6 More Film Reviews From 2014: At Middleton, Barefoot, Divergent, Gimme Shelter, The Other Woman, and more!

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Let’s continue to get caught up with 6 more reviews of 6 more films that I saw in 2014!

At Middleton (dir by Adam Rodgers)

“Charming, but slight.” I’ve always liked that term and I think it’s the perfect description for At Middleton, a dramedy that came out in January and did not really get that much attention. Vera Farmiga is a businesswoman who is touring colleges with her daughter (Taissa Farmiga, who is actually Vera’s younger sister). Andy Garcia is a surgeon who is doing the same thing with his son. All four of them end up touring Middleton College at the same time. While their respective children tour the school, Vera and Andy end up walking around the campus and talking. And that’s pretty much the entire film!

But you know what? Vera Farmiga and Andy Garcia are both such good performers and have such a strong chemistry that it doesn’t matter that not much happens. Or, at the very least, it doesn’t matter was much as you might think it would.

Hence, charming but slight.

Barefoot (dir by Andrew Fleming)

Well, fuck it.

Sorry, I know that’s not the best way to start a review but Barefoot really bothered me. In Barefoot, Scott Speedman plays a guy who invites Evan Rachel Wood to his brother’s wedding. The twist is that Wood has spent most of her life in a mental institution. Originally, Speedman only invites her so that he can trick his father (Treat Williams) into believing that Speedman has finally become a responsible adult. But, of course, he ends up falling in love with her and Wood’s simple, mentally unbalanced charm brings delight to everyone who meets her. I wanted to like this film because I love both Scott Speedman and Evan Rachel Wood but, ultimately, it’s all rather condescending and insulting. Yes, the film may be saying, mental illness is difficult but at least it helped Scott Speedman find love…

On the plus side, the always great J.K. Simmons shows up, playing a psychiatrist. At no point does he say, “Not my tempo” but he was probably thinking it.

Divergent (dir by Neil Burger)

There’s a lot of good things that can be said about Divergent. Shailene Woodley is a likable heroine. The film’s depiction of a dystopian future is well-done. Kate Winslet has fun playing a villain. Miles Teller and Ansel Elgort are well-cast. But, ultimately, Divergent suffers from the same problem as The Maze Runner and countless other YA adaptations. The film never escapes from the shadow of the far superior Hunger Games franchise. Perhaps, if Divergent had been released first, we’d be referring to the Hunger Games as being a Divergent rip-off.

However, I kind of doubt it. The Hunger Games works on so many levels. Divergent is an entertaining adventure film that features a good performance from Shailene Woodley but it’s never anything more than that. Considering that director Neil Burger previously gave us Interview with the Assassin and Limitless, it’s hard not to be disappointed that there’s not more to Divergent.

Gimme Shelter (dir by Ron Krauss)

Gimme Shelter, which is apparently based on a true story, is about a teenage girl named Apple (Vanessa Hudgens) who flees her abusive, drug addicted mother (Rosario Dawson). She eventually tracks down her wealthy father (Brendan Fraser), who at first takes Apple in. However, when he discovers that she’s pregnant, he demands that she get an abortion. When Apple refuses, he kicks her out of the house. Apple eventually meets a kindly priest (James Earl Jones) and moves into a shelter that’s run by the tough Kathy (Ann Dowd).

Gimme Shelter came out in January and it was briefly controversial because a lot of critics felt that, by celebrating Apple’s decision not to abort her baby, the movie was pushing an overly pro-life message. Interestingly enough, a lot of those outraged critics were men and, as I read their angry reviews, it was hard not to feel that they were more concerned with showing off their political bona fides than with reviewing the actual film. Yes, the film does celebrate Apple’s decision to keep her baby but the film also emphasizes that it was Apple’s decision to make, just as surely as it would have been her decision to make if she had chosen to have an abortion.

To be honest, the worst thing about Gimme Shelter is that it doesn’t take advantage of the fact that it shares its name with a great song by the Rolling Stones. Otherwise, it’s a well-done (if rather uneven) look at life on the margins. Yes, the script and the direction are heavy-handed but the film is redeemed by a strong performance from Vanessa Hudgens, who deserves to be known for more than just being “that girl from High School Musical.”

