Geek For E!

Geek For E!

Creators of the TwitView! Reviews in 140 characters or less.

Movie Review: 21 And Over

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Jeff Chang turned 21 today.  Mazel Tov!  His two best friends from high school decide to pop in and surprise him with a bar-crawl blowout…but Jeff’s got “the” medical school interview at 8am tomorrow morning.  Oh you know this isn’t gonna end well.

21 And Over is made by the folks that gave us The Hangover, and luckily it’s more of the feel-good craziness of the first Hangover and not just warmed-over ideas packed into a college setting.  And the three leads do a fantastic job of taking moviegoers along for the ride.  Justin Chon (one of Bella’s non-sparkle pals in the Twilight series) plays Jeff Chang, a guy ground down to nothing by his overbearing father (François Chau, Lost).  Poor Jeff Chang — his friends call him by both first and last names, sounding like Jeffchang — is so beaten down that he doesn’t even want to celebrate this milestone in his life.  But party guy Miller (Miles Teller) decides to take charge, with their super-achieving friend Casey (Skylar Astin) deciding that one beer couldn’t hurt.  But with Miller’s promise that “I’m gonna fuck you with alcohol!”, it’s not gonna be a one-beer night.

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A Newbie’s guide to A Good Day To Die Hard

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A Good Day To Die Hard is the fifth installment if the Die Hard series.  And I’m probably the only American that hasn’t seen any of the earlier films.  All I know is “Yippee-ki-yay” and Alan Rickman.  I know, I’m a bad reviewer; 10 points from Hufflepuff and all that.  But in the interest of making lemonade out of my lack of knowledge, here I am, tapping away.

For anyone else that has been living under a rock since 1988, card-carrying badass John McClane (that’d be Bruce Willis y’all) finally decides that he’s kicked enough American badguy tuchas and heads to Russia to track down his estranged son Jack (played by Jai Courtney, Spartacus).  But there’s a problem — isn’t there always? — Jack is in prison.  But surprise; Jack’s actually a CIA operative whose orders are to rescue former Russian mobster Komarov (Sebastian Koch), a man who has a file that is very important to US Intelligence.  But Komarov won’t go without his daughter Irina (Yuliya Snigir).  Meanwhile mobster baddies are breathing down their neck.  Guess who steps in to help sonny-boy?

Do you need to know anything about the earlier films before you see A Good Day To Die Hard?  Nope, not at all.  Did I like it?  Yippee-ki-YES.

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Movie Review: Beautiful Creatures

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Boy meets girl.  Boy falls for girl.  Girl falls for boy.  There’s a deep, dark secret that makes their love dangerous.  Much moping and emo-ness ensues for four overlong books.  Sound familiar?  Well, this time it’s different.  Because in the Caster Chronicles the super-secret is held by the girl, not the guy.  And the emo mopey is done by the guy, not the girl.  I know, right?  It’s like it’s all brand new.  It’s like Twilight, if the dude is the one acting like a chick.

But the movie Beautiful Creatures has something the Caster Chronicles series of books — and “that other series” — don’t have; a sly bit of fun and snarky self-aware leads.  Oh, and casting Oscar winners Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson and Viola Davis as supporting characters doesn’t hurt either.  Beautiful Creatures is simply popcorn fodder that goes down smooth.

Trying to figure out if Beautiful Creatures is something that you’ll want to watch, or something that’ll make you roll your eyes?  Well, it all depends on what you’re looking for.

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Movie Review: Warm Bodies

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With Warm Bodies, director Jonathan Levine (50/50) takes on the novel by  Isaac Marion, a zombie-genre favorite (Marion’s prequel novella, The New Hunger, was just released as an e-book).  Warm Bodies the film gives just enough of a spin on current zombie mythology to keep things fresh, but keeps enough “zombie-ness” to please genre fans.  This mashup of love story, zombie movie and Shakespeare send-up could find a wide audience.  It’s a quirky, fun film that doesn’t take itself too seriously and yet still delivers a few Deep Thoughts about life, and how we live it.  Not too shabby for a film relegated to the dreaded February dumping ground.

