Tag: Romance

You can really learn a lot about the world with movies. Not the bull crap happy ending stuff, and many other lines. But simple things! Like expressions. I never heard of a Dear John Letter before (or I might have in Serious Moonlight, but can’t remember). Those are letters telling your lover your breaking up with them, usually for some other lover. That adds more meaning to this movie title (Dear John, no shit). I think about that expression and I think “Man…people do dear john texts now. Even less effort.”.

“Now if only knew how to read…”

Let me just say that this is my favorite Nicholas Sparks movie based off one of his books. That being said, I still have only seen two, this one and The Last Song. Which I hated. So it didn’t have much to beat. The Notebook I own just…haven’t gotten around to watching it yet.

Channing Tatum starts off the movie being in the army and getting shot. He is narrating at this point, and tells of a story of him going to the US Mint when he was a child. He had a fascination for coins as a kid, and became a collector. Flash back time!

John starts off at a beach, meets Amanda Seyfried. She is in Wilmington, NC (whaaat) where he lives for spring break. In that small break, they “fall in love”. She even loves his dad (Richard Jenkins), who seems kind of crazy and invested most of their money into coins. Kind of obsessively.

A lot of this movie takes place a long time ago, like late 90s, early 2000s. Once she goes back to school they decide to write letters to each other. Once he goes back into the army the letters keep coming, albeit at a lesser pace. John feels a sense of duty to remain in the army after the 9/11 attacks, and constantly reenlists, but possibly just to escape his home life. He also gets mad at Amanda for suggesting his dad has Autism, just was never treated as such because back then, what was Autism? Just weirdness.

Eventually she sends him a Dear John letter, breaking up with him for someone else she grew to love. Fuck that shit. He re-enlists again, despite getting shot. After some more years of not talking, he finds out that his dad had a stroke and is in serious condition.

Can he forgive his dad for the years of awkward growing up in poverty, due to his obsession? Will he ever find Seyfried again (and you know, win her back despite the fact that she is married)? When will he ever leave the army? What the hell is up with all these coins?

“They’re mine! Mine I tells ya! (Hiss!)”

What surprised me about this movie is the layers. It is not very simple and obvious, like The Last Song (which also was pretty cheesy). It has a lot more serious stuff going on, and not everything is as peachy. The plot lines between JOhn and Seyfried, John and home (with his dad), John in the army, all interweave pretty snazzylike, and I thought that was great of writer.

Obviously the acting wasn’t that great. I think Tatum needs to learn how to make his big face show more emotion. Seyfried could have probably been any girl in this movie. Half of her lines were just narrating the letters they sent. Jenkins was great as “old man who is dying and confused and autistic” though. But ehh. Everything else could have been better.

When I saw the movie Beastly, I figured it was about what everything figured it’d be about. Some retelling of Beauty and the Beast, somehow. Probably modernized. Well. This is true. A modern live action retelling of that movie.

Hmm. I am fine with this as a concept. But depends on whether or not they execute it at all.

Also depends o- OH GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER?

Alex Pettyfer plays pretty bow awesome dude. His dad (Peter Krause) is a wealthy music executive or something who has always taught him that good looking people get farther in life, and he has made that his motto.

But then something crazy happens. He makes fun of Mary-Kate Olsen too many times and she casts a spell on him! (Let that be a lesson for all you Olsen haters). She turns him into a freak, more or less. Tattoos, bald, piercings, and these weird scars that don’t make any sense. All over his body.

In order to save himself, he must find true love in a year (and have someone say they love him) or else he will stay like that forever. It freaks out his dad, who lets him stay in a house outside of the city, telling him he will go there too, but never making that trek. (Ashamed of his ugly).

He has to live alone with his housekeeper, Lisa Gay Hamilton, who hasn’t seen her children in decades, and eventually Neil Patrick Harris, a blind tutor.

Eventually he actively tries to find love, with Vanessa Hudgens who (through a series of moves) has to stay at his seemingly empty mansion. Can he make her love him in time? (Oh yeah, and if he does, NPH gets his sight back and his housekeeper will be able to find her children).

Seriously. Do the scars make any sense? The bloodyness look of them always?

