Sunday, December 17, 2006

The "Happyness" of the Holidays

Welcome back, faithful readers. Apologies for not updating more often, but we do have lives.

Two movies to discuss this week. "The Holiday" and "The Pursuit of Happyness".

The Holiday
The Holiday was the perfect movie to see with my sister. It is a fabulous successor to "Love Actually", lending itself to all types of people and allowing you to follow a number of likable characters. Kate Winslet, as always, was warm and lovely and easy to like. When she cried, which she did quite a lot during this film, you wanted to cry because you had been there before. Jack Black was adorable, and more likable than in his other films. You liked him in "School of Rock" and "Orange County" but you didn't have this urge to smack him every ten seconds during "The Holiday". He was fantastic, and it really showed that he can act. Jude Law = adorable, as always, and the little British girls playing his daughters were so cute that every time they walked on screen or uttered a single word, you wanted to coo and awe. My only complaint was Cameron Diaz. She played the part perfectly, but the character was annoying as hell. Eli Wallach was endearing and he really made the movie something different. See this film with your girlfriends or sisters.

The Pursuit of Happyness
This film makes you thankful for every last dollar you have. It is also extremely depressing. This is the true story of Chris Gardner, a lower class man trying to support his family in 1981 San Francisco. He has their best intentions at heart all the time, but his wife doesn't trust him (don't worry, she leaves and is literally never heard from again in the film). Will Smith is incredible, and totally Oscar worthy, as is his son, real life son Jayden. The entire 2 hour film is engrossed in his hard times and only in the last five minutes of the movie does his life turn around for the better. So, you have to be looking for this film, now just seeing a movie on random. You almost have to be prepared for it. This is a reccommended film, however it was not uplifting in the way I thought it would be. It wasn't predictable, but that almost worked against it.

So, that's all for now. See these films and support your local movie theatre.

Next review: Keeping Mum, an indie film that is worth a view at the theatre.

2 comments:

John said...

you can also watch it with certain boys who, like jude law's character are "weepers". in other words, i loved it... and those girls are so adorable they almost make me explode.

Sara said...

You should write about Pirates 3 and how it sucked and was convoluded, haha. I'm thinking about suing Gore Verbinski to get my $10 back.