Sleepwalk with Me (2012)

Starring: Mike Birbiglia, Lauren Ambrose, Carol Kane, James Rebhorn, Cristin Milioti

Director: Mike Birbiglia

Genre: Comedy

Rating: A

"And that's what love is. It's this giant mound of pizza-flavoured ice cream and delusion."

I came across this movie by accident.  Actually, I came across this movie through Joss Whedon: he told me not to see it.  Except, the way he did it was the same tongue-in-cheek way that he told me to vote for Mitt Romney because he would create the perfect setting for a zombie apocalypse, so I took it as a sign that I should watch Sleepwalk with Me.  All I can say having watched it is that I'm really glad Joss Whedon told me not to.

Sleepwalk with Me follows aspiring comedian Matt Pandamiglio (Birbiglia) as he comes to terms with a series of denials: his girlfriend, his career, and his sleep disorder.  He's been with girlfriend Abby (Ambrose) for eight years now and things seem to be moving in the direction of marriage - but Matt isn't too sure about it, considering marriage to be something that should only be done when he's certain that nothing else good will happen in his life.  His career is going nowhere; while he calls himself a comedian he actually works as a bartender and has yet to accept the fact that his jokes really aren't funny.  And underneath it all is his sleep disorder; for reasons that he doesn't understand he's taken to acting out his dreams while still asleep.

The whole thing is based on Birbiglia's actual life, his rise to fame, his relationship problems, his sleep disorder.  While the names, places, etc, have been changed, the actual story is his story.  Instantly that makes it all so much more real, and when Matt tells you in the opening that he's going to tell you a story and it's real, he's being serious.  As such, the drama of the film is so much more real.  The fights feel real, the problems, etc.  The struggles of Matt and Abby and the fact that they're together when it's questionable whether or not they should be - and all the time hoping that Matt gets his shit together while also realizing that in reality, people don't always do that.  Life doesn't fit into the perfectly timed operations of a script, and that's what makes Sleepwalk with Me work.

This is a movie that's rather subtly funny.  I didn't really laugh out loud a lot, at least not until Matt's comedy started getting better, but I still enjoyed the humour to it. It was more one of those smile as you watch it and think about what's going on type of comedy than an actual laugh out loud type.  Even though it's actually billed as a comedy I found it to be a lot more of a drama, which worked for me - I tend to prefer dramas to comedies in general.  I also want to make note of the acting.  I love Lauren Ambrose and have since she was in Six Feet Under.  I think she's a great actress and I love how she totally sold me on why Abby was with Matt.  I also really liked Mike Birbiglia's performance.  I haven't seen him in anything before, not even his comedy, although I now want to see more of him.  I also totally want to give him props for the direction that he took this film in. He wrote it, he directed it, and he starred in it, and it all really worked.  So, yeah.  Unlike Joss Whedon, I'm not going to sarcastically tell you to boycott this film.  Instead I'm going to unsarcastically tell you to see this movie.  It's great and definitely worth your time.

Gangster Squad (2013)

Starring: Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Emma Stone, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Peña, Robert Patrick

Director: Ruben Fleischer

Genre: Action, Crime, Drama

Rating: C+

I'm going to predicate this by saying that while I'm not exactly giving this a good review, I did enjoy it.  Gangster Squad was definitely over hyped and possibly even wrongly promoted, and as such going into it I was expecting one type of movie and got something a bit different.  This is a movie created by the guy who did Zombieland, and as such it's a movie like Zombieland kind of trying to be a movie like Godfather or something similar.  As such, it kind of ends up in between the two, to the detriment of the film, although throughout it it still manages to be entertaining and fun.

Gangster Squad is the kind of true, but not really, story of Mickey Cohen (Penn) and the police officers who formed a squad, the Gangster Squad, to stop him.  The head of this squad is Sergeant John O'Mara (Brolin), a decorated war hero who doesn't fit into the L.A. police scene simply because he won't take bribes and wants to persecute Cohen and his thugs.  O'Mara is joined by detective Coleman Harris (Mackie), wire-tapper Conway Keeler (Ribisi), gunslinger Max Kennard (Patrick), and his partner Navidad Ramirez (Peña).  His friend, Jerry Wooters (Gosling), who has rejected an offer to join the squad, meanwhile is carrying on an affair with Cohen's lover, Grace Faraday (Stone).

Okay, so let's see.  The action was fun, I enjoyed it.  With the exception of the Chinatown incident it all really flowed well and was, while not exactly believable, definitely entertaining.  There were a few moments that were a bit hockey, and a few add ins that made me feel like the film was trying to be the 1960s Batman - more than once I almost expected a "POW" to be displayed across the screen - but for the most part it was fun.  The humour was good too and really on key.  It wasn't an overly funny movie, but there were definitely a number of points when someone would say something that made me smile or chuckle a little.

I really liked the relationship between O'Mara and his wife, played by Mireille Enos, and really wanted more of it.  From the get go I felt the love and chemistry between the two of them and I worried about what was going to happen to each of them, and between each of them, more than any other character.  Actually, with all honesty, the only other characters that I really cared about here were the ones played by Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone - although more because I like the actors themselves than because of any development of their relationship.  I do think that Gosling's Jerry was developed, and I really enjoyed the character, but Stone's Grace was less developed, and their relationship... somehow, despite the fact that I already know the two as a couple from Crazy, Stupid, Love and know that they can have amazing chemistry, the two don't really have chemistry here.  It's lacking, which sucks.  I want to see more from the two of them as a couple in this film so that I could really love them as a couple.  And now I just want to go watch Crazy, Stupid, Love again.  I will stick this out there, though, if you're filming a movie with Ryan Gosling and Sean Penn in it one of them should appear shirtless and the other should not.  I'm sorry, Gangster Squad, but you made the wrong decision there.

Goon (2011)

Starring: Seann William Scott, Liev Schreiber, Jay Baruchel, Alison Pill

Director: Michael Dowse

Genre: Comedy

Rating: C+

So, in celebration of the NHL Lockout coming to an end and hockey being back, I've decided to review the hockey film Goon.  Inspired by the biography Goon: The True Story of an Unlikely Journey into Minor League Hockey by Adam Frattasio and Doug Smith, Goon follows Jewish dimwit Doug Glatt (Scott) in his rather accidental journey into minor league hockey.  Doug is the son of a stereotypical Jewish doctor who's long felt a bit ostracized in his family owing to the fact that he's not nearly as smart as his father (Eugene Levy) or brother (David Paetkau) - his brother, Ira, is also a doctor, and a gay one at that.  One day, Doug goes to a minor league hockey game with his friend, Pat (Baruchel), where he gets into a fight with one of the players who uses the word "fag."  This fight inspires the coach of Doug's home team to recruit him as an enforcer.  From there, Doug is called up to Canada to play for the Halifax Highlanders.  The Highlanders have a problem with their best player, Xavier Lalfamme (Marc-André Grondin); three years prior he was concussed by Ross "The Boss" Rhea (Schreiber).  Laflamme is now scared of being hit again, and is struggling, while Rhea has been demoted to the Minors again and is looking to go out with a bang. Oh! And there's a girl, Eva (Pill), who is a real puck bunny, who's charmed by Doug even though she has a boyfriend.

