Change Your Image
LorNic
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try againYep, everytime I come across some Hallmark/Lifetime TV movie that is Christmas-themed I saved it on this list.
(21-11-20) I finally decided to make it available to any and all. Note that it is not anywhere near complete. But every year I add titles that I stumble across. I have even watched a bunch. You can use the list to re-order by ratings (or any other data mining you wish) and decide for yourself if you want to see any given title. Enjoy!!
Note: Mutually exclusive of the Freakin'Ho list.
Reviews
The Butterfly Effect (2004)
One Big Butterfly!!
I found "The Butterfly Effect" to be a pretty good movie for the most part. I saw nothing wrong with the acting and had no preconceived notions about Ashton Kutchner to poison my view (have never seen the Dude, Where's My ... movies). He played Evan well given how one would react to these events if they were to occur to one in real life.
The storyline was good and the powers that be brought the events together well, for the most part. The movie kept me interested throughout, although the mysterious events (blackout moments of Evan's childhood that are not shown to the viewer), while well hinted at before and after the blacked-out portion, were not handled well. Let me elaborate. Evan's friends would not tell him what had actually happened during these periods (for one reason or another). This, I felt, was a downfall of the storytellers. While it supposedly produced the effect on the viewer in wanting to know what happened, it left in me a feeling of unbelievability in the plot (somewhat).
As to what the Butterfly Effect is and Chaos Theory in general, note the following quote: "The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month's time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to happen, does. (Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of Chaos, pg. 141)".
Chaos Theory can be explained using the Butterfly Effect but it's relation to the movie is in name only. I say this because the wing flaps (childhood events in the movie) are HUGE events in anybody's childhood. Changing these events would, of course, have a huge impact on any child's later life. So, this butterfly is one whopping big one.
The movie has some inexplicable events and doesn't tie everything up neatly for us, the viewer. This is a good thing in that it leaves them open for discussion as to what there meaning is. This is bad in that the lesser-thinking viewers may be left scratching their heads and disliking the movie because of it.
It all relates to the idea of time-travel and what happens in the original time-line. Will it, in fact, be affected by the subsequent time travel events? I don't want to get into the specific details as it would give spoilers. I can only say that these are the things that one is left pondering.
Nobody's Fool (1994)
A 2-hour Warm Fuzzy
I just finished watching this one for the 2nd-time around. This 1st time I remembered thinking to myself what a nice movie about absolutely nothing. After the 2nd viewing, I realized that this is definitely a wonderful movie, because at the end I had a big smile on my face and a warm feeling in my heart.
I thought some of the other comments about this movie as to what it was all about were off the mark. I thought this movie tried to express that even though one has an insignificant life and does less than honorable things in that life, one can still be happy and fulfilled in that existence. This all comes out in the Sully's relationships with his estranged son, the Doberman, his employer/nemesis, and his best friend.
For those who want a significant plot and some sort of related/pointed conclusion, you will be disappointed. This movie is about the relationships in our lives and how important they are to our happiness/contentment (witness the look on Newman's face in the final moment of the movie).
The performances by the cast are excellent. By that I say, if you hate Bruce Willis, you will like him in this one. If you hate Melanie Griffith, you will like her in this one. Of course, Newman and Tandy put in a typically wonderful jobs in their roles.
1969 (1988)
Totally Lame!
I saw this movie for the first time recently and after seeing some of the comments saying this movie was good, I had to speak up. I thought it was a horrible waste of time. The story was weak (I wasn't even sure of the intention of the plot), and poorly told. It seemed to jump around too much with no flow. It seemed to be a bunch of cliche scenes with little relation to an overall story line. The acting was mediocre and the points of the movie were cliche and done over-the-top. I was disappointed that I had actually sat through the whole thing. The sound-track was okay but conveying the feel of the 60's just didn't happen at all.
Raising Arizona (1987)
Turn To The Right!
Comedy is such a fickle category to rate because there are so many different ways to get a laugh. But of all the comedies I have seen, I have to rate this as the best one ever. The reasons are many fold, but the key ones include: a good, tight story line (for a comedy); the unusual camera angles that in themselves I found very funny; a one-of-a-kind soundtrack that sticks in your head; and some great one-liners that I burst out laughing over (such as the Grocer's "Well, no. Unless you think round is funny").
As a rule, I hate absurdity in comedies. And yet, I could not stop laughing over the absurd situations in this movie. They were so well presented that it wasn't til after the movie had finished that I had realized how absurd they were.
I especially enjoyed how the Coen brothers poked fun at America's love of the gun in the scenes following Hi's stop to pick up the Huggies.
I definitely recommend this to anyone who has not seen it. You are sure to not have seen anything like it and you are almost guaranteed to enjoy it.