Director – Alex Proyas

Cast – Nicholas Cage, Chandler Canterbury, Rose Byrne, Lara Robinson, Ben Mendelsohn, D. G. Maloney

Release Year – 2009

Reviewed by John of the Dead

I know some would say this really isn’t a “horror” movie, and it is not. However, I did decide to review this film because it does have some horror aspects in the film, I tend to call films like this “pseudo-horror”(for future reference). This film follows Nicolas Cage as MIT professor John Koestler, who attends an event at his son’s elementary school for the opening of a time capsule that was placed there by students 50 years earlier. Each student gets a piece of paper including drawings of what the students 50 years ago thought the world would be like 50 years later. Most students get pictures of rocket ships and other typical space age ideas. John’s son however gets a piece of paper with nothing but a random(not so random afterall) set of numbers written all over the front and the back of the paper by a disturbed little girl who wrote it 50 years prior. A small “accident” then forces John to notice a specific set of numbers in the document, which he investigates and then learns that the set of numbers are really a prediction of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, with happened 42 years after the girl wrote them! Upon further research John then realizes that this document is completely full of predictions of horrific events that occurred in history AFTER the little girl wrote the numbers. With only a few sets of numbers left, John gains the help of Diana Wayland(Rose Byrne, who starred in the epic horror flick “28 Weeks Later“), who is the daughter of the girl wrote the numbers 50 years earlier. They both must now figure out how the final sets will happen, how they will stop them from happening, and what exactly their two overly smart children have to do with the disasters.

I was really surprised with the end product of this film. I was somewhat expecting a typical “A-list movie star has to save the world in this year’s annual disaster flick”, but I was proved wrong with an interesting story, not something way too simple like “Armageddon” or “Deep Impact”. Alex Proyas, who directed the sweet film “Dark City” as well as “The Crow” did a really good job in directing this film. He managed to bring out some pretty good creepiness in a type of film that normally would not be all that creepy, and managed to keep this film going at a good pace to keep the viewer’s interest without rushing or bombarding things. Great timing in plot development is always a great way to ensure that a movie is going to be great, given that there is good acting and a decent script of course!

Hands down, this film has quite possibly the best special effects I have ever seen. The apocalyptic scenes at the end, as well as every other disaster was created perfectly with the slightest chance of anyone even knowing it was fake other than the fact that you are in a movie theater and not viewing the events in real life. Maybe we’ve finally caught up to the Japanese when it comes to great special effects?(even if we did, they got there at least 7 years ago)

Overall, this is one of the better “end of the world” disaster type movies, I suggest you check this out if you want to see a big budget Hollywood flick actually do things right for once.

Rating: 7/10

Only five days until Christmas?! My lord, does time fly! If you’re still in need of a last minute gift or ideas for a great holiday look, have no fear! I’ve got tips and ideas this week to make your holidays merry and bright.

Today, I draw my inspiration from a classic Christmas song, “Silver and Gold.” After all, you can’t go wrong with precious metals!

Silver Siren

For a soft, romantic winter look, take a cue from silver screen beauties Rose Byrne and Leighton Meester and let the eyes tell all.

Okay, so the look isn’t overtly silver, but the cool undertones of the plums and grays make for a pretty shimmery look. You can get a similar effect using Lancome’s Ltd. Ed. Color Design Sensational Effects Eye Palette in Starlette and Stunning, which features coordinated shades to get a fool-proof, party-ready smoky eye ($31.50 on BeFlurt.com). Pair it with a light pink lip–I suggest either MAC Lipstick in Syrup ($9.80 on BeFlurt.com) or MAC Slimshine Lipstick in Scant ($10.15 on BeFlurt.com). Syrup is a frosty light pink, whereas Scant is a little darker in hue, but goes on more sheer than MAC’s usual lipsticks.

"Silver Siren" products from left to right: MAC Slimshine Lipstick in Scant, MAC Lipstick in Syrup, and Lancome Ltd. Ed. Color Design Sensational Effects Eye Palette in Starlette and Stunning

To finish the look, try patting on a layer of silver glitter to either your eyes or your lips. An extra fine glitter in a white silver hue will work best to add just the right amount of shimmer. I suggest Make Up For Ever’s Glitters in either Multicolored White 3 or Multicolored Silver 13 ($13 on Sephora.com) or Jane Iredale’s 24-Karat Gold Dust in Silver (JaneIredale.com). A fun fact about Jane Iredale’s Gold Dust is that these pure 24K gold powders are FDA-approved, so they are safe to eat! And totally safe to use on your kissers.

Golden Girl

Would you rather “go for the gold?” Then turn the heat up a notch with the Lancome Ltd. Ed. Color Design Sensational Effects Eye Palette in Pampered and Priveleged ($31.50 on BeFlurt.com). This beautiful compact features six coordinated shades with warm undertones of pink, brown, and gold. Together, these shades will create a natural-looking eye with just the right amount of golden shimmer.

For an extra festive look, add a pair of red lips! A bright classic red lip color is always a fun choice, and has been recently spotted all over Hollywood.

We currently have a fantastic red–chanel Rouge Allure Luminous Satin Lip Color in 127 Dazzling ($22.40 on BeFlurt.com). This fabulous lipstick is a matte red with a bit of an orange undertone, so it will work best with olive skin tones. Our MAC Lipstick in Party Line is a great alternative, if you want a less flashy look ($9.80 on BeFlurt.com).

"Golden Girl" products, from left to right: MAC Lipstick in Party Line, Chanel Rouge Allure Satin Lip Color in 127 Dazzling, and Lancome Ltd. Edition Color Design Sensational Effects Eye Palette in Pampered and Priveleged

If you’ve got a little more bravada, swap the red lipstick for a more daring hue–hot pink! Rihanna recently did the look at the VEVO launch event earlier this month:

To get the same look, pair Lancome’s Pampered and Priveleged palette with MAC Lipstick in Girl About Town ($9.80 on BeFlurt.com).

MAC Lipstick in Girl About Town, on BeFlurt.com

Stay tuned for more holiday ideas later this week! And of course, don’t forget that all the BeFlurt products featured are at 30% below retail prices, and only available for a limited time.

<3 Cristina

por Diego Taborda

Los Golden Globes tienen algo divertido y es que son capaces de calificar tanto cine como televisión en un sólo evento. Lo malo es que las categorías no son muy elocuentes, por así decirlo, y terminan estando musicales y comedias en un sólo lado de la balanza.

Muchas pelis no las he visto, la mayoría son pelis que no van a traer y dependiendo de los corrillos en las salas de cine, habrá que ver si se hace el esfuerzo de buscarlas por Amazon, pedirlas prestadas o inducir a los vecinos o a algún amigo descarriado a que la compre pirata (ooops).

Siguiendo con el juego, espero se hayan tomado un tiempo prudencial para meditar el listado de ayer. Hoy voy a subrayar en negrilla las pelis que considero ganadoras y en itálica las que no he visto.

• Best Motion Picture – Drama

Sólo me he visto una, por descarte selecciono mi ganadora

Avatar (2009)
The Hurt Locker (2008)
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009)
Up in the Air (2009/I)

• Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Igual pero no creo que ninguna supere a The Hangover, sobretodo porque son demasiado romanticonas para mi gusto. De Nancy Meyers me he visto lo último que ha hecho y no me convence, Rob Marshall definitivamente no es mi director favorito y Nora Ephron lo mismo de Meyers

(500) Days of Summer (2009)
The Hangover (2009)
It’s Complicated (2009)
Julie & Julia (2009)
Nine (2009)

• Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama

Desierto por ahora

Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart (2009)
George Clooney for Up in the Air (2009/I)
Colin Firth for A Single Man (2009)
Morgan Freeman for Invictus (2009)
Tobey Maguire for Brothers (2009/I)

• Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama

Desierto por ahora pero me llama la atención a la Bullock con su nominación

Emily Blunt for The Young Victoria (2009)
Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side (2009)
Helen Mirren for The Last Station (2009)
Carey Mulligan for An Education (2009)
Gabourey ‘Gabby’ Sidibe for Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009)

• Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Qué linda competencia. Damon dirigido por Soderbergh debe ser muy bueno, Day-Lewis nunca defrauda aunque insisto ni los musicales ni Marshall son mi fuerte, Downey Jr. es de los que pintan mejor pero quién sabe si se arriesguen a darle premios debido a su consabida arrogancia y humor negro en los podios, Gordon-Levitt me cae muy bien desde Third Rock from The Sun pero quién sabe si logre premio, lo último que le vi fue The Juror y fue normalito, el otro nominado ni idea.

