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.  This movies plays with the idea that you can't help people.  They have to help themselves.  It's a hard thought to get to in living through own life and hopefully a movie like this would help get you there faster.

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.

It 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.

Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (2004)

MIMDB score: 7.8
Current IMDB score: 8.4
Director: Michael Gondry
Main Actors you care about: Jim Carey, Kate Winslet, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Kristen Dunst

Why I liked it: It sort of an amazing movie.  It's also sort of a super hyped movie.  It's kind of weird which is why I'm surprised its an 8.4.  I think the thing that appeals to people is the idea of removing someone from your thoughts.   I don't know about you but trying to get someone out of your head is not an easy task.  Most of the time it's not a doable task either.  Many things plague my mind.  If you've ever been in that situation then this movie is a wonderful idea.

The trouble is, and for some reason people miss this part, in the end the movie comes to the conclusion that you would just go back to the same person.  I think the movie is really saying that you have to go through those relationships that mess you up.  You have to have that experience to get past "it" in life.  I'm not just talking about dating a type of person.  "It" could be any number of underlying problems you have.  The only way you get past some things is by going through that experience in some cases.  It's why sometimes when you tell people not to do something they do it anyway because they have to learn for themselves.

I think that message is just a nice way of thinking though.  In reality it just really sucks to have to go through a failure.  I don't know why people have to go through more than others (or at all).  It could come down to cleverness, intuition, being smart?, or just plain luck.  I kind of think it is just luck.  Love in particular is too hard to figure out even though it should be easy.

What stands out:  It's kind of interesting to be in Jim Carey's mind.  It's kind of cool how they do it but it's kind of weird like I said.  I like it but not enough to consider it amazing.  It's only sort of amazing how they do it.  It's a good idea but I'm not overly impressed with exactly how they did it.  I think visualizing the mind could be done better.  It does stand out though because very few movies before it did it as well as this movie.

What I would change:  I don't like Kristen Dunst's character.  She is a floozy.  She wanted to cheat on her boyfriend with her boss, she got involved with someone who she knew was married, and she got so mad that she sends back every persons' memories to them.  That is kind of extreme in my opinion.  It does go along with the movie's idea that even if you could erase memories it wouldn't help all that much but she is so irrational.  I don't like that her character did all of those bad things in the movie.  Maybe she thinks the only way people won't repeat their mistake they are trying to forget is by sending it out but I doubt in every case it was like that.  Also she didn't have the right to do that.  I don't like her rashness in the decision.  She should have talked it over with her boss at least and came to a decision to do that instead of just doing it.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:  Anything in Montague.  That place is awesome.

"Sand is overrated.  It's just little rocks" Agreed.  Beaches are not that great despite what near ever girl in the world says.  "Oh what are beaches compared to rocks and mountains." should be the saying.

"Why do I fall in love with every girl I see. . . ?" Nature I guess.

"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each prayer accepted, and each wish resign'd"  It's a beautiful phrase and part in the movie.  I really love "the world forgetting, by the world forgot."  I usually quote that to myself or under my breathe whenever someone (including myself) says or does something I find hypocritical (which is frequent, it's hard to be consistent in life).

Similar Movies/TV Shows: Manhattan but it's kind of boring, Being John Malkovich, Vanilla Sky, the TV show called The Affair, mostly because it's in Montague and you get different points of view of a mind (kind of?).  I think I just like the Affair a lot right now.

"Side" note: Alexander Pope's poem, Eloisa to Abelard is kind of long.  This is the poem the eternal sunshine quote is from.  I wanted to read and analyze it with my girlfriend at the time.  Unfortunately she had already studied it in a class of hers and knew what it was all about.  I never really took the time to figure it out after she told me she already knew what it was about.  That shouldn't stop you from reading it and figuring it out for yourself.

The Others (2001)

MIMDB score: 7.0
Current IMDB score: 7.6
Director: Alexjandro Amenabar
Main Actors you care about: Nicole Kidman

Why I liked it: It's one of the very few horror movies that I've really liked.  Most things make sense.  Very eerie sense most of the time.  It's like a better The Shining in my opinion.  The Shining is too far out there in left field to be really good in my opinion.  I understand The Shining has a lot of meaning it but it fails in the normality scale to make it a great movie.  This movie is closer to being great.  It's the most eerie movie that I've seen.

What stands out:  Nicole Kidman does as well as you'd expect from her.  She plays the very over protective and proper mother perfectly.  I love the plot twist.  I saw this before the Sixth Sense so this is more mind blowing for me.  This was one of the first movies that had a plot twist that made me want to watch it again to see if the movie makes sense before the twist.  From what I can tell it does.

What I would change:  I've never like the too quiet and then loud for a cheap scare horror effect.  It needs to be taken out because I want to hold this movie to a higher standard than most horror movies.  Maybe the too quiet and then loud is what makes the horror movie a horror movie though.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene: It's just so well done.  After rewatching everything lines up with the plot.  The diction, the characters, the weather, and the music all line up marvelously.  Because of this I don't overly have a favorite scene or line.  Here is a few good ones though.