Um... okay, so this movie is kind of filled with stereotypes and archetypical characters.  No one seems to be really all that well developed and things tend to fall on the basic path of "good," "bad" or "good but in need of redemption" that one typically expects in a movie like this.  It's a fun movie, but there's no real depth to it, which is in itself a bit disappointing.  I also kind of found that there was no real suspense to it.  It doesn't take a genius to figure out the direction that the film is going in, or what the end result will be.  It's not hard to figure out.

That said, it is fun. In a way, it kind of reminds me of the old Slap Shot movies, just with a new cast.  It's pretty much everything you expect from a movie about hockey starring Seann William Scott.  I donno, I'm not sure what more to say.  It wasn't great, but it was good.

Red Dawn (1984)

Starring: Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Ben Johnson, Harry Dean Stanton, Ron O'Neal, William Smith, Powers Boothe

Director: John Milius

Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, War

Rating: C

This is not a good movie.  I'm just going to stick that out there: Red Dawn is not good.  At best it's a very conservative, rather violent movie about a situation that is really hard to buy into.  When the premise of your movie is that the United States is caught unaware by a Soviet invasion and the only people who fight back (at least for a good chunk of it) are a group of teenagers in Colorado, I kind of have a hard time buying into it.

So, yeah.  At some point in the 1980s the USA becomes increasingly isolated when several European nations, all of them except for the UK, withdraw from NATO, at a time when the Warsaw Pact is being aggressively expanded.  In addition to this, there's a wheat harvest failure in the Ukraine and a communist coup in Mexico.  In order to cope, the Soviets and Cubans invade the United States.  Specifically, they invade the small town of Calumet, Colorado and quickly completely take over the town - and many other parts of the USA.  Enter our heroes, a small group of teenagers lead by Jed and Matt Eckert (Swayze and Sheen), who manage to escape the occupation and begin to form a resistance.

Okay, so 1. I do not buy that a group of teenagers who have no military experience and really are just kids who grew up hunting would be able to effectively fight the KGB.  2. I do not buy that the Soviets would be able to invade Colorado without being noticed well before getting to Colorado.  3. NATO consists of more than just the USA and European countries.  4. By the time of the movie, the Cold War was kind of dying down and it was beginning to be pretty clear that the Soviets? Weren't going to win it.

Actually, let's go back to number 2 here.  There are a few ways that the Soviets/Communists could have invaded the USA based on the premise of this movie.  They could have come up through Mexico, in which case they would have hit California, Arizona, Texas, etc, first.  They could have come via the Pacific, in which case they would have hit Alaska, Canada, and Washington state first.  They could have come up through Cuba, in which they would have probably hit Florida first. Finally, they could have flown over the Arctic Sea, in which case thy would have hit Canada first.  There is no way that they randomly hit fucking Colorado first - which thus brings to question just how the hell this was a surprise attack.  Dear movie makers: please consider geography.

This overall problem comes into play with issue number 3 here.  Canada is a part of NATO. Canada has always been a part of NATO.  In the premise of this movie, Canada is still a part of NATO.  In all likelyhood, Canada also had to be invaded in order to get to the USA here.  Thus, two nations would have been invaded.  Furthermore, the whole "the UK is still a part of NATO" thing comes into play.  Even without NATO, Canada has a very delicate relationship with the UK and it's a bit hard to buy that the UK does nothing to come to the aid of two allies, both which they're entered into military alliances with and one which is a part of the Commonwealth.  Just saying.

Then there's the whole issue of 1.  I'm not even sure I want to go there.  Yes, Americans are known for their gun loving ways - yes, it's somewhat of a stereotype.  Yes, Guerrilla warfare can completely screw over traditional armies, and in a lot of ways that's what the Communists are here.  No, a handful of teenagers are not going to successfully fight the KGB for long, nor are they going to be the only resistance.  That's just ridiculous, sorry.

The Bang Bang Club (2010)

Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Ryan Phillippe, Frank Rautenbach, Neels Van Jaarsveld, Patrick Lyster, Russell Savadier, Malin Åkerman

Director: Steven Silver

Genre: Drama

Rating: C+

The Bang Bang Club has two things to really support it: an interesting (and based on truth) story, and a good cast.  These tend to be the makings of great films, which is why it's  so disappointing that this is not really an all together good movie.

Bang Bang Club follows Kevin Carter (Kitsch), Ken Oosterbroek (Rautenbach), João Silva (Van Jaarsveld), and newcomer Greg Marinovich (Phillippe), a group of photographers who together form the Bang Bang Club.  The group is known for the extremes that they have gone to in order to get photos representing the lives - and deaths - of people living in Apartheid South Africa.  Joining them is their editor, Robin Comley (Åkerman).

So, I do have to say that while the acting is good and the story interesting, there's something lost in Bang Bang Club, and I'm really not sure just what it is.  Somehow, the way the story is told removes the actual excitement and the fact that the timing of it is unclear for a lot of the film makes the historical significance of the events a bit unclear.  The passage of time is a bit wonky; it's suggested that a lot of time passes, but I'm not really sure how much, or how quickly, or really if any time did in fact pass.  The acting is good and the idea of it is good, but the story itself is in need of development.

Another thing that I had a problem with was the casting itself.  While I don't think that the acting was bad, it really does annoy me when people are hired to fake an accent.  There are some actors who are great at it - Meryl Streep - and others who are not.  The accents here were probably about midranged, but it still bothers me.  If you're going to do a film about a group of South Africans, hire a group of South Africans.  Not Ryan Phillippe.

