You've Got Mail

1998

Director: Nora Ephron

Distributor: Warner Brothers

Key Elements: Story – Characters – Lines

My Review:

Hey Look, Hollywood! It’s a movie that uses good writing, NOT a sex scene, to communicate the depth of a relationship. To rely on sex to communicate a relationship is both lazy and sloppy. The greatest thing about this movie is that it proves that a romantic story can be told without sex.

Indeed, we love these characters because of how well developed they are, and how great the chemistry is between them. It’s the authenticity – the purity – of the relationship that makes this a great movie.

Clip:



Quotes:

• Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.
• The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino.
• We're going to sell them cheap books and legal addictive stimulants. In the meantime, we'll just put up a big sign: "Coming soon, a FoxBooks superstore and the end of civilization as you know it."
• Have you ever become the worst version of yourself. That a pandora's box of all the hateful things, your spite, your arrogance, your condecension has sprung open?
• When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does.
• Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life. Well, not small, but valuable. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void.
• Kevin this is possibley the most adorable creature I've ever been in contact with and if she turns out to be as good looking as a mailbox, I would be crazy enough to turn my life upside down and marry her.
• I always take a relationship to the next level. If that works out, I take it to the next level after that, until I finally reach that level when it becomes absolutely necessary for me to leave.
• ...but no one will remember you. And maybe no one will remember me either, but there are plenty of people who remember my mother, and they thought she was fine, and they thought her store was something special. You are nothing but a suit.
• What is that supposed to mean? I am so sick of that. All that means is that it wasn't personal to you. But it was personal to me. It's *personal* to a lot of people. And what's so wrong with being personal, anyway? …Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal.
• You've got mail.
  - Yes.
  Three very powerful words.
  - Yes.
• If I hadn't been FoxBooks and you hadn't been the Shop Around the Corner... and you and I had, just you know, met... Yeah. I would have asked for your phone number and I wouldn't have been able to wait 24 hours before calling and asking, "How about coffee, drinks, dinner, a movie, for as long as we both shall live?" …And you and I would have never been at war. And the only things we would've fought about would be what video to rent on Saturday night.
• …Well let me ask you something. How can you forgive this guy for standing you up and not forgive me for this tiny little thing like putting you out of business. …Oh how I wish you would.
• The odd thing about this form of communication is that you're more likely to talk about nothing than something. But I just want to say that all this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings.
• I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly.

Stills:

The Truman Show

1998

Director: Peter Weir

Composer: Burkhard Dallwitz

Distributor: Paramount Pictures

Key Elements: Concept – Visuals – Message – Symbolism

My Review:

This is another movie that illustrates Plato’s parable of the cave, and another reminder that we should not accept the way things appear. Reality may be hidden. We should search for it.

It is also an existential story. Truman is presented with a way of looking at the world - and is pressured to accept and adapt to it. But instead, he developes his own perspective. In the end, chooses for himself what his life will be and what it will mean.

Clip:



Quotes:

• Good morning, and in case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.
• We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented.
• FIJI. You can't get any further away before you start coming back.
• If his was more than just a vague ambition, if he was absolutely determined to discover the truth, there's no way we could prevent him.
• We can't let him die in front of a live audience! - He was born in front of a live audience.
• Is that the best you can do? …You're gonna have to kill me!
• Was anything real?
  - You were real.
• I know you better than you know yourself.
  - You never had a camera in my head!

Stills:

The Thin Red Line

1998

Director: Terrence Malick

Distributor: Fox Movies

Key Elements: Characters – Lines – Concept

My Review:

This movie is poetry.

Malick’s flow of consciousness storytelling style gives us a glimpse into the broken psyche of men fighting the WWII pacific war.

My favorite character is Whit, the main character. Despite all the darkness surrounding him, he holds onto his belief in a “Great Light” – what I take to be God – and continues to see beauty all around him. It’s this faith that gives him peace when all is lost.

