Movies we've seen

The “Relations” Edition

I was doing a crossword puzzle and Michael was watching clips of Pomplamoose on the interwebz when we suddenly started talking about our celebrity “Top 10”s. I’ve had some recent additions to mine, and Michael has had more like a “Top 2” for some time, so his list obviously needed some consideration. In case you aren’t following, “Top 10” stands for Top 10 Celebrities you would um, have “relations” with - and therefore our newest MWS blog, “The Relations Edition.”

For those of you thinking you can help me figure out the 5th man, I’ll tell you now it is none of the following: Robert Pattinson, Sam Elliott or Jon Hamm. And no, it is definitely not any Taylor Lautner. I said 5th man.

In case you can’t follow our ramblings, here are our lists in no particular order. I highly highly encourage you to consider your top 5s or 10s and leave your lists in the comments.

Michael: 
Emily Blunt
Zooey Deschanel
Charlize Theron
Winona Ryder
Sandra Bullock
Milla Jovovich
Debbie Harry (circa 1978)
Alexis Bledel
Anne Hathaway
Christina Hendricks

Emily:
Ryan Gosling
Paul Rudd
Clive Owen
Paul Newman (circa Hud)
Nathan Fillion
Bradley Cooper
Joel McHale (recent addition!)
Hugh Jackman
Robert Downey Jr. (OR) Gerard Butler
#10, who are you????

Your Turn!

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

It’s true that I’m ashamed, but what better place to air my dirty laundry than my semi-public blog that I share with my (now) husband? I say semi-public on account of there being only what? 11 dedicated readers? I’m probably being generous to myself by that estimate.

Here it is people: I am a Twihard.

How could this happen to me?? You know I’ve seen the first movie. And if you’ve spoken to me since this summer, you know that I want to punch Stephanie Meyer in the FACE for writing this schlock which I so voraciously devoured over 5 days in June at the expense of my school work, my actual work and personal relationships all around. But how is it that I agreed to see the 12:01 a.m. screening of The Twilight Saga: New Moon last night with my glorious (now) sister-in-law?

<Stinky: GOOGLE IT!>

Despite my intense desire to, I certainly can’t explain it, so I’ll move on to some kind of review of the actual movie.

Here’s the kicker people: It’s not.that.shabby. In fact, it is better in every way than the first movie, except for possibly in the score. I have serious love for Carter Burwell’s score on Twilight because it has the right blend of sappy sweet and creepy mystery. You didn’t really hear it, because it was the right backdrop to the visual and you only notice it when you stop to wonder what’s tugging on your emotion-strings.

Alexander Desplat, who did the New Moon score, has traditionally done scores for straight romance and fantasy movies. There’s obviously no denying that the Twilight saga is, at its core, a love story, but when you’re talking about creating a spooky, depressive Pac-NW mood, you need a lot more than warm strings and triumphant build-ups.

Regarding the performances, I have this to say: Kristen Stewart only a-flusteredly stuttered twice or three times in the whole movie! It was like they made her learn her lines. Brava, my dear! I almost bought it. As for the boys… well, Taylor Lautner shocked me. Granted, Jacob Black is supposed to be the friendly, genial character that we all want to max and chillax with, but Lautner hits the nail on the head. He’s found the exact balance the character needs between supportive, fun buddy and guy-who-has-more-feelings-for-you-than-you-have-for-him-and-it’s-a-little-embarrassing.

R-Patz? I mean, meh. For one, he’s barely in it. For two, they really over did the makeups, and even though it’s not his fault, I was so distracted by his femme-y face paint to pay that much attention to the big picture. In the books, I’m all about Team Edward; in New Moon the movie, Lautner comes out on top. Team Jacob, jokers! Does this make me skeezy?

Overall, the story was more coherent, the scenery and camera work were more impressive, and I just liked it. Perhaps the most welcome change from the original film was the introduction of humor. The movie was funny. And it was funny on purpose.

I dig what Chris Weitz did with this movie. He made it more lighthearted and fun, even though it has some pretty serious subject matter (death, suicide, violence). And parts of it looked like a (decent) music video. The soundtrack is good too, so it all gels in a nice way.