Heaven is For Real (dir by Randall Wallace)

You can tell that Heaven is For Real is supposed to be based on a true story by the fact that the main character is named Todd Burpo. Todd Burpo is one of those names that’s just so ripe for ridicule that you know he has to be a real person.

Anyway, Heaven Is For Real is based on a book of the same name. Todd Burpo (Greg Kinnear) is the pastor of a small church in Nebraska. After Todd’s son, Colton, has a near death experience, he claims to have visited Heaven where he not only met a sister who died before he was born but also had a conversation with Jesus. As Colton’s story starts to get national attention, Todd struggles to determine whether Colton actually went to Heaven or if he was just having a hallucination.

You can probably guess which side the movie comes down on.

Usually, as a self-described heathen, I watch about zero faith-based movies a year. For some reason, I ended up watching three over the course of 2014: Left Behind, Rumors of War, and this one. Heaven is For Real is not as preachy (or terrible) as Left Behind but it’s also not as much fun as Rumors of War. (Rumors of War, after all, featured Eric Roberts.) Instead, Heaven Is For Real is probably as close to mainstream as a faith-based movie can get. I doubt that the film changed anyone’s opinion regarding whether or not heaven is for real but it’s still well-done in a made-for-TV sort of way.

The Other Woman (dir by Nick Cassavetes)

According to my BFF Evelyn, we really liked The Other Woman when we saw it earlier this year. And, despite how bored I was with the film when I recently tired to rewatch it, we probably did enjoy it that first time. It’s a girlfriend film, the type of movie that’s enjoyable as long as you’re seeing it for the first time and you’re seeing it with your best girlfriends. It’s a lot of fun the first time you see it but since the entire film is on the surface, there’s nothing left to discover on repeat viewings. Instead, you just find yourself very aware of the fact that the film often substitutes easy shock for genuine comedy. (To be honest, I think that — even with the recent missteps of Labor Day and Men, Women, and Children — Jason Reitman could have done wonders with this material. Nick Cassavetes however…) Leslie Mann gives a good performance and the scenes where she bonds with Cameron Diaz are a lot of fun but otherwise, it’s the type of film that you enjoy when you see it and then you forget about it.

5 Documentaries That I Saw in 2014: Bansky Does New York, Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart, The Last Patrol, Private Violence, Stop At Nothing: The Lance Armstrong Story

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, here it is 2015. That means that next week, I’ll be posting my picks for the best and the worst of 2014. However, before I do that, I need to get caught up on reviewing what I saw in 2014. So, let’s get started with 5 quick reviews of 5 documentaries that I saw in 2014.

Banksy Does New York (dir by Chris Moukarbel)

To be honest, any film about Banksy is going to start with the automatic handicap of not being Exit Through The Gift Shop. No matter how good or bad the other documentary may be, it’ll never be as good as Exit Through The Gift Shop. Banksy Does New York is no exception.

Banksy Does New York chronicles the artist’s wonderfully subversive “31 works of art in 31 days” tour through New York City. For 31 days, new Bansky graffiti and installations appeared throughout New York City. It was up to the city’s residents to track down and discover Bansky’s latest work. (Making things difficult is that New York City, at that time, was being ruled by a tyrannical philistine named Michael Bloomberg, a man who has all the personality of a James Bond villain.) With Banksy remaining predictably off-screen, Bansky Does New York instead focuses on the aficionados who spent 31 days trying to track down Bansky’s work before it was destroyed by the jack booted thugs of the Bloomberg administration.

And that’s where Banksy Does New York struggles because, ultimately, Banksy is always more interesting than the majority of the people who claim to love him. Ultimately, the documentary is valuable as evidence that Bansky’s New York tour actually happened but it provides little real insight.

Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart (dir by Jeremiah Zagar)

Captivated tells the true story of Pamela Smart, a teacher who was accused of convincing two of her students to murder her husband. As the film shows, the Smart trial became a big media event and movies were made that were based on the crime and … *yawn.*

Sorry.

