The weirdest thing happened to me this weekend. I finished reading Dan Brown’s Inferno the night before I went to see Man of Steel, and all of the messages and themes of population control, fertility, DNA, etc all blended together. There’s one part of Man of Steel where you see, like, a weird sci-fi harvest of babies and it just reminded me of Dan Brown’s book in a weird way. Anyway…

Everybody went to see Man of Steel this weekend. Did you? Probably. It made approximately $113.1 million (probably more because the Sunday matinee I went to was PACKED) and of course it’s the new #1 movie. MoS was actually the biggest domestic June opening in history. I’m glad for Henry Cavill – in his magazine interviews done months ago, he seemed to be holding his breath and waiting to see if this big gamble would pay off. And it did. And I’m sure he’ll be Superman in a second film, and a third and on and on. Would you like to hear my thoughts?

SPOILERS – POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR MAN OF STEEL

I liked MoS. I didn’t love it. It was too long and I could have easily edited out about a half an hour in the second half of the film. The half-destruction of Metropolis was kind of ridiculous, and it was too much CGI and that part of it gave me a headache. Overall, I thought it was solid-to-decent reboot of a beloved franchise and I’m glad they managed to pull it off with such a charismatic, damaged, interesting Clark/Kal/Superman. Here are some general bullet points:

*Henry Cavill is a really handsome dude. I preferred him with some scruff, and I loved all of his shirtless scenes (they’re mostly in the beginning of the movie). For those eagle-eyed watchers, I also loved that his burly chest hair came peeking out of his Superman uniform. Clark is kind of emo at times, but Henry knew when to reel it in so it didn’t feel like Clark is just made of angst. Clark does have some dimension and moral ambiguity, which is mostly thanks to how Henry played it. Also: there are a couple of shots where he strongly resembled Christopher Reeve, and that just made me sad.

*Surprisingly enough, Kevin Costner did not suck. I was expecting him to. I was expecting Costner to be my least favorite part. But there’s one scene where Costner almost made me cry. Damn you, Costner!

*They made poor Diane Lane look like hell! Poor Diane. She was good, though. I liked her relationship with Clark. It felt realistic (as realistic as these films can get). He just seemed “lighter” when he was with his mom.

*Amy Adams is adorable. She’s feisty and she’s a great screamer. I mean that as a compliment – the heroine/love interest’s scream is important! And Amy’s got a great set of lungs. She and Henry had a lot of on-screen chemistry and it just felt… interesting. Like he’s going to show her his Krypton Dong and she’s going to know what to do with it.

*OMG, Russell Crowe!! I get why Rusty took the part as Jor-El. Jor-El is one of the best parts. And Rusty looked really good too – he got to do some action sequences and he got some great lines. I was really pleased with him.

*Michael Shannon as General Zod… I was expecting him to be fantastic and to steal all of his scenes. I was not disappointed but Shannon knew how to reel it in too. He was creepy and violent and crazy, but they also went a long way to explain his motives, and it felt like Michael didn’t want to chew the scenery just to be a BIG “villain”. I thought Zod’s most effective scenes were against Cavill and Crowe, man to man (or whatever they are).

*Christopher Meloni had a great smaller part, and I was pleased to see Richard Schiff in a small role too. Laurence Fishbourne was kind of useless (he played the editor of The Daily Planet).

*The Christ imagery got really heavy-handed at times. There was some Christ-on-the-cross posing and the constant reiteration that Clark was “sent” to Earth to “save” people. There was one point where Clark Kent is literally sitting in a church next to a stained-glass window of Jesus and seriously, you should see how they framed the shot. WE GET IT, ZACK SNYDER.

Here are some photos of Henry, Amy and the gang in Italy (for the Taormina FilmFest 2013) over the weekend.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

CB & I went to see Star Trek Into Darkness this weekend! It was really good. I think we both liked it a lot. I think CB disagreed when I started bitching about the politics and economics of the Star Fleet though. Like, I just can’t see how a League of Nations-type Star Fleet justifies its expenditures purely for peaceful exploration purposes (hippies in space!). I can only see a NATO-type organization spending that kind of money under the condition that space will be militarized, like the Star Fleet as Earth-defense. You’d be surprised how that argument relates to Star Trek Into Darkness.

