Tag: Andrew Garfield

2021 has been a year of musicals for me. A front to bottom, left to right, back in time to now, year of goddamn musical joy. I have seen so many movies I haven’t seen before, in anticipation of all of the musicals that were coming out this year, and tick, tick…BOOM! is one of the lasts to go.

I think from this year, out of the 11 or so new musicals that came out, I have two more to go after tick, tick…BOOM!, the end is in sight, and I am sad to see it go. I also had a goal to watch at least 100 musicals throughout the decades, focusing on many musicals that were strange or famous that I never saw before.

tick, tick…BOOM! is the type of musical that one has heard of before, and never gotten a good chance of seeing or hearing before, due to the situations around that musical. And our bae Lin-Manuel Miranda, inspired in his own life by the musical for people who create musicals, decided he needed to dust off the old director’s hat and give us a theatrical version of this musical as his first go around. Musical theater nerds rejoice, everyone else? Well, hopefully they also rejoice, because rejoicing is fun.

“You love me, you really love me!”

Jonathan Larson (Andrew Garfield) is a real person! A real guy. Who really wanted to write musicals. In fact, he did write some musicals. In this movie, we are going to see a few things. One, him living his life. Two, him putting on a musical he has created called Superbia, similar to 1984 the book, and set in the future, but different. Three, the actual musical of tick, tick…BOOM!, which is one he made about his life at the time, his feelings dealing with his failures and successes around the making of Superbia. And then his eventual death. Spoilers. But yeah, his last musical he made was RENT and he died suddenly the morning that it was to premier off-Broadway.

Why does he write like he is running out of time?

Narratively, the plot isn’t too hard to follow, but we have musical songs both in his regular life, and in the musical he is trying to make, and the one that this movie is technically about. And we have a lot of people. Like his girlfriend (Alexandra Shipp) and a former roommate (Robin de Jesus) who wanted to be an actor, but sold out to make that cash.

We also get Bradley Whitford as Stephen Sondheim, who was someone who gave Larson a lot of inspiration early in his life, believed in his work. Sondheim also left a voicemail on Larson’s real life voice mail, and he used it in his original show and it is used in this movie as well.

This is a musical of emotions, of youth, of dreams, and with the knowledge that tragedy can happen at any moment, and you should live your life like it is the only life you got.

Also starring Ben Ross, Jonathan Marc Sherman, Joshua Henry, MJ Rodriguez, Richard Kind, and Vanessa Hudgens.

Although the song and lyrics of a musical don’t pop out of his head there, you can still imagine it. 

As it is hard to describe in my plot outline, tick, tick…BOOM! is clearly a very unique and different experience. The musical itself had a few name changes, and met with various amounts of success, and had a revival decades later that was nominated for awards. Larson is such a unique and clever individual, that it makes sense a movie musical about his life needed to do it in a clever and unique way.

Garfield as the lead is absolutely wonderful. So full of energy, positive and negative. You feel his angst, sorry, and happiness the rare time he gets to experience it. His face wears his expressions so wildly, that you forget that he is imitating a real person (and those who know him say it was spot on). Because you know, biopic films, how close they were to the real person matter greatly and it is harder for people to know about this being great if not many people know about Larson.

For the movie itself, it does feel like both a performance and a musical. Sometimes people break out into songs, and it feels like it is a natural sometimes for the characters to do it, and other times, hey, a musical. We get songs, sometimes across timeline scenes. We get music, and I hope you came here for music, because there is a good chunk of it, and a lot of Broadway cameos, namely in one specific song, but also sprinkled throughout.

The angst behind our film can be applied to more than just musical writing, but any sort of creative process that is purely up to the maker and the struggles they have to overcome, even if the talent is clearly there. A lot of people can relate to these struggles, and the feelings that come with it.

I didn’t know this musical was coming out at all until I saw the first trailer release. And I am happy to say, that the trailer doesn’t oversell the film.

Sometimes the name of a movie is the name of a book as well, especially if it is based on it. That makes sense.

Sometimes the name of the movie is the name of another movie as well, especially if it is a remake. It makes sense. (Or it could just be a popular /generic phrase that has multiple very different movies).

But what if your name is the same as a documentary, about the same subject? That might be notable if it is again, a very specific name, like of a person, or a group. But for The Eyes of Tammy Faye? It was a documentary that came out in 2000 about Tammy Faye Bakker, about her life and what she is up to then dealing with scandals. This movie, of the same name, is just about her and her husbands life. So they are both about Tammy Faye, but it is so weird to specifically name this film the exact same name as the documentary, when the phrase, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, isn’t inherently a specific phrase or meaning.