Usually, I love true crime documentaries but Captivated just bored me to tears. As far as the film’s point about media and celebrity are concerned — oh my God, who cares!? It’s been made so many times! I’m sorry but I refuse to get excited over any more documentaries that serve to only make the same point that’s been made by hundreds of other documentaries and self-impressed think pieces. If you can’t offer me any more insight than I might find in an article on Salon, then why should I pretend to be impressed?

The best part of Captivated were the clips that they showed from other, better films that had been inspired by the case.

The Last Patrol (dir by Sebastian Junger)

In this sad but ultimately triumphant documentary, filmmaker Sebastian Junger walks across America with two veterans who have recently returned from Afghanistan and a combat photographer. Along the way, they talk about the war, the struggle to adjust to being back home, and what the future holds. They also talk to several people that they meet during the journey and ask them what they think about America. One thing that quickly becomes apparent is that everyone — regardless of whether they supported the war or not, regardless of whether they like Barack Obama or not — seems to share a similarly pessimistic outlook as far as the future of America is concerned. Ultimately, The Last Patrol becomes less a celebration of America and more a tribute to the ability of humans to survive bad times. It definitely makes for interesting viewing.

Private Violence (dir by Cynthia Hill)

Private Violence is probably one of the most important documentaries to have been released in 2014. I first saw it on HBO and I’d recommend that everyone else keep an eye out for it as well. In a stark and matter-of-fact way, it follows the story of Deanna Walters, an Oklahoma police officer who was abducted and, over a four-day period, savagely beaten by her estranged husband. The film shows Deanna’s attempts to both rebuild her life and her struggle to get legal justice. (Despite nearly killing her, Deana’s husband was not initially arrested for the crime.) Working with Deanna and other abused women is Kit Gruelle, a former victim of domestic abuse who is now an advocate and who leads the viewer through the frustrating and often infuriating world of the courts, law enforcement, and shelters. Anyone who thinks that domestic abuse is not a problem or that victims were “asking for it,” should be forced to watch Private Violence over and over again.

(Though the film was submitted for consideration for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar, it was not about the Koch brothers so it didn’t make the list of semi-finalists.)

Stop At Nothing: The Lance Armstrong Story (dir by Alex Holmes)

I’ve always had mixed feelings about Lance Armstrong. On the one hand, I really didn’t care much about him when everyone thought he was a hero. But then, when it was revealed that he essentially cheated his way to the top, I suddenly found myself wondering what it was like to be literally one of the most hated people in the world. Personally, I found it interesting that, suddenly, not only was it socially acceptable to hate another human being but it was practically expected. You could look at anyone on the street and know that person probably hated Lance Armstrong. It was all a bit overboard, I thought.

Anyway, Stop at Nothing: The Lance Armstrong Story is a collection of talking head interviews with people who knew Lance Armstrong before his career was destroyed and, essentially, they spend most of the film talking about how much they all hated Lance before the scandal and how much they hate him now. I’ve never heard so much ill will directed at a cancer survivor. Stop at Nothing will be interesting to people who want to have their negative feelings about Lance Armstrong justified but it really doesn’t add anything new to the story.

Let’s Say Goodbye to 2014 with Leonardo DiCaprio in The Aviator

Posted on December 31, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, 2014 is nearly over.

Soon, it will be 2015.

Soon, the present will become the future.

2014 will not go down in history as one of humanity’s finest moments. Considering all that’s happened over the past year, it’s hard for me to be surprised by the fact that several of my favorite films of the year were films that I would normally describe as being entertaining escapism.

In 2014, we needed to be entertained. We needed to escape.

Will 2015 be any better? What will be the way of the future? It’s a question that Leonardo DiCaprio asked at the end of Martin Scorsese’s 2004 film The Aviator and it’s a question that we’re still asking today.

