Mal ,'Our Mrs. Reynolds'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Jeffrey Wright will be Beetee in Catching Fire: [link]
I saw that. I do enjoy that they seem to be giving racists the middle finger in their casting, or maybe they just like the publicity (I honestly don't remember Beetee's description, so I don't know if his race was implied in anyway).
I don't think Beetee was described in any great detail. And yes, I love that they're diversifying the cast to a good degree.
All I can picture is crazy finger-in-light-socket hair, but I don't even know if that's from the book.
This means I can now hire Cary Elwes to perform scenes from The Princess Bride for my birthday for loose change and a slice of cake, right? [link]
As you wish.
That review alone was read-from-the-hall. I don't think I could ever sit through an actual showing without expiring of vicarious mortification.
I remember seeing the trailer in front of some movie not that long ago (ParaNorman, maybe?) and having H.R. Pufnstuf flashbacks. That plus the "jump up and sing!" interactive element convince me it would be like attending a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese's. Or in Hell; same difference.
I have small children and that review was horrifying.
I bought The Hunger Games Blu-Ray last week and watched it this weekend. The movie itself holds up quite well and Jennifer Lawrence is as astonishing as I remembered.
The extras though -- disappointing. The thing I was most curious about was the issue of what to keep in and what to cut, the faithfulness vs. flexibility of adaptation, especially for a popular book like this one. There is a ton of material in the bonus disc, but rather than talking about the fine points of the adaptation, the discussion is frustratingly general. And extremely self-congratulatory. It's all about how awesome everybody was and how well they did and they all but canonize Gary Ross to a degree where I found it a bit off-putting. Likely, how will they ever film the sequel with some other guy at the helm, when Ross was SO AMAZING ELEVENTY!!!
Also, they really liked the shaky-cam because they thought it was important to keep it "vérité" in order to minimize the glossiness and reduce the likelihood that the violence was being glorified. That's all well and good, but not if it sends a sizable part of your audience running to the bathroom to vomit (I really hope that they cut down the jump-cuts and shakiness in the next movie.)
AVClub's review of Much Ado About Nothing:
The best part of Joss Whedon’s adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing is probably when Fred and Wesley finally get to be happy together, despite the villainous machinations of Simon Tam. Or wait, maybe the best part is when Topher, Dominic and Agent Carlson conspire to play matchmaker. Or when Andrew and Captain Mal show up as bumbling cops.