Divergent

What is it with post-apocalyptic fantasy being the “it” thing these days? Hunger Games, Divergent, The Host…holy moly. Whatever happened to the classics? 1984, Brave New World, Lord of the Flies anyone? You don’t see Hollywood making those movies and they came first!

I suppose that’s neither here nor there.

Essentially, Divergent is another one of those so-super-popular-it’s-gotta-be-a-movie-now phenomena. Fandango’s synopsis says, “In a world where the population is divided into factions by personality types, Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley) is classified as Divergent. When she uncovers a conspiracy to eliminate all Divergents, she teams with the mysterious Four (Theo James) to find out what makes the powers-that-be so frightened of them.”

Just for kicks, let’s look at what Amazon’s book synopsis says, “Beatrice Prior's society is divided into five factions—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). Beatrice must choose between staying with her Abnegation family and transferring factions. Her choice will shock her community and herself. But the newly christened Tris also has a secret, one she's determined to keep hidden, because in this world, what makes you different makes you dangerous.”

I don’t know about you, but the book sounds better. Ah, the imagination-inept-visually-stimulated limitations of society.

I am going to struggle with comparing this to the book because I really enjoyed the book, so please, bear with me.

Standing by itself, Divergent was good: especially if you have never read the book. From a pretend world where I was not intrinsically frustrated with minor details that were super important to main plotlines in the book, I enjoyed the movie. I even really enjoyed some of the parts that they adapted specifically for the movie as they would have been less-than-entertaining if they had acted them out as written in the book (there’s a fight scene towards the end that is quite exciting, but definitely never happened in the book).

Shailene Woodley, who plays the main character, delivered a performance that was both more exciting and enthusiastic than anything Kristen Stewart (Twilight) ever performed but less talented than Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games).  I peg those two other actresses as comparison as they are all in movies based on teen-fiction-of-a-fantasy-genre-made-into-movies. In short, Woodley was mildly entertaining though not particularly memorable.

The storyline had enough entertainment to be fun and easy to follow, as it left out a lot of the more complicated elements of the book that will frustrate fans everywhere, but allows the movie to be more accessible to those who are not particularly interested in reading the trilogy. The writers did an excellent job of adapting the book into a format that will reach a broader audience than just the book. My biggest complaint in the adaptation is that it leaves out the greater questions that the book haphazardly poses about society that are reflected in books of similar tracks. Entertainment value aside, the questioning of current society is one of the big draws for that type of story.

Oh well.

It was a fun movie to see in theaters, especially if you’re familiar with the stories and can separate yourself from the misses in the storyline. Some of the daredevil moves executed by Woodley and her supporting actors definitely read better on the big screen, though not a lot would be lost in a smaller setting.

It’s a fun view overall, but not the end of the world if it simply makes it to your Netflix list.

Skyfall

What did you say your name was?

Bond.

James Bond.

I don't know about you but I really think that Daniel Craig is the best 007. He really takes the focus off of the "panty-droppin'" charisma of former Bonds. I mean, we know that Bond can get anyone he wants. Been there, done that, we know. I really feel that Craig (and his writers) make that point with subtle emphasis without it being sex sex sex all the time.

Tyler and I went and had a date-day last week that concluded with Skyfall.

In brief, the newest 007 movie in a lineup of greats begins with our very favorite: the chase scene. 007 is in Istanbul attempting to retrieve a hard drive of sensitive information that leads to an epic scene on top of a train and ends with a hard choice by M and a hard fall by Bond. Bond is believed dead and M is left to deal with the ramifications. Bond resurfaces when news of the information being leaked reaches the place where he has lain in semi-retirement, trying to drown his depression with a nice young lady (whose name we never learn) and lots of booze. He makes his way back to MI6, and the plot thickens as someone from M's past is discovered to be behind everything and Bond is sent on a mission to win the day.

Pretty standard James Bond.

What I love about Skyfall is that it reaches back into the past. In a day and age where the majority of action films are so full of CGI and special effects that the standard human eye has a hard time tracking what's happening and human effort doesn't really factor in any more (Transformers, anyone?), the subtlety, science fiction, and all-around cool factor of old school action movies is crushed under tons of explosions, screaming, and spinning movement.

Bond and M commiserate on how they're going to do the mission "old school" and show the world that just because they've been around the block doesn't mean they're "obsolete."

