Tag: Natalie Portman

Thor films are weird. And not just because their current director, Taika Waititi has a weird sense of humor.

Each Thor film, individually, is a little weird and out there. It fits in awkwardly in the MCU, and they are embracing that more and more. He is someone very strong and can handle a lot of issues other heroes might end up solving, so they need to find places for him to be.

Thor: Love and Thunder, was looking to be yet another very weird movie again. A very specific soundtrack and look given the trailer and posters. This is a film that wants to rock. This is a film that is going to have fun. And this is a film that is going to try and close out some earlier stories from the film series, while also introducing more characters, albeit controversially, from the comics.

You know, Lady Thor. In the comics, Lady Thor was also Jane Foster, and it was a shocking reveal at some point. Even when this was happening, people assumed it was maybe done to eventually get Natalie Portman to play her in a future film. Lady Thor comics were met with anger by some comic fans. Was it sexism? Or was it their actual argument about the Thor name? Who knows, probably the former though.

Either way, I know I was excited to see her. Let’s have a relationship dynamic where the power levels are less one sided, for sure.

And she wears that helmet so fucking good. Life has been hard for the Asgardians. Most of them are living in New Asgard, maybe they are poor and weak, maybe not. Depends on the movie’s plot need. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is actually off planet, and traveling with the Guardians of the Galaxy, helping people out, when appropriate, totally having the time of his life. Totally.

But a lot of calls start coming in from a lot of different areas. Messages of gods that various communities worship being slain by a shadow warrior wielding an ancient, god-killing blade. Looks like some strange entity named Gorr (Christian Bale) is off god-butchering, which is scary for a few reasons, especially for Thor. But who cares about fear? Thor cares about love. 

And love that has got away. Like Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who is back on Earth, dying from a cancer without Thor knowing any of it. But Foster has a plan. If modern medicine is going to fail her, then maybe some Viking Space Magic will get the job done? If she can fix and wield Mjolnir, she can have great health and strength, fixing her condition.

But being a Thor comes with responsibilities, not just power. And with great responsibilities and great power, comes great chances of got butchers coming your way.

Also starring: Tessa Thompson, Kat Dennings, Taika Waititi, Russel Crowe, Brett Goldstein, and Jaime Alexander.

And of course, starring somewhat the Guardians of the Galaxy, played by: Chris Pratt, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, and Sean Gunn.

Oh shit, Gorr butchered the god of color it looks like. 

I love Thor films, I really. He was my favorite marvel superhero (after Spider-Man, of course) growing up. Hemsworth is a wonderful Thor, and he can just do it for 30 more films, honestly. But Love and Thunder needs to be compared to Ragnarok, which most would say is the best Thor film. It for sure should be compared. And I think it would be hard to argue that it is better than Ragnarok.

When just comparing the two, Ragnarok is funnier, and has some really great story attached to it, and a lot of surprises along the way. Love and Thunder is sadder overall. I think I cried twice. But at the same time it also tried to be a big comedy, but the jokes didn’t land as well. It also tried to be scary. It wanted the best of every genre here, without doing a great job of really balancing these genres, and the tone was strange throughout the film.

Bale was a wonderfully creepy villain. His speeches, his story, we get it. The black and white planet was probably one of my favorite Marvel sequences. But he was extremely underutilized. We see him kill one god early on, as he gets his power, and then never again. We only hear about his exploits. I expected to see more god-butchering, if they wanted to give him that title.

The Foster story is fantastic, beginning to end. Portman actually looks like she is enjoying the movie she is in. She has a distinct personality change when she has the power. I loved the ending. It made me have some feels.

But, so much of the film just also feels rushed and not living up to its full thortential. Some scenes make me confused on how they really made it into an official MCU film in terms of overall quality. Some jokes are just completely rammed into the ground.

I still liked it, I still had fun, and I still cried. I am still excited for its franchise future. I liked the second Thor film, so of course I like this one as well. I can appreciate them trying a lot of different things. I am just still a little disappointed it didn’t give me enough.