Matt Damon for The Informant! (2009)
Daniel Day-Lewis for Nine (2009)
Robert Downey Jr. for Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt for (500) Days of Summer (2009)
Michael Stuhlbarg for A Serious Man (2009)

• Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Esta fijo se la gana Meryl Streep pero me gustó Roberts en Duplicity. Segunda nominación de Bullock?

Sandra Bullock for The Proposal (2009/I)
Marion Cotillard for Nine (2009)
Julia Roberts for Duplicity (2009)
Meryl Streep for It’s Complicated (2009)
Meryl Streep for Julie & Julia (2009)

• Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture

Nadie le gana a Waltz en esta categoría.

Matt Damon for Invictus (2009)
Woody Harrelson for The Messenger (2009/I)
Christopher Plummer for The Last Station (2009)
Stanley Tucci for The Lovely Bones (2009)
Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds (2009)

• Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture

Desierto por ahora

Penélope Cruz for Nine (2009)
Vera Farmiga for Up in the Air (2009/I)
Anna Kendrick for Up in the Air (2009/I)
Mo’Nique for Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009)
Julianne Moore for A Single Man (2009)

• Best Director – Motion Picture

Yo creo que con tanta muerte de nazis Tarantino gana de lejos aunque Clint Eastwood siempre es un competidor fuerte y es uno de mis directores favoritos y Reitman después de Juno y Thank You for Smoking puede sorprender

Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker (2008)
James Cameron for Avatar (2009)
Clint Eastwood for Invictus (2009)
Jason Reitman for Up in the Air (2009/I)
Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds (2009)

• Best Screenplay – Motion Picture

Yo esperaría que ganara Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell por District 9 por sus logros con la reinvención de una buena historia de ciencia ficción pero fijo aquí también gana Tarantino

District 9 (2009): Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell
The Hurt Locker (2008): Mark Boal
Inglourious Basterds (2009): Quentin Tarantino
It’s Complicated (2009): Nancy Meyers
Up in the Air (2009/I): Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner

• Best Original Song – Motion Picture

Desierto por ahora

Avatar (2009): James Horner, Simon Franglen, Kuk Harrell(“I Will See You”)
Brothers (2009/I): U2, Bono(“Winter”)
Crazy Heart (2009): T-Bone Burnett, Ryan Bingham(“The Weary Kind”)
Everybody’s Fine (2009): Paul McCartney(“(I Want To) Come Home”)
Nine (2009): Maury Yeston(“Cinema Italiano”)

• Best Original Score – Motion Picture

Aún no he visto la peli pero gracias a un amigo ya escuché la banda sonora completa de Where the Wild Things Are y es ganadora

Avatar (2009): James Horner
The Informant! (2009): Marvin Hamlisch
A Single Man (2009): Abel Korzeniowski
Up (2009): Michael Giacchino
Where the Wild Things Are (2009): Carter Burwell, Karen Orzolek

• Best Animated Film

Obviamente, incluso sin verla, debería ser ganadora Fantastic Mr. Fox

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)
Coraline (2009)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
The Princess and the Frog (2009)
Up (2009)

• Best Foreign Language Film

Desierto por ahora pero que no la se la gane Almodóvar, estoy cansado de la rutina

Los abrazos rotos (2009)
Baarìa (2009)
Das weisse Band – Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (2009)
La nana (2009)
Un prophète (2009)

• Best Television Series – Drama

Hay buenas opciones, estuve viendo Mad Men en HBO y creo que es bastante ganador pero el resto es muy bueno igual, no se cuál pueda lograrlo

“Big Love” (2006)
“Dexter” (2006)
“House M.D.” (2004)
“Mad Men” (2007)
“True Blood” (2008)

• Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy

“Entourage” (2004)
“Glee” (2009)
“The Office” (2005)
“Modern Family” (2009)
“30 Rock” (2006)

• Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Desierto por ahora

Georgia O’Keeffe (2009) (TV)
Grey Gardens (2009) (TV)
Into the Storm (2009) (TV)
Little Dorrit (2008)
Taking Chance (2009) (TV)

• Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television

Desierto por ahora

Kevin Bacon for Taking Chance (2009) (TV)
Kenneth Branagh for Wallander (2008)
Chiwetel Ejiofor for Endgame (2009)
Brendan Gleeson for Into the Storm (2009) (TV)
Jeremy Irons for Georgia O’Keeffe (2009) (TV)

• Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television

Desierto por ahora

Joan Allen for Georgia O’Keeffe (2009) (TV)
Drew Barrymore for Grey Gardens (2009) (TV)
Jessica Lange for Grey Gardens (2009) (TV)
Anna Paquin for The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler (2009) (TV)
Sigourney Weaver for Prayers for Bobby (2009) (TV)

• Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy

En esta categoría también se pone buena la competencia, Baldwin por experiencia y excelencia, Carell porque no defrauda, Duchovny porque lo hace bien aunque no es que me mate la serie ni su actuación y Jane se está reivindicando después de todo ese pasado tenebroso en Hollywood

Alec Baldwin for 30 Rock (2006)
Steve Carell for The Office (2005)
David Duchovny for Californication (2007)
Thomas Jane for Hung (2009)
Matthew Morrison for Glee (2009)

• Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy

Creo que aunque Tina Fey puede ser clara ganadora, Toni Collette tiene un logro muy bueno y puede llegar a sorprender

Toni Collette for United States of Tara (2009)
Courteney Cox for Cougar Town (2009)
Edie Falco for Nurse Jackie (2009)
Tina Fey for 30 Rock (2006)
Lea Michele for Glee (2009)

• Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Drama

Me voy por Ham entre Jon Hamm y Bill Paxton pero fijo gana Simon Baker

Simon Baker for The Mentalist (2008)
Michael C. Hall for Dexter (2006)
Jon Hamm for Mad Men (2007)
Hugh Laurie for House M.D. (2004)
Bill Paxton for Big Love (2006)

• Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Drama

Menos mal me quitan el servicio de televisión forzosamente durante tres meses, creo que estoy viendo demasiada. Aquí la ganadora es Glenn Close y su papel de antagónica en Damages

Glenn Close for Damages (2007)
January Jones for Mad Men (2007)
Julianna Margulies for The Good Wife (2009)
Anna Paquin for True Blood (2008)
Kyra Sedgwick for The Closer (2005)

• Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Voy a repetirlo tal cual: Menos mal me quitan el servicio de televisión forzosamente durante tres meses, creo que estoy viendo demasiada. Soy súper fanático de Lost y no hay nadie tan malo como Emerson, ojalá se lleve el galardón

Michael Emerson for Lost (2004)
Neil Patrick Harris for How I Met Your Mother (2005)
William Hurt for Damages (2007)
John Lithgow for Dexter (2006)
Jeremy Piven for Entourage (2004)

• Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Tengo un cariño especial por Jane Adams desde Happiness ojalá sea ganadora este año se lo merece pero le va a tocar duro con Byrne

Jane Adams for Hung (2009)
Rose Byrne for Damages (2007)
Jane Lynch for Glee (2009)
Janet McTeer for Into the Storm (2009) (TV)
Chloë Sevigny for Big Love (2006)

Hay todavía muchas pelis por ver, ojalá tengamos suerte y la distribucion en Colombia sea más diligente que en tiempos pasados para poder mucho más material ineteresante.

from Eonline.com:

Up in the Air scored a leading six nominations for the 57th Annual Golden Globes. Nine was next with five, followed by Avatar and Inglourious Basterds with four.

On the TV side, newcomer Glee led all contenders with four nominations, followed by 30 Rock,Damages, Dexter and Big Love, with three apiece.

