catching up!
I saw a bunch of movies this week. Good thing too, because it is 100 damn degrees outside and my air conditioning sucks. Spoilers all in here.
Brave
Prominently features bears. Everything is worse with Mor'du. Merida kicks ass in a dress (nice) and her hair is amazing. Bunches of Scotsmen fighting is funny. Elinor smacking them down with the almighty hand of queenliness is epic. Song in possibly Scots Gaelic: nice. Merida's speech about arranged marriage and her potential suitors' subsequent reaction: cute. Bear!Elinor is also cute, and a most literal Mama Bear. The witch is a cool character, neither good nor bad, but she's only got the one spell to deal with every situation: turn people into bears. Merida's voice actress has skills. Maudie deserves that giant hunk o' man. Fergus and Hiccup's dad ought to meet. They'd tear up the place. Look at the title real close to see the easter egg.
Key point: Watches like a Scottish fairy tale (sometimes people get turned into bears. It happens).
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Benjamin Walker makes a cute Abraham Lincoln. Someone please tell me how old Dominic Cooper is, because he appears to be playing characters over a 20-year age range. Killing vampires with an ax looks really cool, but I feel that the excessively spinny ax spinning was excessive. Also how are you going to learn to explode a tree in the first act and then never use that again? Three cheers for old!Abe still killing vampires at 50. I have never seen a car chase done on horseback before, that's novel. Trains, steam engines in particular, make excellent backdrops for 3D action scenes. This movie would have been slightly better as a TV miniseries with a smaller budget, because 200 CGI horses look weird. Also weird are the make-up jobs on all the women: you're knocking me out of the story, guys, no one plucked their eyebrows like that in 186anything. And to save you the trouble I had, Mary Todd was Ramona in Scott Pilgrim.
Key point: The Underground Railroad wins at everything.
Snow White and the Huntsman
It's like Dude Killing Things With An Ax Part II but instead of being cute the dude is ridiculously hot. Shit Chris Hemsworth is handsome. Every full-length shot made me catch my breath. Kristin Stewart almost smiled once, I was impressed. She only totally failed at acting in two scenes: that one where Chris Hemsworth is like "soooo we're about to charge into a suicide battle and btw totes glad you're not dead" and she's like :|. Also the one at the end where she got crowned queen 'cause I'm just saying, if I became the supreme magic ruler of a country I'd try to have a facial expression about it. Nick Frost turns up as a dwarf. Charlize Theron is indeed very pretty. To save you the trouble I had, William is that doe-eyed priest guy from Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Also someone needs to tell him that a bow is a ranged weapon. If you're close enough to the bad guy to elbow him in the head when you draw, stop shooting arrows. I like that even though Snow White had two suitors, there was no onscreen bickering, jealousy or getting together. I like that there wasn't a lot of dialogue. But again with eyebrows: I don't believe that Vaguely Medieval Europe enjoyed all of our modern day plucking technology, and what's left of Kristin Stewart's eyebrows have been groomed to within half a standard deviation of absolute perfection.
Key point: I don't regret seeing this movie!
Rock of Ages
Turns out it's a musical, which I can get behind. Everyone does their own singing: Tom Cruise is passable, Diego Boneta's eyebrows are impressive, and if Julianne Hough had been around in 1958, Ross Bagdasarian Sr. wouldn't have had to futz with a tape recorder (she sounds like a chipmunk y'all, she's high-pitched). Speaking of Tom Cruise, I saw waaaaay more of his flesh than I ever, ever wanted to, but I stand by my statement of four years ago: dude's good at comedy (that scene with just his one finger and the pointing was hilarious). Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand were the best. I feel like a got an education in rock. To save you the trouble I had, the reporter Constance was Silk Spectre II in Watchmen. And okay, credits? you don't have to freeze frame and put up a caption telling me who Tom Cruise is and which character he played. Infant children living in yurts in Mongolia know who Tom Cruise is and I just spent two hours watching him parade around with no shirt while people yelled "Stacee!" at him. I know which one was Tom Cruise. I got this.
Key point:
Stacee Jaxx(on phone): Where's Constance!?
Rolling Stone Lackey: She's at the Bourbon in L.A. to cover Stacee Jaxx's first solo gig!
Stacee Jaxx: ....I have a gig tonight?
