Happy Tom McHugh Day!

So I'm still in school. And school takes up pretty much all of my time. I have zero time. So I'm really trying to get my blog updated with the like, 20 reviews I'm missing. But I needed a break. So here's something fun!

What is Tom McHugh Day you ask? Well, it all began back in high school when I was just a wee little Boy Scout. I had worked hard, and achieved the highest rank of Eagle Scout. When that happens, you get a plethora of letters from various government officials, including the President, Vice President, Senators, Representatives, Governors, etc. All of them say the same thing. Congratulations, this is a true testament to your character, you're a true blessing to society, blah blah blah. It was obvious none of them were personal. Except for one...



Did you see it?? Do you see it at the bottom?! That's right! M. Jodi Rell, the Governor of CT, declared January 6th, 2008 to be MY HOLIDAY!!! Sure, it was only that one year. But do you have a holiday? No. So I'm going to milk mine for all its worth! Which is a lot to me!

So what do you do on my holiday?! You can do the standards. Check out some bad movies, listen to a lot of Hanson, practice my mannerisms. But I figured you know what? This is a great opportunity. For years, people have asked me what my favorite movies were. So, maybe now is the time! Maybe this year, I'll post my top 10 favorite movies of all time, and let everyone pick one they perhaps haven't seen, and experience something I really love!

Here it is, something my readers have actually been asking for - my top 10 favorite films of all time!!

10. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Directed by Mel Stuart, 1971)


Willy Wonka is one of my favorite characters of all time. He's fun, and easy to love if you're a kid, but he's also incredibly creepy, socially awkward, and even frightening. As a kid, I loved the imagery around the factory. I had fun watching the characters eat everything in the chocolate room, I loved the zany inventions that simply made absolutely no sense. As an adult though, I appreciated each moral that the children learned, especially through the amazing use of the seven deadly sins to show flaws of each character. I loved the musical numbers, to this day considering "Pure Imagination" to be one of the greatest musical numbers of all time. I'm still mesmerized by that entire song, amazed at its amazing balance of creepy with fascinating, a nervous edge to it but still letting the audience have enormous desire to learn about the room they're in. Finally, I LOVE the way the story grows from one small boy's desire to have something to call his own, a golden ticket, to complete control (if you think of it the way I do) of children's happiness. It's a really great story, it almost pains me to realize it's only number 10 for me.

9. Shaun of the Dead (Directed by Edgar Wright, 2004)


I love zombies. There's no other way around it. I see a merit to zombies so many people take for granted. The drama of knowing your loved ones can become animalistic demons who would just as soon attack you, the hilarity of hordes of zombies slowly shuffling, the terror of certain zombies running faster than any living human, its a genre that lends itself to any tonality or audience reaction. But what I never thought was that I would find a movie quite like Shaun of the Dead. It's a zombie movie that works on every single level. There's drama, there's absolutely hilarity, there's genuinely frightening moments, and all within (as the tagline reads) "a romantic comedy. With zombies." Shaun of the Dead is a movie I can watch over and over, laugh every single time, discover new little things I missed the last time, and still have a huge amount of stuff with the story I already know. Plus I'm a sucker for Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I love them in everything. But personal favorite, even with the AMAZING summer film The Worlds End, I can't let Shaun of the Dead go. It's one of the funniest films I've ever watched, and my favorite zombie movie ever.

8. Saving Private Ryan (Directed by Steven Spielberg, 1998)


I'm sure this film pops up highly for most people. And for damn good reason. What isn't great in this movie? Every actor is absolutely dynamite. The music is gorgeous. And of course, there's the opening scene. The single best battle scene I've ever seen, constantly blowing my mind, making me jump, and every time bringing tears to my eyes. This movie isn't for the faint of heart, and it's not one to just pop in for fun. It's one heck of a wild ride. It's physically exhausting, emotionally draining, and mentally destructive. This actually left me having some pretty crazy nightmares, believe it or not. Scenes of sheer brutality, moments of death I didn't even imagine happening before watching. A few death scenes were so traumatizing for me that I still to this day get queasy thinking about them. I suppose the only way to describe this film is an absolute success. This is to me, a perfect movie.

