Mumford in Mumford

"I want you to meet Dr. Mumford" "Mumford, like the town?"
This film has become one of my favourites. Mumford is a film that takes place in small town America, where a new psychologist called Mumford (Loren Dean moves to the town of Mumford where he becomes popular, helps solves many problems in the town and falls in love with a local girl. We meet many different varied characters, including a billionaire played by Jason Lee with a secret of his own.
The reason I love this film is that it is pretty unknown. This is the first time I ever saw Loren Dean, and I quickly fell in love with him. He's a pretty diverse actor, having played a villain in the series "Numb3rs" and usually plays under-noticed characters in films such as Apollo 13, Enemy of the State and a supporting role in Gattaca. He played a recurring role as Bones' endearing brother in Bones.
To me, this film is really just about him. He has been so undervalued. If I made a film I would have him play a main character in it because I would love for him to become more famous...
But oh well...
the film is cute, happy ending et al. We don't really expect anything else. The film is acted by mostly semi-famous actors. Mostly people who are known from something but you can't remember their name.
The film does cover some more serious topics, which sometimes a little bit shocking in the context of this film. This includes dealing with affairs with another person's wife, self-image, obsession with some weak pornography and the past catching up with you.
Anyway, I would give this a 7/10, pretty close to what IMDb gave it.
I would really encourage you to watch it if you want to watch an easy-going film with a feel good ending.

Heaven, Hell and Purgatory

The film Heaven is one I randomly watched part of on the television and later bought because it intrigued me and it was cheap to buy. It's a thriller/romance.
Anyway... This is also one of those movies you wouldn't really pick up at the local store. First of all, it is not well known. Ask just about anybody about this film and they will have no clue what you are talking about. Secondly, half of it is in Italian, making it less appealing for many moviegoers to watch. Thank God for subtitles.
The premise of the story is this: English teacher Philippa (Cate Blanchett) attempts to bomb a drug lord by leaving a bomb in his trash can, unfortunately the bomb gets taken by the cleaner and is taken down in the elevator unknowingly with a dad and two young girls, resulting in death for each of them. She admitted to planting the bomb and is interrogated. Young Filippo (Giovanni Ribisi), a policeman, acts as a translator. He then helps her escape and they fall in love and both shave their heads.

This film has very few characters, which has its advantages, because as its set in Italy, it would be mostly Italian. The relationship between the two main characters is an odd one. He falls in love immediately while she is more reluctant. Ribisi is an excellent actor, dealing with his love for her and what she has done. Blanchett plays the bomber with a conscience excellently as she genuinely mourns for the death of the family that died because of her. She is willing to take the consequences for her actions.
The beginning is set in a rather elegant police station and the very first scene only makes sense at the end of the film.

I guess we learn that true love makes us do crazy things that don't make sense and have no moral reasons.

It's a thought provoking film, making us wonder how far we would go for love and whether some killing is more moral than other.

I would give this film a 7/10 for its ability to step away from typical films and at no point does the audience know how its going to end. At the end they still don't.

Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn't.

(500) Days of Summer was a decent film. I wasn't sure what to expect. I felt like it was marketed as an indie but that wasn't really the case. I guess it had the "I'm not mainstream hollywood" feel, as some scenes had a very Amelie-ish air to it.
I really liked Joseph Gordon-Levitt in this movie, as he plays a range of different emotions and really being the star of the movie. Meanwhile, I didn't care much for the character Zooey Deschanel played until the very end.
OK, so basically the story is this: Boy (Tom) and girl (Summer) meet, he falls in love while she doesn't. They have fun and stuff but eventually they break up, in the sense that they don't hang out any more because they are not dating anyway. He sits around for half of the film moping around remembering all the times they had together while getting relationship advice from his 2 best friends and his little sister.
The ending is not surprising, although like any indie movie, it's not really what you want or secretly expect. The film starts out by saying it wasn't a love story, and it isn't. It's a story about moving on.

Overall, the acting was pretty good and it accurately portrays the feeling of love, or something like it.
The underlying message is to follow your dreams, even though it may be a difficult journey, and I wasn't sure how to cope with that... Whether to laugh at the typicality of the underlying message of hope, or whether to feel oddly depressed at the fact that it takes a lot of work to be happy.

I don't think I will be seeing this movie any time soon, but that doesn't mean it wasn't good.
I would give it a 7/10 for its ingenuity and ability to be popular without the feel good element.

Help Wanted: Normal People Need Not Apply

My first review.


Ten Inch Hero.
And no, that's not the size of the sandwiches they serve
I watched this film last night with the knowledge that Jensen Ackles was in it. I have recently started watching Supernatural, in which he stars with Jared Padalecki.
Ten Inch Hero is a feel good movie with a heart... and some sex. The premise of the movie is this: Piper (Elisabeth Harnois) moves to Santa Cruz to study art and to find Julia, the daughter she gave birth to when she was 15 and then gave up for adoption. She finds a job at a local grill where she meets a whole heap of fun, quirky characters who really make them movie. There's Trucker (John Doe... no really), the Grill's owner, who is in love with the mystic hippie across the street. There's Tish (Danneel Harris), a sex-addict who manipulates men to sleep with her. There's Jen (Clea DuVall), a computer nerd who has an online relationship with someone named Fuzzy22, and there's Priestley (Jensen Ackles), a crazy-haired guy who refuses to be a clone. They work through each of their struggles together. Besides this, Piper accidentally runs into the girl she believes is her daughter and the girl's father (Sean Patrick Flannery) who asks her to teach the girl to draw.

OK. to the point. This movie isn't up for any Oscars, and it shouldn't be. The acting is natural, but seeing as it doesn't stand out as an Oscar style movie, this seems to go to waste. As I said, I watched this film for Jensen Ackles and he doesn't fail to entertain. He plays the funny guy but also the sweet caring guy at times. Besides this, Sean Patrick Flanery should also be mentioned, as he plays a caring father who falls in love with Piper as she becomes a mother figure to Julia.
Without saying too much, each character (without exception) gets just about what they want at the end of the movie. Although this is typical and cliché, this film is different to others and makes the watcher feel good without feeling really stupid at the end. Things fall into place more than in romantic comedies and it is too up beat to be classed as a drama.

It really is worth a watch. There are some explicit scenes, mainly two with Tish having sex with a guy, and masturbation is present off screen, behind a door, but with all the unpleasant sound effects. A funny scene involves Priestley buying tampons at the local store.

Taking all these things into consideration, I would give this film a 6.5/10, although I may be a little generous.

A New Start

My dad says that starting a web log about the movies I watch is a good thing.
So I will.
My aim is to review movies you should or shouldn't watch, and I will maybe review some other media.
I will attempt to review a film or television show every once in a while... Need to work more on it though.

So there.

I said it.