As suggested by Mr. Bruns, I am doing a movie review or two for forum posts. Feel free to chime in:
As to what movies to review, I am going to start in the 1980's, which is painful considering I'm in love with a whole bunch of 70's movies, but I am on track to go up to the current day, and starting in 1970 and getting to 2012 is illogical. So I am going to start in the 1980's. The process is start with the ten biggest hits of the year, going from lowest to highest, reviewing the ones I know and then going alphabetically, year to year.
So I start with The Blue Lagoon. Don't worry if you don't know this film, because it's not very well looked on. The film is viewed in one of three ways: one step above pornography, a way to see nudity, or as a reminder of a time when love was innocent and as the characters age, we grow more mature over the concept of love. I view it as a combination of the first and third, but that doesn't mean I love or hate it. So in a way this is a tough film to review, especially for a first one.
Here's a runthrough of the plot: a boy named Richard and a girl named Emeline are on a boat going to San Francisco. The boat catches fire and they jump ship with a ship-mate named Paddy. They end up on an island where Paddy tells them of the boogieman and other things, and forbids them to eat a certain berry because of poison. One day he ends up going off drunk and eating the berries and dying. The children travel to another place, supposedly the blue lagoon, though it is never referred as this.
So the years pass and the boy and girl start to go through puberty. They also start to have feelings for one another as well, but there are also fights between the two. After an incident involving a coconut to the head, Emeline is kicked out of the hut and goes to her side of the island, where strange drums can sometimes be heard and a weird rock god lives. She ends up stepping on a strange fish and cutting her foot. Richard finds her and heals her back to health and confesses he does care about her.
They end up falling in love with one another, and end up having sex and Emeline gives birth to a boy. They learn how to take care of him, and as he grows up the young adults and child start to form a family. One day they start to play in the mud when a boat comes up. A person on the boat is actually Richard's father who has been searching for years for the kids, but when he sees them covered in mud assumes they are natives. The boat passes by.
One day the family decides to travel back to the first island one more time to see what life was like. Unknown to Emeline and Richard while they look around young Paddy, who is their child, picks some berries. While leaving the island, a shark attacks them. Emmeline throws a paddle out at the shark, saving Richard, but the wind drifts them away from the paddles, making them lost at sea and leaving their paradise.
So while adrift, Paddy decides one morning to eat the berries he picked. Emeline and Richard recognize the berries as the forbidden berries, but are unable to stop him before he eats some. He begins to die, and Richard and Emeline find other berries he picked, the split the two of them between one another and eat them all. As Paddy dies, they cuddle together as a family one last time before finally dying later.
An epilogue to the film starts with a ship discovering the boat. It happens to be the same ship as before. Richard's father goes out to get a closer look with a few ship-hands. They find the family, and he asks, "Are they dead?" A ship-hand answers, "No, sir. They're asleep." Richard's father leans in for a closer look as the film abruptly ends.
From here on in the review, I will go through my grading scale. This will be out of 180 points, and the final grade will be a percent. 100-80% is an A or an A-. 79-60% is a B+, B, or B-. 59-40% is a C+, C, or C-. 39-20% is a D+, D, or D-. 19-0% is an F. 50% or below is considered bad, to a point, I suppose. Each small category will be out of 10 points. Each large category will be out of 30 points.
Acting-4 out of 10. Brooke Sheilds and Christopher Atkins don't do too bad, considering their new stars.
Entertainment-4 out of 10. A few dull spots.
Screenplay-3 out of 10. Kind of bad.
Directing-2 out of 10. Not very good.
Technical Credits- 10 out of 10. Great cinematography and music score.
Genre Fit-7 out of 10. A romance almost from start to finish. Few comedic scenes that feel unneccessary.
MPAA Rating-7 out of 10. Definatly deserves the R rating for nudity and sexual content, but without it it seems to be a PG movie.
Stupid Scenes-4 out of 10. A few very bad supposedly comedic scenes.
Deeper Message-7 out of 10. Says some things about the human core as far as love and death goes.
Beginning- 15 out of 30. Quite a few dull spots and not very much story.
Middle-23 out of 30. Cinematography and music get at their best. Story gets better.
Ending-20 out of 30. A sort of random ending, but still good music and cinematography.
Final Score: 106/180 or 59%. A C+, but not by too much. Labeled as bad, though it really isn't quite THAT bad.
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