The awards will be handed out on Jan. 17. Here’s the complete list of contenders:

BEST MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA

• Avatar
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Precious
• Up in the Air

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA

• Emily Blunt, The Young Victoria
• Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
• Helen Mirren, The Last Station
• Carey Mulligan, An Education
• Gabourey Sidibe, Precious

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA

• Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
• George Clooney, Up in the Air
• Colin Firth, A Single Man
• Morgan Freeman, Invictus
• Tobey Maguire, Brothers

BEST MOTION PICTURE, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

• (500) Days of Summer
• The Hangover
• It’s Complicated
• Julie & Julia
• Nine

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

• Sandra Bullock, The Proposal
• Marion Cotillard, Nine
• Julia Roberts, Duplicity
• Meryl Streep, It’s Complicated
• Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

• Matt Damon, The Informant!
• Daniel Day-Lewis, Nine
• Robert Downey Jr., Sherlock Holmes
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt, (500) Days of Summer
• Michael Stuhlbarg, A Serious Man

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

• Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
• Coraline
• Fantastic Mr. Fox
• The Princess and the Frog
• Up

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

• Baaria (Italy)
• Broken Embraces (Spain)
• The Maid (Chile)
• A Prophet (France)
• The White Ribbon (Germany)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE

• Penélope Cruz, Nine
• Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
• Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
• Mo’Nique, Precious
• Julianne Moore, A Single Man

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE

• Matt Damon, Invictus
• Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
• Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
• Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
• Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

BEST DIRECTOR

• Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
• James Cameron, Avatar
• Clint Eastwood, Invictus
• Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
• Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

BEST SCREENPLAY

• Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, District 9
• Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
• Nancy Meyers, It’s Complicated
• Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air
• Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

• Michael Giacchino, Up
• Marvin Hamlisch, The Informant!
• James Horner, Avatar
• Abel Korzeniowski, A Single Man
• Karen O and Carter Burwell, Where the Wild Things Are

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

• “Cinema Italiano,” Music & Lyrics by Maury Yeston (Nine)
• “I Want to Come Home,” Music & Lyrics by Paul McCartney (Everybody’s Fine)
• “I Will See You,” Music by James Horner, Simon Franglen; Lyrics by James Horner, Simon Franglen and Kuk Harrell (Avatar)
• “The Weary Kind,” Music & Lyrics by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett (Crazy Heart)
• “Winter,” Music by U2; Lyrics by Bono (Brothers)

BEST TELEVISION SERIES, DRAMA

• Big Love
• Dexter
• House
• Mad Men
• True Blood

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES, DRAMA

• Glenn Close, Damages
• January Jones, Mad Men
• Julianna Marguiles, The Good Wife
• Anna Paquin, True Blood
• Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES, DRAMA

• Simon Baker, The Mentalist
• Michael C. Hall, Dexter
• Jon Hamm, Mad Men
• Hugh Laurie, House
• Bill Paxton, Big Love

BEST TELEVISION SERIES, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

• 30 Rock
• Entourage
• Glee
• Modern Family
• The Office

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

• Toni Collette, United States of Tara
• Courteney Cox, Cougar Town
• Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie
• Tina Fey, 30 Rock
• Lea Michele, Glee

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

• Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
• Steve Carell, The Office
• David Duchovny, Californication
• Thomas Jane, Hung
• Matthew Morrison, Glee

BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

• Georgia O’Keefe
• Grey Gardens
• Into the Storm
• Little Dorrit
• Taking Chance

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

• Joan Allen, Georgia O’Keefe
• Drew Barrymore, Grey Gardens
• Jessica Lange, Grey Gardens
• Anna Paquin, The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler
• Sigourney Weaver, Prayers for Bobby

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

• Kevin Bacon, Taking Chance
• Kenneth Branagh, Wallander: One Step Behind
• Chiewetel Ejiofor, Endgame
• Brendan Gleeson, Into the Storm
• Jeremy Irons, Georgia O’Keefe

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

• Jane Adams, Hung
• Rose Byrne, Damages
• Jane Lynch, Glee
• Janet McTeer, Into the Storm
• Chloe Sevigny, Big Love

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

• Michael Emerson, Lost
• Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother
• William Hurt, Damages
• John Lithgow, Dexter
• Jeremy Piven, Entourage

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone...

(Fox Searchlight) Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Michelle Yeoh, Cliff Curtis, Rose Byrne, Troy Garity, Benedict Wong, Hiroyuki Sanada, Mark Strong. Directed by Danny Boyle

Boyle is the director of such impressive films as 28 Days Later, Trainspotting and Millions, all of which I would highly recommend (his next movie after this one was Slumdog Millionaire, previously reviewed in this blog). A couple of years ago, I was in puppy heaven when I discovered that he was doing a science fiction film.

It is about 50 years in the future and the sun is dying – take that, you global warming alarmists! A mission was sent to re-ignite the sun with a kind of stellar bomb, but that mission failed and the astronauts aboard the Icarus were presumed lost. The situation on Earth growing more desperate, a second mission – Icarus II – is launched and with it goes the hopes of humanity.

Things seem to be going pretty well, but as they approach Mercury, they pick up the distress signal of the first mission. Logic dictates that the crew continues on their way, explode their bomb and then see about the other Icarus but no, they have to go there first. Hey, what’s logic when you have science fiction? Anyway, predictably, bad things happen when they try to change course, an EVA repair mission goes the way of most EVA repair missions in science fiction movies these days and things burn up, flash freeze, explode and so on. What’s an astronaut to do?

Where to begin? This is a wildly uneven movie. There are a lot of great visuals, some wonderful dramatic tension and Chris Evans darn near steals the show – yeah, I know, Chris Evans – and the soundtrack kicks bootie. To the bad, you’ll notice at no point in my synopsis did I mention a specific human character. That’s because they are so interchangeable and unmemorable. Not all of it is the fault of the generally solid cast – it’s just that they play mostly subdued, as you would expect highly trained astronaut/scientists to be in that situation. In going for realism, Boyle winds up giving his dramatic tension short shrift. With a cast that includes some very good actors like Michelle Yeoh, Cillian Murphy and Cliff Curtis, that’s a bit of a crime.

Surprisingly enough, I found the direction of Danny Boyle to be one of the movie’s weaker points. Boyle is a genuine talent – his resume is nothing if not impressive – but he falls prey to the “Look, Ma, I’m directing” syndrome, taking himself far too seriously, sacrificing story for overly-clever directing moves. For example, the villain – who is apparently fully human – is rarely glimpsed as anything more than an impressionistic figure. When the heroes engage in hand-to-hand combat with him, the results are nearly unwatchable and actually gave me a headache. One of the more interesting moves is that as the crew of the Icarus II board the Icarus I, faces (I assume of the first crew) flash onto the screen like some terrible subliminal ad gone awry. I’m not sure what Boyle is trying to accomplish here, but if a director needs to explain what you’re trying to get across, then he/she didn’t do a very good job in the first place. In the end, the movie breaks down in the third act, just when it should be picking up steam. You get the feeling that they were rushing things more than a bit – in any case, I think if Boyle had paid more attention to storytelling and less to style, he might have made a really super film.

While I complain a great deal here, there are some compelling reasons to see this. For one thing, it’s a “smart” science fiction movie – think Solaris and Event Horizon and those are rare enough as to be very precious. And yes, I listed a number of failings of the director, but in all fairness, he got more right than he didn’t, and that’s a plus too. This is not what you would call a popcorn movie, but at the same time the gorgeous visuals – the screen is constantly bathed in warm golds and yellows of the solar winds – beg to be seen on a big screen or at least an HD plasma home theater.

This is quite the disappointment; I was hoping this could be a sleeper hit, but the box office here in the States was dismal. That’s too bad – but I can understand why people aren’t warming to this movie, and considering how close it comes to the sun, that’s unacceptable.

WHY RENT THIS: Terrific visuals. Chris Evans gives an unexpectedly strong performance. Astronaut-cicle; need I say more?

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Look Ma, I’m directing. Messy third act. Style over storytelling.

FAMILY VALUES: Violence and some icky visuals. A little bit of language too.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: The helmet design for the space suits were based on the character Kenny from “South Park.”

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: The scientific advisor, Dr. Brian Cox of the University of Manchester and the CERN project provides a commentary track. There are also two unrelated short films that director Boyle included simply so that the filmmakers could be seen by a wider audience.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: Noise

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Cold weather brings out evergreens, presents, people in good moods and of course… all things sparkly! Below are some of my favorite sparkle weather items from this season.
What they did with the “Vogue” is so fun! Leave it to the Brazilians ha.
Rose Byrne

Found these at Saks 5th Avenue
The shoe is AWESOME! Leave it to LouboutinThis skirt is my favorite of all of the picks on here. To me, it is the answer to the question;  “What Happens When A Fish and Bird Fall In Love?” because I think it looks like wings and scales. Marc Jacobs: First off, the bow ruins it for me… cover it up and this looks MUCH better! Tights and shoes are really cool though either way!
Found this sequin dress on StyleCaster yesterday. It’s Rodarte for Target and is going to retail for $50! Gotta love it!
Snagged this off of Lookbook. This girl does a great job of adding just the right amount of sparkle to her otherwise understated outfit. Really loving her hair too!