3 out of 4.

Here we are, months after the release of Avengers: Endgame, and I am now ready to post a review. Why the delay? Several reasons!

One, my review when it came out would not mean a damn thing. Who cares? Everyone who wants to see it will go see it, and I wouldn’t convince any one on any side to change their mind. No one was on the fence.

Two, I wanted to wait for it to beat Avatar‘s record. I don’t think it has yet, but I’m tired of waiting. It will break it will silly re-releases, so pretty disappointing.

And three, if I waited a long time, I could do a review with spoilers! Something I have never really done before. A spoiler review can be more specific, and hey, people can agree or disagree. So let’s get on it.

Together Each Achieves More.

Endgame takes place almost immediately after the events of Infinity War. Half the population is gone, many heroes. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is trapped in space. People are sad. But once Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) shows up, and they get their coordinates on, they all rush over to fuck over Thanos (Josh Brolin) and kill him. Hopefully also undo what he did. And it turns out they can’t. Infinity Stones are broken and gone, nothing can be done except sadness.

Five years later? Life is weird. Heroes are now fat (Chris Hemsworth). Hulks are now Professor Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). Captain America (Chris Evans) is just trying to help people. But once Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) is able to escape finally from the Quantum Realm, he is disgusted by what has occurred, and has ideas on how to fix what was undone. You know. With Time Travel.

Also starring…everybody. Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chadwick Boseman, Tom Holland, Karen Gillan, Zoe Saldana, Evangeline Lilly, Tessa Thompson, Rene Russo, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Tom Hiddleston, Danai Gurira, Benedict Wong, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Letitia Wright, John Slattery, Tilda Swinton, Jon Favreau, Hayley Atwell, Natalie Portman, Marisa Tomei, Taika Waititi, Angela Bassett, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, William Hurt, Cobie Smulders, Sean Gunn, Winston Duke, Linda Cardellini, Frank Grillo, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, James D’Arcy, Jacob Batalon, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ty Simpkins, Robert Redford, Chris Pratt, Samuel L. Jackson, Lexi Rabe, Ross Marquand, Kerry Condon, Yvette Nicole Brown, Ken Jeong, and Stan Lee. 

“Is that all you got?” Thanos, about the last paragraph, probably.

So sure, I gave Avengers: Endgame a 4 out of 4, despite being a non-perfect movie. Because it is an emotionally satisfying film. I cried, I cheered, I seized up with anticipation, I was serviced so much as a fan. It was a blast and the three hours flew by. The final battle had so many nice moments that were cool and can still be talked about today.

When Captain America was about to say Avengers Assemble, I remember bouncing in my seat for over 10 seconds, grabbing my wife’s arm and just ready to explode. That moment was necessary. It was beautiful.

And of course we lost characters, finally. Steve, despite feeling plot holey, got to live his regular life for once and die once his life was finally over. Tony sacrificed himself for the greater good, to finally fix all of his wrongs. Natasha had a fun suicide battle with Clint that we all knew were coming, and yet, the result was surprising given future movie’s coming out.

Most characters felt like they were given their proper moments to shine and showcase their power, especially the first big three of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor. The throwbacks to previous films and their first fight in Avengers were nostalgic wet dreams.

And sure, a lot of might not be desired. Some newer, strong characters barely got screen time. Captain Marvel was mostly wasted (and despite the fun of the ladies of Marvel moment, it felt awkward because we know she needed zero help). Dr. Strange was left to be a defensive wizard. Of course a lot of this was done because these characters will have more time to shine in the future and are not mid swan song, but it technically also didn’t feel natural/necessary.

Honestly, a lot of the time stuff was silly. It probably could have been shortened a good amount, but again, it featured a ton of fun moments and also gave us the entrance for Loki’s future television show.

