#18: American Beauty

American Beauty--as far as dramas go--is the closest to perfect I've ever seen. The brilliance comes in the subtlety, as with a lot of Kevin Spacey films. Honestly, I have nothing bad to say about this movie. I'm sure it could have been improved in various ways, but I certainly am not in any position to say what or where.

The writing in American Beauty, both in script and plot, is brilliant. As a literature nerd and a (very amateur) writer, I couldn't watch this movie without laughing to myself at the perfect imagery the script provides and the mood it sets for the accompanying visuals. Along with the script, the soundtrack of American Beauty is subtle but right on. Unless I was listening for it, I barely knew it was there. It was simply another element of the mood I was feeling.

I'll spare you a plot summary, but only because I want every person reading this post to watch American Beauty and find out for themselves. Nearly perfect.

Overall Rating: 9.8 / 10


-Taylor Dobbs


This is one of my favorite movies of all time. Hands down. I can't get enough of this movie. To be honest, if I haven't mentioned it yet, this is why Kevin Spacey is one of my all-time favorite actors. It's probably a top-five performance. Everything about actor Kevin Spacey (Lester Burnham) in this movie is just fantastic, not to mention how hysterical he is. I think almost every time he spoke I pretty much laughed. This movie is greatness. American Beauty is one of the first movies where I noticed how great the soundtrack was and how well the music went with each scene. The script is unbelievable and the directing is genius. Alan Ball and Sam Mendes tag team to make one of the greatest films ever made. Thora Birch, Annette Bening, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari and Chris Cooper collaborate to make an unbelievable supporting cast.


I think one of the best underlying aspects of the film are its symbols. Alan Ball uses the color red throughout the movie to represent characters, moods and settings. In the first scene, we see the bright red door, with a white house with a white picket fence and blue shutters. We see, Carolyn Burnham (Actress Annette Bening,) Lester Burnham's wife, cutting her red roses from her garden. Throughout the film, Kevin Spacey's sexual fantasies are represented with the color red using red rose petals. Kevin Spacey's remote control car that he hit the foot of his wife with was a red car. In an important scene with Chris Cooper's character, in the background is a bright red automobile. This theme continues throughout the movie all the way to its end.

To sum everything up, this movie is one of my absolute favorites. Honestly, nothing bad at all about it. I'd be very surprised if anyone disagreed with me. In my opinion best movie we've seen together so far.

Overall Rating: 9.8 / 10

- Josh Berg

#17: Hannibal

Hannibal is actually one of the most sadistic and fiendish movies I've ever seen. Anthony Hopkins is purely genius in Hannibal; if you've seen Silence of the Lambs, I wont have to tell you that you can expect nothing less than spectacular. Julianne Moore is brilliant as well, while Ray Liotta plays a fellow agent. Surprisingly, Liotta is really funny.

Getting back to the movie, director Ridley Scott helped continue the great tradition of Silence of the Lambs. I think the only other films so malicious and inhuman and so well done are the Saw series. Hannibal may not be as great as Silence of the Lambs, but this is a great follow up and is definitely worth seeing if you've seen the first, shortly after, watching Red Dragon will also continue this gruesome tradition of sadistic killing. Hannibal is just one of those movies you kind of have to see.

Overall Rating: 8.0 / 10

- Josh Berg

Watching Hannibal, I had only ever seen Silence of the Lambs before, so Red Dragon and the other parts of the series are unknown to me. Anthony Hopkins, as Josh said, nails the role. Other than that, I thought the plot was somewhat weak and there was no "holy !@#$" moment in the movie for me.

Hannibal leans on gag-factor to survive, which just doesn't cut it for greatness in by book. Unless you're going to throw a character into a pit of needles or force them to cut off their own leg (as in Saw), that doesn't cut it. So despite a great performance by Hopkins and good work by all of the other actors involved, I didn't love this movie, and it definitely wasn't as good as Silence of the Lambs. It's very possible that--as it fits into the series of Hannibal Lecter movies--this movie is brilliant in ways that I simply didn't notice. This wouldn't be a fault of the movie, but me as the viewer.

