Okay, so I almost always blog about new releases because the simple fact is, I don't really have the attention span to watch rented movies. You all know I love going to movies at the theater, but, as I may have mentioned before, at home I tend to want to get up every five seconds to unload the dishwasher, or put away laundry, or maybe I'll be reading something at the same time or messing around on the Internet. TV is better because commercials make it possible to do this and still (mostly) keep track of what you're watching. However, post-Dallas Buyers Club I realized that not five years ago Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner were in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past together and that I'd never actually seen it, so I added it to my Netflix queue.
Matthew McConaughey plays Connor Mead, a high-profile photographer who has slept with what can only be described as a comically large number of women (and by "comically large," I mean "disgusting.") There is a scene where he has to walk past all of his past conquests, and it's RIDICULOUS, how many women there are, and how many women who seem totally happy to sleep with him even knowing what he's like. Hey, remember the show Party of Five, and how it was so shocking when Charlie (Matthew Fox) revealed that he'd slept with something like thirty-six women? Apparently it takes a lot more than that to be shocking these days, which is kind of sad.
Anyway, early in the movie, Connor is reminded that he's supposed to attend his brother Paul's (Breckin Meyer's) wedding. No one besides Paul is that happy to have him there; he's slept with most of the bridesmaids (including his first love Jenny Perotti, played by Jennifer Garner), and he keeps (mostly by accident) doing potentially-wedding-ruining stuff like knocking over the wedding cake, letting it spill that Paul once slept with one of the bridesmaids, and hitting on the bride-to-be's (Lacey Chabert's) mother. At the rehearsal dinner, he also drunkenly goes off about how marriage is an antiquated institution and love is a myth. That night, his dead, womanizing uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas) visits him to tell him that over the course of the night, he'll be visited by three ghosts who will show him the error of his ways.
It all sounds pretty silly, right, which is probably why I didn't want to see it when it first came out. However, I found it to be surprisingly funny and sweet. I enjoyed the trip through Connor and Jenny's romantic past (guided by Emma Stone in crazy '80s hair and braces as the Ghost of Girlfriends Past and the girl he lost his virginity to in high school). Though their relationship partly failed because Connor decided to take womanizing Uncle Wayne's advice, there were also plenty of really normal missed opportunities and missteps caused by fear and pride over the years. Jennifer Garner's Jenny is pretty cool as a love interest, as Connor himself realizes; she's the only person in his life who's ever really called him on his crap and told him how things needed to be. It also doesn't hurt that their journey is set to a pretty cool/fun '80s soundtrack (REO Speedwagon's "Keep on Loving You" is pretty much their love theme for the movie). Basically, Connor is reminded what he lost by looking at the past; learns how much he's hurting people in the present; and is scared by the future, which is pretty much par for the course for a play on A Christmas Carol, I guess...but the characters are pretty likeable (even when Connor is being skeezy), and it's all pretty cute and fun. I dug it.
Monday, January 20, 2014
thoughts on Lifetime's Flowers in the Attic (spoilers)
So. I read Flowers in the Attic when I was maybe thirteen, and I must have liked it, given that I read not only the entire series but also the Dawn series by V.C.Andrews, as well as a third V.C. Andrews series with a main character named Melody Logan. I think around the time of the Melody Logan series, I started getting impatient and feeling like the series were all kind of the same, or had a lot of the same elements, anyway. At any rate, I would imagine that I liked Flowers in the Attic because it had a page-turner-y, "are these kids ever going to get out of this attic?!" quality, as well as because, as a thirteen-year-old, I was mainly used to reading stuff like The Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High; it probably seemed like a grown-up and somewhat naughty thing to be reading. It was not until I went to grad school in my mid-twenties that I realized that a lot of women my age had read V.C. Andrews novels as young teens, and it became something my friends and I kind of bonded over. "I can't believe I read that when I was thirteen," I think I've said in more than one conversation. "That was so messed up."