Oh heck oh golly oh don’t cha know.  

Growing up, Tammy Faye sought religion in her life, because her family went to church and she was banned because her mom (Cherry Jones) was divorced! Oh no. But she was a theatrical little kid, and she went full in, talking in tongues, so she was welcomed as a child of God and given meaning in her little life.

Later on, Tammy Faye (Jessica Chastain) was going to a bible college in Minnesota where she met Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield). They had so much passion for Jesus, and wanted everyone to praise him so much, that they found each other, got hitched, and then got kicked out of college. That is okay. They are going to take their show on the road, touring the country, praising the Lord, using puppets, whatever. They had big dreams though, dreams of being on television one day, with their own proper Christian talk show, for adults, shows for kids, and more.

Hell. Maybe their own Christian network and satellite. That will show those non-believers!

They want to be rich and famous for Jesus. But where does the money come from? And where is it going? That is the realest question. Oh shit, is that the law coming? Shenanigans!

Also starring a lot of people in various levels of famous roles. People like Fredric Lehne, Gabriel Olds, Louis Cancelmi, Mark Wystrach, Randy Havens, Sam Jaeger, and Vincent D’Onofrio.

We almost never get a transformation like this for actresses. 

Let’s talk Chastain. I think most people would put her into the great actress category. She has been nominated twice for Academy awards (although one of them is from a very ehhh movie), and generally if she stars in flops, it isn’t her fault. But like my joke above says, Chastain has never had to transform her body or looks into a role. Most actresses don’t have to do it. Arguably, neither should actors, but they do happen to do that a lot of the time. Lose or gain weight. Bulk up, whatever.

But Chastain looks nothing like Chastain for 80% of this movie. Her gradual transformation, with more and more makeup and change in hair style just feel so natural and yet so sudden. Outside of the college scene and right at the start of their marriage, this was clearly just a different person. It is a phenomenal change and acting on her part, it is clear she will end up being nominated for this role as well. I can’t say it will be a win, so early still in the year, but the change felt like the level of commitment that Gary Oldman did for Darkest Hour.

In terms of the rest of the movie, it is fine. Garfield plays a second charismatic person in front of camera for the second time this year (and maybe will a third time?). D’Onofrio played Jerry Falwell Sr. very strongly, and felt like a bad guy in a movie where most people are bad guys. Wystrach was only in a couple of scenes, but it felt good seeing him play a country Keanu Reeves.

I really enjoyed the focus on how manipulated Tammy Faye was through big sections of her life. Manipulated by people manipulating religion, or just outright gaslighting, and it was tough to watch and experience. It was interesting to see this point of view of one of the biggest scandals of the 1980’s. You can tell it definitely is one sided on most parts, and there is likely other pieces of the story missing.

This movie is entertaining and well acted, but I did find myself wanting more. It didn’t give me enough. I went out of my way to watch the original documentary on the same day, just to see what else it could have been or focused on. I wonder if the real Tammy Faye is actually a huge part of this scandal and we will never know. WE WILL NEVER KNOW.

See this movie for the acting and the interesting story. Even if some details are muddy and rushed.

Andrew Garfield, is he the best Spider-Man? Honestly, most people would put him at number three, and those people are fine in my book. I do like him as Spider-Man though. I’d put him at three also, but note that everyone was a good Spider-Man in their own way.

I do like Garfield, because out of the Spider-People, he has shown me to be the best and strongest actor of the three overall. Yeah, I am including you Maguire. And Holland hasn’t done enough to really show what he can do.

But Garfield is in the sweet spot, where he has been in serious films, films that are nominated for awards, some of them because of his action.

So when I found out he was going to play a YouTube sensation that was a bit wild and I guess…accurate to modern YouTube stars, I thought it would be a perfect fit for him, because he is young enough to get that energy, and a good actor enough to have potential layers to his act, and not just parody.

And yet still, Mainstream was barely released to theaters, and pulled quickly out of many of them as no one went to see it. I think people likely

Also, Jim Carrey 30 years ago could have done this role. 

Frankie (Maya Hawke), for the most part, lives on her phone. She is a bartender at a club, but a budding YouTuber. Like, really budding. Barely any views. She tries to make videos and content but no one cares. So she is just bartending, with one of her best friends, Jake (Nat Wolff).

