The best movie of the summer ended up being the one that premiered at Cannes. “Midnight in Paris” earned four awards, while “X-Men: First Class” won three.
Tag: cinema
Crazy Stupid Love review
Director:
Glenn Ficarra, John Requa
Cast:
Steve Carell
Ryan Gosling
Julianne Moore
Emma Stone
Analeigh Tipton
Jonah Bobo
Kevin Bacon
Rated: PG-13
Predictable? At times yes, but boy does it work.
Crazy, Stupid, Love follows the character Cal Weaver (Carell), a man who immediately finds out that his wife Emily (Moore) wants a divorce and informs him that she cheated on him with a man named David Lindhagen (Bacon). After finding out, the two split up and Cal lives on his own in an apartment. However, he becomes bored and heads to a local night club and tries to drink his problems away.
While there a young man named Jacob (Gosling), who is a smooth talking ladies man, takes pity on Cal and decides to help him out by getting him into some new clothes and meeting new women. However one woman, Hannah (Stone), a law graduate becomes one girl that Jacob can’t seem to seal the deal on. As the film goes on Cal enjoys his new life of being single a bit, but it eventually leads to things becoming more complicated.
Friends with Benefits review
Director:
Will Gluck
Cast:
Justin Timberlake
Mila Kunis
Woody Harrelson
Jenna Elfman
Rated: R
“No Strings Attached” got it wrong, this got it right.
“Friends With Benefits” follows the story of Dylan (Timberlake), an editor who has just been offered a job as editor for a major magazine. Upon arriving in New York, Dylan meets Jamie (Kunis), who is his sort of temporary agent to help get him the job. Before going to work, Dylan and Jamie spend some time together exploring the city and eventually become good friends.
After Dylan gets the job he settles into the city and continues his friendship with Jamie. Eventually the two get really close however do not want to start a relationship, with both of them having bad break ups in the past. The two then decide to just have casual sex instead of a relationship so they won’t have to worry about having the issues of dating, however this raises come complications through out the film.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 review
Director:
David Yates
Cast:
Daniel Radcliffe
Rupert Grint
Emma Watson
Ralph Fiennes
Alan Rickman
Matthew Lewis
Rated: PG-13
The final adventure picks up immediately after The Deathly Hallows Part 1, jumping right into a phase of what to do next. The film starts with our trio of protagonists regrouping at Ron’s brother’s house and decide to ask the goblin who was captured in Part 1 to break into Gringotts to find another Horcrux.
After doing so the group returns to Hogwarts, where they are met by Neville (Lewis), and the rest of the students. Harry soon confronts Snape in front of the school with The Order of the Phoenix which leads the students and teachers of Hogwarts to make a final stand against Voldemort and his army.
Continue reading “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 review”
Zookeeper review
Director
Frank Coraci
Cast:
Kevin James
Rosario Dawson
Leslie Bibb
Joe Rogan
Rated: PG
Yes, this movie is just as stupid as the trailer makes it out to be.
Zookeeper follows around, not surprisingly, a zookeeper named Griffin (James), a man who is dedicated to his job but also wants to marry his long time girlfriend Stephanie (Bibb), however when she turns him down and breaks up with him, he is left heartbroken and continues his day to day routine for the next five years.
Cut to the present and Griffin is the lead zookeeper and very well liked by the animals and the staff, so things seem to be alright. However, we find out that Griffin may want to leave to work at his brother’s car dealership. As this happens Stephanie comes back into the picture, so the animals of the zoo come around breaking the code that they have to not talk to humans and help Griffin get the girl he’s been wanting. but things get complicated when Griffin starts changing who he is.
Super 8 review
Director:
J.J. Abrams
Cast:
Joel Courtney
Riley Griffiths
Elle Fanning
Kyle Chandler
Rated: PG-13
E.T. with more explosions!
