The Pursuit of Happyness. Just watched this last night, and enjoyed it well enough. A very compelling story.
I did come away with a strong impression that Mr. Gardner was a criminally irresponsible parent, though, and I don’t think that was what was intended.
Everyone loves a “You Can Do It!” story, but the protagonist gambled that exposing his young son to six months of abject poverty for the hope of beating out 19 other men for a single job would pay off, instead of setting more easily achievable short-term goals to keep a roof over their heads. WTF?
I didn’t find it charming either, which seems to be the other approved reaction for it. I wanted to punch each and every one of the pretentious Californians through their livers. I loved the scene when Lucy Liu beat the guy with her motorcycle helmet, but it ended too soon and she didn’t go after his friend.
If I hadn’t borrowed the DVD from a good friend, I would have scratched the hell out of it before giving it back.
I think what Marley23 was getting at earlier, which I completely agree with, is that no reporter, having received such a stunning tape, would keep it secret. The second tape Winslet received, the one showing that it was all a plot by Gale to get himself executed, was so newsworthy that there’s no chance any journalist would keep it under wraps. And that blows Gale’s whole silly plan out of the water. Sending that second tape was a stupid move on his part; I think it was supposed to be, “hee hee, look at me, I’m so clever!” but the only way his plan could possibly succeed with the existence of that tape is if Winslet is as rabidly anti-DP as Gale, so much so that she abandons journalistic integrity, conceals evidence of a crime herself, and becomes part of the story she’s supposed to be covering.
You missed the point of the movie, then, which is basically, “War is hell.”
A sub has no way to rescue sailors in the water, any more than one of the Titanic’s lifeboats could have have rescued all the remaining people in the water after the Titanic sunk. How are you going to fit hundreds or thousands of survivors on a little submersible?
As far as the U-boat getting sunk by Spitfires, you weren’t really supposed to feel good or bad about it. Again, “war is hell.” The U-boat and its crew did what they were supposed to do. So did the Spitfires.
The movie did an excellent job, IMHO, of showing what the U-boats and their crews went through in WWII. None of the officers or crew were fanatical Nazis, just sailors doing a hard, dangerous, unpleasant service for their country. American subs were doing the same thing in the Pacific, sinking Japanese warships and cargo vessels. They weren’t able to rescue survivors, either.
Agreed, but I found the characters to be more like extremely annoyring and the movie unbearable boring, that the only reason I sat through it (if I did, can’t remember) was to see them getting killed.
Exactly. I guess it doesn’t make her an accessory to murder because the guy is already dead, but a journalist would not, and would not have to, keep the tape a secret for the reason I gave earlier. If that absurdly implausible situation happened to me, there is no chance I would conceal its existence. Not in a million years.
And yes, plotwise it sounds like the tape itself serves no purpose except to clue the audience into the twist. Making it in the first place is ridiculous. What kind of a moron conspirator deliberately creates evidence of his otherwise-perfect crime, and then having done so, shares the evidence with the media? That couldn’t make less sense.
(Granted, they were rescuing POW’s, not the enemies’ sailors…)
But in general, WW2 subs were cramped, and carried food and water for its crew for about a month. Generally, when they do rescue folks, they did so in limited numbers (like picking up downed pilots that will be transferred off as soon as feasible).
The officer character played by (I think Nick Nolte) was, I think, meant to play a callous officer willing to throw away the lives of his men and also as kind of a psycho for standing, unflinching, under mortar fire while his men huddled.
Instead I saw a bunch of poorly trained, cowardly men trying to attack a weak position and being completely incompetent and the officer as a the only one who knew what to do trying to save the mens lives by stopping the screwing around and getting them to take the enemy position…
I would have been comforted having the officer around, not thinking he was the devil.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind pisses my girlfriend off more than black flies in her chardonnay. How are you supposed to care about characters who are stupid enough to get their memories erased because they had a bad breakup?
‘Nine Deaths of the Ninja’ was hilarious. Lots of bad movies that are supposed to be serious I’ve found funny.
I enjoyed ‘Alien vs. Predator’ to the point where an usher showed up and warned me I would be ejected. Mostly for my loud laughing whenever somebody got killed. It takes all the fun out of it when you can’t bet among your friends which one will survive (I guessed right, naturally, but I can almost always guess what a book or movie plot will do).
Mostly I enjoy all movies and books like this. I set up my expectations (often literally judging a book by its cover), read it, and see if it goes like I expected. Rarely, a good book or movie will throw me a curve, but usually it goes down as if I’d written it impromptu there on the sidewalk. I either enjoy a good fiction or at least get the satisfaction of guessing right.
So glad to see I’m not alone in this. Suffer the breakup and grow from it like the rest of us poor schlubs have to do. And stop dying your hair with Kool-Aid. It isn’t 1994 and you are not Green Day.
Hannibal. When Hannibal removed the top of Ray Liotta’s skull, my husband and I died laughing! Same reaction in “The Ring,” when they guy was running toward the well with a rope and got to the end of it and was yanked to the ground.