However, while she was off doing regular human things, she ends up seeing Link (Andrew Garfield), in an animal costume, working who knows what promotion. But Link goes on a fun rant about art and society with the public, which she records and posts on the internet. And because this is a movie, you know that one will go slightly viral.

Now, Link, he has no parents, doesn’t like social media, hates cell phones, all of that. They end up seeing each other a couple of times, and she wants to record more of him to get famous and be a producer. But how can she do that with someone so anti-capitalist?

Well, let’s just say, the rise to the top can be very fast, and sometimes people aren’t who they seem on the outside, and maybe everything is just an act.

“This is the internet and this –” “I know what phones are, bitch.”

Mainstream is destined to be a film that is mostly hated, and that hate it will have a lot of good arguments. The climb to the top is a bit unrealistic, and the YouTube show itself is really…bad. Just bad. It is not how YouTube channels and shows work. They turn it into a gameshow, that has contestants who agree to do bad things for their phones back? It is the type of show that maybe could work once, but not sure how they’d get to have more than a couple episodes without changing things constantly.

And it is edited like modern YouTube celebrities’, with the quick cuts sounds. I know I am an old curmudgeon, but I don’t see how they put out a product that would get people excited and watching to become YouTube famous. Yes, if things are set in the real world, we often hope for some realism in their plot lines.

Now, the saving grace is that Garfield’s character is interesting and mysterious. A little bit diabolical. It is easy to be drawn into his character, but less his character on the screen.

The ending is a big ole what the hell too, but it ends up working really well for me. A powerful creation had been unearthed on our channel, even if didn’t make total sense the journey to that point. It obviously has a lot to say about commercialism, celebrity worship, social media, and fake stars, but it also feels like it never really drives the point home at all.

Mainstream is a messy film about a messy topic. It doesn’t really overstay its welcome, more so it instead just meanders a bit before getting to the grand finale. Garfield is fine though. He should keep doing his thing.

What’s that? Do you hear that? Shhh, listen!

That’s right, that is the sound of Silence, blistering in the wind.

It is also the sound of Martin Scorsese, old and still not giving a fuck. He is making movies that he wants to make and he is making him epic. When his last film came out, The Wolf of Wall Street, it was hacked down to 3 hours from a much larger length. And the same was true for Silence.

It ended up around 2:41, making it just a few minutes shorter than American Honey, and thankfully the only two films to be pretty darn long this year. But on average, the movie lengths have still probably gone up. You know, thanks to the behemoth that is O.J.: Made In America.

And this is just a sign of the behemoth that Garfield’s hair will become.

In the mid-1600’s, we meet a couple of priests, Father Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Father Garrpe (Adam Driver). They are young and have strong hearts for Jesus in their Monastery in Portugal. From another Father (Ciaran Hinds), they find out that Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), their former mentor and teacher, was still alive in Japan.

But he was no longer there to try and and convert a nation. He apparently has actually denounced his faith and is living there a Buddhist now. Shocking rumors, for sure, but his last letter was from a long time ago, and about Christians being tortured and killed.

Strong in their faith, the two priests decide to head to Japan, a very anti-Christian nation. Not only to find the missing priest, but to see what became of his life, try their best to not get killed, and also maybe restore Christianity to the nation that was flourishing with followers just decades ago.

Including a major role from Yôsuke Kubozuka as Kichijiro, a secret Christian with a weak mind, Issei Ogata as the main Inquisitor, and also Tadanobu Asano, Shin’ya Tsukamoto, and Yoshi Oida.

Speak softly, confess frequently, and carry a regular sized stick.

Silence, despite its gargantuan length, starts captivating very early on. You don’t get bogged down in Portugal. After two quick scenes and Ferreira’s letter, our boys are in China, meeting a guide to the island. And once there, they are basically smugglers, only able to come out at night, not sure who they can trust.

It is just a very tense film where it feels like anything can happen. Loosely based off of a real individual, the story is very personal and it made me start to feel like I was there with the priests. By having the point of view specifically with Garfield’s character, all of the fears and mysteries are revealed when he finds out the truth. The truth about Ferreira, about any of his friends when they are away, about who to trust, just everything. It is a great journey, even with large swaths of it involve him hiding up in some cave or shack or building.

The film also features some incredible shots of jungles, mountains, and seas. It is fully immersive in 1600’s Japan and creates a wonderful experience regardless of the story.

