Warm Bodies, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never and Savage Grace

In the order viewed:

Warm Bodies (2013) Dir. Jonathan Levine

Viewed: Amazon Prime

I really, really, really wanted to see this in the theater when it first came out. I actually made plans with my mom, but I ended up moving unexpectedly and never had the chance to.  I am really glad I didn’t waste money on this. 

The idea is so great! I love zombies and love, how can this not be amazing? :yawn:  The story fell flat very quickly and escalated to borderline cheesy.  There has to be some splinter of reality in movies like this, and it failed miserably.

I mean…what girl quickly moves on from the death of her longtime boyfriend to the zombie who ate him? And, really… Holding hands saved the world and reversed the zombie disease?

The one thing I liked about this movie was the setting. It was clever and realistic, especially the zombies in the airport. They might be on to something with that, I mean the zombies wandering endlessly around the airport didn’t differ much from an airport full of living people. Perhaps without love, we are all zombies.

Overall this is one of the worst zombie movies I have seen. It also was not much of a rom-com either.

Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (2011) Dir. Jon M. Chu

Viewed: Netflix

I am not sure what I expected going into this; guess way too much concert footage and a poorly made documentary, but I was pleasantly surprised by the flow of the story and the balance with concert footage.

Overall, the film was fairly traditional in its approach to documentary with sit-downs speckled with a decent amount of run-and-gun footage.  It was really interesting to learn about the young Biebs. I never knew he was a talented drummer, which was really cool to learn.

The only weird part was that Biebs was always in front of the camera, but never really commented on his own life. There was no interview with him, which made it a bit voyeuristic. I guess stalker fans like that sort of thing, so it worked.

I felt like this was a great story to share, it is hopeful.  As much as the world has this polarized view of teen pop stars, it is really incredible how he was discovered on youtube. JB is a trailblazer of new media.

I was very impressed with the ending, it really tied up all the loose ends I had while watching and rewarded my anticipation for the “Baby: Song, Ludacris, and seeing Will Smith’s kid rap.

Savage Grace (2013) Dir. Tom Kalin

Viewed: Amazon Prime

I was stoked to see this film about incest and was expecting a goodie from the festival record it had with Sundance and Cannes.

I got so bored I couldn’t watch. Even the incest scenes were lackluster.

I can’t even give a good review because I started messing around on my phone instead of watching.

Head-to-Head

Incest vs the teen heartthrob vs. zombie love.

Interesting combo. Savage looked great the cinematography was very portrait like and the costumes were beautiful, but even if you put gold glitter on cat shit it is still cat shit.

I guess the battle really is between Bieber Fever and Zombie love. I feel like one epidemic seemed more realistic even if there was no cure.  

Medal Ceremony

Bronze- Savage Grace

Silver- Warm Bodies

Gold- Justin Bieber: Never Say Never

Much Ado About Nothing, The Bling Ring and The Kings of Summer

Shakespeare, Hermione, Teenage Boyz…OH MY!

In the order viewed:

Much Ado About Nothing (2013) Dir. Joss Whedon

Viewed: Movie theater

I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed in this even before watching it.  I hate this new Black and White on HDSLR trend :gag:.  If you are going to use a Red Cam + a cheap DSLR, at least give us something to champion with the colors. I feel like the 7D got raped with this film and that is quite unfortunate. It would have been great if they shot on film, 16mm, give us something to love, Joss! Give us something to love!

With that in mind, I was hoping to be surprised and hate the above choice less.  The story itself was very engaging. The commitment to the traditional Shakespearean dialogue and timeless setting supported this very confined film. Amy Acker stole the show with her divine portrayal of Beatrice, drawing in audiences who may have found themselves tripped up on the first few minutes of old English.

Another thing I enjoyed was the choice in cinematography to keep the character movement two-dimension, very stage like.  I was also very excited at first when it appeared a choice to ditch the traditional shot-reverse-shot in conversations, replacing them with quick pans to mimic the turning of the neck in theater settings. However, this commitment was short-lived and cheap and I was left feeling extremely let down.  I hate it when cinematographers half-ass a choice. GO BIG OR GO HOME, DAMNIT! Be a risky!!!!!!

As the film led on, I started to feel like I was watching a very calculated, trigger-happy, fresh out of film school disaster. The cinematography quickly abandoned being content-driven and awesome to just trying to look cool for no apparent reason.  Maybe they used a 7D because really, anyone could have done it from mid-point on.

