500 Days of Summer

Through time we all have seen love stories that have a happy ending were the two love bird are together happily ever after, boom, the end. But what there’s a love story that didn’t have a happy ending and was true to real life and the feelings we all face during our times of growing up. In Marc Webb’s film 500 Days of Summer, is a love story that really isn’t a love story. This film deals with first love, losing that first love and moving on with your life.

            When Tom (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meets Summer (played by Zooey Deschanel), he thinks he has met his match. When they start to spend time together, Tom feelings start getting stronger for Summer even though she has made it clear that she doesn’t want a relationship. But through time it’s to turn into one that Summer denies but Tom argues with her that they are together because of the things they do together and the way he feels about her.

            When Summer breaks up with Tom, he is heartbroken and is in a deep depression for some time. His friends, McKenzie and Paul (played by Geoffrey Arend and Matthew Gray Gubler) try to help him break the spell of depression over his break up, even having Tom’s sister Rachel (played by Chloe Grace Moretz) tries to help get over Summer and move on with his life. But still Tom is under the spell of love and doesn’t want to forget about Summer.

            When Summer has moved on with her life, Tom is still heartbroken but then he finally quits his job at the card company and starts to focus on his dream of being an architect and that helps him with moving on with his life and finally forgetting about Summer. Even though, Summer has come back into his life here and there but, in the end it doesn’t faze him as much as had during the past. In the end, Tom finally moves on and maybe even meets someone.

            500 Days of Summer is a film that a lot of people can relate too.  We all have been through heart break, moving on from that heart break and being able to find our true selves during the times of heart break. With probably one the best edited films we have seen in a long time, 500 Days of Summer takes on a journey through laughter, tears and even hope for the upcoming future. 

The Real Home Run King

Baseball has been the sport where legends are made. Like Babe Ruth, Derek Jeter, Micky Mantle and etc. But there is one legend that has not given the proper treat he should of have. Roger Maris was and always will be the best home run hitter in the game. In Billy Crystal’s  film 61*, the audience gets to see the true story of Maris and Micky Mantle chasing the home run record that Babe Ruth held before the 1961 baseball season where Maris took the record. Throughout the journey to 61 homeruns, Maris had to deal with critics, Micky Mantle, and with himself.

             Roger Maris (played Barry Pepper), had to deal with a lot of critics when he was with the Yankees. Throughout the time, critics in the newspapers called him a bum, not a true New York Yankee and wrote he would never was going to get the record or the praises he deserves because everyone was rooting for Micky Mantle (played by Thomas Jane). Maris would reserve death threats through letters that if he broke the record he would be killed, at games he was taunted and even had a fan throw a chair at him during a game.

            A lot of people thought Maris and Mantle didn’t get a long at all but really they were the best of friends even during the 1961 regular season and they both cheered each other on. Mantle was the biggest cheerleader on his side. Even though a lot of people wanted Mantle to get Ruth’s record because fans thought he was a true Yankee and two them unstoppable until at the end of the season where he was injured.

            Maris faced a great deal throughout the 1961 season. With death threats, calls to his home threatening his family and being the underdog. Still, through all the stress and pain everyone has caused him, Maris broke the home run record and became the greatest hitter in baseball history.

            Crystal showed the two sides of both men during the 1961 season and he didn’t hold anything back. He told the true story of these men, epically Maris and what he to go through to break that record. In the eyes of the audience, Maris became a hero to them because of the adversity he had to face to become a legend that he is today. Maris will be and always be the greatest home run hitter in the history of baseball. 

War is Hell.

Some of us don’t really know what really happened during the Vietnam War. Films were made about the war but none of the came really close to what happened to these soldiers during the tours in the Vietnam War. Until director Oliver Stone made the 1987 Academy Award winning picture, Platoon. This film is about the tragedy of the Vietnam War and what this war has done to main soldiers during their time in Vietnam. This film deals with the topics of good vs. evil, the change of man through war, and the truth of what really happened in Vietnam.

            When Chris Taylor (played Charlie Sheen) arrives in Vietnam he doesn’t know what he is in for and is hit by world wind when he gets his first action in Vietnam. He is led by two Sergeants; Sgt. Barnes (played by Tom Berenger) who is ruthless man who will do whatever he wants whenever he decides. He doesn’t care about the lives he takes, which leads to some evil that is unexplainable from him and others on his side of the platoon. Sgt. Elias (played by Willem Dafoe) however is more of a free spirit and who is trying just survive this war and keep his humanity.

            Chris is torn when he sees an illegal killing in a village from Sgt. Barnes who kills an innocent woman in cold blood. He is now losing his humanity and is now facing to fights, the fight of him surviving and stay alive throughout this war, and the war between him and the men in his platoon.

            The film really shows how these men transform to being innocent men to hard core killing machines. Some who have lost themselves through what they have seen and what they have done throughout this war. Oliver Stone created characters that really were relatable to audience members, doesn’t matter which character it was anyone could relate to these men who have lost themselves during this war.

            This film is a masterpiece and a classic which is why it has won a lot of awards including Best Picture at the Oscars. This not just a film, this is an experience of what really happened to these men who fought for our country and what the price that they had to counter that lives on with them till this day. Platoon is the first film to really capture the truth of the Vietnam War. 

Fighting for yourself

In today’s culture we’ve been waiting for a boxing film that takes not only our breath away but also our hearts. With films like Raging Bull and Rocky, our current generation needed a boxing film that was not only was about fighting and knocking out the douche bag of the film but a film that is about overcoming obstacles.  In David O. Russell’s boxing drama The Fighter, the film is not only about boxing but it deals with brotherhood, doing things on your own, and leaving the past behind.

            In the film the audience sees Micky (played by Mark Wahlberg) trying to be a world champion boxer with the help of his brother Dicky (played by Christian Bale who won an Academy Award for this role), who use to be a prize boxer himself till he got into drugs. With help of their mother, Alice (played Melissa Leo who also received an Academy Award for this role), who is Micky’s manager and is the one who is getting him fights. But the thing is Micky is letting them control his boxing career that has led him to unfair fights that he loses. Also, Micky feels that he has a big shadow over him due to his brother who was a boxing champion and the pride of their hometown.

            When Micky meets Charlene (played by Amy Adams) she convinces him to finally do his own thing, and take control of his own career without the help of his brother and mother.  Micky finally finds himself to be winning fights and taking control of his own life but there is something missing from all of his successes. When he gets his title shot he wants Dicky on his side after Dicky has gotten out of prison and Dicky helps him train to fight for the biggest fight of his life.

            In the end of this film, Micky gives everything he has gone through with himself, his family and the people who have support him the most in the ring. Micky finally has his family together and gives them the biggest gift of all time: moving on. Forgetting the past and letting the past go was a part of Micky’s title fight that gives him not only the title but the hope for a better future.

            The Fighter is not just a boxing film; it’s a film about facing obstacles head on and leaving the past behind for a future of hope and happiness. The Fighter is a film that our generation needed and wanted for a long time; we finally got it through this film.