7. Alien (Directed by Ridley Scott, 1979)


"In space, no one can hear you scream." What a GREAT line for this movie to advertise itself on. The movie to this day manages to both inspire and creep me out. I'm a believer that modern horror is all but dead. The best horror movies we see in a year are lackluster at best, with very few exceptions. But this movie to this day manages to make me jump, laugh at scary moments only because I see them coming now, freak out at death scenes and moments of terror. I absolutely love the idea of xenomorphs too. An alien that bleeds acid, can tear through steel like it's paper, and can sneak around with total ease enough to creep up on people despite its huge size? Sold. Not to mention face huggers. What an AWESOME idea! A lot of people seem to think that Aliens is better. I respectfully disagree. Even though I think Aliens is fun, there is absolutely nothing that compares to the tone and atmosphere of this amazing horror/sci fi. I'm gonna go ahead and say if you haven't seen this film, THIS is the one I'd check out for Tom McHugh Day. Go. Do it for me.

6. The Rapture (Directed by Michael Tolkin, 1991)


This isn't a very well known film. Even on a $3 million budget, it only pulled in about $1.2 million. It didn't even do that critically well, holding a 64% on Rotten Tomatoes (although this is a questionable number considering its release before the website was active). But this film had an incredibly profound effect on me, after I watched it for the first time maybe 3 years ago. The film follows a young woman as she changes her lifestyle from promiscuous and perhaps a bit immature, to a lifestyle of overzealous religious fervor. It shows not only the happiness religion brings, but also the twisted results of what too much can do. And it has an ending I can't describe, one that left me speechless. It's a sad story of growth, parenting, and love at its hardest. I watched this movie after discovering my lack of religious belief and serious atheist ideals. It's hard to believe that a movie thematically based around religion actually would have an effect on me. That being said, it is NOT a preachy movie. And if you're a religious person looking for a movie about how religion helps people...this may not be the movie for you.

5. Before Sunrise/Before Sunset (Directed by Richard Linklater, 1995/2004)


I can't think of either of these movies by themselves. They are one. And sadly, I haven't seen the 2013 sequel "Before Midnight", even though I've heard nothing but wonderful things. But these movies are amazing, even for me, a dude. So judge me all you want. But I love how these movies approach love and relationships. They're told in a unique way, one I haven't seen done quite the same way. For those uninitiated, it actually tells most of the story in long single shots or one continuous , all continuous and with no general plot. Instead, it tells its story through conversation. The characters conversation reveal who they are, what they want, where they want to be and where we hope for them to go. I especially love Before Sunset, for its interesting take on reuniting in ways one wouldn't expect. But you should watch both of these. Both of these are actually only about 3 hours long together, and they certainly don't feel like 3 hours. If you're not into romance films, honestly, give these a shot. They're not what you'd expect. And you might just love them the way I do.

4. American History X (Directed by Tony Kaye, 1998)


The first time I watched this film was in one of my college elective courses 3 years ago - "Violence, Aggression, and Terror". I had a trombone lesson immediately after. My teacher asked if I was feeling okay. The truth was, I wasn't. This movie made me physically ill. It was terrifying, heart wrenching, disturbing, and cruel. The film follows Edward Norton as an ex-white-supremacist, desperately trying to save his younger brother from falling into the same lifestyle. The story is told through the young brothers homework, a paper he has to write for his principle after writing a very disturbing paper for class. The film pulls no punches. This has some of the most disturbing, real, and terrifying imagery you can imagine. In particular, one scene of Norton's pride at one incredibly disturbing act resulted in me bursting into tears in terror. This isn't a film for the faint of heart. But it's one I feel that everyone should watch.

