Tag: Charlize Theron

Day 5 of Yay Women Week! Wait, what. This is about MAD MAX. And how FURY the ROAD is. That doesn’t sound go power women ya ya ya at all. But hey, what do you know. You probably haven’t even seen it yet.

After all, early reports about Mad Max: Fury Road is that it actually passes the Bechdel test. So take that haters. Let’s say it fits the theme.

I admit my experience with Mad Max is slim to none. I haven’t been able to see any of the previous three movies (and apparently they don’t matter to this one either).

No, my experience with the franchise are the obvious pop culture quotes, and the NES video game. It involved driving around a barren landscape, looking for gas I think, and getting shot at by cars. In reality, it was about me playing it for like, a minute and dying and stopping. That game was hard.

“Calm down, viewer! Now’s not the time for fear. That comes later.”

Max (Tom Hardy) is pretty crazy. Mad you might say. A loner, roaming the Australian barren plains on his own just trying to survive. He lost everyone close to him. His only care in the world is his survival. You see, the world sucks now. Oil became scarce. Wars, environment, all of that collapsed society. Shit, even water is hard to find.

But you don’t need to know a lot about Max. You just need to know that he has been captured by King Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) and his army of skin head pale War Boys. He has his own huge water supply, so he rules the world. The only reason Max is able to escape is thanks to Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron). She has decided to do the right thing and smuggle the Five Wives (Zoe Kravitz, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Courtney Eaton) away from Joe, who wants to breed future war leaders.

And that’s all you need to know! Women get stolen, Max and Furiosa on the run throughout a wasteland, trying to get the ladies and themselves to safety. On their tail is several large war bands, with guns, flame throwers, bombs, and crazed thugs who are basically all suicide bombers. Here you might find some high octane dudes, like, Nicholas Hoult, Josh Heman, and Nathan Jones.

Metal as fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck. The hype train is real. The. Hype. Is. Real.

I didn’t believe it and I didn’t want to believe it. This was my second choice to see this week after Pitch Perfect 2, and if I didn’t go to a screening I would have waited until DVD release. But I am glad I saw it on a giant screen. It helped blow my mind. Here is the thing. The acting? It is pretty darn good. Hardy and Theron were excellent as always and they were completely believable in their roles. Hoult was like an entirely different person and I would have never expected him to do so much. And hell, some of the actresses I saw associated with the film, namely the Five Wives, I felt very questionable towards but even they did a good job. It turns out that with a majority of our escape party being women, this actually fits the theme pretty well.

The plot also is a very decent one. Miller does a fantastic job at world building and creating so many unique elements to really make you realize how much effort went into this movie.

And the action. Hot damn. Most of the action of course takes place on dusty roads with armored dudes chasing each other on cars, but it doesn’t ever feel repetitive. The final chase/action sequence goes on for so long, it is probably longer than the final train scene in The Lone Ranger. And it just keeps on coming at you. Action, explosions, fighting, great choreography. I was amazed. Don’t worry, the film isn’t 100% action, there are quieter times. So let’s just say 85% action. When the action is going, it is going to 11.

I can’t even describe that enough. This is so far the best action movie of the year and one of the best of the last few years. I would say in terms of pure action, The Raid 2 is better, but in terms of extreme brutal violence, Mad Max: Fury Road is miles ahead of the competition. Man, all this bro talk, I feel like the dudes on Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. I’m gonna go listen to Wilson Phillips.

Hey boys and girls! Did you like Ted? Well, then you might like the next movie, A Million Ways To Die In The West!

That is what advertisements told me at least. But I only thought Ted was okay. Was entirely pop culture based humor, so it was a movie that won’t be as amusing in a few years because nothing will be relevant. Although it had a decent plot and Marky Mark, so that is fun.

But now we are going out west, back in time, and director Seth MacFarlane is actually going to star in it. Hopefully it is more than just a few dude’s hangin’ out.

Damn it, this looks like two dudes just hangin’ out!

