Released in 2011
Tangled
My main reservation before seeing Disney’s newest animated feature, Tangled, was that it would continue the empowerment of beautiful blond teenage girls – because, honestly, do we want to give them more power?
Because of her isolation and the constant reminders from her witch mother that she is helpless, naïve, and nothing special, she is relatively unaware that she is beautiful or interesting beyond the fact that she has magical hair.
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Source Code
I did not have high expectations going into this movie. However, it was either this or Hanna and I was feeling like too much of a sissy to brave Hanna. I was grateful to find that I was surprised by the dimensionality of what I feared would be nothing more than a high intensity borderline sci-fi drama. But I thought it was genuinely funny, unexpectedly insightful, and in possession of true emotional depth. You know, in addition to moments of sheer bad ass. The story opens with Jake Gyllenhaal waking up on a train not knowing where he is, why he’s there, – and after seeing someone else’s face in a mirror – who he is.
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Water for Elephants
Pattinson plays a young man who becomes orphaned just as he is about to take his final exams for veterinary school. Suddenly destitute and emotionally destroyed, he packs a suitcase and starts walking to – anywhere. He jumps a train and finds himself in another life. The train he chooses turns out to be a circus train where the man in charge is an abusive, alcoholic, schmuck and his wife (Reese Witherspoon) is sweet and beautiful. Ain’t that always the way.
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two
Hello fellow mind-blown citizens. Last Thursday at midnight we all left childhood behind on the sticky movie theater floors across the globe. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two was definitely the last half of another movie. One thing I’ve always kind of appreciated about the Harry Potter movies is that – while supplemented by having seen the other movies, or better yet having read the books a couple dozen times each – each one has arguably been able to stand on its feet as a movie unto itself. It was a film expressly meant for those who knew what was going on. There was the constant feeling of “I don’t have time to explain. I’ve got a world to save.”
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The Help
I think this is an example of a writer/director playing it too safe in the adaptation. By retaining everything exactly as it was written in the book, the same feeling wasn’t completely captured. In one phrase, my opinion of this film: safe direction and adaptation, phenomenal acting.
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Crazy, Stupid Love
For the first half of the movie I repeatedly asked myself how they were able to get such a good cast to sign on to such an unremarkable script. It was like two movies were morphed into one: one where there was depth, wit, and clever twists in plot, and then one with perversion, shallowness, complete and utter absence of basic morals, and the worst sin of all – predictable writing. When I liked it, I was charmed. And when I didn’t, I was bored and disgusted.
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Midnight in Paris
Midnight in Paris is one of the most creative, funny, and intelligent movies I have ever seen. Now I’m not usually a fan of Woody Allen. The guy is a little weird and a lot neurotic. I usually find myself wanting to hit him upside the head as if he’s a stuck DVD player. But I’ve got to admit there is something incredibly distinctive about him and his work.
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One Day
Before seeing One Day I read one short opinion by Eric Snider of Film.com that I felt really summed up the film: “It's what a Nicholas Sparks movie would be if it were aimed at grown women rather than teenage girls.” The story is set in England and begins in the early morning after a night of partying in celebration of college graduation in Edinburgh, Scotland . This is where we meet the energetic playboy Dex played by Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe) and the bespectacled nerd Emma played by Anne Hathaway. The story continues to progress in a jump forward, flash backward fashion always on the same day as their college graduation July 15th (thus the name One Day.)
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50/50
I am so glad that 50/50 is nominated for a Golden Globe, but I don’t agree with the category in which it is nominated:
Best Comedy. It was also advertised as a comedy. Don’t get me wrong, it is dang funny. I laughed at every joke and in terms of comedy it is topnotch and still deserving of a nomination for the best of the year. But by placing it in that
category it undermines the drama that makes this film truly great. The script was written by Will Reiser and is based on his own struggle and recovery with cancer. His close real life friend, Seth Rogen, urged him to write this script about their experience together. Not only is this just plain interesting, I felt it explained the feeling I had throughout the film that whoever created this knew what he was doing. Really knew.
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Best Comedy. It was also advertised as a comedy. Don’t get me wrong, it is dang funny. I laughed at every joke and in terms of comedy it is topnotch and still deserving of a nomination for the best of the year. But by placing it in that
category it undermines the drama that makes this film truly great. The script was written by Will Reiser and is based on his own struggle and recovery with cancer. His close real life friend, Seth Rogen, urged him to write this script about their experience together. Not only is this just plain interesting, I felt it explained the feeling I had throughout the film that whoever created this knew what he was doing. Really knew.