Zombie “R” (it’s the only part of his name he still remembers) does the same thing every day; eat, shamble, stare vacantly at his surroundings.  He also likes to pick up random items that spark something in him; sunglasses, books, a snowglobe.  His “house”, an abandoned airplane, is littered with things he’s collected.  But one day as he’s searching for food (read: living humans), he meets living girl Julie.  He’s drawn to her and wants to keep her safe.  But is that him, or the brains of Julie’s boyfriend (that R just ate) talking?  And R isn’t the only one changing….

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Movie Review: Parental Guidance

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Okay, it’s Christmastime.  Everyone’s running amok in the malls, or avoiding their embarassingly drunk family members (I know that’s not just me.)  You’re trying to figure out what to see at the multiplex for two or more hours of blessed silence.  So I’ll be brief; Parental Guidance should be your last choice.  All in all, it’s a sweet little film that tries hard to rise above it’s desperate slapstick and rehashed jokes, but fails in the attempt.  Sure, it cleans itself off during the last third of the film, but by then the damage has been done.

I really wanted to like this movie: Bette Midler!  Billy “I Own The Oscar Show” Crystal!  Marisa Tomei, who is under-appreciated comic gold in my humble opinion.  And yes, these stars do wonderful work here.  But it’s like gilding a dandelion; why bother adding to something you don’t want around anyway?

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Movie Review: Les Misérables

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Les Misérables (or Les Miz, as all the cool kids call it) has been one of my all-time favorite musicals, and my absolute favorite stage musical.  From my first time at the West End Theater to my most recent viewing in DC, Les Miz stays just as relevant today as it did when Victor Hugo penned the original novel on which this musical is based.  Known for it’s amazing set design, breathtaking musical numbers and gorgeous songs that are like earworms to the soul (okay, you try to get “At The End Of The Day” out of your head once it’s in there.  Thought so.) Les Miz is pretty much tailor made for a sweeping, epic movie musical.  Add on megawatt stars Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe and fannish heartthrob Eddie Redmayne (My Week With Marilyn), and it’s understandable that everyone — myself included — has been chomping at the bit to grab a seat at the local multiplex and get their French Revolution on.

But then.  When director Tom Hooper (The King’s English) should pull away to show the awesomeness of the production, he instead focuses in on faces.  Thanks, but as beautiful as Hugh Jackman is, I’d rather not count the hairs in his beard, thanks everso.  It’s not that the entire film is shot at an eye-level close up, but it sure feels like it.  Strangely, this served to not draw me closer to the characters, but to pull me out of the story altogether.  It reminded me that I was indeed watching a film, rather than letting me become one with the people and places.

But let’s get into the pluses of the film, ‘cause there’s a lot of ‘em.  First off, art direction, props and set design are off the hook y’all.  This Les Miz is richly detailed, historically accurate — yes, there really was a huge plaster elephant in the middle of Paris — and paints a vivid picture of Parisian life at the time.  All this painstaking detail is one of the reasons why I wish Hooper would have pulled away from his cast a bit more often.  Because when he does go wide?  It’s breathtaking.

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Movie Review: Hitchcock

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Good Eeeevening.  Tonight’s story is a tantalizing tale of a man obsessed with making a film about a perverted serial killer.  Don’t be alarmed, it all comes out right in the end.  Of course, “right” is all a matter of opinion…