Knocked Up (2007)

Starring: Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Charlyne Yi, Jason Segel, Martin Starr

Director: Judd Apatow

Genre: Comedy

Rating: B-

After getting a promotion at work, career-minded Alison Scott (Heigl) has a one-night stand with stoner Ben Scott (Rogen). Alison very quickly begins to regret it, but when she finds out she's pregnant all hilarity ensues.  Alison and Ben must figure out if they want to make it work, and if they can make it work, and really how to do so.  Along for the ride are Ben's stoner friends and Alison's sister and brother-in-law.  By far the best part of the film is actually Alison's sister and brother-in-law, Debbie (Mann) and Pete (Rudd), and their children, played by Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann's real life children, Maud and Iris Apatow.  There's a reason that the sequel, This is 40, focused on Debbie and Pete and not on Ben and Alison.

Um, okay.  So, I liked the basic idea, but I disliked how it ended up basically being a stoner take on the romantic comedy.  I would have rather it gone a less typical route - yes the pregnancy bit is less typical, but the whole guy meets girl, things are awkward, guy and girl hook up, and they all live happily ever after (after that one massive fight where they almost break up) is a bit cliched at this point.

I did really like the dynamic of Debbie and Pete and what they offered to the table.  I believe I said it in my review of This is 40, but I really like how the kids feel like real people here, like real kids.  I attribute this to the fact that they're actually Apatow's kids, but hey it works.  I think if you're going to write children in your movie (or book or TV show or whatever) then you need to have children in your life - a lot - otherwise it just seems fake.

Katherine Heigl criticized this film saying that it's sexist, saying that it "paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys."  I both agree and disagree with her here. While the women are shrewish at times and the men are goofy fun-loving guys, I kind of think that Knocked Up tries to show that both are essentially good.  Yes, Alison is a bit uptight, but she's the responsible one, the one who you should admire.  Ben is a freeloading stoner - as are all of his friends.  Debbie and Pete are both a lot more likeable, and both a lot more relatable.  The guys say at one point how great the women are and how they aren't deserving of them because they don't put enough into the relationship - and this is something that we see throughout the film.  I do kind of think Heigl's character is a bit humourless, but I also think that's a lot to do with the fact that she doesn't relate to Rogen's style of humour - which I can totally get.  Debbie, however, has a much better dynamic with Pete - something played out further in This is 40.  Oh, also, as far as Heigl is concerned, it's kind of bad form to badmouth a movie you're in.   Just going to toss that out there.  Also, one final note: I'm not really sure how to tag Knocked Up and This is 40 to show that they're related.  It's part of a series, but not part of a series? If anyone has any ideas, let me know!

This Is 40 (2012)

Starring: Leslie Mann, Paul Rudd, John Lithgow, Megan Fox, Albert Brooks, Maud Apatow, Iris Apatow

Director:  Judd Apatow

Genre: Comedy

Rating: B

Pete (Rudd) and Debbie (Mann) are a married couple who are both about to celebrate their 40th birthday; Debbie is extremely distressed about this, Pete less so.   Deciding that they need to improve their lives, Debbie sets out to change things: they need to exercise more and eat better; furthermore, Debbie wants them to change their relationships with their fathers: Pete needs to stop lending money to his dad, Larry (Brooks) and Debbie needs to reconnect with her dad, Oliver (Lithgow).  Their problems are exacerbated by the fact that Pete's record company is failing, although he's not told his wife, and someone's stealing money from Debbie's business.

There isn't really a plot to this movie, in a lot of ways it's more just a series of events that sometimes build upon each other, and in a way this film kind of feels more like real life than most movies.  The problems that Pete and Debbie face have a very unscripted feel to them - with few exceptions - and thus feel very real.  Their fights are about stupid things that blow up out of proportion - I love the major fight that happens midway through and leaves them both questioning why they ever got married and why they're still together.  At first I wasn't as big of a fan of the way that each of them interacted with their fathers - both seemed a bit stereotypical and played out - but as the movie continued and the fights continued, I really got into both of them.

I also really love the kids.  The two children in this movie, Sadie and Charlotte (Maude and Iris Apatow) are actually the children of Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann, and as such the dynamic between them really feels like a sibling dynamic, the lines that they say really feel like something that they would say, and so on.  I loved Sadie's obsession with Lost and, having seen the show, I was waiting for her to watch the end of it all and have a meltdown - and thought that the way they did that was absolutely perfect.

Finally, the thing that really made this movie was the secondary characters.  From the other Knocked Up cast members - Jason Segel, Charlyne Yi, and Tim Bagley all reprise their roles - to the new additions - Melissa McCarthy, Megan Fox, Albert Brooks, John Lithgow, Lena Dunham, and Chris O'Dowd.  It was all great.   None of them necessarily had to be in this movie, but they each brought something great and were hilarious.  I really enjoyed this movie.

Project X (2012)

Starring: Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper, Jonathan Daniel Brown, Kirby Bliss Blanton, Alexis Knapp

Director: Nima Nourizadeh

Genre: Comedy

Rating: C

High school students Costa (Cooper) and J.B. (Brown) have decided to throw a party for friend Thomas (Mann)'s birthday.   Despite their status as, basically losers, they're determined that this is going to be the most epic party of all, and in a tradition of high school movies, they're all determined that they're going to get laid - which is why they invite Alexis (Knapp), the hottest girl in school, and Kirby (Blanton), Thomas' best (female) friend.  Then the party happens, and thanks to an add on Craigslist, it all goes to shit.

It should probably go without saying that this movie is horribly sexist and ridiculously immature.  While I enjoyed some of the stuff that happened - and I thought the friendship between Thomas and Kirby was cute, albeit rather predictable - a lot of the time I was watching it going "are you fucking serious?"  The sad thing is, that while the movie is completely over the top I could see at least some of if happening in real life.  A party that gets way too big and out of hand because some idiot posted it in a public announcement on Facebook or Craigslist? Yeah, I can see that happening - and in fact, since this movie's release, there have been attempts to recreate the film, which just goes to prove that high school students are idiots.

The one thing that I did actually really like about the film was the casting of complete unknowns.  Most of the core cast have had minimal acting experience before - of the four main guys, only one had ever been in a movie before, Thomas Mann, and that experience actually made it harder for him to get a role in this movie.  That being said, I was kind of surprised to hear that they're making a sequel out of this - although, I guess they'll make a sequel out of anything these days.

Friends with Kids (2011)

Starring: Adam Scott, Jennifer Westfeldt, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wigg, Maya Rudolph, Chris O'Dowd, Megan Fox, Edward Burns

Director: Jennifer Westfeldt

Genre: Comedy

Rating: B+

What do you do when you know you want kids, and the significant other, and all that comes with it, but see how miserable all of that has made your closest friends?  This is the problem that two best friends, Jason (Scott) and Julie (Westfeldt) come across.  In their mid-30s they've always been somewhat unsuccessful at dating and have watched as their married friends - the placid Alex (O'Dowd) and Lesliee (Rudolph) and the sex-obsessed Ben (Hamm) and Missy (Wigg) - settle down, have kids, and then appear to become completely miserable.  So Jason and Julie come to a conclusion - the trick is to first have a baby, then find love, and decide that they should have a child.

