QUOTE - Take life by the CRACK and lick the CRAP out of it!!
There are some movies that you watch and forget and there are some movies that impact you for a week at most , but there are some movies that change the way you think , that inspire you , that makes you feel you can do anything , such that you are so motivated you feel you can even delete your recycle bin , become Englands Royal heir , set bridges on fire , speak better english than Inzamum-ul-Haq to name a few .
Well , No , I'm not talking about any super humans like Vijayakanth or Balayyas movies , if you are wondering , sure captain vijayakanth is such a messiah and life saver that he can do a by-pass surgery with just his mobile phone or our ballistic ballaya can stop trains with his bare hands , but well I'm actually talking about movies which is meant for people with possible a heart and brain .
MY LIST OF TOP 5 MOTIVATIONAL MOVIES
5- ROCKY
Well, what can I say about rocky, pure genius . Sylvestre stallone was a stellar figure in the 1980s for his rocky series . Girls just went ga-ga over his robot like body . The script for rocky was written in just 3 days by Stallone. It all started when he went to a Chuck Wepner - Mohammad Ali boxing match . Wepner was expected to stand no more than three rounds but he fought hard ,tough and till the end. Wepner even managed to Knock out Mohammad Ali in the 9th round , which stunned everyone in the crowd . But for the next six rounds he was beaten up mercilessly and Ali eventually knocked him out in the last round with 19 seconds remaining . This inspired Stallone so much and turned out to be the script for ROCKY 1. He wanted an unprecedented $350,000 for the rights of the story and also refused to sell the rights to producers unless they accepted him to be the protagonist of the movie . There are six parts to the the rocky series, each one is gold .
The vijay starrer Badri was a rip from rocky. Vijay tries to do training just like sylvester stallone in this movie and there is a song where a man keeps shouting " EUREKA " that tries to match " Eye of the Tiger " . Ya, ofcourse, Vijay can even catch Osama bin laden with his captain cycle , so no comments on why he thought he could do a repeat of sylvestre stallone!
Fun Fact -He had only $106 in the bank, didnt have any vehicle and was trying to sell his dog because he couldn't afford to feed it
Eye of the Tiger - Well, what a song . It has stood the test of time and is still considered the most inspirational song globally . I couldn't believe I was hearing this song in a Tamil Drama as the background score , how on earth did they get the copyrights? . I bet everybody would have heard this song atleast once in their lifetime . Sends the blood surging into everypart of your body and you feel like shouting " Yaa I have the eye of the tiger , even though Im blind " .
Comments - Blood warming movie . If you ever feel down and low and you need inspiration from somewhere to beat up your school bully or your office boss who fired you, go watch this movie and I say with certainty , You will beat that bad guy up the very next day and tell him " Now who is the boss? "
4 - Life is Beautiful - This movie is inspirational in its own way . None of the fighting or blood warming music that you will find in rocky , but this is unique and invigorating in its own way . If you want to laugh and cry in the same movie , then La Vita E belle (LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL ) is for you . It is set in a time of war, a loving father is taken to a concentration camp by nazi along with his son. Roberto Benigni's and the kids acting is beyond words in the english dictionary
Story - The first half of this very different film is completely hilarious. It portrays the life of a a fun loving Italian Jew named Guido, chasing after the woman of his dreams, Dora , who is about to be forced into an unhappy marriage. The comedy is so genuine and incandescent, even if you don't enjoy some of the slapstick comedy you cannot help , but admire the child like innocence of the movie. Eventually, through a series of humorous coincidences, he wins Dora over, and get married . The second half of the story jumps ahead to about 5-7 years later when Benigni and his wife have a little boy. Being Jewish, the man and his boy are then taken away from his little town to a concentration camp by the Nazis. The wife voluntarily goes, just to be with the other two.
The rest of the movie shows how the father protects his son by pretending it's all a game. The second half, of course, is what most of us remember best and is very inspiring, a haunting tale with a few scenes that stay in your memory .
Comments - All in all, a brilliant movie, irrespective of the Holocaust tragedy, I think the movie has stood over it, and shifted the emphasis to humans in quite a brilliant way....Roberto BENIGNI deserves all the credit for it.Well, a last word, the movie is Italian so dont forget to download the english subtitles.