CLICK HERE TO VIEW

Theatrical Release:Mar 20, 2009 Wide

Nicolas Cage stars in Knowing, a gripping action-thriller of global proportions about a professor who stumbles on terrifying predictions about the future—and sets out to prevent them from coming… Nicolas Cage stars in Knowing, a gripping action-thriller of global proportions about a professor who stumbles on terrifying predictions about the future—and sets out to prevent them from coming true.

In 1958, as part of the dedication ceremony for a new elementary school, a group of students is asked to draw pictures to be stored in a time capsule. But one mysterious girl fills her sheet of paper with rows of apparently random numbers instead.

Fifty years later, a new generation of students examines the capsule’s contents and the girl’s cryptic message ends up in the hands of young CALEB KOESTLER. But it is Caleb’s father, professor JOHN KOESTLER (Nicolas Cage), who makes the startling discovery that the encoded message predicts with pinpoint accuracy the dates, death tolls and coordinates of every major disaster of the past 50 years. As John further unravels the document’s chilling secrets, he realizes the document foretells three additional events—the last of which hints at destruction on a global scale and seems to somehow involve John and his son. When John’s attempts to alert the authorities fall on deaf ears, he takes it upon himself to try to prevent more destruction from taking place.

With the reluctant help of DIANA WAYLAND (Rose Byrne) and ABBY WAYLAND, the daughter and granddaughter of the now-deceased author of the prophecies, John’s increasingly desperate efforts take him on a heart-pounding race against time until he finds himself facing the ultimate disaster—and the ultimate sacrifice. –© Summit Entertainment

(Due to the especially problematic nature of this film’s third act, this review has minor spoilers in order to discuss it)

We’ve grown tolerant of science fiction over the years, letting it rape science in the name of awesomeness. Hilarious depictions of human exposure to vacuum, sound propagating in space, people walking around thanks to a rarely-explained “artificial gravity”, aliens who are just human beings with a different skin color and a few prosthetics, and so on.

But Science is awesome. There is no reason it should be ignored. When science fiction manages to respect actual science, the results are immensely satisfying. Stanley Kubrick did it in 1969 with his amazing “2001 – A Space Odissey”, a movie that, to make up for the lack of sound in space, used the nervous breathing of the astronauts inside their spacesuits, a brilliant move to create tension — not to mention how it depicted human exposure to vacuum with impressive accuracy, and it’s a forty year old film.

And then films like “Sunshine” come along, under a pretense of being “scientifically accurate”, and consistently laugh in the face of scientific fact in the name of entertainment, but treating the audience like dumbfucks.

I liked “Sunshine” when I first saw it a year ago. In fact, I loved it. But upon seeing it again, something fairly rare happened — a complete change of opinion. Opposite to my embarassingly well-documented (here, here and here, respectively) experience with “There Will Be Blood”, which I initially didn’t like, but eventually loved.

In this latest viewing of “Sunshine”, I couldn’t help noticing the carelessness in its construction and the constant exposition in the dialogue, not to mention set pieces built entirely around scientific innacuracies. There is a threshold to how much abuse I’ll let my mind take until I start disliking a film, especially when said film likes to think it’s clever. It wants to awe us with its “understanding” of science, as evidenced by the moment a character says “80% of dust is human skin,” for no reason, as if his brain is wired to wikipedia.

The sun is dying. After the failure of spaceship Icarus I for unknown reasons, Icarus II is sent with the same purpose — re-igniting the star with the use of a payload consisting of a powerful bomb . But nearing Mercury, they come across the distress signal of Icarus I, and physicist Robert Capa (Cillian Murphy) suggests a detour to add their payload to their own, increasing their chances of success since the bomb’s capacity of re-igniting the sun is entirely theoretical — which makes two bombs a safer bet. This starts a dangerous chain of events that puts the mission and its crew in serious risk.

And one of the film’s main problems is that this chain of events isn’t believable. It starts with one of the crew members, Trey, adjusting the ship’s trajectory but forgetting to adjust the huge heat shield that protects them from the sun — you’d think that would be hard to forget, but he does. Maybe it would have sounded more credible if it wasn’t for Trey’s interpreter, Benedict Wong, overacting to the point of embarassment upon acknowledging his mistake.

Then some crewmembers realize moving the shield to fix it will make them lose two comm towers due to direct exposure to the sun — they go ahead without consulting their captain, destroying a vital part of their ship without hesitation — someone even says “We’ll need the towers for the return trip,” to which someone hilariously replies in a stunning display of foresight and professionalism, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Finally, when two crew members are outside fixing the damage to the heat shield, right after they confirm they can do it and everyone cheers happily — the oxygen room just catches fire as though it’s saying, “SURPRISE, BITCHES”. And when narrative conflicts just happen like that, it’s a worrying sign of a schematic script.

Sunshine also suffers from a less than impressive art direction. While the Icarus at first seems very believable (being made out of segments like the International Space Station), the heat shield soon reveals itself so unstable that it makes the entire ship a major design fault — after all, the mission includes abandoning this heat shield, using it to protect the payload as it goes toward the sun — so how do they plan to survive the return trip with the much smaller, second heat shield, if the larger one could barely be moved without destroying the comm towers?

And why do the comm towers spin around the ship, protruding so far from it it’s no wonder the heat shield can’t protect them? Artificial gravity via centrifugal force? It doesn’t work that way, but well, at least they try to explain artificial gravity in this film, even though gravity itself is dubiously represented in it — the payload, which has the “same mass as Manhattan”, seems to generate Earth gravity (as seen later in the film) — yet somehow, this doesn’t seem to interfere with the artificial gravity inside the Icarus (both are clearly not the same, since if they were the Icarus crew would have to move around the ship vertically with ladders due to their perpendicular position in relation to the payload). But this latter point is admiteddly more of a nitpick, dubious science that shouldn’t hurt the film.

What does hurt the film, aside from the aforementioned dumb chain of events (which reaches unbelievably stupid heights in the film’s third act, as I will discuss in a moment), is the painful sequence when the astronauts have to make a jump from a destroyed airlock to an intact airlock and only one of them has a proper spacesuit.

Their major concern? Freezing instantly when exposed to “-273 degrees celsius”.

So, we have a bunch of astronauts who think the temperature of space is absolute zero and that people exposed to vacuum instantly freeze despite being in a fucking vacuum. And worse, one of them does freeze instantly — we even hear the sound of his skin hardening. In space. Not to mention there is no reason why the Icarus couldn’t have gotten a little bit closer to the destroyed airlock to, you know, make it harder for their colleagues to accidentally float away to their death. It’s a sequence so ridiculously full of inconsistencies it’s barely worthy of a “B” movie.

Relax. I babbled enough about this. The flaws of “Sunshine” are not down to a science advisor who apparently couldn’t get the filmmakers to listen. As a narrative, the film is equally flawed, not just due to its aforementioned schematic script but also because of the expositional dialogue: upon hearing a loud, continuous sound all over the ship, a character explains to the others that it’s just the sound of the metal in the heat shield expanding and contracting due to the change in temperature.

… at the point when he says that, they’ve been travelling together for sixteen months, yet they act like it’s the first time this happens. Even worse, Corazon (Michelle Yeoh) replies “I know what it is, flyboy”, making the exposition even more blatant.

Alex Garland, writer of the script, does try to hide the patronising nature of these lines, but he simply can’t — in order to explain how the bomb works to the audience, he has two characters discuss death in a vaguely-related fashion and one of them starts a simulation of the bomb, explaining it to his friend while actually explaining it to the audience, and finishing it with a line that tries to justify why he just did that, but fails to convince — it’s painfully obvious the film is trying to get its viewers to understand what it’s doing.

Why, instead of that, couldn’t the character have simply gotten into the room and started the simulation to admire it by himself? It could have been a nice, silent scene that got whatever information it needed to get through subtly and quietly, trusting the audience instead of patronising us.

