The Movie Archive: B
Key:
0 Stars = Horrible Crap
1 - 9 Stars = In Between, Increasing in Value
10 Stars = Brilliant! I Almost Died - It Was That Good!
Title: Black Hawk Down
Year Released: 2001
Rating: R
Running Time: 144 minutes
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Sam Shepard
Overview: Based on the tragic 1993 raid of the Somalian village of Mogadishu.
Date Watched: Sunday, January 20th, 2002
My Opinion: My first movie of 2002 and what a movie it was. The stuff you see and hear about this movie on TV or on the internet is NOTHING compared to actually seeing it. The cheers of admiration for this movie... not enough words of praise to praise how horrifying and gut-wrenching it actually is. You get so into the movie that, at times, you aren't sure whether you want to vomit or cry. I cried... twice. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant masterpiece... none of the bullshit, none of the "here comes a miracle" bullshit of earlier war movies and none of the bad special effects carrying the movie on its back. There's a plot, there's dialogue, there's real people here. You can actually identify with these people... And all the bitching I did about Josh Hartnett in Pearl Harbor? He blows it all away right here and now with this movie. He's tough, but vulnerable... something we haven't seen a trace of since "Saving Private Ryan" and even that movie can't touch the realism of this. I was more than happy to spend an entire afternoon in the theatre with this movie and paying my 8 bucks. I guarantee you will too.
Final Rating: 10 Stars
Title: Butterfly
Year Released: 2001
Rating: R
Running Time: 94 minutes
Starring: Fernando Fernan Gomez, Manuel Lozano
Overview: Spanish movie in which a boy and his teacher grow quite close only to lose the relationship to upcoming war. It does have subtitles, people.
Date Watched: Monday, December 24th, 2001
My Opinion: This movie was supposed to be this great tale of bonding between a teacher and student, then have them torn apart. Yeah, no! If you want a teacher-bonding movie, go rent "Finding Forrester." Mm, Sean Connery... Anyway, back on track here. I felt the story drifted off WAY WAY WAY too much. The ending was sad, but where was the bonding... It was there for all of ten minutes in the course of the movie. Come on, people... don't tell me it's a purple crayon and hand me an egg, all right? Not very impressed.
Final Rating: 4 Stars