Anyway, it seems that many people agreed with the critics and STID “won” the weekend box office, although it didn’t make as much as box-office watchers were predicting. Analysts claimed STID would make $80-100 million opening weekend in North America, and it made $84.1 million IF you include IMAX showings which started on Wednesday. CB & I saw it on 3D, and it was good although I don’t think the 3D really added that much to the experience. That being said, it’s a big, enjoyable action/sci-fi movie and I’m sure it will rake in something like $600 million worldwide. STID cost $190 million to make, and God knows how much they spent to promote it. So it will make a lot of money, for sure, and everybody is really happy that the film is already so successful overseas. They’ll definitely make a third film.

The rest of this weekend’s box office: Iron Man 3 made $35.2 million in its third week (this is just in North American receipts), then The Great Gatsby with $23.4 million, then Pain & Gain with $3.1 million.

My mini-review of STID, with SPOILERS:

STID was a very enjoyable film and the plot was pretty cohesive, although there were some plot points which could have been better explained, especially in the third act when it seemed like (spoiler!) a bunch of civilians were killed in a Star Fleet catastrophe on earth and those lost lives were barely acknowledged. I also thought the political/military message got sort of convoluted – like, one character wants the Star Fleet to have “first strike” capabilities and I don’t understand why that’s a bad thing.

It also felt like there was supposed to be some strong emotional attachment to some of the characters (Kirk and that father-figure dude played by Bruce Greenwood) and it just seemed like… boring boy drama. Like, I didn’t care at all. I ended up thinking that Kirk was kind of dull and vanilla, but I guess that’s the problem with playing the lead character in these kinds of films – everybody else gets to be quirky and weird and Kirk only gets a few wisecracks.

Obviously, Benedict Cumberbatch was amazing, but I was expecting that. What pleasantly surprised me was how good he was at being a very physical villain. Like, he was BIG. And strong. And he was leaping around and doing crazy stunts and he managed to be delicious and creepy and scary and HOT all at the same time. It helped that this film was literally the best he’s ever looked on camera. His hair looked amazing. His extra muscle weight worked. His skin was lovely. They shot him from certain angles to make him look like he had a chin. It was great!

The real surprise for me was how much I enjoyed Zachary Quinto’s Spock. Quinto really kills it as Spock – he’s funny and interesting and immensely watchable. Spock is the real star! Karl Urban as Bones annoyed me, and I hate to say it, but Simon Pegg’s Scotty annoyed me too. I didn’t mind Zoe Saldana at all (shocking), John Cho (Sulu) was lovely and my candidate for WORST performance was Anton Yelchin doing an especially hokey Russian accent as Chekov. Alice Eve was a snooze, and if she gets with Captain Kirk in the next movie, they will be the most boringly vanilla couple ever.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Most big action films open in the American markets first. We like to road-test our blockbusters before we send them out into the world. But the dynamics of how films are sold and how they make money, that’s all changing. Thus, Skyfall – the latest James Bond movie – opened in Europe a few weeks before North America got it this weekend. Skyfall had already made hundreds of millions of dollars before it ever came here… and I think that more films might be doing that in the future. Skyfall debuted in the US with a huge international buzz and great reviews, and in its first weekend in the US and Canada, the film brought in an estimated $87.8 million. It’s the best opening weekend for a Bond film ever in America, and Skyfall is set to be the highest-grossing Bond film of all time. Taking into account the international markets, Skyfall has already made nearly $430 million.

I kept saying that Skyfall was my most anticipated film of the fall/winter season, so I did manage to see the film over the weekend. Shall we discuss? First, let me put up a spoiler warning…

SPOILERS AHEAD – Mini-review of Skyfall

I went into Skyfall as a huge fan of the Bond franchise in total, and as a fan of Daniel Craig’s “reset” of the Bond franchise. I LOVED Casino Royale and I loathed Quantum of Solace. QoS was just a POS – awful script, bad plot, nonsensical villain, etc. Skyfall felt like the film that should have been made right after Casino Royale. I love the evolution of Daniel Craig’s Bond, although I got bored with all of the references to how “old” this Bond is. Daniel Craig is only 44! Yes, he’s not a young dude, but he’s hardly ancient.

The plot of Skyfall is simple enough – someone is out to get MI6 in general and M (played by Judi Dench) in particular. It’s a very personal motive, and the film ends up being one of the most personal stories ever told in a Bond film. You get to see M’s home. You get to see Bond’s childhood home. You get more backstory on Bond, and you get to see M try to wade through the politics of her office, and her affection for James.