It is with all of this in mind that I looked forward to Lifetime's adaptation of Flowers in the Attic starring Heather Graham as the mother, Ellen Burstyn as the grandmother, and Kiernan Shipka as Cathy. For those unfamiliar, the plot is this: Cathy, who is maybe twelve or thirteen at the beginning of the story, has an older brother named Christopher, a younger brother named Cory, and a younger sister named Carrie. Cory and Carrie are twins. Their father is often away on business, and their mom (Corrine) is a housewife whose defining quality is being beautiful and who basically lives for the days that her husband returns home. One day, he doesn't; he's killed in a car accident. It turns out they're in a ton of debt and Corrine has never had a job, so she writes to the wealthy family that disowned her years ago (because she married her half-uncle, which I had forgotten until I watched this movie) and asks if they will take her family in. They agree, but she can't tell her father right away that she has children, so she arranges with her mother to keep them in a room that leads to the attic; they are allowed to play in the attic, and this winds up being their refuge, because their grandma is claustrophobic and doesn't like to climb the narrow stairs.
Anyway, at first the mother says that they will only be up there until she wins her father over, then until he dies (which will supposedly be soon); eventually, she gets married to someone she has never even told she has children, so it's fairly clear the kids are never, ever going to get out of the attic. The grandmother is in charge of bringing them food; the mother comes around less and less frequently to give the kids presents and to lie to them that they're all going to be super rich someday. The grandmother is scary and sometimes physically abusive. An incestuous relationship develops between Christopher and Cathy. The twins, deprived of fresh air and sunlight, don't grow as they should and become sickly; Cory eventually dies, at which point the other children, who have already been plotting their escape from the attic, realize that they all need to leave sooner rather than later.
Isn't that an awful, awful story? My memories of the book were that it was both a page-turner and over-the-top, so I think I expected the movie to have a "naughty fun" quality to it; instead, all of this is played completely straight, so that you're just faced with how terrible all of these events are. Also, perhaps because I already knew what was going to happen, I grew very impatient with all of this very early on; the early scenes depicting the family's pre-attic life are interesting, but once they go to live with Corrine's parents, I was just like, "All right, kids. You're never getting out of this attic. Start plotting your escape." There are reasons they don't do this immediately-- they love their mother and at first believe what she tells them; they are scared of their grandmother; Chris and Cathy are worried about the younger kids-- but partly because I already knew how the plot unfolded, partly because Heather Graham does not act for one second like she gives a damn about those kids, and partly because pretty much everything that happens in that attic is Just Awful, I just wanted them to leave and be done with it. Mostly, I wanted to not be watching it anymore, and I probably should have just turned it off. When it ended, my main thought was, "That movie was terrible and the book probably was, too."
Kiernan Shipka was smart, determined, and sassy as Cathy. Ellen Burstyn was sufficiently scary as the grandma. I also enjoyed Cathy's closing voiceover as they escape, which basically boils down to, "We made our escape, but we WOULD see our mother again someday, and she WOULD feel shame for what she did for us." I'm pretty sure the plot of the second or third Flowers book is Cathy returning all grown-up to seduce her mother's husband and otherwise ruin her mother's life, and I remember it being pretty awesome. The movie as a whole, though, was not good or even particularly entertaining.
It is with all of this in mind that I looked forward to Lifetime's adaptation of Flowers in the Attic starring Heather Graham as the mother, Ellen Burstyn as the grandmother, and Kiernan Shipka as Cathy. For those unfamiliar, the plot is this: Cathy, who is maybe twelve or thirteen at the beginning of the story, has an older brother named Christopher, a younger brother named Cory, and a younger sister named Carrie. Cory and Carrie are twins. Their father is often away on business, and their mom (Corrine) is a housewife whose defining quality is being beautiful and who basically lives for the days that her husband returns home. One day, he doesn't; he's killed in a car accident. It turns out they're in a ton of debt and Corrine has never had a job, so she writes to the wealthy family that disowned her years ago (because she married her half-uncle, which I had forgotten until I watched this movie) and asks if they will take her family in. They agree, but she can't tell her father right away that she has children, so she arranges with her mother to keep them in a room that leads to the attic; they are allowed to play in the attic, and this winds up being their refuge, because their grandma is claustrophobic and doesn't like to climb the narrow stairs.
