Catch Me If You Can

Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Final Destination 2
Even more over-the-top, beyond improbable and perversely entertaining death scenes than the first one - especially the last scene, which in both flicks has made me laugh out loud the first time that I saw each. This series probably makes up my all-time favorite bad movies. I can't wait for the next sequel.

The Producers (2005)
I was rather unconvinced by Matthew Broderick's character in the beginning, but the sheer entertainment value of this movie that is offensive to everyone about a play that is offensive to everyone easily drew me in before long.

Night of the Living Dead

Fatal Attraction
This movie should've taught men not to cheat ... but why do I suspect that instead it just taught them to distrust women?

Dawn of the Dead
It's horrifying, but I'm hooked by the story. What a dilemma: True innocents,* acting without malice in accordance with instinct. Do they deserve to die? The only catch in terms of the solidity of that story is that the zombies don't actually seem to need to eat flesh in order to survive ... although I suppose that the drive to do so does help their "species" flourish, as it causes them to continue to kill and thus create more zombies. (What a sick way to portray the reproductive instinct!) [*As with any horror movie, the victims almost always do something wrong that causes them to (deserve to?) die.] Meanwhile, is anyone else aware that the band Gorillaz took a riff for their album Demon Days from the soundtrack to this movie?

Beauty Shop
Considering the subject matter, the racial essentialization should not have been surprising; the homophobic content probably shouldn't have either. That being said, while I haven't seen the Barbershop movies, this one, with its truly fabulous and recognizable cast, was really enjoyable.

The Hours

Rebel Without A Cause
As long as it seemed like the typical high school movie (which later genre actually probably took its cue from this flick), I was rather unimpressed; of course, I was also watching it for my research on anti-mother movies, so that didn't help either. It did get better as soon as the stakes got a little higher, though - but I still wasn't incredibly blown away by James Dean's acting abilities or anything.

Hookwinked
This cute little movie is entertaining for both kids and adults, although definitely more so for kids, as even its intertextuality wasn't enough to make it really amusing most of the time. I did appreciate the Mensa reference though. :)

Shawn of the Dead
REALLY funny after the first two Night of the Living Dead flicks. A very well-done spoof, as it both successfully spoofed the movies that it sought to AND had its own perhaps even more enjoyable characters and plot than the originals. If you can stomach the flesh-eating (I had to do it), do see it.

Capturing the Friedmans

Disney's Cinderella

Dead Alive

Goodfellas

Peeping Tom

Radio

A Killer Upstairs
A terrible film. It looks like a Lifetime movie, in fact. How on Earth did that get onto my thesis list?

Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron
A slightly endearing but cheesy animated horse movie that subtly celebrates traditional ideals of masculinity by way of a mustang that "goes out" into the world (of mankind), where he demands and earns the respect of every man that he meets and rather unrealistically simply cannot be domesticated except as he chooses to be, which he particularly does when it comes to a pretty mare whose life he saves and whom he then convinces to leave her own home - a Native American village - to join him (and his mother) in his - back in the wild.

Mother's Boys
This Jamie Lee Curtis movie started slow but in the end scared me so badly that I honestly had a hard time remembering how to breathe for several minutes afterward. According to the Blockbuster Online sleeve, the MPAA rating is R for language and "a mother's sociopathic behavior." Wow.

The Black Stallion
I watched this one - an old favorite of mine - with Alex, who loved it in the beginning because it featured a kid named Alec, got bored in the middle, and then was right with me by the time we got to the race at the end. Even I couldn't help feeling tense and on edge by that point....

The 40 Year Old Virgin
This movie surprised me for its emphasis on dialogue and its relatively informed treatment of homophobia. Quite entertaining.

The Polar Express
A strange conglomerate of feel-good children's holiday fare, over-the-top fantasy, slapstick comedy, sometimes surprisingly scary and/or violent action, frustrating stereotypes, and mind-numbing cliches, with otherwise fabulous artwork but comically unconvincing people and Tom Hanks making an entertaining albeit transparent turn as half of the characters in the film. Alex couldn't resist the combination of snow, Santa, and a train, though.