What I loved: I loved everything about Naomie Harris’s character. I loved the flirtation between Naomie and Daniel Craig, and they had a lot of chemistry together. I loved seeing James acting to protect his mother-figure, M, and how it was so personal to him. I loved Ralph Fiennes! He felt very natural in his role, and I think he made a great addition with his smaller but vital role. Javier Bardem’s villain… well, he came into the film too late. But once he finally got there, he was gross/amazing/awful/scene-stealing. Also: I LOVED BEN WHISHAW. What a fantastic little part for a talented young English actor. And I’m glad James Bond finally got his “Q” – and I loved that Q became a shy young nerd. He was adorable.

What I disliked: there were certain parts of the M storyline that were just… too drawn out. Like, it felt like they wanted to give Judi Dench a meatier role for what she said was her last Bond film, but there could have been other ways to give M stuff to do without making her a helpless mother-figure for James to protect. As for Javier’s villain… at one point, he’s been captured and he’s been put into this all-glass cell and I swear it was like “Oh, so he’s Hannibal Lector now?” The Albert Finney digression was a bit too Freudian too, it was like “We don’t need to be banged over the head with this, we get it. They represent Bond’s parents. Enough.” Last complaint: the film was too long. I enjoyed it overall, but they could have shaved 10-15 minutes off and it still would have been a great film.

PS… I was asked to say something about the rumors that Skyfall will be Daniel Craig’s last outing as Bond. I don’t know. He just signed a new contract for two more Bond films a few months ago, and considering the success of Skyfall, I doubt the producers will let him out of his contract. That being said, I fully expect Daniel Craig to bitch and moan all the way to the bank. He’s a total f—king curmudgeon, and no, it’s not “self-deprecating”. He’s just a moody bitch.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Do you know how much I love Jeremy Renner? So, so much. I went to see The Bourne Legacy yesterday (review at the end of the post), and my love for Renner has grown even further. I want Legacy to be a big hit for him – I want the film to make a lot of money so Jeremy can make whatever film he wants to make. Early predictions have Legacy scoring an opening weekend box office of somewhere between $40-45 million hopefully – which would mean that it’s a solid success, but not a runaway hit.

I have to wonder why Jeremy didn’t do more promotion for the film? It felt like the Renner interviews were few and far between. That being said, I did find some new quotes from him which make me like him even more:

Jeremy on marriage: “I come from a large, large family with many divorces, so I chose not to go down that route straight away,” he says. “Instead I essentially got married to my career.”

On his offbeat looks: “Aren’t we taught as kids that we’re beautiful because we feel beautiful and not because someone else says so?” he asks. “You don’t look like the model on the magazine cover but you can still be beautiful, so I can’t say I really want to change anything. I’m happy with the flaws that I have.”

He’s romantic but inconsistent: “It’s the inconsistency of my life that makes it difficult. I think I’m pretty romantic. I’m quite a thoughtful person. Also inconsiderate, piggish, stubborn.”

[Via Contact Music & The Telegraph]

His interview in The Telegraph was actually kind of harsh – they go on and on about how he’s not traditionally handsome. WTF? I think he’s got a winning combination of boyishly handsome, quirky-hotness and rugged sex appeal. I would hit it. I would hit it faster than I would with most “traditionally handsome” men. Anyway…

My mini-review of The Bourne Legacy (SPOILERS included):

I know a lot of critics are totally hating on this film as “boring” and “tired” and “not as good as the Matt Damon movies.” But I liked it. I loved the Damon-Bourne trilogy, and I’m preconditioned to love spy sh-t, so I was prepared to like this film in any case. I wasn’t balls-out in-love with it, but I enjoyed it thoroughly, despite some plot holes and a giant suspension of disbelief that you have to make early in the film. The story, obviously, has some problems, but what saved the film were a series of stellar performances given by some of the best actors working today.

First, Jeremy Renner was AMAZING. I love this little guy, my little pocket boyfriend. And trust me, he’s little. He’s also BUILT. And he can ACT. He turns mediocre material into something incredibly watchable, moving and believable. He had a great deal of chemistry with Rachel Weisz, and one of my biggest complaints is actually that it took too long for those two characters to get together in the same scenes. As for Rachel – she’s so pretty. I just enjoy watching her, and I want to applaud her accent work in particular – great job on her American accent. The biggest problem? Any time she had to move with haste, she seemed really uncomfortable and out of her element. Which is probably how the character was supposed to feel, but Rachel’s uncomfortable “I’m running, for real now” face took me out of the movie. I liked that those two characters seemed the same age, I liked that she was educated and smart and slightly maternal. I liked that they quickly became very protective of each other – it wasn’t just Renner doing the “saving” of a damsel in distress. She saved him too.