Anyway, at first the mother says that they will only be up there until she wins her father over, then until he dies (which will supposedly be soon); eventually, she gets married to someone she has never even told she has children, so it's fairly clear the kids are never, ever going to get out of the attic. The grandmother is in charge of bringing them food; the mother comes around less and less frequently to give the kids presents and to lie to them that they're all going to be super rich someday. The grandmother is scary and sometimes physically abusive. An incestuous relationship develops between Christopher and Cathy. The twins, deprived of fresh air and sunlight, don't grow as they should and become sickly; Cory eventually dies, at which point the other children, who have already been plotting their escape from the attic, realize that they all need to leave sooner rather than later.
Isn't that an awful, awful story? My memories of the book were that it was both a page-turner and over-the-top, so I think I expected the movie to have a "naughty fun" quality to it; instead, all of this is played completely straight, so that you're just faced with how terrible all of these events are. Also, perhaps because I already knew what was going to happen, I grew very impatient with all of this very early on; the early scenes depicting the family's pre-attic life are interesting, but once they go to live with Corrine's parents, I was just like, "All right, kids. You're never getting out of this attic. Start plotting your escape." There are reasons they don't do this immediately-- they love their mother and at first believe what she tells them; they are scared of their grandmother; Chris and Cathy are worried about the younger kids-- but partly because I already knew how the plot unfolded, partly because Heather Graham does not act for one second like she gives a damn about those kids, and partly because pretty much everything that happens in that attic is Just Awful, I just wanted them to leave and be done with it. Mostly, I wanted to not be watching it anymore, and I probably should have just turned it off. When it ended, my main thought was, "That movie was terrible and the book probably was, too."
Kiernan Shipka was smart, determined, and sassy as Cathy. Ellen Burstyn was sufficiently scary as the grandma. I also enjoyed Cathy's closing voiceover as they escape, which basically boils down to, "We made our escape, but we WOULD see our mother again someday, and she WOULD feel shame for what she did for us." I'm pretty sure the plot of the second or third Flowers book is Cathy returning all grown-up to seduce her mother's husband and otherwise ruin her mother's life, and I remember it being pretty awesome. The movie as a whole, though, was not good or even particularly entertaining.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
thoughts on American Hustle
Christian Bale and Amy Adams star as Irving Rosenfeld and Sydney Prosser (though she goes by Edith Greenlee for most of the movie), a couple of con artists who (among other things) get people to put $5,000 down to apply for $50,000 loans, and then never give anyone any money. An FBI agent named Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) is on to them, and cuts a deal with them to go in on some big scheme to try to take down the mayor (Jeremy Renner) and a couple of congressmen. The people Richie is trying to take down are too big, and Irving, Sydney, and Richie's boss, Stoddard Thorsen (Louis C.K.), all keep telling Richie that this is all stupid and unnecessary and is going to end badly. Also, though Irving and Sydney are kind of a couple, he has a wife, Rosalind (Jennifer Lawrence), who he doesn't get along with but who won't divorce him and keeps threatening to take his son away and expose his illegal activities (which she only partly knows about) if he leaves her.
Rosalind is actually a really interesting character; at first you think she's just an annoyance, and she's not really a big part of things, and you don't really know why they cast Jennifer Lawrence or why she's been nominated for so many awards. The thing is, though, that even though she's an annoyance and not directly involved in things, she is loud and talks too much and simply by virtue of her annoying qualities has the potential to ruin everything for everyone. It's pretty fascinating, and you start to look forward to her appearances onscreen. She also gets some pretty funny lines/moments. For example, the mayor, Carmine, gives Irving a microwave (which is a new invention at the time, and which everyone keeps referring to as "the science oven") as a gift, warning him not to put anything metal in it. Irving passes the warning along to Rosalind, but she ignores this in a pretty funny "I'll put metal in the science oven if I want to put metal in the science oven" kind of way. Naturally, as anyone who was put metal in their own "science oven" knows, this starts a fire. Irving, of course, is upset, both because she ignored his directions and because the "science oven" was a gift (I know I'm overusing "science oven" here, but I seriously cracked up any time anyone said the words). Rosalind turns it around on him, all, "Well, I read an article that it sucks all the nutrients out of your food! See! I have the article right here! What do you think you're doing, bringing in something that sucks the nutrients out of our food and starts fires? Thank God for me!" She is A RIDICULOUS PERSON. I've always thought Jennifer Lawrence was okay before this-- I like the Hunger Games movies but usually find myself talking more about one or more of the supporting characters/actors afterward; I liked The Silver Linings Playbook more than I thought I would but didn't love it-- but she really seems to be having fun here, and I enjoyed her performance.
