LOLITA

                                                  

Have you ever been in a relationship and the person you were seeing was a few years younger than you were? Some would be a little concerned while others wouldn’t think much of it, but what would happen if say you were a middle aged man and you fall in love with a girl that was more than twenty years younger than you were?

Well in this movie middle aged man, Professor Humbert Humbert (yes that is the character’s name) played by James Mason, becomes obsessed with young fourteen year old Lolita played by Sue Lyon. He meets the young girl during his vacation at her house that had an extra room for rent. There he also meets Lolita’s mother who is a love sick widow played by Shelly Winters who tries awfully hard to capture the attention of the professor.  After realizing he wants to always be with Lolita and yet avoid any suspicion he must marry the girl’s mother to be close to her.

Later in the movie Lolita’s mother finds out that the professor has had feelings for her daughter. Out raged she decides to leave him except in that process she is hit and killed by a moving car. This makes things a bit complicated for the professor because he must now be the father of the girl he’s in love with and also has to hide her from a mysterious stalker who is also very attracted to Lolita as well. This movie was released in 1962 and is based on the novel “Lolita” written by Vladimir Nabokov

                                                          

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE

                                                   

This film is about an emotionally confused and very prideful, rebellious, middle class teenager (Jim) who has just moved into a new town with his family. He doesn’t get along with his parents; and his mother, who is very demanding to his father, is always getting criticized by her mother-in-law. In turn, his father gets pushed around by his wife and doesn’t stand up for himself.

In the movie, Jim meets two other teenagers with their own troubles at home. He meets and befriends a lonely boy named John, but calls himself Plato. Plato had lost his father and his mother was never at home but often sent him money. Jim also meets a pretty girl named Judy, who feels as though her father loves her younger brother more and that every time she tries to be more loving to her father, he disapproves.

In one part of the film, Jim is challenged by Judy’s boyfriend Buzz and his gang to a “Chicken Run” where they take stolen cars and try to race to the edge of a cliff. First one to jump out of the car loses but when they do the race Buzz gets trapped in his car and plummets to his death. Jim wants to tell the police what had happened but his parents won’t let him and he also has Buzz’s old vengeful gang after him too. This was film was released in 1955 starring James Dean as Jim and Natalie Wood as Judy.
                   

REBECCA

                                          

A young naive woman meets and falls in love with a wealthy widower, suffering over the thoughts of his dead wife Rebecca. They marry and move into his castle-like mansion where she doesn’t seem to be approved of by the servants. Who were, and still are, just as loyal to the first wife as though she were still alive. The woman feels as though she is not good enough for her husband. She believes he wishes that Rebecca was still alive and that he were married to her instead. This was released in 1940 and it starred Joan Fontaine and Sir Laurence Oliver, also directed by the terrifying Alfred Hitchcock.

      

EMPIRE OF THE SUN

Empire of the Sun is based the on J. G. Ballard’s semi-autobiographical novel depicting the time when he was a young boy living a wealthy English lifestyle in Shanghai during World War II. He was obsessed with planes and dreams of flying. It also shows how he got separated from his parents and how he tries to survive in a Japanese war camp.  Along the way, he befriends a British doctor and a Japanese fighter pilot who shares the same passion for flying. He also befriends  an American named Basie played by John Malcovich. Basie takes the boy (Jim) under his wing and plans to escape the camp.

This film shows how one must have coped with life during that time. Whether it was right after Jim and his family were separated and the boy had to live by himself with no one to take care of him. Then when he arrived at the war camp and how he and others tried to live their lives as if they had never left their original homes. Trying to make the best of things and hoping that things would go back to the way they once were.

This film was released in 1987 and was directed by Steven Spielberg. Also, it introduces the 14 year old British actor Christian Bale, who is very well known for his role as a rich playboy by day and masked crusader by night in the Dark Knight trilogy.

BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING

                                           

 From the 1957 novel “Bunny Lake is Missing” this is the 1965 film about an American mother who had just moved to England with her brother and is now in a panic to find her missing four year old daughter Bunny. Whom, she claims to have dropped off on the first day of school, except there’s no sign of her anywhere. The teachers have no record of her; the children hadn’t seen or heard of her, and when they called for the police they didn’t even have a picture of her to show them.

Now a peculiar thing happens when the police arrive at the mother’s home. They weren’t able to find anything that belonged to the missing child. No toys, no books, and no clothes it didn’t even look like a child was there.

 Bunny’s mother was in a panic because now the police began to wonder if there was even a real missing child, and if there was who took her? Could it have been Wilson the eccentric landlord, whom seemed to have a thing for Bunny’s mother and isn’t too crazy about cops. Or could it have been one of the head mistresses of the school Bunny was supposedly to be at? An elderly retired woman living in a room above the school, who liked the children to come up and see her so she could ask them about their dreams and document them. Maybe it was the school’s cook, who said that she would watch the girl ten minutes before school started. But, then leave because of some criticism on her cooking. What about the brother? He seems to have an unusually close relationship with his sister, and he was the one willing to pay for an abortion to be done for his unmarried pregnant sister.  Or maybe Bunny really doesn’t exist? Bunny could have been imagined by the so called mother, who once (when she was child) had an imaginary friend named Bunny. So many possibilities but only one answer, what do you think happened?

VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED

Village of the Damned, based on the novel (Midwich Cuckoos) written by John Wyndam. It takes place in a British village of Midwich, where a strange blackout occurs. It is strange, because in this blackout everyone (including the animals) in this village passed out and become unconscious. Also, anyone who walked into that area would go unconscious as well. After a view hours everyone in the village began to wake up. They were confused, not sure what was going on or what happened. Some even said  that when they woke up they felt cold, ice cold.

A few months after the blackout, a lot of the town’s women became pregnant. Some young, some middle age, but the strange thing was that some of the women were virgins as well.  They all give birth on the same day, and all the babies have strange features. Thin finger nails, white- blondish hair, and very unusual eyes.

To find out the mystery, watch the movie which is available in two versions: either the original (1960), or the John Carpenter’s version, created in 1995, and remember, “Beware the Children!”

STAND BY ME

Do you remember those summer days of just goofing off with your friends? Going to summer camps, water parks, movies, finding a dead body in the woods?  Wait? Well… Maybe not that, but for one group of friends it did happen. The movie is based on the novel (The Body) written by director Steven King. It’s about four small town boys going on a journey in search for the missing body of a farm boy who was hit by a local train. Now I will say this film does have some bad language, and some squeamish parts in it. But in all honesty this is a great film, and I think everyone should see it at least once. The movie was filmed in 1986 directed by Rob Reiner, starring Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Jerry O’Connel, Corey Feldman, and Kiefer Sutherland.