Movies Top 10: Leonardo and Will

I am on a movie watching spree these days so you can expect lot of movie reviews from my side. My favourite actors, apart from Tom Hanks are Leonardo Dicaprio, followed by Will Smith. I am listing 5 movies of each of them which I loved the most and I admire these actors for delivering such mind-blowing performances in those movies.

INCEPTION (2010)

This movie entered my all-time most favourite movie list. If anyone says that they did not like Inception, I am sure others are going to think they did not “understand” the movie 🙂 The plot is pretty complicated and brain boggling. Leonardo has given his best performance ever in this movie. I love the movie for the plot, special effects, literally everything!

Cobb: What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient… highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed – fully understood – that sticks; right in there somewhere.

SHUTTER ISLAND (2010)

This is another movie which many people might find difficult to understand. The ending comes in as a shock and you desperately would want to watch the movie once again, just to catch a glimpse of all those clues that you did not care for, during the first time you watched this.  Leonardo has given two brilliant movies this time and I am hoping he wins Oscars this time. He totally deserves an Oscar for both this movie as well as Inception. Some stupid friend of mine told me the suspense even before I watched the movie (even though I never wanted to hear) 😦  Why do people reveal suspense element in a movie?! Another friend did the same thing for Karthik calling Karthik, which I so badly wanted to watch.As a result, it was not that much fun but still I enjoyed watching it.

Teddy Daniels: I gotta get off this rock, Chuck. Get back to the mainland. Whatever the hell’s going on here, it’s bad. Don’t worry partner, they’re not gonna catch us.

AVIATOR (2004)

Another brilliant movie by Leonardo. This was the first movie of his that I really really enjoyed watching, mainly because of Leonardo’s acting. Based on a true story, it is about an aviator Howard Hughes and his career. One of the best movies based on some real person I have ever watched. Before watching this movie, I always thought Leonardo was best only for chocolate hero kind of roles. But after watching this movie, I realized that he can do any kind of role with excellence 🙂

Howard Hughes: He owns Pan-Am. He owns Congress. He owns the Civil Aeronautics Board. But he does not own the sky.

Howard Hughes: Actresses are cheap in this town – and I got a lot of money

BODY OF LIES (2008)

We watched this movie on the day it got released and what a brilliant movie, this one is. It is about a terrorist group in middle east and as an undercover, Leonardo tries to hunt down the terrorist group leader. His acting is very good and I even liked the sweet love story of his with a middle eastern girl. She, being from an orthodox family takes him to her sister, before she can even date him.

Roger Ferris: But are you pure or are you just as corrupt as the capitalist Westerners that you despise? To me, you are f**king slaves. You’re slaves to the Saudi oil sheiks and the Wahabi oil money that funds you. And when that oil money runs out, my friends you will all f**king disappear into the ashes of history.

BLOOD DIAMOND (2006)

I found this movie pretty lengthy and at times, found it little dragging. But the acting of Leonardo and Djimon Hounsou were what made me fall in love with this movie. The story is based in Africa where Leonardo is in pursuit of a diamond, as a smuggler. This movie is based on facts and it shows how young children end up becoming rebels/terrorists and can even end up shooting their own people. This is something that I found really touching in the movie.

Danny Archer: Sometimes I wonder… will God ever forgive us for what we’ve done to each other? Then I look around and I realize… God left this place a long time ago.

Danny Archer: In America, it’s bling bling. But out here it’s bling bang.

M’Ed: This my country, man. We here long ‘fore you came – long after you gone.

Apart from these I loved Leonardo in Titanic (obvious, aint it), Catch me if you can (one of my all-time fav movies already mentioned in the Tom Hanks top 10 post), The Departed (did not like the movie much – especially the ending, but still loved his acting in this movie).

A friend once told me, “Will Smith is such a crappy actor”. Then I asked him, “have you seen Pursuit of Happyness and Independence day?” He said “No”. I told him “then you have no right to say he is crappy. You have missed all his good movies and call him crappy?” In fact later I found out that he had not watched even a single movie of Will Smith and he was judging him on no basis. I love Will Smith because of his acting skills. He is one of the best actors.

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS (2006)

This is one movie which will be in top 10 of my all-time favourite movies.  I never knew Will Smith could act *this* well, before watching this movie. This is again based on a real person, a story about rags to riches. Will Smith’s son has acted as his son in the movie and the kid has acted so well! I love the dialogues a lotttttt. This movie is a tear-jerker and every time I watch it, I end up crying 🙂 A must watch movie!!!!

