Friday, April 27, 2012

Thing a Day #6 | Free Movies

Not a lot of people realize that YouTube offers free full-length videos. I'm not talking about the ones that users cut up into ten parts, and are usually less than great quality. They actually have a movie section with free and pay as you watch movies.

I like to go there and see what they are offering for free, they sometimes add a few as a promotion (probably hoping you'll see one you like better and pay for. But I have Netflix, and love it, but occasionally I am looking for something not on their site. LIke any movie watching sites you get tired of the same old selection.

I've put together a list of my favorite movies to watch for free on YouTube. They offer quite a few more, and if you are into classic films they have a ton!

Here is the link for the Free YouTube Movies. Below are my faves (In no particular order)!

Cruel Intentions

In an adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos' novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Kathryn Merteuil (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Sebastian Valmont (Ryan Phillippe) are step-brother and step-sister living in Manhattan. With their absent parents travelling in Europe, the wealthy pair have the family penthouse to themselves as they while away their summer break before beginning senior year at a private high school. Sebastian, bad-boy lothario, has apparently slept with all the girls in town and appears numb to it all. Kathryn, who appears to be the good girl class president, is actually far more amoral and malicious than Sebastian, but maintains appearances to the contrary. When she is dumped by her boyfriend, Court Reynolds (Charlie O'Connell), for the innocent Cecile Caldwell (Selma Blair), she schemes revenge by destroying Cecile's reputation. She challenges Sebastian to deflower Cecile and transform her into a tramp to humiliate Court. Sebastian isn't as interested as Cecile -- she's spent her whole life in a Catholic girl's school and presents no challenge. The girl who has caught his attention is Annette Hargrove (Reese Witherspoon), the new headmaster's daughter. Annette had written an article for Seventeen Magazine on her plans to stay a virgin until she finds her one true love. Kathryn makes a wager. If Sebastian fails to lure Annette into bed before the summer is over, Kathryn gets his car. If he succeeds, Sebastian gets Kathryn, whom he wants anyway. Sebastian accepts the bet, but Annette turns out to be more than either of them bargained for.

You Don't Mess with the Zohan

Judd Apatow teams up with his former roommate Adam Sandler to write a star comedy vehicle for the actor in You Don't Mess With the Zohan, the tale of an Israeli commando who fakes his own death so he can follow his dream -- to be a hairstylist in New York City. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry's Dennis Dugan directs for Happy Madison Productions and Columbia Pictures.

Flatliners

Despite its occasional lapses into silly self-consciousness, Flatliners is one of the most intriguing and well-constructed supernatural thrillers of the 1990s. A group of brilliant medical students decide to literally play with life and death. They put themselves in suspended animation, electronically inducing a near-deathlike state and then pulling out of it at the last possible moment. Things get hairy when one of the students (Kiefer Sutherland) becomes obsessed with the notion of really dying, the better to experience the Afterlife before being revived--if he can be revived. In her first dramatic starring role (playing a sensitive young lady on a misguided guilt trip), Julia Roberts is very, very good--completely bereft of movie-star mannerisms. Audiences flocked to see Flatliners back in 1990 due to the highly publicized off-screen romance between Roberts and Sutherland. Oh, yes: Kevin Bacon and William Baldwin are in the picture, too.

Hollowman

In this sci-fi thriller, a man and a woman must fend off a killer whom they cannot see. Scientist Sebastian Caine (Kevin Bacon) is working with a secret military research team headed by Dr. Kramer (William Devane), assigned to create new intelligence technology. With the help of his colleagues Linda McKay (Elisabeth Shue) and Matt Kensington (Josh Brolin), Sebastian has been developing a serum that makes people invisible. The formula is new and unstable, but after a risky but successful test on an ape, an impatient Sebastian, under pressure from Kramer, decides to try it on himself. It works, but no one counted on the side effects; unable to reverse the serum's effects, an invisible Sebastian goes insane, and begins pursuing Linda (his former girlfriend) and Matt (Linda's current beau) in a fog of homicidal rage. Directed by Paul Verhoeven, Hollow Man also features Kim Dickens, Mary Randle, Joey Slotnick, and Greg Grunberg.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

When America's number one NASCAR speed-demon is issued a direct challenge from a gay, French Formula One racer with a hunger for the top spot and a mean talent for tight-cornering, the race is on to become the number one man in all of NASCAR in a full throttle comedy starring Will Ferrell and directed by Anchorman cohort Adam McKay. Ricky Bobby (Ferrell) is a national hero with a "smokin' hot" trophy wife, pair of borderline-abusively precocious sons, and an endless line of endorsement deals filling his mansion with toys and driveway with sports cars and Hummers. His racing partner and lifelong friend Cal Naughton, Jr. (John C. Reilly), never fails to provide him with a hand on the racetrack, frequently performing their trademark "slingshot" maneuver to shoot Ricky into first place, leaving Cal in second. While the public loves these buddies (popularly known by the meaningless childhood nicknames they find so exceedingly cool: "Shake and Bake"), a wedge comes between the two, as Ricky Bobby's longstanding winning-streak is broken by flamboyand French Formula One driver Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen), robbing Ricky of everything in an instant as the trauma leaves him unable to drive. Ricky's wife takes his fortunes while Cal takes his wife, and now he's back with his mother (Jane Lynch) and long-estranged father (Gary Cole). Things look bad for Ricky, but his father was once a race car driver himself, and now with the help of a training montage, a live cougar, and the courage to drive without his gleaming white Wonder Bread endorsement, Ricky might be ready to face the track again.

