Animal House (1978)

Animal House is about a loser fraternity house much more concerned with having a great time in college rather than actually learning anything. The president of the college is determined to have the fraternity disbanded and their charter revoked. The guys go through recruiting new members from the upcoming class. They have numerous loud and obnoxious parties (the most notable being the Toga party). One of the members actually ends up getting a little frisky with the mayor's underage daughter. They also (mistakenly) kill one of the horses used by the college ROTC, which they led into the president's office and literally scared the animal the death with blank gun shots. In general this movie is a classic funny movie, filled with misunderstanding, and general rowdiness. All the guys in the fraternity are good guys are heart, with their priorities on partying rather than anything serious. This was a funny movie. I'm glad I finally know where "Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga!" came from! I liked it!

The Hangover (2009)

The Hangover is super funny! Four best guy friends are out celebrating one of the guy's pending nuptials with a bachelor weekend in Las Vegas. The bride's brother is a few screws loose and he decides is would be a great idea to "spike" their drinks to make the night a bit better. The guys wake up to discover a lion in the bathroom, a baby in the closet, the groom missing and all of them have complete memory loss. They try to desperately reconstruct the evening's events in order to find their missing friend. They apparently have a crazy night consisting of gambling (with a creepy Chinese man as their good luck charm), steeling a lion, one of the guys marrying a prostitute, loosing teeth, etc. etc. They eventually realize that they carried the groom out onto the roof of the hotel while he was sleeping but then forgot he was up there. The poor groom spends about 24 hours on the roof... why he couldn't scream down and try to get someone's attention we don't really understand, apparently he tried to get people's attention by throwing his mattress off the roof. Regardless, they all make it back just in time for the wedding. This is quite funny and surprisingly less slap-happy stupid than you might think. I liked it!

Star Wars Episode 5 (1980)

In episode 5, the resistance against the empire (led by princess Leia) has set up a secret hideout on a remote and icy planet. The empire forces (led by Darth Vader) are trying to stop the resistance (revenge for them destroying the Death Star). The empire invades the resistance's hideout and eventually captures Han Solo, R2D2, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, and C-3PO. Luke Skywalker escapes the initial attack and finds the jedi master Yoda to finish his training a become a Jedi fighter. He aborts his training to go rescue his friends (a trap set by Darth Vader). Skywalker fights against Darth Vader and finds out that Vader didn't kill his father but in fact IS his father! Skywalker and his team manage to escape from Darth Vader's clutches in the end. I liked this movie much better than episode 4. Still pretty corny, but one of my favorite lines was something about how being dead is really hard to live with... classic!

Star Wars Episode 4 (1977)

Episode 4 is about a young man Luke Skywalker who obtains two robots (R2D2 and C-3PO). R2D2 is being pursued by the evil empire and is in pretty bad shape, but has a partial message from the princess Leia that she desperately needs the help of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Skywalker tries to help R2D2 find Obi-Wan Kenobi in order to save princess Leia. Skywalker learns the basics of becoming a jedi fighter from Obi-Wan and units with Han Solo to save the princess Leia and destroy the evil empire battleship the Deathstar. Well, I thought this movie was creative but pretty silly... the way C-3PO walks is hilarious!! For 30 or so years ago I actually thought the "special effects" weren't too bad. I'm not so sure how I feel about having to watch 5 more Star Wars movies!!

Groundhog Day (1993)

This movie was about a Pittsburgh TV weatherman who was a conceited jerk. He's asked to do a news report on Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog's Day (a task he deemed below him). The day goes really poorly and he gets stuck in Punxsutawney for an extra night because of a terrible snow storm. When he wakes up the "next day", he repeats exactly the events of the day before, a perpetual Groundhog Day. He tries all types of things to escape the endless Groundhog Day, such as killing himself, but nothing works. He eventually turns a new leaf and becomes a generous, conceintious citizen and fallens in love with his TV producer. Only then is he released from the endless Groundhog day. I liked this movie, it was lighthearted and funny. I'd definitely watch it again!

American Beauty (1999)

This movie is about an American suburban family, the Burnhams. Lester (Kevin Spacey), the dad, is a writer who quit his job and is going through a mid-life crisis. Lester's wife Carolyn, is a real estate agent and is competing against Buddy Kane the King of Real Estate. Lester and Carolyn's teenage daughter Jane is a quiet, awkward, and somewhat disturbed teenager. Lester and Carolyn seem to basically hate each other, barely speak to each other, and never have sex. Jane hangs out with the most popular girl in school, Angela Hayes, both of whom are on the high school cheerleading squad. A new set of neighbors, Colonel Frank Fitts, his demented wife, and his super creepy son Ricky Fitts, have moved in next door to the Burnhams.

