Top 5 Thursday: Movies I Watched for My Challenge (January 2016)

The start of a new year, the start of a new challenge. To kick it off I did see some good movies, but also some real stinkers. What about “Neighbors”, the Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi movie, “The Lone Ranger”, and the terrible “I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer”. But we are not here to talk about shitty movies, I’m going to show you my five favorites for my movie challenge for the month of January.

5. The Informant!

The movie was better than I expected it to be and Matt Damon was hilarious. His character was so full of shit, the lies started to pile up and he stuck to his story anyway. Underrated and overlooked Matt Damon film.

 

 

4. The Hateful Eight

It’s not one of my favorite Quentin Tarantino movies, but I knew it was going to be good. It was “Reservoir Dogs” meets “Clue”, set in the wild west. Great performances and off course sharp dialogues.

 

 

3. Wreck-It-Ralph

Can Disney ever do something completely terrible? I don’t think so. “Wreck-It-Ralph” was such a heart-warming story, great animation, loved it. I just want to hug Ralph.

 

 

2. Sideways

I happen to love Alexander Payne movies. I liked “About Schmidt”, “Nebraska” and “The Descendants” and now I can add “Sideways” to that list. Who thought a film about wine tasting could be so interesting, funny and overwhelming?

 

 

1. Gravity

I never like it when people overhype films. That makes me NOT want to see a film. Like I did with “Avatar”, which is now one of my favorites and I still regret not seeing it in theaters. “Gravity” is also one of those film. People were raving about it and I didn’t see it in the cinema. Now I regret that, because this film was amazing. And it would be a ten times better on the big screen and with the full experience.

 

 

They almost made the top 5: The Croods, Princess Mononoke

100 Movie Challenge 2016 - # 9: The Informant!

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Genre: Drama/ Comedy/ Crime

Runtime: 108 minutes

Year: 2009

Starring: Matt Damon, Melanie Lynskey, Scott Bakula, Patton Oswalt, Joel McHale, Thomas F. Wilson, Scott Adsit

Description: The U.S. government decides to go after an agro-business giant with a price-fixing accusation, based on the evidence submitted by their star witness, vice president-turned-informant Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon).

Review: After Mark Whitacre graduated from Cornell University as a biochemist he starts working for a multinational company Archer Daniels Midland. In the early nineties he has worked his way up to vice-president of the company and everything is going well. In 1992 Mark discovers a mole in the company and tells his superiors. They rather let the FBI handle everything and they ask Mark to be their informant. But is he the right person for the job?

The movie is based on true events and director Steven Soderbergh made it a dark comedy. It’s a film with humor. Matt Damon, who plays the lead role, is irresistibly funny in “The Informant!” Not only because of his role, also his voice-over and the tragi-comedic take on the film. The look of the films suggest another time period then the nineties.

The start might feel a bit slow and has some weaker moments, but the more we get the know Mark Whitacre, the more fun it gets. Lie upon lie, a man that goes from being a naïve informant to a vicious fraud.

Matt Damon is perfect for the role, he does a great job. This is one of those overlooked and underrated Damon films.

Rating: 4/ 5