8 Year Old Me: First off, this movie was filmed in a different language, so the mouths move all funny when people are talking. That alone makes this a bad movie, but it gets worse. While it starts off funny, it gets depressing really quick, and has the main guy and his whole family get thrown into a Nazi concentration camp. I thought this movie was called Life Is Beautiful! Beautiful? Holocaust? Doesn't work. Then to make things worse, the main guy dies. And right after that, the movie ends! What's up with that? 22 Year Old Me: This movie has gone down in my personal records as being the only film to successfully make me cry. Because while 8 year old me may have had a valid point about it being odd to call a Holocaust movie Life Is Beautiful, the film certainly has lots of beauty. You just have to watch. As the introduction itself tells us...
"This is a simple story, but not an easy one to tell. Like a fable, there is sorrow. And like a fable, it is full of wonder and happiness."
See, the beauty of the film is not what happens to the main character, Guido. The beauty is how he puts everything aside - including his own safety, and eventually his very life - just to ensure the survival of his wife and his son. Throughout their entire ordeal, he constructs stories to tell his son to keep him from realizing the horror of what's happening, and in the end sacrifices himself so his family can escape. After this has all happened, the film ends with a voiceover by his son...
"This was my father's sacrifice. This was his gift to me."
Armed with a laptop, a Pepsi, and a swivel chair, J.D. sets out to uncover the deepest secrets of the film world.
Or, ya know, just write random movie-related lists. Either way....
