Category Archives: Movies

Super 8 is super great

I COULDN’T RESIST.

So Super 8 is a movie that didn’t reveal a ton of information through marketing, and no one involved with the production was saying much at all about it, which left everyone guessing what it would be like. Based on the marketing, it was drawing comparisons to ET, the little bit I could drag out of anyone connected to the film involved Stand By Me, but when I saw it last night, I thought it was most like the 1980’s best movie, The Goonies.Continue reading “Super 8 is super great”

X-Men: First Class – what good actors get you

First, I liveblogged the MTV Movie Awards last night with the ladies from LaineyGossip. You can read the transcript here if you scroll down to “Sunday”. I spent half the night defending Ryan Gosling and Kristen Stewart. Lainey recapped our KStew fight here. I need some support on this as I am alone in my opinion (on LaineyGossip, anyway) that Stewart is hardly a “problem starlet” just because she’s awkward in public. Also, the show was painfully boring and host Jason Sudeikis (SNL, Horrible Bosses) failed to deliver in any significant way. My host-vote for next year: Donald Glover, Mindy Kaling or Danny Pudi. Or Joel McHale? Discuss. My favorite part of the night was a pre-show bit with MTV entertainment guy Joshua Horowitz and James McAvoy. Goddamn that accent is sexy.Continue reading “X-Men: First Class – what good actors get you”

The Boys & Girls Club of Comedy

I heard it often. Always from men. Always said like it was some kind of big compliment.

“You’re funny like a dude.”

“You tell jokes like a man.”

I got this question more than any other, usually from women, often asked in a nervous tone.

“Is there really a difference between men and women’s sense of humor?”

My answer was always the same, delivered without hesitation and with complete confidence.

NO.Continue reading “The Boys & Girls Club of Comedy”

I hated the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie

I love pirates. I love everything about them. I love the inflated, cartoony fantasy life we create for them and I love the harsh unyielding misery of their actual seventeenth-century lives. I love the mystery of lost treasure and ships, and the possibility of finding those ships (is this really the Queen Anne’s Revenge?). I seriously love pirates. So much, it’s not something I often share with others, like the zombie thing. That’s fun and whatever. Pirates are a serious hobby for me (…cripes I need more friends, don’t I?).Continue reading “I hated the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie”

Water for Elephants is not awful

Let me save some of you some time…

U FUCKING BITCH TROLL UR JUST JEALOUZZ THAT ROB PATTINSON IS SUCCESSFUL AND U LIVE IN UR MOM’S BASEMENT!!!11!!!1! UR PROBABLY FAT AND UGLY AND OLD AND HAVE NO FRIENDS SO U HATE ON ROB BECUZ EVERYONE LUVS HIM!!!!!!! U THINK U KNOW EVERYTHING BUT U DON’T KNOW ANYTHING BECAUSE U ARE A LYING LIAR FAT OLD PERSON!!!1!

Feel free to copy and paste that in comments section below and save everyone some time.Continue reading “Water for Elephants is not awful”

Delighted and disappointed

It was an up and down weekend at the movies. One good movie, one disappointing one. Let’s start with the good.

Hanna

I’m historically divided on director Joe Wright. I loved his adaptation of Pride & Prejudice but I thought Atonement was really overrated. I’m happy to report that I really liked Hanna and so Joe Wright is officially a “director I don’t hate”. Hanna is a very stylish, very entertaining teenage assassin tale—a more realistic Hit Girl, if you will. Irish actress Saoirse Ronan kills it stone dead as Hanna, a wild-looking teen raised in the arctic wilderness by her father. Hanna’s dad, Erik (Eric Bana, Munich), is the ultimate Tiger Mother, educating Hanna in the killing arts with a ruthless efficiency that almost precludes filial love. Ronan is a young actress of extraordinary range—she’s probably going to be one of the few that not only crosses painlessly into adult fare but ends up defining a generation’s worth of actors. Just check out how she handles a bit of praise from Erik early in the film. Just the barest hint of a pleased smile flickers across her mouth before it settles back into its closed expression. It’s a really impressive moment.Continue reading “Delighted and disappointed”

The Trip is so worth it

I start this off by confessing that I’m a huge Steve Coogan (Tropic Thunder, The Other Guys) fan. Back in my comedy days, Coogan was a comedian all the other comedians knew. He’s not a traditional stand-up, but he’d been doing a character called Alan Partridge on various BBC shows and specials since the nineties. Everyone seemed to know Alan Partridge but me, so I made it my business to find out, and I ended up falling in love with Coogan’s comedy. He’s a genius. He can do anything. Hackey stuff like voices and impressions but also the really high-minded, long-con style jokes that only the smartest and best-prepared comedians can pull off. His one-liners are brutal and quick. Nothing is beyond his grasp. I actually screamed like a tween when he popped up in Around the World in 80 Days, opposite Jackie Chan. FINALLY, Steve Coogan was crossing the pond.Continue reading “The Trip is so worth it”