McFarland, USA (2015)

“This is going to come down to which runners can handle the pain.”

I ran 4 years of cross country back in the day, and this was the truest line in the film. In other sports, who wins generally comes down to talent and strategy. In distance running, it comes down to talent and the ability to endure pain and suffering.

Over the last three decades, I’ve pushed through enormous amounts of pain while running. It’s a trait that can help you survive other hardships in life.

This Disney movie based on real life events is a bit uneven and tone deaf, but follows a tried and true formula which satisfies. I also appreciated the positive spotlight it shines on the currently maligned immigrant community. We were so innocent back in 2015, completely unaware of the racist shitshow on the horizon.

Rating: C+

Catch Me If You Can (2002)

Spielberg, Hanks, and DiCaprio. Hard to go wrong. Based on an amazing true life story, this movie was pure fun to watch. Leonardo is solid as usual, Hanks is very subdued, but perfect in his role. It's a fun piece of escapism.

Rating: B-

The Devil’s Rejects (2005)

For the record, I thought the first one sucked. House of A Thousand Corpses was a huge let down. Rejects is much better, but that makes it just average. It's overly violent and gory where it needn't be. The improvements from the first film come by way of acting and plot. This film allows for some good character development from the main villains. In the first film, you had no idea as to why things were happening on screen.

Devil's Rejects has been compared to Natural Born Killers, which is a far better movie story-wise. The camera work and editing has been greatly improved upon since Zombie's first flick. I think if he focuses more on telling a good story and less on being a sadistic whack-job, his next film will be even better.

Rating: C

The Island (2005)

Very entertaining. If this was a remake, it was news to me. I thought the story was fairly original despite there being a lot of  "cloning" movies coming out at the time.

Rating: C+