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"The Godfather" is one of those movies that everyone has heard of, everyone knows scenes of, and is quoted, parodied, and paralleled in everything from major movies to children's cartoons. There's the raspy voice of Don Corleone, the bloody horse's head in bed, and the actors for which the film defined their careers (Robert Duvall, Al Pacino that make this film). All of these things make this film a unique addition to American cinema and a classic to remember for years. The plot follows the trail of the Corleone family for several years after the assassination attempt of the family patriarch, Don Corleone (Marlon Brando). After the Don is unsuccessfully gunned down by five shots from rival's gang, his son Michael (Al Pacino) is forced to take over through a series of unfortunate events. One of the beautifully tragic events in this movie is Michael's transition from naive to a mob leader in his father's name. This movie has it all-action, drama, love, beauty, and politics. It is a must-see of American Film and a institution for mafia films and will be for years to come.

"The Straight Story" is one of the few films these days that uses quiet to make a point, rather than explosions, loud music, or shouting scripts to distract the viewer, and form the illusion that you are being kept attentive. It takes guts to make a film this in an age where everyone in Hollywood thinks the average attention span of a viewer is five minutes, tops. The camera uses extremely long, unbroken shots, rather than fast cutting from scene-to-scene and a quiet, slow paced script. The film follows the trail of Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth), the seventy-three-year-old father of a middle-aged slightly mentally disabled daughter, Rose(Sissy Spacek). Straight sets off across Iowa in a lawn tractor pulling a trailer to Mt. Zion, Wisconsin, to visit his estranged brother, before it's too late. Along the way Alvin encounters bickering twin mechanics, a runaway pregnant teenager, a catholic priest, and several other genuine and sincere characters. The story is sad, but makes you happy as well. It's not a good film for someone without a long attention, though, but if you're that someone, give the film a chance. It means a lot of things in this hectic, fast-paced, obnoxious world.

"The Watcher" was a movie that when I saw the trailers, I knew I wanted to see. So call me a fool believing the for misleading advertisement, but the film didn't meet my expectations. First off, Keanu Reeves could play not a serial killer character. He just didn't seem to have that ruthless cold core, or evil and brilliant mind, but was actually kind of hollow and unrealistic. I also would've preferred that the film have been longer and had more murders to make it interesting. The ending felt kind of cheap ad added on in a hurry. But despite all of these things, I still think the film had it's suspenseful scenes where you want to cry out, "He's right behind you!". Joel Campbell (James Spader), the sickly and obsessive detective trailing the killer, David Allen Griffin (Reeves), seems to have some depth to him, but Ernie Hudson's appearance as Ibby just made me laugh. All-in-all the film was not that scary at all, and you can definitely watch it alone.