Posted in Trailer Impressions, tagged Megan Fox, Michael Bay, Shia Labeouf on April 30, 2009| Leave a Comment »
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This is my least favorite of the Transformers 2 trailers, but it still has me really excited for the movie. It’ll be fun getting my robot vs. robot fix on the big screen once again. Michael Bay’s films are meant for the theaters, and no matter what people say, he has talent when it comes to making great popcorn movies. This will definitely be one of those.
Posted in Trailer Impressions, tagged Channing Tatum, Dennis Quaid, Joseph Gordon-Levitt on April 30, 2009| Leave a Comment »
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“The French are pretty upset.” This preview made me laugh when it probably shouldn’t have… Yay for mindless fun and special effects.
Posted in Trailer Impressions, tagged Charlyne Yi, Michael Cera on April 29, 2009| Leave a Comment »
I’m definitely up for this. Charlyne Yi was hilarious in Knocked Up, and her lovable personality appears to connect with Michael Cera’s. From the preview alone, it looks like they create this quirky yet very real and gentle relationship.
Also, I’m glad Applebee’s and hot wings are getting some love. Little kids are so funny…and right.
Posted in Trailer Impressions, tagged Amy Adams, Meryl Streep on April 29, 2009| Leave a Comment »
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Meryl Streep is one of the greatest actresses ever, and Amy Adams is surely making her way to the top. Their powerfully executed combination in last year’s Doubt provided a great panorama of talent from both the past (Streep) and the future (Adams) of cinema.
Julie and Julia, however, just doesn’t really interest me. Not because of the talent at hand but because of the content. Nothing from the trailer grabbed me. Sorry. I think I’ll just pass on this one.
Posted in Trailer Impressions, tagged Pixar on April 25, 2009| Leave a Comment »
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Wow, this very short clip had both my jaw dropping and my heart melting. Beautiful animation and adorable kittens. Win. Very much a win.
Posted in Trailer Impressions, tagged Rob Zombie on April 24, 2009| Leave a Comment »
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*Sighs* While Rob Zombie’s Halloween reboot is ultimately striving for something new with its more deteriorated vision of Michael Myers, it’s really not doing anything different in terms of the horror itself. At least that’s what the trailer is telling me. I mean, how many times have we seen a bathroom scene where the mirror reveals the villain? Far too many. I never saw Zombie’s first Halloween so I can’t really say if he’s doing the franchise justice or not, but I know I didn’t like this trailer. Everything just looks stupid.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint on April 22, 2009| Leave a Comment »
For our enjoyment, a photo from shooting part 1 of The Deathly Hallows. Emma Watson looks so pretty, and Daniel Radcliffe looks kind of fucked up. Good old Ron seems…bewildered. Overall, a fairly funny picture.
Posted in Poster Impressions, tagged Alan Rickman, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson on April 19, 2009| 2 Comments »
Is it wrong of me to despise these posters? Because I do…I might get lynched for saying this, but I just find them all to be flamboyant and awkward. All four try to sell the movie as a mature, dark piece, but the posters just come off as cheesy.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Annette Benning, Chris Cooper, Kevin Spacey, Sam Mendes on April 19, 2009| Leave a Comment »
It’s been a while since I’ve seen this, but my thoughts are still the same. It’s wonderful, insightful, and pretty hysterical at times. Most of my praise goes to Sam Mendes, who creates this delicate suburbia for us to laugh at. The satirical insight into the life of Lester Burnham is both dramatic and comical; both surreal and real; both artificial and true. The camerawork subtly hints towards all these parallels with its slow pans and zooms, and the careful craft of lighting both reveals and hides things from the audience.
It’s a technically intricate piece that never really draws attention to itself, thus complimenting the film’s theme even more.
Posted in Movie Review, tagged David Kross, Kate Winslet, Movie Review, Ralph Fiennes, Stephen Daldry on April 17, 2009| 1 Comment »
So here it is. This is the movie that snuck into the Best Picture race, presumably ousting The Dark Knight, Wall-E, and The Wrestler from a slot. This film, while mixed among critics, is a darling of the Academy. The question is: why? Does it challenge the viewer in an aesthetic way? Are we moved by the characters and the stories they have to share? Is the film a new, unique piece of work?
The answer is no. The Reader is a very conventional film thaat can best be described as mediocore; there’s no substance to this movie that stands out from other works of 2008.
The main problem for me was the screenplay and direction. There was hardly any subtext; everything was blatantly shoved in our faces in such a simplistic nature, and even the director, Stephen Daldry, hammered this ideal during production. He decides to show and tell the audience something when he could’ve done one or the other. He was being redundant. For instance, Michael tells Hannah that he never thought he was good at anything. The very next scene is a short 20 second clip of him sucking as a goalie in handball. Yes, Mr. Daldry, we get it. Another example is seen during the start of Michael’s affair with Hannah; we’re shown a montage of him at school, and there’s a voiceover from a teacher lecturing about the idea of secrecy and its problems and fortunes. Again, the audience knows that this relationship between Michael and Hannah is inconspicuous and perhaps dangerous. To add to that, there were several short montages throughout the movie, and each of them unoriginally showed parallels among the two distanced lovers.
As I mentioned earlier, the screenplay didn’t work well with me; another reason for this was because of the dialogue. Again, there was no subtext, and some conversations were just not well written. Some were on the verge of a George Lucas piece of dialogue. The poor lines however were saved by the great acting, which was the highlight of the film (cinematography was pretty good too actually). Ralph Fiennes was very good, and his younger self, David Kross kept up with the big names. The one at the head of the movie was obviously Kate Winslet. Her relationship with David Kross was acted very well, but the foundation for those two characters wasn’t established at all. She did win the Academy Award for this picture, but does she deserve it? I will say no. I actually think she should have won for her role in Revolutionary Road.
People complained that this film was simply bait for the Oscars simply because it’s a Holocaust movie. I’m going to disagree with that; it never truly felt like one and I don’t think the movie was totally begging for an award. It was just not good. That’s all. I don’t think Stephen Daldry really had respect for his audience here. We easily could’ve understood everything without the mindless spoonfeeding.
5 out of 10
The Ender Play 