Tag: Ben Barnes

The release of Seventh Son was overshadowed because it came out the same day as Jupiter Ascending, which is interesting. The later is a sci-fi/fantasy epic that was faced with delays and the release was moved back. The former? A fantasy epic that was faced with even more delays and production issues.

Production on this movie began in early 2012. The visual effects of the film was being done with Rhythm and Hues Studio, famous for getting best Visual Effects in the Oscars for Life Of Pi, while also filing for bankruptcy. Not a good time for that studio, tons of layoffs despite their impressive work.

So in 2013, Seventh Son was still in production and the company got a loan to help finish the movie. It was pushed back to October 2013 release. Then it was pushed back to January 2014 thanks to Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. breaking apart.

However, once Universal got the distribution rights end of 2013, they said nah, let’s wait til February 6, 2015. They didn’t give any fucks about the movie and figured they’d have no competition. Which again, is amusing that Jupiter Ascending came in and fucked up any chance of them actually making money.

Well, costume wise it looks like a nerds wet dream!

Seventh Son is a story about a witch and a witch hunter. Clearly star crossed lovers. The witch, Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore), is being all evil, and Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges), the Spook, wants to stop her. During a routine snatch and grab, they almost succeed too! But no, she escapes, and she kills his apprentice (Kit Harington).

So instead we get Tom Ward (Ben Barnes), who is the seventh son of a seventh son. That means something. It means a lot of fucking and babies. When the Spook showed up, he knew already he was leaving thanks to dreams, so he kissed his mom, Mam (Olivia Williams) good bye and went on his merry way.

Things get a bit more hairy when Tom also sees a girl about to be mobbed for being a witch. He had visions of her and him, so he saves her too. Her name is Alice (Alicia Vikander). That is nice.

What is not nice when she goes back home to her witch mom (Antje Traue) who is involved with Mother Malkin. Ah interesting.

Then some witch magic stuff happens and people get hurt, lies get said, and of course, even more magic stuff. Also with a John DeSantis and a Djimon Hounsou!

On the other hand, this image looks so uncool, Outkast wouldn’t even touch it.

First of all, I apologize for that last caption joke, it is terrible.

Second of all, I feel really really bad for Rhythm and Hues studio. They did amazing work with Life Of Pi, then they got shit on, then they had to make this piece of crap. I want to assume that the reason this movie is not visually pleasing to look at is because the studio had to lay off all of their workers and work on a very small budget. I hope so. Because the CGI and effects were anything but quality.

You know what it reminded me of? Dungeons and Dragons, the movie. That is a really mean comparison, technically. That movie was terribad. But they are both pricey fantasy films that wanted to reach for something greater, but instead fell down into Mediocre Valley, looking ugly to boot.

But good looks aren’t the only important thing to a film. Acting and plot! So dang important! This one has two people who have won Best Actor and Best Actress at the Oscars! Hot damn! They can’t save this story though. They don’t even attempt to save it.

Jeff Bridges is basically transforming into Nick Nolte. The last few movies with Bridges have been hard to understand. This movie was the worst, with the movie almost demanding you watch it in subtitles to understand a damn thing he says. Moore plays a caricature and a non-interesting villain, and so she too is completely forgettable.

The plot itself would be easier to follow if there was anything remotely exciting about this movie. A yawn fest, beginning to end. It is a shame Sci-Fi is getting such a revitalization in the film industry and fantasy films seem left to die in its wake. We had a good thing going on with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but the disappointing Hobbit films and absolutely nothing else going on seems to mean it has to wait for the eventual Harry Potter reboot to be good again.

The Big Wedding. Oh goodness me.

The trailer tells the story pretty clear.

The filmmakers are a bunch of racists.

What? How did I get that out of the trailer? Well, the plot is about a family who adopted a kid, who is finally about to get married. His mom is coming to visit, but his adopted family is divorced, and she wouldn’t be able to understand that because she is super Catholic. So they just have to pretend to be married!

The trailer then shows off the giant cast and tells us who everyone is, except for said guy getting married. WHAT? So here’s to you, Ben Barnes. You get a spot up top, and the first picture.

But you have to share it with Amanda Seyfried, because these are my rules, damn it.

Ah shit, I just explained the plot in like, two sentences. Whoops. Well the good news is, the divorce wasn’t bad. Sure, Don (Robert De Niro) might have cheated on Elle (Diane Keaton), but they agreed it was for the best, still raised wonderful kids, and still loved each other. Sure, it was Elle’s best friend who did it too, Bebe (Susan Sarandon), and that they have been together for over a decade, but it isn’t weird.

But hey, Alejandro (Ben Barnes) isn’t the only child causing problems. They have two actual children of their own, Lyla (Katherine Heigl) and Jared (Topher Grace). The former, a lawyer in Chicago, going through a tough time with her long term boyfriend, hates her dad for cheating, and can’t have kids. Jared, a baby doctor, who is still a virgin to save himself from marriage, but totally willing to lose it should the right woman arrive.

Yeah, basically a giant shit storm. That isn’t the half of it. I just don’t want to spoil it all. Robin Williams plays the priest, because why not, and Ana Ayora gets naked. These are important things to note, because you know, it is rated R.

Rated R you say? Yeah, Robert does R rated films a lot! So that isn’t surprising. This isn’t your daddy’s wedding movie. Unless you are 2-3 years old, then it is likely that your dad is the target audience. Also, get off this website, there is fucking language and talk of naked ladies.

