Brotherhood of the Wolf

I didn’t know what to make of this. It seemed to want to be “every movie”, and thereby defy any convention. It was a mystery, a horror flick, a romance, a supernatural thriller, then the leads die, then they don’t die, then nothing’s supernatural, then it’s a political statement… I was dizzy by the end… which reminded me of the beginning of Tarzan for some reason.

Brother Bear

Yer typical Disney product – all the elements are there… well, except the platonic love interest. Unless of course we are to assume there was “something going on” between the two bears… or the two moose… wait a second, maybe there was more than meets the eye on this one. Well, it’s about time Disney came out of the closet!

Breaking Away

One of the best coming-of-age movies ever made.  This is a totally believable story.  the only thing that didn’t make sense to me was Dave’s facial expression near the end of the movie – just before he’s taped to the bike.  He looks defeated and pissed off, like he’s given up.  They needed to have a “close-up-get-a-second-wind” scene.

Braveheart

I’d been waiting for this movie my entire life – loads of realistic blood and gore on the screen.  None of that pansy “lets sword-fight for 5 minutes and then I’ll punch you out” stuff.  Hack, slash, UGH!!! I can die happy now.

Brain Candy

The Kids in the Hall did some of the funniest, most innovative skits ever done, but this was just dumb.  They’d already run out of steam a year before this was made.  The funny thing is that they knew it, and weren’t ashamed to admit it.  So why did they do this movie?  Money?  Probably.  I don’t really care, if they made any money from this, they deserved it.

Boys of Baraka

A decent and honest documentary. I sometimes wonder though, subjects like this are so easy to shape into a compelling drama – I mean poor kids from Baltimore whisked away to a school in Africa? It almost smells of reality TV – where do you draw the line? I wish the documentary had more about previous classes of the Baraka school, and the history of it. Also, if the school was “closed” after 1 year due to non-financial reasons, why couldn’t they use that money & talent to move it to another location?

Boys Don’t Cry

She just wanted to be one of the boys… a real tragic movie for all obvious reasons.  I will say that I didn’t feel much for Tina until near the very end.  Afterall, she was lying to everybody… and she wasn’t much a better person than the people who ended up killing her.  But at the very end, she lets the real person come out a little & we discover there’s a decent person down under those artificial layers.    Anyway, I liked the movie.  If I have any complaint, it was the scene where “John” shows his compassionate / feeling side to Brandon.  I think this ruined his character development.  We only have an hour or so to get to know these people, it was hard to understand just how he could be so crazy and violent after seeing that scene.  Yes, I know – he had a ‘dark side’, but I think it would’ve been better they developed him as a testosterone-crazed redneck, rather than a pseudo-sensitive crazy guy.  Then again, this was based on a true story, so maybe the real John was like that… I’ll probably never know.

Boys

Here’s one really darn dumb movie.  I kept waiting for it to make some kind of sense, but it never did.  And in the end?  She didn’t do anything wrong, so what’s the big deal?  Why in the world did Winona Ryder agree to do this script?  Almost every character is completely irrational and illogical, there’s no explanation given for almost anything, I had no idea why anyone was doing anything.

Born Into Brothels

Don’t you sometimes just wish that people could look at their situation, say “I’m better than this”, and change their lives? Why can’t they? Why don’t they? I’m not saying that everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, most of them simply can’t. But, I can see why some people have that attitude. Even with a well done documentary like this, it’s impossible to really put yourself in the shoes of people who’s lives are so different from your own. Anyway, this movie poses another dilemma – if you do a well-received documentary about kids, when do you just call it “done”, and stop following-up with them? Should you?

Boogie Nights

Few movies are able to portray stupid people intelligently.  This movie does it though.  I don’t know if it was the acting, directing or writing, but it was brilliant.  My favorite scene?  Where “Dirk” has it out with his mom – classic.  Remember, “stupid screwed up people” does not mean “stupid screwed up movie”.  It even has a happy ending… why not?

The Blues Brothers

When I was growing up, my schoolmate Dave Kelly had this movie on tape.  VCRs had just come out and movies were scarce.  He must have watched it like 50 times or something – knew every line.  Heck, an actual movie in Chicago?  Wow! That’s what was so cool about the thing.  This movie is a classic regardless of the city used though – every scene and every line is priceless.

Blood Diamond

Brilliant from start to finish… While there were a few plot points that tried a little too hard, the excellent acting, direction and pacing made you overlook that. The charaters were all quite deep, and still fully developed in a short running time. However, you might feel about Leo DiCaprio, he earns his creds with stuff like this.