My only qualm - again, besides the score - was the way they CGI’d the reckless Edward sightings. I would have preferred a standard Pattinson standing there to the ethereal cloudy version, but I guess I can’t have everything.

I’m looking forward to Eclipse whenever that’s happening, and I won’t be ashamed! It was by far the best book (that is, the least ridiculous), and I’m very interested to see what David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night) is going to do with it. A) He pulls performances out of people, including the never-interesting Josh Hartnett and B) He’s made a scary vampire movie - let’s see what he can do with this franchise.

TEAM JACOB!

e/b(d) out.

Law Abiding Citizen

It’s been a trillion years since we saw this movie, so I’m trying to remember if we had any commentary aside from what we blabbed about.

As you may know, Michael and I were married in October, so our movie “coverage” got a little spotty there. But when I sift back through the brain archive of movie watching, wedding planning and that thing where you have to a month’s worth of work in one week to make up for leaving town, I think the only thing I can come up with to take away is that we like Gerry, and we hate Mr. Predictable Unpredictable Jamie Foxx.

F. Gary Gray is known for such awesomeness as Friday and the 2003 Italian Job remake. I like those movies but have no concept of what they might have in common with each other or with Law Abiding Citizen. Did I mention that we hate Jamie Foxx?

Pandorum

We’re back! Two reviews in one week, can you believe it?

The second half of last weekend’s “high school double feature” is a bright and sunny little deep space madness film called Pandorum (IMDb, trailer).

One thing I forgot to mention in the video was how well done I thought the film did at creating an environment with sound. Hearing the ship creak and groan like an old, nuclear-powered galleon full of creepy monsters took me out of the theater and put me in with the unfortunate crew.

Again, I suggest checking this one out in the theater, and what I mentioned is just one more reason to do that.

Jennifer’s Body

We actually paid to see Jennifer’s Body. I’m not sure that I will recommend that you do the same, but as you will see from the review, we didn’t hate it. Michael was bored, and I was sort of interested in the “toxic friend” story-line because I’m a girl, and we both agreed that Adam Brody was by far the best part.

Related link: Jezebel’s toxic friend/Megan Fox acting skills review

Some more words.

We really suck at this blogging thing, hey guys? Lazy. Lazy.

Last week we watched Australia though, and I liked it a lot and wanted to spill brains about it. Baz Luhrmann usually makes painterly, vivid films that are really sad or at least moving (with the exception of Strictly Ballroom which was fun and mostly ugly.) So it was no surprise that Australia was beautiful and melancholy. But it was also stunning and thrilling at times, and I really enjoyed it.

There was some lameness surrounding the relationship between Drover and Mrs. Boss, just because it was a little too tongue-in-cheek puritanical, but once things got on an even keel it was sweet to see how this weird family unit operated. The little boy was totally phenomenal, and I fully understand Mrs. Boss’s need to raise him as her own son because I have the same irrational desire.

King George. Awesome. 1500 head of cattle. Awesome. Green screens and matte boards. Awesome. Sets that scream Baz. Awesome. Fist fights. Awesome. Double crosses. Awesome. Stampedes? Totally Awesome. Aboriginal culture? BADATH.

Anyways. That’s my totally ridiculous assessment of Australia. You should see it if you have like, 3 freakin’ hours to spare.

Fourth of July Weekend Movie Fest

We haven’t been doing many reviews, and for that we apologize. However, we did find ourselves laid up on sofas this weekend, watching another round of movies so you don’t have to. In no particular order:

The Transporter
The Transporter 2
The Transporter 3
Michael maintains that the second one is the best one, while the first one is boring and the third one jumps right into a crappy love story without enough Jason Statham being a badass. There are some pretty cars though.

Confessions of a Shopaholic
I had a bad week, so when Michael went to the store, he returned with Confessions of a Shopaholic and croissants instead of the frozen waffles I asked for. The croissants were okay but the movie was horrifical. Isla Fisher really needs to work on her American accent if she’s gonna keep being in our movies, and the character’s debt is practically imaginary. When they name how much debt she has, I almost ran around the room screaming, “16 thousand!? Is THAT all?? That’s like 2 Prada overcoats and 4 pairs of shoes!” (a.k.a., one really tame outing for this protagonist).

