links:
- Eric reviews This is the End which I cannot wait to see.
- Nikhat wrote a very fun post where she compares Sherlock and Elementary
- Elena reviews The Great Gatsby which comparing to that The Wolf of Wall Street trailer seems like less flamboyant gig for Leo.
- Brittani wrote a fantastic wishlist for season 4 of Game of Thrones
- m.brown reviews hilarious Get him to the Greek
- Chris enjoyed terrific Headhunters
- Josh reviews Before Midnight
- Sofia looks at the beautiful visual side of A Single Man
- Courtney reviews anticipated The Bling Ring
- Alex looks at the best roles of James Gandolfini
- Keith asks about your favorite underrated actors
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Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel I can't go through another one of these terrible times and I shant recover this time. I begin to hear voices and can't concentrate so I am doing what seems to be the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I know that I am spoiling your life and without me you could work and you will, I know. You see I can't even write this properly. What I want to say is that I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. Everything is gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. Virginia 
There's always one - one performance in acclaimed movie that is worthy of award love and recognition, yet somehow it goes to everyone else. The recent example includes Bryce Dallas Howard in The Help, but Dillane is even a better evidence of that - The Hours went on to get 3 Oscar nominations for its actors, but some of the fine performances there went unnoticed, Dillane's being the best one among those.
There are several really showy moments in the film - I don't mean it in a bad way, but those were the kinds of moments that are shocking, loud, not easy to forget. We have the outburst of Meryl Streep in the kitchen, Kidman yelling on the train station, Ed Harris throwing himself out of the window. Yet my favorite acting moment of the entire movie is Dillane's quiet sadness, grief and finally acceptance in aforementioned train station sequence.
You can see him clearly battling with decision - his wife is not well and she is not fit to decide what will be better for her in the long run. But he sees her unhappiness and it hurts him. It is a choice between keeping her safe and in anguish and making her happy and fearing losing her on daily basis. But since he loves her so much he agrees to go.
As wonderful as the performances of the actresses were here, I don't think they would work nearly as well without the fine actors helping them build their characters, show the incredible range of emotions and put everything in perspective. Would Streep create such an amazing work without Ed Harris? Would Julianne Moore's sadness be portrayed so incredibly without John C. Reilly's joy in the contrast? Would Kidman create her Academy Award winning performance so well without Dillane? I'm convinced the answer to those questions is no. 
In the immortal words of legendary Aldous Snow from Forgetting Sarah Marshal - "Awful bloody movie". I was left with a number of reflections other than this one as soon as the end credits of the new Superman movie Man of Steel came up on screen - how the hell can a movie with Henry Cavill 1. shirtless 2. in a tight suit be so dull? How in the world Adams and Cavill had zero chemistry? Why did they make Diane Lane look like a homeless person? But among those questions there was also one request - don't ever let Zack Snyder direct a movie again.
Let's start with the romance. Watching Amy Adams and Henry Cavill together was like staring at two siblings who don't even like each other's company. How the hell did that happen? I imagine when Cavill enters a room women's panties just fly off and start circling the Earth from the sheer excitement. As for Adams she is just lovable. Still, I was relieved when these two kissed because a superhero movie without a kiss would be too odd for me to handle. However the kiss just came off so awkward. I have to blame Snyder here because these two are much better and capable than that and he directed their scenes so poorly any chemistry died because of his meddling.
But all of those would have made for somewhat enjoyable movie if the story was interesting. But it's not. We open with ridiculously long (20 minutes!) sequence on Krypton which is filled with people who look like just escaped from Phantom Manace and some sort of space dinosaurs randomly running and flying around in the background. I knew right then that this is not a good sign.
But it's the twister scene that takes the prize. Oh, sweet baby Jesus. Several scenes before that moment we see Clark as a teenage boy pushing the bus from the bottom of the river, with kids seeing what he does and even the mother of one of them visiting the Kents to talk to them about it. But when years later the Kents drive right into tornado (!!!!) papa Kent gesticulates to Clark not to save him because "God forbid people realize who he is". What the hell have I just watch?
As enjoyable as hearing Henry Cavill say the words "I can do things other people can't" to Amy Adams was, I really didn't like that they altered the first meeting of Lois and Clark. The charming and fun part of these type of movies is that the main chick falls both for the ordinary guy and the hero he is underneath. Here it's completely lost but maybe it's good because to see those two lack chemistry in two relationships would be even more terrible to witness.
Don't know the family history? Russel is there to help you. Don't know how to fly the ship? Russel is there to help you. The chick you hope to score with is falling out of the ship? Russel actually did tell her to get into capsule hence she is falling in the first place but never fear - he will deliver some soapy lines and send you after her. After all she is just approaching the planet with super-speed but there is time for chit chat and cool slow-mo shot of Superman spinning before he launches after her.
I have to give the props to Crowe, though, because he managed to do a good job even if every single situation we see him in was like straight from parody movie. Laurence Fishbourne is also doing well as Lois Lane's editor as does Chrisopher Meloni as one of the military guys - up until now I only knew this guy as one of the very few bright points of True Blood season 5.
