New Trailer for Madagascar 3!
I’m so excited for this movie – it looks as good as ever, don’t you think?
xx
Za
New Year’s Eve
New Year’s Eve is the latest from the makers of the extraordinarily original (not) Valentine’s Day. You may be thinking, “wow, this is going to be stunningly lacklustre.” Well, you would be right. Joy of joys, deck the halls, auld lang syne, this movie is more mind-numbing than anybody could wish for.
Just like Valentine’s Day (and Love Actually, but we’ll get to that), New Year’s Eve is a rom-com that aims to top all rom-coms. It isn’t just one rom-com, but MANY rom-coms ROLLED INTO ONE. It’s a bunch of different love stories from different people all over New York, and they’re all intertwined in some way. One person from each story knows another person from another story, and they know someone from another story, blah blah blah. Apparently everybody in New York celebrates New Year’s Eve by falling in love. Apparently that’s how it works.
I am normally on top of rom-coms. I am all over them like a cat on a baby. I love them. They’re great. I’m having trouble finding nice things to say about this rom-com, though.
First off, it’s not really a rom-com. There are two parts to romantic comedies – romance. And comedy. Romance, it’s got. Chocablock full. More romance than you can shake a cheese at. Comedy? Hm.
Don’t get me wrong, I did laugh. At Abigail Breslin’s self-conciousness. And Katherine Heigl’s badly-done hair. And the fact that Jessica Biel kept pushing her fake belly IN, making it very very obvious that it was just a sack of lentils.
No, I am being a little bit mean. There are in fact some funny moments. But you’ll only really giggle half-heartedly at them, and you’ll only really do that if you’re in a cinema that’s quite full, and everybody else is giggling half-heartedly, and you just don’t want to stand out from the crowd.
But the lack of actual humour isn’t even my main problem with New Year’s Eve, it’s that it is, without a doubt, an exact copy/paste of Valentine’s Day. Just pasted onto a different holiday. The same cast, the same crew, the same format, the same storyline(s), the same heart-squishing sugar cuteness – only this time it’s getting a bit old. And they’ve added a couple of vomit-worthy musical numbers (I kid you not). And Valentine’s Day was just a poorly-Americanised Love Actually, so really NYE is just a copy of a copy. A bad copy of a bad copy. It’s unbearable.
And such a wonderful cast too, just wasted on an unchallenging script and poor direction. Their are “more celebrities than rehab”, and with some exceptions (can I get a Hilary Swank-induced shudder) they all have measurable talent. But their performances are heartbreakingly poor in New Year’s Eve. Michelle Pfeiffer is the most uncomfortable to watch, which is so sad, but on the plus side Zac Efron as her character’s young protégé is pleasantly surprising. I think people expect far less of Zac Efron than he is capable of, me included, but we’re seeing him come further and further out of his tweenie shell all the time.
All this aside, it can’t be denied that in some ways this movie is perfect. I went to see it with my mum after she’d had a tiring day, and it was a perfect girly thing to do to cheer her up. It’s a fun sleepover movie. It’s got a certain lack of intelligence that means it’s not confronting, or challenging, and it serves its purpose of pure escapism. It’s fun to name the stars and to wonder at how big Abigail Breslin’s gotten. It’s nice to perve on Zac Efron and Ashton Kutcher (even if his beard does make him look a bit homeless). It’s the definition of chick flick. On pure enjoyment, it rates pretty high. That’s why I have to give it a 2.5/5.
I know, I know. I’m hopeless.
xx
Za.
New Clips from The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
Some great new clips have been released for the new Tintin movie! I thought I share two of my favourites:
This first one has one of my favourite scenes from the book, in which some men kidnap young journalist Tintin and Snowy, Tintin’s dog, rushes after them to save him! I remember the scene in the book vividly and they’ve done a great job with it.
The second one is a favourite of mine because it has the voice talents of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who I clearly love (Hot Fuzz is quite possibly the best movie ever), as the charmingly frazzled Thomson and Thompson.
I can’t wait to see this movie, can you?
xx
Za.
The Inbetweeners
Note: The Inbetweeners is rated MA15+.
As staunch supporters of the television show, my stepdad and I were busting to see The Inbetweeners movie. Once we had in fact seen it and been suffocated with the vulgarity and immaturity that I should really have expected, we were not really busting to re-see it, but fairly satisfied nonetheless.
