In the past month, I have seen Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness, The Hangover Part III and Furious 6 and they were all good. If you liked the previous franchise movies, you will probably like these as well. However, I am not going to review them here because most people have probably already made up their minds about whether or not to see those. Instead, I am going to talk about The Place Beyond the Pines and The Iceman, which were fantastic and I am not sure these films are on most peoples' radar.
To be fair, I mostly saw these two movies because of who is in them (Bradley Cooper, Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans), but I am glad that I did and now think you should too! The trailers for The Place Beyond the Pines made it seem more like an action movie and, while it did have a few fast-paced scenes, I would call it more of a character study. Similar to director Derek Cianfrance's most recent movie, Blue Valentine, it is about the how these peoples' lives intersect and how each action affect those lives. The movie is split into three acts. The first act focuses on the character of Luke, played by Ryan Gosling, a motorcycle stunt rider who starts robbing banks in order to provide for his son. The second act follows Bradley Cooper's character, Avery, who is a young cop in a small town police department run by corrupt detectives. Avery and Luke's individual stories only overlap once, but that small interaction has huge consequences, which you see fifteen years later in the third act of the movie between their two teenage sons. It is an intense story and very well done. The acting is great all around, as is to be expected from all involved, but I was especially impressed with Eva Mendes. She is the only actor that is in all three acts of the film and normally I am not a huge fan of hers, but she actually surprised me in this. And, of course, I would get my wish of having Cooper and Gosling in the same movie only to have them be in only one scene together. C'est la vie.
My Entertainment Weekly Summer Movie Preview has arrived! We all know how excited that makes me so, without any ado whatsoever, here is a list of the movies that I am most looking forward to seeing over the next few months.
May 3 - Iron Man 3 (Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Kingsley, Don Cheadle, Paul Bettany) - The Iceman (Michael Shannon, Chris Evans, Winona Ryder, James Franco, Ray Liotta) 10 - The Great Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton) 17 - Star Trek Into Darkness (Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch) 24 - The Hangover Part III (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha) 31 - Now You See Me (Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman)
Depending on reviews, other possibilities for May include: Epic (5/24), Before Midnight (5/24) and Fast & Furious (5/24).
June 7 - Much Ado About Nothing (Alexis Denisof, Amy Acker, Nathan Fillion, Clark Gregg, Fran Kranz) 14 - Man of Steel (Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner) 21 - Monsters University (Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Hellen Mirren)
Other possibilities for June include: The Internship (6/7), Rapture-Palooza (6/7), The Bling Ring (6/14), The Heat (6/28) and White House Down (6/28)
The seventh blog I ever posted was about my love for actress, Kristen Bell. If you have read any of the subsequent posts you probably know that I have continued to follow her career over the years. I am currently enjoying her character Jeannie Van Der Hooven on Showtime's House of Lies and really liked last summer's Hit and Run, which was written and directed by her fiance Dax Shepard (and also happened to star my other love, Bradley Cooper).
This morning at 10:35 a.m. EST, Entertainment Weekly announced that Kristen and Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas had created a Kickstarter campaign in order to raise $2 million so that they can FINALLY make the Veronica Mars movie that I have been waiting for since the show went off the air in 2007. In less than five hours, they raised half their goal and at the time of this post were at about $1.5 million. Update: They are at $2 million and counting! I think that Warner Bros. should refund the Kickstarter donations if the goal is reached in less than 24 hours as an apology for doubting the fandom, but that's just me. Here is the video explaining the project: And here are all the links you need for anything else you might want: Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project
Mars Investigations (in case you can't watch videos at work but still want to catch up on episodes): http://marsinvestigations.net/
I am so beyond excited that I have pretty much not gotten anything done at work today. So, if I get fired, I guess I will just have to go to LA to work on the movie :) xoxo c -------------------
Here are my annual picks and predictions for this year's Academy Awards: Best Actor: My choice: Bradley Cooper Prediction: Daniel Day-Lewis Actual Winner: Daniel Day-Lewis Best Actress: My choice: Jessica Chastain or Quvenzhane Wallis Prediction: Jennifer Lawrence Actual Winner: Jennifer Lawrence Best Supporting Actor: My choice: Robert De Niro Prediction: Tommy Lee Jones Actual Winner: Christoph Waltz Best Supporting Actress: My choice: Anne Hathaway Prediction: Anne Hathaway Actual Winner: Anne Hathaway Best Animated Feature: My choice: Brave Prediction: Brave or Wreck-It Ralph Actual Winner: Brave Best Director: My choice: David O. Russell Prediction: Steven Spielberg Actual Winner: Ang Lee Best Picture: My choice: Argo Prediction: Argo Actual Winner: Argo For the second year in a row, I will be live tweeting the awards show here and will update this page as winners are announced. xoxo c -------------------------------------------
2012 is over and I have finally gotten around to completing my list of favorite movies from the past twelve months. These are not necessarily the movies that are going to win any awards, but they were the ones that entertained me the most:
The Avengers If you are at all surprised that this is on my list, then you clearly do not know me that well or read my blog at all. I adore Joss Whedon and everything he does and this movie just proved that, if you let him do his thing, magic happens. Expectations were very high for this movie and I definitely think the cast and the story exceeded those expectations, at least for me. I just hope that the S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot actually gets turned into a full series, mostly because it brings Agent Coulson back to life, but also because it will be awesome.
Argo Ben Affleck showed us he was a great writer/director with The Town and Argo proved once again that he continues to be a triple-threat. I enjoyed this movie not only because it was well-written, directed and acted, but also because I learned about a piece of U.S. history that was not well-known. I was not actually alive during the Iran Hostage Crisis, but even my mother does not remember the story of these six fugitives coming home. (And if you know my mother, that is a rarity because she remembers EVERYTHING.) However, even if you do not care for the historical aspects, it is still a great, high energy story. I particularly enjoyed the characters played by Alan Arkin and John Goodman and their tagline: Argo fuck yourself! Pitch Perfect I was really excited to see this movie before it was released. I am a pretty big a capella nerd and the cast is also filled with actors that I love: Brittany Snow, Anna Kendrick, Anna Camp, Rebel Wilson and Elizabeth Banks, to name a few. It is hilariously funny and smart and it is definitely a must-see. I saw it twice in theaters, bought the blu ray for myself for Christmas and have already watched it two more times.
The movie is split into three acts. The first act focuses on the character of Luke, played by Ryan Gosling, a motorcycle stunt rider who starts robbing banks in order to provide for his son. The second act follows Bradley Cooper's character, Avery, who is a young cop in a small town police department run by corrupt detectives. Avery and Luke's individual stories only overlap once, but that small interaction has huge consequences, which you see fifteen years later in the third act of the movie between their two teenage sons. It is an intense story and very well done.
