to clarify this very common saying, life doesn't go by in a blink.  It is very slow at times.  Near the end you don't want to die. With the limited time you have left when you realize you are going to die it will feel like life moves really fast.  Granted it does move too fast to fully understand it or enjoy the moments as they pass but that's only the really good parts.

Similar Movies/TV Shows: Legends of the Fall, What Dreams May Come?, Death takes a Holiday (although I've never seen it), City of Angels

"Side" note:  The director seemed to be a big stickler in his vision for the movie.  He was upset when a two hour version was made for TV in which a lot of the business side of movie was taken out.  He was so upset that when the TV version is played he demanded to not be listed as the director.  Also Hopkins got upset with the director for making Hopkins do so many takes on the same scene.

A River Runs Through It (1992)

MIMDB score: 7.9
Current IMDB score: 7.3
Director: Robert Redford
Main Actors you care about: Brad Pitt, Tom Skerritt, Robert Redford (narrator), Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Why I liked it: It's one of those life long movies which are fantastic to me.  It's an interesting perspective on life that has a lot of good thoughts worth thinking through.  It's wholesome.

What stands out:  The feeling you get at the end.  Like you just lived the life that was just shown to you.  Gives you experience without having to experience what the characters go through.

What I would change: I don't know if I would necessarily change it but I've never understood the physical fighting the kids did or that kids do.  I always felt so bad every time I did anything like that.  I never understood why physical dominance was a good thing.  I guess evolutionary it's a good thing but I think as a species we are past that.  Since I don't fully understand that part of life I guess I kind of wish there was less of it in the movie.  Fighting should still be thought about as it still happens in life though.

The main character's wife is pretty uninspiring.  They could have done more with her I think.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:
Jessie Burns: Why is it the people who need the most help... won't take it?
Norman Maclean: I don't know, Jess.

Rev. Maclean: Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true, we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.

I seems that you can not help people that need it.  You can try and work at it, do whatever you can using tailored ideas but changing another person (for universally understood as better) comes down to the person.  It has to make sense in their head and that only happens if they work it out. There's also a really good quote that synergizes with this thought: "Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you'll understand what little chance you have of trying to change others."

Also there is no such thing as universally better.  No two people think a like.  So what you think is better is not necessarily better for another person.  Whenever I think I should help someone see something or help fix something I think of "Let he [or she] without sin cast the first stone".  Instead of "fixing" other people I should really focus on myself first.  I'm not perfect so there's always something I could be focusing on about myself instead of someone else.  These thoughts usually lead me to not wanting to change anything about anyone else.

Similar Movies/TV Shows: Legends of the Fall and Last of the Mohicans

"Side" note: The movie is based on an auto-biographical story by the real life main character Norman Maclean.  A George Coonebergs is the master fly fisherman that taught all the actors how to fly fish.  The Maclean's and the Coonebergs have been friends for four generations.  That's kind of a really awesome thing.  A lot of people can't be friends for four years.