Set in the 1800’s in Arizona, near Monument Valley (like every other western), lives our hero Albert (MacFarlane), a sheep farmer and a pussy. He doesn’t like to shoot a gun, because he never has, and thus he is bad at it. But somehow he keeps getting himself into shoot outs.

Albert starts to hate himself after his long term girlfriend, Louise (Amanda Seyfried) dumps him. Now he hates life. He also is a cynic, pointing out all the things that can kill him in the west. Thus the movie title. He does all this until Anna (Charlize Theron) walks into his life. Just kidding, he continues his moping ways, but now there is this mysterious woman who can shoot better than any he knows. Maybe she can change his life and stop him from getting into gun fights.

Just kidding. He does some stuff, getting him into fights with Foy (Neil Patrick Harris), the owner of the Mustacherie, and Clinch (Liam Neeson), an outlaw and the fastest hands in the West. Oh Albert, you are so silly.

Also starring Giovanni Ribisi, as his best friend, dating a whore Sarah Silverman.

“Huh? Why would Neil Patrick Harris every run a mustache store?” – GorgView Hate Commenter

I think I would rather watch Ted in four years than see A Million Ways To Die In The West.

The humor is very Seth MacFarlane, I will give it that. You can go in expecting that, and if you enjoy that enough, you will maybe have a good time. Maybe.

To me, this comedy had huge stretches of time without a joke. Trying to maintain some western tropes, there were scenes of traveling and just looking at the scenery. But that wasn’t the downtime. Literally just long periods of the movie moving on without very many jokes. It doesn’t help that quite a few of the jokes were in the trailer, most of which giving the entire set up and punchline so none of it was left to surprise. I am most disappointed in even the TV ads giving away one 1980’s related scene, which would have been amazing if kept secret.

Not that surprise is needed for comedies, no. A good comedy can keep you laughing through many viewings. The humor that was present just for the most part wasn’t for me.

There were some okay moments. I really liked the mustache song. Sarah Silverman ended up making me chuckle on more than one occasion. So I guess I thought the small side plot was more amusing than most of the film. That happens some times.

TL;DR, for the most part, A Million Ways To Die In The West just felt like 2 hours of boredom, with an occasional chuckle. Having the main character be a relatively modern man felt a bit half-assed. And I didn’t even get into how much of a unlikable character he was. Mr. Mopey. Ever have a friend who complains about everything, as if the experiences are unique to them? Yeah…

In case you didn’t know, there has been lots of Snow White things going on. First one released, Once Upon A Time, a tv show with a fairy tale modern village, with a main character being Snow White. Then Mirror, Mirror (review coming soon!) a more comedic approach. Then finally Snow White and The Huntsman. A more serious or dark version of the Snow White fairy tale.

Allegedly.

All I’m trying to say is fuck the show and movie producers. No one wants this.

So what do we got here? We got a kingdom, with a great king and queen, and they have a daughter. They are kind of white supremacist, so they name her Snow White (Kristen Stewart). Well, queen dies, king is all sad. King defeats a mysterious phantom armor and finds a woman captured by them (Charlize Theron). King is immediately smitten, marries her the next day, and on their wedding night, she kills him and her army invades the castle. Shit goes crazy, Snow White is captured and put into a tower, while the Duke (Vincent Regan) and his son William (Sam Claflin) escape.

Man years later, castle and kingdom turned to shit. Queen Ravenna’s power is getting weaker. It might be based on whether or not she is the “fairest of them all”. Kind of messy with the details there. Her brother Finn (Sam Spruell) is her servant, and when he accidentally allows Snow White to escape she is furious. Apparently if she took Snow White’s heart, she would keep her power forever and no longer have to suck the souls out of beautiful women. Score!

But yeah, she escapes, into the scary forest too, so they hire a Hunstman (Chris Hemsworth) to fetch her in return for the resurrection of his dead wife. Realizes the lies, helps her escape, and agrees to get her to the Duke’s castle to lead a revolt. Also, stuff like Dwarves (including Nick Frost, Toby Jones, Bob Hoskins, Eddie Marsan, etc), fairies, stags, villages, weird shit. And you know, poisonous apples, true loves kiss, and a revolt.