What I think really helps make this movie so great is the fact that the cast are all friends - or more - and thus the chemistry between the group is really easy and fun - even when the shit is hitting the fan.  The film feels real, although I could have done without the mentioning of Jason and Julie's parents as that awkwardness didn't really add anything (still felt real, just didn't feel necessary).  I actually really loved how none of the characters seem to really have it together, even when they think they do, and each set of couples goes through a point when they think that they're better than their friends - and consequently find out that no, they really aren't.  The one thing that I would have wanted from this film in terms of the cast is a bit more development into the two not-core couples; the dynamics between Rudolph and O'Dowd and Hamm and Wigg are great, and you just kind of want more of them at times.  I also didn't really think that Edward Burns' character needed to be so perfect, it kind of made him out to be a bit of a Mary Sue which was disappointing given how great the rest of the cast was.

I do have to admit, though, that I wasn't a huge fan of the ending.  To me, it kind of felt as though this film was trying to do something different - which I loved - but in the end caved into pressure and went the route that you expected.  It was kind of a cop out, which was just disappointing.  It's not that the ending was bad, per say, just that it wasn't what fit with the tone of the rest of the movie.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Starring: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, James Nesbitt, Ken Stott, Andy Serkis

Director: Peter Jackson

Genre: Adventure, Fantasy

Rating: A-

I wasn't sure whether I was going to like this movie or not going into it - I've never been a huge Lord of the Rings fan, but when I read The Hobbit (something like 15 years ago) I really did enjoy it. I was sure it was going to be good, but I didn't expect to be amazed.  To be honest, that's exactly what happened.  It was good, there were even parts that were great, and it brought my attention to some actors who I doubt I would have ever really noticed without it (notably Dean O'Gorman, who I haven't seen in anything since he was Iolaus in Young Hercules alongside Ryan Gosling), but it didn't really blow me away.  I know, I know, I'm a bad fan of fantasy if I don't love the works of Tolkien, but I don't.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the first instalment of a prequel trilogy to the Lord of the Rings trilogy - and if you sci-fi fantasy fans out there don't instinctively cringe when you hear the words "prequel trilogy" I question you.  Set sixty years prior to the events of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Hobbit tells the story of how the hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Freeman) joined the company of dwarves lead by Thorin Oakenshield (Armitage) on a journey across Middle-earth to reclaim their lost homeland, the Lonely Mountain, from Smaug the dragon.  The dwarves and Bilbo are joined the the wizard Gandalf the Grey (McKellen).  The group comes across Trolls and Orcs on Wargs - the latter who which are hunting specifically for Thorin - Elves, Goblins, and the wizard Radagast the Brown (Sylvester McCoy), who tells of a necromancer at Dol Gulder (played by Benedict Cumberbatch).  Most important of all, however, Bilbo encounters the slimey creature known as Gollum, who carries with him a mysterious ring.

Okay, so I will say this film is fun - in a lot of ways even more so than the Lord of the Rings films were.  There is no dark gloom hanging over our dwarves and hobbit yet, as they embark on an adventure.  They're not trying to save the world, they're trying to kill a dragon and take back a home.  This instantly makes The Hobbit a lot lighter than its predecessor-sequel, a fact that is added to by the way that it's shot - the colours are a lot brighter and cleaner than Lord of the Rings ever was.  There's also a lot more humour here, notably among the dwarves (and their interactions with Bilbo) and Gollum - although Gollum's despair does succeed in bringing a tear to the eye.

I think my favourite part of this movie is the fact that the goal is a lot clearer than in The Hobbit.  I realize that things are about to get a bit murky - what with the ring, and the necromancer, and all - but The Hobbit sets out to be a film about dwarves and a hobbit going to a mountain to fight a dragon, and in the end that's what the series is - or should be - about.  There's other stuff going on too - the ring, the necromancer, the orcs - but the end goal is clear.  You don't feel like anyone is about to stab someone in the back or anything - however unlikely this company is, and however much they might not always like each other, you never feel that they're going to kill each other.  Or at least, not yet.

The thing that I disliked the most about this film, however, is the way it tries to tie into the original series and, more importantly, the way that it utilizes the source material - and strays from the source material.  I might not be the biggest Tolkien fan, but I really don't like seeing people try to add to a work of literature when they make the conversion.  Sure, I understand some things have to get left behind, or merged with other things, but you don't need to add new parts to the story.  The way they did that really bothered me - but then, I suppose if Peter Jackson didn't add to the material, he couldn't as easily make The Hobbit into a trilogy.  I will say that I did really enjoy the way the film used Ian Holm to set up the idea of Bilbo writing a memoir of sorts about his journey, but I don't think that Elijah Wood as Frodo was necessary at all.

Les Misérables (2012)

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen

Director: Tom Hooper

Genre: Musical, Drama, Romance

Rating: A-

Les Misérables follows the life of Jean Valjean (Jackman), a French convict who in 1815 has been released from prison on a parole - he has served a nineteen-year sentence for stealing a loaf of bread and is deemed a violent man.  Initially, Valjean does reoffend, but after an encounter with the Bishop of Digne (Colm Wilkinson) he takes it upon himself to start again and, breaking his parole he abandons his identity as Jean Valjean and starts new.  Prison guard, Javert (Crowe) finds out about Valjean's broken parole and vows to hunt the man down.  Eight years later, Valjean is a factory owner and the mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer.  Working for him is the lovely Fantine (Hathaway), who is discovered to be sending money to her illegitimate daughter Cosette (initially Isabelle Allen, but later Seyfried), who lives with the Thénardiers (Baron Cohen and Bonham Carter).  Despite being hunted by Javert, Valjean takes it on himself to help Fatine and her daughter.

There are a few problems with Les Mis.  One is that it both moves too quickly and too slowly - it's a long movie and at times feels it, but things still move forward really fast.  There was nothing that I felt could have been taken out, everything had a point, while there were things that I could have seen being added, although still, long movie.  The second problem is that the singing isn't necessarily the best.  The film is essentially sung-through with almost no straight dialogue, but the actors are not exactly known for their singing.  Adding to this is the fact that the singing is done live, instead of in a studio, which leads to mixed results.  In the case of some of the actors - Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, etc - this has a neutral result, neither adding nor taking away from the actual play.  In the case of Russell Crowe, it kind of takes away from things as his voice isn't really suited for this kind of performance.  I know that Russell Crowe is a singer as well as an actor, but I don't think he's a stage performer and that's what's kind of required in this role.  It's sad because he totally fit the role of Javert, but his voice didn't.  I had similar issue with Hugh Jackman - no problem with his actual singing voice and thought that his physical acting was superb, but I don't think his singing really sold the emotion that he was trying to convey.

