Great Movie! The Help

My daughter had read the book The Help and suggested we watch the movie.  I was very glad because it was very good--solid acting throughout and a very important movie.

The New Excuse for the Academy Awards

It seems as if the Academy Award people have come up with yet another excuse to not give the most-deserving person the Oscar--they're too good.  Every year, they nominate Meryl Streep, which is good, but then they say, well, we can't give it to her every year.  The truth is that they have only "given it to her" one time.  Once in her entire career!

If she's the best, and she often is, why can't she win it?  Why not make the other actesses come up to her level instead of giving it to them when their performance is only second-best?  Better to show what you can achieve when you put so much effort and dedication into your work that you become the greatest actress in cinema history.  Which is what Streep has definitely done.

How was she not given the Best Actress for Doubt, for example, or Julie/Julia?

This is what people have against awards shows--they never give it to the right people, and thus, people are tuning out in record numbers.  If those award shows want to recapture viewers, start giving the awards to the right people and not the person who hosted the best party.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Usually when a movie's hyped or has a good trailer, it doesn't live up to expectations.  Rise of the Planet of the Apes is one that holds its own.


The movie is done very intelligently.  The acting by the human characters is good but not great but then, the movie's really about Caesar and how he leads his kind to freedom.  And the man who plays Caesar is terrific.  His facial expressions are amazing--you can tell that here is a chimpanzee with intelligence!  The movie is well put together with great special effects.  And it is all tied in to the original Planet of the Apes which starred Charlton Heston.

Without giving too much away, the synopsis of the story is that a researcher, whose father (played by John Lithgow) has Alzheimer's, believes that he has developed a medicine that will cure the disease.  When it is tested on chimpanzees, it not only halts the brain deterioration but the chimps are more intelligent than they were before.  One in particular, Caesar, whom the researcher takes home as a "pet", shows remarkable progress from the drug. 

Caesar, of course, leads his fellow monkeys in an escape from captivity.  How that happens, and the adventure along the way, is part of the fun of the movie.

I would rate this four popcorn bags out of five.

Match 3

In this game, there are three columns to match.  The first is a famous actor, the second column is a famous actress and the third is the movie in which both starred in.  Match the actor with the actress in the movie in which they both appeared in.  The answers are after the break and can be found by clicking at the link at the bottom of the post.


Actor:                               Actress:                    Movie:
Tom Cruise                    Helen Hunt               "As Good As It Gets"
Jack Nicholson              Jane Fonda             "The Thomas Crown Affair"
Dustin Hoffman              Barbra Streisand    "Vanilla Sky"                                                          Steve McQueen             Cameron Diaz        "The Electric Horseman"
Robert Redford               Faye Dunaway       "Meet the Fockers"

Five Best Movies: Richard Dreyfuss

Note that this Tab features the five best movies in which the star is in, not their Five Best Performances.

Whether it be drama or comedy, Richard Dreyfuss proved his versatility early on to do both extremely well.  Honorable Mentions to "Mr. Holland's Opus", "Always" and "American Graffiti".  Here are the ones chosen for his Five Best:



1.  "Jaws"
2.  "American President"
3.  "The Goodbye Girl"
4.  "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"
5.  "Stakeout"

Career Movies: Paul Newman

Paul Newman was one of the bright stars of his generation, one of the all-time legends.  He starred in some of the best movies ever made, including "The Sting", "The Verdict", "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", "Absence of Malice", "The Hustler", "The Color of Money", "Sweet Bird of Youth", "Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid" and "Cool Hand Luke".

The Silver Chalice (1954)

Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)

The Rack (1956)

The Helen Morgan Story (1957)

Until They Sail (1957)

The Long, Hot Summer (1958)

The Left Handed Gun (1958)

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958)

The Young Philadelphians (1959)

From the Terrace (1960)

Exodus (1960)

The Hustler (1961)

Paris Blues (1961)

Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)

Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man (1962)

Hud (1963)

A New Kind of Love (1963)

The Prize (1963)

What a Way to Go! (1964)

The Outrage (1964)

Lady L (1965)

 

Harper (1966)

Torn Curtain (1966)

Hombre (1967)

Cool Hand Luke (1967)

The Secret War of Harry Frigg (1968)

Winning (1969)

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

WUSA (1970)

Sometimes a Great Notion (1971)

Pocket Money (1972)

The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)

The MacKintosh Man (1973)

The Sting (1973)

The Towering Inferno (1974)

The Drowning Pool (1975)





Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976)

Slap Shot (1977)

Quintet (1979)

When Time Ran Out (1980)





Fort Apache the Bronx (1981)





Absence of Malice (1981)





The Verdict (1982)





Harry & Son (1984)





The Color of Money (1986)





Fat Man and Little Boy (1989)

Blaze (1989)

Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990)

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

Nobody's Fool (1994)

Twilight (1998)

Message in a Bottle (1999)

Where the Money Is (2000)

Road to Perdition (2002)

Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D (2005) (voice)

Cars (2006) (voice)

Mater and the Ghostlight (2006) (voice)