Trailer:



Quotes:

• Are you righteous? Kind? Does your confidence lie in this? Are you loved by all? Know that I was, too. Do you imagine your suffering will be any less because you loved goodness and truth?
• I've lived with these men, sir, for two and a half years and I will not order them all to their deaths.
• We were a family. How'd it break up and come apart, so that now we're turned against each other? Each standing in the other's light. How'd we lose that good that was given us? Let it slip away. Scattered it, careless. What's keepin' us from reaching out, touching the glory?
• I look at that boy dyin', I don't feel nothin'. I don't care about nothin' anymore. - Sounds like bliss.
• Where is it that we were together? Who were you that I lived with? The brother. The friend. Darkness, light. Strife and love. Are they the workings of one mind? The features of the same face? Oh, my soul. Let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things you made. All things shining.
• We. We together. One being. Flow together like water. Till I can't tell you from me. I drink you. Now. Now.
• This great evil. Where does it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us? Robbing us of life and light. Mockin' us with the sight of what we might've known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed to this night?
• Everyone lookin' for salvation by himself. Each like a coal thrown from the fire.
• Everything a lie. Everything you hear, everything you see. So much to spew out. They just keep coming, one after another. You're in a box. A moving box. They want you dead, or in their lie... There's only one thing a man can do - find something that's his, and make an island for himself. If I never meet you in this life, let me feel the lack; a glance from your eyes, and my life will be yours.
• I seen another world. Sometimes I think it was just my imagination.
• Do you ever feel lonely?
  - Only around people.
• Maybe all men got one big soul everybody's a part of, all faces are the same man.
  I remember my mother when she was dyin', looked all shrunk up and gray. I asked her if she was afraid. She just shook her head. I was afraid to touch the death I seen in her. I couldn't find nothin' beautiful or uplifting about her goin' back to God. I heard of people talk about immortality, but I ain't seen it. I wondered how it'd be like when I died, what it'd be like to know this breath now was the last one you was ever gonna draw. I just hope I can meet it the same way she did, with the same... calm. 'Cause that's where it's hidden - the immortality I hadn't seen.
• What difference do you think you can make, one man in all this madness?
  Love. Where does it come from? Who lit this flame in us? No war can put it out, conquer it.
• I was a prisoner. You set me free.
• What is this great evil? How did it steal into the world? From what seed, what root did it spring? Who's doing this? Who's killing us? Robbing us of light and life. Mocking us with the sight of what we might have known.
• How did we loose all the good that was given us? Let it slip away. Scattered careless.
  Why should I be afraid to die? I belong to you. If I go first, I'll wait for you there, on the other side of the dark waters. Be with me now.War don't ennoble men. It turns them into dogs... poisons the soul.

Stills:

SLC Punk!

1998

Director: James Merendino

Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics

Key Elements: Concept – Characters – Message – Lines

My Review:

Interestingly enough, this movie both pays homage to and de-validates the punk lifestyle.

The most interesting part of the movie for me was the Mike character. The one who looks like he doesn’t belong is more hardcore punk than anyone. Though he looks like Wally Clever, he has an anti-establishment ideology that matches Che Rivera in rebellion. He’s so punk, he’s come full circle.

The most moving part is when Stevo finds Heroine Bob dead. It’s disturbing enough. But becomes absolutely heartbreaking when Steve sobbs “What am I going to do for friends?” You really get a sense of just how alone he feels.

But the story makes its greatest statement in the end. Stevo realizes that being against everything means his future holds nothing. He cleans up and lives straight.

The implication is that life has a lot more to offer when you define yourself by what you’re for – not by what you’re against.

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Quotes:

• To be an anarchist in Salt Lake City was certainly no easy task, especially in 1985.
• Do you love her? - I don't know. I'd have to think about that. -It's not really a thinking question.
• I don't know who started it and I don't give a fuck. The one thing I do know is that we did it harder, we did it faster, and we definitely did it with more love, baby. You can't take that away from us.
• I wanna save the rain forests, y'know, somebody's gotta fight for them, it's just... [slams the table]
• I like Sandy. Now Sandy has nothing to do with anarchy in general, she's just a beautiful, wonderful, funny, witty, loving, sexy, tough-as-nails, little weird girl, and I absolutely adore her. I like Sandy a lot.
• You don't live your life by lyrics
• I rest my case on this: In a country of lost souls rebellion comes hard. But in a religiously oppressive city, where half it's population isn't even of that religion, it comes like fire.
• It wasn't that I loved Sandy, I knew that we had an understanding. But I discovered then that Chris was right, all things had systems, even me. I was about to beat the living shit out of this guy because he had invaded my territory. It was MY territory, no question about it, just like in the wild. I was following nature, and nature was order and order is the system.
• Only posers die you fucking idiot!
• What do you do when your foundation falls apart? I don't know. They don't teach you that in school.Where were we going? I mean, really, what was happening? This life, it was crazy. I felt tired. I mean, halfway through the season, I just felt, inside, I was so tired. And I had this wave of melancholy just like sweep through me.