This critique, however, is in strong contrast to the absolutely amazing performances of Anne Hathaway and Samantha Barks.  Barks plays Éponine and she just absolutely amazed me in her performance - although she does have an advantage to some of the other actors in that while she is somewhat unknown in film, she's a stage actress and has played Éponine before.  Her performance of "On My Own" absolutely amazed me.  Anne Hathaway doesn't have such a background (although her mother did play the same role in the first U.S. Tour of Les Mis), and yet blew me away with her performance.  I wasn't too sure about it at first, but the more time she spent on screen the more I loved her, and the weakness and raw emotion that she displayed wowed me.  While I loved Barks' "On My Own" Hathaway's "I Dreamed a Dream" brought tears to my eyes.  It was superb.

The other thing that I really loved about this film was the sheer transformation of some of the actors.  In the opening shot, I didn't recognize Hugh Jackman at all.  While he does clean up, the man that he in those first scenes haunts the man that he is later on.  Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen were constantly changing to adapt to their surroundings, but in a comedic way (that was really needed in this film) that ensured you always knew who they were.  They brought their own personalities to the roles in a way that just perfectly fit.  Once again, however, top props has to go to Anne Hathaway, who just seemed to completely transform here.  She starts the film as this beautiful, rather out-of-place woman, and descends into this mess of a woman with this horrible hair (it looks better on Hathaway in real life, but in the film it's bad), blotchy face, and bloody teeth.  It's probably Hathaway's biggest transformation to date and just.. yeah.  I honestly believe that she deserves to win every award she is nominated for because of this role.

Bachelorette (2012)

Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Isla Fisher, Lizzy Caplan, James Marsden, Kyle Bornheimer, Rebel Wilson, Adam Scott

Director: Leslye Headland

Genre: Comedy

Rating: B

What do you do when your "fat friend" gets married before you?  This is the problem presented in Bachelorette, as three friends, Regan (Dunst), Gena (Caplan), and Katie (Fisher) come to terms with the impending marriage of their "fat friend," Becky (Wilson).  Regan, the maid of honour, has always thought that she would be the first to marry, and is particularly devastated.  Gena, is insecure in her life, possibly addicted to drugs, and not yet over her ex-boyfriend, Clyde (Scott), who will be at the wedding.  Gena, really, is just a bitch.  After a fight with the bride the night before the wedding the trio get drunk and do cocaine, lament about their lives and the wedding, and decide to play with the wedding dres.  This all goes horribly wrong when they manage to rip the dress in two, and the night is spent in a mad scramble to try to fix it.

Going into this, I wasn't particularly sure about the film.  The three leads aren't exactly likeable, and I found the humour to be more offensive than funny.  Then the dress rips and the mad scramble starts and things really start to fall into place.  I really enjoyed the mad scramble and I found that with a goal in mind the characters all really seemed to become more likeable.  I never really wanted to embrace Isla Fisher's Gena - at the end, she was still really just a bitch, although I must say I didn't outright hate her or anything.  I loved Lizzy Caplan, though.  At the start she was the only character who I thought I might like, then I didn't, then I absolutely loved her.  Hers was the journey that made the most sense and was the most fun - but then, anything that includes "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by The Proclaimers is awesome.  In the end, though, I found Dunst's character to be the most intriguing. It's really your typical story of a girl who appears to have everything, but really has nothing, but I still like what they did with it.

This movie gets a lot of comparison to The Hangover and Bridesmaids.  In my opinion it's a far better female equivalent of The Hangover than Bridesmaids ever was.  Where Bridesmaids is about women hating each other and fighting over whose the best bridesmaid, The Hangover series is about guys getting drunk and having an adventure before a wedding, with hilarious results - while Bachelorette does have a good amount of infighting among the bridesmaids and with the bride, the key element here is the pre-wedding adventure, with hilarious results.  It's a movie centred around a wedding, but also not centred around the wedding, and that's really why I enjoyed it.  It was fun.

Love Actually (2003)

Starring: Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Keira Knightley, Martine McCutcheon, Bill Nighy, Rowan Atkinson, Lúcia Moniz, Thomas Sangster, Gregor Fisher, Andrew Lincoln, Kris Marshall, Heike Makatsch, Martin Freeman, Joanna Page

Director: Richard Curtis

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Rating: A

"Let's go get the shit kicked out of us by love"

Love is all around.  That is, very literally, the message of the 2003 film Love Actually.  The thing is, however, that this film isn't just about romantic love, although that does feature rather heavily, as it looks at the love between lovers, friends, and family.  There's even the loss of love and unrequited love and the whole shebang.  Love is all around.

The film follows a collection of people, all intricately connected to one another.  David (Grant) is the newly elected Prime Minister of Great Britain, and develops an attraction for a new junior member of his staff, Natalie (McCutcheon).  David's sister, Karen (Thompson), is having problems in her marriage - although she's not entirely aware of it yet - as her husband, Harry (Rickman) is enticed by his flirtatious new secretary Mia (Makatsch).  Also working for Harry is Sarah (Linney) and Karl (Rodrigo Santoro).  Sarah is in love with Karl and has been since she started working at the company, although neither she nor Karl have made any moves yet.  Karen's friend Daniel (Neeson) is newly widowed and unsure of how to help his stepson Sam (Sangster), who has fallen in love with classmate Joanna (Olivia Olson).  Sarah's friend Jamie (Firth) has discovered that his girlfriend is sleeping with his brother and in order to deal he retires to his French cottage, where he meets Aurélia (Moniz), who only speaks Portuguese.  Jamie and Sarah both attended the wedding of Juliet (Knightley) and Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor).  Juliet has long thought that Peter's best friend Mark (Lincoln) hated her, when in actuality he's been in love with her this whole time.  Also at the wedding is Colin (Marshall), a British man who has decided to go to America where his accent will instantly make him a hit with the ladies.  His friend Tony (Abdul Salis) doesn't believe this is the best idea.  Tony is the production assistant of a film where John (Freeman) and Judy (Page) are body doubles for a sex scene.  Overseeing it all is rock and roll legend Billy Mack (Nighy)'s attempt to have a #1 Christmas hit, a variation of The Troggs' "Love is all Around".  Billy Mack's one friend is his longtime manager Joe (Fisher).  Oh, also, there's minor character Rufus (Atkinson) who provides a couple antics and was initially supposed to be a Christmas angel before being dropped as such - I still like to think of him as one.

