Hail, Caesar!

    This last spring I was lucky enough to sit in for a Q&A with Joel Coen. The Coen Brothers are one of my favorite directors and I reference them often in this blog. So when asked about his next project and Joel described a movie called Hail, Caesar! about George Clooney being abducted by a group of extras, I was thrilled. I finally saw Hail, Ceasar! last weekend on a Valentine's date with my Mom. I was not thrilled.

    So let's get this clear. The movie is not awful. It's not Battleship or some other Hasbro garbage. But is not a good movie for them and is one of my least favorites by them. I like the visuals, the jokes, and the acting. But there were some key story elements that did not happen. For example, there's a plot line that involves a dastardly act George Clooney's character did on his first Hollywood film. The act was revealed at the end of the movie in an offscreen conversation and written out quickly. Additionally a lot of the characters don't have purpose or a desire, other than create work for Josh Brolin's character Eddie Mannix.

                                                            Mannix is the protagonist of this twisty, seemingly meaningless comedy-drama. That description in itself shows how scattered the characters are. Huge stars like Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, and Scarlett Johansson pop in and out of the story with very little to do and loose ends that get tied up by a simple walk and talk with Eddie Mannix in the last five minutes.

The only actor who is given any other meaningful screen time is Alden Ehrenreich who gives a marvelous performance as country good ole boy Hobie Doyle. Hobie is a stud with horses but is brought into a adapted play directed by Ralph Fiennes' Lawrence Lawrence. The scene provides the only true moment of comedy of the whole film with an endearing Hobie and the artist Lawrence. 

  

     Now at the Q&A I learned about Hail, Caesar! before while it was shooting. This could be me only hearing what I wanted to hear but I could have sworn that Joel Coen said that Hail, Caesar! was going to be a musical.

     It fits with the current cut of the movie. There are large musical interludes with Channing Tatum, Scarlett Johansson, and Alden Ehrenreich and music and old Hollywood is a big theme. Additionally the explanation of major off screen plot points through dialogue would make sense if these were originally supposed to be shown in a musical number. Channing Tatum's character is given a full length musical number and then has no dialogue until what seems to be the climactic scene. And this climactic scene has absolutely no context. 

     I think Hail, Caesar! was supposed to be in a musical and somewhere in the production that was cut. What was left was a hodge podge of actors, characters, and story lines tied together by Eddie Mannix and Roger Deakins.

Jupiter Asending

Jupiter Ascending, released February 6th, can be added to the list of box office failures that sare seemingly hitting theaters nonstop in early 2015. Directed by the Wachowski Siblings(Lana Wachowski and Andy Wachowski), this film was expected to be a must see sci-fi action adventure for moviegoers, with the latest visual effects and all-star cast. Sadly, this was not at all the case. The first week was an absolute disaster for the film. With an estimated 200 million dollar budget, opening weekend brought in under 50 million dollars in both domestic and foreign theaters.

(Here comes the plot summary. Try to bare with me)
This film is about a woman named Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) who is a struggling cleaning woman for rich residents of the city of Chicago. One day, during a routine surgery operation, she is attacked by aliens that are posed as human doctors. Luckily she is saved by an alien adventurer by the name of Caine Wise (Channing Tatem). We then find out that an alien prince by the name of Balem (Eddie Redmayne) wants Jupiter dead so that he can inherit a production plant on the planet Jupiter and rights to the Earth. If she is left to live Balem will not receive his inheritance due to the fact that Jupiter is a genetic reincarnation of his mother, the recently deceased matriarch of his house. The movie follows the many attempts made by the royal family to kill Jupiter or trick her out of her ownership of the Earth. The movie concludes when Balem is killed by Jupiter and she returns to the Earth. We then realize she is going to continue living her life as an everyday house cleaner, not at all acknowledging that she is the supposed queen of Earth.

The plot is outrageously hard to follow while watching the movie. Even after I saw the film I needed to read multiple plot summaries from various websites to try and half understand what was going on. Another aspect of this movie that had a negative impact on the overall quality was the ridiculous dialogue. There were many scenes that were supposed to either be epic or romantic but if the viewer paid any attention to what the characters were saying the effects were ruined. For example, in one scene that is supposed to have a mystical effect a side character by the name of Stinger Apini (Sean Bean) is explaining to Jupiter how she is the Queen of the Earth. During this scene a swarm of bees surrounds Jupiter without touching her. Apini then says that bees were put on Earth to sense royalty, and that is why she was not stung. Seriously?! This is an actual interaction between two characters in this movie. The dialogue is poorly written and is only interesting in a shocking humorous way.