3- Schinders list - Well ,again a movie about the holocaust . But what a movie . I generally hate movies in black and white so delayed watching this movie for long , but unbelieveable movie !! I knew the holocaust was one of the worst crisis the world has ever been through , but never expected it to be this bad! A masterclass !! Steven Spielberg stated that it took him ten years to even become comfortable with making his 1993's Academy Award-winning Schindler's List . If you ever think our Indian movie villians are horrible and evil think again, because the Nazi officer, Amon Goeth in this movie reaches the epitome of evilness ever potrayed and the sad part is he really existed .
Story -Oskar Schindler is played by Liam Neeson, a German businessman who sees a chance at some nice war profits using some incredibly cheap labor from people working in the concentration camps. He's willing to start a factory in occupied Poland with the war prisoners. Schindler hears of a man who ran a factory among the Jews, Itzak Stern played by Ben Kingsley. Stern agrees to work for Schindler and with him recruiting the labor force, Neeson gets his factory going. With that comes responsibility for these people. He fights for them, the original ones and some added to his growing work force. Over the 3 hour film, Neeson gradually changes and his concern for his workers becomes humanitarian. He plays a dangerous game, especially with concentration camp commandor Ralph Fiennes being a tough cookie and is a man who delights in the total power he's been handed and kills people for fun .
Neeson creates a list called the SCHINDERS LIST and the people who are in that list escapes the wrath of the Nazis. He uses all his money to save as many people and saved the lives of more than 1100 Jews during the Holocaust .It is the triumph of one man who made a difference and the drama of those who survived one of the darkest chapters in human history because of what he did.
FACTS: Schindler's List was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won seven including Best Picture and Best Director for Steven Spielberg. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes were nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. Imdb rating is 8.9, that says it all.
Comments - Steven Spielberg has directed a lot of the best films in history, such as: E.T,Close Encounters Of The 3rd Kind,Jaws,Jurassic Park,Saving Private Ryan,Poltergeist to name a few but but in my opinion "Schindler's List" is the most important masterpiece Spielberg has ever made. The acting is breathtaking and the black and white motive is outstanding. It tells the horrible story of the jews in europe of the 1940's. A riveting story .
2- Shawshank Redemption - Rated the best movie in Imdb with 9.2/10 and 496,508 votes, should I say more . Its a story of freedom and creativity and hope . I went through the first 100 comments of this movie in IMDB to alteast find a single bad comment and I didnt find any . Tells you the power of friendship . Quite simply, no other film comes close to this one in regards to screenplay, casting and plot development. Every letter uttered in the movie has a real conviction and meaning to it and the performances in this movie are nothing short of magnificent .
STORY -It is a film set in a US Prison, the story of Andy Dufresne who is sent to Shawshank (Prison) for a crime that he never committed and sentenced to life imprisonment . Here, he meets Ellis "Red" Redding , played by Morgan Freeman an aged convict , who unlike the majority of the prisoners, accepts that he is a guilty man. Andy undertakes a constant quest to become a free man once more, even if it means breaking the laws and the way he does it is no fairy tale that you can possibly think of. The prison is a brutal place, and Andy is frequently beaten and sexually assaulted by a gang of homosexual inmates called "The Sisters".
Two things, however, help him to survive. One is his friendship with convict, Red, who has a reputation for being able to acquire almost any item from outside, for a price and to smuggle them into the prison. The other is his financial expertise, which he puts to good use, he becomes the tax and financial adviser to the prison guards and even the Warden himself. As a reward for these services, Andy is given a privileged job in the prison library and protection from molestation. To avenge their attacks on Andy , the leader of the "Sisters" is so badly beaten by the guards that he is crippled for life.
The Warden devises a scheme under which inmates are put to work on local construction projects. The purpose of this is to prepare them for life after they are released, but in reality he is exploiting their free labour for his own personal profit, and using Andy's financial skills to launder the proceeds. This arrangement seems to work to Andy's advantage, because of the extra privileges he is granted, but things change when a new young prisoner named Tommy Williams is sent to Shawshank.
Tommy has evidence that could secure Andy's release, a former cellmate in another prison has confessed to him that he committed the murders for which Andy was convicted. Tommy confides this secret to the Warden , who fearing that his illegal schemes will be revealed should Andy ever be released, shoots Tommy. Yet, despite his involvement in the Warden's dishonesty, Andy retains a certain integrity; he refuses to give up hope and refuses to allow himself to be beaten by the system. Although he is in prison he has found a sort of freedom.