Super 8 is the story of a group of friends who must be no older than 13. The group are all movie fans who want to make their own, and are led by their friend Charles (Griffiths), who’s directing the film. His friend Joe (Courtney), is the special effects expert and the main protagonist of the film. Joe and his father have been dealing with issues since the death of his mother, which happened six months prior to the movie starting.
One night the group sneaks out to shoot a scene for their project, and bring along a classmate, Alice (Fanning), to play a part in the film they are making. They go to a local train stop to shoot the scene and while there the group sees a major train crash after a pick up truck hits a locomotive head on. After this the military comes to clean up the mess, the situation gets even more suspicious as people and appliances begin disappearing.
May 2011 Mini Reviews
Water for Elephants: 2 out of 5
Water for Elephants started out fairly promising. It used a premise similar to Titanic using flashbacks to tell the story. The performances were fine, especially from Christoph Waltz. The real downfall of the film was the climax. It just seemed really improbable and too nicely wrapped up. I was very underwhelmed by the end.
Kung Fu Panda 2 review
Director:
Jennifer Yuh
Cast:
Jack Black
Angelina Jolie
Dustin Hoffman
Gary Oldman
Jackie Chan
Seth Rogen
Lucy Liu
David Cross
Rated: PG
Add another to the “good sequels list.”
In Kung Fu Panda 2, we once again follow the character Po (Black), the giant panda who became a kung fu master after finding that he was the prophesied ‘Dragon Warrior.’ Now Po lives with the other ‘Furious Five’ fighters as well as their master Shifu (Hoffman) where they are constantly fighting against bandits and the like, keeping the nearby villages safe.
Meanwhile, a new enemy arises, a Peacock named Shen played by Gary Oldmann. Shen has discovered the powers of gunpowder and plans to use them to rule all of China, and the first place he takes over is his city where he was born into royalty and was exiled. Upon finding out that Shen has taken over the city, Po and the Furious Five are sent to deal with the problem, however Shen has a bigger past with Po then the protagonist realizes.
X-Men: First Class review
Director:
Matthew Vaughn
Cast:
James McAvoy
Michael Fassbender
Jennifer Lawrence
Kevin Bacon
Rated: PG-13
Arguably the best X-Men movie out so far.
X-Men: First Class tells the origin story of how the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants came to be by going into the back stories of both Charles Xavior (McAvoy) and Eric Lehnsherr (Fassbender). We begin with their youths, Xavior growing up and learning that there were others like himself by meeting a young girl who can shape shift into any person named Raven, meanwhile Lehnsherr grows up being experimented on and treated poorly under the watch of Sebastian Shaw (Bacon), who has plans of world domination through mutants.
Once the two reach adulthood, the CIA contacts Xavior to help learn about the growing number of mutants appearing, Meanwhile Lehnsherr is out getting vengeance on those who had ruined his childhood and destroyed his family. Eventually the two characters meet and decide to seek out and help young mutants in the world. However once they gain light of Shaw’s plan they realize that he needs to be stopped and set out to deal with him, the two protagonists also learn that their ideals may be more conflicting than they first thought.
Midnight in Paris review
Director:
Woody Allen
Cast:
Owen Wilson
Rachel McAdams
Tom Hiddleston
Corey Stoll
Marion Cotillard
Rated: PG-13
The artistry of Paris being on full display was expected, the time-travelling was not.
Midnight in Paris follows the character Gil (Wilson), a Hollywood screenwriter who is on vacation in Paris with his fiance Inez (McAdams) and is also in the middle of writing a novel. While the two are scheduled to be married, it is apparent that they have problems, as Gil is usually dragged around the city by Inez and her parents to some of the more dull parts of the city.
However one night Gil finds himself walking the streets of Paris and at midnight, he is taken into an old model car and brought back to the age of the 1920’s. Here, Gil meets famous artists from the time including Ernest Hemmingway (Stoll) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Hiddleston). The rest of the film follows Gil’s mundane life during the day and his exploration of his favorite artists at night.
Matthew Liedke on Film 