Tag: Hayden Panettiere

Fireflies In The Garden is one of those movies that is finished and released to a festival in 2008, but takes over three damn years to come out on DVD. I hate those movies. Similar things happened for the movies The Joneses and Leaves Of Grass for me, prompting me to download them. Don’t worry, I bought them once they finally were released. But even if I had downloaded this one, I would for sure not buy the movie later.

Teen Angst and Hipster Glasses aside.

This movie is about a family, like so many are, and tells a story in the present and probably about 25 years in the past. The story is also mostly about Ryan Reynolds and his relationships with his parents, Willem Dafoe playing the dad, and Julia Roberts the mom. Childhood was rough. His dad was mean, belittled him a lot, and gave him unreasonable punishments. His mom didn’t like it, but she was powerless to stop it.

But in the present, he is now more successful and has a beard! He is a writer, of course, and people like it. But he has a new book coming out, a tale of a dysfunctional family and a tale of abuse. Oh man, reminds me of the plot of Peep World. On his way home, though, his mom dies in a car accident, but the dad is fine. Awkwarddd.

Ryan hates his dad, and it shows it. Lots of passive aggressive talk. His aunt of around the same age is also there, kind of awkwardly watching it go down. The aunt is played by Emily Watson, but in the past, was definitely Hayden Panettiere, who had to live with them for a month or so, making Ryan’s character have very impure thoughts.

Yeah, this picture is way weirder (creepier? awkwarder?) knowing that she is the aunt.

The movie conveys a lot of destructive behavior, throughout the movie. From catching of the fireflies (And then doing what you do to fireflies), to “fishing” (with explosives), there is a big expectation for a destructive final. But nope. It doesn’t happen. Just ends. It has an ending, the ending is just lamer than expected based off the clues of the movie. Super disappointing movie, almost makes you feel like the whole thing was pointless. I hate that feeling!

Now I know why it took three damn years, I guess. Technically the relationship conveyed between father and son is pretty powerful, and what becomes of it. But its not enough to redeem the movie for me.

Jeez. This movie has a lot of problems, which go way deeper than no more Anne Hathaway.

Of which this site is more than happy to fix.

It seems like it took all the parts I disliked from the first movie and turned it into this sequel. The first movie had the awesome interview scenes for 2/3 of the film, and some nice witty dialogue. The end, where they went all special agents to stop a squirrel? Pretty dumb. I laughed a bunch in the first one. This one had no laughter (minus the Troll scene).

The jokes fell flat, basing them almost all on stereotypes. The order of the old ladies or whatever wasn’t interesting. Cartoon old ladies never are. I didn’t want any Granny in this movie, but we got tons of Grannies. The first movie had a lot more of the woodcutter, and that is also why it excelled. The animation sort of reminded me of a video game the whole time I watched it and not in the good way. David Alan Grier as a troll made me laugh though.

But seriously. The ending of the film didn’t even make sense didn’t even make sense. No reason to think the rules of their universe/the snacks would work that way. That was dumb.

Why do they think Hayden Panettiere is a good replacement for Anne, I will never know. But at least Patrick Warburton, who does the wolf voice, still has an awesome voice. Probably the best part of the sequel (and the troll).

Pictured: Awesome (or Moss) the Troll.

0 out of 4.

Not even an army of Cody Hugheseses could have made a movie with as awkward a first half as this one. Okay, so most of you don’t know him. I went to high school with him, and obviousy he was awkward. He became a pseudo-succesful stand up Comic in Chapel Hill, with humor based on, you guessed it, being awkward.

Like 90% of all stand up comics.

Seriously though. The first half. It relied a lot on just a nerd in love with a hottie trying to change himself after graduation and spend one last moment with Beth Cooper. Hayden Panettiere from Heroes is the only actual star in this movie, most of the other roles played by no names or young who cares actors. (“That’s the same thing!” Shut up, voices.)

In this movie I really didn’t like her, but enjoyed the main two nerd characters. Seriously. So fucking awkward. This movie also had a lot of pretty quotable scenes. I’d give an example, but I actually forgot them. Shut up (again).

Much better than I thought it would be. I also saw She’s The Man today. Both movies had a scene involving a dude using a tampon up their nose.

“Am I everything you’ve ever masturbated to?” Okay, maybe I remember one quote.

2 out of 4.