Some Movies I Watched Recently

I am copying my brother.

Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey

I rented this for my daughter and I to watch. It came out in 1994 I believe, but of course, I was 20 years old at the time and didn't exactly run to the theater to go see it. Having read the book in the 5th grade and really enjoyed it I was actually looking forward to watching it.

It's good for kids, I guess, but as an adult, the extra 45 minutes of "filler" that they stuck in rather than really focusing on the actually journey was disappointing.

As a kids movie, I give it a B-. For adults who have kids, a C. For anybody else, F.


Crash

What can I say about this movie that hasn't already been said? Its a great film, everybody knows that, and if you haven't seen it yet you better. Also, its nice to see Ryan Phillippe gainfully employed and not sponging off his lovely and talented wife.

For anyone born with the abilities of reason and logic, I give this movie an A


.
Jarhead

I have really mixed emotions about this movie after seeing it. My hopes were high when I rented it because I really wanted to see it. There aren't many good movies that portray the conflicts of the early 90s (Desert Storm, Somalia). Movies about these "wars" are interesting to me because they are from my time. I could have been there. Really, I could have. I came this >< close to joining the Marines. If Lance Corporal Trent hadn't offended me by offering me a "pop" instead of a "soda" who knows what might have become of me.

The cinematography is good. I love the desert landscape, and the scenes where they are marching around the burning oil wells are amazing, but the dialogue is pretty rudimentary. Its as if the writers realized that a lot of the script was lame so they just stuck the F word in a lot of places to "spice" it up.

Writer #1: "This sentence, 'I hate this place', is kinda of boring, how can we make it better?"

Writer #2: "Hmmm. I know! How about: 'I hate this f'in place'"

Writer #1: "Brilliant!"

It seems like that happened a lot in this movie. Naughty words dont offend me, but I am intelligent enough to know when it's just stuck in to make a statement more "edgy".

It also tried to be political but never really pulled it off. For example, one guy has a dead Iraqi's body and he is going use it for taking pictures and stuff, I guess. A couple of other guys make him get rid of it. When they do that he screams at them, "This is WAR!"

"No, its not 'WAR', you're just a freakin' nutjob," I said to myself. "WAR" may be about looting and blowing up civilians by accident but to characterize an American soldier as a corpse defiler (couldn't find a better word...) is just stupid, in my opinion. Supposedly this is based on a true story. If it is then fine. I eat my words.

There are other examples, but I'll let you watch the movie to see for yourself.

I never became emotionally involved in any of the other characters either. Barely knowing their names other than the main character, Swoff. There were no real battle scenes, which is okay, but only if you do a good job representing the struggles and emotions of your average soldier during war. We Were Soldiers managed to do both.

As a sidenote, Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) from The Office has a small role in this movie.

My grade, C+. Its worth watching but don't expect Full Metal Jacket or Saving Private Ryan, that's all I'm saying.