Other great, notable performances. Veteran character actor Zeljko Ivanek gave one of the (hands-down) creepiest performances EVER. Scott Glenn had a craggy, intense cameo, and fans of the original trilogy will see some familiar faces too. Edward Norton was good, but his character was actually under-written and I wasn’t really clear what his real position was, and what his motives were supposed to be.

Norton’s character is deeply involved with the giant suspension of disbelief that you have to make at the beginning: namely, that you have to believe that Norton’s shadowy, government figure would be willing to burn an expensive, successful covert intelligence program which had yielded excellent assets, contacts and intelligence JUST BECAUSE the program is adjacent to another program that is about to be “outed”. Let me just say this: I believe my government is involved with creating super-spies and super-soldiers. I believe the world of covert intelligence gathering is more ethically and morally murky than I even know. And I don’t believe that my government would “burn” solid intelligence assets in Pakistan and North Korea just because some pieces of these murky programs might be exposed. You know what I’m saying? We know about rendition and wiretapping. We know that there were American spies on the ground in Pakistan hunting bin Laden. The jig is up. We KNOW. It makes no sense to burn those assets.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I am not at all ashamed to declare myself as one of the countless people who watched The Hunger Games on opening day. In fact, many millions of people bought tickets (many of us in advance), and The Hunger Games is showing very promising early box-office returns with a projected likely $150 million weekend, which (if true) would beat every one of the opening weekends for the respective Twilight Saga movies. Of course, this success isn’t at all unanticipated because Hunger Games caters to a much wider-reaching audience than the tweenage girls (and their mothers) that swooned for Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. At the very least, The Hunger Games has already achieved the fifth-best opening day ever and the best opening day for a non-sequel movie:

Building on a strong midnight launch, The Hunger Games had one of the best opening days ever at an estimated $68.25 million. That ranks fifth on the all-time list behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($91.1 million), New Moon ($72.7 million), Breaking Dawn Part 1 ($71.6 million) and Eclipse ($68.5 million). It wound up slightly ahead of The Dark Knight ($71.6 million), and also topped Alice in Wonderland ($40.8 million) to set a new record for a non-sequel.

The Hunger Games looks even more impressive when subtracting its $19.74 million midnight gross–throughout normal business hours, the movie earned $48.5 million, which is actually more than Deathly Hallows Part 2 made in that time ($47.57 million). In fact, The Hunger Games only ranks behind Spider-Man 3 ($49.8 million) and The Dark Knight ($48.7 million) in non-midnight opening day grosses.

The Hunger Games received a strong “A” CinemaScore, and should finish the weekend with anywhere from $135 million to $160 million.

[From Box Office Mojo]

While there were indeed unreasonably high expectations for this movie, I felt little to no disapointment at all where the cinematic product was concerned. Mostly, I appreciated that the screenwriters paid special attention to the fact that while the book is written in first person (from the perspective of Katniss), the screenplay demanded some careful modification to translate it to the big screen so that it would satisfy both readers of the books and neophytes alike. The final result was not only true to the source material but also added and subtracted to the original story to subtle but great effect. What follows is slightly spoilerific, so consider yourself warned. SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First of all, the acting was superb with the three “leads” — Jennifer Lawrence (as Katniss), Josh Hutcherson (as Peeta), and Liam Hemsworth (as Gale) — all doing their jobs as well as the script would allow. Even more stellar were the supporting players, which included Stanley Tucci (as Caesar Flickerman), Elizabeth Banks (as Effie Trinket), Woody Harrelson (as Haymitch), and Lenny Kravits (as stylist Cinna), who all threatened to steal the show but knew how to reign their performances before it became too much. Of course, Haymitch wasn’t nearly as crotchety and drunk as he was in the book, and the movie made him a much more sympathetic character as well. Mainly, this difference was due to time constraints, which was the main weakness of this adaptation, but director Gary Ross did a phenomenal job of pacing the story and pushing it towards a timely conclusion. Of course, The Hunger Games wasn’t a perfect adaptation, but it came damn close.