This is the kind of film that movies like New Years Eve, Valentine's Day, and What to Expect When You're Expecting all try to be.  Centred around one common theme it tells the story of a bunch of different people who are all connected but at the same time unrelated.  There's the perfect amount of characters here, with the story focusing heavily on some and not so heavily on others.  There are no real twists, you can see the endings that end up happening coming for miles, but it's not really a movie that needs twists.  Each of the storylines is absolutely awesome and each of the characters is great.  Even John and Judy, who get the briefest of scenes, have the feel of being these thoroughly developed characters.  You know that they exist outside of the sex acts that they're miming.

The other thing that I really like about the film is that while you can see the endings coming, some of them aren't necessarily the ones that you want to see happen.  I always feel a but guilty as I watch the Mark/Juliet/Peter triangle, because no matter how much I know Juliet and Peter are in love and even though I think Peter's a great guy, I want Juliet to leave him and hook up with Mark.  At the same time, I want Harry to smarten up and be with his wife.  I don't care so much about some plots - like the Colin one, which I think was just for laughs, or the Sam one, which I think is a bit cliched - but Love Actually is more than just the sum of its parts.  It's just sheer awesomeness.

In addition to being a story about love, this is also a comedy, to which it does so rather nicely.  The amount of comedy is different in each plot, and to an extent so is the style, but somehow it works here.  Even with their differences, they all seem to work well together, they mesh like a really good collage - like a puzzle depicting a picture of Mickey made out of a bunch of smaller images of scenes from Disney movies.  The one-liners keep on coming in this one, as do the little scenes that are just hilarious.  If you haven't seen this movie yet, I recommend you at least look up the image of Hugh Grant dancing to "Jump (For My Love" by The pointer Sisters.

The Ledge

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Terrence Howard, Liv Tyler, Christopher Gorham, Patrick Wilson

Director: Matthew Chapman

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Rating: C

Athiest Gavin Nichols (Hunnam) is about to commit suicide by jumping off a ledge.  Detective Hollis Lucetti (Howard), who is having a particularly bad day to begin with, is responsible for negotiating with Gavin and attempting to get him to come down.  Over the course of the film the story goes back and forth between the present and the past, following the events that lead to these two men being there - for Hollis, it's what happened after he discovered that he's sterile and his kids aren't his kids, and for Gavin it's the development of a relationship with his neighbour, Shana (Tyler), who is married to the Christian fundamentalist Joe (Wilson).

Okay, so to start, I loved the ending of this film.  It wasn't what I expected at all, and I love how they decided to just go with it.  I really liked it.

The ending was probably the only thing that I liked about the film, though.  I found the characters portrayed by both Hunnam and Wilson to be unlikable - I thought that both of them were trying to go to great lengths to offend the other, which in turn just offended me.  It bothered me that the whole thing was based on the idea that the two of them were going to be trying to force their religious beliefs (or lack-thereof) on the other, and then that Hunnam's character decided to sleep with Shana in an attempt to get back at Wilson's character for being religious.  In the end, I think I really understood Wilson's character's motivation the most.  Even though I didn't support him, or even like him, at all, I could at least see his reasoning.

As for Terrence Howard's character... I really didn't see how his back story was relevant to the rest of the film.  It was unnecessary and kind of stupid.  That being said, I did really like the way that they handled the actual negotiation.  I liked the relationship that was built between Howard and Hunnam.  Asides from the conclusion, that was possibly the best part of the film.  There was this potential here, and they just kind of wasted it.

Man on a Ledge (2012)

Starring: Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Jamie Bell, Anthony Mackie, Génesis Rodríguez, Ed Harris

Director: Asger Leth

Genre: Psychological Thriller, Crime, Action

Rating: C+

I suspect I enjoyed this movie a lot more than I should have.  By which I mean, I enjoyed this movie when I realize that it wasn't really all that good.  It's fun and the action is good and the tension is definitely there - although, I'm absolutely terrified of heights, which I suspect played a lot into that.  This movie really freaked me out, but I'm like that.

Man on a Ledge follows Nick Cassidy (Worthington), a former cop and an escaped convict.  He was imprisoned for stealing a $40 million diamond from David Englander (Harris), which he swears he did not do.  At the start of Ledge Nick checks into the Roosevelt Hotel under a false name, goes to his room on the 21st floor, and steps out onto the ledge.  When negotiators arrive, he insists that he will only talk to negotiator Lydia Mercer (Banks), a negotiator who is on leave of absence following a failed negotiation leading to the suicide of a policeman a month earlier.  Unbeknownst to the police, while Nick is distracting them his brother Joey (Bell) and Joey's girlriend Angie (Rodríguez) are on the building across the street, planning on breaking into Englander's vault to prove Nick's innocence.

So... yeah.  The plot is a bit much, and at no point does it enter into believe-ability.  From how he escapes from prison to the whole heist, and the general plan to clear his name, is just all over the top.  It's just... yeah.  It's kind of all over the place.  I think the idea in general was an interesting one, but the way they did it was a bit preposterous and just too much.  You have to suspend your disbelief a lot in order to follow it, although I will grant that it does play in rather nicely to the theme of "corrupt cop" that movies tend to like.

I think the thing that makes this movie really work for me, however, is the dramatic tension between Banks and Worthington.  Regardless of how believable the rest of the film is, I really believed her character.  Her motivations were real, her struggles were real.  She really wanted to help him, whoever he might have been.  I believed that, although I think it went too extreme at the en.  The whole "corrupt cop" plot didn't work well and kind of jeopardized the loveability of Banks' character.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012)

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Ashley Greene, Mackenzie Foy, Michael Sheen, Dakota Fanning, Billy Burke

Director: Bill Condon

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Rating: C+

I take back my earlier proclamation of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse being my favourite movie in this series.  Having now seen them all, I can say without a doubt that The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 is my favourite. It's the most dramatic, the best acted, and really the most solid film in the series.  There's still a lot that's a bit ridiculous, but it's solid.  You can also kind of tell that they've really put a lot of money into this one,  especially in regards to the special effects.  The cast really don't look like they're covered in pancake makeup anymore, the wigs look better, and so on.  I do question some of the outfits - and how turning into a vampire gave Kristen Stewart fake eyelashes - but it's a lot better than the earlier films.

