Unsung heroes

Claire Whitley | Argonaut

There are some movies that everyone knows about such as Hunger Games, Twilight, any Harry Potter film. Then there are the movies that very few people see. Some are old, some are new, either way they don’t make much noise.

Kelly’s Heroes

Not to sound hipster, but “you’ve probably never heard of it.” This is an old 70s movie with stars such as Donald Sutherland before he became President Snow, the comedian Don Rickles and Man From Nowhere, Clint Eastwood. The movie is a wartime comedy based on World War II. Kelly, played by Eastwood, finds gold bars in the briefcase of a German officer. Low-and-behold: there is a bank with about $15 million worth of those gold bars. The whole platoon is soon off on a crazy, gut-busting march through enemy lines to rob a bank.

The Brass Teapot

This movie is hilarious. Made in 2012, this is an indie comedy based around the concept of doing anything for money. A young couple come across a brass teapot that holds a magical power: if someone near it gets hurt, poof! Money. However, the meaning of “hurt” escalates after a period of time. Eventually, the two are living the high life, but in order to maintain their dramatic lifestyle they have to psychologically harm each other. At the very end, they realize this teapot is bad juju and decide to give it to a Chinese professor who has been haunting them, begging for it since the beginning.

Chocolat

The plot is in the name. Chocolate. This is a movie about chocolate. Except for, it isn’t really. It is actually about accepting each other, despite whims or differences in belief and religion and finding yourself under overprotective spouses or parents. A French woman blows into town and makes a chocolate store during Lent, and Count Reynaud does all in his power to have her business sink. However, this woman, Vianne Rocher, has a strange knack for bringing out the inner, true person. Gypsies, mobs and people finding themselves through a little chocolatier in a small French town make up this wonderful film.

Struck by Lightning

It shouldn’t be surprising that a movie about a young journalist would be written about eventually.  A newer film, 2012, written by and starring Chris Colfer shows a high school senior, Carson Phillips, who is struck by lightning and killed. The movie then switches gears and is a complete retelling of his year from the grave. Phillips was trying to create a literary magazine on his school campus because the newspaper was a dive. No one wanted to write for it, no one read it, but Phillips kept on. In the end, he blackmailed several classmates and teachers into writing for the magazine and ended up struck by lightning. I’ll leave out the better parts about how he changed his classmates’ lives.

Claire Whitley can be reached at [email protected]

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