Like “the postman”, but with water. I actually liked this movie. I think that was because I wasn’t expecting it to be good at all. At the time it was released, it was the most expensive movie ever made.
The Waterboy
I avoided seeing this for quite some time, but finally, it happened. It was ok, but how in the world did this set any box-office records? Don’t people have anything better to spend their money on?
Water
Ever just want to grab everybody you meet and tell them – ok, time for a reset, life doesn’t need to be this way. Well, I guess it’s not so easy. Life is tragedy.
Wargames
It’s amazing how well this movie has stood the test of time. I just saw it and it’s just as timely. Sure, the technology has changed, and the cold war is over… but the message of the movie is perhaps even more pertinent today. One thing didn’t make sense though – how did the computer voice suddenly “come on” at the end of the movie (when they’re all in the war room)? The voice was originally made with a little box in Lightman’s room… Ya, I know it makes the ending more dramatic. I just hate it when movies sacrifice common sense for dramatic effect. This movie does it another time too – when Ally Sheedy says they should “swim for it.”, then, “what kind of asshole grows up in Seattle and doesn’t know how to swim”. I guess it shows how Lightman has missed out on things due to his computer obsession and is now confronted with the possible “end of time”. But, Seattle has nothing to do with swimming. Puget Sound is so damn cold – nobody could swim a ferry route. (well, I heard that some guy did one, but he wore a wet suit or something).
War of the Worlds – 2005
This movie was so disturbing it literally sent me to the hospital. Ok, I had a bad reaction to some medicine, but watched this just before, and it probably didn’t help.
Waking Ned Devine
A bunch of drunken, aged Irish people defraud the lottery and get away with it… with a little help from a priest who kills a little old lady who was trying to do the right thing. Cute indeed.
Waking Life
At first I thought this movie was really pretentious… I didn’t want to be preached to… but, the movie grew on me as it progressed. It’s really a bunch of short clips of people musing / philosophising on aspects of life & reality & the state of man, etc. The animation was really interesting, for me, it made the movie more dreamlike, and although at first it was a distraction (it made it difficult to follow the dialog), I think later it accented the dialog in a way that would have been impossible otherwise… much the way black and white is sometimes better than color.
Waitress
I really wanted to like this movie… but alas, it was predictable, and it tried too hard to go this way or that. The story just wasn’t believable. For example, why was the main character ever with her husband? He’s a complete moron with absolutely no redeeming qualities, whereas she’s interesting… and knockout gorgeous. They could have explained this better. I saw the end coming a mile away.
Wagons East
Pretty dumb, kind of like a bunch of people were sitting around with nothing to do, so they decided to make a movie. The premise was a little funny though – a bunch of people migrate to the wild west and realize, “This sucks, lets go back home!”. It was John Candy’s last movie – or was that Canadian Bacon?
You’ve Got Mail
Sleepless in New York
X-Men: The Last Stand
This is one series that has to try to “out do” itself with each successive release – the fate of the country… no world!, no UNIVERSE! Depends on… well, you get the point. Anyway, I did enjoy the eye-candy, and actually the acting and script was pretty darn good – an easy thing to dismiss in such a movie.
X-Men 2: X2
Wow, what a surprise… I wasn’t expecting much from this, but I think I liked it better than the first one. They didn’t have to spend so much time “explaining who the X-men are”, and could get to more plot & action. Plus, I liked the multi-dimentional characters and the way this movie plays on the fine line between good & evil. There were a couple little bothersome things – like why did the one girl have to kill herself? With all these superheroes, that’s the best plan they could come up with? And what happened to all those kids who escaped the “school”? It would’ve been neat if they had just one follow-up scene with them “doing something”. But all-in-all, I found it quite entertaining.
X-Men
It was entertaining, and that’s about all I was expecting from this movie. This is the kind of movie that could easily spawn countless sequels… just wait! I only hope they don’t go rapidly downhill in the quality department.
The X Files Movie
I never watched the TV show, but this movie still worked. I was able to figure out what was going on. As for what WAS going on.. yes it was completely ridiculous, but entertaining all the same. I just don’t get the whole x-files addiction-thing though.