3. Inherit the Wind (Directed by Stanley Kramer, 1960)


I LOVE the play this film is based on. Inherit the Wind is the amazing fictionalization/adaptation of the Scopes Monkey Trial, in which a teacher was removed from his position and tried for teaching the theory of evolution to his students. When I was in high school, we were assigned this book for class reading. I finished it in a night. I couldn't put it down. And the movie is just as astounding. Rich, beautifully written characters, each of which you support or sympathize with just enough to understand their motives, wrong or right as they may be. Spencer Tracy gives a powerhouse performance as Henry Drummond, the agnostic lawyer coming to defend not just his client but the theory of evolution itself against the overzealously religious Matthew Harrison Brady, played by Fredric March, a man so drastically stuck in his religious ways he knows the exact time the world would have been created according to the bible. I can only imagine what this would have been like to watch in the year it came out. This movie is my favorite courtroom drama, and that's even putting it against 12 Angry Men, another amazing courtroom film. But none has had quite the effect on me artistically as Inherit the Wind.

2) Wall-E (Directed by Andrew Stanton, 2008)


Perhaps people will see this and think "Wall-E as #2?! Tom is SO Pixar biased!" Well, you're certainly right that I love Pixar. But what a lot of people don't know about me is that Wall-E is the movie that made me love movies. I remember going to see it with my family, wondering why on earth I was wasting my time seeing this kids movie. What did I not expect? The incredibly funny moments of slapstick. The super adorable relationship between our robot main characters. The absolutely heart wrenching moments during which tears poured from my face. The ease of connecting with a character that has barely anything to say the entire movie. The music that can leave me in an amazing sense of euphoric awe without the movie playing too. This is the movie that opened my mind to the idea that I might love film. And to this day, I'll defend every second of it. I will fervently defend it as the best animated film ever made. And if you haven't seen it, go put it on right now.

1. The Shawshank Redemption (Directed by Frank Darabont, 1994)


Call it cliche. But I think it's safe to say no film has graced the presence of my bluray player as often as  The Shawshank Redemption. I love this movie so much that I actually own four copies of it. This movie is incredibly touching to me. It gives me a character I don't think I'd ever be able to understand and makes him graspable, believable, real. It has amazing minor characters, each with distinctly lovable personalities and attachment to you. It has gorgeous music, music that really touches me and lets me bask in its simple beauty. I love Morgan Freeman's soft spoken performance of a man who's given up all hope for change, but also loves himself to the extent he can without being able to completely forgive himself. Then of course there's the ending. The film is exciting, interesting, and uplifting. It's a film that sets my standard for any film. I don't think I need to tell people to watch it, pretty much everyone has. But maybe for Tom McHugh day, you can find time to watch what I think is the greatest film of all time.

So there you go! I hope you enjoy my list, and maybe have a few more to add to your list of movies you haven't seen! Leave me some of your favorite movies either in my email or in the comments! And of course, have a GREAT Tom McHugh Day!

The Book Thief

Nazi's. Children. The power of learning. A strong family bond. Death. Drama. What does it all mean? I'll tell you what it means. An Oscar powerhouse. Or at least, one that can be advertised as that.

Hey, guess what. I didn't read the book. What a shock.

So I think my biggest problem with this film is the one glaring obvious problem. This is not a movie that should be toned down. It is a Holocaust movie. It is not okay. When we see dead bodies completely untouched by war, cleanly being dragged along, it doesn't work. It's like Wolverine slashing people with no blood being revealed, or like in the first Chronicles of Narnia where the kid is stabbed and there's zero blood. It doesn't work for me. This doesn't just apply to moments of violence, but to dumbed down moments of politics. Sure, I get that it's from a kids perspective. But it's not like she would be completely oblivious to the happenings around her because she's reading books. I guess at points it works. But at others it really bugged me that this movie was talking down to the audience as if the symbolism wasn't there.