And that’s another problem — it never feels like these astronauts have been actually travelling together for sixteen months. They rarely talk to each other with intimacy, and when they go out on a spacewalk, they act like it’s the first time they do that in sixteen months (speaking of which, let me add the spacesuits in the film look absolutely ridiculous).

Standing out in a problematic cast, the talented Cillian Murphy is convincing as Robert Capa, and his growing fear in the third act of the film helps the absurdity of it all feel less stupid. The other cast member who does a surprising job is Chris Evans, intense as the cold and practical Mace. Hyroyuki Sanada plays Captain Kaneda with charisma, but Rose Byrne doesn’t get any room to shine as the unidimensional Cassie, neither does Michelle Yeoh as Corazon, who suffers from having to say some of the film’s worst lines (the “-273 celsius” bullshit and “I know what it is, flyboy”). Troy Garity is also sabotaged by a very unremarkable character, Harvey, and Cliff Curtis plays an equally uninteresting crewmember, Searle. Finally, Benedict Wong, as I said, overacts constantly and Mark Strong embarasses himself by playing the film’s most implausible and ridiculous character.

Finally, there’s director Danny Boyle. After starting the film with a beautifully realized shot, Boyle succumbs to over-direction. Insisting on countless exterior angles exposing the Icarus, he also goes for obvious symbolism. When Searle is trying to explain two sides of an argument, the camera moves to the other side of a glass screen, illustrating that he’s now talking about the other side of the argument as if we’re all a bunch of retards who can’t understand the basics of conversation.

And as the film progresses, Boyle exaggerates more and more and suddenly decides he wants to do an Alien film. Working with a horrendous editing work that makes Tony Scott look like a genius, the film adds a villain that would have seemed much more interesting if it wasn’t for his putrid dialogue, the pathetically exaggerated way he’s filmed (always out of focus, with the image shaking) and his amazing stealth abilities that make no fucking sense. And at the very end, Boyle goes as far as adding freeze frames and horribly overdone camera movements to try and create some tension.

However, it’s still Danny Boyle, which means “Sunshine” does have some highlights (aside from Alwin H. Kuchler’s exceptional cinematography and John Murphy’s memorable soundtrack): namely, the beautiful scene when the crew of the Icarus II is hypnotized by the sight of Mercury orbiting around the sun, and the moment Robert Capa needs to jump from the Icarus to the payload — a masterfully-shot moment with excellent music that offers a glimpse of the great film “Sunshine” could have been if Garland had revised his script and respected Science, and if Danny Boyle had done the same plus restrained himself.

However, with this much pseudo-science, pretensiousness, inconsistencies, plotholes and badly-developed characters, “Sunshine” is weak science fiction. An interesting premise that needed way more pre-production work before being filmed.

The Dead Girl (2007) directed by Karen Moncrieff stars Toni Collette as Arden, Piper Laurie as Arden’s mother, Giovanni Ribisi (Rudy), Rose Byrne (Leah), James Franco (Derek), Bruce Davidson (Leah’s father), Mary Steenburgen (Leah’s mother), Brittany Murphy (Krista) Josh Brolin (Tarlow), Kerry Washington (Rosetta), Marcia Gay Harden (Melora).

This is a very complicated and carefully told story that unfolds in five chapters. It starts when Arden finds the body of a dead girl in a field in the rural landscape where she lives with her mother. Arden tells the police and becomes a local celebrity which leads to her being asked out on a date by Rudy who works in a grocery store. Arden is played beautifully as someone who is caught in a stifling and cruel relationship with her ailing mother. She breaks free from that and leaves with Rudy.

The next chapter shows Leah, the morgue attendant who is living with the pain of a missing sister, and the effects of that. The story here is about how the various family members are trying to deal with having had the older daughter gone missing without any resolution. They don’t know if she is alive or dead and they don’t know what happened to her. Leah, who is deeply depressed, just wants it all to be over. Through a series of circumstance she believes the dead girl is her sister and that almost frees her until she finds out she was wrong.

The third chapter deals with a woman whose husband goes away on long road trips and the infected, seriously twisted relationship between husband (Nick Searcy) eventually leads to the wife discovering a storage locker where her absentee husband keeps trophies in the form of bloody clothes and jewellery and things of that nature. The wife (Mary Beth Hurt) understands that her husband is a killer and she has to deal with that knowledge somehow.

The fourth chapter shows the mother of the dead girl, Melora (Marcia Gay Harden) trying to understand what happened to her daughter, finding out where she lived, that she worked as a prostitute and that she has a daughter. She works through all this and decides to take care of her granddaughter.

The last chapter shows the dead girl herself, Krista, and her last day. She comes across as a damaged soul in a lot of ways, but she is also stronger than you would think at a first glance, and the viewer gets to see some of that too.

It’s so rare to see a film that actually features women in this way. We’re talking beautiful talent, skilled work and honed dialogue showing actual women as opposed to Barbie dolls, with hard choices to make portrayed with all the depth and fullness that these wonderful ladies are capable of. That alone makes this worth watching. In some ways they are all victims and they all rise above, change their lives and move through the world as best they can.

It’s told in inverted order and without sentimentalism. It’s absolutely fascinating and gut-clenching to watch a performance like Mary Beth Hurts and seeing her make the wrong choice, seeing how poisoned her thinking is from what must be a long and deeply infected relationship. It is a movie about human interaction and all the ways in which women can get caught in bad circumstance just as much as it is a movie about a murder.

Complex, intelligent and completely engrossing without any kind of moral soapbox action this movie gives the manifold leading ladies a chance to show their skills.

How did this movie not win more awards?

Mule

Watching Wicker Park after seeing Mulholland Drive is like driving your friend’s Ferrari for the weekend and then going back to your BMW.  It’s not bad; in fact, it’s much better than your other options. But as far as cars go, it doesn’t have a chance of comparing to the Ferrari.  In the mind-bending genre, Wicker Park can’t quite cut it. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn there was some pressure from the studio to make it a tad more Hollywood – the problem is that the film suffers from its cohesive plot.  We realize far too quickly what’s happening; and while we still care about the main characters, it dissolves into a waiting game to see if their stars will cross once more.  The far more interesting character is the semi-villain; really more pathetic than evil.  While she does an admirable job, the rest of the characters and the plot don’t quite support her tortured role, and as a whole it ends up falling short.  It’s too bad; she would have been a great comparison to Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive.  On the plus side, if you find Mulholland Drive too weird – or prefer more traditional story arcs – or want a male lead who’s easy on the eyes (by the way, that’s pretty much all Hartnett has going for him; he delivers every line in this movie, and all his other movies, exactly the same.  Sometimes it works.), then perhaps Wicker Park is the film for you.  And if it leaves you slightly unfulfilled, as if it could have been a better experience if they had just let the story grow on its own, then perhaps it’ll serve as a jumping-off point for some of the more inventive, less stable films.

Adam é uma comédia romântica, que fala sobre a relação de Adam (Hugh Dancy, liindo -q), um solitário rapaz que é portador da síndrome de Asperger e  Beth (Rose Byrne), sua nova vizinha. Quando vi o trailer me lembrei de Forest Gump, tirando que o Hugh é mais bonito né, -q. A história parece ser muito fofa, e estou tendo um tombo por filmes assim, dk! O filme foi lançado no início do ano nos EUA , chega por aqui em 11 de Dezembro e em Imperatriz só Deus sabe again.

xoxo!