Christopher Gardner: I met my father for the first time when I was 28 years old. I made up my mind that when I had children, my children were going to know who their father was.

Martin Frohm: What would you say if man walked in here with no shirt, and I hired him? What would you say?
Christopher Gardner: He must have had on some really nice pants.

SEVEN POUNDS (2008)

Another touching movie after Pursuit of Happyness. Since he is responsible for the death of 7 people, he tries to help 7 other lives in this movie. The ending is one of the best endings I have ever seen in any movie. Isn’t it great when someone helps others, without expecting anything in return from them? When someone helps at the cost of everything they have? He looks great in sensitive roles as well as in action movies. He brings tears in your eyes, just with a single facial expression, even without dialogues. Not every actor can do this.

Ben Thomas: In seven days, God created the world. And in seven seconds, I shattered mine.

Emily Posa: Why do I get the feeling you’re doing me a really big favor?
Ben Thomas: Because I get the feeling that you really deserve it.

I AM LEGEND (2007)

There was a time when Superhero movies were a rage. Before Hancock, Will Smith acted in this movie where he is a lone survivor in whole of NY, when the city gets infected with a virus. Humans become zombies and Will tries to survive in such a hostile place. He just has a dog for company. He is the only human you see in most part of the movie but still he keeps the viewers interested. One has to act so well in order to not make the movie boring. How many people can actually do this?

Neville: God didn’t do this. We did!

I-ROBOT (2004)

This is my most favourite Robot movie ever and I am sure no other movie can replace this (Enthiran? Hell no! Love is such a strong emotion that we as humans don’t understand it properly. Is it ever possible to program it into a machine? Are you kidding me?)  Some people argue that Sci-fi movies have no logic. But I do not agree! If they even make a sci-fi movie, they put so much of logic in it that even the most unbelievable thing, looks believable. When science has advanced so much, why should we think that something is impossible?! Before we landed on moon, there were sci-fis showing man on moon and when such movies got released, people thought it was nonsense. But man did land on moon eventually 🙂 I love this movie for everything – the action sequences, Will Smith’s performance, Robot Sonny, the amazing story by Isaac Asimov. One of the best sci-fi movies EVER made!

Detective Del Spooner: Human beings have dreams. Even dogs have dreams, but not you, you are just a machine. An imitation of life. Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot turn a… canvas into a beautiful masterpiece?
Sonny: Can *you*?

Detective Del Spooner: Look, I understand you have experienced a loss, but this relationship just can’t work. I mean, you’re a cat. I’m black. I’m not going to be hurt again.

INDEPENDENCE  DAY (1996)

This was the first sci-fi I ever watched in my life and that is one of the reasons why I love this movie. The special effects are amazing and Will Smith’s as well as Jeff Goldblum’s acting is worth appreciating. Even Bill Pullman as the president has done a wonderful job. The speech by the president at the end is something that I like a lot. I am fascinated with science and aliens so this is just the kind of movie I always wanted to watch 🙂

Captain Steven Hiller: Didn’t I promise you fireworks?
Dylan Dubrow: Yeah.

THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR (TV SERIES 1990-1996)

This is one of my most favouriteeee TV series. I never watched an Afro-American sitcom and this was my first one but it is soooo amazingly hilarious that I have seen each and every episode of this atleast twice. Will is simply brilliant with his one liners and the way he keeps making fun of his loser brother Carlton is cute. Hilary is his beautiful dumb sister whose dialogues are really fun. I fell in love with each and every character in this sitcom. Everyone of them has given a great performance and Will especially is very charming and funny 🙂 I love his friend Jazz too, who is totally dumb and not well mannered and is a perfect tapori sorts 🙂 If I had to make a list of quotes that I love, I would list each and every dialogue from this sitcom 🙂 🙂

Hilary: I’ve always wondered… since coffee is made from beans, does that make it a vegetable?

Hilary: What kind of idiot picks a password no one can guess?

Will: Carlton, I think you’ve been deprived of oxygen at birth.

Jazz: The directions on the shirt said “Hand Wash”. So that’s exactly what I did. Before I put the clothes in the washer, I washed my hands.

Carlton: Why don’t you act like an adult?
Will: Why don’t you look like one?

Will Smith also rocked in movies like Hitch and Men in Black.