2 Brothers and a Bride
In the end, an amusing and actually somewhat surprising film about two brothers who travel to Russia searching for one "wife" to essentially replace their mother after her death. (I wonder why I watched it? ;)) The promotional film for the "romance tour" company featured in the movie that was included in the special features was particularly interesting, as it commenced with a number of shots of couples who met through the company - and only the men speak.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Hustle and Flow

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

The History Channel's Titanic: The Final Moments
This long-awaited and much-hyped program consisted mostly of build-up and background information that I already knew, not to mention an annoying organization that alternated rather confusingly between 1912 and 2005. However, the nugget of value that I'd expected to get from it did eventually present itself, in the form of incredible footage of the discovery of immense new pieces of the underside of sunken ship just last year. It has caused a reconsideration of the entire story of what actually happened just before the Titanic submerged. Wow.

White Heat

Mother's Day
Even though it's billed as a Kaufman family satire, this movie still comes off as a very disturbing horror film. In fact, I'm not sure that I would've recognized the satirical aspects had I not been looking for them; instead, I probably would've thought that it was just another badly-done twist on the same old trope that I've been researching for my thesis. Feel free to skip this one.

Peter Pan (1960)
Alex really enjoyed this movie, not surprisingly. (Pirates!) I found its treatment of mothers interesting, as for once they're actually celebrated in the movie, which isn't surprising once you see J.M. Barrie's inspiration for writing the play on which it's based in Finding Neverland - but mothers are also very carefully defined in it as people who do nothing more than tell bedtime stories, make and mend pockets, and manifest concern for what their charges do and do not eat. That helps mothers protect their charges, as we see it chance to keep the lost boys from eating a poisoned cake in the movie, but mothers seem unable to determinedly protect their "sons." That is both the case with (Wendy and) Michael and John's mother when Peter takes them all away; with Wendy as mother to Peter, who because of her urging almost drinks poisoned medicine; and with Wendy as mother to the lost boys, when the pirates kidnap them all and only Peter can rescue them (with some help from the Indians, who, despite a bizarre and certainly stereotyped portrayal, are at least sympathetic characters for once). Most of all, though, Peter Pan defines mothers as people who cannot exist without and/or separate from fathers. Wendy makes that very clear when she only agrees to act as the lost boys' mother if Peter agrees to act as their father. And Wendy, whose desire to "be" their mother only manifests her "proper" socialization to become one as an adult, is ultimately not completely dedicated to her assumed role in Neverland, which certainly shows that she's not overbearing at least. Thus one of the most positive representations of mothering in cinema is, in fact, one of the most narrowly defined ones of all.

The Aristocrats

What the Bleep Do We Know?
A delightful documentary on quantum physics, biology, spirituality, reality, thought, and free will. My highest recommendations. (We know that I'm a nerd when the movies/TV shows that I pick to watch for fun are all documentaries though....)

The Alamo
It had a slow start, and I was concerned about the movie offering problematic and/or one-sided representations of history, but in the end, I have to acknowledge that it didn't really do that. It made a lot of the disrespect toward other human life demonstrated by Santa Anna without emphasizing all that much the land-thievery of the Americans (with the exception of one moving scene delivered by Billy Bob Thornton, whose character, David "Davy" Crockett, was probably as fabricated - and entertaining - in this representation as this movie represented him to have been in myth during his own lifetime), but the other characters, though sympathetic in some ways, were not entirely celebrated either, such as the brave, principled, and determined Lieutenant Colonel who nevertheless did abandon his wife and daughter and force a separation between his son and the child's mother because he believed that the boy needed a male influence that he himself wasn't going to be around to provide. I was a little saddened by some of the decisions that the male characters made in the name of bravery, for instance, that resulted in catastrophic loss of life, but I appreciated the movie overall.

