rochambeau83

I am sorry but I was so glad that this film was not nominated for best director, or best picture. Caviesel probably should have been nominated for best actor, but it doesn't matter because everybody knows that is going to Jamie Foxx for Ray anyway so there was really no point in nominating anyone else. Any way back to this move. It just doesn't work as an award contender anyway. This really doesn't work in the sense of story telling which from the beginnings of storytelling in the Greek world, let's not get into a debate over that, but the earliest stories and plays still in existence today are from the ancient Greeks. The story to be good has to have a character that is tragically flawed, for serious performances. This was even true in the stories told with Christian elements before now, let's not forget the saga of Everyman, but this film with the exception of being the most graphic depiction of the crucifixion and therefore maybe the most accurate still did nothing for the Christian religion by examining the nature of Christ, why he did accept the crucifixion or more importantly why that his death was important. I think for the Christian majority that love this film they should really turn their attention to "The Last Temptation of Christ" directed by a man that is nominated again this year and "In Sha' Allah" will win, finally. That does a superior job analyzing the true nature of Christ. It would be like making a movie about the life of Martin Luther King and just showing him getting shot in the head and then watching his body begin to rot for the rest of the movie.

I found this film to work on a ton of levels. The first level is that of a classic story with a lovable, but neurotic nerd that finds some source of courage in a series of freak events. It also contains a similar classic love story of the underdog getting the girl that is completely out of his league. However what most impresses me is the story line of complex politics that exsist in modern society. The ant hill that they lived in basically worked as a socialistic society. Each ant was born into a class and they were never to stray from that class and they were always to do their work without question. Then you have a high ranking officer trying to increase his power through military force. I just love the parallels this film has to the politics of the U.S.S.R. in its hayday. It does in fact require a great amount of thought and is definately not for little kids.

This was set up as a parody of Project Greenlight from the beginning. I thought that the concept was brilliant when it finally came out. For the longest time I heard Denis Leary talk about how he had used the idea of Project Greenlight and then decided to improve on the idea by having six chances instead of one. He said this on the daily show, the tonight show, the late show etc. However a while later after the show had finished its original run. they were going to have a running of all episodes on a sunday night. He was on Conan to push the marathon. And he came out saying that he was watching project greenlight, "Talk about people with their heads up their a**es." (You had to see the episode to know where that came from.) And decided to take them down a peg or two by parodizing it. Hence Contest Searchlight was born.