MYSK Halloween Edition: 28 Days Later

Click for the Trailer

BOO! Welcome to “Movies You Should Know Halloween Edition”, today on the guiltene is the UK-thriller, post-apocalyptic film, 28 Days Later. Halloween asside, this is one of my favorite movies for many reasons but for one, it’s a chilling movie that actually makes you think, makes you ask “what if?” 

28 Days Later opens with a group of animal activists storming a research facility full of caged chimpanzees, subjects of psychological testing. The scientists desperately plead with the activists not to release the chimps exclaiming “they’re infected.” Apparently there is biological testing going on (who would’ve guessed), the chimps get released and 28 days later, the movie begins.

Outstanding performance from the unknown but slightly familiar looking Cillian Murphy. My absolute favorite scene is when Murphy is knocked to the ground, stares up to the sky and realizes something shattering to his situation. Directed by Andy Boyle, 28 Days Later takes the word “Infected” to an entirely new level, such a level that you must scare yourself this Halloween and give it a watch.

MYSK: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Encounter of the third kind

 

In 1977, Steven Spielberg directed a masterpiece. I have admired Spielberg’s work ever since he brought dinosaurs to life in Jurassic Park and Close Encounters is just as amazing and full of life. Close Encounters of the Third Kind is science-fiction but it is not sci-fi like Star Wars, it takes a more believable plot out of the happenings on Earth. Rich Dreyfuss plays the lead character, Roy, an electrician in rural Indiana who begins to notice odd things in the sky and these encounters increase as the movie progresses. 

What I like most about the movie is how much detail and thought have been put into the final product. Throughout several scenes where basic dialogue is occurring, you notice a small dot of light slowly moving through the sky and it makes you shout at the movie, “Turn around! Look at that!.” Yet, the dialogue continues never making mention of the light. The characters all seem very believable, especially Dreyfuss who you begin to worry about as his obsession with UFO’s lead him to do some very odd things, including one scene with mashed potatoes.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a masterpiece of American Cinema and it most definetly needs to be a MYSK. Its makes us think, feel and holler at the TV screen. Any movie that makes you do that is destined to be a classic. Check out the trailer…

(MYSK) Movies You Should Know: Inherit the Wind [1960]

First memories of this movie, I remember lying on the floor in my family room starring at what looked like my grandpa on TV. Spencer Tracy passionately arguing (again reminds me of old grandpa) with a witness in the courtroom and immediatly I felt drawn into his discussion. Inherit the Wind, is generally the 1925, “Scopes monkey trial” put on film. Much of the films script is said to have come from the transcripts of the famous trial where religion and evolution battle it out in the classroom. 

This is a MYSK because the scene with Spencer Tracy as the defense, interrogating and blowing the holes in the prosecution is mesmerizing, leading Tracy to an academy award nominee for outstanding actor . Tracy is defending the case of the teacher that chooses to teach evolution in the Classroom. Why is the movie titled, Inherit the Wind? Proverb 11:29 read “He who troubles his own house shall inherit the wind and the fool shall be a servant to the wise in heart.” Check out the movie for yourself and spur up your own ideas on the title, I know they’re many. Below is the famous scene where Tracy approaches the stand and interrogates. Amazing actor.