Seven Pounds (2008)

MIMDB score: 7.1
Current IMDB score: 7.7
Director: Gabriele Muccino
Main Actors you care about: Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson

Why I liked it: There is an African folklore that goes something like there was a lion and a man in the plains.  The man noticed the lion needed some food to keep his/her pack alive.  So the man knowing his life was not worth more than the lion pack let the lion and pack eat him so that the pack could survive. Sacrificing himself for lions.  In the case of this movie it's a form of that but more of an act of redemption.  It's a really interesting thought to go through about saving other lives in giving up your own.  What I've come to conclude is if you can live in the situation and then after that event save as many lives as you can it would be better.  So yea you'll save the lion pack or team but think about the amount of good you can do for the next twenty plus years of your life instead of being done then.  Think of the countless good acts you could do to save lives.  If you are going to save your own life you better make up for it and start saving others.  Even if you don't have a moment in your life where you can sacrifice your life for others you should be getting ahead in karma by doing your best to help others in case one day you do.  Maybe movies like these are just like Rorschach test to me but I see them as reason to be a better person.  I'm sure others could see this movie as a lame, over dramatic, boring movie though.

Thing(s) I would change: I don't like that in the beginning he says he is committing suicide.  I think that stops the movie from being amazing and adds to validity of it being boring.  It's suppose to be a big secret of what he's doing yet they give too much away in the beginning in my opinion.  I think it would have been a way bigger act had it not been given away in one of the first scenes.

"In seven days God created the world.  And in seven seconds, I shattered mine."  Terrible lines.  So cheesy.  Just really forcing the word SEVEN in the title, sins, etc.  Those type of connections aren't needed for me anyway.

He should have stayed alive when he met her.  As my "Why I liked it section" stated he could have had redemption in making her life really amazing along with six other people without having to kill himself.  Granted she might not have gotten a heart and died but making her last few months/years alive amazing is still something worth doing.  Just in real life you would just do whatever you could to help at least seven people if you did in fact ruin seven peoples' lives.  As said in my Short Term 12 post, suicide doesn't make sense; helping people does.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene: I do love the jelly fish scenes.  They bring a bit of beauty to an organism that I've never felt anything other than RUN AWAY about.

George Ristuccia: You know, Ben, I keep asking you this but why me?
Ben Thomas: Because you are a good man.
George Ristuccia: No, really.
Ben Thomas: Even when you don't know that people are watching you.
Live your life like everyone you've ever known is watching you.  That leads to less regrets in life.

Similar Movies/TV Shows: Pursuit of Happiness a bit, Patch Adams, Amelie, Pay it Forward

"Side" note:
The movie title is a reference to Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice play.  One of the characters in the play agrees to pay a moneylender a pound of his flesh if his debt is not paid in time.

The Intern (2015)

(Not to be confused with The Internship)

MIMDB score: 7.4
Current IMDB score: 7.2
Director: Nancy Meyers
Main Actors you care about: Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway

Why I liked it: Charming.  This movie is charming.  Mostly because of Robert De Niro.  It made me feel good to think that De Niro's character exists and sometimes you need that in life.  There's a lot of neglect that people allow themselves to act a certain way because hey, if there is no immediate problems coming out of the way I'm acting then why would I change it?  Just a bad thought in general.  Always be on the look out to find people to look at for what to change. You should be a combination of all the good parts of people you've spent time with that you thought was worth understanding.

Thing(s) I would change: A little cheesy at the end.  It's a little cheesy throughout but only if you are susceptible to not liking cheesy moments will it matter.  I kind of doubt she would just be ok with him cheating on her.  I don't get it.  Some people are in these relationships that want monogamy but it's ok if you can't be because it's SOOO hard to be monogamous . . . It's not hard to be monogamous.  It's hard to put up with people that aren't monogamous.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene: For some reason I really like the scene were Anne Hathaway shows up at the coffee shop where she just moved De Niro off working for her and apologizes.  I like that feeling that exists there.  The we are no longer boss/employee.  We are friends.  I like when I feel that feeling in real life for anything.  We are no longer X but now we are good friends and I won't be taking offense to small things anymore because I believe you to mean well.