The Aston Marten DB5 with it's machine gun headlights and ejector seat make an appearance. Bond kicks it old school and makes it — in my book at least — one of the coolest action movies of the year, if not the decade.

Bond delivers as always with twists, turns, and drama. The acting stays strong and the plotline keeps you sane.

See it, but know that unlike times past, the big screen is not the only place you have to see it in order to get the full effect any more.

Though don't be old like Tyler, who as we were leaving the theater said to me, "You know, that was fun, but it would have been better if we'd been at home with the dog and cat and I could have worn my slippers."

Ciao,
kc

The Avengers

Tyler and I went and joined the bandwagon masses in seeing The Avengers on Saturday night.


And I do mean masses...when you're in the habit of behaving like an elderly married couple, you forget that Saturday night is a night that people actually go out. Between the parking in Old Mill District for the Tenacious D concert that was happening just over the hill in the amphitheater and the standard Saturday night hooligans, parking was interesting and so was the line for the movie theater. Ah, well.



The synopsis is as follows: "...The Super Hero team up of a lifetime, featuring iconic Marvel Super Heroes Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow. When an unexpected enemy emerges that threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, Director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins..."

 Does anyone else see an overloaded lineup as a recipe for mass confusion?


Every single one of these super heroes had their own movie...so now we're going to mash them all together and not expect them to be all overwhelming? Even on the big screen?


I'm sorry. Let's reverse.


Tyler and I went to see The Avengers on Saturday night. My expectations were understandably low, as (a) it's a Marvel movie and two out of every three Marvel movies are flops and (b) the preview was entirely pyrotechnical CGI. But it bid to be a decent movie for the big screen on a Saturday night.


Unfortunately, it held true to expectations.


When I go to see a movie, unless I am made clearly aware that it's a part of a series and I'm the idiot who saw number 3 before seeing numbers 1 and 2, I want the entire plot to be standalone. Self-sufficient. Fully internally supported. With Avengers, I spent most of the movie thinking to myself that clearly, I missed something and had been expected to shell out to see all of the other supposedly standalone Marvel movies featuring the characters listed above in order to make heads or tails of certain plot insinuations, relationships and where the hell the villain Loki came from and why the hell aliens are invading the planet using a scifi thingamajig that came from an unknown place.


Because again, I didn't see any of the other movies.


Well, that's not true, I saw Ironman, both of them, so I know who Robert Downey, Jr.'s character is and his relationship with Scarlett Johanssen's character (Black Widow). But the Black Widow's relationship with Hawkeye is only sort of kind of explained in a backwards itty bitty sorta way, and who really knows where everyone else came from. And when did Super Heroes suddenly become involved with Norse demi-gods (Thor and Loki) one of which has some unexplained, random vendetta against the planet and brings unexplained aliens to conquer it?


So issue one, to review, is that the plot makes no sense.


You know what? I'm going to stop with that. Most everything else was decent. It was midly funny, Ironman took the cake for coolest and pretty much stole the spotlight in true Tony Stark style. Which is good, because he carried the movie. But no matter.


We're moving on. If you've seen The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Iron Man 1 & 2, and whatever movie features the Black Widow and Hawkeye, then you'll love The Avengers. If you haven't, you should probably catch up on those before you catch the flick.

Footloose 2011

I have a staunch dislike for remakes of perfectly good classics for the most part. There is always room to be pleasantly surprised in that area, however rarely that it occurs.  Take for instance, the iconic classic of Kevin Bacon in the original Footloose. I can never watch a movie with him in it without recalling the David Bowie tie and poorly crafted accent, not to mention the infamous dance and his revolution that he brought to the town of Bomont.

 I am aware that this review is late in the making, but it took me a while to build up the courage to watch the remake of such a timeless movie. Well...timeless for girls like me who love their dancing!

Like the original, the movie was light on plot, wary of acting talent, but heavy on the dancing. The makers tried to bring the movie into an era where teenagers were no longer conceived in the 80s, pumping the music but keeping some things true to form and old school.  For instance, what teenybopper of this day and age actually knows what a drive in movie theater is? Or would recognize the movie's first big dance scene (outside of the intro, that is) as being at that particular location? But that's besides the point. Perhaps they were trying to make the movie accessible both to new lovers of the movie and to the old. Who knows.

Other than the Kenny Wormald's abysmal accent that tended more Aussie than Bostonian (I mean really, Ben Affleck did a better job at a Boston accent), and Julianne Hough's poor timing, the only shining acting was from vet Dennis Quaid. But a lot can be said for an actor who was willing to delve into so many different projects, even if most were flops, an actor who can work with original CGI elements like he did in Dragonheart must be up to snuff. 

