Blog Post #17: Great Movies

Four great movies that I could think of off the top of my head are: 

1. Seawall
2. In A World
3. Wristcutters: A Love Story
4. Now You See Me.

I think that these four movies are all great for completely different reasons. I honestly cannot even remember what "Seawall" is about, which I think only advocates for its greatness. All the movie is, is a man, played by Andrew Scott, talking in front of a camera, presumably set up on a tripod. Even though I can't remember what it's about, I do remember that there was a plot. The man was just talking, in almost a casual monologue fashion. Part of what made it great was that a really good story was being told, but not through seeing the story. It was kind of in between a movie and a book. We aren't seeing the action happen, but we aren't just reading it. We are listening to the narrator tell it, so we can see his expressions and his reactions to his story.

"In A World" was great because its plot was new and fresh. It was about a girl who is trying to break into the voice-over industry. Her father is one of the greatest voice-over people, but he doesn't believe that she can do it because she is a woman, and the profession, until now in the story, has only seen men. In the movie, the girl gets a job doing the voice-over for a trailer for a very important movie. She gets the job over her father and another younger man. Ultimately, she turns it down because she learns that they chose her voice just because she is a woman, not because she was actually better than the others.

"Wristcutters: A Love Story" ends up being a kind of typical love story, which is what makes it great, even though it's the opposite of what made "In A World" great. I can't really remember the details of this movie, but basically this guy's girlfriend breaks up with him and he tries to kill himself. He ends up in this weird new world with everyone else who has died from killing themselves. He meets and befriends a girl who claims that she doesn't belong there and that she is trying to convince the people that she shouldn't be there. The guy comes with her and, of course, they fall in love along the way. (Warning: this is a roadtrip story. I know, even more cliche.) At the end, the guy wakes up in a hospital because he didn't actually die from cutting his wrists. In the same hospital, is the girl. She was also ejected from suicide-land and they are both alive. I have no idea why I thought this movie was so great but it was.

"Now You See Me" is the only one of these four movies that was heavily advertised and then shown in a theater. It's about a group of four magicians who are pulling off ridiculously complicated tricks in order to enter some sort of secret magician cult group. The reason this movie is great is because of the huge plot twist at the end. The cop who has been chasing after them through the whole movie is actually the guy that is making them do all this stuff.