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Footloose
When I first saw the preview for the remake I thought, “Wow. That looks oversexualized and unnecessary. I will be there.” It seems like every time a classic movie is remade the justification given is that they are making a version for this generation. Why can’t they watch the original? It’s not like it expires. The changes that were made were that it now takes place in present day so instead of cassette tapes there are iPods and cds. Ummm… that’s about it. With one subtle difference: On a number of occasions the characters embody the current concerning attitude of teenagers, a sense of entitlement to being immature. Most distressing is during the speech that Ren presents to the town council on behalf of the senior class.
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The Descendants
So I needed to see the movie in which George Clooney gets cheated on. It just didn’t compute for me. The first thing that I really appreciated about this film was its location in Hawaii. And not touristy Hawaii where it might as well be one big island inhabited by hospitable natives. Some of the opening shots of the film show the homeless, miserable, and ill on the island of paradise and then cuts to Matt King played by Clooney in the hospital with this wife who is in a coma. As emotional and dramatic as this story seems to be, it’s dang funny as well. With the help of Alex’s obnoxious and immature friend Sid who is along for the ride because as Alex explains to her dad “I will be much more civil with him around.” He is an excellent example of my next favorite part of the this movie: the roundness, realisticness, and consistency of the characters. Nobody undergoes a massive personality change. Matt is still fumbling and learning but good, Scottie is still a ten-year-old girl, Alex is still a strong and opinionated teenager, the biggest change is in their family dynamic. (Click on Picture for Full Review)
We Bought a Zoo
We Bought a Zoo. Freaking adorable. This is what happens when decent actors make kiddie movies – you get something halfway decent. Matt Damon plays a recently widowed father named Benjamin Mee with a troubled fourteen year old son and a painfully cute seven year old daughter. While there are plenty of warm and cuddly people to people and people to animal bonding moments, for the most part they avoid the usual kiddie movie schmaltz. The insights are original and substantial. Benjamin and his son have a very real and emotional shouting match at the climax of their rocky relationship. The depictions of the animals are not plush covered either. One of the tigers is aging and needing to be put down and Benjamin struggles with making that decision. However, along with these topics, the film still has a light enough touch to be accessible to children.
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War Horse
If Forrest Gump was a horse and was in Europe during World War I the story would look something like War Horse. this movie becomes a love story between a boy and his horse. If I hadn’t seen this movie and I had just read this line I would have dismissed it as another animal movie. Take it from me, the unbiased person who is immune to the cuteness of animals: don’t assume that. As my mother said, it seems to be a story for those soldiers who had no voice.
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My Week With Marilyn
I’m not sure how I feel about My Week with Marilyn. I left feeling – odd. The story is based on actual events taken from the memoir of Colin Clark called The Prince, The Showgirl, and Me. A memoir which I personally would love to read now. It depicts the week he spent as an assistant on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl. During this ordeal in which the entire set is infuriated with her behavior, young Colin Clark, the lowest of the assistants, becomes infatuated with her and shows her kindness. So, she comes to rely on his presence.
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Young Adult
I went into Young Adult with the highest of hopes. from the preview it looked like dark edgy fun. Well, I was right about the dark edgy part. She receives a baby announcement from her high school boyfriend and somehow takes it as a sign that he wants her to return to their small town and rescue him. Oh yeah, and she’s crazy. Not only is she unlikeable, but unreachable. Even once all the information is in about why she’s as messed up as she is, I just didn’t care.
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The Artist
In Liverpool, England several movie patrons demanded a refund after seeing The Artist and because they did not know before they bought their tickets that it was a silent film. Fortunately, I already knew, but I still went in with reservations. I mean, there’s a reason that they stopped making them, right? Granted, there were times that I longed to hear voices. But there is a reason that a silent film swept the Golden Globe awards while up against the best “talkies” of the year.
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A Separation
A Separation is a story about a group of people who actually really need some separation. It is a foreign language film so bring your reading glasses – unless you happen to speak Iranian. iIt s the first Iranian film to win an Oscar (it won for foreign language film) and it was also the first Iranian film to receive a nomination for best screenplay. Asghar Farhadi the writer/director explores the myriad faces of conflict. Its volume, its violence, its subtlety, its fear, its despair, its frustrations, and most interesting of all – its blindness.
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