Breaking Dawn, Part 2 (2012, U.S.)

I am stunned! I really didn't like the second half of Breaking Dawn (the book), so I expected the movie to be even worse. Mainly, I absolutely hated that stupid kid. However, in the movie you can actually see why she was so appealing to everyone, which makes the second half so much more sensible!

But I get ahead of myself. I want to start with how amazing the credits were. I'm getting them confused in my head (opening and closing), but I believe it was the opening credits that were all black and white with hints of red, really artfully done. The closing credits did this amazing thing where it showed the final words of the novel from the novel, and it felt like a book closing with this sort of finality. Then they did the kind of credits were all the main actors were pictured from the entire series, which furthered that feeling. Pretty awesome on both ends.

And the middle was really good too. Like I said, the kid was not annoying. They simplified the whole "Jay" sideplot to work with the movie. The supporting cast of vampires was really amazing, although I have to say a big part of why I didn't give this a 4.5 is because I felt like they were all short changed on screen time. The big fight at the end was just amazing, especially with all the twists that I had managed to completely forget from the book. I was completely nail-biting, which was completely unexpected.

Everyone belittles "KStew" and "RPattz," but I continue to think that they're both great actors. Maybe this isn't the best vehicle for them, but still. Stewart does a convincing job as someone finally getting in touch with her real self. The contrast between the awkward human and the graceful vampire is very obvious if you compare the early movies to this one.

I thought this was a strong ending to the series, particularly with the above-mentioned credits that tied the movie into the book and tied all the movies together. I'm looking forward to a marathon when it comes to DVD.

Rating: 4.0

Breaking Dawn, Part 1 (2011, U.S.)

This movie is an excellent example of how low expectations can really improve one's enjoyment of a movie! I knew from the second that I read "the scene" in Breaking Dawn that the movie was going to end up being a cheesy B horror film, for at least five minutes. Then I kept hearing bad reviews of the movie, and I said to myself, "Well, duh." But really, it wasn't that bad.

To begin with, the wedding was beautiful. It wasn't quite how I pictured it in my head, but I liked their interpretation. Bella's dress was stunning, in my opinion, and Kristen Stewart looked incredibly beautiful. I loved how they reused their prom song for the wedding background music. I loved how everyone else literally disappeared from the scene while they were getting married, showing how they were the whole world to each other. I really loved their wedding kiss, which was long without being R-rated, sweet, romantic, and so laced with meaning. Oh it was just beautiful!

Visually, it was very well done too. I already mentioned the wedding. There were a lot of beautiful establishing shots of the island, Washington forests, the waterfall where they swim, Rio (the giant Jesus!), and the like. I loved the use of montages, namely the island time one and the Renesmee one. The one on the island showed them hiking, playing chess, swimming, talking, and just being together, and I thought it perfectly crystallized and captured that honeymoon feeling and their connection. Hard to explain. (Also, I loved their use of the red and white chess pieces from the front of the book. That was pretty clever, and I don't think they've done that since the first movie... not that a ribbon and a rose petal are easy to incorporate.) The shots of teenaged Renesmee were very dreamlike and actually made me want to like her, which is quite an accomplishment—I really kind of hated her in the book. Bella's dream the night before the wedding was really well done, but something makes me not want to go into detail and give it away. The honeymoon love scene was close to perfect. I figured they would go the book route and just "fade to black" and wake up in the morning with feathers flying (which didn't get left out, yay!), but they actually showed it. It was tasteful and beautiful and it definitely looked like soul mates being together for the first time. That was one of many scenes that was quite moving. One other visual aspect I was impressed with was the makeup on "sick" Bella. Until now, most of their makeup has involved making humans look like pale vampires with golden/red eyes and beautiful looks. Bella's transformation into a ravaged, hollow-eyed, broken girl was pretty incredible, especially in contrast. (On the other hand, I was less impressed with vampire makeup. Carlisle's hair looked greasy, Rosalie's nasty black eyebrows continue to irritate me, Alice isn't as cute without spiky hair, and Irina's—yay, Maggie Grace!— eyes didn't look like the contacts were set quite right, to give a few examples.) Anyway, I think this might have been the most visually appealing of the movies so far.

