Good Will Hunting

In 1997, Robin Williams starred alongside Matt Damon in the drama, Good Will Hunting. Written by Damon and Ben Affleck, the film also stars Affleck, Minnie Driver, and Stellan Skarsgard. It grossed $225 million and was nominated for Best Picture, but lost to Titanic. However, Williams won Best Supporting actor and Affleck and Damon won Best Original Screenplay.

20-year old South Boston laborer Will Hunting (Damon) is an unrecognized genius who, after a deferred prosecution agreement for assaulting a police officer, becomes the patient of therapist Dr. Sean Maguire (Williams) and the student of mathematician Professor Gerald Lambeau (Skarsgard).

This was the first time I’ve seen Good Will Hunting in full. And while the ending is somewhat predictable, the film shines in the experiences the characters have. It’s the individual moments that make the film what it is. To borrow a clichéd phrase, it’s not the destination that matters, but the journey.

The most notable moment that stands out is the park scene, where Sean is breaking down Will’s façade. He skewers how the boy can be so knowledgeable about things, but goes into how knowledge of something is a lot different than having an experience with the subject, be it art, love or war. And that’s why Will is not as great as he thinks he is. This scene is also what cemented that Williams was getting the Oscar, mainly because of his great delivery. And Damon really did well in going from confident and smug in how great of a hotshot he is to being proven completely wrong. It also brilliantly helps to bring about Sean finally getting through to him in the end.

Another brilliant moment is in yet another conversation, this time near the end of the film with Chuckie telling Will how big of an idiot he is. Where Sean was able to show Will that he wasn’t all that great, Chuckie shows him that if he would be great if he took his abilities and actually did something useful with them.

Good Will Hunting is a film where the payoff rests in the interactions with the characters rather than a climax and resolution. And it earned Williams a well-deserved Oscar. 

Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin

The success of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh prompted Disney to make a direct sequel in 1997. Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin was an entirely original story, not based on any of Milne’s original works. Starring Jim Cummings, John Fiedler, Ken Sansom, Paul Winchell, Andre Stojka and Brady Bluhm, the film is the first Winnie the Pooh movie to have its own special edition.

Christopher Robin (Bluhm) spends the last day of summer with his friend, Winnie the Pooh (Cummings), while keeping a secret from him.

When Pooh wakes the next day, he discovers a note from Christopher Robin attached to a pot of honey. Owl (Stojka) deciphers the message, which had been splattered with honey and says that Christopher Robin has been taken to a horrible place called the Skull by the Skullosaurus. He equips the group with a map and they set off on an adventure to save their friend.

As a direct sequel, the continuity in this film is astounding. The conversation that takes place at the beginning is the exact same conversation, word for word, from the end of the first Winnie the Pooh movie.

Though the characters start out all the same from the first movie, all the trials they go through in their search leave them more rounded. During the course of the film, they are broken by their greatest flaws and fears. Piglet’s fear of heights neuters him, Tigger’s fear of not being able to bounce high cripples him and Rabbit is left near catatonic after his leadership skills are shown to be nil. But it’s after they find Christopher Robin that that they realize what he told Pooh at the beginning is true. They’re better than they give themselves credit for and at the end of the film, they’ve conquered those fears and flaws.

It’s also interesting to see the juxtaposition of how the “Great Unknown” appears before and after they’ve found Christopher Robin. Before, it’s how Owl described it: dark, treacherous and foreboding. But afterwards, it’s like every other spot in the Hundred Acre Wood. It’s changed because they’re not afraid anymore and find that there was no real reason to be afraid in the first place.

While the songs aren’t all bad, only the first two are actually worth writing home about.

#23

Mighty Ducks the Movie: The First Face-Off

Between 1993 and 2006, Disney owned a hockey team called the Mighty Ducks, which were based on the 1992 film of the same name. in 1996, an animated series debuted for one season, starring Jennifer Hale, Brad Garrett, James Belushi, Tony Jay, and Tim Curry. After the series ended, a direct-to-video film was released titled Mighty Ducks the Movie: The First Face-Off. It comprised the first two episodes and the 25^th episode.

Police Captain Klegghorn (Dennis Franz) talks to Phil Palmfeather (Belushi), who manages a team of giant hockey playing ducks (Ian Ziering, Steve Mackall, Jeff Bennett, Hale, April Winchell, Garrett, and Townsend Coleman). Palmfeather reveals they are a resistance group against the evil Saurian overlords on the planet Puckworld. He tells the captain how they came to arrive on earth.

However, the Saurian leader, Dragaunus (Jay), mounts an attack on the Ducks’ headquarters under Anaheim Pond. Wildwing (Ziering) is forced to team up with Klegghorn to get through the security systems.

Three re-released episodes is barely even a movie. Disney doesn’t release a DVD of the complete series, but released a video of three episodes the year after it ends?

It would be better for me just to watch all 26 episodes and review the series. And I think I’ll do that. Look for it in the next couple of weeks.  
As far as this goes towards the film itself: #51