Luckily the movie had a couple good one-liners (most notably, "it's line dancing...it's a white man's wet dream" and "I think its sexier than socks on a rooster") and of course, the dancing and the music of Kenny Loggins to make up for the lack of everything else.

I suppose though, the original was probably also lacking in those areas, only it's iconic cult following has made it memorable and somehow always better.

The Hunger Games

This was something I meant to write weeks ago, which didn't happen of course, because of my hectic life. But The Hunger Games is the phenomenon de jour, much like Twilight, but thankfully eclipsing that poorly-written, poorly-acted slosh.

I faced the book itself with a great deal of trepidation, as it came highly recommended by one of the most obnoxious people I know and it had been splashed across Facebook for weeks. I miss the days when I was less busy and was able to pick up a book and read it and then feel smug because it became  phenomena after my discovery. Gone are those days.

Much to my chagrin, I loved the books. I adored them. I finished the first two in a day apiece, though the third took a little longer. The Hunger Games is Orwell's Big Brother of 1984 meets the overwhelming self-indulgence of Huxley's Brave New World, twisted with the dark psychology of Lord of the Flies. All of my favorite, well-worded classics rolled into one twisted, but striking trilogy.

As my friend Jamie said, "You have to wonder about an author who dreams up children murdering each other."

And on to the movie:

As with all movies-made-from-books, my wariness was astronomical. The only movie I have encountered that is most of the way as good as the movie would be White Oleander. That and any movie boasting a male starlet who has the poor taste to be kept by Miley Cyrus (Liam Helmsworth) and an unknown like Jennifer Lawrence, mixed in with the odd scramble of Stanley Tucci, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks and Lenny Kravitz is something to be moderately cautious of.

At least it didn't have Kristen Stewart in it. Watching her mono-face another entire movie would be...well, I'd have to do something drastic.

Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised. Most of the movie was excellent, well-performed and well-timed. It stayed true to the storyline, with only one or two moderate tweaks and turned the internal dialogue that helped Katniss Everdeen explain her world in the book into an eye in the background of the Games themselves. It gave it an unexpected twist that happily added to the movie rather than distracting from it.

The actors all had excellent timing and only a few flailed with their acting -- no more than could be expected though.

My only complaint -- and unfortunately this is a major one -- is that they took the Blair Witch-reality TV take to some of the filming. Jerky, blurry, shaky. On the big screen, for someone prone to motion-sickness it was so not fun. I mean, I understand the purpose: it was to show the overwhelming emotion/action of the scenes in a way that regular filming may not have, but I feel that there could have been a better way to do it.

It is truly a movie for the big screens though.

It makes you feel like you are one of those fops from the Capitol, watching the drama of the Games unfold before you.

Three and a half out of five stars.

Horrible Bosses

These posters really sum up the bosses in this movie, which make it awesome.

Horrible Bosses is about three friends who conspire to murder their bosses — a la Strangers on a Train —when they realize that the bosses are standing in the way of their happiness. "For Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and Dale (Charlie Day), the only thing that would make the daily grind more tolerable would be to grind their intolerable bosses (Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell, Jennifer Aniston) into dust. Quitting is not an option, so, with the benefit of a few-too-many drinks and some dubious advice from a hustling ex-con (Jamie Foxx), the three friends devise a convoluted and seemingly foolproof plan to rid themselves of their respective employers... permanently."

First of all, just let me say that I never pictured Jennifer Aniston breaking out of her "gorgeous girl-next-door, Rachel from Friends" generic roles. Never ever ever. Not in a million years. She is fantastic as an oversexed, boundary pushing, sexually harassing female boss. Rachel is a thing of the past, you won't even recognize the Aniston in this movie.

Also in an astonishing (though somehow fitting) role is Colin Farrell as a balding, coke-snorting asshole who inherits the business and becomes the boss for no better reason than daddy didn't think he'd be dying that soon. Oops. Tool-dom, however, is not beyond Farrell's grasp and is definitely a fitting persona where his usual tough-guy pretty boy is not. The bald, however, I could have done without.

The storyline is clever but bland, full of hijinks and mishaps as the three friends (Bateman, Sudeikis and Day) contract a "murder consultant" (a heavily tatooed Foxx) who demands major moolah, is a terrible negotiator and is eventually revealed to be a media pirate rather than the cold, hard killer he presented himself as.