When it comes to additions to the book, I enjoyed the fact that the movie contained numerous “behind the scenes” moments that showed the gamemakers before and during the games themselves. Not only were there some extra moments that showed Seneca Crane (Wes Bentley) being interviewed by Caesar and being grilled by President Snow (Donald Sutherland), but we also got to see some fairly deft arena manipulation from the games’ control room. All of these moments added to the experience and also eliminated potentially prolonged moments of expository hangups from the mind of Katniss. While these new revelations may have tied up a few minutes of the movie, they also broadened the scope of the story and enhanced the experience.

However, I also found that the movie also eliminated a few necessary elements from the story for time’s sake. Unfortunately, the character of Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) was shortchanged quite a bit and received an abridged opportunity to show his motivations within the games as well as his reasons for falling for Katniss. On the other hand, we got to see more than expected from Gale (Liam Hemsworth), including his reactions to Katniss’ behavior within the arena, than the book originally dictated. So I guess it all balances out in the end, and Hutcherson did a great job with the opportunities presented within the script. Overall, his Peeta could’ve used more screentime and opportunity to develop the character for the audience, but Hutcherson was believable even if the screenplay didn’t do him many favors in explaining his motivations as more than a lovesick puppy dog.

Ultimately, the movie was as satisfying an experience as fans of the book could possibly hope for. I cheered in all the right spots, and I cried when Rue (Amandla Stenberg) met her untimely end. The special effects were a bit uneven — although the fire wall of the forest looked very believable, Katniss’ “Girl On Fire” dress left something to be desired. Also, while the interpretation of the District 12 setting felt perfect, the Capitol experience didn’t seem fully fleshed out. However, these little omissions are mere trifles compared to the success of the overall movie. Will I see it again? When it comes out on DVD, my order will be placed.

UPDATE: Box Office Mojo is reporting that The Hunger Games will finish the weekend with an estimated $155 million take. That would put the movie in third place for best opening weekend of all time behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and The Dark Knight.

Photos courtesy of AllMoviePhoto

*Note: The first part of this review is (relatively) spoiler-free, but I’ll include some spoilers at the end.

First off, I should admit at the beginning that I’m a fan of the Millennium trilogy, the three books that Stieg Larsson wrote before his death in 2004. The books have their faults, of course, but the heart of the series was a completely unique, fascinating, well-drawn, and unconventional heroine. I’ve seen the Swedish films as well, the ones starring Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist, and they’re decent-to-good adaptations of Larsson’s work. My favorite book and my favorite Swedish film apaptation is still the first one, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I know the Swedish films are often criticized, but I think the Swedish GWTDT film is excellent, and it stands up.

So, given my love of the Swedish film, I was already primed to be extra-judgy of David Fincher’s Americanized adaptation. Plus, I’ve grown to dislike Rooney Mara a little bit, considering her interviews are revealing the little fact that she’s kind of dumb and conceited. But I have to say… there was a lot in Fincher’s film that I really liked.

The basic story is… well, there’s nothing basic. Calling it a “Whodunit” or a murder mystery isn’t the whole plot, but in its essence, yes, it is a murder mystery. Rooney Mara plays Lisbeth Salander, a young woman who is misanthropic, a legal ward of the state, who may or may not have mental issues and violent tendencies. She’s blunt, she’s honest, she’s supposed to look very young and androgynous, and she’s supposed to radiate intelligence. Daniel Craig plays Mikael Blomkvist, one of Sweden’s most respected and controversial journalists, who just got his ass handed to him in a libel case.

So, how did Daniel and Rooney do? Rooney was much better than I was expecting. She had the look of a haunted child, and she often looked frighteningly small and vulnerable. Her accent work was stellar – I never heard anything resembling an American accent. But! I still prefer Noomi Rapace’s Lisbeth, honestly. When Lisbeth is in danger, Noomi let you feel her terror and helplessness, and it was devastating. When Lisbeth is angry, Noomi projected the shaking, all-consuming rage. Rooney just… didn’t. Her performance wasn’t as powerful, but it was still pretty solid.

As for Daniel as Mikael… he was good. The Mikael character is at his best when he’s playing off the women in his life, and Daniel definitely came alive in his scenes with Robin Wright and Rooney. There were moments where Daniel seemed less like a journalist in over his head and more like a supremely competent British spy, though. Daniel just seems too… capable. But he was good, and at the end of the day, he’s lovely to look at, and he brought more emotional depth to Blomkvist than Nyqvist did.