Torches were passed, heads were rolled, and franchises collided and will be changed in the future. I just hope this five year advance is handled with care and has a real significance to it. Spider-Man: Far From Home touched on it, but it didn’t go really in depth with it still. I am afraid they will mostly ignore these ramifications later in just a few movies.

Also I should note the forced disconnect of the TV shows and the movies is frustrating. All of the Netflix drama and Agents of Shield ruined us from having even more fun moments. I blame Ike.

4 out of 4.

Fuck.

I missed the Annihilation pre-screening, and I felt bad, because I want to support independent science fiction films. Then I found out about all the drama with it and Netflix. Netflix had streaming rights for every country except for the USA and China. You see, Paramount wanted to sort of dump it because they didn’t think it would be successful. So you know, they didn’t put it in any theaters and couldn’t be successful.

The deal with Netflix would be that it had to wait 17 days after being in theater in those two countries before it could be on the program.

Fine, I would just watch it before then and review that bad boy up. And I did!

I just forgot about the review thing. And it isn’t that I forgot to review it. I knowingly just kept pushing it back and back and back, for reasons I will explain at the end. Needless to say, here is a review, two months after I planned to release it.

Blame it on the patriarchy.

For a few years, a shimmering glowing force has appeared in a remote part of the world. It is hard to fathom just what is going on in that area, but it definitely is growing over time. In fact, it has been there for three years, and everyone basically has no fucking clue what is going on. Because no one has ever returned.

Well, one guy did. Kane (Oscar Isaac). He is a special forces member of the Army. He is pretty messed up. He has returned home to his wife, Lena (Natalie Portman), who the story is actually about. You see Lena is also a soldier, or at least she used to be. She is now mostly a professor of cellular biology. Smart and strong.

After some plot reasons, she is brought to one of their bases around this field area, where she meets others who are planning to go in. For whatever reason, communication always shuts off, and they don’t really understand what is going on inside this aura.

But Lena ends up joining a team of all women to go in and hopefully, this time, report back with what is going on. And this vague synopsis is both meant to keep it spoiler free, and also try to recall everything that happened.

Also starring Benedict Wong, Gina Rodriguez, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Sonoya Mizuno, Tessa Thompson, and Tuva Novotny.

She is thinking of getting into animal dentistry as well.

Annihilation, by any standard, is not a dumb movie. Which is one way of calling it a smart movie, but I am not fully committed to that line. It is above average, and after watching it I did have to speculate about it for awhile. So it is a thinker film.

A thinker film with scares, sci-fi weirdness, and pretty darn good acting. It also has a few flashbacks, questions about humanity, questions about evolution, and this one fucking ape scene that is like, omg.

Either way, I started thinking too much about the thinking movie, so I pushed back my planned review. Then I stopped thinking about it, and figured I couldn’t write it at that point because I forgot some information, and that is why we are two months late at this point.

I believe my conclusion to this movie is that I liked it, and disliked it. The ending was interesting, but not at all what I craved. This is a film that really begs for multiple watches, and the theater experience will really add with the sounds this film gives.

This is not mindless entertainment. This is entertainment that can drive your mind to uselessness and eventually forgetfulness. What a strange review ending this has become.

2 out of 4.

I have put off watching Song to Song as much as possible. At this point in my career, I am more likely to check out the director before watching an unknown movie for only one reason. To see if Terrence Malick was secretly the director.

Because if he is, I need to go into the movie with a completely different mindset than literally any other film.

I need to have hawk eyes to figure out just what the main plot of the film is going to be, especially when the narrators decide to switch on me, or even be from characters I never paid attention to.

No one else makes me waste my time like Malick. And I just need to know before seeing if a movie how mad I will be five minutes into it.

Yeah, get that bitch some Christmas lights…

What do Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, Holly Hunter, Val Kimer, and Bérénice Marlohe have in common?

They are all in this series of maybe related scenes “film,” and have been tricked into working with Malick!

Look at all these dynamic camera shots!