So what was wrong with it? I'll start with the obvious. The birth scene. No. Still, it could have been a lot worse. In fact, I thought Bella's broken bones, especially the spine, were quite underdone. There was no fountain of blood at the birth, which you might consider underdone but that actually made the scene fit better. (There was still chewing, but you can't see it, so again that really helped. The whole scene was not the B movie bloodbath I had anticipated, which was the biggest relief ever.) The effects of the venom injection are shown though a sort of CGI vein interior, which was sort of cheesy and reminded me of a Magic School Bus episode. On the other hand, I'm not quite sure how they would have accomplished this otherwise, because they don't have the benefit of Bella's Ernaline monologues like the book has. Also on the subject of point of view, I thought that losing Jacob's perspective during the pregnancy was a loss for the movie, which is ironic since I didn't like that narrative choice in the book. (You have to admit that it's weird for the first 3 books and 2/3 of the fourth book to be told from one perspective and then 1/3 of the last book to be told from another.) I missed the scenes of Jacob trying to imprint and his snarky comments and his anger at Edward, Bella, "Blondie," and just about everyone else in the world. It took a lot of emotion away. Also on the subject of werewolves, the pack has a big meeting where they do their talking in each other's heads thing, and it was really stupid. Their voices were sort of edited to sound all echo-y and more raspy and just fake in general, and I thought that scene in particular (or any scene with inner wolf conversations in general) would have been a lot less ridiculous and more effective if they just used normal voices.

On the subject of actors, poor Billy Burke didn't have as many funny moments as previous movies, which was sad. On the other hand, Pattinson and Stewart's chemistry was off the charts. The way they oriented around each other in scenes (as Bella's mom notes in the previous movie), the way they look at each other, the love scene, the wedding kiss, the chess matches... I swear their connection was palpable. Rather breathtaking, really. As for everyone else, they were basically standards and really irrelevant to the story. I would have liked more from Taylor Lautner, but I felt the fault was not his but the scripts. He did do a lot with his body language to convey emotion he was never able to vocalize.

Probably the most disappointing thing was the music. The score wasn't bad, and the soundtrack might not have been either, but I didn't think it was used to the same effect as earlier soundtracks. (Can anyone think of baseball anymore without hearing "Supermassive Black Hole" in their head? I can't!) The music may have been good, but it just didn't stand out. The one exception was, as I mentioned before, the reuse of "Flightless Bird, American Mouth," which gave the movies and the characters' relationship an agreeable symmetry.

So overall, I quite liked it. That may be mostly because my expectations were so low, but hey... I'll take what I can get!

Rating: 4.0

True Grit (2010, U.S.)

I was absolutely stunned by this one. Finally, a western I could enjoy! After watching such modern and acclaimed westerns (featuring some of my favorite actors) as Appaloosa and 3:10 to Yuma, I was beginning to think that they just would never be my thing. So I was thrilled with my small victory here, because True Grit just blew me away.

I've never read the book or seen the original movie, but I have read that this version was a much closer adaptation of the book. If so, the book must be something else too. This film had the absolute best dialogue I have ever heard. It was oddly formal but it flowed so well and was often witty and amusing. Just fantastic. I think it definitely deserved the nomination for best adapted screenplay, and having seen the winner (Social Network), I do understand the tight competition.

The acting was phenomenal. Brolin, Damon, and Bridges all delivered the funniest lines with the most dry, deadpan expressions. Bridges was especially talented in that regard. Damon spent half of the movie with his tongue bitten through and his mouth swollen, and portraying that without looking ridiculous took some serious skill. With just those three men, this film already had an incredibly strong cast, but the real show-stealer was young Hailee Steinfeld. Although Bridges' character was the one who supposedly had the titular "true grit," I think Steinfeld (and her character, Maddie), was really the one with true grit. She was a real firecracker and a strong young actress, and watching her was truly a joy. I thought that Melissa Leo's supporting actress Oscar was ridiculous, and now I know who the hands-down winner should have been. Heck, she should have been nominated for best actress; her character was the central one. Absolutely stellar. Truly, the writing and acting in this film just defy description. You have to see it to understand how good it really is.

