moviereview – By the Brooke

Hey there! Aaaaand we’re still snowed in. But, on the bright side, that leaves me more time for blogging and writing and such. So here’s a little post about my favorite movies. It’s short and sweet because I limited myself to five movies (otherwise we’d probably be here for ages).

Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

This one takes the #1 spot being my entire childhood. The only thing I love more than Lord of the Rings & Tolkien quotes is Narnia & C.S. Lewis quotes. In summary, these two authors made my childhood as did the director of this movie. Though I must clarify, the disney version. There is a British version floating around out there with a…. smaller budget resulting in a slightly… different cinematic experience.

To summarize, this Disney Movie is my most favorite move. I love everything about it. Everyone felt perfectly cast, the music in phenomenal, the animal characters are loveable, Aslan is grand, and the redemptive story of Edmund holds so much weight.

A solid 10/10 movie. I still want to be Lucy when I grow up.

2. The Lord of the Rings Movies

And here is where I sing the Praises of Peter Jackson. He did what seemed impossible- condensed down the enormous works of Tolkien into three wonderful movies that tell a cohesive and developed story that I find myself continually coming back to.

I sort of cheated here as these are technically three movies but I couldn’t pick a favorite among them as they tell one continuous story and each one is masterfully done and has its own strengths in their own rights.

These movies probably have my favorite soundtrack ever, my favorite fight sequences, and some of my favorite characters. My only complaints are Frodo’s character felt a bit off compared to the book and the Frodo and Sam parts sometimes felt like they slogged on too long (or perhaps that was the intention as we were supposed to feel the weight of their looooong journey with them?).

Overall a 9.8457/10.

3. Aladdin

The best disney princess movie that is not actually about the disney princess. Not really. Robin Williams is perfectly cast, the song “A Whole New World” is iconic and probably will be for a very, very long time and rightly so.

9.7/10

4. Star Wars: The Original Trilogy

Yeah, I’m going to cheat again. This is technically three movies but again, just like with Star Wars, its hard to pick a favorite out of these movies (though if you forced me, I’d probably have to say “The Empire Strikes” back but I could easily change my mind at any time. The ranking is that close).

Another iconic and phenomenal soundtrack. Lovably corny CGI effects and all, I love this movie. The writing is amazing and the story so full of hope. I know its simple in structure. A typical good vs. evil struggle but when you pair that with the sci-fi elements that, until that point, had never really been implemented on a big screen (with some exceptions with Star Trek but that was a show and was so stylistically and tonally different, I don’t really see them as that similar).

I grew up watching these which unfortunately led me to having a really high bar as to the level of writing I accept in my Star Wars films so I’m not a huge Disnified Star Wars fan. But, regardless, these movies continue to have a place in my heart.

9.68/10

5. Toy Story

One of Pixar’s crowning glory movies. Sure, this movies animation hasn’t aged that well. Their character models for humans were lacking (Andy may or may not look like a crackhead) but it makes sense for the time period it was in and definitely set a precedent for future CGI Animated movies. Woody & Buzz are THE iconic duo.

9.5/10

And that concludes my list although I could rant about my childhood movies for much longer. Thanks for reading and see you readers later!

So I’m not a huge movie buff. I have a set of my favorite Disney movies I watch on repeat and a few retro films thrown into the mix that I watch when I feel sick but I do very little to keep up with the film industry and what they’re coming out with, mostly because I haven’t seen a movie really “catch my eye” in a long time. Disney’s golden age of film making has seemed to have halted with them largely pushing remakes in the last couple of years. But that all brings me to this statement:

I have never really seen a Marvel movie.

Ahem.

Unlessss you count that time I watched Infinity War while third wheeling on one of my sister’s dates (please, never again. ) So it’s no wonder I watched it my internal monologue went something like this:

“Welp, that person died. By the music, I’m assuming that was significant.”

“Aaaaah yes, I remember seeing memes about this.”

“Welp, I hope that wasn’t an important plot point because I have no clue what they are talking about.”

“People are crying? Should I cry? Do I look heartless?”

“Disney is gonna make BANK from all these possible action figures like daaasng.”

So I had a friend who was kind enough to help remedy that. So began the saga of me watching the Marvel Movies in chronological order.

Starting with a movie I had heard quite a lot about:

Good ol’ Captain America staring the living embodiment of American pride and patriotisms in the 1930’s and 40’s and costarring his loveable sidekick buddy who you feel like he makes great team with except if you were to probably average the amount of time these two interacted in the movie, it would probably come out to maybe 7 minutes (Please don’t come at me, I really liked this movie actually).

Spoilers ahead! (obviously but I feel like I should preface as such anyways. Though I am very very late to this party so I would be kind of surprised if you hadn’t already seen this movie but who am I to judge?!)

So, first thoughts, I totally love the time period it’s set in. World war 2 movies are pretty cool in general. I realize the market is coming more and more saturated with World War 2 movies and people are getting sick of them but I honestly cannot get enough of them. I mean, The hair? The clothes? The impending doom looming over everyone’s heads? The bold lipstick?

Okay, in all seriousness I think I love movies set in this time period so much because they are just LOADED with heavy story material and while I do love the aesthetical flare of this time period, I think it has more to do with the fact that this was a very real and dangerous time that people lived in and there were very real sacrifices people made. Seeing movies set in these time periods remind me of that and while they make for an amazing “good vs. evil” struggle that we love to watch, I think what really get me is the emotional weight these stories can often hold set in this very dark time.

Now moving right along, this movie had great music. I mean, not Lord of the Rings kind of iconic scores but I did really enjoy the overall track. There really isn’t much else I have to say on this.

Now, on to the writing-

I thought it was really cool how they made Steve a righteous character/hero without making him too cookie cutter. I think that’s really hard to do sometimes.

Peggy was fabulous and fun to watch because I think it’s always nice to see at least one character sort of have their act together. You can’t help but respect the character’s hustle.

The Bucky-Steve friendship was a very enjoyable dynamic to watch. Too bad it was terminated part way through (in this particular movie) but understandable as it did propel the plot forward and contribute to Steve’s character arch.

Red skull was kind of a corny villain or maybe it was the fact that he looked like a sun-dried tomato, but MAN HE WAS UGLY but still fun to watch nonetheless. Corny is a little fun sometimes.

Overall, really enjoyable but I have one question:

If his shield is vibration proof, then how does it bounce off of stuff? Or maybe it’s just a case of movie physics and I’m just asking too trivial of a question.

Overall really interesting and a nice twist on the super hero genre style movie.

Favorite scenes were as followed:

1. When Steve is reminiscing of all the places he got beat up while in the car with Peggy Carter. I think one reason this character gets so much love is Marvel also seemed to emphasize a loveably awkward side to his character that is admittedly fun to watch.

2. Steve throwing himself on the grenade. It’s a little bit different “right of passage” then most movies do for their main character. I simplistic scene that lasted like 5 second but told a lot about the characters present while establishing what makes this Main character different.

3. Peggy shooting his shield when she is mad at him with a dead pan face. Iconic and so very funny.

4. Final scene where he’s about to crash land and he’s talking to Peggy over the intercom. May have shed a 1/4 of a tear but don’t tell anyone, my reputation would be ruined.

5. Him blowing up his motorcycle nonchalantly

Also, why did no one tell me Steve can draw really well??? Don’t know why that stuck out to me but monkeys are hard to draw. I don’t know why, but I just think it’s cool when they accentuate character talents beyond just being “the chosen one”.

Aaaaand that’s it I think! Those are all my imminent thoughts upon watching Marvel’s Captain America!

Tag: moviereview

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