My biggest problem with the film was David Fincher’s direction, and whoever edited it. The pacing was completely off in the first 15 minutes – I knew what was happening in the story, but even I was like, “WTF is happening here? Why are they introducing that character right now?” Then, in the final big action/suspense sequence, the whole thing was just a f–king mess. What could have been a series of gradually terrifying scenes were completely c–kblocked by bad pacing, bad editing and several sequences that should have been cut out of the script in the first week of preproduction. And then after that, the movie just hung around for another half an hour while they wrapped up the additional plotlines. Those plotlines had to be dealt with, of course, but Fincher really took his time and it got slightly boring.

So… I’m recommending the film, but I also think you guys should totally try the Swedish film, just because it really is a much, much better film overall. Seriously.

************SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS ****************

*Fincher messed with the story line in some little ways that I didn’t mind at all. Like, he introduced a cat to the little cottage where Blomkvist is staying, and g–damn if that cat didn’t steal all of Daniel’s scenes. At one point, Blomkvist is asleep in bed, and the cat is sleeping on his head. That was my favorite part. UPDATE: Er, was there a cat in the book? I completely forgot about it. Sorry!

*Some of you are probably wondering about the pivotal rape scene. In the Swedish film, the violence is traumatizing to the viewer, and you can really feel Lisbeth’s helplessness, her terror, her inability to fight back. The scene is so powerful, that act of violence haunts the rest of the film, and the rest of the series. The scene in this film was… well, it’s still violent and disturbing, but it was nowhere near as traumatic as the Swedish version.

*It takes FOREVER for Lisbeth and Mikael to finally get to work together, and even then, the story keeps separating them. It pissed me off – we waited for so long to see lots of scenes with Mikael and Lisbeth in the cottage, and you barely get any payoff.

*Lisbeth’s control over her own destiny was subtly taken away from book to screen. In the books, she makes several pivotal decisions that influence future plotlines. In the American film, those decisions are made by other characters – and things happen TO her, and she does less to affect her own course of action.

Promotional images courtesy of Columbia Pictures/IMDB and Empire Magazine.

OK, I went to see Moneyball with my mother yesterday, and something really weird happened: my mother is now in love with Brad Pitt. She always sort-of liked him, as is she would say things like “He’s very pretty and kind of talented, meh.” But she was having a hot flash for him in Moneyball. It helps that all of a sudden, Brad looks a hell of a lot like Robert Redford. He’s always been Redford-ish, and obviously, people have always made the Pitt-Redford comparison, but this movie… dear God, Brad looks good. So much of the movie is based on his face in closeup too – and you know what, Pitt-haters? He doesn’t look like he’s had any work done on his face, at all. His eyes are lined and baggy. His skin is sagging a bit. But he looks like what he is: a very, very attractive man in his 40s. My mom kept saying, “He doesn’t look young any more. He doesn’t look a pretty young guy now. He’s filled out, and DAMN it looks good.”

Of course, it helps that the movie was really, really good. The theatre I went to was packed, with men and women of all ages. I was surprised that there weren’t more kids there – not little kids, but like 10-13 year-olds, because I could see this being a film that would be nice for a father to see with his tween son or daughter. It’s a surprisingly clean, well-acted, charming story. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it too – it’s not some art-house flick about math and a boring general manager of a baseball team. There are some funny lines, there’s a lot of heart and sweetness, and the story was just told in a great way.

If you don’t know the basics of the plot by now – it’s just about Oakland As general manager Billy Beane, and how he challenged professional baseball by disregarding the traditional thinking of how to put together a team. Instead of listening to scouts and trying to buy the best known players, Beane hires Peter Brand, a young Yalie who convinced Beane to put together a team of misfits and undervalued players using computer analysis and cold, hard numbers. Jonah Hill (under)plays Brand brilliantly, and Joanh and Brad’s chemistry is really sweet. Jonah really impressed me – I didn’t know he could do this kind of understated dramatic role, and he just nailed it.

Other notables: Robin Wright’s role (as Beane’s ex-wife and mother of his daughter) was very simple, but she made an impression. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the A’s manager Art Howe, who… I hope wasn’t this big of a d-bag. There were also a scene-stealing performances by Chris Pratt (who played Scott Hatteberg, a first-baseman who was scared of the ball) and Kerris Dorsey, who played Beane’s daughter. She was adorable.