]]> http://educatedpony.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/vogue-collages/ Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:54:04 +0000 elinorrabbit http://educatedpony.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/vogue-collages/

so remember how a few posts ago i was REALLY excited about polyvore? well, i still think it’s a cool program but it confuses me and sometimes i’m just like “i want to make a collage out of everything i liked from the september vogue,WHY WON’T YOU LET ME???” and then i press something and the whole thing gets deleted. it’s like when i tried out tumblr, that blog site, where it’s just totally geared for the technology kids and i frowned at it and thought “there are too many pictures! i don’t know what to do!”. not to totally date myself (here i go) but i was like, dude, i was born in the 80’s, i memorized all my friends phone numbers because we didn’t have cell phones and i used the library and encyclopedias to write research papers…i can make a collage the old school way. the old school way of collage making–scissors and tape, for those of you too young to remember–still works.

this is all from the october vogue (old news, i know, i know) because my vogue subscription is messed up and i keep getting them super late. i called the conde nast number to try and get it fixed and let me tell you, nothing, NOTHING will make you feel more bougie then calling conde nast’s 800 number at 9PM to complain about your vogue subscription. you’ll talk to a woman named barabra, who is probably prison labor, and you’ll get off the phone and you’ll wander around feeling like a hollow, empty husk of a human being all night.

that being said, i hope they fixed it.

this is what i liked from the october vogue, old school collage style. enjoy.

alright, the theme for this collage was victorian, which we all know i am obsessed with.  so what i liked here was this amazing over the top vampy chanel makeup. i love dark eyes and lips for fall/winter and this charcoal color is one of my faves. the girl in the chartreuse firm trimmed coat is from 60’s vintage vogue i believe, what a great look. the boot with the leather lace-over is something i think you could do at home with any cool fabric or texture and the super tall, velvety boots are part of this over the knee boot trend that i like but am also afraid of. this girl wears it in a way i think is doable.

the bomb ass netted outfit on the far right is an alberta ferretti dress that makes me cry a little, i don’t know what my fixation is these days on long, see through dresses (remember, that was my favorite from the chanel show) but i am loving them. i love the mermaid shape in black by haider ackermann–a shape i normally don’t enjoy but paired with the weird zippered top it took on an almost extreme gothic/bondage look that i thought was pretty cool. the blonde is there because again, i love that dark eye and i also loved the high, ash blonde hair. rose byrne is in there because she’s a hot dresser (another actress not afraid to play with yellow, or plunging dress backs!) and a totally great actress i was happy to see highlighted. the lady in the purple over the knee boots and the kind of business casual dress was more inspiration that one day i could brave the over the knee boot and not look like a berlin street hooker.

okay, so what you should immediately focus on are those amazing shoes with the big puffy ribbon on the back. i love them so much i almost got out a highlighter and circled them a bunch of times. the rest of her outfit is very kimono inspired to be, which, as you know i am down with. so as i have admitted, i have an addition to grey and black. that’s just how i roll but i DO like color, in fashion i prefer punchy bright reds, greens and yellows. that’s what i always go back to. the simplicity of the stripped turtle neck by dkny was loved by me and also: little know fact, i like houndstooth. so i really loved the skirt. the top right green dress is a little lei-lo from the fifth element but i thought it was a fun green.

the big picture of the shoes, i think are boss–the company, not the 90’s slang term. i don’t remember. but what i loved most was the grey on grey on grey–grey pattern on grey rights in grey shoes. i also am a general fan of the open toed shoes with fun tights look. the two full sized ladies, puffy dress and indigo dress, i like both of them because they also look victorian. and i love  a good hat. puffy dress has a really fun bustle and drop back, a sexy and unusual combo i think. the little lady in the camel colored coat was from a series of pictures they did about how great a versatile coat can be (agreed, vogue) and those were the two pictures i liked best. i am still personally searching for my perfect camel colored coat. this was inspiration.

okay, so this obviously, is the collage where i had lots of left over images and needed to slap them together. my “big head” collage. let’s skip the sloppyness and talk about the images. first is the lady in the purple sweater from the coach ad, and while i am not a huge purple fan, i love a big, cozy sweater with a cowl neck–i feel like if her whole outfit was grey and black, i would buy it in a second. she also had cuffed jeans, which i love. the girl in the fun yellow lace top is a new hot actress whose name i can’t be bothered with, who has an adorable haircut. emma watson i just love but i really love hr make up in the burberry ads, have seriously thought about taking it to mac and being like “make me look like this!”. victorian head is just that, a victorian head with a big, lampy hat that i like and i am not sure if that is a collar or a scarf but i think you could pull something like that off with a scarf of any color. up top are some really sexy balenciaga pumps–i could not include the whole ad because their ads right now are terrible. for some reason they decided to have their campaign involve jennifer connley looking like she’s dying of jaundice.

and that, kittens, is what i have for you. we’ll see if this evolves into a monthly collage get together. depends on my darn subscription!

It all makes sense. They’re executing code red. Step 1: Kill the infected. Step 2: Containment. If containment fails, then Step 3: Extermination.

– Scarlet

The slick-looking 28 Weeks Later is a slight departure from the gritty goodness of Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later. I actively avoided seeing this at the theater, because I thought that it would be a retread of a movie that I thoroughly enjoyed. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo took over the director reigns with Danny Boyle serving as executive producer. This movie is a worthy follow-up.

This story follows a different group of survivors from the outbreak than the previous film. Donald (Robert Carlyle) and his wife, Alice (Catherine McCormack) are hiding out in an older couple’s house when the infected bust into the house. He cowardly leaves his wife behind with the infected in order to escape.

Over the next 28 weeks, the infected with the rage virus have died from starvation. American forces resolve the situation in London. It is declared free from the infection. The rebuilding begins with the survivors.

Fifteen thousand survivors are allowed back in London before they go into quarantine, then the refugee camps. The survivors are living on the Isle of Dogs, a safe haven for the survivors aka District 1. The surrounding areas are contaminated for the dead infected that hasn’t been cleaned up yet.

Donald’s kids, Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) are reunited with them. They wonder where their mother is at and Donald bends the truth about what happened to her.

After having a nightmare, Andy fears that he might forget what his mother looks like. The kids sneak away from the island where a sniper, Doyle (Jeremy Renner) spots them. They go back to their old house. In the process of getting their, Andy finds his mother hiding in the upstairs. She appears not to be an infected.

She is quartered in a special area of the Island where Scarlet (Rose Byrne) examines her. She determines that Alice contains the virus, because of her genetic mutation is immune to the infection, but she is a carrier of the virus. Unbeknownst to Donald that sees her later on when the virus is reignited.

This movie is more schizophrenic that it’s predecessor. Some sequences were too jarring and frantic for my taste. I didn’t like at the last half of the movie. The texture is a little off trying to make midday into night. There are some inconsistencies and plot-holes that bothered me. I will discuss them in the spoiler section.

There were some interesting ideas in this movie about Andy and how his same mutation could help contain the rage virus.

Judgment: A solid installment in this franchise that does have its flaws.

Rating: ****

(SPOILER SECTION)

The amount of time that the rage virus takes effect varies. When one girl is bitten, she turns in two seconds flat. When Don is bitten, there has to be a minute sequence for him to change.

I don’t understand how when Doyle, Scarlet and the kids got into the car when the nerve gas waft in. They were covering up their mouths. When the infected swarmed the car, why did the kids have to scream with their uncovered mouths?

When Don gets turned into one of the infected, he follows the kids from the containment lab to the streets of District One to that abandoned subway station. Huh?

The last shot of the movie when the infected are running towards the Eiffel Tower. How could that happen? Did they swim the English Channel to get into France?

ADAM (estreno  30 de octubre)

Género: Comedia-Romántica
Producción: EEUU
Director: Max Mayer
Intérpretes: Hugh Dancy y Rose Byrne

Sinopsis:  El amor puede ser arriesgado, desconcertante y estar lleno de los peligros provocados por errores de comunicación. Y eso, aunque uno no sea ADAM, cuya vida es exactamente así. Hugh Dancy protagoniza esta comedia romántica rebosante de sentimiento, dando vida a Adam, un guapo aunque enigmático joven que ha vivido toda su vida a cubierto de cualquier contingencia, hasta que conoce a su nueva vecina, Beth (Rose Byrne), una bella y cosmopolita joven que lo saca a rastras al mundo exterior, con resultados divertidos, conmovedores y totalmente inesperados. La inverosímil y enigmática relación revela hasta qué punto pueden dos personas pertenecientes a realidades distintas ponerse a prueba en busca de una relación extraordinaria. Más información.

Flicking through the channels on Austar (not my subscription nor my tv, as I am sadly too poor for such luxuries) I noticed an advert on the W channel for season 2 of Damages. I never really followed the careers of Glenn Close or Ted Danson with any interest, but them tearing up the screen in season 1 made the show one of the most fun legal crime thrillers I have seen in an age.

Better yet, it featured a glimpse of the enticing Timothy Olyphant engaged in some kind of vaguely devious behaviour towards (my compatriot) Rose Byrne. Not only did I have no clue that season 2 was finally on, but Timothy Olyphant was again gracing the small screen in these post-Seth Bullock times! How much I have to catch up on.