Here comes the shock of the century week. I enjoyed this movie. Like, a decent amount. I laughed, I loved the twists, it didn’t feel forced, and the chemistry between this giant group of actors was great. Shit, everyone seemed to be having such a great time with the movie, and weren’t disappointed to be stuck with some lame new movie about marriage. Obviously, yes, it looks like shit, but I think it has a lot of heart.

This isn’t the kind of movie I could watch again and again, but I am pleased with how it all turned out and think worth a gander. Well, depends on what a gander is. I think some sort of bird.

From what I heard, The Words was in production for awhile. Not a pet project by Bradley Cooper, but something he believed in and fought for with the directors to get made and produced. One of those maybe artsy things.

I think that is what happened. Don’t even feel like looking it up. I am just gonna be spreading facts as if they are true. Boo yah.

Hey look, love. Maybe. Or just walking. People can walk right?

The story begins with famous author Clay Hammond (Dennis Quaid) doing some section reading from his new book The Words. People love him, and so does some grad student chick Daniella (Olivia Wilde). Yeah, but that’s enough about that. We get to watch his story!

In which we have another writer, Rory Jansen (Cooper) who is struggling. He has good words, but not the best story for a first time author to get his name out into the world. So it sucks to suck. Sucks also for his dad (J.K. Simmons) who is tired of loaning him money, and his wife Dora (Zoe Saldana) who knows her husband can write good words, just can’t get a book deal.

So they decide to do what every NYC couple who is struggling to survive does. Take a honeymoon to Paris. Fuck the police! They even visit some Ernest Hemingway shop, for inspiration. Turns out Paris has some weird gift shops, without logos or names on them, just things. So Dora spends some of their barely any money on a satchel for her husband. Later, in America, Rory finds a compartment in it with a story! The most beautiful story he has ever read. Everything he felt about his own life displayed in words, and it was magnificent. He couldn’t stop thinking about the words. So he eventually killed his family.

Okay that is a lie. But he does type up the story just to have the feeling of what it is like to write those words. But his wife reads it, cries and stuff, and it is amazing. He can’t even tell her they aren’t his words! But he runs with it, and hey look, everyone loves him as a writer.

Except for an old man (Jeremy Irons). Who tells his own story about a young man (Ben Barnes) and his French lover (Nora Arnezeder) after World War 2. Who wrote a story and lost it. And how he is that man. In case you got lost, that would make that a story, in a story, in a story.

Then you know, potential backlash from this knowledge. But not really. Obviously Rory knew the story wasn’t his, just kind of got swept in it all. But now that he knows the real story, what will happen? But that is a book, so who cares, what about the author and grad student huh?
.

Fucking layers man. Stories and shit.

Did you follow all of that? Well good. Because that is like, 4/5 of the story. Yep.

Technically we don’t even get to see the amazing story everyone talks about. Unless it is just the old guys life as is, and not based on it. But whatever.

This movie is slow, and tries to build up to this big reveal, but you know what? Everything that happens is obvious real quickly in the movie. But they take an incredible slow time to go through it. The old guy telling his story after the War takes forever, and isn’t until the second half either. Yet he tells it as if it isn’t obviously a younger version of himself, for some reason.

Arggh. It was frustrating. Everything kind of felt pretentious. The acting wasn’t really bad, it just also didn’t matter. Get this pointless story out of my movie.

I have been trying to watch Chronicles of Narnia 3 for a long time. I kept putting it off, because I didn’t want to watch it until I bought it (as I assumed I would eventually) and only in Blu-Ray (because of the pretty colors!)

And I wish I haven’t bought it now. It is definitely the worst of the three Narnia movies (At this point), and it is not just because of a lack of Anna Popplewell. (I knew she wouldn’t be featured, but just saying, the author a long time ago is dumb).

Hey. You can have your weird crushes, and I will have mine.

Certain book plots do not carry over into movie form, like they do into the books. You can kill off all the characters in a book, and people will probably read it. The two older kids we were told wouldn’t return because they were getting old (and discovering SEX! Thus impure! Okay, that was in the book). So what we are left with is the two younger siblings (Georgie Henley and Skandar Keynes) and a new cousin character (Will Poulter).

Sure, the kid was an annoying asshole jerk. But for the other two kids to scoff at him for declaring himself intelligent is ridiculous. I assume they are laughing because he doesn’t believe in Narnia (a land of no proof) and doesn’t know how to sword fight and other bullshit. For shame other kids, you should be kicked out for being so mean.

The story at the start isn’t much of one. All of the sudden they are on a boat? Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) is sailing around for some reason. The rat is back too. Doesn’t even know why, just kind of wants to go to the end of the world. So eventually they sail enough to find out that people are disappearing for a sacrifice? And that they need some swords for some reason? So they do those things, and then afterward reach the end of the world.

The cousin’s name is Eustice. I can’t tell if they were going for useless in similar spelling or not.

The CGI was mostly good. I thought some of the effects were cheesy. I am normally against sailing movies in general, because the only freeness you feel from it is when they land on other places. Just being cramped on a boat is annoying for me, as a viewer.

I also knew Aslan was supposed to be some Jesuslion the whole time, but holy crap did they smack that message in your face at the end of the movie. They did everything but say “Oh wait, so you are Jesus in the real world?” Gave some bullshit “you have to discover me yourselves over there”. But seriously, what? Lets learn some ways to be more subtle, please.

You know. More subtle than this.

So yeah. I really didn’t know what their purpose was for half this movie. I didn’t even know they had won out of no where. That was weird too.