Oh, and if Brad doesn’t get an Oscar nomination for this movie, I’ll eat my hat. It was so wonderful to see him do this kind of mainstream, Robert Redford-ish film. I’m still giggling over one scene in which Beane, who is always eating, is anxious about a trade, so in-between calls he begins to panic-eat by shoving a handful of stuff (popcorn?) into his mouth.

Posters and promotional images from Moneyball.

Yesterday, I went to see The Debt. I was really looking forward to it, but after I saw it, I barely thought about it again. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate that the film was made – I think stories of Nazi-hunting and the early days of the Mossad are fascinating, and I wish more movies and books were out, telling those stories. But there were problems in the basic storytelling of The Debt, and in the end, the film isn’t very good.

The basic plot: The Debt tells the stories of three Mossad agents in 1967, as they are hunting “the surgeon of Birkenau” in East Germany and those same agents in 1997, as they are older and jaded. First, the cast is fantastic, and all of the actors turned in the best performances they could with a deeply flawed screenplay. Sam Worthington and Ciarán Hinds play the same character, and both were excellent, although I would have loved to see Hinds in the film more. I always think that Sam is such a meathead, but he did this quiet, dramatic role very well – his part was mostly intense looks. Tom Wilkinson and Marton Csokas play the same character – which is weird, because Tom looks nothing like Marton. Marton gives me huge Clive Owen vibes, which is to say he makes my biscuits have a party. Csokas is a sexy bitch in this film, but in the end, he’s just kind of jackass of a character.

The bulk of the story falls on Helen Mirren, and her younger version played by Jessica Chastain. Chastain does an admirable job as the completely green, in-over-her-head spy, while Helen could give depth and weight to the most asinine of line readings. The creepiest scenes in the movie involved Chastain and her work with the actor playing the Nazi, the “surgeon of Birkenau”.

As for the flaws… well, let me do this:

SPOILERS BELOW….

The failures of the plot were about the supposed “moral dilemma” of whether Nazis should be captured and put on trial or whether they should just be killed outright. There was also the “moral dilemma” of whether or not you should take credit for something that you didn’t accomplish, and take credit for it simply because no one will ever find out. The first moral dilemma is rooted in the actual history of the state of Israel – they wanted to have trials of the captured Nazis, because they wanted to show the world what had happened during the Holocaust, and because they thought war crimes trials would be the most moral and just way of handling the issue. So what’s the problem? Seeing three Israeli spies agonize over the life of a Nazi is eye-roll inducing. Is it really a moral dilemma to kill someone who murdered thousands?

As for the second moral dilemma, that of taking credit for something that no one would be able to prove otherwise – meh. That’s the part of the film that was a mess. Mirren did the best she could do, but the last twenty minutes of the film were just awful.

Oh, and my last problem with the film – the Chastain/Mirren character wouldn’t have been sent on that mission, I don’t think. She was there for a specific reason – because the mission needed a younger woman to set the trap – but I don’t buy that Mossad would have sent a woman who was so young, so emotional, and so untested on this important mission.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I was in the mood for something romantic and girly over the weekend, so I ended up seeing One Day, the film that I proclaimed, at one point, that I was never going to see. I read the book, and loved the book… up until the last third of the novel. Then I got so pissed off, I swore up and down that I wasn’t going to get involved. When the previews for the film came out, I once again swore I wasn’t going to see it, this time because Anne Hathaway’s faux English accent seemed wonky as hell, and because Jim “Pillow Weeper” Sturgess wasn’t my idea of Dexter. So… I guess I have to suck it up. I not only saw the movie, but I enjoyed it. Maybe it helped that I walked in with such low expectations. Or maybe it’s a better movie than you’ve heard.

For those unfamiliar with the story, the basic gist is: Dexter (Sturgess) and Emma (Hathaway) meet and sort-of hookup on their last day of university, on July 15. The book and the film follows Dexter and Emma on every July 15th for the next twenty years, through triumphs and heartbreaks and love and loss. As far as the film being a faithful adaptation of the book, it worked out very well. Surprisingly well, I have to admit. The kept a lot of the book in there, and they even let Hathaway have all of the funniest lines, which is true of Emma in the book. And they kept Dexter a mess, which is also true to the book.