Browsing HuffPo, I came across this recently written article by Glenn Close entitled Mental Illness: The Stigma of Silence. She writes about aspects of some of her most notorious characters with great clarity and knowledge. Better yet, she recommends the work of Kay Redfield Jamison, whose memoir An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness is up there with William Styron’s Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness and Andrew Solomon’s longer The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression (whose shorter piece in The New Yorker prior to the publication of was read by Naomi Watts when preparing for her devastating performance in David Lynch’s masterpiece, Mulholland Drive).

Adam è un 2009 commedia-film drammatico scritto e diretto da Max Mayer,Il film segue il rapporto tra un giovane di nome Adam (Dancy) con sindrome di Asperger e la donna dei suoi sogni, Beth.

Leggi altre notizie su: | Commedia | Drammatico | Romantico | Max Mayer | Hugh Dancy | Rose Byrne

1. Never abiding the “take one accessory off” rule.

2. Pretty tattoos. [this is me wanting one]

3. This thought.

4. Black ankle boots. [I bought some yesterday after I broke my flat and was coerced into spontaneous shoe-shopping.]

5. Referencing Harry Potter as much as possible, especially when surrounded by non-fans.

6. My best friends.

7. This photo calendar.

8. 1 AM dance parties with my roommate.

Isn’t Clemence Poesy adorable?

9. Crazy cool ceilings.

10. The move Center Stage. Probably seen it 16 times. Make fun if you wish.

Have a beautiful day.

Peace,

]]> http://madnessbrewing.com/2009/10/19/adam-movie-review/ Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:46:14 +0000 Jamie Gore http://madnessbrewing.com/2009/10/19/adam-movie-review/

Movie Review
Adam
Starring: Hugh Dancy, Rose Byrne, Peter Gallagher
Directed by: Max Mayer
Runtime: 1:37

There are times when you watch a trailer for a movie and you expect very good things. Then you get disappointed because the movie doesn’t live up the hype you set up for it. Not only did Max Mayer’s Adam fail to be as good as the trailer made it out to be but was far worse than one could expect. The film would have been better if was called “Facepalm” because that’s what you’ll be doing quite a bit while you watch it.

Adam (Dancy) is a young man with Asperger’s syndrome. His father, whom he lives with, passes away and Adam is trying to adjust living alone. He befriends his neighbour to the building, Beth (Mayer), and their relationship blossoms quickly. At first, Beth tries to hid her relationship with Adam from her parents but then embraces her love for Adam and flaunts her relationship in front of her parents; raising the ire of her father (Gallagher) who is in trouble with the law for fraud.

Let’s get the good parts out of the way. Rose Byrne is a very pretty woman and Peter Gallagher did very well despite his limited acting depth.

That aside, there is not much good to say about the movie. The whole plot seems farfetched only because the story itself seems quickly hashed together. Character development is slaughtered as a result. There should be no reason why Beth would want to consider a relationship with Adam. Each time she sees him at the beginning of the movie, he acts really cold towards her. In fact, she complains on several occasions that she was just in a relationship that was she felt ignored. It’s not like Adam would lavish her with attention due to the solitariness of Aspberger’s. It would have been a reasonable concept if it had been hinted that she keeps falling for the same type of guy but the whole movie has herself distancing herself from that type of person. She even defends Adam’s bizarre behaviour on multiple occasions to an annoying degree which she doesn’t rarely find endearing herself. She likes him on some level as a friend but to develop a romantic relationship seems weird not because of his disorder but because the two seem only like good friends. It just feels like there’s no chemistry between the two.

That’s the problem in a nutshell; nothing makes sense. None of the relationships in the movie feel natural. Nobody is likable either. Adam is unlikeable by design but Beth is annoying and her father is a jerk. The other characters are not on long enough to really matter or influence the film. The lone exception is Adam’s friend, Harlan (Frankie Faison), who seems like a nice guy. His relationship with Adam is the most natural of all in the movie. You could tell that he spends time with Adam more to do with his friendship with Adam’s dad rather than Adam. The dynamic is interesting and the movie would have been better if it was more about Harlan and Adam’s relationship with Beth being a secondary character.

It’s clear that Max Mayer wanted to make a thought provoking movie with Adam. Some would immediately try to connect the film with Forrest Gump but they’re two different films. One was more about a nostalgic trip than the analysis of a person with mental disabilities whereas this film tries to disarm the stigmas concerning Asperger’s syndrome. The attempt may be admirable but with little story, stale acting, and poor character development, this movie is basically a shell with nothing of substance inside.

☆

In his most recent mailer, Kevin Murphy explains how he achieved Rose Byrne’s glamourous look for InStyle Australia.

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]]> http://counter-force.com/2009/10/13/the-counterforce-casting-couch-independence-day-2/ Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:07:29 +0000 Benjamin Light http://counter-force.com/2009/10/13/the-counterforce-casting-couch-independence-day-2/

Let’s face it, Hollywood is never going to fund a big-budget original movie ever again.

Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Marco and I have been talking for a while about doing a series of posts on movies that should be made. Now don’t get me wrong, the projects we’ll be proposing shouldn’t actually be made. In a better world, the budgets would go to real artists who do good work, but that’s not the world we live it, and at Counterforce, we believe in making the best out of a bad situation. Just like Liam Neeson.

no thank you

So, let’s get right down too it. You know, you know they’re going to make an ID4:2 some day, so we might as well make it enjoyably bad. Hell, just the idea of watching this movie instead of some Michael Bay cartoon-adapted crapfest gives me a boner. You can never ever go wrong blowing up as many international landmarks as possible.

Thus, The Counterforce Casting Couch: Independence Day 2

PREMISE:

This is gonna be a little rough, we can fill in the blanks during lighting shifts on the set. So, it’s like 20 years after the event of ID4. Will Smith is the President, obviously. The White House will have just finished being rebuilt and look exactly the same as before. Jeff Goldblum will basically be playing Al Gore. Sorta Green Living Apostle / Technocrat in Chief. Shia LeBeouf is Goldblum’s rebellious kid and Aaron Yoo is his buddy who films all their wacky adventures on his Flip Camera. There will be some drama because Shia doesn’t know his dad was a hero because Goldblum’s role was classified or something.

Ryan Kwanten from True Blood will fill in the Hick Character contingent with his little jailbait sister, Dakota Fanning. I threw a lot of brits into the cast so there can be other groups of characters in the UK and Australia, Iraq, etc. Famke Janssen will play somebody’s wife. Maybe Bill Pullman’s.

So, the Aliens come back, only this time, they come in peace and claim to be seeking asylum. Apparently these aliens are the not-evil faction of the bad guys. Will Smith will have all these mixed feelings because he hates aliens, but doesn’t want to be prejudiced to the nice ones. It will be like that scene in Star Trek 6 where Kirk talks about the klingons who killed his son, only this time it will be Will Smith saying it, and he’ll be talking to the First Dog.

Obviously, the bad aliens come back and destroy a shit-ton more monuments and landmarks. They’ll be led by Nic Cage, who is some kind of evil billionaire who helps the Aliens in exchange for world domination. Definitely gotta sack the Burj Dubai, the White House, Big Ben, the Golden Gate, the Vatican, etc. But this time, the good aliens have shared some of their technology, so the fight is slightly more fair, but earth still gets its ass kicked and the bad aliens occupy the planet. This would all take place on July 2nd.

yeah, that shit's gonna fall

The next day would be a lot of failed counter-offensives and characters hiding from Alien stormtroopers. Then Shia LeBeouf will decide to form a resistance and Aaron Yoo will do all the tech shit to get the word out on the internets. Ryan Kwanten will be there with Dakota, and he’ll turn out to be some kind of hillbilly ass-kicker. I see a scene with him, shirtless, feather tied to the back of his head, destroying enemy food supplies boston-tea-party style. Then we’ll cut to Said Taghmaoui in Iraq with a British accent and he’ll be all, “It’s the Americans, they want to organize a resistance, about bloody time!”

And then July 4th will be the big counter-attack. Aaron Yoo will die. Will Smith will fly an alien fighter ship with Bill Pullman as his wingman. They’ll fight their way to the mothership, land on it, then fight their way to Nic Cage’s lair on the bridge. Somehow, Jeff Goldblum will be there too. A big fistfight later, Will Smith wins, then escapes and Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum pilot the Mothership into the sun, sacrificing themselves. Shia hooks up with Dakota Fanning, and then after the credits roll, Samuel L. Jackson walks into a bar to talk to him about the Avengers initiative.