Airheads
It’s been a while since I’d seen this movie. There really isn’t much to say except, Holy Crap did you know how many people were in this stupid movie??

I Know Who Killed Me
The intro to this movie was full on Lynchian, and I was starting to wonder why it was so terrible when the title card came up. I couldn’t stop laughing. After having seen the other two most Razzie-winning films, Michael and I were disappointed though. I mean, it has Lindsay Lohan in it, and it’s pretty stupid and contrived, but is it really as bad as Showgirls? Or Battlefield Earth? I’m sorry to say that it isn’t.

Gran Torino
Michael and I put this on and realized that neither of us knew what it was about. I found myself giggling nervously at all the racial slurs, but ended up really liking Eastwood’s character in the end. His family sure sucked though.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno
I have a love hate relationship with Kevin Smith. I like to hear him talk, and he seems to have good ideas, but he is so hung up on himself and his style that he sabotages his own movies. Parts of this were decent, but mostly it was just farcical with way too much vulgarity (words, not pictures). I’ve been spoiled by Apatow’s use of Seth Rogen - hysterical and sometimes raunchy, but with a point. This movie was too long and at the end, I felt used.

Pineapple Express
We re-watched this. You may recall that it was our first review for the site back when my hair was short and we took the time to actually edit our videos. It’s still okay. It isn’t perfect, but I still laugh through the whole thing and then freak out at the end. At least it holds up.

Some words about being a girl.

Do you find stories featuring undercurrents about the theoretical historic rivalry between vampires and werewolves to be redundant? Do you think that you are too smart for vampire books written for 13 year old girls? Do you think that Robert Pattinson is kind of weird looking?

TWILIGHT. You are wrong.

Now that I feel sufficiently like a 13 year old again, I am going to spend some quality time with Fairuza.

Showgirls

Since E.Money was in town we decided to watch a great American film called Showgirls .

I don’t have much to say about it except what is said, but I would like to strike my remark about “what I learned,” and update it to:

If you meet a psycho on the street who is beating up your car and vomits on you, you should buy her a burger and let her stay in your trailer because she’s BFF material.

Star Trek

For some reason (supreme nerdiness, don’t say it), Star Trek is still in my head this afternoon, so I figured I would type extemporaneously on the subject while I still can.

Characterization: I am hardly familiar with the characters from this franchise, but I know bits and pieces. This movie acts sort of like an origin story that is consistent with what I know (Kirk:horndog::Rice:white), but simultaneously contradicts and/or provides an alternate story line for the future stories in the canon. It’s confusing to me head, and I know it bothers Michael enough to have mentioned it twice in the movie theater.

Peeves: In the movies, how come they always send in troops who are actually cadets in training? Is this normal? Does this happen in real life? I know we have like, the Army Reserves and stuff, but do they sends dudes from West Point to take over for tenured captains and whatnot? I mean, I don’t know anything, just seems like one of those movie conventions I’m seriously tired of. Kirk says he’ll be a captain in 3 years, and the movie comes full circle. But it’s still a steaming pile.

Science: I am bad at science. Just ask Mr. Winterscheidt, my 12th grade Physics teacher for whom I wrote the “Physics: What’s Wrong with Masters of the Universe” paper to which I refer in the video. Not only did I get a mediocre grade on the paper (was I too vested in He-Man to undermine the teachings of Gwildor? or did I just use the same bullet points as everyone else in my study group?), I also got a mediocre grade for the entire class. Not that it still bothers me or anything.

FYI, Winterscheidt: I still believe the universe is made of Music.

I authoritatively informed Michael that light doesn’t travel in space because you can’t see the stars when you are there, and he looked at me askance. Turns out it’s sound that doesn’t travel in space, and you just can’t see the stars because they’re too flipping far away, obscured by the powerful light of the sun and Earth and junk like that. According to that internet, light travels faster in a vacuum (you know, like outer space), and so then I thought - well, maybe I will use this factoid to explain away the copious lens flares.

SNL: The clip I mention:

Enjoy.

e/b