I don’t even know what is going on here.

The film was inspired by Snow White tale, and then went all sorts of places. I am not mad that it is nothing like Snow White, I am more mad that the designers of the film thought making it a different Snow White was a good thing. Especially with all the Snow White shit. I think this film would have been a lot better if it just tried to make its own fantasy story instead of the kinda Snow White stuff we got.

I read that a sequel is planned. The fuck? Now they will go even further from any source material, making it even worse that the series is a “Snow White” thing.

But that is a minor complaint. The film is also too long, drags, and is kind of lame. They got what feels like the worst person ever to be the Queen’s brother, from everything to acting and costume design. We got vague journeys and scenes, that just seem like Lord of the Rings stuff. Fight plans that don’t make sense, Queen spells and power levels that do not make sense, and a prophecy based on Innocence of a heart, when everything about Kristen Stewart’s character should destroy any “innocence” by the end. Also ends kind of lamely.

Seriously though, the ambush scene involving the fairies and the giant Stag? That scene pissed me off so badly because of how unlikely any of it would have happened. Worst attempt to catch a person ever. For fucking sakes it was stupid.

I think Charlize Theron did decent for what she was given, and Chris Hemsworth as well. But that would be all. I am not a Kristen Stewart hater, but she added roughly nothing to the movie (and it is amazing that she had such nice teeth after being in a tower for 8-10 years! Minor annoyance, since other characters had bad teeth).

Prometheus! Such a meaningful word. This movie I had the pleasure of seeing in theaters, which of course means it is automatically a bit better than it might be, so the review could change months later.

Outside of the amazing trailers, of course I knew that Ridley Scott was the director. I had heard originally that they planned on being a prequel to the Alien movies, but it was scrapped when it became so big. Well, it still is pretty much. Not a direct prequel, but same universe, and before Alien at least.

I’m sure there is nothing ominous about those vases.

Prometheus is the name of the ship, sent to a moon of a very very distant planet. Two archaeologists, Liz Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) find a bunch of cave paintings, showing old nations worshiping a lager man, and pointing to a very specific star system. It is weird, because none of these nations would have had contact, and are quite old.

So they believe that these beings are inviting them to their planet, and really want to “meet their maker”, and so they convince a trillionaire (Guy Pearce, looking like an old Bill Maher) to finance a ship and crew to do just that. Presumably the ship cost most of the funding, so not all individuals of the crew were the top of their field (on a potentially suicide mission), but still. We got a pilot (Idris Elba), a biologist (Rafe Spall), a geologist (Sean Harris), some sort of high level CEO like figure (Charlize Theron) and an adroid who is fucking fantastic (Michael Fassbender).

Of course other people too, like medics, navigators, security, etc. But eh whatever.

They go to the planet, find the people in question, but they are all dead (OR ARE THEY?). Also, find some nice black ooze. I’m sure after this they go home disappointed and no one dies.

After unlocking all of the secrets of the universe, of course.

Let me go over some pros first:

Michael Fassbender as an android. So good. So so good.
The visuals and shiny colors.
That basic premise.

Some of the cons?
Well, obviously, this is by far the worst depiction of a geologist I have ever seen in film. Thus my comments on not top of the field. Scientifically, a lot of this film is a travesty. Liz demanding no weapons on a new planet for safety, is pretty dumb, as is having only one “Expert’ on each field. But man, that geologist. It sucked, knowing he would die so fast in the film before I knew his field.

A lot of the characters don’t get as much development as one would like. So when certain self sacrifices are made, emotionally it doesn’t hurt as much because we barely know these people. Other conversations seemed forced (“I can’t have babies!” “Father!” etc) and it almost cringe worthy to see. Also drugs.