The movie returns us to the four boys we left at the end of the last TV series – romantically disabled Simon, uninhibitedly stupid Neil, revoltingly dirty Jay and self-absorbed, nerdy Will. The boys are finishing their last year of high school, and things couldn’t be looking better for them – Simon has the girl of his dreams, Neil actually has a girlfriend, Jay’s grandfather has died, leaving him a lot of money, Will is going to a good university, and they’re all going away to Malia for the summer. Things go inexplicably bad for the boys on their holiday, but their friendship manages to fix it all up, and they come out the other side not quite men, but you could say slightly less disgusting than when they began.
The Inbetweeners relies almost entirely on your average teenage boy humour, and as its stars have grown up the jokes have become harder to stomach, and you can see this in the film. Not that the jokes aren’t funny, they absolutely are (if you like that kind of thing, which I do), but the movie is two or three times the length of a regular Inbetweeners episode, and the jokes keep coming and keep coming. You don’t get a break between them, it’s a torrential rain of disturbing, filthy jokes. Even I found some of it difficult, and I certainly know some people who would absolutely NOT find any of the movie funny. However, there are some nice moments of friendship and coming-of-age that give the humour depth that would otherwise leave it severely lacking.
The boys do have great friendships with each-other and it’s nice to see a cast that seem as if they’re very close off-screen as well as on. They are all good actors (or else they have an extraordinary casting director), and no matter how unpleasant they get you do always end up caring about the characters. They’re disgusting in a loveable way, and if they weren’t loveable the entire film would fall to pieces. They were directed well, too – The Inbetweeners is a well-directed venture. Well-directed and well-pitched. If there’s one thing that can be said about this movie it’s that it knows its target market. More than 75% of the theatre occupants when I went were 20-year-old males. The other 25% were their dates.
The plot is sometimes predictable and awkward in places, but overall not too bad. It was what was expected, no more and no less. That pretty much applies to the whole film. No more and no less. I wasn’t disappointed, but I guess I was hoping for more than just a 97-minute rehash of the TV series. Maybe my expectations were unrealistic. Who knows. I had fun, but this movie is certainly not for everybody. 3/5 stars.
xx
Za
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1
Teenage girls everywhere, rejoice! The time has come for the latest venture in the Twilight Saga – Breaking Dawn Part 1. And boy, is it the pile of manure I hoped it would be!
In Breaking Dawn Part 1 we rejoin the grimacing Bella (played by Kristen Stewart) and the literally sparkly vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) for the next chapter of their relationship – marriage. They are quite happy until, by some incredible feat, Bella becomes pregnant by her undead husband, thus creating a half-vampire, half-human baby.
There are so many things wrong with this film. Just so many. Let’s start at the top.
I have never been a fan of Twilight. I can’t stress that enough. I think Bella is a mundane, self-obsessed character who teaches young girls ways of going about relationships that are just so misguided in this day and age. Bella is seventeen when she falls in love with Edward, and eighteen when they get married. Edward is her first boyfriend, she has no other point of reference when it comes to relationships, and yet she is so sure that she is ready to give up everything at the age of eighteen for this creepy, dangerous, dull guy. And I mean, she is ready to give up everything for Edward – her family, her virginity, even her mortality. In the second Twilight movie, New Moon, Edward leaves Bella because he knows he’s too dangerous for her, and she just can’t cope without him. What kind of message is this sending to teenage girls? That when someone you’ve been going out with for about six months dumps you you’re expected to fall to pieces? For months? That men are everything? It’s revolting. Young women of today need to and can be strong and independent without love.
But morals aside, the actual plot of Breaking Dawn Part 1 is pretty poor. The lead-up to the wedding and the actual wedding drag on and on, and it seems like it takes half the film to get to the complication (the pregnancy). It’s pure fluff, and it’s practically unbearable. Once you get to the pregnancy, the Edward/Bella angst that we know and love really sets in, and it just becomes a grump-fest. There is a small worry about whether Bella will survive carrying her baby, but it’s terrifyingly obvious from the get-go that there’s no question of a less-than-happy ending for the less-than-happy couple.
One problem in particular I had was that in the movie, they didn’t explain the concept of imprinting very well. In the book, imprinting is described as when a werewolf meets the one person they are meant to be with and forms an unbreakable connection with them. It is possible for a werewolf to imprint on a child, but in the book it implies that imprinting on a child means you don’t really fall in love with them until they grow up. Until then, it’s more like you’re their brother or bodyguard or something. In the movie, this isn’t clear. And then Jacob, Bella’s werewolf best-friend, goes and imprints on a baby. It’s super-creepy, because it looks exactly like they’re falling in love. It’s sick, really.
