Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

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Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Rated: G
1939 Starring James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Raines, Thomas Mitchell, Beulah Bondi
Directed by Frank Capra

In honor of what would have been my favorite actor, James Stewart's 104th birthday, we are doing Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. I'm going to be honest, I have yet to find a James Stewart movie that I didn't like. This movie is definitely in my top 5 of his movies.

James Stewart plays Jefferson Smith, a patriotic man who is a leader of the Boy Rangers, and is appointed to the senate for his home state. When he arrives in Washington, he is awe of his surroundings, wants to see all of the sights and is eager to make a difference for the people of his home state. When he goes to report for his called duty, he is viewed as a country bumpkin who is out of his comfort zone.  Many are wondering why and how he is in Washington D. C. He was set up by his secretary for a press conference, where they make up stories that upset him, since he's not used to the scrutiny.

He gets to meet the other senator from his home state, Joseph Paine, played by Claude Raines, whom he thought highly of. What Jeff doesn't know about Paine is that he is part of a scandalous plan to rip off the state for personal financial gain.

Jean Arthur plays Clarissa, his secretary who at first views Jeff as someone who is not fit for D.C. and feels like she has to babysit him. As she gets to know him, she can't help but to fall for his charm and sees his genuine heart of gold.

Thomas Mitchell plays Diz, one of the members of the press that spends time with Clarissa to get the stories about senators first.

Frank Capra's directing of this movie earned him an Oscar nomination for best director, in 1939. Capra captures the idea of how one honest person can change the world around him, which makes the movie so great. In my opinion, this movie is definitely worth owning on DVD.

If you are interested in viewing this movie, it's available on Amazon here.

Dark Shadows

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Last week my husband and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary.  On my sister's day off, she stayed home with Elliott so my husband and I could go out and see a movie that we wouldn't take Elliott to.  My husband chose Dark Shadows.  Since we were both born in the 80s, we had never seen the original soap opera, but my husband loves Tim Burton, so that was reason enough to see it.

 Dark Shadows is rated PG-13.  We allow our six year old to see some PG-13 movies, but this is one that he won't be seeing anytime in the near future.  It stars Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, and Eva Green.

This review contains spoilers!

It starts out with the story of Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp), and how he scorns Angelique (Eva Green).  It turns out she is a witch, so she gets back at him by taking things he loves.  She then turns him into a vampire and imprisons him.

Fast forward 200 years, and Barnabas is dug up.  He goes to find his family, and decides to help them rebuild their failing business. He finds out that the biggest competitor is none other than Angelique.  They fight a lot and she tries to destroy his business before it's all over.

This was pretty typical for a Tim Burton film.  It was dark and funny.  Johnny Depp did a great job as the odd vampire.  Eva Green did a pretty good job as the witch as well.  The other characters were less important, but were all pretty good as well.

The movie theater wasn't crowded when we saw it (it was a weekday evening, though), but the crowd seemed pretty involved in the movie anyway.  There were several laughs, and a few gasps around us throughout the movie.  And the talk after the movie, indicated that it was pretty well liked by most in attendance.

Overall, I think it would be worth the price of admission at a matinee, but I'm not positive it would be for a prime time viewing, especially if you are going with other people.  My husband enjoyed it more than I did, but I don't think we will be buying it when it comes out.

The Incredible Hulk

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Tim Roth celebrated his 51st birthday on May 14th.   In order to celebrate here at Reviewing Movies and More, we've decided to review one of my son's favorite movies: The Incredible Hulk.

The Incredible Hulk is rated PG13 and was released in 2008.  It stars Edward Norton as Bruce Banner (the incredible hulk), Liv Tyler as Betty Ross, William Hurt as General Ross, and Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky.

Bruce Banner is a doctor who becomes an angry, giant green-skinned hulk every time his pulse gets too high, thanks to a gamma ray experiment. He's learning to control himself when the movie starts, but the army is after him.  They want to use his blood to create super soldiers.  So very soon, Bruce is on the run, after the Army finds him in South America.

The movie follows him while he tries to hide, is ultimately caught by the Army.  Since he's pretty much indestructible he manages to get away, and saves his ex at the same time.  Considering she's the daughter of the General that whats him so bad, this is a pretty big deal.