Anyways, I liked the overall plot of the movie, but two certain things bugged me.

One, the love between the two leads. Nothing about it seemed real at all. It all seemed fake and forced. At the end one is left wondering how the hell she came to love him. What, they read some poetry? It was pretty bad acting and distracted me from everything else.

Second, the “lesson”. I am not sure what he learned, after it all. I know this is also a problem with beauty and the beast…but what was it? That ugly people find love? Based off of how the movie was set up, it would make more sense for him to find true love in a less attractive person, the people he made fun of. Yet somehow, he was an asshole all his life (okay raised that way), and he is rewarded with an attractive on the outside woman too?

This is probably just a Hollywood problem, because they love doing “ugly/mediocre guy” with hot woman, and never the other way around. There was no “Gaston” character in the movie either. Aka, someone who was like Beast before transformation, who gets killed, without getting the chance to have his own year to reconsider his lifestyle.

I don’t know, the bad lead acting and the message just bug me a lot in the movie. If they at least made their love seem like it was real, and not this BS love that happened, I would have enjoyed it. But the latter problem would never have been fixable.

I know what you are thinking. “This is just some dumb Romantic Comedy. What’s Your Number? What is with movies that ask questions in the title!?” Or something like that. But probably not. Probably just never heard of the movie. That is the simpler guess!

But hey, it also has enough T&A for the fellas and the ladies, so even if you are shallow you are covered.

Covered. Like a hand towel.

Anna Faris is a dirty dirty whore. Or at least that is what she thinks of herself after reading in some magazine that at most, most women sleep with 10 guys. Women who sleep with 20 or more have a high percentage of living alone! Shit! She has slept with 19 guys, more than all of her friends. The self esteem issues she faces even drives her to get a boob job (Oh wait. No, that was real life). Doesn’t help that she seems to change everything about herself when she meets a guy too, instead of being herself (Ending moral alert).

Her sister is getting married (Ari Graynor) and so she gets the great idea to try and see if any of her ex-boyfriends are awesome now, and try to reconnect with him. That way she doesn’t push the number over the “limit”. With the help of her equally (or more) promiscuous neighbor Chris Evans, she sets off to find the people on her list, to see if she can save herself!

Its amazing how many famous people she ended up seducing/dating/spending one night with. Including Zachary Quinto, Joel McHale, Andy Samberg, and Chris Pratt (which is a great side story), and even Aziz Ansari (Who we only get to hear on the phone, but its obvious it is him).

Also, Alcohol is involved in a lot of her decisions.

I won’t say how it ends, because you know how it ends. But I actually guessed it would end a slightly different way than how it actually did, so bam, I got owned.

I think Anna Faris spent a lot of work trying to make sure the movie was funny (and might have done it because she wanted to be in Bridesmaids but didn’t make a cut? I cant remember). Something about woman power. But I did laugh a bunch, mostly at stupid stuff, but I found it funny. Not at all close to any sort of typical RomCom. Of course one disadvantage is that if you hate her voice, you will hear it a lot, and it will suck. But she is a mostly likable star, and has good chemistry with Evans (who is a bit less Douchey than he normally appears).

But hey. Slackers rejoice. And I will rate this as I feel fit!

This is the 250th movie review! Which means more Twilight action, and more pictures.

Twilight: Eclipse is the third movie/book, behind Twilight and Twilight: New Moon.

Let us start with the important things first!

Anna Kendrick is barely in this movie again. Why is she even agreeing to do this? She was in an early lunch scene, to show that they are still in school? Then Valedictorian speech at graduation, and quick hey lets party, at the after party.

Here is what appears to be a photo Kendrick leaving the set from a stalker. Probably did all of her scenes in one day, so this is rare.

So what happens in this movie? First off, it turns out that red head bitch from the first and second movie (who I thought died in the second movie!) isn’t dead yet and /still/ causing problems. Really? Not only that, but it took me awhile to realize it was the same one, because a different actress was brought in. (Further research had me find out that Twilight fans were mad at the change, thinking the new person couldn’t do it as good as the last person. You know, the character who I easily ignored in the first two movies. What?).

“I’m important, notice me!”