Breaking Dawn opens with Bella (Stewart) having changed into a vampire and going on her first hunt with husband Edward (Pattinson).  Bella must adapt to being a vampire and the pair must adapt to being parents (while also still being newlyweds), to their human-vampire hybrid daughter, Renesmee, nicknamed Nessie (played first by a creepy CGI baby, then by Mackenzie Foy).  Early problems that arise are werewolf Jacob (Lautner) having imprinted on Nessie, Bella's feeding, all the sex that they can now have, Nessie's rapid aging and the potential consequences of it, and what to tell Bella's father, Charlie (Burke).  Then fellow vampire Irina (Maggie Grace) sees Renesmee and, assuming that she is an immortal child, tells the Volturi that the Cullens have broken the vampire law.  Alice (Greene) sees a vision of the Volturi coming to punish the Cullens, setting them on the path to trying to stop them.  The family head travel throughout the world in an attempt to gather up enough witnesses to prevent the Volturi from simply massacring them all.  Then Alice and her lover Jasper (Rathbone) disappear, leading the Cullens to believe that it means that they are doomed to die.  The question is, whether or not they can survive the meeting with the Volturi.

So, yeah.  A lot of the earlier cheese of the films is gone.  The general problems have been resolved, and things that are silly have either been largely dropped or so accepted so as to no longer really be an issue.  One of the things that I liked most about this film was that Edward really chilled out here.  There's no conflict between him and Bella, there's no whining about her being a human (because she isn't), or about him needing to protect her (because he doesn't), or what how.  For the first time the two are treated as equals.  There's also absolutely no conflict between Edward and Jacob; the two are completely on the same side, which is great. It makes the plot so much less annoying.

The cheese that does remain is funny.  Bella as a vampire? Funny.  Bella learning that Jacob imprinted on Renesme and nicknamed her Nessie? Hilarious. There's more to it than just that, and it's all great.  This movie is probably the funniest of the series, and intentionally so.  The many other vampires that they introduce here are far better than the ones that we've gotten used to over the course of the series.  There are so many, it's hard to pick a favourite - I think the Russians, Vladimir (Noel Fisher) and Stefan (Guri Weinberg), although Lee Pace's Garret is also great.

Another thing that I really liked is the opening and closing credits.   I thought the opening credits were really well done in general, and nicely fit the theme for the series.  In particular, I enjoyed how the cast names changed from red - representing the human - to white - representing the vampire.  I thought it was a cool touch.  For the closing credits I actually really enjoyed how they credited people from all five movies - Bella's human family and friends, the Cullens and their vampire friends and family, the Volturi, the Pack and other Quileute people.  I thought it was a nice touch, a "these are the people that helped us get to this point."

The rest of this contains spoilers.  My absolute favourite part of the movie, and my least favourite part, is the actual face off with the Volturi.  Michael Sheen is probably one of the best actors that has appeared in this series, which says a lot because really there are some good actors here.  The ending in the books is kind of lame.  There's a point in the conflict when Alice returns and shows Aro a vision, then Aro and the Volturi back down and the conflict is resolved.  There's no fighting, no deaths, no nothing.  In the movie, however, we see Alice's vision, without realizing that it's a vision.  As a result, there's this epic battle full of great fight sequences and a lot of deaths.  There's a lot more emotion in this one scene than in the rest of the series.  The thing that got me about the Twilight books is that it never made me cry.  There was no sacrifice in the books.  This apparent ending, however, is so drastically different from the books that as people start dying I realized just how emotionally invested I had become and how attached I was to the characters.  There was also a moment when it happened that I couldn't help but think that the ending of the movie was going to be a giant fuck you to author Stephenie Meyer, who has said (about The Host) that she's not sure how she feels about killing off characters.  There's a lot about these movies, especially in the promotions for it, that make it rather apparent that the cast don't really like the books or movies themselves and for a moment I really felt like this was the cast and crew's way of really vocalizing that thought. It ended up not being that, but for a moment as we see Alice's vision and don't realize that's what it is I was thinking that this ending was so much better than the one Stephenie Meyer wrote. It didn't end up being the ending, but it was fun while it lasted.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011)

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Ashley Greene, Billy Burke 

Director: Bill Condon

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Rating: C+

These movies somehow seem to just get more and more ridiculous with each passing film.  The thing that I really like about The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 is that it does away with the ridiculous melodrama of the love triangle and introduces new ridiculous melodrama.  The new melodrama is still really rather lame, but it's such a relief to be done with the love triangle bullshit.

Breaking Dawn opens with the prelude to the wedding of the human Bella Swan (Stewart) and her vampire lover Edward Cullen (Pattinson).  Werewolf, best friend, and former would-be-lover Jacob Black (Lautner) is very upset about this and laments the impending loss of Bella's humanity - and is outright pissed off when he realizes that Bella and Edward intend to go on their honeymoon before Bella is turned.  This honeymoon plan turns to be rather screwy for them all, as during it Bella gets pregnant with Edward's baby.  The rest of this movie then deals with the vampires and werewolves each dealing with the consequences of this impending birth.

Soo, yeah.  Ridiculous melodrama.  But somehow it's funny ridiculous melodrama.  Once again, the cast seems to know that the basic concept of this movie is silly and they just go with it.  Once again, I'm going to say that they're all better actors than people give them credit for for not laughing half the time in this movie.  Especially the scene where Bella discovers she's pregnant.  The fact that they were able to play that straight makes them far better actors than we like to give them credit for.

The real strong part of this movie is the fact that it moves on from the love triangle while maintaining that continuity.  Jacob is still in love with Bella and he still makes it clear that he loves her and he will always protect her, but he is no longer trying to win her.  He knows he's lost and he's accepting that, or at least trying to.  There's no more Bella being annoyed with him for hitting on her, or struggling to make a decision between him and Edward.  There's also the fact that Edward seems to have truly accepted Jacob as a part of Bella's, and by extension his, life.  I kind of felt like this whole plot lasted at least a movie longer than it needed to, so I was happy to be done with it.

The weak point in this movie is how they tried to draw suspense out of things that I don't think were really all that suspenseful.  There is suspense in this movie - especially pertaining to the likelihood of Bella's survival and what this child is going to be like - but what they try to make suspenseful isn't.  Like whether or not drinking blood is going to be helpful to Bella.  Not suspenseful, don't cue the drawn out sequences and music.  You know what was suspenseful?  The way the movie ends - at least until you see the trailer for the next film.  That kind of killed that.