Two Late Holiday Reviews: Santa Claws and Happy Christmas

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, Christmas is over and, at this point, you’re probably sick of hearing about Christmas movies. However, before we say goodbye to 2014 and welcome the new year, I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you about two new holiday films that I saw this month.

Directed by Glenn Miller and produced by the wonderful people at the Asylum, Santa Claws tells the story of what happens when Santa Claus comes into contact with three adorable kittens. Unfortunately, it would appear that Santa is highly allergic to cats and he ends up sneezing so much that he falls off the roof of a house. Of course, this means that it’s up to the three kittens to climb into Santa’s sleigh and deliver the rest of the gifts. Fortunately, Santa’s sleigh is equipped with a GPS system and two talking reindeer.

Did I mention that the kittens can talk too?

Because they so totally can!

Okay, okay — this is the type of low-budget, straight-to-DVD family film that critics are always snarky about. But you know what? I’m a cat person and I think kittens are the cutest things in the world. And when they’re capable of talking, it’s even better! Whatever flaws the movie may have had (and it had more than a few), the kittens were cute and really, that’s all that matters.

Add to that, Santa Claws was full of Asylum in-jokes. For instance, one creepy, Santa-obsessed character also happens to love (and own) Sharknado. When the kittens pulls up the list of who has been naughty and who has been nice, one of the names at the top of list is that of frequent Asylum actor (and star of A House Is Not A Home) Gerald Webb.

Ultimately, Santa Claws is cute fun for cat lovers. Watch it on a double bill with the Grumpy Cat Christmas movie.

And, after you watch Santa Claws, you can watch a film that basically takes place in an entirely different universe. Happy Christmas was this year’s film from director Joe Swanberg. Swanberg, of course, is one of the major figures in the mumblecore movement, making films that feature improvised dialogue and which treat the mundane realities of life with the same reverence that most mainstream films reserve for chase scenes and CGI explosions. Swanberg’s previous film, Drinking Buddies, was one of the best of 2013.

Happy Christmas never works as well as Drinking Buddies but fans of both Swanberg and the mumblecore movement will probably enjoy it. Anna Kendrick plays Jenny, an irresponsible woman who might be an alcoholic. When she breaks up with her boyfriend, Jenny ends up moving in with her older brother Jeff (played by Joe Swanberg, himself). The rest of the film follows Jenny as she goes to parties with and embarrasses her friend Carson (Lena Dunham), dates an amiable pot dealer named Kevin (Mark Webber), and bonds with Jeff’s wife, Kelly (Melanie Lynesky).

Kelly is a novelist who has been suffering from writer’s block. With the help of Jenny and Carson, she starts to work on what Jenny refers to as being a “trashy, sexy mom novel.” Probably the best scene in the film features Jenny, Carson, and Kelly just sitting around and debating the best euphemisms to use while writing a sex scene.

(As well, I think that any writer can relate to Kelly’s situation here. Who hasn’t been tempted to just sell out and just write something that’s totally commercial and goes against every idealistic dream you’ve ever had about being a serious writer?)

Many viewers will probably dismiss Happy Christmas as being a film where nothing really happens but I think they’re being shortsighted. There’s a lot going on in Happy Christmas — you just have to be willing to look underneath the surface. Though Happy Christmas rejects the melodramatic conventions that we’ve come to expect from most movies, that doesn’t mean that the film itself is plotless. By the end of this rather short film, neither Kelly or Jenny is the same person that she was at the start of the film. They’ve both changed for the better but — much as in real life — that change isn’t always obvious. But the change is there, waiting to be discovered by those perceptive enough to notice.

Finally, it’s interesting to see both Anna Kendrick and Melanie Lynesky playing against type here. Kendrick especially seems to be having a lot of fun, finally getting to play a character who doesn’t always do the right thing.

And so, next Christmas, watch Happy Christmas when you want to think and watch Santa Claws when you need an excuse to go, “Awwwwww!”

Trailer: The Boy Next Door

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, January is coming up and as a film lover, you already know what that means. Along with at least one movie featuring Liam Neeson killing people, we’re all going to get a slew of really bad films that the studios and stars are hoping no one will notice.