This movie also gave you all the back story you didn’t know you wanted. I think at least two vampires told their “and then I became a vampire” tales. Additionally, with the “Were”wolves, we got to hear a story about how they started to hate vampires.

A sexy story told over a sexy campfire.

But yeah! Turns out red headed chick is making a small army of “firstyear” vampires in order to kill Bella. She is super mad about things from awhile ago. Apparently first year vampires are the worst. They are all, rawr, and shit. So they are more dangerous than actual vampires that are badass? Weird. So Kristen Stewart doesn’t like that. Thankfully, both Edward Cullen and Jacob Black want to protect her, so they join forces to train how to kill vampires. Very weird thing to train a mortal enemy, but hey. It is BELLA guys.

No one even wears a red shirt for the training.

So yeah. In other dramatic news. Edward keeps asking Bella to marry him. She keeps saying “make me a vampire first”. It is like Paradise by the Dashboard Lights all over again, but a role reversal. Bella is all fine living her whole life with him, but doesn’t want to “marry young” or else she will be a slut, or pregnant, or something. Her mom did it, and she doesn’t want too. Does that mean Bella is willing to risk turning into a vampire and leaving Edward? Maybe. There is after all…Jacob!

Who she also loves. But not as much. So the point is moot. Doesn’t stop a hot (and weird) tent scene, where Jacob has to warm her up because it is cold, and Edward cannot. Thankfully, the bros bond over the moment.

This is not an actual scene from the movie. But if it was, that’d be fucked up.

But Jacob is a dick and says he will still fight over Bella until she makes up her mind. Oh well. Even gets an awesome kiss out of it, making Edward mad. Bella is a bitch, really. Eventually, red headed chick finds Bella. But Jacob/Edward kills her and save Bella. (She turns to stone at death? And it was a lot easier death than the guy from the first movie. Hell, all the vampires were. WTF?).

But then the weird group from the other movie show up late to fix the problem. Didn’t even realize it was Dakota Fanning from New Moon. Oh well, as far as I can tell, they still have little point. They enforce rules I guess? Probably the final villains.

How could I miss that?? She even has the same red eyes.

So the movie ends where I thought we were at the end of the second. With the red headed chick dead, and Bella choosing Edward. But this time agreeing to marry him, then sex, then vampirism. Weird order, but alright. I would definitely choose vampire before sex. I wouldn’t say Sex with Edward would cause problems, but man, if he is dead / has no blood flow, how can he get it up? Also, it would probably fuck up your child somehow.

Thankfully this movie didn’t have long boring parts like the second. But instead of half of it feeling like it didn’t need to exist, it felt like most of it didn’t need to exist. I think the next movie will start right where I thought the second one ended.

But I will be disappointed, because now that high school is over, they have no real ways to fit Anna Kendrick into any more screen time.

One Day is a British movie, based on the British book of the same name. Creative right? In fact, this book was apparently so good, it was made into a movie pretty damn quick from when it came out. But why is it called One Day?

Because it tells the story of a man and a woman. On one day of the year. For twenty years. July 15, 1989-2009, to be exact.

St. Swithun’s day and Eddie Griffin‘s birthday. But I am sure you knew that.

Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess play the main two roles, and thus are the only people that matter. It starts with them graduating from some UK college, and spending the night together. They decided to be friends, and over the next many years they end up working on their goals to be famous and be a writer. Also with different (sometimes plentiful) lovers, and at different times loving the other. Very unfortunate.

What is fortunate is that so much happened on July 15 between them. Pretty handy! It also has Patricia Clarkson, as the mother of Jim. I don’t think Anne’s parents are talked about at all.

You know what I don’t care about? Accents. To say someone from an area has the “wrong English accent” or a bad accent, or whatever, sounds completely stupid. All people from an area do not talk identical. It is based on how they hear a lot of their earlier words. Parents and shit. I will never care about someone’s accent, and if it is “real” enough or not, because technically, there isn’t a real accent at all. To do that would be stereotyping, people.

(There is also complaints that her accent changes throughout the movie. Which makes sense, as she moves around to different parts of Europe in the movie, and overtime, that shit changes.)

It was probably hard for them to find people who could look the ages of 22-42, or whatever the range may be. They change their hairstyles a bunch and do a pretty good job. They also make Anne look like the adult female version of Harry Potter at the beginning.