That out of the way, the story is certainly an interesting one. For those uninitiated to the book like I was, this story is about a young girl adopted into a new foster family just as the Nazi's began to take over. One night, the family finds a young boy, a family friend, who needs to be hidden due to his Jewish name and heritage. The film goes through the expected moments of house searching, questioning the trust in close friends, etc. It has its own power, a soft spoken one.

It's my understanding that Death narrates the entire book. In the film, Death pops in and out. That bothered me. I feel like a narration from Death in a story intended for children is a BRILLIANT choice. But it didn't go all out. It only used it as a novelty, as a reminder throughout that death was coming. But this doesn't work unless it's used more frequently, AND the story uses death as a constant theme. Without one or the other, it feels like a gimmick. And it didn't work for me at all.

So as with all movies of this style, it will absolutely work for many people. And I'm sure it will work for many people far better than it worked for me. So don't take my word for it. But if you want to know what I think of it, it was decent.

Rank - 3/5

Philomena

Philomena is a story that really hits me hard. It's a (dramatically changed) true story, chronicling a journalist and his protagonist, Philomena, as they travel across the United States looking for her son, given up for adoption as an infant. As an adopted child myself, it left me wondering with all hope if my mother would ever come find me. Although my situation is completely different. But that's beside the point. The point is, I expected this movie to have quite an emotional effect on me. A mother hunting down the child she was forced to give up? Get me the kleenex, this is gonna be another movie like 50/50.

Or not...

The pieces were all there for this story to work. It was an incredibly tragic story, set up with morally questionable religious tactics, resulting in an amazing story of one mans life and one womans forgiveness. But I don't know. A few scenes had me feeling angry or hopeful. But the pacing of the film left me feeling a bit let down by the events happing. The biggest moments felt unimportant, brushed over, forgotten. By the next scene, moments that should have been devastating or uplifting were somewhat forgotten. The moments we love the characters are left behind for the next scene showing they really haven't changed at all.

It's a beautiful story, one filled with awesome revelations about humanity, about love, about devotion and about failure. It also shows brilliant criticism of past Roman Catholic practices, and horrendous injustice supported by such an influential group at one time (granted, it's no longer done). But too many scenes are so obviously fabricated, so poorly structured, that it's obvious what scenes really happened and which were written in for the movie. And some of which are pretty insulting. It turns out one of the incredibly climactic scenes that very much criticized the Catholic Church never happened. It wouldn't bother me so much except for the fact that so much of the film worked in its criticism that I couldn't get over how poor the scene was.

Acting in the film was, to me, hit or miss. Some of it worked, and REALLY worked. But other moments, moments that actors are being praised for, I can't help but think were a bit cartoony. Not unlike A Dangerous Method, where Keira Knightley was praised for her acting but I couldn't help but think it was cartoony, like watching a bad horror performance. There were similar feelings towards this film, granted they weren't as dramatic.

Philomena is worth a watch. It's an amazing story and one I think everyone should know. But sadly, the film is not nearly as successful as I was hoping for. As an adopted child, I have to say it did nothing to make me feel. And I'm pretty sure it's safe to say there aren't many other people that could connect with this movie in the same way, except of course for mothers.

Rank - 2.5/5

Thor: The Dark World

My expectations for Thor are never high. Let's get real here. It's about a norse god in a sci fi action movie, where he lives in a technologically advanced alien society that banishes him to Earth  If this was from anything other than Marvel studios, I would have burst out laughing. It's like reading the plot to I, Frankenstein or Hansel And Gretel Witch Hunters.

I didn't like the first Thor. And it fell to the same problems so many action movies do with silly premises such as this. It didn't let the audience soak in how silly it was. It was too serious for far too long, letting us feel the length of it. Sure, these guys are pretty serious in their own legends. But it's a Marvel movie, setting up a universe where this god was going to fight alongside a man in a robotic suit, a giant green muscular Jekyll/Hyde monster, and a frozen WWII soldier. Only a few scenes really let the audience laugh at the situation, but none were really funny enough to have made up for any of the lengthy stretches of no laughs.