Volcano
“Let’s see… what kind of natural disaster haven’t we made a movie about? Hmmm… I got it! volcanoes! Let’s have a volcano erupt in… ummm… downtown LA!” And thus, a really dumb movie was born. I think this “conceptual moment” happened at two studios at the same time. Dante’s Peak came out around the same time.
The Virgin Suicides
This movie tries to be really stylish and, um, “bold” or something… it almost succeeds, but only almost. There are a couple brief scenes in the movie, but even those just don’t fit. The narrator (who’s never really identified), treats the whole story like some kind of Shakespearean tragedy or something. Teenage boys are never so philosophical about beautiful girls living next door, they just want to see them naked. (Also, the movie’s sound was really annoying – very quiet dialogue with roaring music).
A View to a Kill
James Bond saves Silicon Valley from an evil megalomaniac. Damn.
A Very Long Engagement
A beautifully filmed piece of art, but unless you speak French, this was so hard to follow! Also, I felt a bit cheated by the ending. It’s a totally over-used cliche. I won’t say exactly what happens, because despite that major flaw, it’s still very much worth seeing just to “see”, in fact it may be worth seeing twice so you can “understand”.
A Very Brady Sequel
Completely warped. Perhaps even better than the first Brady Bunch movie. The casting director should have won some kind of award for these movies. This movie is hilarious for all kinds of reasons… of course, almost all of those reasons require that you have memorized at least a dozen episodes of the original show.
Vertical Limit
This is how it goes: The characters get themselves in trouble. Then, something happens to make the situation worse, then something else happens to make the situation unbelievably hopeless, then, just when you think it’s going to be ok, the outlook gets seriously bleak indeed. Finally, out of nowhere, the whole situation resolves itself in an instant. If this is the new action movie formula, we’re all in for a big boring spell at the movies. Bring your umbrella, because it rains pretty hard during this one.
Vanity Fair
Once I figured-out who everybody was… the movie was over.
Vanilla Sky
I think I’ve decided that Tom Cruise movies are OK if you don’t see two of them back-to-back. This was a lot better than I thought it would be – lots of interesting direction & scenes that just leave you confused. What if you were trapped in a dream? What if that dream became a nightmare? Ok, so I’ve just ruined the whole “surprise ending”… sorry. I had the good fortune of having no idea what the plot was before I saw this. If you just read this, I guess you won’t be so lucky. This movie was based on an original Spanish Movie (don’t recall the name), I’d like to see the original.
V for Vendetta
Much better than I’d anticipated. Just all good stuff from start to finish – I liked the pacing as well. The only thing I didn’t get was what “charisma” the leader had – what a slimy dude. It’d have been more realistic if he looked & acted like a TV preacher.
U Turn
I wasn’t expecting much from this movie. I thought it would be “Oliver Stone does Pulp Fiction”, and it was… but it was done well. Sure, all the characters were wacky, full of hidden secrets, and somehow linked to each other. Sure, some pretty unbelievable things happened. Sure, there were enough double-crosses and plot twists to scramble your brain. But in the end, it all came together. It all sort of made sense, and everybody got what they deserved (well, almost everybody). It was definitely an Oliver Stone movie… (I loved the twister scene near the end – YUK!) Anyway, this movie was entertaining – not awesome, but pretty good.
Uncle Buck
I don’t know what to say about this movie. I have to tell my “driver school” story though. A few years back, I got a speeding ticket. It was a sunny California day, and I was headed to Santa Cruz down highway 17. The cop said I was going “80+”. He wrote me a ticket, gave me a speech, got back in his vehicle, and pulled-over another car before I could even figure out what was going on. In order to keep the ticket off my insurance record, I agreed to go to a day of traffic school. It was essentially one day of jail – I was stuck in a hotel conference room with a dozen others and couldn’t leave – a day down the toilet. A strange thing happened there though… Throughout the day, the “instructor” played the movie Uncle Buck on the video player. Every time we got back from a break, we’d see another 15-20 minutes of the movie. I wasn’t sure if it was some kind of way to keep us coming back (after all the movie is so compelling!), or if there was some kind of subliminal “drive safely!” message contained within Uncle Buck. Maybe it worked, I haven’t had a ticket since then.