"Now children, are you sitting comfortably?  Then I'll begin" is a wonderfully eerie line to start this particular movie.

Anne: I don't believe that the Holy Spirit is a dove.
Nicholas: I don't believe that either.
Anne: Doves are anything but holy.
Nicholas: They poo on the window.
The only funny lines in the movie.

Similar Movies/TV Shows: The Shining, Identity, and Saw 1 only

"Side" note: "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin."  This is how the BBC radio show "Listen with Mother" started it broadcast.

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

MIMDB score: 8.0
Current IMDB score: 7.9
Director: Michael Arndt
Main Actors you care about: Steve Carell, Greg Kinnear, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin

Why I liked it: It's real and good . . . it's really good.  The movie understands the quality of being alive.  It makes you happy just seeing the poster above even though it's not the happiest movie.  This is perfectly how you should describe life to someone from another planet that doesn't understand humans.

What stands out:  Everyone does well.  Story is great.  Details are great.  The van not being in tip top shape but works just like their family is one of those cool things that is going on in the movie.

What I would change:  I don't know if the grandpa needed to die.  That kind of set the humor a little over the top I think.  A little "Weekend at Berinie's" I think is too much for this movie to have in it.

I know the ending is pretty amazing for most people but I feel like it could have been even better somehow.  I can't come up with anything better but I think something else could have been done that would have been even better.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:
The scene on the dock about suffering.  Some of the most interesting people are the people that have suffered the most.  It's sad but mostly true.  People that don't suffer are generally boring.  There is a general consensuses that I'm a sad person.  I generally am not smiling and not easily excited.  That's not because I'm sad inside.  That's because I'm generally thinking about something that is sad.  Those are more interesting things to think about.  Why is that person happy as compared to why is that person sad for instance is more interesting.  It might be more enjoyable to think about why that person is happy but you don't really learn anything.  There's not much to think through.  Oh that person is happy because they just got a promotion or is eating ice cream or gets joy in finding someone's personality in they way they walk down a street.  Those are good things but not much to learn from at all.  Those are passing thoughts.  It takes longer to think about ways to make sad or bad things better than basking in happiness.  It's the pursuit of happiness that makes me happy and not happiness itself.  This idea is already explained in The Pursuit of Happynes movie review.

Also "Do what you love and fuck the rest."

Similar Movies/TV Shows: Juno?  As Good As It Gets, Garden State, and Away We Go are all close but this movie is fairly unique.

"Side" note: Earmuffs!  The scenes where they make the daughter listen to headphones while the other characters cuss was actually kind of true.  The prop people made sure music was playing in the headphones in the scene so that the child actor wouldn't hear the cussing.

Another interesting thing was the drugs used in the movie were actually crushed up vitamin B.

The End of the Tour (2015)

MIMDB score: 8.0
Current IMDB score: 7.9
Director: James Ponsoldt
Main Actors you care about: Jason Segel, Jesse Eisenberg, Joan Cusack

Why I liked it: I haven't read any books by David Foster Wallace.  I've listened to a few of his interviews and his commencement speech which I've all liked.  I've always thought from those that he was a smart guy.  From the movie I got that he was amazing person.  Unfortunately if he knew he was amazing then he no longer would be.  He's a really interesting guy.  He's another character to live up to but in this case he was (at least one time) a real person.  That makes it that much better of a character.  Jason Segel did as good as you would have want him to.

What stands out:  The conversations.  It kind of gets at what the book Infinite Jest (D.F. Wallace's book) talks about.  It gets into that but I found him as a person is what stood out.  He's a solid guy who's smart,  normal, and alive.  As one of the ending point gets at, the movie makes you feel not alone in the world.  Wallace seemed to be really good at saying what was in his mind.  Anytime you can do that and not be too weird it's pretty amazing.  People really respond to real people.

What I would change: I might come back to this and change this section.  I've only seen this currently once in theaters since it just came out.  A lot of the fans of David Foster Wallace said this movie shouldn't come out.  It goes against what David Foster Wallace wanted or stood for.  Based on the movie I disagree.  He would want it to come out but maybe not do well.  He wants people to understand his point of view.  He's just a really humble guy and didn't want to make a big fuss over it.  Just watch it, understand it, and take from what you need in order to live your life better is what I would think he would have wanted for it.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:
Even though it's a odd feeling scene, I like the scene where David Foster Wallace tells David Lipsky to "just be a good guy."  I feel like I do that all the time to people.  It doesn't really do anything because people feel like they are being a good guy. I feel like I'm a good guy but I'm not.  I thought I was a honest person until I watched this movie.  David Foster Wallace seemed soooooo much more honest than I've ever been really.  Maybe I should not worry about what people will think of my honesty and just be even more honest.  As I've said, people respond to that way more than the fake part of conversation.  I try and not have fake conversations but I should probably be trying harder.