You’re welcome for that.

The story was interesting, and of course sad at a lot of parts. Sometimes the “date” that was flashed on the screen was hard to see, and I wouldn’t necessarily know it was a new year. They should have been less clever with that. It was an okay story. Probably rushed, compared to a novel. I think there definitely could have been more. Decent movie, but not the best. Also, there is some nakedness, which is shocking for a PG-13 movie, but not shocking for an Anne Hathaway movie.

This is the 200th movie review of the site! The only other “big milestone” was 150, as 50 and 100 existed with the site launch already. Because damn it, I want to provide content. To match the theme from 150, this will be a picture heavy review.

Twilight: New Moon is the sequel to the movie Twilight, and hopefully it will answer all of the questions that the first movie failed to answer. Like. Why do Jacob and Edward hate each other?

Actually. That is about all I really cared about from the first movie.

“u mad bro?”

The movie begins with Kristen Stewart turning 18. Like you would assume, this makes her feel like an old lady, to the hundred some year old Edward who is stuck at 17. In a decade, their relationship will feel pretty pedo-tastic. So they have a party to ignore the future, but one vampire smells her paper cut and flips a shit.

“bro, u mad?”

Edward does the right thing then, and breaks up with her and moves the family to some other miserably dreary town. That is about the first 10 minutes. THE NEXT 35 MINUTES IS HORRIBLE BORING TIME. Seriously. I don’t know whats up, but the next half hour is mostly about her being sad. Eventually, she starts hanging out with Jacob, because her dad is threatening to move her back to cheery Phoenix, and guess what, she likes his adrenaline. She also probably likes that he keeps taking off his shirt to clean wounds. Oh yeah. But after 45 minutes of movie, we find out that Edward is haunting her as a ghost.

“Bellllaaaaaaaaaaaa. Belllaaaaaaa!!!” He is really just missing some rattling chains.

At this point, a little bit more happens but I am kinda mad. Just like a bro would be. (Third reference is a charm?). If I don’t see any werewolves before the first hour, I just don’t see the point. Long story short, I am disappointed. Instead I get to see them watch a movie called Face Punch and Jacob get all testosteroned up and mad at some other guy. He then promises to love Bella. Sounds familiar. At least he isn’t an immortal freak monster.

Speaking of freak monsters, at minute 62 we get to see big giant wolves in the forest! They are chasing the Jamaican vampire from the last movie who was friendly. Apparently there is consequences for the last movie, and now they want to kill Bella. Him and the weird red headed one. 65 minutes in Jacob does very impressive acrobatics. 70 minutes in? SOMEONE TURNING INTO A LARGE WOLF THING. Gah. So does Jacob. Wolf fight!

I am so glad the internet knows exactly what I want.

As a side note, I am usually upset when a werewolf is depicted as just a large wolf. Not like, a standing up wolf, but just a bigger regular wolf. Other movies seem to be doing that now too. So the next bit of movie is them protecting her from the last vampire who wants to kill her. Fine. But she wants Edward back. So she jumps off of a cliff to make the ghost upset. It works, his sister shows up, and is all, oh. You are alive. Cool.

Jacob is upset because he is now madly in love with Bella. So he is mad at the vampires. Either way. Somehow Edward finds out about all of this crap, and thinks Bella is dead. So he does the reasonable thing. He goes to Rome to have the vampire law makers kill him.

Shirtless, of course, as its the common theme.

So somehow after all this, the final conflict seems to be getting there fast enough to make sure he doesn’t get himself killed? They do this. The council doesn’t care. But thankfully love happens, and she agrees to turn into a vampire. So they spare him? Yay. Very easy ending. And, much like the last movie, the final “oh no conflict” seems to have come out of no where from the first 90 minutes of movie.

So they vote, yay, she can be a vampire. But first? More Edward and Jacob Angst. Bella tells Jacob that she wants Edward, (probably just wants to live forever) and to get away. The reason why they haven’t been killing each other (because werewolves only kill vampires? What?) is some treaty crap. It ends if they ever bite a human. Like Bella. Dun dun dun. And scene!

But here is another shirtless photo, to take on the road.