And yes, it is a film about Christianity and how right or wrong religion is at certain parts of the world. And no, it is never a problem. This year was a great comeback for “Religious films”. Yes, we had God’s Not Dead 2 and I’m Not Ashamed, the normal cheesy crap. But Miracles From Heaven ended up really average, which is something positive. And along with Silence we of course had Hacksaw Ridge.

Can you believe it? In a span of a few months, Andrew Garfield starred in two extremely good religious films about Christianity and someone sticking to his faith and principals against incredible odds and struggles. What the hell are the chances there, that two films like that, could get 4 out of 4’s? This is the direciton the genre needs to go, and Scorsese and Gibson gave a giant push in that direction.

Hacksaw Ridge, like most movies I saw in the month of October, I went in without knowing the actual plot and without seeing a trailer. I love it.

Here is what I did know, though. I knew it was about World War II. I knew it was directed by Mel Gibson, who hasn’t directed a war film in a long time. You know, Braveheart. And I naturally assumed it was at least 2.5 hours long and it would be unexpectedly graphic.

Oh and hey, it of course has Andrew Garfield. A generally solid actor, who has been solid post Spider-Man. 99 Homes was a surprising treat and I expect great things from him here.

Like I expect him to be able to take a hit from Private muscles over there.

Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield) is a weird guy. His dad (Hugo Weaving) served in WW1 and has never been the same, making him an alcoholic abuser of both his kids and his wife (Rachel Griffiths). After an incident where he almost killed his brother (Nathaniel Buzolic) in a fight, Desmond vowed to never hurt a soul again, going full Christian.

Years later, World War II is starting and his brother had left for the war. In fact, all of Desmond’s friends left for the war. It is his duty as an American Patriot to join his friends to help stop an evil threat right? But can he do that and NOT kill? Well, he has always been interested in being a doctor but didn’t even graduate high school. After he meets and falls in love with a nurse, Dorothy Schutte (Teresa Palmer), he is able to gain some knowledge.

So he decides to sign up as a conscientious objector, refusing to even touch a gun, wanting to serve as an unarmed medic. And yeah, a lot of problems happen, in boot camp mostly, but he is able to metaphorically fight his way through and get sent to Japan to face horrifying conditions, with one goal: Save a few lives. Also featuring Vince Vaughn as the Drill Sergeant, Sam Worthington as their Captain, and Luke Bracey as fellow private and asshole.

You want your group of soldiers and commanders that also appear in this film? Well, hold on to your helmets. We got Michael Sheasby, Firass Dirani, Luke Pegler, Ben Mingay, Nico Cortez, Goran D. Kleut, Harry Greenwood, Damien Thomlinson, Ben O’Toole, Richard Pyros, Jacob Warner, Milo Gibson, and of course, Richard Roxburgh.

And countless more names play rag doll dying soldiers on both sides.

Gibson is a sunnova gun if there ever was one. Because Hacksaw Ridge is a movie that just seems to hit every note perfectly. It is cheesy and gory. It is loving and unforgiving. It is a few types of movies all rolled up in one.

The time just flew by as well. I was worried that the film would end right after he finished boot camp. Boot camp had so many issues and struggles for him to get through, after what felt like a very detailed introduction,
and also a courtroom scare. It had so much going on, and we didn’t even get him over to Japan yet! That is the main crux of the film!

Because he has to do something in order for his story to be told. They advertise he is the only person to win a medal of honor without ever firing a weapon, so he must have saved his entire division somehow in very difficult conditions. As to how difficult and what he did, well, that is what the movie is going to show. But the things he went through are basically awe inspiring to anyone who would watch, even knowing there must be some level of fib being told.

And yes, the main character is Christian. That is an extremely vital part of the film: his faith and his beliefs. We are told them again and again, but it never gets hokey, it never gets annoying. It feels real and earnest without rubbing it in our faces. This is what a Christian film should like. Something where someone’s actions speak louder than words without hearing Jesus every minute. It has been straight up probably decades since we have had an actual great movie with a strong Christian focus, and that is the most incredible fact about this film.

Desmond Doss is an amazing American hero, and Mel Gibson gave him an amazing movie for us to remember him with.

If I had 99 Homes, I’d either sell at least 94 of them, or desperately look for one more home. It’s so fucking close to a cool number. Just think, 100 homes.