"You're never wrong to do the right thing." I really like it but also hate it.  Yes you are never wrong to do the right thing.  The problem with that statement is what is right is different for a lot of people.  Mass killers think they are doing the right thing with killing people that they think do understand the world.  Again I still like the statement even though the statement is flawed.

Similar Movies/TV Shows: In Good Company, The Devil Wears Prada even though I don't recommend it,

"Side" note: Nothing worth mentioning.

The Beauty Inside (2015)

(It's an English subtitle movie, I apologize if you don't like those)

MIMDB score: 7.5
Current IMDB score: 7.2
Director: Does it matter?
Main Actors you care about: N/A

Why I liked it: Hmmmmm good.  It a soft movie with a beautiful message.  They mainly use classical music which is always good.  The music with lyrics is very soft and simple still.  Rom-com with some added thought.  The premise is the main (male) character's body changes every night, gender included.  It's sort of a play on Groundhog day or About Time which are always intriguing to me.

I love the idea of loving someone for what's inside and this movie kind of hits on that.  Granted they don't get too deep into why they really should love each other besides the love for antiques/furniture.  They still hit a home run for the idea of loving someone for more than there appearance.

It also brings up the idea of a person changing all the time and then finding the person they love and that helping them figure out who they want to be.  It like a puzzle they've been trying to solve and the person solves it for them and they don't change much anymore.  It's kind of awesome if that ever happens to you.  Kind of doubt that happens in real life and that be the "correct" way to living.  If someone changes for someone else it's hard to say that's good.  The "best" I would assume would be you are already some way and you find someone else that is a similar way.  But who knows if that is right.

What stands out:  The idea of the movie and the simplistic style.  ALL the actors that played the same character is very intriguing.  Interesting acting job.  There were 122 people in total that played the main actor.  Kind of crazy interesting.

Thing(s) I would change:  Not that I would change this necessarily but would have loved the movie to go in a different direction at the end.  I kind of wanted her to start changing everyday as well.  There could be a lot of endings and their ending is good enough and makes sense, moreso than most rom-coms.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:  The scene where the friend asks to have sex with the main character.  Pretty funny.

The day where he's a little boy with her is pretty cute. :)

Friend when he meets her for the first time:  "Who the hell are you?  Everything she says you say it's fine too?"

I really like the the idea of making the wedding ring.  If I was to ever give a wedding ring I would defiantly look into this.  Tangent here, I've never understood the two rings for the woman and only one for the man.  Weddings (and love) are about equality (or it is in my best guess).  The symbol of love shouldn't be that women get twice what the man gets.  It should be equal.

The last scene with all the people that were him is a good touch.  I just like it.

Similar Movies/TV Shows:  About Time, Groundhog Day, Memento maybe? Being John Malkovich.

"Side" note: There's another version of this in English.  It's almost as good and is probably good enough to understand what's going on.  It's like a short web mini series that probably is thirty minutes total.  If you watch it and like it you could probably watch this Korean version which I think is a little bit better.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)

MIMDB score: 7.9
Current IMDB score: 7.3
Director: Ben Stiller
Main Actors you care about: Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Adam Scott, Sean Penn

Why I liked it: It's makes me feel good.  This movie made me look at Ben Stiller differently.  It's like Will Ferrell's Stranger than Fiction movie for Ben Stiller.  The comedian type guy who's put in this humbling role that somehow fits really well even though it doesn't seem that way at first.  Mitty's character is reliable to the type of person that watches Walter Mitty-type movies.

What stands out:  The feeling you get from it.  It's like a safe feeling.  It's what humble pie would taste like.

Thing(s) I would change:  I do not like Stretch Armstrong.  I do not like the Stretch Armstrong scene between Adam Scott and Mitty.  It's too weird for the movie unfortunately.  That scene is borderline too weird.  Now the Benjamin Buttons scene is definitely too weird.  I feel like Kristen Wiig had something to do with the development of that scene because it's super weird and that's her humor.  Cut those sequences out please as they are distracting and have little to do with movie.  Deleted scenes is a better place for those.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:  All the scenes in Iceland.  If you can go to Iceland in your life I recommend it.  It's fits this movie perfectly.  Iceland humbly makes you feel good being there.