Bradley Cooper's character, Richie, is also a fairly ridiculous person, and I spent a lot of the movie trying to figure him out, though I don't think his character actually went that deep: he's trying to pull off something way over his head because he wants to be important/escape from his regular life, in which he lives with his mother and has a fiancee he doesn't seem to care about. He has sort of a "thing" with Amy Adams's character, and at one point he's all, "I love you! Did you hear that? Yeah, I said that!" I'm sitting there all, "What? Seriously? Why? When did this happen?" I think it's mainly that he views her has an escape route, which she actually accuses Irving of but is actually true of both men.
Christian Bale and Amy Adams probably give the most consistent performances of the film, but I don't think there's a lot to "get" with either of them, either. They're con artists. Irving is conflicted about his family, Sydney/Edith, and the scheme he's gotten wrapped up in. He doesn't like Richie. He likes Carmine. There's...not much beyond that, as far as I can see. Sydney/Edith loves Irving, pretends to love Richie (and she tells us from the beginning that she's just pretending, so there's not much of a question about that), and you can tell the difference between Sydney and Edith because Edith speaks with a British accent. I guess my overall assessment of the characters, then (with the exception of Rosalind, who really is kind of a wild card), is that sometimes the nature of their jobs/what they're trying to pull off makes it seem as if they're something they're not, but I don't think any of them really have a lot going on below the surface.
I don't know. They're all just kind of a bunch of bad, not-that-interesting people trying to pull off a scheme that almost everyone involved knows is ill-advised. Like, I generally really like spy/heist TV shows and movies (which I know this is not, but stay with me for a minute) because they are generally about really cool, smart people trying to pull off something complicated and fun-to-watch. This is just a bunch of seedy people trying to pull something stupid off to improve their own situations. Did I find parts of it entertaining? Sure. Did I care that much about it or get much out of it? Not really.
On a side note...the sets, costumes, and music are all such that I thought to myself more than once, "The '70s must have been an ugly, horrible time." I don't think it's fair for me to say that about an entire decade, or anything, especially since I wasn't born until the tail end of it, but I think it's an accurate assessment of the world these characters live in.
Rosalind is actually a really interesting character; at first you think she's just an annoyance, and she's not really a big part of things, and you don't really know why they cast Jennifer Lawrence or why she's been nominated for so many awards. The thing is, though, that even though she's an annoyance and not directly involved in things, she is loud and talks too much and simply by virtue of her annoying qualities has the potential to ruin everything for everyone. It's pretty fascinating, and you start to look forward to her appearances onscreen. She also gets some pretty funny lines/moments. For example, the mayor, Carmine, gives Irving a microwave (which is a new invention at the time, and which everyone keeps referring to as "the science oven") as a gift, warning him not to put anything metal in it. Irving passes the warning along to Rosalind, but she ignores this in a pretty funny "I'll put metal in the science oven if I want to put metal in the science oven" kind of way. Naturally, as anyone who was put metal in their own "science oven" knows, this starts a fire. Irving, of course, is upset, both because she ignored his directions and because the "science oven" was a gift (I know I'm overusing "science oven" here, but I seriously cracked up any time anyone said the words). Rosalind turns it around on him, all, "Well, I read an article that it sucks all the nutrients out of your food! See! I have the article right here! What do you think you're doing, bringing in something that sucks the nutrients out of our food and starts fires? Thank God for me!" She is A RIDICULOUS PERSON. I've always thought Jennifer Lawrence was okay before this-- I like the Hunger Games movies but usually find myself talking more about one or more of the supporting characters/actors afterward; I liked The Silver Linings Playbook more than I thought I would but didn't love it-- but she really seems to be having fun here, and I enjoyed her performance.