I also love the score. Carter Burwell is (sometimes) one of my favorite composers. At times, he writes perfect scores that bring the story alive, and at times he writes unmemorable, unfitting scores. This one was definitely the former. It's hard to describe (this seems to be a theme here), but it sounded very American, slightly western, and somehow peaceful. It fit beautifully with the film.

This brings me to my two small complaints. First, the transition from Burwell's score to the vocalized credits music was just too abrupt, jarring me out of the mood of the film. It really fit okay, but the transition could have been better. Of course, it was less noticeable than it could have been, following the worst bucket-of-cold-water-type moment in the film. I was completely immersed in the world of the film, enjoying the dialogue, the music, the western landscapes, when suddenly appears a mistreated (and then essentially murdered) horse. It's just one of my pet peeves, but I absolutely hate it when horses die in the movies. In a war movie, thousands of men can die without me blinking, but when the first horse falls I just start cringing. So in this otherwise enthralling film, I was suddenly thrown out of my enraptured viewing and back into reality with the death of this poor horse. Don't get me wrong, it works for the plot and Maddie's reaction is heart wrenching, but personally it was hard for me to get back into things and enjoy the rest of the film.

But overall, this was truly incredible. I find the Coen brothers to be very hit or miss when it comes to their films and my taste, and this was pure hit, hit, hit. A very pleasant surprise.

Rating: 4.5

The Kids Are All Right (2010, U.S.)

I have some lesbian friends who told me this was a great movie, the first "mainstream" film they've seen that portrays same-sex parent families as families like any other, and I do agree with that analysis to some extent. To begin with, Nic and Jules and their kids Joni and Laser seem like any other family, eating dinner, playing Scrabble and ping pong, having fights, and getting ready to send the oldest child to college. In some ways, it seemed healthier than the average family—with two moms, there was much more communication, a very positive part of the family.

Of course, the main arm of the plot is a problem that would be much less common in a straight family—the kids search out and meet their sperm donor, who becomes a part of their lives and even starts an affair with one of their moms. (This part really threw me. She cheated on her wife with a man?! Horrible.) This created quite a soap opera feel without getting too trashy.

I loved a lot of this movie. There were some funny parts and some parts that made me tear up. I didn't care 100% for the way they treated Paul (the donor), acting like he purposefully broke up their family when meeting them wasn't even his decision (though he did act poorly quite often and was generally a self-centered big-head). Still, I thought it was a touching story about what makes a family and how we struggle though the tough parts because we love each other. Jules' monologue on marriage—"If only I read more Russian novels, I might..."—was especially priceless.

I liked the cast too. Julianne Moore is great. Mia Wasikowska (who I only know as Alice in Wonderland) was perfect as the older kid. And I don't know if I've ever seen an Annette Bening film, but perhaps I should make an effort. She was fabulous in this movie, and I loved her especially in this good ensemble.

Open-minded people will enjoy this family's story. I doubt closed-minded people would even watch it, and if they did they'd find something wrong with it, but I thought it was lovely.

Rating: 3.5

Fargo (1996, U.S.)

I don't even know where to begin with this movie. I almost can't even see why it's a cult classic. Jerry is in deep financial trouble, and his rich father-in-law is a jerk, so he decides to have his wife kidnapped and have her father pay the ransom. Basically every character is incompetent, except for the heavily pregnant sheriff investigating. There's a lot of violence, a lot of death, a lot of Minnesota accents.

I guess some people might find it funny, but it's just not my type of humor. Mostly I was impressed by Frances McDormand's performance as the sheriff. The rest of it, I could have lived without.

Still, I'm glad that I finally got around to seeing this cult classic.