That said, sometimes a January film can prove to be good, trashy fun. That’s certainly what I’m hoping will be the case with The Boy Next Door. I have to admit that I was not even aware that there was an upcoming movie called The Boy Next Door until earlier tonight. My sister Megan and I spent four hours watching Lifetime and, every 15 minutes or so, they showed a commercial for The Boy Next Door.

As for the movie itself, it would appear to have a few things to recommend it. First off, the great Kristin Chenoweth appears to be playing Jennifer Lopez’s undoubtedly sassy best friend. Secondly, it looks like there will be at least a few minutes of soft-focus, saxophone-themed sex and that’s always a good sign for those of us who like our January films to be just a little bit over-the-top and ludicrous. Finally, the entire trailer reminded me of the trailer for another trashy film that I happen to have really enjoyed, The House At The End of the Street.*

On the negative side — well, it’s coming out in January. You know what else came out in January? Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones. Consider that.

Anyway, here’s the trailer for The Boy Next Door!

—–

* a.k.a. The Cleavage At The End of The Street, as my friend Evelyn renamed it.

Film Review: Locke (dir by Steven Knight)

Posted on December 27, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When Locke first premiered in American theaters earlier this year, I have to admit that I didn’t pay much attention to it. On the one hand, I was intrigued by the fact that the entire film was apparently just Tom Hardy driving around in a car and taking hands-free phone calls from people. Tom Hardy, after all, is one of my favorite actors and I’ve always felt that he deserves to be known for a lot more than just being the bad guy in The Dark Knight Rises. At the same time, a lot of the reviews made it sound as if Locke was a thriller in the style of Getaway or Need For Speed and I’ve reached the point where I’m only interested in car chases if they involve Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum.

So, I didn’t really pay much attention to Locke and I didn’t think that I would regret my decision to not see the film. However, a few months later, the Los Angeles Film Critics named Tom Hardy as their choice for best actor of the year for his performance in Locke. And then, so did the Toronto Film Critics. In Houston, Indiana, San Diego, Detroit, and St. Louis, Tom Hardy’s performance was acknowledged as being worthy of consideration.

And I thought to myself, “Well, I guess I better see Locke…” And, earlier today, I finally got a chance to do just that.

My first two immediate reactions:

1) All of those critics who made Locke sound like the Getaway owe me (and probably a lot of other people) an apology. Locke may have been advertised as being a thriller but it’s actually a very moody character study. Despite the fact that he has a name that feels appropriate for an action movie, Ivan Locke is not a criminal, a cop, or a superspy. Instead, he’s a rather ordinary man whose perfectly structured life falls apart over the course of one very long drive. And, though Locke does spend the entire film driving his car and staring out at the road while either taking phone calls or delivering a bitter monologue to the estranged father that he imagines is sitting in the back seat, there’s not a single car chase to be found in Locke. This is not an action film. The only thing chasing Locke are his regrets, his obligations, and one mistake that he’s determined to “make right.”

2) Tom Hardy is a great actor. He is literally the only character to appear on screen and it’s up to him to carry the entire film. He manages to do just that, giving a performance that will probably be imitated in acting classes around the world for at least the next ten years or so. Depending on who is calling him on the phone, Locke can be charming, forceful, caring, narcissistic, and even a little bit desperate. However, he’s always in control. It’s only when Locke is off the phone and he’s alone with his thoughts and his imaginary father that Locke allows his anger to come through. It’s been said that the key to great acting is to be found in the eyes and Hardy’s eyes are on fire all through Locke. It’s really a great performance.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Locke is a great film. It’s a good film. Hardy gives too masterful of a performance for the film to be anything other than good. But at the same time, Locke ultimately feels like an experiment that doesn’t quite work. You can admire the film’s attempt to tell a compelling story without leaving the confines of Locke’s car and still admit that the film doesn’t quite pull it off.

But, that said, Locke is worth seeing for Tom Hardy’s performance. Tom Hardy probably won’t receive his first Oscar nomination for Locke but his performance is brilliant nonetheless.