As for the performances of the two leads… I was impressed. They had a great deal of chemistry together, despite the weird little oddness that they kind of look like brother and sister (true story – they look A LOT alike). Anne’s accent work wasn’t her best, but for the majority of the film, it wasn’t actively bad. There were only a couple of scenes where I was like, “She sounds less English and more like she’s had a stroke.” Sturgess did a wonderful job as a privileged boy who never quite gets it together, and true to his Pillow Weeper moniker, Jim cried and cried and cried. That boy can pull out the waterworks at the drop of a hat, and he’s a better weeper than Anne. But he had moments of real sexiness, and he and Anne played off of each other beautifully.

Two weird little things – Patricia Clarkson has a wonderful little part as Dexter’s glamorous and then tragic mother, and I swear, her accent work was worse than Anne’s. I love Clarkson, so that pains me. Surely they could have found a glamorous English actress for that part, right? Second weirdness: the casting of one of my favorite up-and-coming girls, Romola Garai (see her IMDB here) – she looks like Drew Barrymore and she’s one of the most talented young actresses in the UK (she’s currently starring in the new, wonderful BBC show The Hour). Romola appears in maybe many scenes later in the movie, playing an unsympathetic character that no one cared for in the book, and she made the character extremely sympathetic and lovely, and Romola stole every scene she was in. It struck me that Romola would have been a wonderful choice to play Emma, and in a few years, she IS going to be getting lead roles in Hollywood films. She’s lovely.

So, would I recommend this movie? Go see it if you’re in the mood for a romance, and you don’t mind having a good cry. It will be a good rental too.

Photos courtesy of Fame & WENN.

I know, I know, my reviews of films are always late. Sometimes I see a movie over the weekend, and I just want to talk about it, and I don’t care if it’s late in coming. So, I saw Crazy, Stupid, Love yesterday and… it wasn’t that good. Would you like the basic no-spoiler gist? Julianne Moore’s character and Steve Carell’s character are married, and in the first scene in the movie, they split up. Steve is distraught, and he starts hanging out in what must be the only cool bar in town, where all of the beautiful women in the city hang out, but only long enough to spend one night with the bar’s only young, handsome regular, Ryan Gosling. Gosling takes Steve under his wing, gives him a Cinder-fella makeover and teaches Steve how to pick up women. Chaos ensues. Early on, Gosling meets Emma Stone, and she refuses his advances (because she’s in a relationship with a completely nerdy and scene-stealing Josh Groban), but then Emma comes around and Emma and Ryan end up spending the night together… and then chaos ensues.

There were some good parts, and yes, I was actually “surprised” by the “twist”. But overall, I feel like they wasted a lot of good talent, and I really think the screenplay could have been a lot better. It was like some hack wrote a completely average and boring romantic-comedy screenplay, then someone talented came in and started rewriting some of the scenes, and then the talented guy got bored. Some of the scenes were so great, I wish the entire film had been so awesome. But it wasn’t.

The best part? Ryan Gosling, without a doubt. He LOOKED amazing and he was just… this character was like The Fantasy Man. I’m not talking about the fantasy of the good guy who will be a great husband and father. I’m talking about the fantasy of the obscenely good-looking dude who comes on to you at the bar and takes you home and you have dirty, mind-blowing sex and that’s it. Girls need that too, and it’s as much of a fantasy as the other “marriage and babies” fantasy too. Gosling got the best suits, and when he took off his gear, he just looked… like heaven. He had ridiculous chemistry with both Emma and Steve too.

The worst part? Julianne Moore. It’s become a shtick for her at this point, playing these harried, neurotic wives and mothers, and beyond Julianne’s kind of sleep-walking performance, her character just sucked. Another bad part was the too-”precious”-ness of Steve and Julianne’s 13-year-old son. His story line involved him being in love with a 17-year-old girl, and when the girl rebuffed his advances, he started stalking her. It was creepy, not cute. The same could be said of Carell’s character too – there were a couple of times where the character was just kind of gross and creepy. Rom-com FAIL.

Oh, and did you know that The Bacon is in this movie? He is. He looked great, and I liked seeing him do a smaller little part, but I still have residual warmth for him because of X-Men: First Class.

My verdict: RENT it, but only for The Gosdong. It’s worth viewing for his scenes alone. Just fast-forward through all of the other crap.

Photos courtesy of WENN.