Wish I Was Here

In all of my nearly 25 years, I had never cried in a movie. I had tried several times, when I felt I was close to crying in some sadder scenes, I tried to force tears, yet no tears rolled down my cheek. Until tonight.

Zach Braff's "Wish I Was Here" isn't particularly sad. In fact, it's quite funny. But the reality of being faced with the probability of abandoning your dreams hits close to home, so I found it particularly easy to connect with Braff's character.

Braff plays Aidan Bloom, a husband and a father of two whose family is struggling financially while he attempts to follow his dreams of becoming an actor, but has seen little more than one part in a commercial. All the while, his father stops paying for his grandchildren to go to a Jewish Private School due to financial and health complications in his own life. Aidan takes it upon himself to begin home schooling his children in an unconventional way, while also cleaning up his own life.

With the poor reviews this film has been getting, it makes me wonder. Perhaps I just saw this movie at the right time in my life, or perhaps most film critics are just so cynical, they hate movies that have the audacity to suggest that maybe instead of complaining and feeling sorry for ourselves, we should instead enjoy life as it happens.

"A film that tells us to enjoy life? This is one critic

who wishes he wasn't here." -Cynical Critic, because that's

the stupid shit they say.

This movie is probably not for everyone, and I won't be surprised if a lot of you don't like it or just think that it's OK. But in my non-professional opinion, it was pretty damn good…

I know. That was a very deep statement.

My Grade: B+

Jurassic Park 3D

Nothing is quite as satisfying as seeing movies you love, but weren’t old enough to see on the big screen, well… on the big screen. For me, it was a dream come true to see “Jurassic Park” in IMAX.

Released in 1993, I was almost four years old when this was released. And lucky for many movie-goers, my parents were not like those douche-bags who take kids who are way to young to be seeing the movie they are seeing and disturb the entire audience by crying every time a person gets their faced ripped off!

Did anyone else think this guy was taking a dump

when they were kids?

But when that movie was released on VHS, I tore that shit up! I had to have watched it at least fifty times. Hell, it even inspired me to become a paleontologist. Then I found out movies weren’t real and spiraled into deep depression.

But surely, the Power Rangers must be real.

Please. I can't stand another broken heart.

Seeing it on IMAX did not disappoint. Seeing the great size of the T-Rex, the sheer speed of the Raptors and the extreme bad-ass-ness that is Jeff Goldblum on the big screen was very nostalgic for me.

“Jurassic Park” is one of Spielberg’s greatest films and hardly needs a giant screen to be considered so. The pure majesty that one feels when Dr. Grant, Dr. Sattler and Dr. Malcolm feel when they first lay eyes on the brachiosaurus for the first time is unforgettable.

And even today, in a time post James Cameron’s “Avatar”, the special effects still are surprisingly realistic. I believe the way they went about creating the dinosaurs is the way all CGI should be handled. And that is “build scale robots of the dinosaurs and only use CGI when it is absolutely necessary. Computer Animation is used far too much in today’s industry, and because of that, Special Effects have become a lost art.

This film was and is a classic. It became a classic the second it hit the silver screen. And that is because everyone has some infatuation with dinosaurs. And if you say you don’t, you’re a dirty no-good liar.

My Grade: A

Life of Pi

Tom Hanks had it easy in Cast Away. He just had to open coconuts with an ice skate and fish with a hand made spear. Pi had to share a life boat with a tiger.

Life of Pi is the story of a man who is shipwrecked in the middle of the Pacific and loses his entire family. He finds himself on a life boat with a tiger.

Funny thing about tigers. They like to eat. A lot.

Pi must learn to survive with the tiger, rationing his food while also feeding the tiger which is the connection he still has with his dead family. Through the struggles of living on a 12 foot boat with  a tiger, Pi finds that behind the instinct to kill for food, predators as well as all other animals have souls.

This movie is hard for me to write about. While I did enjoy it, nothing really stood out to me. Suraj Sharma was pretty good in his silver-screen debut, but not incredible. The special effects were good, but not great. The writing was solid, but not outstanding.

The story, however, is compelling and moving enough to keep you watching and keep you from staring at your phone. Which is the main goal of any movie.

Irrfan Khan, however, surprised me in his relatively small role. His role was more emotional from the other characters I have seen him portray. He usually plays a man in a suit. At least in the English films he's been in. I haven't seen any of his Indian films.

My Grade: B