Film Review: Into the Woods (dir by Rob Marshall)

Posted on December 26, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I had such a mixed reaction to Into the Woods, the latest Rob Marshall-directed musical adaptation, that it’s hard to really know how to start my review, let alone how to conclude it.

So, I’ll start by answering the most important question that you probably have about this film. I think sometimes that film snobs like me tend to forget that, for most people, it’s just a question of whether or not the film is worth the time, effort, and money that it will take to sit through it. In other words, having seen Into the Woods, do I recommend it?

Yes, I do. Well, kind of anyway. As I said before, it’s complicated. But, for the most part, I enjoyed Into the Woods. The audience that I saw it with (and the theater was absolutely packed) seemed to really love the film and there was even a smattering of applause at the end of it. Into the Woods is a crowd-pleaser. It’s a well-made film. It’s perfectly cast. It’s full of funny moments. The costumes are absolutely to die for. (I’m totally in love with the gown that Anna Kendrick gets to wear to the ball.) Meryl Streep will probably get an Oscar nomination. Chris Pine deserves to be given a lot more awards consideration than he’s received. It’s such a good film and yet…

And yet, I never loved Into the Woods like I thought I would. I watched it and I kept thinking about how much I, of all people, should have loved this film. I love musicals. I love spectacle. I love fairy tales. I love revisionism. I love satire. I love handsome, charming men, like the one played by Chris Pine. In a perfect world, Anna Kendrick would be my best friend and we’d spend all of our time going to wine tastings and watching Lifetime movies. Into the Woods was full of everything that I should have loved and the final song actually brought tears to my mismatched eyes but I never quite came to love the film. Something was just off.

Before I go any further, I should admit that my reaction may have been influenced by outside factors. On the one hand, all of the Bowman girls are together right now for the holidays and I loved the fact that, as I watched Into the Woods, I was watching it with my sisters and all four of us were sharing in the experience. Really, that’s the ideal way to watch something like Into The Woods. This is the type of movie that was specifically made to be watched and appreciated by large groups, preferably made up of people who understand and appreciate the conventions of musical theater.

On the other hand, we had the most obnoxious woman ever sitting directly behind us. She laughed through the entire film, regardless of whether anything funny was happening on screen or not. (The film features a lot of comedy but it grows progressively darker with each passing minute.) It wasn’t just that she wouldn’t stop laughing as much as it was that her laugh was so insincere. You could tell that she was laughing because she wanted everyone to be impressed with the fact that she “got” the film. But ultimately, all she did was get on everyone’s nerves with her inability to understand that we weren’t there to listen to her dry heave of a laugh. We were there because we wanted to see Into the Woods. The experience was not meant to be about her. It was about the movie.

As for what the film is about, it’s an adaptation of the famous Stephen Sondheim musical in which the Baker (James Corben) and the Baker’s Wife (Emily Blunt) attempt to break the spell of a not-quite-evil-but-definitely-bad-tempered witch (Meryl Streep). By bringing the witch several things (the majority of which can be found in the woods that sit right outside their village), they can lift the curse that has made it impossible for the Baker’s Wife to get pregnant. Along the way, they run into everyone from the witch’s daughter, Rapunzel (MacKenzie Mauzy) to Jack the Giant Slayer (Daniel Huttlestone) to Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) to the Big Bad Wolf (Johnny Deep, playing up the sexual subtext of the story of Little Red Riding Hood) to not one but two charming princes (played by Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen)! Into the Woods starts by poking gentle fun at the fairy tales of old and then gets darker and darker until, by the end of the film, only a few characters are left alive.

It’s a great idea and it’s gorgeously executed but yet the film itself never quite makes the transition from being good to being great. Towards the end of the musical, the surviving characters sing about missing their loved ones and it brought tears to my eyes but that was one of the few moments when the film itself actually made an emotional connection. Otherwise, I spent a lot of time feeling curiously detached from what was happening on screen.