Whatever the case, I'm not a huge fan of Hannibal, but it wasn't terrible either.

Overall Rating: 7.2 / 10


-Taylor Dobbs

#16: The Aura

I honestly don't know how we came to seeing this film, I guess it was because I randomly owned this Sundance Film Festival DVD. Ricardo Darin, the lead actor, plays a taxidermist who manages to go with a friend on a hunting trip, which goes wrong.

Throughout the movie, I was saying to Taylor that this movie reminded me of a foreign mix of The Town (#10) and the movie Armored (#12) that we saw. If you haven't realized yet from the poster, The Aura is a foreign film. It does have sub-titles and you will have to read pretty closely because it goes by quickly. I thought this movie was a little odd; it was very scattered to me. I just thought Ricardo's role of being a taxidermist is a somewhat tedious and completely irrelevant.

I did not fall in love with this movie, at times I started to get bored and almost fall asleep. This film was disappointing because I've been sitting staring at the DVD cover waiting to see this movie thinking it would actually be pretty good, but not so much. The ending was atrocious, wait let me rephrase that, THERE WAS NO ENDING! I looked at Taylor when the movie ended and said "Wait did the movie really just end?" I guess that's how the director, Fabian Bielinsky, had intended the film to be. Although, I do want to give this movie some credit for having a potentially good idea, but it didn't pan out the way I would've liked. Honestly, I would most likely pass on it if I had another chance.

Overall Rating: 6.0 / 10

- Josh Berg

The Aura was an extremely unique movie. I don't know if I've ever seen anything even remotely like it. It's an Argentinian film about a taxidermist whose hunting trip takes some unexpected turns. He finds himself in the middle of a network of organized criminals, and the allure of crime keeps him from running away.

The oddness comes in the blatantly unsatisfying ending. Maybe there were more layers of the film that I wasn't tapped into, but it seemed a very strange and lacking ending. I wouldn't say I hated the movie overall--it definitely had a feeling of realness and confusion to it--but I feel like despite  everything, nothing really happened.

I don't regret watching The Aura, but I don't think I'll watch it again either. It's definitely one only to watch if you like subtitles and foreign indie films. If Transformers is your favorite movie in the whole wide world, stay far far away from The Aura.

Overall Rating: 6.7 / 10

-Taylor Dobbs

#15: Cashback

We came to a consensus at midnight last night that we both wanted to watch a comedy, but there's wasn't much that we wanted to see. We were considering Slap Shot, a hockey comedy made in 1977, so I guess I felt it was a little dated and we needed to be more current and watch something completely different, so we decided to go with the movie Cashback.

Personally, I really enjoyed the movie, while to me it resembled three movies in one: Click, 500 Days of Summer and The Machinist. Sean Biggerstaff, who plays Ben Willis, the lead role, reminds me of Joseph Gordon-Levitt in 500 Days of Summer. Throughout the movie, a theme of time manipulation reminded me of Click, and Ben Willis has insomnia, reminding me of Christian Bale's character in The Machinist. The writer and director Sean Ellis did a great job making this film, from the shots to the screenwriting to the whole performance in general. It felt completely different from anything I've ever seen and it was definitely worth seeing. It's a little vulgar but also extremely funny at times. For me, definitely worth the 100 minutes.

Overall Rating: 8.5 / 10

- Josh Berg

I re-shelved Cashback more times than I can remember when I was working at the local movie store in high school. Every time, I looked at the cover and rolled my eyes. "Another movie claiming to be 'artsy' that's just an excuse to get girls naked in strange places," I'd think. A worthy cause perhaps, but it's never produced a good film. Cashback surprised me. While there was a fair amount of nudity, the movie genuinely wasn't about degrading women.

Being a comedy, I expected there to be a fair bit of tasteless, sexist humor in Cashback. But while the movie definitely had a theme of sexuality, it stayed classy with its humor.

