Day: November 9, 2011

One of my friends joked to me a long time ago that Eat Pray Love could just be renamed “First World Problems: The Movie” (probably a stolen joke) but I didn’t get it now. Holy shit, I never knew the journey to self empowerment would be such an expensive endeavor.

Sure she is roughing it. But she is roughing it in Italy with a safety net.

The movie stars Julia Roberts as she travels around the world to experience life and find herself. She was living very well off in NYC with her husband, Billy Crudup, but got bored by the marriage. While trying to get a divorce (which he didn’t want), she fell for James Franco, who she then also had problems with. Her obvious solution was to pay for a trip to Italy, India, and Indonesia.

In Italy she was supposed to focus on her eating, and find happiness. In India, she would focus on her spirituality, and in Indonesia she would hang out with this weird medicine man and figure out her love life. Despite being packaged into nice little boxes, the overall theme of the movie was love. Everyplace she went, she had to deal with other social stigmas on her for not having a husband/being divorced. Some would call her courageous, but others stupid.

The transition was weird for me to watch too. Once she got to India, I felt like she was only being berated by Richard Jenkins for a long time. She got mad that he was speaking in “bumper stickers”, but she really didn’t have a better message. I barely even noticed her getting to Indonesia, minus the medicine man dude. Where, from what I could tell, all she was doing was hanging out with the rich Javier Bardem.

Not to be confused with the evil killing Javier Bardem.

Anyways. Most of the movie she seems to be complaining about love, and trying to get over her past two loves. Despite the eating and praying portions. Not only does that happen, but she complains a lot. Apparently her life is so bad that she had to leave the USA. By the end of course she “finds herself”, whatever that means, and in doing so…a new man. I thought they were trying to set us up for an independent woman thing, but somehow it still ends with a man. That man not being Billy Crudup, who she left brokenhearted in NYC.

I cant’ speak as a woman, but from what I can tell, it still promotes the fact that they need a man in their life to be truly happy, and that journeys require lots of money. If you are stuck at home, oh well, maybe you can journey to a nearby town. Doesn’t seem like the best messages. For shame, Julia Roberts. For shame.

Up In The Air is one of those movies that comes out in December that we like to call “Oscar Bait”. Big movies, with big actors, playing super dramatic /inspirational roles, right before the deadline for the Academy Awards, so they are fresh on the mind. No one remembers January movies in December.

What important to life theme does Up In The Air have? Downsizing and loneliness.

And Batman.

George Clooney is a guy who keeps to himself. His boss Jason Bateman is a downsizing firm, who goes to companies and lays off the workers and provides them with some post job security. His job mostly involves him flying all around the US. Once he is at the job, he gets his own office, and face to face gets to tell all these strangers that they are no longer going to be working there. The movie is full of these smaller scenes, watching the reactions on different people. You even get to see Zach Galifianakis as Random Worker.

He also is a pseudo motivational speaker. Unfortunately his message is about living a life with zero baggage and friends, and for some reason he thinks that is a good thing. I will note, the times when he is telling his philosophy, it just sounds stupid. I can’t believe people listen to him in the movie.

Dude also likes flying. He is trying to get ten million miles in the air, to get a special card and meet the head airline pilot (Sam Elliot) and get just sexy benefits.

That is all other stuff. It turns out even his company is changing. Anna Kendrick comes in changing shit. Instead of flying places face to face, they will remotely fire people, over the computer. Clooney doesn’t like doing that (because he doesn’t want to settle) and would rather be on the road. Also he finds it desensitizing so Kendrick must go out with him to try it face to face. Also he finds a fellow crazy traveler, Vera Farmiga, who he hooks up with a bunch for crazy hotel sexcapades.

But first? Alcohol!

I think I talked too much about the plot. Blah blah blah. Anna does a great job as young go-getter who doesn’t know much about the world. She can be a great actress, shown in Rocket Science, but is forced to be “Non important cute girl” in Twilight movies instead. If I had to be fired, I’d prefer it to be done by someone like George Clooney. Dude is probably charismatic even while mowing the lawn.

Danny McBride is also a surprise cameo in here, as a serious role, and his ugliest role yet.

But overall a good movie. Felt real. Felt sad. Felt funny. Felt it all. And also, life’s a bitch.

This is NOT a review of the books, or a comparison of them. Also, these reviews will be SLATHERED with spoilers. So, there is the warning.

Harry Potter is Daniel Radcliff, Ron Weasley is Rupert Grint, and Hermoine is Emma Watson. Also, Alan Rickman is Snape, Michael Gambon is Dumbledore.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

EVERYONE RUN. VOLDEMORT IS IN POWER. SECRETLY. HE CONTROLS THE GOVERNMENT AND PRINT MEDIA. NOTHING CAN BE DONE TO SAVE US NOW.

This is what they WANT you to believe is happening.

Also Snape is a dick, promising to help kill Dumbledore if that blonde mean dude fails. What a dick.

The beginning of the movie also features a trip to see some fat dude, who we have to presume will be the new defense against the dark arts teacher, but no, Jim Broadbent is brought in for potions? You mean Snape finally gets to teach the class he wants? That is crazy. I guess you wouldn’t want to give Zidler from Moulin Rouge! too much power.

“We’re going to turn Hogwarts into a theaaaaaaaaterrrrrrrrrrrr!”

Also Helena Bonham Carter is running around as some bad ass person, killing everybody that she wants to.

So what happens in this movie is Harry ends up cheating in Potions, using a book that has all the correct ways to make potions in them. Why are the books they using so inept? I don’t know. But this one is better. Signed by the Half-Blood Prince. Also has some nifty cheat code magic spells too. Too bad they really fuck a guy up.

They learn that bald dude is so powerful because he has put his soul into six different objects, much like a Lich would have with a Phylactery. To destroy Vdude, must destroy them all first. And that is what this movie is about. I think Dumbledore already killed one, and at the end they go and kill another.

BUT FIRST. Harry gets a luck potion. Or a potion that makes everything work for him for a duration time. That is awesome. It is pretty much the magic form of the best X-Men character ever, Longshot, who has the mutant ability to have things just go his way, always.

“So wait. You are in a different galaxy. And a cyborg. Yet you have a mutant ability too? To just be lucky? Doesn’t that seem like cheating at life?”

Alright. So they go to find a Horocrux, Dumbledore and Harry. Dumbledore has to drink a whole pot of water, almost killing him (Like alcohol?) and then they fight some zombies. They get the thing and go home, but the thing was fake. Fuck. Then SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE.

Roughly like this.

OH NO. AND SNAPE WAS THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE. Now Harry is all angsty, his best old gay friend is dead. The dude who hates him killed him. And that same dude helped him cheat in school. Where are your morals, Potter? Where?

So then he says that he wont go back to school. I guess realizing that he should be expelled for pseudo cheating. Instead he is going to kill a bald dude.

Or the other way around. Who is to say?

So this movie was pretty great. It had a darker tone than the other movies. Its effects were top notch too, really capturing the Blu-Ray technology. This movie, like the last two, ends in death, so I have to assume the next two will as well. Eventually, ending all the movies the same way kind of feels like a cop out. But with two movies left, and each death being more important (Diggory –> Sirius –> Dumbledore –> ? –> Voldemort/Potter), I have no idea who would die in the next one.

I almost care about the character too, now that Harry found love in a Ginger, and that he doesn’t look like a tool anymore. Still kind of an angsty teen, but not a tool.