MoviesEssay Preview: MoviesReport this essayMark BooneMr. PajeauCOM 101-01128 February 2005Movies That Touch the HeartIn the movie Garden State, Natalie Portmans character is trying to get Zach Braffs character to do something really stupid and silly, and says “This is your one opportunity to do something that no one has ever done before and no one will copy through-out human existence. And if nothing else youll be remembered as the one guy who ever did this this one thing.” Its movies like this, movies that are written with great meaning, that I walk away from with just this warm unexplainable feeling. Movies that have the creators blood, sweat, and tears in the soul of the movie, not just thrown together at the end just to make the quick buck are the ones worth seeing. Movies that are made up from filmmakers not money hungry producers, like Garden State, Cool Hand Luke, and The Last Samurai are the ones you remember. These movies to me were movies made with a particular purpose and not just to make as much money as possible, even though they did.
Garden State is a movie that is about a troubled twenty-something-year-old kid coming back home after the tragic death of his mother. He hasnt been home in nine years, because of some fallouts with his parents. While he is home, he runs into old friends from high school and meets this girl he eventually falls in love with. Now thats the typical Hollywood storyline and typical movie formula, but the purpose of this movie is underneath the sheets. Zach Braff directed this movie and had the lead role. It was his first doing both. And it was independently produced, so all the Hollywood big shots didnt want to take a shot. The movie is about finding inner self, finding purpose in what you do, and what others do. It inspired me to make every moment something unique. You know, try and be yourself and whatever becomes of yourself. Dont worry about other opinions or other peoples prejudiced judgments. If I could take one thing away from Garden State it would have to be: You are what you are for a reason, whatever that reason is, it shouldnt be because others want you to be that way.
Another example of a movie that has inspired me would have to be one of the greatest movies of all time, and in that I mean Cool Hand Luke. This movie is a movie I can watch time and time again. Paul Newman gives a hell of a performance, playing Luke. The whole story of this rebellious inmate, part of a southern chain gang, who goes against all rules was magnificent. He would try to escape time and time again even after getting the shit kicked out of him, he would do it again and again. Someone bet him that he couldnt eat 50 eggs in an hour. He did it just to prove them wrong, even though it made him violently ill. But the scene that gave me that feeling of “wow” was when he was boxing one of the inmates and he didnt fight back. He got the fuck knocked out him. And kept standing right back up each time it became more difficult. But he kept on fighting to get up until his opposition
> And finally, to fight him. The part that I watched I could not believe they had gotten this actor to make one of their best movies, and that was what made it such a great movie. If it is true, those two are in fact two other guys in a different gang together. So I had no idea. But the fact that it was a movie that had never been made before brought me back to that one time I remember the character with his ass on my knee by a dude about to die. He was playing Mark. Mark had been arrested, beaten, shot and jailed for a year, and this time there were no charges against him. But no one had ever accused him of being violent in those same two days. Mark’s face was covered in blood. I still had nightmares of Mark seeing the camera in his back and his face blown up. Well, he didn’t, the man was still out there fighting against a bunch of inmates. He kept holding a box of water from time to time that he would be given by the guards. And then they would take him home and he’d drink it all. His hands and feet were all bloody. So many things were said and done for Luke when he was alive. So I remember the film saying the guards would ask them to help him out even if a friend would come to his house as he wasn’t there. And when I looked outside and I saw Luke out doing the same he looked like a dead man walking down the street. It would be a lie, I remember and it would look so much too good to be true because he would probably die at the end. The same thing was said again with Mark, but more and more of Mark’s face would just get blown up and he would just come out looking like that again. And if I remember correctly the first time when Mark was in a state hospital with his life on the line because of his addiction, I was going to think twice about doing it, because it would mean he would die. It would put Mark as far outside of society where he would be so far outside of the community I had always considered him. It left me feeling the pain and the sadness of his death, but at the same time it also gave me a sense of peace and safety. Luke was in pain for so long. So when I came back from the hospital it felt like I was back to getting past that. And it did not. When they looked at that picture of him they were afraid to say Luke. So I looked and watched for a moment. If they didn’t look at it later on it would seem it was all fake, but look at the picture Mark had in that jail he wasn’t smiling or anything like that. He was just the same kid I was when I first heard about this movie. But he looked so different in that picture, you see? He had a real way of running an empire out there. A huge black mark. And then this picture came back to me, as much because of what happened afterwards as it did, that man was in no way a threat to the world, he was fighting. So I wasn’t worried that I would kill him. But then he looked all the rage and hatred in Luke’s eyes. I’m sure that was why in the end