I think when I first saw the trailers for director Robert Redford’s (Quiz Show, A River Runs Through It) Lions for Lambs, I thought it was a movie I had to see. The previews made the film look exciting, and it was loaded with A-list actors. Well, when the commercials for the movie became 15-second clips after the first week and the movie scored a whopping 27% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, the need to see it quickly waned. The movie earned just $15 million at the box office. Box office earnings don’t necessarily represent the quality of a film, but this movie hoped to garner a lot of money. While the production costs of this movie were low (I’ll explain below), stars like Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise commanded high-dollar figures for their appearances. This wasn’t a little indie movie. MGM produced this movie. On top of a film that was received so poorly by critics was a plot (stories about the war in the Middle East, especially political-driven ones) that had consistently kept moviegoers away back in the early 2000s. Lions for Lambs was a decent movie, but certainly not a great one. And it was by no means as exciting and as drama-filled as the trailers portrayed it to be. Lions for Lambs is a dialogue-driven movie and one that succeeds because it was chalked full of such great actors.
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Category Archives: 2007
Freedom Writers (2007)
If this movie had not been based on a true story, I would have given it a meager (we are talking less than 50%) score. Even with it based on a true story, it felt very cheesy, overly sentimental, and had way too much overacting. Its design evoked emotion and tugged at our heartstrings while making us believe that one person can make a difference just by caring. If this story were fiction, it would be utterly unrealistic. And, just because it is based upon a true story doesn’t mean that the real-life events played out exactly as they were shown in the movie. I’ve learned that “based on a true story” differs from “the following story is entirely true.” My most life-altering experience of this is Remember the Titans. When I discovered how many changes were made to make this story a more moving movie experience, I became very skeptical of Hollywood. Keep in mind that even though Remember the Titans came out in 2000, I did not know how glamorized Hollywood made it until a few years ago when I was surfing around the Internet and decided to look at the history of Virginia high school football. When I saw that the TC Williams Titans did not beat Andrew Lewis High School in the state championship game 10-7 but rather defeated them by the score of 27-0, I began to wonder what else Disney embellished in the telling of this story. It turned out that they embellished a ton. In case you are curious about some of the other inaccuracies of this movie, check out this link http://www.chasingthefrog.com/reelfaces/rememberthetitans.php. Even in 2014, when my top four films were all based on true stories, there were some inaccuracies in all four of them. These inaccuracies weren’t to the extent of Remember the Titans, but they also weren’t 100% true (especially The Imitation Game and Foxcatcher). This isn’t meant to blast movies based on true stories. Very often, these are my favorite movies. But now I do know to make sure I check out the facts of each film before I write its review. Now Freedom Writers isn’t nearly as good of a movie as The Imitation Game, Foxcatcher, or even Remember the Titans, but it is based on a true story that seems a little too Hollywood to be entirely 100% true.
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The Savages (2007)
Perhaps two of the best performances of the careers of both Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote, Doubt) and Laura Linney (The Squid and the Whale, You Can Count on Me) are on display in the most under-appreciated movie in 2007, Tamara Jenkins (Slums of Beverly Hills) The Savages. This movie scored 89% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes yet amassed just $6.4 million at the box office. I did not see this movie in the theater. I remember hearing a lot about it, but I don’t remember seeing many trailers. And at the time, this wasn’t a movie that I thought would interest me. I am always a little lukewarm on films classified as drama and comedies. They are hit or miss for me. When they are right, they are great. But, for me, that seems to be the exception to the rule. I saw it only because it had such a high rating and because Linney earned a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her performance. No one recommended this movie to me. It was a movie I told myself I would sit through and probably not enjoy, based on the reasons I listed above. Boy, was I wrong. The Savages is a fantastic movie and hits close to home for most of us at some point in our lives.
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Snow Angels (2007)
I’m a huge fan of small-town dramas (not the ones that are dispersed with quirky, sarcastic, or black humor, but the really heavy dramas), so when the unheard movie Snow Angels fell into my lap, it felt too good to be true. This movie made less than $500,000 at the box office despite some mostly positive acclaim from the critics (67% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes). It stars a couple of A-list celebrities, Kate Beckinsale (Underworld, Brokedown Palace) and Sam Rockwell (Moon, The Way Way Back), and some unknown actors and actresses who gave some dynamite performances. While the moving will depress you, it is a wonderfully crafted movie that fans of these small-town dramas would most likely enjoy. Fans of Rockwell should most certainly see this movie as this is one of the finest performances of his career.
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Reservation Road (2007)
Despite its 37% rating on www.rottentomatoes.com, I found Terry George’s (Hotel Rwanda, The Boxer) to be a thrilling and captivating drama about the loss of family, moral responsibility, and the guilt a human being can become rattled with when committing an unthinkable crime that you become more and more confident that you are going to be able to get away with. While this movie did poorly at the box office (just over $100,000…no, not $100,000,000), it stars three Academy Award nominees, including Jennifer Connelly, who won Best Supporting Actress in 2002 for A Beautiful Mind.
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