Max

> *"They say the mustang is the spirit of the West. Whether that West was won or lost in the end, you'll have to decide for yourself."* Absolutely fire childhood rewatch, this movie had to be one of the reasons I love horses so much (that and growing up with rescue horses). Beautiful movie, and I forget how much I love Matt Damon's voice. He should voice act more. For some reason, I vividly remember Spirit and Rain having a kid in the movie, but that never happened, so I have no idea where I'm getting that from... Also, I swore this movie was completely 2D animated so the random 3D models of the horses throw me off but they're really not noticeable (unless you're like me) and I get that animating a whole bunch of horses probably would have taken forever especially in the scenes where there's a bunch of them. They should really 2D animate films and shows again, I miss this art style so much. ☹️

One thing I really like about this film is how they used sound to portray both the vacuum of space and heightened emotions. Many films nowadays feel the need to constantly have characters talking or music playing or some sort of a sound in a scene but I think when you take all that away and let the audience sit in silence, it can be more impactful. On another note, I cried again during The Beetles sequence.

If you think this is Ryan Gosling's worst movie, then you're wrong. He has no bad movies (not that I've seen). Was this movie the best thing in the whole damn world? Certainly not. Was it *bad*? No! I don't think this movie was bad. For the people saying it's pretentious trash or that they shouldn't have to try so hard to see a deeper meaning, I see your point but it wasn't even that hard to catch the meaning of this movie. Yes, I agree that the meaning was vague and not very powerful, but that doesn't mean it's simply not there. It's a story of how one man's bad actions led to a domino effect of all those around him and their eventual demise. Let's look at Julian, Ryan's character, since he's probably going to be the main focus of this review as he's the main character. I want to start by saying that if Julian and his mother's genders were reversed, then people would care *a lot* more about his story. It's insane to me that not more people are talking about the very heavily implied SA (and even CSA if you want to assume it has been going on for a while, which it probably has) that Julian goes through at the hands of his mother. In every scene they are in togather, she's scrutinizing him. Even if she begins warm and loving, it all boils down to her hating Julian deep down and only using him as a pawn. She even goes as far as belittling and insulting him in front of his quote on quote girlfriend. She makes up lies about him and pins blame on him so she can try to get out scotch free, as when she told police officers that Julian murdered his father when it was revealed that asked him to do that. And Julian? He takes it because that's what he's being trained to do all his life. He's submissive to her and accepts everything she says about him because, as he says in the movie, "That's my mother." Even despite his obedience, his mother has always paid more attention to Julian's older brother, Billy, despite Billy being a worse man, in terms of being a rapist and pedophile. Julian understands his brother is a bad person too, as when he releases his brother's murderer when he finds out he killed Billy because he raped and killed the man's teenage daughter. This all boils down to Julian being a pawn. He's brainwashed and manipulated until almost the end of the movie when he goes against his mother's wishes and doesn't kill Chang's young daughter. Then, at the very end, when he accepts the punishment for everything he has done (despite it not being much) and has his arms, presumptive, sliced off. This movie is tragic. While I agree that it's violent and hard for you to feel connected to while watching, that doesn't discredit the tragedy that happens. From the very beginning, everything was going to happen the way it was from the actions of one man affecting the whole.

I felt like I was obligated to actually watch this movie for reasons I won't state here. However, this was amazing. Heather Ledger and his big, beautiful eyes and accent never fell to charm me, and his character in this movie really did it for me. He's meant to be intimidating at the start of the movie, but I don't really get that from him. He's just too pretty for that. (A "pretty boy" if you will.) Then you actually learn about his character and see that all the things people say about him are just rumors, although it's never stated why everyone came up with these nonsensical stories but I would assume it's because of his "intimidating" appearance again. By the end of the film, I really liked him. And Julia Stiles' character? She's absolutely brilliant, and I loved her so much. Let's start with the fact that she's just beautiful, especially in her prom dress and with the rose in her hair. Her character isn't just looks either. It's shown that she's extremely intelligent and isn't afraid to show that. Her being called a "bitch" or "weirdo" just because she doesn't play along to men and fit into the societal roles of women, however annoying that is, was very true for that time and I think the movie does a good job going against it. A few other things I liked about this movie were the fact that the "geeks" got the girls because they acted like themselves and weren't showoffs like Joey, the Frankie Valli song, and the paintball scene. However, the two things I didn't like about this movie was how the teacher acted as that's a personal gripe for me since I'm going into teaching as career and don't like seeing teachers being mean to their students, and when Kat's character flashed the soccer coach which was completely inappropriate and made me a little uncomfortable.