Bradley Cooper's character, Richie, is also a fairly ridiculous person, and I spent a lot of the movie trying to figure him out, though I don't think his character actually went that deep: he's trying to pull off something way over his head because he wants to be important/escape from his regular life, in which he lives with his mother and has a fiancee he doesn't seem to care about. He has sort of a "thing" with Amy Adams's character, and at one point he's all, "I love you! Did you hear that? Yeah, I said that!" I'm sitting there all, "What? Seriously? Why? When did this happen?" I think it's mainly that he views her has an escape route, which she actually accuses Irving of but is actually true of both men.
Christian Bale and Amy Adams probably give the most consistent performances of the film, but I don't think there's a lot to "get" with either of them, either. They're con artists. Irving is conflicted about his family, Sydney/Edith, and the scheme he's gotten wrapped up in. He doesn't like Richie. He likes Carmine. There's...not much beyond that, as far as I can see. Sydney/Edith loves Irving, pretends to love Richie (and she tells us from the beginning that she's just pretending, so there's not much of a question about that), and you can tell the difference between Sydney and Edith because Edith speaks with a British accent. I guess my overall assessment of the characters, then (with the exception of Rosalind, who really is kind of a wild card), is that sometimes the nature of their jobs/what they're trying to pull off makes it seem as if they're something they're not, but I don't think any of them really have a lot going on below the surface.
I don't know. They're all just kind of a bunch of bad, not-that-interesting people trying to pull off a scheme that almost everyone involved knows is ill-advised. Like, I generally really like spy/heist TV shows and movies (which I know this is not, but stay with me for a minute) because they are generally about really cool, smart people trying to pull off something complicated and fun-to-watch. This is just a bunch of seedy people trying to pull something stupid off to improve their own situations. Did I find parts of it entertaining? Sure. Did I care that much about it or get much out of it? Not really.
On a side note...the sets, costumes, and music are all such that I thought to myself more than once, "The '70s must have been an ugly, horrible time." I don't think it's fair for me to say that about an entire decade, or anything, especially since I wasn't born until the tail end of it, but I think it's an accurate assessment of the world these characters live in.
Monday, January 13, 2014
thoughts on The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Ben Stiller stars as Walter Mitty, a mild-mannered employee of Life magazine, which is about to publish its last print issue. He has recently set up an eHarmony profile for the sole purpose of contacting a coworker, Cheryl Melhoff (Kristen Wiig); however, he has filled very little of the profile out. He can't, because he's never really done anything or been anywhere, though he daydreams about doing all sorts of things. When he has to go off in search of a missing film negative, however, he finally finds himself embarking on adventures he's only dreamed of.
I thought it was just okay. Walter and Cheryl are likable enough characters, and it's kind of fun to follow him on his journey. However, I just didn't find myself caring that much about what was happening-- that Life was publishing its last print issue, whether or not Walter found the negative, what might or might not happen between Walter and Cheryl. This might have been a pacing issue; there are fairly long stretches where I really wasn't sure where things were going, or where I was supposed to want them to go. This might have been okay if I had enjoyed the journey more, but I just found myself fairly indifferent to everything that was going on.
So, mildly entertaining, but didn't really move me.
I thought it was just okay. Walter and Cheryl are likable enough characters, and it's kind of fun to follow him on his journey. However, I just didn't find myself caring that much about what was happening-- that Life was publishing its last print issue, whether or not Walter found the negative, what might or might not happen between Walter and Cheryl. This might have been a pacing issue; there are fairly long stretches where I really wasn't sure where things were going, or where I was supposed to want them to go. This might have been okay if I had enjoyed the journey more, but I just found myself fairly indifferent to everything that was going on.
So, mildly entertaining, but didn't really move me.
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
thoughts on Delivery Man
Vince Vaughn stars as David Wozniak, who makes deliveries for his family's butcher shop and has a knack for getting himself into ridiculous situations. He won't let his girlfriend Emma (Cobie Smulders) come over anymore because he doesn't want her to know he's trying to grow pot. He currently owes some mobster types $80,000 for reasons that I was never exactly clear on. Emma tells him in an early scene that she's pregnant, but she's doubtful whether she can count on him to step up and be a father.
