Exam Movie

Okay after a far deal of research I have created a list of 10 films (and synopsis) that we can fight over. I would really appreciate it if everyone gave me their top three in a comment to this blog.

In no particular order:

1) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Drama (1975)
Staring: Jack Nicholson

McMurphy thinks he can get out of doing work while in prison by pretending to be mad. His plan backfires when he is sent to a mental asylum. He tries to liven the place up a bit by playing card games and basketball with his fellow inmates, but the head nurse is after him at every turn.

2) The Departed, Action/Drama (2006)
Staring: Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen

Two just-graduated officers from Massachusetts State Police Academy follow opposite sides of the law: William Costigan is assigned to work undercover with the Irish mobster Frank Costello to get evidence to arrest him. His true identity is only known by his superiors Dignam and Oliver Queenan. The protégée of Costello, Colin Sullivan, is promoted in the Massachusetts State Police and is the informer of Costello. Each police officer gives his best effort trying to disclose the identity of the other "rat".

3) Forrest Gump, Drama (1994)
Staring: Tom Hanks, Sally Fields

Forrest, Forrest Gump is a simple man with little brain activity but good intentions. He struggles through childhood with his best and only friend Jenny. His 'mama' teaches him the ways of life and leaves him to choose his destiny. Forrest joins the army for service in Vietnam, finding new friends called Dan and Bubba, he wins medals, starts a table tennis craze, creates a famous shrimp fishing fleet, inspires people to jog, create the smiley, write bumper stickers and songs, donating to people and meeting the president several times. However this is all irrelevant to Forrest who can only think of his childhood sweetheart Jenny. Who has messed up her life. Although in the end all he wants to prove is that anyone can love anyone.

4) No Country for Old Men, Drama/Thriller (2007)
Staring: Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson, Javier Bardem

In rural Texas, welder and hunter Llewelyn Moss discovers the remains of several drug runners who have all killed each other in an exchange gone violently wrong. Rather than report the discovery to the police, Moss decides to simply take the two million dollars present for himself. This puts the psychopathic killer, Anton Chigurh, on his trail as he dispassionately murders nearly every rival, bystander and even employer in his pursuit of his quarry and the money. As Moss desperately attempts to keep one step ahead, the blood from this hunt begins to flow behind him with relentlessly growing intensity as Chigurh closes in. Meanwhile, the laconic Sherrif Ed Tom Bell blithely oversees the investigation even as he struggles to face the sheer enormity of the crimes he is attempting to thwart.

5) Donnie Darko, Sci-Fi/Mystery (2001)
Staring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Patrick Swayze

A troubled teenager, Donnie Darko, escapes death when a jet-engine crashes in his bedroom, because he follows a giant bunny leading him outside. The bunny, called Frank, tells him that the world will end in 28 days. As the final date comes closer and closer Donnie is drawn into an alarming series of events that may or may not be a product of growing insanity.

6) Into the Wild, Biography/Drama (2007)
Staring: Vince Vaughn, William Hurt, Emile Hirsch

Based on a true story. After graduating from Emory University in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Along the way, Christopher encounters a series of characters who shape his life.

7) Stand By Me, Adventure/Drama (1986)
Staring: Wil Wheaton, River Pheonix, Corey Feldman, Kiefer Sutherland, Jerry O'Connell

Based on Stephen King's Short story "The Body", "Stand By Me" tells the tale of Gordie Lachance, a writer who looks back on his preteen days when he and three close friends went on their own adventure to find the body of a kid their age who had gone missing and presumed dead. The stakes are upped when the bad kids in town are closely tailing - and it becomes a race to see who'll be able to recover the body first.

8) Juno, Comedy/Drama (2007)
Staring: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman

A tale told over four seasons, starting in autumn when Juno, a 16-year-old high-school junior in Minnesota, discovers she's pregnant after one event in a chair with her best friend, Bleeker. In the waiting room of an abortion clinic, the quirky and whip-sharp Juno decides to give birth and to place the child with an adoptive couple. She finds one in the Pennysaver personals, contacts them, tells her dad and step-mother, and carries on with school. The chosen parents, upscale yuppies (one of whom is cool and laid back, the other meticulous and uptight), meet Juno, sign papers, and the year unfolds. Will Juno's plan work, can she improvise, and what about Bleeker?

9)The Breakfast Club, Drama (1985)
Staring: Emilio Estavez, Anthony Michael Hall, Molly Ringwall, Judd Nelson

It's the weekend, and five students have Saturday detention. There's a jock, a princess, a misfit, a nerd, and a lout. Not much in common, except for having to give up their day, sit in the school library, and write an essay for the principal. Being from such widely different backgrounds and having such completely different personalities, it's inevitable that some frictions and shenanigans develop. Especially when the principal leaves the room...

10) Traffic, Drama/Thriller (2000)
Staring: Benicio Del Toro, Michael Douglas, Erika Christensen, Kathrine Zeta Jones

A modern day look at America's war on drugs told through four separate stories that are connected in one way or another. A conservative politician who's just been appointed as the US drug czar learns that his daughter is a drug addict. A trophy wife struggles to save her husband's drug business, while two DEA agents protect a witness with inside knowledge of the spouse's business. In Mexico, a corrupt, yet dedicated cop struggles with his conscience when he learns that his new boss may not be the anti-drug official he made himself out to be.


*All synopsis provided by IMDB.com

Grandpa Woodstock Closure

No more siting of Grandpa Woodstock....not father Woodstock as I previously wrote. I'm pretty sure he's gone back home.

But the Bristol Press did a cover page article on him, not much of an article though. Apparently he was in Bristol visiting family, and collecting money to go back home to Woodstock, CT, where he resides during the spring in summer, in the winter he lives in Arizona. That's about all the article had, well done Bristol Press. Sense the sarcasim?