Friday, October 28, 2016

College Movie Project: Stranger Than Fiction Fall 2006

It's movie project time!  Read about it there <<<<<

Fall 2006: Stranger Than Fiction

Movie Facts:
Directed by Marc Forster

Google Genre: Fantasy/Drama 
Movie tagline: Harold Crick isn't ready to go. Period. 
Will Ferrell being not funny- I mean he's funny too, but it's a serious role (also I will never not first call him Colin Farrell)
Emma Thompson who is a goddess and I love her.
Maggie Gyllenhaal who always annoys me- why is she a love interest ever! but I love her husband. 


Before the Rewatch:

Monday night? I laid out all the movie choices on my coffee table and let the man in my life pick one since obviously I'd be watching all of them. Me to the man in my life- "you haven't seen it? It's so good!"...that's it. Apparently I sold it/he already wanted to watch it- whatever.

The next day talking to my sister she said "oh I don't think I've seen that" and I reminded her that she vehemently refused to see it with daddy and I. Dad and I went to see it back over Christmas break that year and she wanted nothing to do with it. After I shared the summary she said "oh yah that doesn't sound like something I'd like" and I STILL disagree, she would like it. I really enjoyed it, dad thought it was weird but enjoyed Dustin Hoffman's role and he always likes when funny people play drama roles. 

After the Rewatch:
The man in my life laughed a lot during this movie. There were a couple of places where I re-laughed. I can't remember if I cried the first time I saw it- I could see myself crying back then, but now I'm just touched, it's sweet. I love the ending and think it's all really touching. I love when Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson's characters finally meet and hope they got together after that scene. (cheese city I know) Queen Latifah is fairly forgettable in her role but has some good moments. It's nice she wants to help Emma Thompson kill Harold...kinda. 

My favorite scene back then was when Harold brings Ana "flowers". I always loved that! Now I just roll my eyes but that's also probably because I have a really screwed up sense of romance...no not screwed up I just don't like most romantic things is what it actually is.

Now my favorite scene is probably the one right after that, Ana makes Harold dinner and as she's cleaning up he starts playing her guitar and she walks back in and jumps him. Much more realistic to me.

The funniest parts to me were either after Harold finds out he's going to die and he runs back to his apartment "Harold frantically grabbed his lamp. Harold, incensed, shook the hell out of it for no apparent reason" or when he's trying not to move the plot along and watches a days worth of Discovery channel where animals are being violently eaten- then a wrecking ball finds him.  

Final Thoughts:
I still really like this movie. It's not very frequent on my rotation but every once in a while I pick it up for it's dry humor. If you know my movie taste you know comedy is so not my thing, I like thoughtful comedy and typical Will Ferrell movies are not my thing (and yes sometimes I do say that in a really mean way- sorry). I love all the Spoon songs sprinkled throughout and just find it entertaining. 

So good job 2006 starting things off well. 

Thursday, October 27, 2016

September 2003 - December 2006 in Movies


Before I turned 30 I did this really silly movie project where I watched 30 movies in kinda 30 days where I challenged myself to watch a movie from every year I'd been alive. It was a super fun project that totally took more than 30 days but I did watch a movie from each year and some were good and some were bad. But since I enjoyed it so much I thought I'd do the same thing (kinda) for my 10 year college graduation anniversary! I was just going to do a movie per year like my 30 project but then that'd be really short and I wanted to make it more interesting...so I'm going to do more than that but break it up into semesters. So Fall 2003, Spring 2005, Summer 2006...etc. I made a list to start it off!  I'll have till December 16th to finish it.

These are all the movies I saw when I was at TLU, the ones in italics are the ones I think I'm going to watch. * = I own it. If it was in my 30:30:30 project it's noted and will not be re-watched for this project. (Special Note: Google and Wikipedia have a disagreement or two on when movies came out so there could honestly be a few more I'm missing but I'm only including here the ones I saw in the theatre not movies that came out and I then saw later, I may make another list of those later...)

Fall 2003
Lost in Translation*
Mystic River*
Love Actually*
Something’s Gotta Give
Anything Else
Matchstick Men
The Lord of the Ring: Return of the King
Big Fish*
Mona Lisa Smile


Spring 2004
Along Came Polly
50 First Dates*
The Butterfly Effect
Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights*
Hidalgo
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind*
Secret Window
Jersey Girl
Troy
The Ladykillers
Mean Girls*
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban*
Saved*


Summer 2004
Napoleon Dynamite
The Stepford Wives
Dodgeball
The Terminal
The Door in the Floor
De-Lovely*
Anchorman
Garden State* (30:30:30)


Fall 2004
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Sideways*
The Incredibles*
Closer*
The Phantom of the Opera*
Spanglish*
Meet the Fockers*
The Life Aquatic*
In Good Company*


Spring 2005
Sin City
The Longest Yard


Summer 2005
Batman Begins*
March of the Penguins
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Constant Gardener


Fall 2005
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire*
Walk the Line* (30:30:30)
Rent*
Crash*
The Chronicles of Narnia, Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe*
The Family Stone
Shopgirl*


Spring 2006
Failure to Launch
V for Vendetta*
Ice Age the Meltdown
Lucky Number Slevin*
The Da Vinci Code
X-Men the Last Stand


Summer 2006
Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man’s Chest*
Clerks II*


Fall 2006
The Last Kiss*
Man of the Year
Stranger than Fiction*
Dream Girls*
Pursuit of Happyness
Night at the Museum
Pan’s Labyrinth* (30:30:30)

I graduated college early how did I have time to see 67 movies? Some of these were clearly not my choice to see and I am going to only watch movies I own for this project. But I'm going to try to do at least 16 movies since I graduated on December 16th (yes I know I'm ridiculous). But may do a bonus one for fun! I think it'll be fun to look back on these movies, do similar reviews like I did last time but also think about where I was when in my life when I saw these different movies, who I saw them with, what they meant then and if they mean the same thing now. There are some semesters where I loved so many movies and then others I was kinda meh on, so should be fun.

Stay tuned....also I need a project name...16 for 16? 10:16? TLU 3, 4, 5, 6? Suggestions?