Rating: 2.5

Burn After Reading (2008, U.S.)

I love Brad Pitt, and that is why I watched this movie. I thought it was going to be funny. Or somewhat entertaining. Instead it was confusing, barely funny, violent, and kind of stupid.

Positive things I will say: Firstly, the acting was phenomenal. The cast was great, and they all played their various levels of paranoia/insecurity/cruelty/stupidity/self-centeredness/greed to a T. As an ensemble, they worked smoothly.

Second, the concept was good, and I have to say that there were some funny moments.

Really, I just don't know what to say after that. Ages after I watched it, I'm still thinking, "What?" But maybe it's just me.

Rating: 2.0

Twilight (2008, U.S,)

Here we go, the moment everyone's been waiting for. I saw the midnight premier of Twilight, like the huge nerd I am. I adore the books (well, at least the first three), and I tried very hard to go into this with little to no expectations, since I knew it would never live up. (I can't think of a single movie that I've liked more—or even as much as—the novel it was based upon.)

First let me say that it was super fun to go to the midnight showing with a bunch of squealing, swooning high schoolers. They were all just too funny. You could tell the crowd had almost all read the book, because there were so many parts that were just SO overdone where we all just died of laughter. For example, when Edward first catches the scent of Bella's blood—she walks into the classroom in front of a fan, her hair blows out, and the camera pans to Edward who looks like he's about to vomit. The entire theater erupted into peals of laughter, because it just looked ridiculous. The same goes for the pained expression that never left Japser's face. And Edward's horribly cheesy line—"Hold on, spider monkey!" It was all just beyond ridiculous, but it was kind of fun because of that.

On the whole, the film stayed remarkably true to the book. They actioned it up a bit, but not so much that it detracted from the story. The main thing that bothered me was that it seemed entirely too rushed, like the Cliffs Notes version of the book. (This is kind of how I feel about the HP series, but HP's definitely worse in that respect.) One of the best parts of the book is the suspense of this slowly unfolding mystery/romance together, and the pace of the film was just too fast for that. But again, the general feeling was there, so I can't complain. We all thought the dance studio scene was going to be destroyed, but it was really okay.

What else, what else? Casting was fabulous. The one person I was hesitant about was Carlisle, but I think I actually liked the guy. Charlie was not anything how I pictured Charlie, but not bad. And Edward... Let's just say I nearly hyperventilated every time he was on screen. Boy did he pull off the smoldering eyes. I also liked all of the siblings, particularly Emmett. And the guy who played Billy Black was perfect, if a bit too young.

Special effects were terrible. Terrible, terrible, terrible. The running, climbing up trees, ripping people's heads off, and especially Edward's sparkly skin were a major let down. Mostly it all looked cheesy and fake. I knew they would never pull off the sparkly skin, and of course it could have been worse, but yeah. Mostly he looked kind of blurry, if anything.

Music was also terrible. I hate it when potentially timeless films (okay, it may be a stretch to put Twilight in that category) use modern music. Especially trendy or bad modern music. For one thing, it really dates the movie, and for another thing, it detracts from what's going on in the movie. I have a huge thing for scores though—9 times out of 10, a good score means a good movie. Carter Burwell, who composed the score for Twilight, is one of my favorite film composers (albiet toward the bottom of the list). And while he did have one theme that was especially good ("Bella's Lullaby," to be exact), the rest of the score just didn't have the power, beauty, and—dare I say it?—sublime quality it could have had. Also, while "Bella's Lullaby" was good, it wasn't good enough to be the "Bella's Lullaby." (You Twilighters know what I mean.)

The last thing I didn't really like was the ending. They had a perfect ending, just like in the book (that would be the prom), and a perfect shot that would have been a beautiful freeze frame to end on. Instead, they have to show creepy Victoria watching them and looking all vengeful. Okay, I get that you want to set up the second movie, but seriously? Twilight begs for a romantic ending over an ominous ending—there's plenty of room for that in later installments.