Batman Begins

American Pie Presents Band Camp

Monster's Ball
While this movie certainly contains a mother-son relationship, it is far more about the ways that fathers can screw up their sons rather than mothers. Let's not abandon it yet, though: We mustn't forget that the mother and son in question here are Black. As I argue in my thesis, society does not mind being able to pathologize Black children - especially Black male children, as that helps to negate the risk of their ever achieving much power in society anyway - and it certainly doesn't mind being rid of as many Black males as it possibly can. So even though the mother here (played by Halle Berry, of course) clearly made a bad choice to serve as her son's father, is an alcoholic, cannot support herself and her child, berates him for his compulsive eating (a habit which I note both serves to feminize him and which her response to it probably worsens), cannot get him to obey her, and cannot protect him in the end, we don't see her or her mothering take any real blame. Meanwhile, the racist, misogynist White man demonstrates his superiority by overcoming his frailties (as the Black male characters couldn't do) to end as both the survivor and, in fact, the hero, providing for the Black woman where Black men couldn't and supplanting them in her life. And, of course, he makes that transformation without the help of a mother of his own, as it is always when men are separate from their mothers that the movies portray them as most heroic. (Don't get me wrong: This movie had me glued to it from start to finish. But I cannot fail to recognize the problems with it.)

The Sixth Sense
I grudgingly rewatched this one to clarify my understanding of its relevance to my thesis; it's another boy-whose-autonomous-mother-can't-help-him-without-the-involvement-of-a-man flick, along with The Black Stallion, Jerry Maguire, Finding Neverland, About A Boy, Dear Frankie, Finding Forrester (which at least shows that a Black boy can be worth saving - but it wouldn't've worked if he'd had a father present; the implicit criticism of even a Black patriarchal male would've interfered with our sense of a happy ending), and even The Aristocats. The only twist here is that in this movie, the kid needs a man's help so bad that he turns to a dead man to get it.

Brokeback Mountain
See my new professional mothering studies blog for some of my thoughts on this movie.

5x2

The Godfather Part II

The Grifters
Another movie in which a single mother - this one who had her son too young, at age 14 - abandons her son, simultaneously lusting after him, seeking to profit from him financially, and actually doing so, by destroying him - literally. Until then, he is dating an older woman who closely resembles his mother, physically and professionally, while always trying to emulate and live up to his mother's "professional" success himself.

The Family Stone

Pirates of the Caribbean

Bride & Prejudice

X-Men

X-Men 2

Casanova

Fight Club
I'd seen Fight Club before, but to my great surprise - and delight, since it afforded me an opportunity to share something new with him - Dennis never had; watching it this time around, however, allowed me to see for the first time that it too bears a mother-blaming subplot, if only because it's the story of a man with [SPOILER WARNING!] split-personality disorder who therefore becomes increasingly dangerous - and whose alter-ego expresses a sense that, like so many other men of his (their?) generation, having been raised by single mothers, they'd probably spent enough time with women. Therefore, instead they begin to associate primarily with men - only with men, in fact, except for the alter-ego, who continues to have heterosexual sex that the primary (?) personality of the protagonist eschews. He, it seems, prefers crying into the breasts of a man who has had his testicles removed. If you've read any of my thesis, you see the connection.

The House of Flying Daggers

Get Shorty

Persuasion

Be Cool

Rumor Has It...

See Spot Run

Nanny McPhee

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

Pillow Talk

Nanny McPhee (again)

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Guys and Dolls

You Can't Fix Stupid

Eight Below

West Side Story

Memoirs of a Geisha

Boys Don't Cry

Gypsy

The Man

The Pirate Movie

Chicken Little

Final Destination 3

Bruce Almighty

Camp Nowhere

Date Movie

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Date Movie

Day of the Dead

A Good Woman

Walk the Line

Capote

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

The Zero Effect

Office Space

Pride and Prejudice

Wild Wild West

Bowling for Colombine

Crash

Rent

V for Vendetta

Cruel Intentions

Take the Lead

Nacho Libre

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

Good Night and Good Luck

Cars

Down With Love

Best in Show

American Pie Present Band Camp (again)

The Tao of Steve



Back to my home page

(C) 2006 Jessica B. Burstrem