Endless Love

With the single-minded passion of young, first love, 17-year-old David and Jade are totally consumed by their feelings for each other. As Jade and David's relationship becomes more intense, however, it begins to take its toll on the 15-year-old high school girl.

Big Daddy

Prospective parents everywhere, meet the world's least likely paternal role model: Adam Sandler! In Big Daddy, Sandler plays 30-year-old bachelor Sonny Koufax, a carefree slob who has never much taken to adult responsibilities; he works one day a week as a tollbooth collector, and spends the remainder of his time living off of a $200,000 reward he collected from an auto accident. All told, the life suits him just fine. However, as his old buddies start getting married and drifting away, Sonny realizes that if he doesn't do something soon, he could end up all alone for the rest of his life. When his most recent girlfriend, Vanessa (Kristy Swanson), indicates that she needs some time off because she's sick of being with a man who can't act like a grown-up, he decides that it's time to take drastic action to win her back. Conveniently enough, a little boy named Julian (Cole Sprouse and Dylan Sprouse) turns up on his doorstep, claiming that he's the biological son of Sonny's roommate and friend from law school, Kevin (Jon Stewart). 

The Freshman

In this farcical comedy, Matthew Broderick plays Clark Kellogg, an aspiring director who arrives in New York City to attend film school. However, moments after he arrives in the city, he's robbed by Victor Ray (Bruno Kirby), leaving him no money for the $700 in books required by his instructor, Arthur Fleeber (Paul Benedict). A few days later, Clark runs into Victor and demands his money back, but Victor has already lost it (on a horse race in which he wasn't entirely sure the animal he bet on was a horse). Instead, he offers to fix Clark up with a job with his boss, an "importer and exporter" named Carmone Sabatini (Marlon Brando), who bears a stunning resemblance to Don Corleone in The Godfather. Clark's adventures with Sabatini are just beginning when he's instructed to pick up a package from the airport. Clark is expecting it to be contraband, and he's right, but not in the way he figured -- it turns out he's accepting delivery of a komodo dragon, which is to be served at a "gourmet club" specializing in dishes prepared from endangered species. Marlon Brando's hilarious comic variation on one of his best-known roles is the highlight of this film, but Bruno Kirby and Paul Benedict also deliver fine comic turns, and Matthew Broderick

The Scarlet Letter (1934 Version)

Previously filmed with Lillian Gish in 1926, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter was given a remarkably faithful treatment by low-budget Majestic Pictures in 1934. In her last film appearance, Colleen Moore stars as 17th-century Salem resident Hester Prynne, who when she delivers a child out of wedlock is forced by the prudish townspeople to wear the scarlet "A" for adultery. The father of the baby is none other than Reverend Dimmesdale (Hardie Albright), who wants to confess to his indiscretion but is prohibited from doing so by the pious Hester. Things come to a sorry pass when Hester's long-missing husband Roger Chillingworth (Henry B. Walthall, repeating his role from the 1926 version) returns to Salem and demands a few immediate answers. The film's colonial-era milieu is not always realized, due to inconsistent period costumes and phraseology; also, the direction and acting ranges from adequate to stilted. Still, this Scarlet Letter is a lot more worthwhile than Demi Moore's vanity remake of 1995.

Donny Brasco

This drama about an undercover cop who learns the hidden dangers of working his way inside the mob was based on a true story. Joe Pistone (Johnny Depp) is an FBI agent who is given an assignment to infiltrate the Mafia; calling himself Donnie Brasco, he befriends Lefty Ruggiero (Al Pacino), a low-level mob hit man whose personal life is in tatters. Lefty's marriage is falling apart, his son is a junkie, and his health is failing, which only adds to his growing disillusionment about having spent 30 years with the Mafia (and killing 26 people) with little to show for it. But in Donnie, Lefty sees someone who can succeed where he failed; he takes the young man under his wing, and under Lefty's tutelage Donnie quickly rises through the ranks of organized crime; however, the longer he plays the role of the gangster, the more Joe Pistone finds himself becoming Donnie Brasco in his increasingly rare off hours; it drives a wedge between himself and his wife (Anne Heche) and children, and Joe realizes that a break in character among the hoodlums he's come to know could mean a death sentence for himself and his family. Just as importantly, Joe has come to regard Lefty as a close and trusted friend, and Joe realizes that when the day comes where he has to turn in his Mob associates, he'll be ending Lefty's life as surely as if he put a slug in his head himself. The supporting cast includes Michael Madsen as Sonny, Lefty's boss, and Bruno Kirby as Nicky, one of Sonny's henchmen. The real-life Joe Pistone today lives under an assumed name with a 500,000-dollar contract on his life still in effect.

The Little Princess

Shirley Temple's first Technicolor feature, The Little Princess was inspired by the oft-filmed novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Set in turn-of-the-century England, the film finds Temple being enrolled in a boarding school by her wealthy widowed father (Ian Hunter), who must head off to fight in the Boer War. At first, Temple is treated like royalty; her behavior couldn't be more down to earth, but this preferential treatment foments resentment. When her father is reported killed in the war, circumstances are severely altered. The spiteful headmistress (Mary Nash) relegates Temple to servant status and forces the girl to sleep in a drafty attic. She keeps her spirits up by hoping against hope that her father will return, and to that end she haunts the corridors of a nearby military hospital. Queen Victoria doesn't have to make a guest appearance in the tearfully joyous closing sequence, but it does serve as icing on the cake to this, one of Temple's most enjoyable feature films. Reliable Shirley Temple flick supporting actors Cesar Romero and Arthur Treacher are back in harness in The Little Princess, while adult leading lady Anita Louise figures prominently in a sugary dream sequence.





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