30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 30: Last movie you watched

Mary and Max, a cute, sweet, endearing film about friendship and a reminder that just because a film is animated, does not necessarily mean it is for children.

 

30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 29: First movie you ever remember watching

I don’t remember what the first movie I ever watched was.  I think it was probably some animated thing, but I don’t remember what exactly it was nor what was happening.  I do however, remember watching Independence Day, and it was the first film I ever saw in theatres.  Not exactly the best movie for an 8-year old to see but oh well.

30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 28: Movie with your favorite hero

Had to look up AFI’s list of the top 100 movie heroes and Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird was at the top of the list, so I went with that.  Nothing much else to say about that aside from the fact that he’s awesome.

30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 27: Movie with your favorite villain

This seems fairly self-explanatory.  Nurse Ratched, from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 26: Movie you’re most embarrassed to say you like

Quite frankly, I’m getting kinda tired of posting these movie clips but I think it’s partly because I don’t have much to say or what I do have to say isn’t all that interesting.

So.

Let’s cut it short today.  I’m embarrassed to like New York Minute, not only because it’s a terrible movie with a stupid plot and that has the Olsen twins being super girly who both find cute guys in the span of one day, but also… actually, that about sums it up.

 

30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 25: Movie with the most beautiful scenery

Looking for nice scenery is something you — or at least I — don’t remember about days, months, years later.  Sure, I might think to myself, “Man, that movie was really good!  Oh, and the scenery was nice too.  So anyway…”

I thought of films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain because I can picture them both having really great scenery, but I can’t actually remember anything specific from either film.  Then I remembered hearing that according to Tarsem, all the locations shot in his film The Fall were on location and weren’t digitally enhanced in any way, which I found really surprising and, if true, pretty amazing.  There are some fantastic color schemes in the film that look too amazing to be real, like the little town of blue houses, incredibly highlighted and bright against the background.

For all those who haven’t heard of the film, it’s a really great one.  Take my word for it.  Here’s the trailer:

30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 24: Movie with your favorite soundtrack

Maybe I’m merely making assumptions about people, but I don’t think the average person who watches a film cares much about the soundtrack — I’m talking original soundtrack as opposed to a collection of songs that the producers shelled out to pay for — after watching a film.

[If I’m not super tired when I come home tonight, I’ll post more]

30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 23: Movie that inspires you

When this film was released back in 2006, I went to see it with my sister and friend in the theatre, and everyone else in the room were all older people.  We wondered if this meant that only older people cared about global warming or perhaps they just weren’t into documentaries.

When the credits roll, there’s some animation about some small things we can do to fight global warming like planting a tree, turning off lights and the tap.  Simple things like that.  I think this film in particular really brought to people’s eyes the reality of global warming, and allowed us to have worthwhile conversations about climate change and how to stop it.  I also think the film was fundamental in helping start the green movement and the move to organic products and food, which I’m really thankful for.

Watching this movie really made me aware of my own carbon footprint and trying to do things differently.  An Inconvenient Truth is what a documentary — and any film, for that matter — should to do: affect people enough to create change.

30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 22: Movie you wish you could live in

In case I don’t have enough time to post anything before I get home from work tonight, it was either living in Were the World Mine and turning everyone gay (though minus the homophobes) or more awesomely, living in the world of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 21: movie with your favourite actor

I can’t remember which movie made me fall in love with this man, but James Stewart… well, what can I say about him?  I’ve seen him as the innocent and charming regular Joe in Harvey; the paranoid neighbour in Rear Window; running around trying to dodge a plane shooting at him in North by Northwest; questioning life and death in the pseudo-Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life; as a determined lawyer in Anatomy of a Murder; the observant, patient impromptu detective in the underrated Hitchcock classic Rope; and James flexing his romantic comedy muscles with Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story.

I think the last Stewart movie I saw was the 1939 film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which is arguably one of the best performances in his career.  Sure, he was still young when he made the film and would have a long career ahead of him, many more years to improve his acting through experience, but he is the reason this film is heralded the way it is today.  Stewart has that dopey, boy next door charm that works perfectly here in the film, as a naive man from a small town in the US who gets recruited to be a senator.  Believing in the true democratic idea that he thought the country was all about, he is slowly shaken by corruption, lies, and betrayal, especially when it comes from a fellow senator and mentor of his.  Eventually, he takes to a filibuster and here in the clip below, Jefferson Smith has one of many speeches he gives to the Senate, allowing Stewart to really take command of the role.  It’s basically an Oscar-nominated role just with those speeches alone.