I really liked Cashback. The direction was amazing and the humor was spot-on. It was serious enough to get me caring about the characters and funny enough to keep me watching. It was a British comedy with British humor, a type some Americans don't have a taste for (I'm not being a worldly snob here, just telling you that if you don't like British humor, this movie probably isn't for you), but I thought it was hilarious and adorably genuine at the same time.

I recommend Cashback, despite the strange cover art.

Overall Rating: 8.7 / 10

-Taylor Dobbs

#14: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

I walked into this movie expecting something similar to the first - a decent flick. I walked out impressed.

I've liked Shia LaBoeuf since Even Stevens, but here he did a better job than I would have expected with a high-powered Wall Street type. I most recently remember him from Transformers, where he plays a nervous, nerdy high-schooler. Coming out of that to play a tough-talking, motorcycle-driving stock broker was a big transition, to say the least. This is the first LaBoeuf character I've ever seen that is dealing with real adult issues. Money, parental issues, love, and the rest of the wonderful grabbag of responsibilities that come with being an adult change the game for his character, but he didn't disappoint.

I thought the movie was a great, modern counterpart to Wall Street. While it doesn't abandon the plot elements or characters from the first movie, it doesn't get stuck on them either. The grim realities of the modern market play a big role in this sequel, and it doesn't paint a pretty picture of the role banks played in the crisis.

Michael Douglas' return as Gordon Gecko was perfectly played, in my opinion. To say any more might hurt your experience with it, but my advice is this: Go see Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

Overall Rating: 7.9 / 10


-Taylor Dobbs



When I saw the preview for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, I thought it looked amazing. Shortly after seeing it, not so much. To be brutally honest, not one of my favorites this year. I was really upset after I saw this movie. I agree with Taylor; I think Shia LeBouf is amazing at what he does, and Michael Douglas is always going to be great playing Gordon Gekko. The acting doesn't necessarily make the movie great though. I thought it was very similar to the original Wall Street, just updated and somewhat tedious at times throughout the film. I guess it was worth seeing for me, but if I was to recommend a movie out this year, it would most definitely not be this one. If you love the stock market and work on Wall Street, then you'll enjoy it. But like I said, definitely not my favorite. I thought it could have been way more exciting than it was. If you see this and you didn't see the first, you really won't miss much. Only small details will travel a longer way for those who did see the original starring Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas. All in all, slightly disappointed but glad to have seen it.

Overall Rating: 7.5 / 10

- Josh Berg

#13: Shooter

Marky Mark Wahlberg plays a widely known marksmen, able to hunt down and snipe people from miles away. Definitely one of his top movies; he also knows how to produce very well. Some of his other films have not been so good though; when I saw The Other Guys this summer, it made me think he was an absolute joke. Will Farrell stepped up and saved that movie.  The Departed was great but The Happening was horrendous, the movie in general but the acting too.  Okay, but getting back to Shooter, the movie actually had a very creative idea for a film. I really liked the concept and the performances by all the actors and I thought Antoine Fuqua did a really good job of directing this film - all the scenes and shots from the film are right on target and so clear. The in-depth details of the movie are great as well. I don't want to ruin it but I thought this movie was definitely worth seeing if you like action and shooting films.

Overall Rating: 8.3 / 10

- Josh Berg

Shooter was one of those movies, for me, that I loved when it came out, and didn't put much thought into afterwards. A co-worker of mine at the video rental store said the mark of a good movie is one that you keep thinking about after you see it. I think that - sadly - Shooter falls short of being a classic for this reason.

Besides taking some liberties with physics and plausibility (as any action movie does, and I don't hold against them), the Shooter went just a little bit too far with its scope, in my opinion. It's hard to say much at all without giving it away, but to make this movie a classic it would have to hold the "could this really happen?" quality that movies like The Bourne Identity or Babel. That's not to say Shooter isn't a ton of fun and definitely worth a watch, but it's not to be placed on the same shelf as The Matrix and the like.

Overall Rating: 7.1 / 10


-Taylor Dobbs