Still:

Pleasantville

1998

Director: Gary Ross

Distributor: New Line Cinema

Key Elements: Visuals – Concept – Message – Symbolism

My Review:

I was enamored with 1950’s Americana when I was a kid. I didn’t realize when this movie came out that it actually mocks that idealism.

Though I found that to be disappointing, I enjoyed this movie.

Two kids enter a world where everything is orderly, predictable, black-and-white and “perfect.” But as people discover passion in life, they become colored.

There are a few potential problems with this movie. Two things that give people color are anger and lust – neither of which is life giving in reality. I sorta wish they’d stuck to things like love, music and art. Also, making a black-and-white world a negative thing could be taken as an implication that absolutes are stifling. But a Christian knows that some things are absolute, and its that foundation that gives life, not the denial of it.

But the message I choose to take from watching this movie is that living a safe, predictable idealized life isn’t really living. It’s better to take risks, follow passions and accept messes because doing so allows you to really live life to the full.

Also, the “Pleasantville photographic style” of highlighting the color of a single object against a black-and-white background is completely gorgeous.

Clip:



Quotes:

• For those of you going on to college next year, the chance of finding a good job will actually decrease by the time you graduate. The available number of entry-level jobs will drop 31 percent over the next four years. Median income for those jobs will go down as well. Obviously, my friends, it's a competitive world, and good grades are your only ticket through. In fact, by the year 2000... The chance of contracting HIV from a non-monogamous lifestyle will climb to 1 in 150. The odds of dying in an auto accident are only 1 in twenty-five hundred. Now, this marks a drastic increase... from fourteen years ago, when ozone depletion was just at 10 percent of its current level. By the time you are thirty years old, average global temperature will have risen two and a half degrees, causing such catastrophic consequences as typhoons, floods, widespread drought, and famine.
• What's outside of Pleasantville?
• There are some places that the road doesn't go in a circle. There are some places where the road keeps going. …Yeah, yeah. It just keeps going. It all keeps going.
• Where am I going to see colors like that? Must be awful lucky to see colors like that.  I bet they don't know how lucky they are.
• Nothing went wrong. People change.
• This is the only book I've ever read in my whole life, and you're not going to put it on that fire!
• I didn`t mean to hurt anybody. I just have to paint ... I need to.
• I know you miss her, I mean, you told me you did. But maybe it's not just the cooking or the cleaning that you miss. Maybe it's something else. Maybe you can't even describe it. Maybe you only know it when it's gone. Maybe it's like there's a whole piece of you that's missing, too. Look at her, Dad. Doesn't she look pretty like that? Doesn't she look just as beautiful as the first time you met her? Do you really want her back the way she was? Doesn't she look wonderful? Now, don't you wish you could tell her that?
• I know you want it to stay "Pleasant" but there are so many things that are so much better: like Silly ... or Sexy ... or Dangerous ... or Wild ... or Brief ...And every one of those things is in you all the time if you just have the guts to look for them. Look at those faces back there. They're no different than you are. They just happened to see something inside themselves that you don't want to ... But see that's just the point. It can't stop at once, because it's in you. And you can't stop something that's in you.
• I did the slut thing, David. It got kinda old.
• There is no right house. There is no right car… It's not supposed to be anything.

Stills:

American History X

1998

Director: Tony Kaye

Distributed: New Line Cinema

Key Elements: Message, Symbolism

My Review:

Viewing this movie forces one to take a hard look at hatred. The black and white coloring heightens the clash of races, but also emphasizes the oversimplified way we view those we hate.

The ultimate message: Hate is stupid.

Trailer:



Quotes:

• You prey on people Cam. I lost three years of my life for your fuckin' phony cause, but I'm onto you now you fuckin' snake.
• There was a moment... when I used to blame everything and everyone... for all the pain and suffering and vile things that happened to me, that I saw happen to my people. Used to blame everybody. Blamed white people, blamed society, blamed God. I didn't get no answers 'cause I was asking the wrong questions. You have to ask the right questions.
• So I guess this is where I tell you what I learned - my conclusion, right? Well, my conclusion is: Hate is baggage. Life's too short to be pissed off all the time. It's just not worth it. Derek says it's always good to end a paper with a quote. He says someone else has already said it best. So if you can't top it, steal from them and go out strong. So I picked a guy I thought you'd like. 'We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.'