Breaking Dawn has a few animated effects, and I found them a bit unsettling. They were easily identifiable and just not up to the standard that they should have been, except for one. Bella loses a lot of weight when she’s pregnant because she can’t eat, and the effects they used were great. She looked gaunt and just awful. My friends swore to me after we’d left the cinema that she’s lost the weight in real life, but apparently not, which, I have to say, was pretty impressive. She looked horrific and very real.
Kristen Stewart is less than astounding as Bella, and the same for Robert Pattinson as Edward. It’s a shame, really. These two are capable of some decent acting if put in the right situation (Stewart was good in The Runaways, Pattinson was fine in Harry Potter), but with a lack of substance in their characters and their only defining features being smarm, the pair do the best they can. Taylor Lautner as Jacob on the other hand, is just ridiculous. Lautner is proving himself more and more often to be the worst actor in history. On the plus side, his terrible acting does give the movie some pretty funny moments, no matter how unintentional. I giggled myself silly in some parts.
But, even with all these flaws, I was somehow satisfied with Breaking Dawn Part 1. Like, I really wanted it to be bad. If it had been a good film, I would have been disappointed that the filmmakers had succeeded in making such a dull story and such unappealing characters somehow interesting. I’m quite glad they didn’t really. I can continue being haughty and above this saga for the time being. 2/5 stars from me.
xx
Za.
(By the way, have you entered our Puss In Boots 3D competition yet? Go now!)
Puss In Boots 3D Competition!
ONLY AT THE MOVIES DECEMBER 8th
COMPETITION NOW CLOSED
Hi guys!
We’re really excited for the release of DreamWorks’ Puss In Boots 3D, starring Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Zach Galifianakis, Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris. It’s coming out really soon (December 8th), and it looks fantastic. To celebrate we’re offering you the chance to win one of 25 boot stockings (below) for the holiday season!
Puss In Boots – our suave and furry feline hero goes on a swashbuckling ride, as he teams up with mastermind Humpty Dumpty and the street-savvy Kitty to steal the famed Goose that lays Golden Eggs.
To enter the competition, all you have to do is answer this question in the comment section below: if you had a Goose that laid Golden Eggs, what would you do with it? The best 25 answers win!
www.PUSSINBOOTSTHEMOVIE.com.au
#PussInBoots
facebook.com/PussInBootsAU
Puss In Boots © 2011 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Let me just say before we begin that anything and everything I say in this review may be tainted by my bias towards the UNBELIEVABLE HOTTIE Michael Cera, who stars in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Got that? If you totally and utterly disagree with me, there’s a chance that in fact you’re right and I’m wrong, because I as a fifteen-year-old girl am influenced in unspoken ways by the attractiveness of dorky b-list celebrities. Capisce? Great. Let’s begin.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is undeniably a film for nerds and hipsters, and all variations of people in-between. It’s about Scott Pilgrim, an unassuming, 22-year-old bassist from Canada. He becomes romantically involved with a girl who is far too cool for him, Ramona Flowers, and discovers that if he wants to date her he has to defeat her seven evil exes, each more evil than the last. Scott learns many lessons along the way about life, friendship and love. Can I get an “awwwwww”.
It takes a little getting used to the idea that it doesn’t really seem to be set in our world, but in one where it’s possible for a Michael Cera-grade weakling to out punch the guy who plays Superman, and parts of the movie seem a little too cheap and easy plot-wise, but I won’t ruin anything for you. I think the fight scenes with the 7 evil exes mostly hold the weight of the film, much like the musical numbers do in musicals, which is not necessarily a bad thing, just interesting. And the fight scenes are incredibly cool, so it’s excusable.
But all these minor negatives are out-shined by the awesome effects, the incredible cast and the overall EPICNESS of the whole thing.
Scott Pilgrim is based on a series of comic-books, and my one huge point of praise for it is that it retains that kind of comic-book feel. The visuals in Scott Pilgrim are exquisite and exciting and funny. There’s onomatopoeia popping up everywhere all the time, and the fight scenes are like a video game. There’s no blood or anything, it’s all got a kind of other-worldly, Super Smash Bros. Brawl kind of feel to it. The effects are seriously gorgeous and they make the film. Without them, it would run the risk of being a poorly-plotted mess, but it seems to save it a little bit.