Mitty: "And I get it. You got your marching orders... and you have to do what you have to do. But you don't have to be such a dick. Put that on a plaque, and hang it at your next job."  Exactly what needed to be said.  So good.

"Beautiful things don't ask for attention."  Amen movie.  I do not like when people call attention to themselves.  It's showy.  If people want to invest time or thought in you they will.  You don't have to sell yourself or shouldn't have to anyway.

Life's Motto: "To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life."  The whole Life magazine being compared to life.  I like a lot of those thoughts.

Similar Movies/TV Shows:  For some reason the Truman Show?  I'll list the original Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) but I've only seen the trailer and that doesn't seem to have the same feel.  That one seems like more of a comedy.  The Intern, same feeling but different story and it's recent.  Pursuit of Happiness but it's not the exact same feeling.

"Side" note: I've been to Iceland where a lot of the scenes were filmed.  It was awesome.  I recommend going.  I went to the long boarding scene, helicopter departure scene, and the scenes in supposedly in Afghanistan that were really in the big state park in Iceland.  The really blue glacier he's walking on one time is a glacier I've walked.  Same ones in Interstellar.  Pretty awesome.

Also that's not really Life magazine's real motto unfortunately. . . .

Spotlight (2015)

MIMDB score: 7.2
Current IMDB score: 8.2
Director: Marc Webb
Main Actors you care about: Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton

Why I liked it: I'm going to start a tradition of reviewing movies that receive an Oscar for best picture going forward.  I didn't think it was amazing but it was good.  Nothing really stood out to me except the ending.  The credits started listing ALL the cities where this has occurred. It takes like 20 screens of fairly small font to get through them all.  Really freaking crazy to believe it went on for so long before some one figured out it was happening.  In case you are not aware this movie covers the sexual (and probably mental) abuse of kids by Catholic persists.  Even more outrageous than that it talks about the cover up the Catholic church was doing for years on it.  I think this subject matter was a large part of why it won best picture . . . and that list of course.

What stands out:  The long list as I said.

Thing(s) I would change:  I was going to say have something more that stood out.  Nothing overly stood out because apparently the idea was not to embellish anything that happened.  There was the scene where the one priest admits to everything which was noteworthy but he was out of his mind so I don't think that stood out too much.  It's good though, really, for this type of movie.  That's kind of how these docuemtary-isqe movies should go.  If they would have embellished I think more would have stood out than just the list.  Not exaggerating made the list stand out more I feel like because that's what had the most attention I thought.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:  The long list.  Although re-watching it doesn't seem that long but it still stands out.

I do like this line though:
Phil Saviano: I was eleven. And I was preyed upon by father David Holly in Wester. And I don't mean prayed for, I mean preyed upon.
Me: Boom, roasted.

Similar Movies/TV Shows:  They say Argo but I wouldn't say that.  Doubt, Inside Job, The Network, Good Night, and Good Luck, the TV show Newsroom.

"Side" note: These characters are based on an actual Spotlight team at the Boston Globe.  Many of the real journalist who worked on the story were present during the filming of the movie.  Another cool thing while researching this is that the journalists at the Boston Globe use a blue pen, the boss uses a black pen, and the editor uses a red pen.

Michael Keaton's fly is down in one scene.  Have fun finding what scene it is in . . . .

500 Days of Summer (2009)

MIMDB score: 7.5
Current IMDB score: 7.8
Director: Marc Webb
Main Actors you care about: Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Chloe Grace Moretz

Why I liked it: It made me pissed.  It's one of the few movies I hate but still think is good.

I am upset with this quote:  "Just because she likes the same bizzaro crap you do doesn't mean she's your soul mate."  I wrote a whole paragraph about it but I ended up deleting because technically the quote is correct.  That doesn't mean she's your soul mate.  I don't like it because the quote misleads your mind.  Liking the same bizzaro crap can lead to her being your soul mate.  It's not a negative to like the same bizzaro crap!  It's a positive!  In fact I would go to say that you should be looking for people that like the same bizzaro crap that you do because I personally believe that's what leads to long term happiness.  And if one those people that does like the same bizzaro crap happens to be someone you fall in love with then shit, it's awesome.  Every time I read or hear the quote I get upset because it barely makes sense.