Smattered with choice actors in surprising roles, silly twists, and the unlikely help of a GPS customer service agent, Horrible Bosses is definitely a must-see. As one critic put it, "Overall Horrible Bosses makes more right steps than wrong ones. The film's willingness to go to some truly dark places for a laugh combined with a cast more than willing to tag along for the ride keeps everything funny if not always on target."

Yours,
The Movie-ist

No Strings Attached

With No Strings Attached there were two factors that had it striking out before we even went to see it, but the promise of "date night" with my boyfriend and deciding between it and True Grit had it the winner for the night.

Factor one: Aston Kutcher.

Four words: Dude, Where's My Car? Kutcher has never been a superb actor. In fact, he usually falls annoyingly flat. Luckily, he plays the sap much better than he's ever played the dude. He's the chaser in this rom-com with some not-so-cliche moves — like presenting Portman's character, Emma, with a bouquet of carrots after she's said, "No flowers."

Factor two: The synoposis
In this comedy, Emma (Natalie Portman) and Adam (Ashton Kutcher) are life-long friends who almost ruin everything by having sex one morning. In order...  
"In this comedy, Emma (Natalie Portman) and Adam (Ashton Kutcher) are life-long friends who almost ruin everything by having sex one morning. In order to protect their friendship, they make a pact to keep their relationship strictly "no strings attached." "No strings" means no jealousy, no expectations, no fighting, no flowers, no baby voices. It means they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, in whatever public place they want, as long as they don't fall in love. The questions become — Can you have sex without love getting in the way? And can their friendship survive?"

So, the whole premise of them being life-long friends is so not true. There's a montage in the beginning of them running into each other over and over again, but they're not close. They just become close on accident. It makes it better.

Emma and Adam originally met at camp, then they reunite ten years later at a frat party in college where she asks him if he wants to accompany her to "this boring family thing" the following day — which turns out to be her father's funeral. Ooops. They part ways at that point with her words of, "Adam, you're a really wonderful guy. If you're lucky, you'll never see me again."

Which has us all confused, because hey, it's Natalie Portman.

It movies to "one year ago" where they run into each other at a farmers market. Emma has just moved to town and gives Adam her number. At this point, there's some kitchy funny moments, but nothing spectacular.

No Strings became decidedly more promising in the "present day" after Kutcher's character Adam is hanging out with his former-tv-star dad (Kevin Kline) and in walks his ex-girlfriend, now dating Daddy. Minor hilarity ensued from that scene (although we already know that Dad's a character, as his introduction to us was unfortunately sweater-hairy-chested and speedo clad as he's doing Vinyasa-yoga-slash-weight-lifting) and promised more to come.

The ex-girlfriend thing incites Adam to get drunk and "call every girl on [his] phone until someone agrees to have sex with me." His Rosencranz and Guildenstern buddies back him ("That sounds like a horribly degrading and self-destructive idea and we're behind you 100%.") The next morning, Adam awakes on a strange couch stark naked with three strangers who give him a hard time until Emma walks in and he asks her, "Did I have sex with anyone in this apartment last night?"

Booty calls ensue.

Rules get laid down (no fighting, no jealousy, no baby talk, no snuggling) and they struggle to keep it "no strings attached." Inevitably, (as it's a rom-com) someone falls in love. Hearts get broken. They rediscover the truth and all ends well. Hooray.

I really really really enjoyed this movie. My boyfriend did too. Before going to see it, our conversation was thus:

Me: We could go see a movie, there's one I'd like to see.
Him: If I rephrase that it sounds like this: 'There's a chick flick I want to see but you wouldn't like it'...am I right?

Upon leaving the theater, he told me he really enjoyed it. We cracked up at several of the lines as we rehashed the movie (I'd tell you, but you should see it first or it wouldn't make sense). Aside from some blatant and a bit unnecessary (read: it didn't add or subtract from the story) pot usage and referencing, and some interesting-choice camera shots (did we really need that close-up of Kutcher's naked butt?) it was hilarious, cute, and not terribly cliche.

It's not an Oscar-winner, but its well-timed, well-played and above Kutcher's usual average and a different kind of movie for Portman. A classic date night movie, I'll certainly be watching it again...but at home rather than ponying up the $9.75 for the movie theater.

Just remember, "I've got cupcakes..."

Yours,
The Movie-ist