As David Lipsky is leaving and you realize the movie is drawing to an end you get kind of sad that it's the movie is going to end soon as well.  Well done by the movie to give you the same feeling I'm sure David Lipsky was feeling when he had to leave David Foster Wallace.

The scene were Wallace talks about the jumping from a burning building.  I used to think suicide didn't make sense.  If you think of it like a person jumping from a burning building as the last real thing a person can do then it makes much more sense I feel like.  Instead of it being a crazy or selfish idea I think it becomes an act of final desperation.  It's much more understandable that way.

Similar Movies/TV Shows: Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight series.  Dinner with Andre.  It's mostly a conversation movie.

"Side" note: His commencement speech should make you re-evaluate your life if you haven't heard it.  That plus the movie will probably make me end up reading Infinite Jest.

If I could have asked him one question during one of his book signings it would have been: "Why are you so hard on yourself?"

Count of Monte Cristo (2002)

MIMDB score: 7.5
Current IMDB score: 7.7
Director: Kevin Reynolds
Main Actors you care about: Guy Pearce, Jim Caviezel, Luis Guzman

Why I liked it: It's a really good story.  Good thoughts to think through in life.  Not only about revenge but about love, perseverance, integrity, and being naive.  I haven't thought it all through yet but I think there's a lot of imagery in the story.

What stands out: The Count is the best character in the movie (besides maybe Jacopo).  He's the best of the qualities mentioned above except for probably revenge.  He's naive in the beginning which makes him likable.  By the time he becomes somewhat mean you're already on his side.

What I would change: By the end of movie the Count figures out that his ex-fiance isn't to blame for anything.  I feel like he should have seen that sooner.  She wasn't in a place to get him out of jail even if she believed he was alive.  I wouldn't have been upset with her at all.  Maybe he crazily thought she was in on it since she married Mondego but it makes perfect sense that she didn't have anything else to do in life but marry the only other man that wanted to marry her.  This is the 1800's we are talking about here.  This is where he's too blinded by revenge in my opinion.  He does need to seek some revenge on people like Mondego but his ex-fiance?  Did he really think she didn't love him?

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:
"Kings to you."  I love the back and forth of the king chess piece.  That's a cool little motif to have.

The birthday toast scene is pretty well done.  The father is suppose to give the speech to a son on his birthday.  Mondego is unable to so the Count does who is actually his father.  Just a really good web that was woven there.

Edmond: "Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome. Do your worst, for I will do mine! Then the fates will know you as we know you: as Albert Mondego, the man!"

It's a really good quote.  It really easy to be a good person when you have a good life.  It's easy to do the right thing when life is good.  What really matters, because not a lot of people can do it, is how you act when you are at low points in life.  For instance if you are relatively well off it is really easy not to steal.  When you have very little, how hard will it be not to steal the bread right in front of you?  What makes you a "man" or a better indication of ones integrity is restraining yourself from acting poorly when it is hard to do so.  How you act in that moment isn't necessarily your true self but it's a better indication of whether or not you have integrity.

Jacopo: "Why not just kill them? I'll do it! I'll run up to Paris - bam, bam, bam, bam. I'm back before week's end. We spend the treasure. How is this a bad plan?"

Oh Jacopo.  Indeed good sir, indeed.

Luigi: We shall call him... Zatarra.
Edmond: Sounds fearsome.
Luigi: It means, "driftwood."

Pretty funny as the movie doesn't have much humor.  It all comes from the pirates.

I have to mentioned the prison scenes.  I love them.  I've always wanted to go to prison for a little bit just to see what it's like.  To experience that part of life.  Maybe I'll fake rob a bank someday.  I'm sure it's awful and all that but for a lot of people I think it would be good.  You get a lot of time to think out your life and even improve your life by doing whatever activity you really want to (that you can do in prison).  The Count kind of grows out of his naivety, how to sword fight, and pretty much gets an education.  It was really beneficial for him as a person.  Not that it would be the same for me but I think it would give me a lot of extra time to maybe focus on more important things than you know . . . . work.

Similar Movies/TV Shows: V for Vendetta and Man in the Iron Mask.

"Side" note: The book has a mixed view.  A lot of people really like it.  I personally think it's slow and boring.  I've read the first few chapters and it was slow and boring.  Although books in general are slow and boring compared to movies in my opinion.  Books give you a more enriched looked the story but there's a million stories to understand.  Going through them slowly can maybe only be achieved by having a lot of time on your hands.  Maybe if I ever do go to prison. . . .

There's also other movie editions as hopefully you are aware this is a fairly old story.  The version from 1934 is in V for Vendetta.  That version has a 7.7 on IMDB as well so it could be just as good.