So I guess the ultimate question is, did Thor: The Dark World improve on any of those problematic traits? Absolutely. There was a lot in this movie that the audience was allowed to laugh at and allowed to experience for the silliness that it was. It had a decent amount of genuinely funny moments. It was a lot less political, which left more time for awesome action scenes and fun moments of character development.

...Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut...

For every awesome action moment, there was one that was TOO silly. That's right. Too silly. I was laughing at the ships that chopped buildings in half. I had kindof a hard time taking the villains too seriously, mostly ending up making me chuckle to myself. The moments that had me laugh took away a lot of the drama, which took away any suspense previous Marvel movies so wonderfully set up. Even the first Thor film brought about a few moments I didn't expect, or at least had me thinking about what was going to happen next. This film didn't totally succeed in that regard.

I guess I can give the movie credit. It works on a lot of levels. It's an awesome blockbuster action movie. It keeps itself in check, never becoming so dramatic that it becomes stupid or boring. It has moments of laughter. It has a decent amount of drama and a story that doesn't make zero sense. And I had fun. I guess that's the most important thing. I had fun.

...But can someone PLEASE explain to me what that red stuff was?!

Rank - 3.5/5

Ender's Game

As usual, I haven't read the book for this, so I'm going entirely based on the movie here. I know, I know. I really need to pick up a book or two more often. I really miss reading for pleasure.

Ender's Game is a good, albeit strange, movie. It has a cool, if not necessarily big or expansive, story, following a boy raised in peace time in a militaristically proud society. The invasion of Earth by the alien enemy happened 50 years previous to the events of the film, but the army continues to build itself in fear of the alien's return. It has an obvious allusion to our involvement overseas (whether or not this was the same context for the book obviously I don't know, but it would of course be with different policies in mind), questioning how much is too much in military protection, what "protection" really is, and of course bringing into question the moral ambiguity of the use of child soldiers. Obviously to us it's unthinkable, but this film does put the concept into a very believable scenario, one that almost leaves the audience not batting an eye.

But for all its brilliance, I have to admit I have some questions that were never really answered. I get that the game that was played was to demonstrate a certain way of thinking and a certain amount of leadership. But how exactly was this game demonstrating a strong leader for a full armada of spaceships? It's not like he really learned any skills in space battle, only battling with his own weightlessness? I don't want to give away the ending, but there's a BIG question I have regarding his training simulations. Give me a holler if you want to know that question, we'll avoid spoilers here. Although here's a weird little spoiler question - why were they so mad that he found the game section, wanted him blocked out, and yet continued to watch? Confused...

Ben Kingsley is an awesome actor with a super cool character. But again, this character raised more questions than answers. How exactly is he there? Is that really all the explanation we're going to get? what am I missing to let me really get this story? As always, I put no fault on the book. This is problems with a script, things that were left out that probably could have been left in or explained.

But all that aside, I loved the performances in this movie so much. Everyone gave 110% to deliver an awesome interpretation of deeply written characters, some giving far more interesting twists to characters than the sometimes bland script didn't deliver on. And that's not to say the script is bad - it had me react pretty strongly to some of the emotional displays. It's a successful movie. But I can't help feeling it could have worked far better.

Rank - 3/5

Last Vegas

I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into with this movie. Honestly, I hadn't seen a single trailer. It only just came onto my movie radar maybe a week ago, and I liked the idea. But then again, it could turn into some boring rehash of a million comedies.

But what I got was nothing original, but still a sweetly told and nicely written story. Four childhood best friends go to Vegas to see the final one of them get married to a particularly young woman. The film has plenty of jabs at the age of the girl, and plenty of jokes about male genitalia. But I have to admit, there was something different about the style and level of low brow humor. After thinking about it, I realized it was organic. The jokes weren't forced dirty jokes or nods to the audience. Instead, they were jokes that I'd very much believe childhood friends would throw off, much like how my closest friends and I would throw off color humor at each other. It made sense that they would bust Michael Douglas the way that they do, and Kevin Kline's behavior and actions make sense for him rather then just a punchline for the audiences to chuckle at.