And… scene.

Fuck yeah!

You know you’d pay to see it.

Nicolas Cage is irate - not because the plane crashed but because he was forced to fly coach.

(Summit) Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne, Chandler Canterbury, D.G. Maloney, Lara Robinson, Nadia Townsend, Alethea McGrath, Danielle Carter, Adrienne Pickering, Alan Hopgood, Ben Mendelsohn, David Lennie. Directed by Alex Proyas

We are all of us curious to one degree or another about the future. It is the infinite unknown, and yet we are all touched by it. After all, we are all meant to live in it, although sooner or later our future comes to a halt, and then we die. While we are curious about our future, we are less curious about the nature of our own demise. After all, who wants to know how and when they are to meet their maker? Would knowing make any difference whatsoever?

It is 1959 and the William Dawes Elementary School has opened its doors for the very first time. Miss Taylor (Carter), a teacher there, is pleased and delighted that one of the students in her class was responsible for the idea that was selected to mark the occasion; a time capsule to which all the students would submit drawings of what they thought the future would look like. The winning student, Lucinda (Robinson), is an odd sort; quiet and distracted, she is tormented by the sound of whispering voices which only she can hear. While her classmates are drawing rocket ships and robot, she is furiously, almost mechanically, writing a sequence of seemingly random numbers. A little unnerved, Miss Taylor puts her sheet of numbers into an envelope, and along with all the other envelopes, into the time capsule where it will remain sealed in the ground.

It is 2009 and young Caleb Koestler (Canterbury), a student at Dawes, is preparing for the anniversary celebration the next day. His father John (Cage), an astrophysics professor at M.I.T., is grieving the loss of Caleb’s mother (Pickering) in a hotel fire the previous year. While he appears to be functioning, he’s numbing himself out with alcohol and musing on whether the universe is orderly, marching along to a plan, or is simply a random sequence of coincidences which ultimately has no meaning.

When the time capsule is unearthed and the contents removed, it is young Caleb who receives the sequence of numbers. He takes it as a possible math puzzle, but when his father sees it, he finds that it is something far more chilling. It is a list of every major disaster in sequential order for the past fifty years. Asian tsunamis, Mexican earthquakes, 9-11, they’re all there with the date of the disaster and the exact death toll. There are, however, three events that haven’t happened yet. The last of them indicates a disaster of global proportions.

Director Proyas has been responsible for some of the most innovative and interesting movies of the past ten years, including The Crow and Dark City. This is one of his more mainstream efforts. The premise is intriguing, to say the least, but the execution is a little bit disappointing. From a technical standpoint, this is a very well-made film. The effects are spectacular bordering on terrifying, but at times they seem to be the reason the film was made to begin with, never a good thing.

The problem here is a script ponderously heavy with coincidence and contrivance. For example, how does John Koestler deduce that the sequence of numbers is all about disasters? Believe me, it’s a pretty impressive string of numbers but to randomly pull a few numbers from the string and determine it refers to 9-11 stretches credibility past the breaking point. Throw in a group of eerie strangers who watch in unnerving silence and you’ve got Armageddon meets Dark City meets Close Encounters. It’s unnecessarily complex, and yet you feel like you’ve seen it all before. By the time you reach the film’s godawful ending, you’re convinced you’ve already seen it before.

I’d pay ten bucks to watch Cage gargle with Listerine, but he doesn’t have much support – okay, make that any. Rose Byrne is hideous as the grown daughter of Lucinda who doesn’t have much to do beyond getting hysterical and acting not so much as a mother fighting for the safety and well-being of her child, but basically like a panicked hysteric. She’s a mom, but without a maternal instinct. Da Queen found her thoroughly unbelievable, but that was more the fault of the script. However, she did chew the scenery ever so thoroughly. 

Much of the movie rests on the shoulders of the child actors playing Caleb, Lucinda and Abby (Lucinda’s granddaughter, played by the same juvenile actress who plays Lucinda), and for the most part the kids are alright, particularly Robinson as the tormented Lucinda. However, the screenwriters turn Caleb into one of those preternaturally mature children who don’t really exist in real life. It’s a Hollywood mistake and it takes you out of the movie early and often.

The movie is not without some merit – Proyas is an outstanding director with a great hand for science fiction. Unfortunately this movie is a bit of a mess, a concept that looked great on paper but became unwieldy in practice. It’s a great looking mess, and Nicolas Cage is in it so it’s at least a palatable mess, but a mess nonetheless.

WHY RENT THIS: The disaster sequences are riveting, and often terrifying. Nicolas Cage is one of those actors whose presence in a movie will motivate me to see the movie regardless of plot or anything else. The whole concept is rather intriguing.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The script is poorly written in places, relying too much on contrivance and coincidence. Once you get past Cage, the acting becomes a bit rocky. The ending strains credulity and there are too many unnecessary plot threads.

FAMILY VALUES: The disaster sequences may be too intense for those who are sensitive about mayhem. Children are placed in jeopardy, which is offensive to some. Otherwise, this is pretty much fine for all members of the family except for the very young and impressionable.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: The equation on the blackboards during the classroom sequence are actually clever mathematic predictors of the events that take place at the end of the movie.

NOTABLE DVD  EXTRAS: An interesting feature on the apocalypse, exploring the origins of the concept and scientific thought on how it might actually occur.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: Man on Wire

How many movies can you think of where the two main characters are genuinely nice? I mean, characters who have true concern for the well-being of others without guile or ulterior motive? What’s more, how many of these films are set in New York City? Adam is about two nice people, and the first hour contain some of the most endearing scenes of the year. Dealing with love without being shlocky, dealing with mental disability without being patronizing, it’s never an epic romance yet it hits all the right notes. The ending is mildly unsatisfactory, but for anyone looking for a sweet September film, Adam will do nicely.

Hugh Dancy plays Adam, a young man with Asperger’s whose father has just passed away, leaving him to live by himself in the big city. His place of employment, who hired him as a favor to the father, decides to let him go as well. Simultaneously, Beth (Rose Byrne) moves into the same building, and a mutual attraction develops before either knows anything about the other. Once Beth learns that Adam has Asperger’s, she at first is very hesitant, but then decides that the relationship is worth pursuing. They grow together and work through the various struggles that each has– Adam searching for employment, and Beth trying to help her father (Peter Gallagher) as he prepares for potential jail time. Adam also begins to discover the difficulty of dating a city girl who has certain social requirements that Adam struggles to want to meet.

The heart and soul of the film is Dancy, who resists playing the “handicapped character” rather than playing the character itself. He details the physical and emotional troubles that come with Asperger’s without overacting– while most actors would be tempted to overact in hopes of landing an Oscar nomination, Dancy might have earned one by doing the exact opposite. Rose Byrne also could have done a great deal of Suffering with a capital S in her depiction of Beth, struggling with both family issues and caring for the peculiar man she loves, but instead holds it together admirably. When she tells Adam she wants him to give her a hug, it ranks high on the list of 2009’s Tear-Inducing Lines. It’s easy to imagine the terror one feels when you cannot figure out what other people are thinking, especially someone you care about. People without Asperger’s feel enough anxiety about trying to do right by the person they love, and they don’t have that obstacle to hurdle.

Unfortunately, the end of the film is a letdown. The plot dictates the film’s multiple story lines all come to a close, so the movie strays from the sweet problem-solving the characters were doing and results in courtroom scenes, front-yard confrontations, and long night-time walks. Oh well. The first hour of the film is more than enough to still give it a solid recommendation. At a time when “disability movies” are more about the syndrome than the person, and when romances are about modern cynics who need to get in touch with their heart rather than people who don’t need to learn deep lessons in order to appreciate love, Adam stands out from the crowd. In fact, it so sweetly depicts the love life of a man with Asperger’s that it garners more respect and understanding than any Important Film about the syndrome possibly could.

This photograph of Rose Byrne is a perfect example of how to wear a white or light colored blazer in the fall. This outfit looks sophisticated and fresh at the same time.

Recreate this look with your own black skinny pants, a jewel-tone blouse, black pumps, and a fitted long blazer.