I am left weighing the strong story versus the messy cinematography.  What is the most important part?  One might say the story… I am going to disagree, for you can go read this play and the visual representation of it left me a bit underwhelmed.

The Bling Ring (2013) Dir. Sofia Coppola

Viewed: Movie theater.

Okay, if you thought I was going into the last movie with a chip on my shoulder… well, you don’t know how much I absolutely loathe Sofia Coppola.  Her movies are boring and leaving me feeling like I ate lard.  I thought it was hilarious she was on board for this film…

And surprisingly, her boringness worked here.  That was the most noticeable thing about this film, the muted boring tone of the story. It worked perfectly because it reflected how the characters felt: bored, rich, and strung-out.

The stillness of the film was superb. That, paired with the long moments of eerie silence created a frustrating sense of unease. Everyone knew they were going to get caught and there were several nonchalant moments where the anxiety about the ring’s fate got the best of me.

 My favorite shot of the film was a long take of the ring robbing a glass house. It was great, but the robbing of celebrities quickly got boring. The story itself was sort of shallow; I didn’t feel connected to it or any of the characters.

Much like a cheap horror film that hires a big name only to kill them off in the first five minutes, the sprinkling of minor character, Emma Watson, is what kept audiences going to the end. I was disappointed on the lack of depth or character development of ringleaders Rebecca and Marc.  They tried, but both were overshadowed by Watson’s one-liners.

I left the theater feeling like I just heard a boring bit of choppy gossip.

The Kings of Summer (2013) Dir. Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Viewed: Movie Theater

If anything, I was very excited to see this movie. Call it penis envy, but I really love-love-love coming of age stories about young men who must choose between clinging on to their boy wonders or becoming men. Yeah, I never had a situation like that and I like to watch these movie… these “Peter Pan” films. Sometimes I feel like my spirit animal is a 14-yearold boy on the brink of manhood, lovely.

This movie was great in both story and cinematography.  It was colorful in both character and visuals. Who could ask for more?  Nick Offerman was great as the father of the instigator. The parallels between he and Nick Robinson’s character, Joe, his son, were clearly defined throughout the film.  

I suppose the only true weakness was the overshadowing by Moises Arias’ character Biaggio, which comes as no surprise as the more seasoned actor of the three adolescents.  For the boy who was supposed to be the oddball third wheel, he quickly became the most lovable character of the three. And because of this, I had a hard time sympathizing with Robinson’s character, Joe, in the end.

I guess the overarching theme here was bros over hos…well until the ho gets wit your bro… There was a clear implication of women in this film, and how they fit into our lives (WE, the almost men!) This film had it all: The dead mother, the replacement mother-sister, the girl you can’t have, the boy who sees himself as a woman, the desperate over 40 single woman, and the overbearing mother of an only child.  Oh, you silly women! We only start to embrace you when we are 14ish…But, really you make our world go ‘round. (Again, we, teenage boys)

Head-to-Head

I think there is a clear winner here…one film blew the rest out of the water.

So the real battle here is engaging story with messy visuals vs. engaging visuals with a messy story.

This one is hard…it should boil down to the story; I mean cinema is all about storytelling, but then again it is visual art, but it needs to have some meat behind it.

I guess that is what it boils down to, were the shots in The Bling Ring enough to carry its utterly flat story?

Ugggh! Or was the engaging story of Much Ado enough to overlook the undedicated cinematography?

Tough call….

Medal Ceremony

Bronze- Much Ado about Nothing

Silver- The Bling Ring

Gold- The Kings of Summer

Movie Olympics 2.0

So about two years ago...

I had this great idea to halfheartedly chase my non-concrete dreams of becoming a film critic.
Don't get me wrong, I love judging things. Judging is my favorite, especially film  because I have experience ripping that apart. 

And 'The Movie Olympics' were born. I would watch three movies and then rank them in order from best to meh. It was going well, and I was featured on a very unpopular news digest!  Well, that site died... and I guess I could have continued with my own site,


However, I am not much of a writer...so things fizzled fast.

Plus, I felt a lot of pressure to watch so many movies and at the time I was in grad school where I was already watching several films a day. I needed a break in my free time.  Well, now that I am done with school.. why not give this a try again.

