heart=gerard

I heart Gerard Butler! A couple of months ago, I mentioned that he was making a new romantic comedy with Katherine Heigl. The first trailer has hit the net! Click here to check it out.

photo credit: www.gerardbutler.net

quantum of solace

When Daniel Craig took on the Bond mantle, he turned in one hell of a performance in CASINO ROYALE. It was exciting, sexy, and had a compelling plot. QUANTUM OF SOLACE doesn't play quite as well. I think my biggest issue with it was how just straight up pissed that Bond is. He is angry, and just driven by revenge. I think something that has always worked for the Bond series is the sense of fun that has somehow permeated the films. There is a playfulness and banter that keeps the darker elements of the stories from totally overwhelming and slowing down the films. This movie just didn't have that. Although there are some thrilling action moments, and the actors all do good and interesting work, the movie just feels weighed down by that anger.

Judi Dench is (as always) a welcome presence in the film, and the villain, Mathieu Amalric, is appropriately slimy. (For a complete change of pace, check him out in THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY.) One sequence that totally rocked my world happens at an outdoor opera performance...I don't know how to describe it...but it is very cool, and theatrical fans will get a kick out of the very avant-garde interpretation of (I think) TOSCA.

Final thoughts: Not the worst Bond film....but the playfulness is gone, which is too bad. Daniel Craig still makes a great Bond, and let's hope that the third in the (supposed) trilogy will find some fun.

another must-see!

I can't even put into words how unbelievable this movie looks. Follow this link to check out the trailer. Kate Winslet is stunning!

giggle....sigh....twilight

You know how sometimes you are so excited for something, and you have such high hopes, and then you finally do it, and it is so ridiculous, you can't help but laugh and have fun but also be kind of sad? That, in a nutshell, is how I feel about the movie TWILIGHT. I just got into the books a couple of weeks ago, and they truly are a fun (if trashy) read. The premise is fun. A girl moves to her dad's house, after her mother remarries, and at her new high school, meets a cute boy who happens to be a member of the blood-sucking undead. Ah, teenage romance. Imagine all of the angst of being in teenage love/lust, plus the boy you adore kind of wants to kill you. It can be complicated.

Granted, these books are not the most well written books, and things that are kind of iffy in the book, are really iffy on the screen. The melodramatic moments in the book you can kind of roll your eyes at and skim through are literally laugh-out-loud funny on the screen.

Last night, the roomie and I took in the movie at a sold-out 10pm showing, and everyone in the audience really wanted to be there. Kristen Stewart does a good job with the heroine. She really captures the awkward shyness of someone who hates attention, and finds herself the center of attention at a new school. The biggest surprise to me was how fabulous Billy Burke was as Charlie, Bella's father. Their scenes together are actually the most authentic moments in the film. Robert Pattinson doesn't fare as well as Edward Cullen, the brooding and lusty yet confused vampire. He seems to suffer a bit from Zac Efron - itis, in that his stakes (ha ha - pun intended) are overly high in a film that kind of suffers the stakes blahs. (Not sure if that really makes sense.) He definitely captures the brooding essence of Edward, but it is infused with a very creepy stalker vibe that just makes it awkwardly funny. He really looks the part though, and you can feel yourself swept away...when you're not laughing.

If you are a fan of the book, you should definitely check out the movie...unless you think you will be so disappointed that it will ruin the books for you. In some ways, its a fun way to see how a movie doesn't work.

Final thoughts: Not the movie I had hoped it would be, but interesting to see the movie up on the screen. Check it out, and see why you loved/hated it and what worked or didn't work for you.