After Lester quits his job, he realizes how much his daughter hates him and how absent he's been in her life. He tries to make amends by going to watch her cheerlead at the high school boys basketball game. This is when Lester sees Angela Hayes for the first time and is absolutely obsessed with her. Every time Angela comes over he makes a fool of himself. He overhears her say that she would sleep with him if he was in better shape. Lester decides it's definitely time to get in shape.

Jane develops a crush on super creepy Ricky next door and they end up sleeping together. They seem to understand each other. Ricky is a drug dealer, something that he has to hide from father, who beats him when he suspects Ricky's been dealing again. Ricky gets Lester hooked on drugs, and Lester pays him a ton of money for the "good stuff". Frank Fitts is a real tough army guy who punishes his son with a heavy hand.

Carolyn is trying her best to compete with Buddy Kane for her share of the real estate market in the neighborhood. When she meets up with Buddy at a work social event, she is in awe of him. They end up becoming lovers. She despises her husband even more so now that she has a lover.

The key moment in the movie comes when a number of events are occurring around the same time. 1) Jane invites Angela to spend the night, 2) Carolyn has had enough of Lester and contemplates killing him, she has a gun, and she listens to "inspirational" tapes, telling her she shouldn't be a victim anymore, 3) Lester calls Ricky for some drugs, and Frank sees Ricky giving Lester the drugs, only it looks to Frank like Ricky is actually giving Lester a blow job and getting paid for it, 4) Frank beats Ricky for selling sex... , 5) Ricky runs over to Jane's house and they decide to run away together 6) Jane and Angela get in a fight because Jane wants to run away with Ricky, 7) Lester tries to seduce Angela, but he stops from having sex with her when he finds out she's a virgin, 8) Frank comes over to Lester's house, and tries to kiss him... ?? What, Frank is gay???, 9) Carolyn decides to kill Lester, 10) Frank comes back over to Lester's and actually does kill him, 11) Carolyn comes home, with gun in hand, and finds Lester is already murdered.

This was a strange and really terrible movie. It's like everything that could possibly be wrong with the typical American family amplified. I have to say I thought it was pretty awful. The only good point in the movie was that Lester was probably an ok guy. At least we knew he loved his wife and daughter, and he didn't end up sleeping with Angela. Everybody just wanted to kill him. The material, selfish, do-what-ever-you-feel-like attitudes of all the characters in the movie is really depressing. I get that the movie is calling attention to how screwed up American families can be and that is probably much more prevalent than we imagine, but I have to say I didn't enjoy the movie at all.

Schindler's List (1993)

Schindler's List is about the German entrepreneur Oscar Schindler (Liam Neeson) who was a member of Nazi party. Schindler was living in Czechoslovakia but moved to Poland to try to make a fortune by exploiting Jewish prisoners during World War II. Schindler enlists the help of Itzhak Stern (a Jewish accountant and one of the select members of the Jewish council) to help him run a business making pots and pans to sell during the war. Itzhak takes care of hiring highly skilled laborers deemed "essential" for the war effort. In reality, Itzhak was trying to save as many Polish Jews as possible by giving them jobs at Schindler's factory.

Schindler's workers lived in the forced housing of the Krakow Ghetto. At one point there is a huge massacre in the Krakow Ghetto by the German army. Jews who were not murdered were sent to the Plaszow concentration camp. The Plaszow camp was overseen by Amon Goeth, a German officer. Schindler was really upset when all of his workers were either killed or sent to the camp. While working with the Jews in his factory, Schindler develops a regard for the prisoners. At first you believe he's mostly upset about losing his cheap labor, but we find out that he really has the best interest of the people at heart. Schindler gets to be good buddies with Goeth and pays him off in order to save 1100 Jewish prisoners on his famous list from going to the Auschwitz concentration camp where they would definitely be murdered. He takes them back to his home town of Zwittau-Brinnlitz in Czechoslovakia to open a weapons factory.

Schindler decides to make faulty weapons in order to thwart the German/Nazi war effort. In the end, when the war is over and the Germans surrender, Schindler is riddled with guilt that he wasn't able to save more prisoners. His former slaves grant him pardon due to his efforts to save as many Jews as he was able.

I thought this movie was really well done but it was really difficult to watch. It makes you wonder how people could have so little regard for the lives of other human beings. A few points in the movie were especially disturbing: 1) When Amon Goeth shoots the prisoners in the Plaszow camp from his balcony like it was a sport, 2) Goeth hires a pretty Jewish maid to work in his mansion, he's very attracted to her, but he can't understand his attraction because as he states, she's barely human, little more than a rat, 3) At both Plaszow and Auschwitz, when they burned the bodies of the murdered Jews, the ashes fell like snow in the cities, children played in the ashes like it was a holiday. Overall, this movie makes you pretty disgusted with human nature. How could it be possible that over 6 million people were slaughtered simply because they were Jewish or of Jewish decent? It really doesn't make any sense to me. Again, I thought the movie was great, quite realistic, and very disturbing.