I love Alfred Hitchcock.  His tv show Alfred Hitchcock Presents (probably in the 3rd or 4th round of re-runs by the time I got to ‘em) were a constant source of joy to my little eyes, as were the short story collections he edited.  With titles like “Stories Not for the Nervous”, “12 Stories They Wouldn’t Let Me Do on TV” and “A Hangman’s Dozen”, is it any wonder I’m a horror junkie?  To me he was the equivalent of The Cool Uncle, the member of the family that made you feel as if you were in fact bonded with somebody.  Later on, when I was finally allowed to see Psycho, The Birds and Frenzy, I was already predisposed to love ‘em.  And love ‘em I did.  All this build-up is to give a bit of context; I was also predisposed to love Hitchcock, and love it I do.  It’s a marvelous love letter to the master of the macabre that shows exactly how hard he worked at crafting the movies we now consider classics.  Though I’m sure it won’t get any film historians seal of approval for accuracy, Hitchcock is accurate enough for fans like me who would rather see Hitch as a benevolent but off-kilter genre poppa-bear than see him as a twisted horror of a man like the one in HBO’s The Girl.  (All apologies to Toby Jones and his remarkable portrayal.)

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Movie Review: Anna Karenina

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Love.  Betrayal.  Scandal.  Devastation.  No, I’m not talking about the Petraeus affair.  It’s time to dust off your high school classics and delve into Anna Karenina…or for some of you, time to get acquainted.  It’s not note-by-note faithful to the Tolstoy classic, but this film’s wonderful blend of traditional storytelling and avant garde filmmaking captures your attention and holds it fast.  Not a bad trick for a movie that’s over two hours long.

Here’s the Cliff Notes version; lovely, spirited Anna is married to a dull bureaucrat.  But her heart gets a kick-start when she meets the dashing young Count Vronsky.  However, their love is forbidden, as she’s already hitched; Russian high society won’t stand for that sort of rule breaking.  It’s all kindsa Russian Downton Abbey up in here — even Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery, as Princess Myagkaya) makes an appearance!

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Movie Review: Life of Pi

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Many have said that the bestseller Life of Pi would be impossible to film.  In addition to the story itself, it deals with the three things directors loathe to work with; children, animals and water.  But Ang Lee pick up the gauntlet and the result is a movie of awe-inspiring beauty that may not touch on everything the book has to say, but is instead a beautifully shot tale of one boy’s struggle to survive and keep his sanity and personal faith intact.

Pi Patel is a man from India that moved to Canada as a youth.  But getting to Canada was an ordeal, and when a writer (Rafe Spall, Prometheus) comes to hear Pi’s story in the hope of religious awakening, Pi tells a story of shipwreck, savagery and survival.  And a tiger that shares the lifeboat with him.  Yeah, a tiger.

What’s really breathtaking is that the bulk of Life of Pi rests on the shoulders of Suraj Sharma, a young man who makes his acting debut in this movie.  As most of the film is a two-man show — with one man being a very large Bengal tiger — that’s a ballsy move on Lee’s part, but Sharma carries the day, delivering a performance that is heartbreaking, uplifting and completely believable.

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Movie Review: Rise of the Guardians

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“The boogeyman is gonna getcha if you don’t watch out!” Well, he may also win the day if you don’t believe in the warm happy mythologies of childhood, so you’d better get with the happy Easter, Christmas, dreamtime and tooth-under-pillowness of it all Right Now.

Rise of the Guardians isn’t exactly a fits-all kind of film; there’s no Hanukkah Harry , no Kwanzaa Pimp or any other religious stuff that doesn’t deal with the Big J-Dog.  Then again, with Santa large and in charge on the posters, there’s no doubt what you’ll be getting in the theater, so just roll with it.  And who doesn’t love a badass Santa that sports tats and a thumb ring?

There are three other Guardians who “bring wonder, hope and dreams” to the kids of the world; the Easter Bunny, the Sandman and the Tooth Fairy.  They too get their own unique spin; EB is a boomerang-toting badass who just happens to paint eggs, the Tooth Fairy is a beautiful half-human/half-hummingbird with an ability to multitask, and Sandman is a rolly-polly ball of adorable that could be the most powerful of them all.  But when Pitch — otherwise known as The Boogeyman — threatens the world with his own brand of darkness, another Guardian is tapped to rise up and lend a hand.  And so it comes to be that the new Guardian is…Jack Frost?  He’s just as baffled as the other Guardians as to why he was chosen.  Don’t worry though, all will be revealed in good time.  And it’s definitely a good time.

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