The cast has Michael Cera in it. Need I say more. But no, seriously, the cast does an incredible job in this movie. They’re perfect in their roles and they represent their comic-book versions so well. The soundtrack is awesome too, Scott’s band is pretty good.
But the best thing about Scott Pilgrim is the feeling of epicness you get. You know when you watch a movie and you feel like you’re IN the movie when you’ve finished watching it? Yeah? Well, I got that feeling from this movie. It’s a wonderful feeling. It’s hard to do in a movie, and so I’m giving Scott Pilgrim 4/5 stars.
xx
Za.
To Kill A Mockingbird
To Kill A Mockingbird is a standard English text pretty much everywhere in the world, and that includes my school. I really loved the book, and I was so over the moon when we were allowed to watch the film as I’d heard nothing but good things about it. And it is a classic, so isn’t it necessary in anybody’s cinematic education?
Gregory Peck (rest ‘is soul) stars as Atticus Finch, a lawyer and single father of two young children. Set in the 30s, Mockingbird follows Atticus’ daughter, Scout, as she is forced to learn the harsh realities of life when Atticus agrees to defend a black man in a case of rape.
For a modern audience, undoubtedly the first thing on anybody’s mind who hasn’t seen it before is that Mockingbird is in black and white. BLACK AND WHITE. The horror. But to be fair, it was made in 1962, which is nearly 50 years ago. That’s just how everything was back then. It’s not just the film, the world in the early 60s was literally black and white. Didn’t you know that? It’s true. Ask anybody. Colour was only discovered in 1970 by a man named Roy. I do not tell a lie.
But let’s be serious, the black and white thing, as much as it’s no fault of the film makers, is a problem for modern viewers. My generation in particular has next to no experience with black and white films, and it’s confusing to see something so dated. It’s just not up to the standard of image we’re used to today. It’s very strange. But it isn’t really that much of a problem. Like I said, it’s no fault of the film makers. I just found that 50 years takes its toll on even a classic.
While we’re on the downsides, I found the music a little off as well. A bit fake.
Aside from those, this film really is an example of quality film-making, and there’s no denying that it’s a classic performance from Gregory Peck. He’s outstanding. In the book the character is so richly written, and with Peck, it’s like Atticus has stepped straight out of the book. It’s a thrill to watch him.
There’s one scene in the town courtroom, when Atticus is getting his lawyer on, that is possibly one of the best scenes I have ever seen in any movie ever. The performances are so commanding and it’s so deliciously tense that it shut up my entire class. It takes a good scene to shut up my class. Impressive. It was physically moving to see them all with their mouths hanging open. Ah, the power of film. It’s scenes like that that make me realise how much I love movies. That single scene made me love Mockingbird (the movie AND the book) so much.
There’s no denying that this is a classic, but it has dated, but you can’t help that with any movie. 4/5 stars.
xx
Za.
Definitely, Maybe
For my birthday I sometimes like to watch a romantic comedy – preferably a good one that I haven’t seen before – and to be honest the selection was a bit thin on the ground this year, but I asked my very generously helpful friends for suggestions and we came to the consensus of Definitely, Maybe, for no real reason other than it has Abigail Breslin in it who is inarguably adorable.
Definitely, Maybe is the story of a young father, Will, who is in the process of being divorced by his wife. His 10-year-old daughter, Maya, is suddenly curious as to how the two of them met in the first place, and thinks that in the telling of the story Will will come to realise how much he loved her when they first got together and that that will repair their marriage. Will at first doesn’t want to tell Maya the story, but eventually concedes, saying that he is going to tell a story about the three major loves in his life (one of them being Maya’s mother), but he’ll change the names of the women so Maya is forced to guess who her mother is.
It sounded interesting to me for two reasons: 1. My own parents split up when I was nine, and 2. It was made by the same people as Notting Hill and Love Actually, my favourite romcoms of all time (although it feels to me like they’ve copied the poster design for this movie from Love Actually).
I liked the premise of the film, that it was a story told by a man to his daughter. It was almost a love story between Will and Maya (in a totally paternal way) than it was between Will and any of the women. Will was a really great dad to Maya and the film represented their relationship as just as important, if not more important, than his romantic relationships. Which I think is really important. It’s great to see a movie that highlights the importance of fatherhood (as opposed to the importance of motherhood) and the impact dads have on their children, which is often very different in real life to the way fatherhood is usually portrayed in the media.
