7 posts tagged “movie”

The trailer for the action-comedy Date Night is online.

When I read the IMDB synopsis ("In New York City, a case of mistaken identity turns a bored married couple's attempt at a glamorous and romantic evening into something more thrilling and dangerous"), I thought this movie sounded cute. It actually reminded me of Woody Allen's Manhattan Murder Mystery, where Woody Allen and Diane Keaton play a middle-aged married couple who discover a murderer in their apartment complex (with hilarious results!).

However, by the looks of the Date Night preview, it looks a little more Get Smart, a little less New York neurotic. I find this troubling since I like the two leads so much. I just don't know if I want to see them in a pseudo, geeked-down Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

I first sense trouble in this preview when Mark Wahlberg appears, using gadgets and computers like something out of a sci-fi movie. I sense trouble again when James Franco and Mila Kunis show up. Because Carell and Fey are so quirky, we want to see them in something quirky. I just don't think this looks like something that will make them comedically shine.

I'll be sticking to the marital hijinks of Carol and Larry Lipton, thank you very much.

I went to see a midnight showing of Where The Wild Things Are Thursday night. Coming out of the theatre, I was declaring my love for the film, when one of my friends said, "But it's not a kids movie."

This stopped me dead in my tracks. Not a kids movie? My friend said that it was "too scary" for kids.

You Make My Heart Sing

Just because the monsters talk of eating the little boy at one point in the film, it's not a kids film? I don't quite understand this. There are plenty of "kids" films with darker messages. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory shows children practically being tortured in a fun factory, yet the film is now a family classic. Even The Wizard of Oz has frightful moments (personally, I think the witch and the monkeys are terrifying -- plus, unlike WTWTA, Dorothy never wins them over to the good side in the end).

It's been a while since I was a child, but are children's movies becoming softer in substance and premise in order for these movies to relate to kids? Are we sheltering kids from scariness and fright to the point where we don't want them to feel anything when they watch a film? I wonder why Wall-E or even Up get recognition for being geared toward children, when really they made politically statements and clocked in with movie times that would leave children bored. I actually described WTWTA as the "closest depiction of growing up on cinema." Yet, perhaps, I felt this way because I watched this movie from an adult perspective.

To me, Where The Wild Things Are is about imagination. There are no computers or text bullying in this film. The movie is about escaping life through your mind. I don't find this so scary, especially since the audience knows that the little boy isn't going to dream up being eaten, digested, then regurgitated.

Alexis Bledel has ventured outside of Star's Hollow and stopped sharing pants with a group of girls. In her latest film, she's been cast as a post college graduate in the movie aptly titled, Post Grad.

The story in this movie is a direct rip-off of my life. Like Alexis Bledel, I went to school, majored in writing, and couldn't land a job. I had to move home with my parents (an eccentric bunch).  I, too, at one point in my life couldn't choose between Dean and Jess (Who am I kidding? I was always a Jesse's girl).

While the trailer is cutesy but forgettable, I think this film will do well at the box office because of the growing number of young adults forced to move home with their parents due to the recession. Finally, an anthem for the Boomerang Generation!  Plus, it doesn't hurt for the movie's poster child to be a beloved modern television figure. Who didn't want to be a "Gilmore Girl"? 

I would also like to add, "Welcome back, Michael Keaton."  

While merely flipping through the channels the other day, I came across the trailer for this straight-to-DVD catasrophe.

While I am still reeling over last week's Oscar nominations, I've turned my grief into listening to Bruce Springsteen's "The Wrestler" over and over again. What a great song from a great movie. I urge anyone and everyone to see this movie, even if you have to make an hour's drive to see it (damn select city movies!). 

Last weekend, I went to see the movie Milk, starring Sean Penn as the first openly gay elected official Harvey Milk. The film was amazing. I couldn't stop talking about it on my way home. I called people to tell them that Milk is an especially important movie for today, given the election we just came out of and the still hot-button issue of Proposition 8.

However, another important thing I took out of the movie was very disturbing: my immense attraction for a gay Emile Hirsch.

So damn cute

I've seen him in other movies, including the Sean Penn-directed Into the Wild. I thought Emile was great in that. Cute even. However, I didn't desire him as much as I desired his homosexual character of Cleve Jones in Milk.

Now, I am a self-described "fag hag," but I have never been attracted to gays in a sexual manner, mainly because I know deep down they could never be attracted to me. During Milk, Emile Hirsch's character obviously preferred men over women (there's a brief hot scene between him and Joseph Cross), yet I was still attracted. I dug that he wore short shorts, rocked out the curly hair, and fought for the Gay Rights Movement. I thought to myself, "*Sigh.* If only I could find a guy like him. . ."

Perhaps, more than anything else, my attraction stemmed from the fact that Emile Hirsch is in real-life, presumably, straight. I think I was attracted because a very straight guy was playing a very gay guy, all for the sake of art. Most straight guys get very uncomfortable even talking about homosexuality. But Emile went balls out (pun intended!) and actually played a homosexual -- kissing other men in the film.  The liberalism in the statement might have been the other turn-on for me.

Or maybe I have just realized I have a weird fetish for men who act gay. Although, if I did, I don't think I would hate Ryan Seacrest as much as I do.

The new trailer for Gus Van Sant's Milk is online now, and I'm officially psyched for this movie.