Movies with a bite.
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”
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”
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”
You guys, he really, really wants to be one! It’s all he wants for Christmas! PLEASE let Jake G be a Movie Star!
Here’s the thing. The industry has been trying for a decade to make Jake G a Movie Star and so far, general audiences aren’t having it. I’m going to say, they’ll never have it. Something is missing in the Jake G equation that would translate to him being a big Movie Star. I’m not sure what that thing is—he’s talented, handsome, charismatic, a reliable worker and good promoter. From the perspective of the people who have to sell him, it should be a no-brainer. He’s a joy to work with on set and off—good luck finding a negative Jake G story (that weirdness with Taylor Swift last year aside). The people who work with him, like him, across the board. I’ve seen Jake G in action myself. Actors like him—genuinely nice guys with good senses of humor and a solid work ethic—don’t happen every day.Continue reading “WHY WON’T YOU LET JAKE GYLLENHAAL BE A MOVIE STAR?”
Characters
You may choose one of five characters for the game. Additional characters include CREEPY STEPFATHER, PSYCHIATRIST/MAMA WHORE, BLUE, THE COOK, THE MAYOR, THE HIGHROLLER and THE WISE MAN. The characters you can choose from are:
BABY DOLL: Skills include sword fighting, marksmanship, hand-to-hand combat and she possesses the Magic Pussy of Hypnosis.
ROCKET: Skills include heavy artillery capabilities and hand-to-hand combat.
SWEET PEA: Skills include marksmanship, hand-to-hand combat and she is a strategy master.
BLONDIE: Skills include hand-to-hand combat and general uselessness.
AMBER: Skills include avionics, communications and Token Minority-ism.Continue reading “Sucker Punch should have been a videogame”
I went into Paul wanting to love it so much. Previous Nick Frost/Simon Pegg collaborations Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are among my favorite movies of the last ten years and who doesn’t love Spaced? I also love director Greg Mottola (Superbad, Adventureland), a guy who has the ability to slide between raunchy and heartfelt emotion in the span of five minutes. Filmmakers like Mottola are increasingly rare—genuinely funny people with a touch of sensitivity who also know how to frame a shot. And I don’t hate Seth Rogen as much as everyone else, especially when I’m only dealing with his voice, so the alien Paul didn’t ever come to annoy me. Yet for all that, I didn’t leave the theater loving Paul as much as I wanted to.Continue reading “To nerds, with love”
I have been seeing some terrible movies lately, but March brings the European Union Film Festival to the Gene Siskel Center in Chicago. I’m now halfway through my program of six films at EUFF (I started with Sweden’s Behind Blue Skies). This is my first time dealing with this festival and while I really like the slate of films (there are sixty-four so tons of options) and that the fest is spread out throughout the month, I would definitely recommend buying all your tickets in advance if you ever feel like hitting up the EUFF. I got mine all at once and have avoided standing in the ludicrous box office lines. The Siskel Center is a bit cramped on lobby space so it can get kind of uncomfortable when the box office line is long and people are waiting to get into a screening, too. Tickets in advance, that’s the key. More dual reviews!Continue reading “Cleansing my palate”
Cinesnark