You know what you could do with a 100 homes? No? Exactly. I’d realiz it was stupid within a week and then try to sell at least 95 of them.

99 Homes is released by Broad Green Pictures, a new company as of 2015, but they had a productive year. However, I am happy to announce this is their first film I have actually reviewed! Hooray! I had no interest in seeing Learning to Drive or A Walk in the Woods or the other few films I never heard about before.

And I will review it without making any Spider-Man / Superman crossover jokes.

Remember the 2008 Financial Housing Collapse thing? No, well, go watch Margin Call and The Big Short. Come back to this review in like 4 hours.

People lost their homes. Loans and bubbles, bad stuff. Very bad stuff for Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield), a single dad, raising his son Connor (Noah Lomax) and also living with his mother, Lynn (Laura Dern). You see, they are about to lose their family home. He is a contractor, but he lost his job and is up to his ears in bills and lawyers and what not.

But no. The home is no longer his. It belongs to the bank and they have to leave immediately and move into a hotel room. The man to deliver the message is Rick Carver (Michael Shannon), a real estate agent who has turned into the guy people hate to kick them out of their houses. No one likes Carver, especially not Denis.

Then Dennis starts to work for Carver. What? Exactly. A shitty job needed to be done on a different foreclosed house, and Dennis has the tools, skills, and really needed the money. Dennis slowly gains more and more responsibility, doing terrible things for pay, hurting others who used to be just like him. Just so he can get the house back.

It isn’t even that great of a house.

There is only so much sadness one person can feel due to a single event. Right? That is why they don’t make as many Holocaust movies as they used to. People are tired of those events.

I apparently am not over these types of movies yet. The beginning of 99 Homes is compelling and really gets you on the train to sadtown real quick. It is a bullet train. Garfield gives a pretty compelling performance, Dern not as much as I had hoped.

Shannon is the big bad guy here. A seemingly uncaring man who just wants people out of houses so he can move on to the next house to fuck up more lives. But as Garfield’s character begins to work and deal with him, part of him gets redeemed. Just kidding, dude is terrible and all money hungry and exactly the right kind of antagonist to go with a movie about the economy tanking.

The ending was good too, a lot of tense and morally dark choices had to be made, but I feel every character got what they deserved and was not disappointed.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is technically the first big budget movie of the summer, because April doesn’t count as summer. Take that, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. And what a packed summer it is! Or at least this month, in which we see two Marvel franchises, neither currently owned by Marvel.

Either way, the first one I thought was a good reboot. I was still shocked like everyone else when they announced that there would be at least four movies in this franchise, one released every two years. So you can look forward to The Amazing Spider-Man 4 in 2018. It also will have two spinoffs at least, Venom and Sinister Six, presumably in the off years. Although they will just feel like more of the same I assume.

I have absolutely nothing to follow that informative, yet boring intro.

Spider-Man! It is a few years after the first film, now time for graduation. Peter (Andrew Garfield) is conflicted over his love for Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). He promised to not get her involved, it could hurt her. Sure, at the end of the first movie he didn’t care, but apparently now he does.

So, a yearish after that, he is still saving the day, but now in college. I assume a community college or something, maybe online classes, because you never really see him doing work for it. Some would say he is wasting his potential, but those people don’t know he is Spider-Man.

Either way, his old friend from middle school or so, Harry Osborne (Dane DeHaan) has returned home. His father, Norman (Chris Cooper) is dying of a genetic disease, so Harry is going to get it too probably. That isn’t Harry’s only problem. He is also now head of Oscorp, the board hates that and wants to get him ousted as soon as possible.

Lot of shit going down. Not to mention a poor nobody Max Dillion (Jamie Foxx) is killed while working at Oscorp, his body being electrified in a horrible accident. Oh what’s that? Electro. And he has a beef with Spider-Man and the city too. Oh hamburgers.

Also starring again Sally Field as Aunt May, Campbell Scott as Peter’s dad, and Paul Giamatti as a Russian criminal turned Rhino.

I think I actually got shocked during this fight scene. 3D Effects are amazing.

Just like the previous film, this franchise just seems to “Get it”. They get what it means to be Spider-Man, how cool it is, and the entire strength of his character. This is mostly portrayed in two points of the film.

Point one: His wit. Spider-Man talks with the public and the bad guys as he swings around, offering the quick joke or two and not taking life too seriously until it gets dire.

