Where were you on 9/11? Everyone who was somehow connected with the horrible tragedy of September 11th asks that; especially people who were living in New York at the time. Where were you on 9/11? What were you doing at the time? I’ve been asked that ever since. Being a born and raised New Yorker, it’d be only natural the topic of 9/11 would pop up sooner or later, and instantly the conversation and everyone involved in it would shift into a sort of sad slumped shoulder mode and gaze down in sadness. 9/11 had a profound effect on everyone, especially people who lived in New York during that tumultuous summer. Since then, there’s been countless films, television specials, documentaries, books, memoirs, and even comic books and trading cards chronicling the tragedy (for a lack of a better word).
Tag Archives: Romance
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
One can’t deny that “The Passion of the Christ” was a bulldozer of endless publicity, and endless debate, and controversy, and uproar and anger and discussion, and feuds and so on and so on. Regardless of which blockbuster that was spawned on the American audience, “The Passion of the Christ” was a highly hyped and much publicized film, because it deals with religion. Religion takes brothers and sisters and family and divides them, it angers people, motivates them, inspires them, and causes them to commit heinous acts in the name of it. Thus explaining the Crusades, the search for the holy grail, and the war we are experiencing now. Religious wars. Religion, regardless of how you cut it is important, if an unnecessary and somewhat defunct part of the human condition that should be removed. Religious films aren’t just films, they expose a part of the human soul called religion, something many people live by and swear by. For better and for worse.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Twas once a skeptic to the quality of the film now am a believer that Disney can still trot out quality films. My Mea Culpa was to assume that even with such a cast as Geoffrey Rush and Johnny Depp aboard that this would be a stinker, but once more I was wrong. Gore Verbinski who did an excellent directing job in the recent thriller “The Ring” conveys the true spirit of swashbuckling films in “Pirates of the Caribbean”, a film that is very reminiscent of the old Errol Flynn Pirate epics that stunned audiences in the early 1900’s in its truest essence; the swashbuckling film genre is dead only recently being brought to the screen with the bland “Cutthroat Island” a film that had style but little substance.
From Justin to Kelly (2003)
Brothers and sistas, mothers and fathers, I come to you today not only as a megalomaniacal egotistic movie critic but as a fellow movie go-er! Thus I have witness the plight that is “From Justin to Kelly”! Can I get a amen?!
If I asked you (the reader) who watches “American Idol” I’d probably receive an onslaught of hands raised followed by cheering; but if I asked you how many people went to see this film, I’d without a doubt be welcomed with deafening silence and a few mutters, thus Americans finally knew the extent FOX was willing to milk their cash cow known as “American Idol”! Can I get a amen?!
American Wedding (2003)
I’m a fan of “American Pie”; I loved that movie, I thought it was very funny and the closest we’ll get to a classic comedy of the modern era, I mean what other movie featured such a hilarious sight as a guy having sex with a pie? Then there was “American Pie 2”, not exactly a creative title for a sequel, and all in all it was a mediocre film with a mediocre plot. There were minimal laughs, obvious jokes and puns, and nothing else to feature, then with a further saturation, there’s “American Wedding”.I was strictly against a third film in the “American” series, and now it’s clearly evident my instinct was right all along.
Bringing Down The House (2003)
This movie presents a common comedy formula often ensured to bring laughs but hardly do they ever and “Bringing Down the House” tackles the formula head-on: upper class white family is intruded by hip black person, hip black person lives with upper class white family, teaches upper class white father to appreciate kids and wife more and upper class white family grow to love hip minority. In a star vehicle of this kind I expected what I’d heard of “Non-stop laughs”; sure someone who watches comedies lately knows to never listen to hype, and boy was this film hyped.
Solaris (2003)
The film “Solaris” poses some interesting questions about life; How much of life is reality and how much is illusion? How much of life is illusion we’re not aware of, and illusion we prefer to endure for the sake of going on in life? When someone dies, how much of their memory that we store in our minds is real and how much is distorted by the way we preferred to see them as? And, finally, one of the truly provocative questions: Do we ever really know someone? Do we know their flaws and personality inside out or do we just create our own images of them.