So, overall? This movie was way too long. The first hour could have been condensed a lot more. Instead of being about vampires, it seems like the first half was about nothing at all. Then some werewolf stuff. Then attempted suicide far away (Despite Edward not being in most of the movie). Then some quarrels. Then end. Like. I feel like they didn’t even want it to be full movie.

Minutes 70-95 seem to be a real ending to the first movie, but they also put filler in between it. This stuff needs to be shifted so that the first movie could have felt more complete. Maybe take the next hour of the third movie and put it on this one for a better experience? I don’t know. I won’t for another 50 reviews.

I think we can all also agree that Anna Kendrick‘s role was greatly diminished in this movie, much to my disappointment.

OoohhhhhhOooohhHhOOHHHHH. (That is ghost noises).

A retelling of the classic Red Riding Hood tale. For some reason the advertises of this movie made sure everyone knew that the people who did this movie also did Twilight. Clearly setting itself up for a not so serious movie.

The story stars Amanda Seyfried, who can be great and sing, but neither of these things really happen in this movie. She lives in a village where it always is winter and near a dark forest (I assume). They used to be attacked by a werewolf, but it stopped when she was a kid. She fell in love with a woodcutter, but he is lame and an orphan. FLASHFORWARD TO NOW. She is being forced to marry some other cute boy, who is prestigious or something.

I will say that I could not tell the two guys apart. This lead to some confusing moments for me.

OH NO WEREWOLF ATTACK.

Or just giant CGI wolf.

He kills her older sister. Eventually they call in Gary Oldman to come and kill the wolf! Even though Saul from Battlestar Galactica (oh how he has fallen) thinks he killed it already.

Blah blah. Witchhunt in the village. People thinking its everyone else. Eventually it is revealed. It is dealt with. And then a different dumb ending.

Alright first of all, the entire village just seemed fake. Even if they were in the woods for real, everything just seemed like shitty CGI to me, even her damn hood. In terms of guessing who the wolf is, I had about two guesses. One was right. Hooray. But I didn’t care. I also found it ridiculous that after the reveal, the wolf was still killed (spoiler?). Like, don’t be a bitch Amanda.

ESPECIALLY if you compare that ending with what happened right after it. That makes it even more stupid.

I wasn’t even interested in the movie for that long. Gary Oldman’s character was even annoying. He mentioned like, four or five times that he had to kill his own wife because she would be a werewolf. That was about all he said. Where I come from, killing your wife isn’t celebrated or a reason to get to do what you want.

“Give me that sandwich sir. I killed my wife.”

But rawrrr. This movie wasn’t good. I haven’t given a 0 in awhile, because that means I am mad I wasted my time with the movie in addition to it being pretty bad. Oh well. This fits my bill.

Water For Elephants is based off of a book of the same name. In fact, a year ago I almost read that book! But when I realized that the only people I knew who read it were women, I decided to investigate more. Last thing I wanted to do was read a romance novel, yeuch! But by doing research, I found out that a movie was happening, so like a real American, I decided to watch the movie instead of read the book.

I thought the movie would be two hours of this. A sequel to African Cats.

Instead, much to my delight, this movie stars an older and more rugged Robert Pattison (or Edward Cullen). Seriously, the look he has almost reminds me of how Leonardo DiCaprio looks now, post Titanic. Dude might be a star yet.

In the movie, Edward Cullen just wants to be a Vet. Almost graduated from Cornell, but left college once both of his parents died. No longer wealthy (turns out the dad was scammin’), he runs away, and gets picked up by a circus! Starting out as hard laborer, once they find out about his college schooling, he becomes a vet for the horses and elephant. He also falls in love with Reese Witherspoon, who is married to the head honcho, Christoph Waltz.

So. The whole movie deals with life as a Carnie in the early 1900s. You get to see animal abuse, shady tactics, and a lot of people getting beat up. An absurd amount almost. I think my favorite role was Waltz as the owner. Really good acting there. Cullen still was kind of just the pretty boy savior role. There was also a small role for Paul Schneider at the beginning and end of the movie. Who, if you watch Parks and Rec, know he is the coolest guy around.

Mark Brendanawicz! Well. Cool until season 3+. We don’t talk about that though.