RSL: .......Are you Stacee Jaxx?
Stacee Jaxx: [leaves]
The Bourne Something. It has Jeremy Renner in it, nothing else matters. I guess it has Edward Norton and maybe a plot, but whatevs. Jeremy Renner is an even cuter and tinier assassin than Matt Damon!
Frankenweenie. Jesus H. Christ, I am sick of this trailer. Does anything happen after he resurrects the dog? Anything? I don't even care if it does, this trailer does not convince me to love an undead dog.
ParaNorman. I'm down with Norman. Definitely seeing this.
Katy Perry: Part of Me (3D). Oookaaaay..... well, I won't be seeing it. If someone goes, tell me how it was.
Ice Age: Continental Drift. Why are they on a pirate ship? Next they'll have bamboo computers and be trying to hack dinosaurs or some shit.
House At The End Of The Street. If you can only afford to rent a nice place because the house across the street is horrifically haunted by a crazy ghost, don't rent it. Jennifer Lawrence in a horror movie. Eh.
The Great Gastby. Who's surprised that Baz Luhrmann is directing this? I didn't think so.
Finding Nemo in 3D. I'll allow it.
Wreck-It Ralph. I will see this. The theater will be full of screaming five-year-olds misguidedly brought by parents thinking "hey, kids love video games circa 1990!", but I'll still see it.
The Hobbit. Hell yes. Is it just me, or does Martin Freeman get cuter every time you look at him?
Les Misérables. I'll see it just so I understand Roommates better. Plus it has Hugh Jackman, so yay.
Monsters University. This is the Monsters, Inc. characters in college. Who do they think will want to see this? Little kids don't give a damn about college. Don't tell me parents will want to relive their glory days with a PG-rated movie. This looks dumb.
Step Up Revolution: Fuck yes. Adam G. Sevani, bitches!
The Odd Life of Timothy Green. It looks a little inspirational for me. Nice scenery, though.
The Campaign. Nooooope!
Pitch Perfect. OH MY FUCKING GOD YOU GUYS, IT IS A MOVIE ABOUT A FUCKING A CAPPELLA GROUP OH MY GOD. A CAPPELLA MOVIE OMFG A CAPPELLA!
Brave
Prominently features bears. Everything is worse with Mor'du. Merida kicks ass in a dress (nice) and her hair is amazing. Bunches of Scotsmen fighting is funny. Elinor smacking them down with the almighty hand of queenliness is epic. Song in possibly Scots Gaelic: nice. Merida's speech about arranged marriage and her potential suitors' subsequent reaction: cute. Bear!Elinor is also cute, and a most literal Mama Bear. The witch is a cool character, neither good nor bad, but she's only got the one spell to deal with every situation: turn people into bears. Merida's voice actress has skills. Maudie deserves that giant hunk o' man. Fergus and Hiccup's dad ought to meet. They'd tear up the place. Look at the title real close to see the easter egg.
Key point: Watches like a Scottish fairy tale (sometimes people get turned into bears. It happens).
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Benjamin Walker makes a cute Abraham Lincoln. Someone please tell me how old Dominic Cooper is, because he appears to be playing characters over a 20-year age range. Killing vampires with an ax looks really cool, but I feel that the excessively spinny ax spinning was excessive. Also how are you going to learn to explode a tree in the first act and then never use that again? Three cheers for old!Abe still killing vampires at 50. I have never seen a car chase done on horseback before, that's novel. Trains, steam engines in particular, make excellent backdrops for 3D action scenes. This movie would have been slightly better as a TV miniseries with a smaller budget, because 200 CGI horses look weird. Also weird are the make-up jobs on all the women: you're knocking me out of the story, guys, no one plucked their eyebrows like that in 186anything. And to save you the trouble I had, Mary Todd was Ramona in Scott Pilgrim.
Key point: The Underground Railroad wins at everything.