He soon finds himself in another ridiculous situation. Apparently, when he was in his twenties, he donated a ridiculous amount of sperm to a sperm bank and is now the biological father of 533 kids. He signed a confidentiality agreement when he donated the sperm, but now 142 of the kids are suing the sperm bank to try to find out his identity. He is given a manila envelope with information about the 142 kids, and he starts paying them visits without telling them who he is. He has fathered quite the assortment of children, it turns out (all of whom are now in their late teens or early twenties). There is a wannabe actor who David covers for at work so that he can go on an audition. There is an NBA basketball player. There is a young woman who he saves from a drug overdose. There is a young man with cerebral palsy.
What I have just given you is maybe the first third of the movie, and it's pretty good. David and the people in his world are likable, as are many of the kids. After a point, though, there's just too much going on. One somewhat creepy kid figures out who he is and tries to get closer to him while keeping David's identity from the others. David's lawyer and friend, Brett (Chris Pratt), suggests that David countersue to keep his identity a secret. David doesn't really want to, but he needs to pay off the mobsters. Also, he's trying to prove himself to Emma...all the while keeping this HUGE secret from her. "I can't do this without you," he tells her at one point. "Can't you?" I asked aloud (my two friends and I were the only ones in the theater). He supposedly wants to build a life with her, but he's not telling her about a huge thing happening in his life. Why is she in this movie, even? Supposedly her pregnancy is the thing that makes him want to grow up and figure himself out, but it's really his interactions with the kids that do that.
So...it was okay. I liked most of the characters, but the story (which, granted, was fairly ridiculous from the beginning) lost me after a point.
He soon finds himself in another ridiculous situation. Apparently, when he was in his twenties, he donated a ridiculous amount of sperm to a sperm bank and is now the biological father of 533 kids. He signed a confidentiality agreement when he donated the sperm, but now 142 of the kids are suing the sperm bank to try to find out his identity. He is given a manila envelope with information about the 142 kids, and he starts paying them visits without telling them who he is. He has fathered quite the assortment of children, it turns out (all of whom are now in their late teens or early twenties). There is a wannabe actor who David covers for at work so that he can go on an audition. There is an NBA basketball player. There is a young woman who he saves from a drug overdose. There is a young man with cerebral palsy.
What I have just given you is maybe the first third of the movie, and it's pretty good. David and the people in his world are likable, as are many of the kids. After a point, though, there's just too much going on. One somewhat creepy kid figures out who he is and tries to get closer to him while keeping David's identity from the others. David's lawyer and friend, Brett (Chris Pratt), suggests that David countersue to keep his identity a secret. David doesn't really want to, but he needs to pay off the mobsters. Also, he's trying to prove himself to Emma...all the while keeping this HUGE secret from her. "I can't do this without you," he tells her at one point. "Can't you?" I asked aloud (my two friends and I were the only ones in the theater). He supposedly wants to build a life with her, but he's not telling her about a huge thing happening in his life. Why is she in this movie, even? Supposedly her pregnancy is the thing that makes him want to grow up and figure himself out, but it's really his interactions with the kids that do that.
So...it was okay. I liked most of the characters, but the story (which, granted, was fairly ridiculous from the beginning) lost me after a point.
Monday, December 9, 2013
thoughts on Frozen
In this animated Disney film, Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Anna (Kristen Bell) are sisters and best friends. Elsa has the ability to freeze things just by touching them. As kids, this is fun (they build a snowman and bring him to life, they slide around on the ice, etc.) until an accident that happens while they're playing almost kills Anna. Elsa and Anna's parents take them to some trolls who save Anna's life and warn them that Elsa's powers will only grow stronger; she must limit her contact with others and try to suppress her abilities. Meanwhile, the trolls will erase Anna's memories of Elsa's magical powers. Elsa and Anna's parents close the gates to the kingdom, and Elsa shuts herself in her room. Because Anna no longer knows about Elsa's powers, she has no idea why Elsa never wants to play with her anymore.