2017 was a year of change for me. I gave up watching the Sharknado movies, because heck, they didn’t need my review saying they were shit on top of the pile of reviews saying they were shit, as it did nothing. Everyone agreed they were shit and I realized I can stop. I also gave up on the Transformers films, because fool me four times, then fuck me over.

I think…I think I might have to do it for Terrence Malick films. Which is a significant director still in the film community, so it is not something that I can say lightly. Or maybe I will never see them in theaters again, and only at home…where I can distract myself with my phone.

At this point when it comes to directors, I am still willing to watch things that Luc Besson has dealt with, even if I generally hate it all, whereas I feel like I will just burn into painful flames if I have to watch a complete Malick film.

They are all now just feeling the same at this point. I can’t imagine saying new stuff for the next film, I didn’t even really say new stuff for this film.

Song to Song is just home made movie trash.

0 out of 4.

Has there been any movies out about JFK yet?

Just kidding. Outside of JFK itself, we have had Thirteen Days, Bubba Ho-Tep (technically), and recently we had Parkland, about his assassination.

But what is with all the focus on the dead president? What about the lives that were left behind?

Jackie wants to give us an important look on his wife, Jacqueline, also told from the perspective of her life before, during, and after the assassination on her husbands life. And when I say it wants to focus on her, we mean mostly every single possible shot and with her stories.

See? No one else in the camera, this is about Jackie not her husband!

For the story, it takes place after the death of John F. Kennedy (Caspar Phillipson), where Jackie (Natalie Portman) is now living out side of the White House in a big private estate. Some journalist (Billy Crudup) is invited to get an interview/update with her, knowing that she has full control over what actually gets written. And then the stories all come out.

Most of it is about what little time she had in the White House to actually try and make a difference. Jackie under went a full restoration for many parts of the white house, bringing back original antiques. And she also brings back art in the form of live entertainment, musicians at the top of the careers and instrument group, bringing back culture. She even did a show for PBS giving a tour of the White House on those new fangled television sets.

And then there is the death. The after math. Lyndon B. Johnson (John Carroll Lynch) getting sworn into office, dealing with the logistics of a funeral, telling her two kids about what just happened, while also having not a lot of time to suddenly move out of her home. I think it is great that such normal problems can elevate so much when talking the highest government position in our country.

Also featuring Peter Sarsgaard as Bobby Kennedy, Beth Grant as Lady Bird Johnson, John Hurt as a priest, and Greta Gerwig, Mac Casella, and Richard E. Grant.

If you look close, one of these pictures is a blood red dress, the other just has red blood on it.

Jackie was not what I expected. A drama about a woman in distress. Sure, technically that is what the film delivered. But it had another element attached. A scary element. And it all started before the first real frame. The film began with a dark screen and incredibly jarring music. It made me nervous, not just in its intensity but thinking this film might turn into a real art house flick. The same sounds continue at various parts of the movie, adding a sense of panic to a story that you already know the outcome.

Portman was of course superb. I quickly forgot it was her, she embraced Jackie with her voice, her smile, and even down to the way she presented herself in front of others. I am weaker at the Best Women acting categories (like every year), but I have to imagine her chances are the highest for the Academy. They love biopics.

I was also impressed with Sarsgaard as Bobby Kennedy in this movie. I don’t know a lot about him, I haven’t even watched Bobby, but he did a significant amount in this movie to not make this 100% about Jackie. I also wonder if John Carroll Lynch ever thought he would get to play a real US President in a film one day.

Jackie is not your standard biopic. Is it downright almost scary at points and shows that not all griefs are handled equally.

3 out of 4.

I cannot stand Terrence Malick films. No I haven’t seen a lot of them. I haven’t even seen The Thin Red Line.

But I have seen The Tree of Life and To The Wonder. The former I couldn’t get behind at all, despite some lovely visuals, and the latter was just a complete train wreck from my point of view.