Anyways, as I said, just terrific casting there. He is able to create really likable and not dull hero, who you can see has a very good heart and bravery, not only because he knows he can beat anyone, but even if he couldn't he would try to stand up for others and help them. And then there is eye candy element of it all - there were loud gasps of disappointment from female audience when he found a shirt and wore it.
I am bitching a lot about this movie, but it's probably because there were literally 3 scenes I liked. Two scenes where Superman catches Lois and they are flying together - even if it was bit too CGI loaded and lacked certain kind of magic, let's face it, ladies - we would risk jumping off the building if there was a chance this guy would catch us. And then the last 5 minutes of the film were really fantastic - if the whole movie was like that it would be great. Those last minutes were lighter in tone, fun and had heart. Something 115 previous minutes lacked.
But my favorite part of Man of Steel, other than Cavill just walking around and you know, being on screen, was Hans Zimmer's masterful score. This guy should score every movie out there. Not only did he gave us incredible and original Batman theme for Nolan's movies, he now gave us wonderful Superman theme. Hell, there is this 28-minute long track on score which is one of the most amazing things I've ever heard and is MUCH better than actual movie. The score for this movie is so fantastic If I were on Zimmer's place I'd send Snyder a box with dog poo in it for using my awesome music in such a movie.
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6 friends. One house. A party. A milky way. Apocalypse.
Jay Baruchel comes to LA to party with his good friend Seth Rogen. Rogen suggests they go to James Franco's house for a party that is happening there. When they arrive they are greeted by Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson and many other celebrities attending the party. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a huge hole appears in Franco's front yard and consumes most of his celebrity guests leaving Franco, Rogen, Robinson, Baruchel and Hill in the house.
If they played some invented characters it would still be fun, but the fact we are watching these actors essentially being themselves, having seen them in so many of their movies, only makes the film more entertaining. I mean come on - Michael Cera playing some character that is doing shit he does in this movie would still be funny, but given that it is Cera who you imagine is really shy and sweet in real life, this joke goes from funny to laugh-out-loud hilarious.
Though the film is a straight-up comedy and it features a lot of dick, urine and "rapey vibe" jokes, there are actually really clever bits thrown in - each of the guys represents one of the deadly sins, so it's not like the movie was completely lazy and they just threw random stuff in. There are many fun references too - not only to the movies these guys appeared in but also to the films like Armageddon, Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist.
Some of the movie's best lines come from this hatred they have for each other and it was just hilarious. I haven't seen McBride in lots of movies but he was so funny here and he almost stole the show, but nobody really managed to do that because everyone was really great. Baruchel has the worst job as he has to play the decent person in all of this and Rogen visibly has trouble not to laugh many times during his scenes, but other than that I really can't complain about their acting.
I adore Jonah Hill. Even if his movies are occasionally terrible, this guy always makes me laugh. Not just in his films - whenever I catch interviews with him in talk shows, I'm laughing like crazy. Hill is so funny here and he has some of the best lines in the movie. The fact he is an Academy Award nominated actor also gets some time devoted to it - "Hello, God. It's me. Jonah Hill. From Moneyball". Also it's simply priceless that in This is the End you get to see one Academy Award nominated actor chewing up milky way and spitting it into the mouth of another Academy Award nominated actor. You know, baby-bird style.
The cameos are so fun to spot that it is actually one of the many reasons to go back to this movie. Rogen said there is one split-second long cameo that nobody was able to spot yet. Some people who watched the movie said they saw Nicolas Cage, others say they spotted Miley Cyrus. I still have no idea who the secret cameo was so if you do, please let me know!
The rapport between these guys is so awesome it really makes this movie into something special. I really don't mind this new trend in comedy filled with weed, dick jokes and drugs because these guys make it funny. You can really see that they had fun making that movie - I love the story Jonah Hill shared on Conan recently - that in one particularly memorable scene he got really uncomfortable and he said to Rogen he won't do it unless it's Rogen in the costume, since he really trusts him. This is what friendship is. Trusting your friends enough to shot a freaking Rosemary's Baby rapey vibe scene.
If they do an adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey
Usually I come up with ideas for these fine posts myself, but once something is pointed out to me and makes me go "that's right" it would be a shame not to use it. Some time ago, Chris of 
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Underrated actresses. I bet every one of you could name at least 5 women who for you fit that category. But as I'm currently rewatching Rome and I'm, practically at any given month, rewatching Game of Thrones, I decided to create a sub-category - underrated TV actresses.
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Game of Thrones and Rome. Both excellent series from HBO, both highly expensive with huge ensemble casts and intricate and astonishing scale of production. But there are even more similarities between the two.
And finally, because I couldn't help myself:
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Let me say this upfront - I don't mind silly movies. Just few days ago I had a great time watching Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy in The Heat. It was dumb, but at least it wasn't boring. This is pretty much the minimum I ask of summer film - to entertain. So when I was checking my text messages during Pacific Rim, I knew that it failed for me.