Point two: The fights. Holy crap the fights. The action in this movie is just so fucking incredibly Spider-Man. So good, so good. We get to see Spider-Man use his agility and webs to maximize his chances of victory, against stronger and slower foes, and against quick foes too. He has to use his brain to develop strategies for beating enemies. He uses Science! We get to see his Spider Senses help determine his plan in a combat. It is just so gleeful. Maybe worth the price of admission.

But this movie has a lot of faults too. The plot is a lot thinner than I would have hoped. Too much of the movie is Peter moping around, not being awesome. We just had the origin story, the sequel is supposed to allow for a lot more action and awesome. Since it is over two hours, having two big villains shouldn’t be an issue, as it is closer to the comics that way anyways. But still the ending villain fights feel a bit rushed.

I knew how the ending would go I guess, and man, it still rocked me. I thought it was a well done interpretation. That is all I will say on that note. The movie feels a lot like a comic too, and I don’t know how to describe that better. But the plot also moves sometimes at strange paces. Somehow Peter finds out a secret laboratory that his father had made. But the clues that lead to it seemed completely random, and they didn’t really have a good way of explaining how he made those leaps of logic.

Oh well. The action? Really really fucking good. The plot? Ehhh. I do like how they started the Electro character. That way feels pretty new. The Goblin could have used a bit more work and time I think.

Reboots are a tricky thing. Especially if they happen within half of a decade of the last previous movie of that type.

Most people will agree Spider-Man 3 is a disaster, especially when comparing itself to its previous two movies. Why did it fail? Seems like studio intervention. Forcing the director to include villains that they didn’t plan for, made a mess. There was a script for Spider-Man 4 in the works, still with Sam Raimi, who claimed he wouldn’t let the studio mess up the movie again. And then before filming, after the script, they fired him and screamed reboot!

So with that, a few years later, we got The Amazing Spider-Man, hopefully it doesn’t suck!

Ah, he is trying to seduce the nerds with books. I see it now.

A lot of the plot you guys already know. Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) used to have parents (Campbell Scott and Embeth Davidtz), his dad a scientist, but without warning, they get scared and run off. He is left with his Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field), as they swear to return. Well many years later, guess who never came back and had a plane crash? Sucks.

Peter is all angsty now. Lives a weird life, has an old film camera, in a modern technology world. Smart, doesn’t apply himself, etc. But when he finds his fathers old notes in the basement, he gets curious. Turns out he used to work for Oscorp, and big on genetic therapy involving swapping genes with an animals to make a better human. He dealt with spiders mostly, but his partner, Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) was interested in lizards and their ability to grow back limbs. Because he was missing an arm! Oh noes.

Well their company is running out of time, Norman Osborn (Not yet cast!) is dying of something and needs this research, so his lackey (Irrfan Khan) harasses Curt to make science work faster. Human trials damn it, or get fired! Things happen, the latter, and he takes the formula in desperation and tries it on himself. Well, and you know where that probably goes.

There is other stuff going on of course. Like Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), the smart science girl at school who Peter has a crush on, who also works for Oscorp. And her dad, (Denis Leary), captain of the NYC police force trying to stop that masked menace. Flash Thompson (Chris Zylka) is in the film, just for some amount of normalcy. Love stuff, flying around without a mask, and more spoilers that I didn’t think would be spoilers.

Will Peter accept his greater power responsibility ratio? Could Uncle Ben have been more bad ass? Will a scene like this appear in the movie? Is this the best Stan Lee cameo yet? Do bitches know about the Lizard’s green gas?

Bitches don’t know ’bout my green gas.

Woo, Spider-Man. There is a lot of things to like about this movie. First off, just by including Gwen Stacy as the main love interest, you already know this film might be a bit darker than the last trilogy. I had legitimate fear for multiple characters throughout the movie during Lizard scenes. Before when it was Mary Jane I never thought “Oh man, is she about to die?” Nope. I always figured out Spider-Man would just save her.

The fights were well done and I could pretty much tell what was going on the whole time. Not too blurry. Spider-Man fighting was generally epic, and the Lizard was generally stronger than him. I wish the Lizard reminded me a bit less of a Killer Croc / Toad from Super Mario Bros. hybrid, but hey, not perfect.

Speaking of not perfect, more than once I rolled my eyes at some poor dialogue. The serious and epic ending I didn’t get to fully experience, only because I knew it was coming. If a comic fan knows the characters in the movie, they are sure to know certain events that will transpire, so I thought the ending wasn’t as good as it could have been. Even laughed in the theater to a line I thought was a joke, that apparently everyone else was way more serious about. Whoops.

