Last night I watched the film United 93, the true story of one of the the hijacked planes from 9/11 which was brought down near Shanksville killing everyone on board. I found this incredibly emotional knowing that this was an account of what actually happened. It was so hard to watch which is often the case when a tragic movie is based on fact. Do you find you become more emotional if you know the events behind the movie are true?
I find that I do become more emotional when the story is based from real life. I remember the story about a boy who was diagnosed with Tourette. I saw it on Hallmark channel. I liked it so much that I watched the encore. Here is the site for the foundation and site about the show on Hallmark: http://www.classperformance.com/
What a coincidence. I had seen on cable tv last night the movie The Blind Side. It was boring at first because a rich family led by the wife, played by Sandra Bullock, was trying hard to reform a teenager with potential to be an athlete, a rugby player. Michael Oher, the black teenager was eventually adopted (not legally though) by the family of Sandra who sent him to school and taught him American football. To make the story short, Michael became good at playing American football and was being offered so many college scholarships. There was drama, a bit of emotional scenes but that was all. It was kind of boring although the flow is quite good. I only got to know that it was based on a true story at the end when the credits were shown. Also shown were the photos of the real persons who all resemble the cast. Overall, I would give it a passing grade.
The Blind Side was a very good movie, @Corie Henson. I loved it, but I like most everything that Sandra Bullock has played in.
The "True Stories" are hard to watch at times. I watched the movie about the fires that happened and the firemen that were trapped in the buildings knowing that they were not going to live thru that experience. By the end of the movie I was crying so hard for the lost lives. I want to say the name of the movie is "Back Draft" but I may be wrong. I remember stories better than names.
I like watching movies based on true stories but prefer to stay away from the ones which have tragic outcomes. Life is so depressing that I prefer to watch something with a positive outcome. A few days ago I went to see the movie "Women in Gold" starring Helen Mirren. It's all about an old lady's attempts to recover paintings that the Nazis stole from her family during World War II.
I LOVED that movie, @Krissttina Isobe, it was inspirational! One I'm looking forward to seeing is Black Mass. I find it disturbing though, that Johnny Depp seems to think Whitey Bulger has/had a heart of gold, despite having terrorized not only a city, but a whole region, and having killed many people. Depp seems like a decent guy, but he's way out in space on this one.
I tend to prefer fiction as far as watching goes. One of the worst and most upsetting experiences was watching the Animal Planet series Meerkat Manor. It was so sad and heart breaking when Flower died, even if this is real life in the animal kingdom. The only movie that sticks in my head as really upsetting was La Bamba. I can not think of a single other film I saw in a theater that made me so upset. Since then and for that reason I avoid public outings of those types of movies. I stick more to comedies and horror or fantasy. I want to be entertained. If I wanted to be depressed I would think about work and stuff like that. I do want to see Black Mass though because I do enjoy gangster type movies. Sometimes I think stars say controversial things just to create sensationalism so we will go and see what all the hype is about. I usually enjoy movies with Johnny Depp. the only one that was lackluster was the one a few years ago called Dark Shadows. I thought that would be so much better.
I love nature, but sometimes I won't watch, or will stop watching nature-themed shows, because I can't handle the death/killing. There's enough of that in real life. I can handle people being killed in movies and television much more than animals. I think Johnny Depp may have fallen under the spell of the mythical Whitey Bulger as he was portrayed for years in the Boston, and especially South Boston area, where he was considered somewhat of a robin hood. He proclaimed to keep drugs and violence out of the neighborhood, so many were grateful, feeling as if they had a protector of sorts, when in fact, he was the one creating the chaos, murdering, plundering from hard working people, and supplying the drugs, or at least benefiting financially from the drugs that were flooding the streets.
"Philomena" was based on a real story but was very sad. Judi Dench is so endearing and just a wonderful actress. It was a good movie in many ways but when I found out at the end of the movie that it was based on a real story, I just fell apart. My 90 yr old mother wasn't affected at all but I cried like a baby and couldn't drive until I got a grip. I have a very difficult time when bad things happen to children. A 3 yr. old child being forced from a mother's arms forever is just more than I can take. Beautiful Minds, All The President's Men, Shawshank Redemption and Apollo 13 were all good.
I also enjoy some of the movies that I have seen that were based on true events. Some of the earlier ones were "The King and I", "El Cid", and many of the older movies that were based on Bible stories, like "Soloman and Sheba. There have been some true murder mysteries that were made into movies, and although some of those were very interesting, they usually were especially gruesome killings, or they would not have been made into movies. Some of my most favorites were "JFK", which was a very long movie about the Kennedy assassination, "Titanic", also a very long movie; but one that I have enjoyed several times anyway, and "Jobs", the more recent movie about Steve Jobs and the development of Apple. And, although I hate war movies, I also watched the story of Audie Murphy, "To Hell and Back", which describes why he was made the most decorated soldier of WW2. .
One of my very favorite biopics is the movie "Michael Collins" starring Liam Neeson. I liked "Patton" and "Tom Horn" as well.
And some women….Erin Brokovich, Norma Rae, Cleopatra, Silkwood, Eleanor & Franklin, The Bronte Sisters, and Evita.