Some people call him pompous, some just refer to him as art house, and I just cannot stand his movies as of right now. So sure, I will give Knight of Cups a chance. But I am going in with a huge bias on my shoulders that I cannot shake. I will never get the time I lost from To The Wonder. Never.

Given the director, you have to assume every shot, no matter what, is actually a metaphor.

Also given the director, describing the plot of the film can be a bit tricky. So let’s run to IMDB for some help:

A writer indulging in all that Los Angeles and Las Vegas has to offer undertakes a search for love and self via a series of adventures with six different women.

Our writer is of course Rick (Christian Bale), whom is apparently good at his job and sought over, but he cares not about his job that much. He cares about his past and who he is going to fuck next. And that means he has more than six relationships in the film, as there are a lot of unnamed girls without speaking roles.

The six women include: Nancy (Cate Blanchett), his ex-wife, Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), a museum enthusiast, Helen (Freida Pinto), a model, Della (Imogen Poots), a free spirit, Karen (Teresa Palmer), a stripper from down under, and Isabel (Isabel Lucas), who, I dunno, likes beaches I guess. They all like beaches though. Beaches are kind of a big thing here.

Oh and he has family! Wes Bently plays his brother, Brian Dennehy his dad. Antonio Banderas has some role of significance, if you can call it that. But I don’t know what or why. Some rich guy.

There has never been a more metaphor-y beach.

I tried, I really did, to understand this movie from a different light. To think about the bigger themes that he might be getting at. To imagine the scenery as its own character. This was all advice people gave to me about Malick movies. Despite my hatred for the last two movies, I knew I had to watch this one do my best to review it fairly, because only watching movies I will probably like does not make me a great film critic.

But this movie just felt like a waste of time. It is two hours long and it felt like it was over three hours. The film felt like it was about to end three separate times before it finally showed the credits. The story that was told could have ended at any moment, because it is hard to say that there really was an actual ending they had in mind. It was all very spiritual and airy. Rarely do you see any character actually talking. Most of the dialogue is spoken over scenes of characters living and interacting with each other. And of course other dialogue is made by never seen characters, some talking poetically, or telling random stories, or…just who the hell knows.

Knight Of Cups is a confusing film. It is broken down into sections named after Tarot cards, which is also where the title comes from. And if you try hard, you might figure out why a section with the characters in it is called The Moon, or Freedom, or Death. Knight of Cups is presumably made so that you can derive your own opinions on the film based on what you get out of it.

And what I get out of it is a big waste of time. Sure, there are some well shot scenes. A whole lot of beaches, and some Californian mountains and death valley. But if I cared about well shot pictures of nature, I’d be watching Planet Earth, not a film that should have a basic story.

0 out of 4.

I have a confession to make. I really really enjoyed the first Thor movie. I enjoyed it far more than everyone else I know.

It gets a lot of negative attention compared to the other Phase 1 Marvel films, and personally I disagree. I enjoyed it probably the third most out of all of the films, after The Avengers and Iron Man. It had comedy, it had action, it had Norse mythology, and well, it had Thor. Like a lot of people my age, I first heard about the God of Thunder from watching Adventures in Babysitting, which lead to discovering the Marvel version. I think that film was received as well only because he wasn’t as well known as the rest of the Phase 1 heroes.

So, Thor: The Dark World has an upward battle to climb.

“But we will make that climb, together, brother!” – Loki, in a very specific genre of Thor fanfiction.

This film takes place just as Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is proving why he deserves the “Mighty” adjective, by bringing peace again to The Nine Realms after the Bifröst was destroyed in the first film. He has been very busy, and could not return to Earth except for exceptional circumstances for that reason.

Unfortunately the Convergence is about to occur, where the nine realms line up perfectly. It happens every 5000 years, and causes all of the realms to be a bit wonky, creating portals to each other and messing with gravity/physics. It has also awakened an old threat, King Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) of the Dark Elves, who tried to destroy the universe at the last Convergence. He used an ancient magic source called the Aether, which has been hidden for thousands of years. But guess who found it? Oh that meddling Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and her team (Kat Dennings, Jonathan Howard)!