Overall, the story was very simple and pretty guessable. Some good acting, but mostly just normal expected stuff. I am watching the credits now, they are doing a very classic take on it, weirding me out. It was kind of good, kind of alright.

Have you heard of this movie? Crazy, Stupid, Love, it has tons of bigger names in it, and some lesser names that might be big one day! This non-R rated Comedy/Romance has a few stories in it, that are kind of connected. Not like the bullshit Valentine’s Day movie, much much less stories. I’d put a max of 3 stories for this one.

Let’s see, the movie begins with Julianne Moore telling Steve Carell that she wants a divorce. Why? Because she slept with her coworker, Kevin Bacon.

I am pretty sure most marriages nowadays have a “sleep with celebrity” clause in it though.

This causes some vehicular shenanigans, and going home early. Sure, their marriage is also in shambles out of boredom and apathy, but the Kevin Bacon part is more important. This makes their son mad, but the babysitter, Analeigh Tipton, glad, since the kid is totally being a creeper. She doesn’t like the divorce though, but goes back home to her family, where her dad is played by John Carroll Lynch, or that guy who played Drew Carrey’s brother.

At the same time, Emma Stone is having to turn down the advances of one suave ladies man Ryan Gosling, because she is dating Josh Groban at the law firm!

Man, that set up took a long time. So the movie tells of Carell meeting Gosling at the bar, and learning how to be a better man (and by better man, I mean pick up chicks and be exciting). All while Carell has to help teach his son that love is real, to pursue his dreams. I won’t get into any other complicated relationships that happen, because they are all awesome and spoil shit.

The movie goes at a much slower pace, but it is definitely worth it. Pretty much all of the characters that matter are dynamic and change throughout the film, so it is great to watch their transformation.

If I could, I would change the ending though. The big climatic ending takes place at the sons 8th Grade Graduation, which is lame on its own. I skipped mine because of the pointlessness of it. The speeches didn’t feel like they fit the rest of the film, especially since they would have been stopped in real life. Which the movie seems pretty real, up to that point.

It also kind of sweeps under the rug all the problems their marriage have, and I guess is willing to ignore them. Sure, he seemed to stop trying. But why should he have had to go crawling back because she cheated on him? Why does the guy always move out?

Not to mention the part right after the graduation where there’s some possible sex offender stuff going on.

Remember kids, not all sex offenders are creepy. But all creepy adults are sex offenders.

Overall, the movie is probably the perfect mix of cute and sexy.

Hey look, a movie based off a Nicholas Sparks novel that was made a whole year before the movie. Are all of his books just turning into instant movie bait?

Probably. What I also learned about The Last Song is that apparently NC was supposed to host the filming crew, but voters turned it down, so they went to the magical land of Georgia.

Those lawyers must be magical to convince the citizens to provide those kind of tax breaks!

The story stars angsty teen Miley Cyrus and her younger brother, having to atrocious task of living with their dad for the summer in Georgia. Years earlier their parents got divorced. Her dad, Greg Kinnear, used to be a Juliard piano teacher and taught Miley all she knows. She even got accepted to Juliard, but hates her dad over the divorce and refuses to go next year. The brother however was by far my favorite part of the movie. I think he is supposed to be around 10, but he had some of the best lines as he is way smarter than any kid should be.

There is also a love interest in Georgia, played by some nobody Liam Hemsworth. It is ludicrous for him trying to woo Miley. Her character is way too annoying / moody towards him, always going off and on. No way is she that “unique” for him to do that. Probably just trying to get back at his rich parents.

Spoilers? Doubtful. The story is of course how the dad has some late stages of Cancer and actually wanted to spend some time with the kids before he gets all sick and dies. So the story is of course Miley learning of this, and dealing with it, trying to reconnect with the father she grew to hate and also learn to love the piano again.

The story is pretty much expected. The ending goes as expected as well. Everything falls into their neatly packaged pieces. Sure it is kind of sad, but Miley is not a great actress yet. She kept making faces that were supposed to be sad? But just seemed to look goofy.

“Oh, she’s just bein Miley.“

Despite the absolutely nothing new aspects of it, it was still overall okay. Lets say because the little brother kicked some ass.