The girls grow older, and their parents are killed while traveling by boat. Elsa is going to be queen, and the gates to the kingdom are opened for the coronation. Anna meets a prince named Hans (Santino Fontana) and immediately falls in love with him. When she tells Elsa she plans to marry him and have him move in with them, Elsa gets very upset, and her emotions set off her powers. Horrified, she runs away where she believes she can be free to use her powers without hurting anyone. Little does she know that she's set off an eternal winter in the kingdom. Leaving Hans in charge, Anna runs off to find her, getting help along the way from Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), an ice salesman whose business isn't going so well these days; his reindeer, Sven; and Olaf (Josh Gad), the snowman Elsa brought to life as a child.
There's a lot to like about this movie, everyone. First of all, for all of the magical things I just mentioned-- Elsa's powers, the trolls, the adorable talking snowman, etc.-- it all feels really REAL. You just really hurt for Anna when Elsa keeps pushing her away without telling her why. Also, while there are characters in this movie who are not good people and who do bad things to the main characters, this is not a story where the characters just have to overcome a villain and everything will be fine; most of their problems come from chance accidents, from fear, from dishonesty and secrets, from impetuous decisions-- the same types of things most of our problems come from in real life. Like in real life, then, the problems are solved when characters figure things out, when they make sacrifices, when they are honest with themselves and others. There's romance in this story, too, but it sometimes causes more problems than it solves, and definitely doesn't make everything perfect.
In addition to a great story, let's also not forget that this movie is all just generally very well-done. The songs are so good I'd like to get the soundtrack. The animated winter wonderland the characters live in is beautiful. Olaf the Snowman is super cute. The characters are likeable.
Yeah. Not only is this the best Disney movie I've seen in awhile, I daresay this is the best movie, period, that I've seen all year.
The girls grow older, and their parents are killed while traveling by boat. Elsa is going to be queen, and the gates to the kingdom are opened for the coronation. Anna meets a prince named Hans (Santino Fontana) and immediately falls in love with him. When she tells Elsa she plans to marry him and have him move in with them, Elsa gets very upset, and her emotions set off her powers. Horrified, she runs away where she believes she can be free to use her powers without hurting anyone. Little does she know that she's set off an eternal winter in the kingdom. Leaving Hans in charge, Anna runs off to find her, getting help along the way from Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), an ice salesman whose business isn't going so well these days; his reindeer, Sven; and Olaf (Josh Gad), the snowman Elsa brought to life as a child.
There's a lot to like about this movie, everyone. First of all, for all of the magical things I just mentioned-- Elsa's powers, the trolls, the adorable talking snowman, etc.-- it all feels really REAL. You just really hurt for Anna when Elsa keeps pushing her away without telling her why. Also, while there are characters in this movie who are not good people and who do bad things to the main characters, this is not a story where the characters just have to overcome a villain and everything will be fine; most of their problems come from chance accidents, from fear, from dishonesty and secrets, from impetuous decisions-- the same types of things most of our problems come from in real life. Like in real life, then, the problems are solved when characters figure things out, when they make sacrifices, when they are honest with themselves and others. There's romance in this story, too, but it sometimes causes more problems than it solves, and definitely doesn't make everything perfect.
In addition to a great story, let's also not forget that this movie is all just generally very well-done. The songs are so good I'd like to get the soundtrack. The animated winter wonderland the characters live in is beautiful. Olaf the Snowman is super cute. The characters are likeable.
Yeah. Not only is this the best Disney movie I've seen in awhile, I daresay this is the best movie, period, that I've seen all year.
Friday, December 6, 2013
thoughts on Scandal 12/5
I like this show, but I've said it before, and I will say it again: this is a mean, dirty world these characters live in. I HATED the torture stuff with Huck and Quinn, and...CYRUS PIMPED OUT JAMES WITHOUT HIS KNOWLEDGE OR CONSENT AND THEN GOT MAD AT HIM FOR GOING THROUGH WITH IT!!!! What kind of person does that to their spouse?! Of course, though, I will be back for the next episode, what with the Sally Langdon "I've committed a sin" gasp-worthy moment at the end. This show!
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