At the same time, monarchy based drama in Asgard is occurring, as Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and Frigga (Rene Russo) are planning on making Thor the next king, given the recent actions of Loki (Tom Hiddleston). But Thor’s love for a mortal is worrisome, and a cause for concern that he might be focusing too much of his attention on just one realm.

It isn’t too bad for Thor I guess. He just has to save his very fragile love from the powers of the Aether, watch out for Loki while he is imprisoned in Asgard, deal with potential enemies on all sides, and try to stop an ancient race from destroying the universe. Probably just another Wednesday for him.

Thor: The Dark World features a whole lot of other actors, including the returns of Sif (Jaime Alexander), Heimdall (Idris Elba), Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) and The Warriors Three (Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi, Tadanobu Asano). Well, Asano really wasn’t in this movie much, and Levi replaced Josh Dallas, but hey, Stevenson is still there! Also introducing Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as the second in command to Malekith.

Also, the Dark Elves in general reminded me of really strange Putties.

One thing I learned from watching Thor: The Dark World is that Chris Hemsworth definitely helped cement himself as the only man who can play the God of Thunder. Over the summer, huge contract negotiations were taking place between Hemsworth and Marvel, the latter who claimed that they don’t need him in The Avengers 2:Age of Ultron, they could just hire someone else, and refused to budge. Well, eventually they budged, thanks to the help of Robert Downey Jr., so presumably both sides reached a worthwhile agreement.

Thor: The Dark World more or less gave me everything I wanted in a sequel movie, expanding on a lot of areas that the first film established. It still has the same level of comedy, so we aren’t just dealing with a serious space fantasy drama. The chemistry between Hemsworth, Portman, and Hiddleston is electric, allowing the story to flow just a little bit better. The film also takes place a lot more off Earth compared to the first film, allowing the use of new landscapes and helping separate the franchise from the rest of the Avengers movies.

The does come with a downside, however. With a lot of the film set off world, we are given many more scenes that are heavily CGI’d in order to create the scene, which gets tiresome after awhile. I’d like more of it to be grounded in areas that aren’t created by green screens.

My biggest issue from the film actually has to do with the editing. I found the scene transitions really distracting, as on more than one occasion it felt like we were cut far too quickly to another scene, almost cutting off lines by the characters. We weren’t always allowed the appropriate time to even acknowledge what was just said, before having to focus our attention elsewhere. It made the pace of the film seem a bit off to me, and not what I would expect from a film at this scale.

Most likely Thor: The Dark World won’t get anywhere as close to touching the amount of money that Iron Man 3 brought in. I hope that doesn’t detract Marvel Studios from eventually bringing us more Thor outside of The Avengers.

This film had an excellent amount of drama, action, and comedy to help create a fantastic theater experience, but has some technical aspects that distract me from giving it that perfect rating overall.

 

3 out of 4.

The Other Woman? Yes. This movie is the unofficial sequel to The Other Man. And by unofficial, I mean not at all related. It still deals with people cheating though, so don’t worry.

“Yay infidelity!”

Natalie Portman stars in this movie as the other woman. Yes! She meets a guy at the law firm, they get together (the guy says his marriage isn’t working anyways, but…the kid! He wants to stay together for the kid). Who was he married too? Lisa Kudrow, who can be a mean old bitch if she wants to. She really hates Portman, and it is understandable why (I mean, broke apart her marraige). The movie is very disjointed, because it is told from the present (of her living with the new kid + lawyer), but with flashbacks of first meeting him, and getting knocked up, breaking apart a marriage.

So in a real time line? Portman meets Lawyer Dude. They shellack in a hotel. She gets pregnant. He divorces Kudrow. They get joint custody of kid. Portman now lives with them and sees Kudrow a whole bunch because of the joint custody thing.