If I could rate this just on potential? It would be quite high. A lot of the elements are there but I think a bit too much was left on the cutting room floor. This film with a directors cut would probably be great. There is a lot of implied themes that make this film great as well, with plenty of evidence. Just…not enough for me to call it great.

Give a watch, but maybe wait for a nice Directors cut on Blu-Ray.

know why Jennifer’s Body sucked? I mean, it was written by the same person who did Juno (and Young Adult)! But these two movies were also directed by Jason Reitman, who passed on Jennifer’s Body, and also directed things like Up In The Air and Thank You For Smoking.

Director beats Writer. I think Science just proved that?

It’s the Hello Kitty shirt that should really speak to you here.

Charlize Theron is a very successful writer in NYC! And by very successful, I mean she has written books as part of a series, but didn’t create the series. Although he name is on the inside flap as the author, the series creator still gets front cover status. It is found in the “Young Adult” section of a book store. Oh well, still cool. Especially since she is a girl from a small town in Minnesota, where most people just stay put and live there their whole lives. Yeah!

But now she is getting depressed (and may have been an alcoholic for some time). She just broke up with her long term manfriend, and her high school boyfriend is now married just had his first kid. And the series is ending, so she has to write the final book, and then figure out what else to do with her life. Seems like a good time to visit her home town! Oh, and plot to win her old love back. Who cares if he is married and has child?

First she meets Matt (Patton Oswalt), a kid who she barely knew in high school, who was taken to the woods and had his legs and dick beaten by jocks with crowbars, for being gay. But once they found out he wasn’t gay, it was no longer called a hate crime and they barely got into trouble. He says her plan is stupid. But she tries anyways to recreate how she looked in high school, and how they would do young people things, like getting drunk at a bar! But Buddy (Patrick Wilson) doesn’t want to.

But she keeps trying. Even going out to to the naming ceremony for the son. Yes, she does it all in front of his wife (Elizabeth Reaser). Even goes to the wives local garage band concert. Questionable motives indeed.

But can she succeed and win over her former lover? Or will the whole town think she is crazy?

Life is simpler in Minnesota. Phones with cords.

So, the dark comedy part of this tag means pretty dark. Minus the death elements in a lot of dark comedies, but man. This humor is based off of extreme awkwardness, meanness, and past situations you didn’t see coming. Also the uncomfortableness of the main character being a depressed drunk, who does seemingly crazy actions.

I wasn’t surprised by what happened at the end, it made sense, but I was surprised at the way it happened. Which was the totally uncomfortable way. (Word of the the day, uncomfortable).

I thought Charlize Theron (an actress I normally don’t care for) did a great job in her crisis, and truly believing all of the crazy things that she did. Thought it was her destiny to get back with her Buddy, and wouldn’t let logic or reason get in the way. Patton Oswalt did a pretty good job, most of his roles are comic relief funny fat guy, but his character was super damn important in this movie, and had a lot more subtle humor.

Oh man this movie was sooooo saddd. AGGHHHH. And depressing. I cried. I did. Very good. Here are some jokes to take my mind off of it.

The Road, obviously, is loosely based off of Jack Kerouac‘s life (and his most famous work, On The Road). Viggo Mortensen plays for the second time a brilliant role as a man slowly turning into a zombie.

I am pretty sure that is what is going on in this scene.

I heard they were going to make a book based off of this movie, but I hope it doesn’t blow like the last book they made after the other successful Viggo movie. That one with the hobbits. History of Violence I believe was based off of real life events though as well, because, you know, it was history.

But seriously. This movie was great, despite the depressing state of everything. Bring tissues. Check it out. It is a post apocalyptic movie, where despite knowing stuff is about to go down, Viggo and his wife still have a child. Viggo believes it to be his duty to still have a child to help the world through these times, while his wife doesn’t agree, thinking it will just hurt them in the end. Parts of the story is told through flashback, before the child, and his early days when they lived in a house, and the rest is between Viggo and his son as they attempt to travel and survive in this world gone mad. You get to see what people will do in order to survive and protect the ones they love, passing many many moral boundaries.