"The Butterfly Effect" and "Carlito's Way"

Soooo, it's been a while since JP and I had time to sit down together and watch a movie. We've been hanging on to this last B for some time. But we did get to it, and finally made our way out of the B's and into the C's (which, by the way, there are 28 of - the most of any other letter we own. It's going to take several months at least to get through them.)

"The Butterfly Effect" is a movie that I really enjoy, but I don't watch it very often because it also scares me some what. Ashton Kutcher stars as Evan, a young psych student that has suffered from blackouts since he was 7 years old. He has lost touch of his childhood love Kayleigh (played by Amy Smart) but reconnects with her when he discovers that he can use his journals to revisit the blackouts. Only by revisiting the blackouts of his childhood he alters everything and it's now a race to save the girl he loves.

What I love about this movie is the idea that you can alter your reality by altering your past. I'd like to say that it can't be done in reality, but the truth is, I don't know that for sure. I'd really like to believe that it could. The title "The Butterfly Effect" comes from the notion that if you change one small thing it creates ripple effects ultimately causing big waves. I believe in this notion, you definetly can't do one thing without it effecting something else. A bit of a lesson that we all need to learn in life.

Both Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart do superb acting jobs in this movie. Amy Smart plays the multiple personalities of her character with such believability. She's fantastic at making you believe. To a point that you'd almost believe it was a different actor or even character. Ashton Kutcher is great a playing the smart and yet traumatised man. He gets crazier and more frantic as you go on. He is also very good at making us believe that he is not doing this for himself, but for the girl he loves. Together they do an amazing job of portraying this love story that he is in, but that she has no idea about.

The other actors in this movie are great as well. Particularly the boys that play Evan as a 7 year old (Logan Lerman) and a 13 year old (John Patrick Amedori). They are both very believable as young Ashton Kutchers and really hold there own as actors and do the character great justice.

Don't get me wrong this movie is scary. There is murder and shocking scenes over and over. But you can get past all of that for the story. Should you watch it? Absolutely. It has something for everyone and you'll certainly find something that you enjoy about it. It's a classic in my book.

And so end's the B's. Phew. Now the biggest challenge starts - the C's.  .  .  .  .

The honor of being the first C goes to "Carlito's Way". This is one of JP's and is not one I knew too much about before watching it.

"Carlito's Way" stars Al Pacino and Sean Penn. It was made in 1993 and set in 1975. Al Pacino stars as the title character, a ex drug lord mobster that has just been released from prison. He's decided to go straight but struggles to do so against his old friends and his lawyer who has turned into a crimnal himself. And, he wants to reconnect with the girl he was wooing before prison.

What can I say about Al Pacino other than he was brilliant?! At the beginning of the movie you don't have a lot of sympathy for the character. You dislike him just because of who his character is and the typical character that he's going to portray. But then you realise that he is sticking to his resolve and there's something endearing about that. Especially when everyone around him gets more and more degrading or crimnalistic (if that's even a word?!) By the end of the movie you're just totally on his side and in love with this character that's trying to do the positive and right thing in life.

Sean Penn did a great job as the lawyer that has been lured to the other side - a life of crime. He plays the slimey lawyer man pretty well. It wasn't until about three quarters of the way through the movie that I realised that the character was Sean Penn. I don't know if that means he did an amazing job or not. I think it's the former.

This movie is not generally the kind of movie that I would watch, and I don't really imagine watching it again, unless perhaps I have a boyfriend that wants to watch a cult boys movie. As I'm learning from this project, the movies that I always thought I'd hate or previously dislike are not as terrible to watch as anticipated. Maybe I'm being a little more 'grown up' about them, or maybe I just know that I have to watch them, so I don't let myself get angry or worried about watching them?

Anyway. . . I liked it even though I thought I wouldn't. It was a good one to kick off the C's. Next? "Cars". Another Pixar movie. Yay :)