Meanwhile, General Ross has given something to one of his soldiers, Emil Blonsky, to make him into a super soldier as well.  It's not the same thing that Banner has taken, but it does still work to give him some super human skills.  He's power hungry, though and still wants more.

Bruce and Betty end up going to see a professor that Bruce has been corresponding with.  He sent "Mr. Blue" a blood sample, hoping that he would be able to find the cure.  He gives him an antidote, but they don't know if it will work only on that one instance, or if it will mean that he will never be the Hulk again.  As they are talking, Bruce is shocked to find that his scientist friend has made gallons and gallons of his blood and been testing it.  Bruce demands he destroys it all, but right about that time the Army shows up.  Blonsky comes in and insists on being injected with the Hulk's blood, and refuses to take no for an answer.

Bruce and Betty are taken away, but once they are in the air they realize that Blonsky is now huge and out of control.  General Ross calls in more fighters, but Bruce decides he's the only one that can stop him.  They drop him out of the plane, hoping that he will be able to turn into the hulk and save the day.


Overall, my family and I really like this movie.  My six year old says it gets 5 stars (out of 5).  It's one of his very favorite movies, and one he's seen at least a dozen times in the past few months.  He loves Bruce, but loves him even more when he's the Hulk.  Edward Norton is his favorite version of Bruce.

My husband says this is a 3 star movie. He says it's pretty good but not one of his favorite movies based on a comic hero.  He hasn't seen the 2003 version, so couldn't comment on which of them was his favorite.  His favorite scene of the movie was when the Army was shooting at the Hulk on the college campus, and he kicked butt and got away.

I would give this movie 3.5 stars.  It's also not one of my very favorite of the movies based on comics, but I think it was still done pretty well.  I like this version better than the one that came out in 2003.

Is this a movie I would pay for to add to our collection?  Certainly, but mainly that's because my son loves it so much.  We didn't buy it until after we had borrowed it from the library twice, though.

Harold and Maude

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Harold and Maude
Released in 1971, rated PG.
Starring Bud Cort, Ruth Gordon and Vivian Pickles

Harold meets Maude at one of the most unlikely of places; a funeral. Harold and Maude hit it off immediately and spend a lot of time together.

Vivian Pickles plays Harold's disapproving mother, who tries to introduce her young son to potential brides via a dating service, which doesn't go according to plan. She feels that Harold is out of control and wants to enlist him in the Army with his Uncle Victor, played by Charles Tyner.

Bud Cort is featured in the movie as Harold, a young rich man who is obsessed with death.  He attends funerals of people he doesn't know and acts out various ways of committing suicide.

Ruth Gordon plays Maude, a kooky old lady who at the age of 79, is still lively and spontaneous. She has done many things, legal and illegal, and always lives life to the fullest.

Maude shows Harold how to have fun and take risks.  With Maude's wisdom from life experiences, she is able to show Harold how to love and live, and to truly find happiness.

It is only after meeting Maude that Harold realizes that he still has a lot of time to live, to enjoy life, and has found happiness, an emotion he had never experienced.

The soundtrack is pretty good too. Every song is sung by Cat Stevens. How can you go wrong with that?

I stumbled across this movie on a late night movie search and could not go to sleep until it was over. The movie has a dark sense of humor and definitely isn't for everyone, but I absolutely love it.

Searching on Amazon, I discovered it is available on DVD, and it's on my wish list.

St. Elmo's Fire

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My sister and I thought it would be fun to do a feature where we celebrate a different star's birthday every week by reviewing one of his or her movies.  This week Emilio Estevez turns 50, so we thought we would start with him.  Darla is really into 80's movies, so had a little trouble deciding on one.   We ultimately decided on St. Elmo's Fire, one that she has seen several times, but I had never watched until we watched it together.  It originally came out in 1985, and is rated R.

St. Elmo's Fire follows a group of 7 best friends shortly after they graduate college.  They are all going through their own personal struggles, trying to make it out in the real world.  

Emilio Estevez plays Kirby, a law school student working as a waiter. He runs into a girl he had a massive crush on as a freshman, and decides she is his one true love.  She's nice to him, but never seems nearly as into him.  Before long the crush has become almost obsessive.