Sure, this film looks really good. The animation and visual effects are spot on, but that is quite honestly all this film has going for it. The acting was also slightly underwhelming. I was really hoping that with such a star studded cast there would be something to look forward to, especially from Eddie Redmayne who is nominated for an Oscar for his performance in The Theory of Everything. Those hopes were crushed when he began speaking in a ridiculous and dry voice that he maintained for the entire movie. Tate and Kunis did not do a terrible job; however, their performances in no way added to the film.

To be quite honest I was very disappointed with this movie as a whole. Besides the expensive budget and flashy visual effects there was not much going for the film. Yes, there were big name actors; however, their performances were all adequate at best. The plot was extremely confusing. Every time there was an advancement in the story it was forced and usually made little to no logical sense, even for a science fiction film. I would not recommend wasting the money to see this film in theaters.

3/10

The Draw of Nicholas Sparks

Nicholas Sparks has become a household name all over the country.  He is known for writing some of the most moving stories about love and life.  Yes love, it seems so cliché nowadays.  The perception of love in modern society has been skewed in our minds to being impossible to find or just a journey of constant heartbreak.  For many of us though, this perception seems about right.  However, when I watch one of his films or read his books, I find myself in awe of the beautiful writing and characters that keep me locked in the moments of what we all wish to experience one day.  His most famous books to date are The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, Dear John, The Lucky One, Safe Haven, and The Last Song.  Having seen all of them, I have found myself asking what it is about his works that make such an impact on myself and others that other movies in particular do not.  So in asking that question, I have broken it down into two reasons of why Nicholas Sparks’ movies are so successful.

The Main Characters & Actors

            To state the obvious, EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL! You have Ryan Gossling and Rachel McAdams in The Notebook, Shane West and Mandy Moore in A Walk to Remember, Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried in Dear John, Zac Efron and Taylor Schilling in The Lucky One, Josh Duhmel and Julianne Hough in Safe Haven, and Liam Hemsworth and Miley Cyrus in The Last Song.  Woah!  Im not sure I know too many people who don’t fantasize about at least one of these actors or actresses frequently which only adds to the impact of the story but of course doesn’t make it.  The characters that each actor or actress plays seem to hold the perfect qualities in a human that every girl or boy wishes they could find. Though maybe not from the start, eventually they evolve and build our likeness for the person more and more throughout the movie.  They help us get lost in their emotions and draw us into their situations so it’s as if we are there.  They seem to represent something we want so badly in our lives personally and makes us feel like it is in arms reach.

Also, not only does he create these beautiful characters that we cant help but love, he creates characters that we cant help but hate or make us sad or mad.  Whether the character is sick, dying, abusive, or you name it, they become this barrier that must be broken down and creates a struggle not only for the characters in the film but also for the audience.  Our connections with these characters make us feel protective of them. Emotions suddenly start building as soon as things don’t go the way we want which brings us on the love journey in the first place.

The Plotline

            After reading several of Nicholas Sparks’ books and watching just about every single movie, of which many he wrote and produced himself as well, I have realized that most of his stories are based on a similar storyline.  There are the two characters who want to be with one another however, someone or something gets in the way. Yes sounds like any other love story, yet each story has these hidden meanings that we don’t initially catch from the beginning that surprise us in the end. Nicholas Sparks has mastered the skill of portraying a scene in such a way that he convinces us that we know what is going to happen and in the end then proves us wrong.  Theres the first meeting, then the connection, the conflict, the surprise, then the ending, and a lot more in between. 

Nicholas Sparks’ ability to write great characters and stories that resonate to many lives is the reason why I believe he is so successful. 

21 Jump Street

So this weekend I saw The Sitter- which was okay. It reminded me a lot a Superbad and just replaced Michael Cera's part with three kids. But anyways I was pretty interested in the trailers before the movie.

One was 21 Jump Street featuring a skinny, blonde Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. I'm super excited about this pairing cause it's so bizarre. And I'm thinking this is going to be better than The Sitter because Jonah is going to have someone funnier to play off of (because the kids in The Sitter were so-so) and Channing Tatum, while not as raunchy or as funny as Jonah at all has the potential to be really good at this. What's also exciting about this movie is that Nick Offerman from Parks and Recreation plays the boss of Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum and I have no doubt that he will do as good a job in this movie as he does in Parks and Rec every week. And I know really little about the original show 21 Jump Street with Johnny Depp but apparently this new movie strays far from the original show. And I also found out that the directors of this: Chris Miller and Phil Lord were producers on Awesometown (for any hardcore Lonely Island fans like myself) and thought that was pretty exciting.