What stands out:  The story hits home with a lot of people.  It upsets a lot of people.  It looks at what happens more often than not in a relationship.  Most relationships do not work out.  Only "one" kind of does work out.  By one relationship I mean the current relationship you are in (if you are in one).  If the one you are currently in fails then I'm talking about the next relationship then.  For most people, all the people that it didn't work out with is a higher number than the current number of people it's working out with right now.

It's not fun when one person wants the relationship and the other doesn't.  This is especially true when the one side can't for of the life of them can't figure out why the other doesn't want to keep going.  Media and society I feel like pushes you toward believing that one love at a time is how it should work.  The problem with this way of dating/being in relationships doesn't work as well as just dating as many people as you can and pick the person that you most like that also wants to date you back.  This works well if your main goal is to be with someone (even it's not one of your top choice(s)).  Most people can handle the one or two people that don't want to date you.  It's just an awful when consistently the people you want to date don't want to date you.  You kind of give up after awhile.  This movie makes you feel that feeling at least once which is why I hate this movie but also will say it's good.  It's good to feel like feeling if you haven't felt it in your life (which is like 1% of people).

Thing(s) I would change:  Zooey is well casted as this is the type of girl I believe she is in real life.  She might even be too well casted to the point where I hate Zooey in everything else she's been in now.  All I see is Summer hurting Tom.

The worst thing is Summer hurt Tom and Summer just benefited from it.  Summer figured out that love existed and got to feel it because she knew with Tom what love was not like.  Tom as the hopeless romantic didn't seem to learn anything.  It's just a big kick in the pants to hopeless romantics which are the people that this movie is targeting.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:
Expectation vs Reality scene (of course).  This scene sums up most people's thought process before going to an event.  It's fantastically done.

Similar Movies/TV Shows:  Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Comet

"Side" note: Since this movie is not really about the happiness of relationships or love the color red is not used very often.  Instead the color blue is used to represent love. That is a pretty wonderful touch.

Comet (2014)

MIMDB score: 7.8
Current IMDB score: 6.7
Director: Sam Esmail
Main Actors you care about: Justin Long, Emmy Rossum

Why I liked it: It made me want to watch it again.  A movie hasn't done that to me in awhile.  It's just straight insane dialogue and it's hard to keep up.  It's really woven well I think.  Things are brought up that relate to other things but only after thinking about it.  I'm sure the lighting choices matter as well but I haven't figured it all out yet.  I don't know why IMDB has it so low at 6.7.  This is an interesting movie to think through at least once I feel like.  Maybe it's really niche because of how weird it kind of is.  It has two really big stars I feel like so people should have gotten over that like in Eternal Sunshine but oh well. I guess the theme Eternal Sunshine has was more appealing than this movie.  I'm guessing it just hasn't been seen by enough people.  It only has about 9k votes at the time of writing this.

I like to think that you can interpret the movie as all the same relationship or different relationships.

What stands out:  The speed.  It reminds me of like an action movie that starts going and never stops.  Just one thing after another but in a romantic way so you know, worth understanding what is happening as opposed to actions movies where crap happens and you get an adrenaline rush for a bit without much thought.  I had an adrenaline rush that was coupled with a lot of thought which I consider rare in a movie.

Thing(s) I would change:  At first I was going to say the ending but after more thought I think it's good.  I was kind of feeling they should not be together because that's more a final resolution but I think they do get back together after I realized the pregnancy was originally suppose to be her lie at the start of their relationship.  It makes very clever sense (which the movie goes along with the feel I got from the movie) that she was lying about being pregnant at the end as well.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:
The whole movie really. The way they wove the story line was how I want movies to be at lot of the time.

I do want to call out the scene where the girl just starts yelling at him when they are in the hotel before the wedding (and his proposal) and he just drowns her out and listens to music.  I do that pretty often and I loved seeing it happen to some one else.

Similar Movies/TV Shows: Cellular (action movie), Gilmore Girls because they are talking so freaking fast. The all movies I like: Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Vanilla Sky, The Fountain, Mr. Nobody, Once, 500 Days of Summer, Cloud Atlas.

"Side" note: Genesis and Catastrophe: A True Story It's kind of interesting story to think about especially how it might relate to the relationship in the story.