At the same time, it shows her interactions with the “not her kid” kid, and how awkward it can all be. It seems that everything goes wrong too, which Kudrow is quick to throw in her face. We also find out (early early on) that Portman produced a child with her new man, but that child died of SIDS.

The movie is about both Portman never feeling accepted into her new situation (after all Kudrow harasses her and says she is bad with children) while at the same time feeling that no one else cares about her dead child enough, and never cared at all. Portman does some outlandish things that will leave the viewer very upset, and begin to think Kudrow is right. Except, also, Kudrow is also a mean bitch.

This movie is really just about two woman who do questionable things.

You know. Like home wrecking.

So the movie is okay. It is an Indie flick. I don’t really enjoy the ending. At first you feel sympathetic for Portman (but why? She ended a marriage) but her meanness makes you question that. You will never like Kudrow’s character, because even at the end, when she does something positively, it is still very mean sounding. Must be because she is a woman of science. So overall, it is okay. I don’t think you are normally supposed to hate all the characters in a movie though, so that is a negative.

But hey. Anthony Rapp and Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under / Can’t Hardly Wait) have small roles. Nifty!

2 out of 4.

THORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Thor comes with an all-star cast, thanks to it being such a big picture. So I might as well get it out of the way. The titular character is played by Chris Hemsworth, because the director really liked his 10 minutes in Star Trek at the beginning. Natalie Portman is an Arizona scientist studying space rifts, with Kat Dennings as an assistant. Tom Hiddleston plays Loki, brother of Thor, and Anthony Hopkins plays Odin, father of the two. Lastly, Idris Elba plays the bad ass gatekeeper Heimdall. Get all that? Good.

THORRRRRR. Wait. This looks like the sword in the stone?

I really don’t want to describe the plot of the movie, but I guess I have to. Thor loses all his power and gets sent back to earth. He is weak and a human, and has to learn to be a true hero before he can be accepted as a god again. Okay, part of that may be from the Disney Hercules movie, but who is to really say if you haven’t seen Thor yet? Similarly, if you have, you shouldn’t care. Because Thor is great. Watching it reminded me of the first time I saw Iron Man or Hellboy II. It had humor, action, great story and effects, and just great everything. The SHIELD agent from the films is getting a bigger role in this movie.

One of the hardest proms is relating with Thor. Dude is a god. Generally he has powers. When he does, pretty much no other super hero can take him down, so he becomes this ominous super presence that is hard to use. It will be interesting to see how they use him the Avengers movie without totally just killing everyone and winning all fights on his own. I guess because his brother Loki is involved, it doesn’t mean auto win. But seriously? Thor is like a cheat code. SO here is hoping the future films will not just be awkward TooStrongToCare fests.

4 out of 4

I first heard of this movie from Joseph Gordon-Levitt himself. He came to UNC on some weird tour called HitRecord, and showed the preview for Hesher for fun. When I saw it, I thought “Well, that is shit.”

Thankfully enough, I was wrong! This movie was a lot better than I thought, if not weird. It also definitely earned its R rating, so maybe my review should fucking too? I think I only need to say fuck twice to earn an official R. Well done, self!

Hesher is a loud mouth metal psychopath like person, who also is a homeless drifter. He of course befriends a kid and lives his family (dad / Rainn Wilson) who have recently lost the mom, and teaches them how to live life again through unconventional means. Sounds like a bad sitcom? Yes.

But this was pretty fantastic. Lot of violence, some OH WHAT scenes, and language and sex. Also Natalie Portman plays a nerd girl.

I prefer my Natalie to be Nerd Natalie. So does Thor.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt pulls off this role, and I don’t think anyone could have expected that. I mean, this is the wing flapping, invading earth, cobra commanding JGL here. How dare he gain the ability to grow long hair and listen to metal. But it was very captivating, and off beat.

3 out of 4.