Lincoln (2012)

Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Halbrook, Tommy Lee Jones

Director: Steven Spielberg

Genre: Biography, Drama, Historical

Rating: A

"Do you think we choose the times into which we are born? Or do we fit the times we are born into?"

This movie is going to win Oscars.  That's my prediction.  It's really kind of obvious that it was going to get nominations - this is the type of film that is made for the purpose of winning awards.  Usually I'm a bit iffy about that type of film and find them to be a bit hit or miss, assuming I even go to see them.  But the trailers for Lincoln caught my attention, as did the cast, so I decided to give it a chance and went in expecting good things.  I'm so glad I did, because Lincoln met and exceeded every expectation I had.  This movie was great.  Absolutely amazing.

Lincoln is based on the biography Team of Rivals: The Politicial Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin and follows the life of Abraham Lincoln (Day-Lewis) during the final months of his life as he pushes the Thirteenth Amendment forward.  This is a heavy issue and Lincoln faces opposition from within his own party, the Republicans, and his opposition, the Democrats.  Lincoln shows just how much Lincoln had to push in order to make this work and how he struggled to make the amendment happen.  Hanging over it all is the ongoing American Civil War and the fact that Lincoln is being pushed in many ways regarding that; the founder of the Republican Party, Francis Preston Blair (Halbrook), is pushing Lincoln to meet with representatives from the Confederate States and negotiate a peace, the Radical Republicans, lead by Thaddeus Stevens (Jones) want more and fear Lincoln will turn his back on emancipation, his eldest son Robert (Gordon-Levitt) is anxious to be allowed to enlist, while his wife Mary (Field), who isn't exactly mentally stable, is strongly opposed to Robert being allowed to enlist.  Aiding him is his somewhat reluctant Secretary of State, William H. Seward (Straitharn) and the morally questionably operative William N. Bilbo (Spader) - whose name made me think of The Hobbit everytime it was said.

The one thing I disliked about this movie was the way that it inconsistently made note of people, dates, and places.  Despite being really interested in history, the American Civil War is a period that I've never really studied - I'm not an American, and thus never really studied American history in school.  Consequently, I was really unaware on a lot of the specifics about dates, locations, and names - I knew the gist of it going in, but not a lot.  I really appreciated the little titles pointing out who different people were, or were they were, or what date it was - I thought each thing was really important to the story and added some clarification for viewers who don't know the history.  What I disliked, however, was that it was very inconsistent.  The film repeatedly tells you who the three Confederate negotiators are, but doesn't really provide as much information, if any, regarding the Republicans and Democrats who play a far greater role in the story.  I actually had to look online to find the names of the some of the characters, notably Fernando Wood (Lee Pace), who really serves as the primary antagonist in the film.

Asides from that inconsistency, however, I really thought this film was damn near perfect.  The pacing was great, the dialogue as great, the monologues were even better.  Even though I knew how the whole thing ended I was still anxious and worried about whether or not Lincoln would manage to pull through.  Possibly because it's telling a story that the audience is assumed to already know Lincoln is as much a character movie as it is about the history at play here.  Lincoln, obviously, is the main focus here and the insight that Lincoln provides into this man is just awesome.  I absolutely loved his monologues and the ways in which his stories revealed a lot about him.  Other characters that really shined here are that of Thaddeus Stevens - who got in a few good monologues as well - Mary Todd Lincoln, and Robert Todd Lincoln.  You really got to see the problems within the Lincoln family, and the struggles that they each face as the result of the position that Abraham Lincoln achieved.  In a way the title Lincoln can be seen as referring not just to Abraham, but also his wife and two surviving sons - Lincoln's youngest son, Tad (Gulliver McGrath), is also portrayed and while you get to see a lot less of who he is you really get to see the relationship between father-and-son here, and the stark contrast between that father-son relationship and the relationship that Lincoln had with Robert.

The other thing that I really liked about this film was the way it started and ended.  The start has has Lincoln listening to two soldiers recite him the Gettysburg Address in a way that is both awesome and funny at the same time.  The ending is a flashback to Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.  I really liked the way that these two speeches really bookended each other and the contrast in how they were done - one is one of the most famous speeches Lincoln ever gave and is told to him, and the viewer, by two nameless soldiers.  The other is one that at least in my understanding is less famous but is told by him and really nicely wraps up the film.  This one is definitely worth seeing.

3,2,1... Frankie Go Boom (2012)

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Chris O'Dowd, Lizzy Caplan, Nora Dunn, Whitney Cummings, Ron Perlman, Chris Noth, Sam Anderson

Director: Jordan Roberts

Genre: Comedy

Rating: B

Frankie (Hunnam) has always been the focus of two things: his brother's pranks and his brother's films.  These pranks have lead to some disastrous results, notably when he became a Youtube sensation following a disastrous incident at what was supposed to be his wedding.  Wedding called off, Frankie withdrew to the desert and did his best to cut off all ties with his family.  That is, until his brother, Bruce (O'Dowd), is released from rehab and his parents (Dunn and Anderson) insist that Frankie come to the reunion.  Bruce has decided that he wants to become a director, and his favourite person to focus on is his brother.  Frankie wants no part in it, but when he finds out that Bruce secretly filmed an encounter that Frankie had with Lassie (Caplan), Frankie must embark on a journey to regain his dignity.

This journey is what makes this film absolutely awesome, as Frankie comes up repeatedly against the not exactly sane people that inhabit his brother's world - notably rather deranged actor Jack (Noth), and the transsexual Phiyllis (Perlman).  Each character in this film is really a character - most of them you suspect might be mentally unstable and a good portion of them who you really hope aren't supposed to be realistic depictions of people, even if some of them do kind of remind you of people you know - and their actions are both hilarious and infuriating at the same time.  It's very easy to relate with Hunnam's character because the events that happen to him are in a way so clear cut that it's hard not to be mad at Bruce.  At the same time, however, once you write Bruce off as not all there mentally it becomes easier to try to make allowances for his behaviour, even when he crosses the line - which he does multiple times.

The thing that I really liked about 3,2,1... Frankie Go Boom was just how unconventional it is.  It addresses issues that, while you might see addressed normally, don't get touched on to the great length that Frankie touches on them.  I mean, it's a movie that combines the power of the internet and viral videos with hidden sex tapes and erectile dysfunction.  And on top of all that it also has this great love story underneath it.  You never really care about most of the characters in this film - you aren't rooting for Bruce or Jack or Phiyllis - but there isn't any addition to it that could have been done away with.  You are rooting for Frankie and Lassie, and they need Bruce, Jack, and Phiyllis in order to make their story work.  Plus, you can't go wrong with Ron Perlman as a transsexual.