Rob Lowe plays Billy, a playboy jumping from job to job.  He married his wife when she was pregnant, but he seems unable to give up his playboy ways.  He misses college, and reminisces about the easy days there.  He hits on a lot of girls, including 2 of his best friends, one of whom he takes advantage of in different ways, over and over again.

Demi Moore plays Jules.  She lands a decent job at a bank right out of college, but her friends are pretty sure she doesn't make enough money to pay for all the extravagant things she has.  She has a drug problem that helps her escape reality.

Marie Winningham plays Wendy.  She's in love with Billy, even though he's married.  She lives at home, with her parents, who insist she needs to get married and run a family business.  They buy her things in the hopes of having her marry someone they think suits her.

Judd Nelson plays Alec.  He's working for a Senator and seems to be very successful.  His girlfriend has just moved in with him, and he wants to marry her.  As it turns out, he's unwilling to give up other girls for her, though.

Ally Sheedy plays Leslie, Alec's girlfriend.  She seems happy enough living with Alec, but doesn't really want to marry him. She wants to have a career before settling down.

Andrew McCarthy plays Kevin.  He doesn't have many girlfriends, which leads to some speculation about his sexual orientation.   He insists love isn't real, though, until he gets a chance to tell the person he's been in love with from afar, just how much he cares.  Things don't work out exactly as he would like, though.

Over all, this isn't exactly my kind of movie, but it wasn't bad.  It's not a movie that I think that I could personally watch over and over again, but I can see the appeal for some people.  I don't really relate to any of the characters.  I chose a different path in life, though.

I don't think I would pay to see this movie again, even as a rental. My sister disagrees, though, and owns it on DVD.

The Avengers in 3D

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The Avengers just arrived in theaters May 4th, and has a lot of big names in the cast.  Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, is the only star that didn't reprise his role from a previous movie in the franchise.  Robert Downey, Jr is back as Iron Man (Tony Stark), Chris Evans is back as Captain America (Steve Rogers), and Chris Hemsworth is back as Thor.  Scarlett Johansson comes back as the Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff), a part she played in Iron Man 2.  Jeremy Renner reprises his brief role as Hawkeye (Clint Barton) from Thor, as well as Tom Hiddleston playing Loki again from the same movie.  Samuel L. Jackson stars as Nick Fury again, as in the previous movies.


My son has recently discovered the thrill of super hero movies, and had been counting down the days until the Avengers came out.  He's a big fan of all of the Avengers from the movie, and Hulk is even his favorite superhero of all time.    We knew this movie was going to be a big deal, so we bought our tickets early in the week from Fandango, after deciding on a late Saturday afternoon showing, in 3D.  I'm glad we bought our tickets early, because the theater was insane!

We see movies in the theater relatively frequently now, but my son usually gets a little antsy before they are over.  He doesn't disturb others, I can just tell he's getting tired of it.  At The Avengers he didn't show a single sign of being tired of it.  He was glued to it the whole time.  He did get lost once or twice with the subtitles (he's in kindergarten, but reads over 2 grade levels ahead), but otherwise loved it.

His favorite character was the Hulk, of course.  He thought he was really funny in this movie, and loved it when he punched one of the good guys, almost as much as he loved it when he got the bad guys.  He did say that one part was sad (I won't say which part, though, because I don't want to give any spoilers), but that overall it was a GREAT movie.

My husband really liked it as well.  Iron Man is his favorite character, and he thought he lived up to expectations in this one.  He said before he was worried that the characters wouldn't be as much like they were in their previous movies, in an effort to make them all work together in a movie.  He was pleased that they didn't change much.

Overall, I thought the movie was pretty good.  It was definitely full of action and violence, but I assume everyone knows that going into it.  I don't know that seeing it in 3D was really worth the extra price, though.  A lot of the movie takes place after dark, so the 3D glasses made it almost TOO dark at times.  You could still see what was going on, but in my opinion it would have been better with a little more light, since the scenes were so long.

Even though my son is asking to go see it again (not in 3D) at the theater, we won't be doing that.  We WILL be buying it after it comes out on blu ray, though, to add it to our collection.

If you are interested in seeing the other movies about the individual Avengers, you can check them out here: The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, and  Iron Man 2.