Overall, movie definitely does the character justice.

Everyone knows about The Social Network.

Everyone. I mean, come on. You do. You all probably saw it. But damn it, I wanted to write about it anyways.

Because sometimes you just want to write about a greatm ovie.

And it’s all because of some BU girl.

Also I should note that I recognize that this is mostly a work of fiction, and based on true events. But you know, might as well write about it as if it is real.

Mark Zuckerberg got dumped by Erica Albright. He also talks, a lot. He goes to Harvard and can’t understand why he got dumped. So he did what any reasonable guy doe, gets drunk and makes a website to compare all of the women in college to one another, and crash the Harvard network.

This gets him noticed by the Winklevoss twins, two olympic rowers. They have the idea of making a Harvard based social networking site, and by making it a lot more exclusive than something like Mypace. You have to get invited, have to have the harvard.edu, no weird band people etc. They want Zuckerberg to fix the site and make it live for them. But he is inspired by it. And kind of takes their idea.

Getting one of his roommates, Eduardo, to invest in his project and have a third stake in the company, he eventually makes The Facebook and becomes instantly “popular” on campus. The decide to expand to local colleges and hire some other people to work for them. Eduardo wants to get advertisement for their site to make money, while Mark just wants the site to be cool and grow. Advertisements aren’t cool.

They also eventually meet Sean Parker, the founder of Napster, who immediately befriends Mark and pisses off Eduardo. He convinces them to move to LA to set up a company, and weasels his way in. Despite being broke at that point, he now knows a lot of people helping facebook get into the door. Lots of conflict, and lots of people get pissed off.

The movie is told with the twins and Eduardo currently suing Mark for different reasons, and their pre court hearings are used as the device for telling the story, up until Eduardo gets tricked out of the company. Rashida Jones is also in this movie as “Random lawyer helpful person” who preps people before they go in front a jury.

No idea why he is seen as a bad influence.

I realize how ridiculous going over the plot actually is. I mean, its about the invention of facebook. That sounds very uninteresting in itself. Whod have thought there was lots of drama behind it? Intense drama at that.

When I first heard about it, I thought it was dumb, but the previews were so well made and epic looking, I just had to watch it. And it did not disappoint. Despite being two hours, I feel as if the movie goes very fast and flies by for me, which I think is a sign of a great movie. The acting is great, the dialogue is great, but that is expected when Aaron Sorkin is writing the dialogue.

If for some reason you still haven’t seen TSN, you need to. But I am pretty sure there doesn’t exist anyone in that category.

Hey look, another sad movie. So here are some more jokes to make me feel less depressed.

Never Let Me Go is the sequel to the Titanic. It is the year 1975 and Jack is now a frozen zombie monster, searching for Rose who promised to never let him go, yet doing so anyways. It is a tale of humor, drama, and horror, as we find out the story you thought you knew of the Titanic was all a lie.

Really I am just glad a search for zombie yeti worked.

But seriously, Never Let Me Go is based off of a dystopian book of the same name. It is taken from a fictional song played a few times in the movie. In it the world is a better place! Life expectancy is now in the 100s, as a cure for most diseases has been found. And by cure, of course I mean just get rid of the ailing body part and replace it with a new one! Where do they get these organs from? Oh of course, Organ Donation Farms. More or less. Easiest way to grow new organs is to grow a new human. Schools/Compounds are set up everywhere where these clone humans are raised to be very healthy, so that in their mid-twenties they can give “donations” until they are “complete”. Whoa. Must suck to be those people. Which is why the film focuses on three kids from one of these places!

The main girl is played by Carey Mulligan, who really likes the boy played by Andrew Garfield, and the other friend who gets the boy, Keira Knightly. I can admit I have never heard of Mulligan before, but she was fantastic. All the actors did a fantastic job.

It is told in three parts: Of their life in school when they are young and learning, of their life after school in the early 20’s where they can live on their own, and of Carey’s life as a Carer, someone who helps the clones accept their fate and get better post donations. You may watch this going WHY, WHY DON’T YOU JUST RUN! The movie answers it so well at the end, that I would be a major asshole if I spoke of it.

Major Asshole!

Thankfully, all of you are going to watch it now. Because it is great. Might not have heard about it much, so that’s why I am telling you this movie was great.