The plot is simple - one day monsters called Kaiju emerge from the sea and attack humans. Humans build big robots - Jaegers, to retaliate. The robots are controlled by two pilots, located inside them. The pilots have special helmets and through them they have a bond of memories etc. For some time it works and the threat seems to be gone - humans win more and more battles. And then Kajiu attack again.
Charlie Hunnan is not much better and it only takes you few episodes of Sons of Anarchy to realize this one is not much of a leading man material as it's very easy for others to steal his thunder. Well, there is not much of thunder to steal in the first place. Anyways, these two are supposed to have a bond which basically makes them better at fighting monsters - the stronger the bond, the better they do. Well, then it's a wonder their robot didn't fall on its ass and powered down immediately after it left the base, because I saw no chemistry there.
I have to say that the best performance in the movie was given by a little girl who played younger Mako in a flashback. Comparing to her most of the cast sucked. That flashback scene was actually the best part of the movie - this right there is what the movie should have been. Idris Elba's character finding that girl and being the film's lead. Especially, seeing how that relationship was the only believable and well established thing in the whole film. And how his character was the only interesting one and charismatic enough to keep you watching. That flashback scene was also the only moment in the whole film to have genuine emotions.
The film has spectacular visual effects and fantastic score from Ramin Djawadi. The fights between the monsters and robots are very well done and many times I had this thought which I always have when I watch a movie with awesome visual effects "how did they even manage to do that?!". That said the designs aren't very imaginative - Kaiju look quite boring and not especially terrifying.
Alright here come spoilers. They have Idris Elba's character blow himself up for humanity. AGAIN. When they started talking about detonating the reactor I was half-asleep but I awoke in terror and I said "what? AGAIN?!". It was like I moved back in time to a year ago when I was watching Prometheus (a much, much better movie in every conceivable way). All Elba was missing was a baseball cap and "HANDS UPPPPP!".
Pacific Rim is silly and boring and despite its impressive visual side and special effects it's really not worth your time. I have yet to see a good blockbuster film this year.
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I remember siting in the theatre more than a decade ago (God, I'm so freaking old...) and watching The Others. During one particularly intense jump scare, when the medium found the kids hiding in the closet, a woman who was sitting in the row few seats away from me jumped so high her popcorn fell out of the bucket. When I saw The Conjuring a woman in my row was weeping actual tears. It happened during the finale of the film and I'm not sure why it was, out of fear or because what was on the screen was so intense.
It's hard to approach all the things one may think about when seeing The Conjuring because of the whole real/fictional combo. Some elements of it are indisputably real - the existence of those characters we see, of the house (which still exists and is actually inhabited as I write these words), of the person who is the main villain in the film - there is evidence she did in fact exist. But as for the haunting, the possession, the spirits? We only have these people's words and stories and it's your choice whether to believe it or not. Either way, this is a damn fine movie.
The family sought the help of paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren. The couple made frequent trips to the house to investigate the phenomena. Lorraine, a medium, discovered that there was a lot of spirits in the house but the main spirit that was tormenting the family was of the woman called 
But Lorraine is not the only heroine of the story - we also have Carolyn Perron, who was the main victim of the haunting. She is played by Lili Taylor who is no stranger to the horror genre, having starred in The Haunting and the series Hemlock Grove. Taylor is a terrific actress who has taken on a number of interesting characters over the years (from Arizona Dream to Six Feet Under) and once again she brings in her A game here.
That guy mentioned something about being a descendant of a woman killed during what I'd like to call one of the many things representatives of the Catholic Church should apologize for, on their knees, while beginning for forgiveness. To back up such an opinion (especially as baseless and poorly researched) by example of tragedy that actually happened is despicable. Let me ask you this - if a person shot 100 random people, for no reason and one of those people turned out to be a rapist, pedophile, murderer who deserved to die would you say that the actions of that person were justified regarding all of those 100 people?
And let's dig deeper here. The woman was on trial and was found not guilty. In the real life she died an old woman. In the movie she hanged herself. Lorraine mentions something about woman proclaiming she loved Satan. Most of pagan religions don't even recognize the existence of Satan. Holes all over the place and that's all right because it's a movie, but when we have those hysterics looking for deeper meanings, movie cliches are starting to get turned in twisted messages. Never mind that whether or not some of the woman were "guilty" (if it is even possible) or not is beside the point - Salem witch trials was genocide, pure and simple. Those trials were illegal in every way, the accused had no means of defending themselves and the proceedings were based on pure, disgusting hatred.
Another charming claim I hear is that the film is pro-catholic. Well, wow. Lorraine and Ed are Catholics and they say it would be better if the five Perron children were baptized. That's it. And the one priest we see is your typical catholic priest who is not in hurry to help the family because "they are not members of the church" while Lorraine and Ed keep asking him to help.
While I'm always appalled by these caricatures of witches shown in all those horror films (worshipers of pagan religions are being continuously slandered by that, even if its not the intent) and I'm very much against Catholic Church as an institution, I have no problem whatsoever when the characters in the film are Catholics but they are good people. The Warrens didn't use their religion to preach hatred - they used their faith as the weapon against supernatural, evil forces and they saw past those things that one priest in the movie couldn't. They connected with the family they were helping which enabled them to win in the end.
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