The last three movies I see...face off!

Sometimes we just want to know how the latest action-superhero-romcom compares to Dirty Dancing!

Just for fun and for the concept, I leave you with the last entry I wrote back in 2011:

Movie Olympics: Crazy Stupid Love, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and Harold and Maude.

It was a close battle between these three films, as they all had unique strong points, but also strong weaknesses.  Will the dynamic chimps save the lackluster performance of James Franco? Is Emma stone way to young for Ryan Gosling? Or will the ultimate May-December relationship prevail?

In the order viewed:

Crazy Stupid Love (2011) Dir. Glenn Ficarra

Viewed: Mainstream Movie theater

 This was by far one of the most engaging films I have seen in a while, as all of the characters demanded attention on screen. It was nice to see Steve Carell play a serious character, and likewise Ryan Gosling a bad boy. The two men had a very dynamic chemistry on screen.  Julianne Moore was okay, and the chick that played the babysitter was a little annoying.  Emma Stone was hilarious, and I was a little disappointed her character was not developed more. It seemed like she was dropped mid-film, then latched back on at the end, if there was some connection back to her in the middle, the big shocker at the end might have been more climactic. Overall, for a summer romantic comedy I was fairly satisfied.  The only thing that stuck out as truly bothersome was faith in soulmates that played a big role in the plot, I wish they would have explored that deeper. 

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) Dir. Rupert Wyatt

Viewed: Mainstream Movie theater.

 I have not seen this many monkeys flying around since The Wizard of Oz.  I will admit, I have not seen any of the other Planet of the Apes movies, but given that this is a prequel, it was fairly easy to grasp. I have to say that the monkeys really outshined the people in this film, as James Franco was kind of boring, and Frieda Pinto was a waste of space. As my friend Sapora put it, 5 years as a girlfriend and no ring? He is obviously not in love with you, awkward.  I think the only human character somewhat compelling was Draco Malfoy.  Though I don’t remember the name of his character in this film, it was pretty much Draco reimagined.   When he called Cesar a “Dirty Ape,” I couldn’t help but think “Mudblood.”  My favorite primate character was Maurice the orangutan, though Buck the gorilla was pretty intense.   Overall, I liked how this film touched on the human condition, and questioned whether or not being at the top of the animal kingdom was something in our heads.  I do wish that all the people didn’t suck in the movie, heck; I am more interesting than that, come on make us look good!

Harold and Maude (1971) dir. Hal Ashby

Viewed: Netflix Instant Play

 I am kind of ashamed to admit this was my first time viewing this film, but I am glad I got around to it. Harold is absolutely hilarious, and got me chuckling at his attempt to hang himself with in the first few minutes.  This film really struck a sweet spot with me, as I find cinematic death delightfully amusing.  Maude was a fairly relatable character, and gives hope for us crazy women, that when we are crazy old ladies we can capture the hearts of hot young boys.  One of my favorite parts was the presentation of online dating, and the horrors that go along with it, pretty interesting for 1971.  I did feel the music was a bit too much at times, very loud and oddly placed, and I wasn’t so sure about the ending. Although, I guess it speaks to love, and perhaps how short-lived it may be. 

Head-to-Head

Since two of these films are romantic comedies, lets start by a comparison of relationships.  As far as parental relationships go, I felt the one between Harold and his mother was the most realistic, as she just brushed ff his need for attention.  In Rise the father-son relationship was a little bland, despite being the reasoning behind Franco’s character in developing genetic change and testing it on apes.  In Crazy, the relationship between Carell’s character and his son was rather vapid at times, and unrealistic. 

Romantically Apes was the weakest, and I really wanted Cesar to have a girlfriend, in fact the entire first half of the movie I was waiting for him to mate.  In Crazy the only relationship that was seen developing was that between Gosling and Stone, and the rest seemed kind of fast. However, we had a chance to see the relationship develop between Harold and Maude from beginning to end.

As far as overall plot, I felt that the slowest of the three was Harold and Maude, and I felt myself pausing the film several times to go get a snack or pee.  The other two were much more engaging, and speaking on pee, I did relieve myself once during Crazy, but held it throughout Rise. Knowing my pea-sized bladder, this says a lot. 

Medal Ceremony

Bronze- Crazy Stupid Love

Silver- Harold and Maude

Gold- Rise of the Planet of the Apes