Snow White and the Huntsman
It's like Dude Killing Things With An Ax Part II but instead of being cute the dude is ridiculously hot. Shit Chris Hemsworth is handsome. Every full-length shot made me catch my breath. Kristin Stewart almost smiled once, I was impressed. She only totally failed at acting in two scenes: that one where Chris Hemsworth is like "soooo we're about to charge into a suicide battle and btw totes glad you're not dead" and she's like :|. Also the one at the end where she got crowned queen 'cause I'm just saying, if I became the supreme magic ruler of a country I'd try to have a facial expression about it. Nick Frost turns up as a dwarf. Charlize Theron is indeed very pretty. To save you the trouble I had, William is that doe-eyed priest guy from Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Also someone needs to tell him that a bow is a ranged weapon. If you're close enough to the bad guy to elbow him in the head when you draw, stop shooting arrows. I like that even though Snow White had two suitors, there was no onscreen bickering, jealousy or getting together. I like that there wasn't a lot of dialogue. But again with eyebrows: I don't believe that Vaguely Medieval Europe enjoyed all of our modern day plucking technology, and what's left of Kristin Stewart's eyebrows have been groomed to within half a standard deviation of absolute perfection.
Key point: I don't regret seeing this movie!
Rock of Ages
Turns out it's a musical, which I can get behind. Everyone does their own singing: Tom Cruise is passable, Diego Boneta's eyebrows are impressive, and if Julianne Hough had been around in 1958, Ross Bagdasarian Sr. wouldn't have had to futz with a tape recorder (she sounds like a chipmunk y'all, she's high-pitched). Speaking of Tom Cruise, I saw waaaaay more of his flesh than I ever, ever wanted to, but I stand by my statement of four years ago: dude's good at comedy (that scene with just his one finger and the pointing was hilarious). Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand were the best. I feel like a got an education in rock. To save you the trouble I had, the reporter Constance was Silk Spectre II in Watchmen. And okay, credits? you don't have to freeze frame and put up a caption telling me who Tom Cruise is and which character he played. Infant children living in yurts in Mongolia know who Tom Cruise is and I just spent two hours watching him parade around with no shirt while people yelled "Stacee!" at him. I know which one was Tom Cruise. I got this.
Key point:
Stacee Jaxx(on phone): Where's Constance!?
Rolling Stone Lackey: She's at the Bourbon in L.A. to cover Stacee Jaxx's first solo gig!
Stacee Jaxx: ....I have a gig tonight?
RSL: .......Are you Stacee Jaxx?
Stacee Jaxx: [leaves]
The Bourne Something. It has Jeremy Renner in it, nothing else matters. I guess it has Edward Norton and maybe a plot, but whatevs. Jeremy Renner is an even cuter and tinier assassin than Matt Damon!
Frankenweenie. Jesus H. Christ, I am sick of this trailer. Does anything happen after he resurrects the dog? Anything? I don't even care if it does, this trailer does not convince me to love an undead dog.
ParaNorman. I'm down with Norman. Definitely seeing this.
Katy Perry: Part of Me (3D). Oookaaaay..... well, I won't be seeing it. If someone goes, tell me how it was.
Ice Age: Continental Drift. Why are they on a pirate ship? Next they'll have bamboo computers and be trying to hack dinosaurs or some shit.
House At The End Of The Street. If you can only afford to rent a nice place because the house across the street is horrifically haunted by a crazy ghost, don't rent it. Jennifer Lawrence in a horror movie. Eh.
The Great Gastby. Who's surprised that Baz Luhrmann is directing this? I didn't think so.
Finding Nemo in 3D. I'll allow it.
Wreck-It Ralph. I will see this. The theater will be full of screaming five-year-olds misguidedly brought by parents thinking "hey, kids love video games circa 1990!", but I'll still see it.
The Hobbit. Hell yes. Is it just me, or does Martin Freeman get cuter every time you look at him?
Les Misérables. I'll see it just so I understand Roommates better. Plus it has Hugh Jackman, so yay.
Monsters University. This is the Monsters, Inc. characters in college. Who do they think will want to see this? Little kids don't give a damn about college. Don't tell me parents will want to relive their glory days with a PG-rated movie. This looks dumb.
Step Up Revolution: Fuck yes. Adam G. Sevani, bitches!
The Odd Life of Timothy Green. It looks a little inspirational for me. Nice scenery, though.
The Campaign. Nooooope!
Pitch Perfect. OH MY FUCKING GOD YOU GUYS, IT IS A MOVIE ABOUT A FUCKING A CAPPELLA GROUP OH MY GOD. A CAPPELLA MOVIE OMFG A CAPPELLA!