Overall, it was kind of hard not to like this one, in a twisted sort of way. I (and the rest of the theater) laughed way too much at parts that shouldn't have been funny. (I did this in the book too, but not to such an extreme extent.) But it's okay to laugh when you tell yourself, "Hey, it's a teen vampire romance!" They also added some jokes that were quite Meyer-esque. And we librarians loved hearing Edward Cullen saying, "You can Google it!" and Bella going to a book before researching on the internet. Like with HP, the casting was great. (Did I mention how swoon-worthy Rob Pattinson was? Gah.) And that was pretty much what made it great, the cast.

To use a metaphor from the movie itself, this one definitely wins the Golden Onion (something Edward and Bella win in biology for doing their lab the best—definitely not in the book). It was amazing, but it was awful. Like a golden onion. Ha ha.

It's quite difficult to objectively (and succinctly!) review a movie based on a book I love so much, but I've tried my best. So here's a quick and dirty summary, just in case:

An Academy Award winner? No. A worthy guilty pleasure? Most definitely.

Rating: 4.0

Adaptation. (2002, U.S.)

What a crazy, crazy, crazy film. I don't even know what to think of this one or what the point was, exactly.

The story is about a man (played by Cage) who is writing a screenplay of a book written by a woman (Streep). The book is entirely about orchids (and quite boring, from what I gather). The man lives with his loser brother (also played by Cage), who decides to become a screenwriter as well.

The screenplay isn't going well, so the man decides to look farther into the story—and all kinds of bizarre things start happening / are revealed.

I can't lie. I thought this one was quite slow and often boring. Nicolas Cage was adequate, but not great. Chris Cooper, who played a minor (but integral) role, definitely stole the show.

You'd really have to see this one for yourself. But I will say one thing for it—it was different.

Rating: 2.5

Gods and Monsters (1998, UK)

I watched Gods and Monsters a couple of days ago. The main reason I decided to watch it was Sir Ian McKellan—also Blockbuster recommended it to me because of my other rentals. (Side note: I think that Blockbuster thinks that I want to watch nothing but GLBTQ films.) Then I found out that Brendan Fraser was in it, and I seriously reconsidered.

But I'm glad I watched it. It was quite interesting. It's about the director of such classics as Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. Apparently he was very openly gay, and it caused him a lot of trouble in his career and personal life. This film explores the final days of his life, leading up to his suicide in 1957. I loved the fact that it was a somewhat true story. I love that it was about the Golden Age of Hollywood. I loved that I didn't hate Brendan Fraser for once. I loved the incorporation of Whale's stroke/mental instability that led to increasing numbers of flashbacks. I loved piecing his history together.

And I loved Ian McKellan. This role was exactly how I've always pictured Sir Ian in real life—very British, very neat and polished, and very unashamed of his sexuality. He was brilliant. And almost sexy. Not to mention the fact that his acting was the most brilliant I've ever seen. (I always figured he had the potential, but I haven't seen enough of his movies to know for sure. Yeah, he's great.) Lynn Redgrave was also perfect.

So, although this isn't one of those films you could watch over and over, it was still wonderful. Adding all the good bits together gives it a pretty high rating for a non-repeater.

Rating: 4.0

No Country for Old Men (2007, U.S.)

I tried to like it, I really did. I'd heard great things, it won several Oscars... but I just didn't like it at all. Too much violence. Nothing but violence, really.

So here are my few notes on it: Minimalist score by Burwell was great, especially in the last scene/closing credits. Good acting, especially by Javier Bardem -- creepy! I didn't know this was based on a Cormac McCarthy book, but it reminded me of him. So when I found out it was based on one of his books, I can only assume they must have done a good job adapting it.

It's easy to forget over the course of a movie that seems predominantly about greed, but the main character never would have run into all the problems he did if he hadn't gone back to the scene where he'd found the money in order to give a dying man some water. No good deed goes unpunished, they say.

So overall, there was some good stuff in this movie. But it was entirely overshadowed by excessive violence. Which I guess was kind of the point, but that doesn't mean I had to like it.

Rating: 1.5