The story is generic enough, involving two characters falling for the same woman, past drama that alienates one of them, and of course distinct character flaws such as not feeling alive, sexual frustration, questions of love, and moving through phases of loss. It moves pretty effortlessly through humor and serious moments, allowing not only to connect with them on an emotional level but also allowing us as an audience to laugh with them, again making the low brow humor work effortlessly. Each of the actors demonstrate masterful ability to balance humor that's funny on two levels - the context of their actions relative to their age, but also in context to their personalities as actors. There are often punches at their personalities or character types, and to watch this group of well respected actors at a club is pretty hilarious.

Honestly...there's really not too much else to say about this movie. Although it should be noted that I saw this movie by myself, surrounded by people easily 3 or 4 times my age. Of that audience, everyone seemed to REALLY enjoy themselves, laughing at all the right moments and reacting just right to every  other moment. It was really an enjoyable group of people to see the movie with, but I guess that's also a pretty strong nod to the audience that will enjoy this movie. Kids my age will probably stick with The Hangover.

Rank - 3.5/5

Free Birds

Oh my god. It's been done. It's really been done. A movie was made that even George Takei's presence couldn't fix. It's so sad. It actually happened.

Seriously though. I thought Escape from Planet Earth was the worst animated movie I'd seen in a long time. But no, this, THIS takes the turkey. What's that, you say that's a bad pun? Kick's the crap out of any joke int his movie...

So, what is this movie about? Two turkey's, one of whom had a vision of a turkey god telling him to do so, go back in time to prevent turkey's from becoming Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, that apparently WILL be made into a movie. Owen Wilson's character, the USA pardoned turkey, is kidnapped by Woody Harrelson's overly buff turkey (...?) character. Hijinks ensue. That's really about all there is to say...there's Native American turkeys (?) who use spears and flaming pumpkins (?) to sabotage Plymouth colony (.......). Not to mention this film suggests that Thanksgiving was celebrated in an attempt to convince the Native Americans that they needed help. Way to get your facts straight, movie...

But that's not all that's wrong with this movie. Pretty much everything manages to fall on its face. Voice acting? Disgraceful. What the hell happened, Woody Harrelson? Animation? Cheap and lazy. In fact the only good animation seems to have been saved for the time travel sequences. And even those only look just okay. Plants and surfaces look flat and uninteresting, lazily forgotten to make outer space look good. But even there it doesn't. The Earth, when the turkeys fly into space (...-_-) looks like a poorly cropped photo of Earth just kinda thrown in. It all happens with an overly used awful musical score, one of the worst I can remember. It's tacky, boring, and forgettable.

Not only is the movie's general plot stupid, but so much more of this just raises eyebrows. Apparently, Woody Harrelson's character sees Turkey Jesus, who tells him to go to find the pardoned turkey and go back in time to save turkeys from being the Thanksgiving standard...because that's a story that needs telling...? How about the part where a villager is hit in the head with a flaming pumpkin, with no comedic results. That's right, incredibly blatant violence endorsed by this movie. How about the turkey's all using SPEARS as their choice of weapon, or the incredibly insulting war paint on their faces? If that's not strange enough, there's an absolutely ridiculous plot twist that results in head scratching and headaches, and my giving up on the film.

And this all culminates into a film that even takes away George Takei's happy making. His sultry, soothing voice doesn't even make my mouth twitch from a smile. Even his trademark "ohh myyyyy" had me roll my eyes. Mr. Takei, if you're reading this, I PROMISE it's not your fault. It's this god awful movies fault. I can't believe I wasted my cash on this. Who am I kidding...I see this so you don't have to.

Rank - 0.5/5