Your Face Pics Movies (Nick): Man on Wire

Film: Man on Wire
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

This is the ninth in a series of twelve movies selected by the guys at YourFace. This is Nick’s third pick.

As it happens, I’m putting up a review of Man on Wire about 10 days before the release of a biopic version of the same story. That wasn’t by design; it just happened that this is Nick’s month and the last film he’s suggested for me evidently has a Christmas theme, so I’m saving it for December. It’s a happy coincidence. This also happens to be the only of Nick’s four suggestions that isn’t an animated movie.

Man on Wire is the story of Philippe Petit, a French wire walker who conceived of the dream of walking between the two towers of the World Trade Center. According to the documentary, Petit first came up with this notion when he first heard of the towers before they were built. That may well be true, since it would appear that he fashioned his entire life based around the idea that he would someday walk on a high wire between the two buildings.

Your Face Picks Movies (Jason): Undefeatable

Film: Undefeatable
Format: Internet video on rockin’ flatscreen.

This is the seventh in a series of twelve films suggested by the guys at YourFace. This is Jason’s third pick.

When I took on watching movies picked by the Your Face crew I knew there would be movies that were more difficult than others. I won’t lie; I was more scared of Jason’s picks than of Nick’s or Nolahn’s. Jason and I operate in very different ends of the cinematic swimming pool. We both dredge up some rarities now and then, but that’s really where similarities stop. Where I concern myself with Oscar nominees, Jason tends to look more favorably on those films that are forgotten for a reason. So it is that Jason awarded me with Undefeatable. At less than 10 minutes in, I wondered exactly what I had done to make Jason this mad at me.

Undefeatable comes right in the heart of the career of Cynthia Rothrock, pint-sized cinematic asskicker who is long on martial arts skills and short on acting talent. That said, she’s Meryl Streep compared with the rest of this cast. Like plenty of martial arts films of the era, Undefeatable operates only because of a plot that absolutely defies description and believability. Seriously, I’ve watched some really dumb movies in my time, but Undefeatable has one of the dumbest premises ever.