Thinking about Into The Woods, it’s hard not to compare it to 2012’s version of Les Miserables. In Les Miserables, all of the songs were recorded live on set. And, for all the unfair criticism that Russell Crowe received for his singing, this brought a definite raw power and immediacy to the entire production. What some of the actors may have lacked in conventional singing ability, they made up for with the sheer power of their performances. In Into The Woods, the majority of the songs were pre-recorded. Everyone sounds almost too perfect. There’s none of the vitality or danger that came with Les Miserables or even Rob Marshall’s previous musical, Nine.

(As far as casting, direction, and almost everything else is concerned, Into The Woods is a hundred times better than Nine but it still never manages to produce a moment as vibrantly silly and memorable as Kate Hudson’s performance of Cinema Italiano.)

Into the Woods does have a uniformly excellent cast. Everyone — even the much-criticized Johnny Depp — does a wonderful job with their role. Meryl Streep has been getting all of the awards-consideration, largely because she’s Meryl Streep and, if she could get a nomination for giving that performance in August: Osage County, then she can probably get a nomination for anything. (And don’t get me wrong — Meryl’s great and all but there’s still a part of me that would have loved to have seen what a less self-enamored performer — like Marion Cotillard or Helen Mirren — could have done with the role of the Witch.) But, to me, the film’s best two performances really came from Anna Kendrick and Chris Pine. Whether pausing to strike a heroic pose or casually trying to seduce a woman who he meets in the woods or explaining that he’s been raised to be charming and not sincere, Chris Pine is never less than outstanding.

So, to get back to the only question that really matters, did I like Into The Woods? I did but I did not love it, which is unfortunate because I really wanted to love it.

However, overall, I recommend Into The Woods.

Just don’t watch it alone.

Or with anyone who has an annoying laugh.

Seriously? They made a movie out of that crap? Here’s the trailer for Entourage!

Posted on December 24, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Remember that show Entourage?

Really? Seriously, you do?

To be honest, I had totally forgotten about Entourage, largely because I only watched it to hear the song that played over the opening credits. Then occasionally, I would watch the show that followed the credits and I always thought Kevin Connolly was cute and Kevin Dillon was funny. Jeremy Piven got on my last nerve and Adrian Grenier was never exactly believable as “the best actor of his generation.” (I never had an opinion on Turtle, one way or the other.) I did, however, always enjoy it whenever Seth Green would show up.

Anyway, eventually I downloaded the song from the opening credits (Superhero by Jane’s Addiction, to be exact) and, considering just how misogynistic Entourage could be, I never really had a reason to watch Entourage ever again.

But then I saw the trailer for the upcoming Entourage movie and I said to myself, “Really? They made a movie out of that crap?”

Actually, the trailer doesn’t look that bad. In fact, it starts out pretty well. Unfortunately, that part at the beginning turns out to be a film within the film and that’s probably never a good sign when the film within the film looks better than the film itself.

Anyway, after the film-within-a-film opening, we’re then subjected to what we might expect from a slightly above average episode of Entourage. (For example, we get to watch Jeremy Piven punch a picture because there’s nothing more appealing than the idea of spending two hours watching an asshole with rage issues.) Sadly, Kevin Connolly gets to do next to nothing in this trailer and Seth Green is nowhere to be found.

The film will come out sometime next year. Watch the trailer below.

Let’s Watch Santa Claus Conquers The Martians!

Posted on December 24, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hooray for Santy Claus!

We have a few traditions here at the Shattered Lens. Every Halloween, for instance, we feature Night of the Living Dead. And every Christmas Eve, we watch a little film from 19644 called Santa Claus Conquers The Martians!

Or, as Santa himself might put it, “Oh me, oh my…”

Enjoy!

Trailer: True Story

Posted on December 24, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Originally, we thought True Story was going to be released in December of 2014 so that it could possibly score Oscar nods for both Jonah Hill and my beloved James Franco. However, the release was subsequently moved back to April of 2015.

Often times, it’s not a good sign when a release date is moved back but I still have high hopes for True Story. The film’s plot — its true story — is a fascinating one. Plus, it’s Jonah Hill and James Franco!

Did I mention I love James Franco?