Its not often, but every once in a while a movie gets made that trandsends greatness and in my opinion, reaches a level of immortality--living in our hearts forever, never to be forgotten. This week I would like to focus my thoughts on two movies which have no doubt reached this level of immortality. Somewhere In Time and The Lake House.
How can two movies be so beautiful? I'll tell you how. All you do is combine two of my most favorite genres: Time Travel and Romance. LOL, I guess I shouldn't say, "All you do," as if its that simple to make such a great movie. Here is a brief synopsis of both movies.
Somewhere In Time- A mysterious old woman walks up to dreamy, young, and fully mobile Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve) and gives him a watch and tells him to remeber her, but here is the catch, he's never met her before in his life. How mysterious, neh? So Richard visits an old college professor to ask him what he knows about bending time and space. The wise old professor tells Richard that it is all in the power of the mind, and that if your will is strong enough, your brian will send you back or forward in time. However, there is one pitfall. If the mind has any remeberance of the time that it is truely from, it will be too much to handle and the mind will revert back to its true time. So Richard actually does it, he returns back in time and finds the beautiful actress Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour), who turns out to be the very same mysterious old woman who gave him the watch at the begining of the movie. Through test and trial, Richard is able to win the heart of Elise and they fall in love. What takes place next is truely tragic. After Richard and Elise pleasure in the delights of the flesh, they sit down to enjoy a warm bucket of fried chicken. Its at this moment that they are the happiest. Elise looks beautiful and Richard is in true form. He's joking and making Elise laugh, and then tragedy rears its ugly head. Richard pulls a modern day penny out of his vingage 1940s suit and his mind is reminded of its true place in time, and Richard is hurdled back into his true time. Though I loved this movie, it brought me Tears of Sadness.
The Lake House- The year is 2006 and the lovely doctor Kate Forester (Sandra Bullock) is moving out of her rented lake house. She drops a letter in the mailbox asking the future resident to please forward all her mail to her future address. The year is 2004 and frustrated architect Alex Wyler (Keanu Reeves) is just moving into his famalies lake house, and right away notices that there is a letter waiting for him. He opens it up to find that someone is asking him to forward all future mail to her new address. How strange? Young Alex knows that no one has lived in his famalies home since he was a child. This cannot be, so he decides to investigate and the impossilbe happens. He finds that somehow the mailbox sends letters from the past to the future and from the future to the past. How can this be? Is the mailbox equiped with a flux copaciter? Is Hiro Nokimora saving the world by somehow bringing Alex and Kate together for some strange future reason? Well we never find out the magic or science behind the mailbox, but we do find out about the staying power of love and the written word. For two years Alex and Kate write back and forth until one day Kate finds out that Alex is to die. In a mad dash she races to the lake house to send him a letter begging him not to try to meet her on that fateful day. At the end we find that Alex got the letter and did not try to meet her and by doing so, was not hit by that car, in turn also avoiding laying in his own pool of carnige and dismemberment. In the end, future Alex and future Kate embrace and stay together forever. I loved this movie and it brougt me Tears of Joy.
I'm pretty sure that casting is what made these movies what they are today; amazing. So this post is dedicated to Keanu and Christopher. Champions of acting.
