Viewing Journal: 7/4/2010

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

75) YANKEE DOODLE DANDY
(1942 dir. Michael Curtiz) 3rd Viewing: July 4 2010

74) INVICTUS
(2009 dir. Clint Eastwood) 3rd Viewing: July 4 2010

73) FLY AWAY HOME
(1996 dir. Carroll Ballard) 2nd Viewing: July 4 2010

72) IN AMERICA
(2003 dir. Jim Sheridan) 5th Viewing: July 4 2010

Quite possibly the best film ever made on the subject of grief. It accurately charts all of the chaotic emotions that come with the death of a close family member. You get a real sense of how personal it all is to director Jim Sheridan and his two daughters he wrote the screenplay with. Also, as always, Sheridan gets great naturalistic performances out of child actors.

71) CRASH
(2005 dir. Paul Haggis) 2nd Viewing: July 4 2010

(pictured above: the dumbest scene in the movie. + It looks like Peña is trying to catch a bullet in his mouth)

Arguably the worst film to ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Preachy. Contrived. Preposterous. & the whole thing structurally steals so much from P.T. Anderson's outstanding MAGNOLIA, which was ironically ignored for the most part at the 1999 Oscars.











70) X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE
(2009 dir. Gavin Hood) Date Seen: July 4 2010