I really liked Maya, too – she wasn’t a dumbed-down version of a ten-year-old, which can happen in movies. Children are made to seem cute and helpless. But Maya spoke to her father like a person and had real feelings about their divorce, which I identified with. She was a smart girl, and I think a lot of the time children are not seen as smart or grown-up in movies, but her character was really lovely. And Abigail Breslin is an extraordinary actor, as well as being adorable (she is getting older now, though).
The cast was great (Ryan Reynolds, Isla Fisher, etc. etc. etc.), and they did pretty well in their roles. I feel like Rachel Weisz could have done better as Summer, Will’s second love interest, but now I’m nitpicking, and nobody likes a nitpicker. Unless they actually have nits, and then it’s a different story.
As well as being a love story, the movie seemed to be a bit of an anti-love story, in that two of the three relationships Will has turn out to not work. Love isn’t always a happy ending, as Disney would have you believe. Definitely, Maybe is about how relationships are imperfect and difficult and the realities of life are that you have to deal with them. That really identified with me, and I think it is a really accessible concept for most people. Love doesn’t always stick around.
It was a great movie for a birthday treat, and probably a good girls’-night-in DVD hire, but quite honestly not very appealing to the male population. As with most romcoms, I guess. I liked it, but I didn’t quite love it – maybe a 4/5 from me.
xx
Za.
Johnny English Reborn
A lot of people hated the first Johnny English movie, but I’ve always been a fan of stupid-Englishman humour (and who better to pull it off than Rowan Atkinson – Mr Bean, anybody?), so I loved it and was eagerly awaiting the sequel, Johnny English Reborn. I had heard some not-good things about it before I went, so I was a little nervous, and this British comedy isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. But I liked it.
The film tells the story of Johnny English, a highly incapable MI7 spy who lost his badge after he failed an important mission in Mozambique. There’s some sort of vague plot line that there’s a secret organisation aiming to kill the Chinese premier, but it’s really just a weak excuse to get English doing all sorts of stupid things. Which is fine, I think. This doesn’t appear to take itself too seriously, and I think everybody’s well aware that the plot is not there as the main feature, but merely facilitates the jokes – and when the jokes are funny, who really cares about anything else?
What I like about the Johnny English franchise is that they manage to keep the humour PG, but still funny. More and more often American comedies are veering towards swearing and vulgarity as humour, and it’s losing its appeal a bit. Humour doesn’t have to be disgusting and adult, and Johnny English Reborn has really thought about this and masters it. When I went to see it there were people of all ages in the audience – down from 5-year-olds all the way up to their doddery grandmas, and everybody was laughing very hard at most of the jokes. I say MOST because there are a few that are a smidgen off. They can be a little hit-and-miss. It’s not very intellectual humour, so don’t expect to love it if you’re a high-and-mighty smart-face hipster, but it should be great for just about everybody else.
I think Rowan Atkinson is a very funny man, and a fantastic character actor, and he pulls off Johnny incredibly well, but I think Johnny in this sequel was far more competent than he was in the first, which is just unacceptable. Johnny should be so daft he can barely walk out the door without falling down the stairs. I did like that the Big Guy in MI7 was a woman (feminism FTW!). The one thing I really missed from this, though, was the character of Bough, played by Ben Miller. Bough was a great sidekick in the first movie, and the sidekick in this one (Hunter? Who knows.) was just inexcusably young and wafty. He was less capable than Johnny, which was a bad move on the writer’s part.
My favourite thing though? The Englishness. In this Americanised, Hollywood-ised world of family comedies there is nothing quite like a bit of good old-fashioned British buffoon laughter. Johnny English Reborn is a joy to laugh at and pretty much everything you expect it to be. If you’re expecting to love it, you’ll have a ball. If not, you’ll want to hang yourself slowly. It’s a bit half-and-half. But I liked it, and that’s all that really matters, right?
And quite honestly, you know that the audience loves a film when the theatre gives a round of applause at the credits. I loved it, my brothers loved it, the weird people behind me who took off their shoes and put their warty feet on my armrest loved it… everybody loved it.
Final verdict? 3.5/5 stars. Overall, it was as hilarious and ill-formed as I had hoped it would be, and it’s a great laugh for the family – but maybe not all you snobby, critical, know-all 20-somethings out there. I know how you can be. Don’t take it personally. I love you. Sort of. I’m kidding. Or am I.
xx
Za.
P.S. This is one of those movies where you stay until after the credits. STAY! Good dog.
