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Please scroll down and enjoy some of Terry's Big Head commentary on videos she saw with her family at their reunion in April 2001. |
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Billy Elliot |
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Great acting by the boy playing Billy and great dancing by him as well. The soundtrack is catchy and moves the movie forward quickly. The cinematography is excellent, juxtapositioning the grittiness of the town and the violence of its people with the beauty of the countryside and the emotion surrounding the loss of Billy's mother. One criticism I overheard at the reunion was that the movie should of ended when Billy was accepted at the Royal Academy, i.e. do not show the scene where he is grown, playing the lead in Swan Lake, and his dad, brother, and childhood friend come to see him. Like we wouldn't of figured out that Michael was a cross dressing gay man, or that Billy's dad and brother would reconcile their differences with his choice of career, or that Billy was really as good as his teacher had thought. Funny how movies tell a great story and then re-tell it quickly for an ending. Otherwise the movie was very entertaining, and a good family film despite the constant cursing and brawling!?! |
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Wonder Boys |
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There is an old adage in film, "Never kill the dog in a movie." Or maybe it's a curse or something. Anyways, audiences are not supposed to like a movie in which a dog is killed. Wonder Boys flys in the face of the conventional wisdom (Beware dog lovers!) of the movies, just like it's main character, an middle aged 'one hit wonder' author played by Michael Douglas, flaunts the conventional wisdom of academia, romance, writing, health, marriage, etc. Robert Downey Jr. is type cast as a hypersexed, drug crazed, editor eager to score on all fronts: men, pharmaceuticals, and bestsellers. Enter Douglas' best writing student with a new novel in his pocket, next to his gun, an obsession for movie stars, and a death wish. Now doesn't this sound like a formula for a good movie? It is. My big head gives this movie 4 stars for entertainment value and an interesting plot. |
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Legend of Bagger Vance |
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Now, even though "You don't have to tell me to like Matt Damon!" you really have to like golf to go 'ga-ga' over this movie. Someone at the reunion told me the book was supposed to be much better, like tying life into the game of golf, a kind of "Zen and the Art of Putting" type of book. I'm not surprised, as the only movie that is better than the book is "Interview with the Vampire," being that Ms. Rice writes in screen play style anyways.....but I digress. In Legend of Bagger Vance Will Smith plays a mystical "High Plains Drifter" caddy character that appears to help Matt Damon's World War I Lost Generation character get his 'groove' back in his golf swing and his alcoholic, lonely life. The movie is set in Savannagh, and Charlize Theron does the best of anyone in her role: the surviving daughter of a bankrupt plantation owner in Savannagh (a man who always wanted to make a luxury golf course resort) and the ex-finance of Matt Damon. Theron arranges a match between two current golf greats and the local, ruined by the war, golfing legend (Damon) in order to save her dead father's dream of a resort. Talk about pressure! Lucky Will Smith shows up to caddy with the 'young' Jack Lemmon. Lots of golf fanatic stuff, lots of life coaching stuff, lots of World War I post-traumatic stress stuff, and some tasty romance stuff between Damon and Theron. 3 stars. |
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Meet the Parents |
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Sometimes, when you make a great movie, say, There's Something About Mary, it is hard to recreate the triumph. Ben Stiller is one of my favorite comedic actors, and DeNiro is good (even though I totally pan Men of Honor, below), but this movie never gets funnier than its previews. I don't even have to tell you the plot because the previews left nothing to the imagination. These type of movies recall one gag Saturday Night Live skits that go on too long at 12:45am. In this case, it is the paranoid, eccentric DeNiro scrutinizing the nervous Stiller until he accidentally destroys everything. Except, of course, the romance, like a good little romantic comedy. I give Meet the Parents two stars for humorous content and entertainment value, but I never really laughed out loud. |
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Return to Terry's Big Head |
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