A key moment comes when he defies the guards to play a Mozart song over the prison loudspeakers for all the inmates to hear . Red faces a different problem. He fears that he has become so institutionalised that he will be unable to survive freedom, as happened to another long-term prisoner who committed suicide shortly after his release. In prison, his role as the "fixer" who can obtain anything, be it a packet of cigarettes, a rock hammer or a poster of Rita Hayworth, makes him the king of the inmates. (These latter two items will play an important role in the plot). On the outside he will be just another ex-con trying to make ends meet in a dead-end job. Paradoxically, he is more free in jail than he will be on the outside. I won't give away the ending, but it involves Andy repaying Red's previous kindnesses by showing him how he can be free in all senses of the word.
Comments - Tell your mom or your wife you are taking the day off and watch Shawshank Redemption and just like RED and DUFRESNE in the movie , Freedom will taste better than ever before , after watching this movie .
1- ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) - Well all the above four movies are blody inspirational and better dont watch all four of them together or you will end up feeling you can even take on a hippopotamas and elephant together in a boxing ring and beat them up , but remember you are no tamil film hero . The top spot goes to this move purely for the test of time it has stood . 64 years . Just 6 years youngers than my grand mother . I had actually seen the above 4 movies before seeing this and I came upon a global movie list of the " Most inspirational movie ever made " . Iexpected shawshank or schinders list to top it , but it was this movie . I thought " Such idiots " people always vote the 1940 movies and I started watching this movie wondering how on earth can there be a better movie than SHAWSHANK . I watched in complete awe as the movie unfolded and when the movie got over I was sure the list was right . I bet this movie can even melt even an IRON BOX . Well , if you are not melted watching it , then you probably must be dead , because YOU DONT HAVE A HEART.
STORY - George Bailey played by James Stewart is a man who puts his friends and family before his own happiness . Whether it is jumping into ice to save his little brother Harry, an act that costs him his hearing in his left ear. Or if it's sacrificing his dream of travelling the world inorder to look after his late father's bank so it can stay in business or so Harry can have a bright future with his wife. He even gives up a lucrative $20,000 a year contract from local miser Mr. Potter played by Lionel Barrymore inorder to save the townsfolk . He builds them a bunch of good quality houses, allowing them to leave Potter's slums and enjoy a good life. His dream was to leave Bedford Falls but because of his own good nature he has never been able to. He settles down with his wife Mary (Donna Reed) and four kids. So when his Uncle Billy `misplaces' $8,000 , George is faced with scandal and prison. He is a man at the end of the rope and he takes it out on everyone, even his own family.
In the end he is told he is worth more dead than alive and decides to commit suicide on Christmas Eve. Only, that's not the end for right at the beginning of the story we know that an angel is watching over George and it is he who saves George from suicide. The angel shows George the good he has done people in his lifetime and how many life he has changed and affected . We discover that if George wasn't there to save his old boss Mr. Gower from accidentally poisoning food through his grief , then he would have become a pauper and drunkard who has to beg for a living . Then we find out that his brother Harry, who is to be given a medal from the President for bravery in WW2, would have died had George not saved him. Bedford Falls would have become Pottersville had George not saved the people from the evil Potter, Mary his wife would have ended up as an old maid because there was nobody to love her .
When George begs to live again and is re-united with his family , it surely does bring a tear in your eye . The movie ends with a classy line " EVERYTIME THE BELL RINGS, AN ANGEL GETS HIS WINGS .
Comments - If you think you are a beaten down shit of a person, who is probably not even worth milking the cows in your country or you hate yourself more than your ex-girlfriend , then go watch this . This movie tells you how each person contributes in his own special way to other people happiness and teaches you self worthiness and the beautiful little snowflake you are . A MUST WATCH !!!!
Other Good Inspirational Movies - To kill a mocking bird , Chariots of fire , Saving Private ryan , Pursuit of Happyness , The Diary Of Anne Frank .
Some Inspirational quotes
Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right - Henry Ford
A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song - Maya Angelou
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself -Ralph Waldo Emerson