Movie #284 - How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog

How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog
2000 - Rated R - 1 hr 47 min
Director: Michael Kalesniko
Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Robin Wright, Suzi Hofrichter, Lynn Redgrave, Jared Harris, Peter Riegert, David Krumholtz, Jonathan Schaech, Kaitlin Hopkins, Peri Gilpin

Grumpiness doesn't get much better than Kenneth Branagh's Peter McGowan, troubled has-been writer who's wife desperately wants kids and who's latest play has the potential to fall apart at any moment.  Enter a barky neighborhood dog, a new kid next door with cerebral palsy, a director who sings all day long, and a doppelganger - that's the perfect recipe for a movie.  Of all his roles, this is my favorite Branaugh.  Robin Wright is also perfect as his dancer and would-be mother wife.

The movie has a sadistically comic tone, but the most beautiful storyline somehow evolves between Branaugh's character and the little girl next door.  A sweet, simple understanding blooms there and it seems to pure and real that you can't help but get emotionally invested.  It will warm (and break) your little heart.

Movie #213 - Forrest Gump

Forrest Gump
1994 - Rated PG-13 - 2 hr 12 min
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Sally Field, Gary Sinise, Haley Joel Osment

This movie has the unique ability to appeal to viewers of nearly any age.  I remember seeing this in the theatre at 12 and enjoying it.  My parents loved it even more, because they'd live through most of the major events that appear in it.  And I can appreciate it even more now, as adult, since I get the hints and subtleties.

The innocence of this character is what makes him great.  He is exactly as he appears: friendly, easy going, simple, his heart on his sleeve.  Forrest Gump is the kind of man you want good things to happen to. And in this movie they do and they don't.  Life happens to him, and simultaneously, he happens to life.  It's so well written and so flawlessly executed you forget it's fictional. 

And who doesn't love all those Forrest pop-ups in archival footage?

So I love this movie. If you haven't seen it (because you live under a rock), see it.  It's deserving of the experience. Just like Hanks was deserving of that Oscar win.

Movie #68 - Beowulf

Beowulf
Paramount Pictures
2007 - Rated PG-13 - 1 hr 55 min
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Robin Wright, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Crispin Glover, Angelina Jolie, Ray Winstone

I'm not gonna lie, this movie is a little bit weird. I really think it was made because they thought it would look cool. It does, it's true, but I didn't really find anything all that compelling about this movie.

For the most part, I'm too distracted by all the weird accents everyone is using... particularly Angelina Jolie. And since I'm watching all these movies alphabetically, when Grendel came on screen my first thought was, "Oh look! It's George McFly."

Anyway... I'm not that impressed with this one. It really seems like something a bunch of geeks made just because they could (and because they all had secret fantasies about Angelina Jolie in animated form.) That's all I got, folks.