Blog: carolyn

I should probably start by making it clear that I have no real authority to be judging Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009) because I’ve only seen Sin City, True Romance and Pulp Fiction and I haven’t seen The Dirty Dozen (1967) or Inglorious Bastards (1978). So I don’t really want to embarrass myself because I didn’t recognize that half the score was from Kill Bill, and I didn’t get half the references to filmmakers etc. from the 1940s. But that said, I was really entertained by Inglourious Basterds, and not thoroughly confused by the plot. The plot definitely wasn’t as jumpy as I had expected from Tarantino, although it was completely fictitious and therefore kind of “okay, suspend your disbelief.”

I’ve learned to expect the best from Brad Pitt and he just keeps exceeding my expectations; while his younger roles were more vapid, presumably due to Pitt’s physical beauty, he’s always been a chameleon, and age has really allowed him to show this changeability. For me, he’s constantly churning out funny, quirky roles – from Ocean’s Eleven & sequels to Burn After Reading to Benjamin Button. In Inglourious Basterds, Pitt’s Aldo Raine has a Tennessee swagger and abominable Italian (“Bon-jurr-no”) that really had me laughing. Raine’s rowdy bunch of Nazi killers (the Basterds) added a great deal to the movie as well, from Eli Roth’s Sgt. Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz to B. J. Novak’s Pfc. Smithson Utivich and Samm Levine (resurrected from Freaks & Geeks in all his Jewish glory) as Pfc. Gerold Hirschberg. But I think Christoph Waltz stole the show as Col. Hans Landa – his milk obsession and love of his own nickname were perfect and hilarious.

I just watched the trailer for 9 on Gotcha Movies. 9, produced by Tim Burton and coming to theaters September 9th (9/9/2009 – ha ha), features Elijah Wood as #9, a burlap sack creature given the spark of life by a mad scientist, set in a post-apocalyptic world. Obviously these “sapient rag dolls,” one reviewer refers to them, must have been brought to life for some purpose; the preview shows the excited scientist trying to create them all before the apocalypse. Their mission is to discover this purpose, while running and hiding from scary cat machines and insect creatures (all controlled by the rebellious destroyer, the Great Machine). With Tim Burton producing, this Focus Feature will be handpicked and quirky. Director Shane Acker created a short film version of 9 at 11 minutes long which garnered an Oscar nom. At 79 minutes, featuring Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly and Crispin Glover, this full length version of 9 will be short and hopefully sweet. Yet another animated movie I’m actually excited about for the fall, this will be a movie I see in theaters… just maybe not opening weekend.

So, sandwiched between her two Sex and the City movies, Sarah Jessica is finding time to star in a movie about the witness protection program… sort of. She and Hugh Grant star as a couple on the verge of divorce, before they witness a murder and are put in the program and shipped off to some hokey small town in Wyoming. Who knows what they do there besides get attacked by grizzlies and chase horses, but the second option is funny, as SJP screams “I’m not on my horse!” while sprinting behind her stallion. The movie kind of looks like a drag, but I’ll give it a second chance because the preview made me laugh out loud, which I was not expecting at all from the beginning of the previews. In all honesty though, this will be a movie I wait to see on DVD… but for now the previews will entertain me.

I should probably start by making it clear that I have no real authority to be judging Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009) because I’ve only seen Sin City, True Romance and Pulp Fiction and I haven’t seen The Dirty Dozen (1967) or Inglorious Bastards (1978). So I don’t really want to embarrass myself because I didn’t recognize that half the score was from Kill Bill, and I didn’t get half the references to filmmakers etc. from the 1940s. But that said, I was really entertained by Inglourious Basterds, and not thoroughly confused by the plot. The plot definitely wasn’t as jumpy as I had expected from Tarantino, although it was completely fictitious and therefore kind of “okay, suspend your disbelief.”

I’ve learned to expect the best from Brad Pitt and he just keeps exceeding my expectations; while his younger roles were more vapid, presumably due to Pitt’s physical beauty, he’s always been a chameleon, and age has really allowed him to show this changeability. For me, he’s constantly churning out funny, quirky roles – from Ocean’s Eleven & sequels to Burn After Reading to Benjamin Button. In Inglourious Basterds, Pitt’s Aldo Raine has a Tennessee swagger and abominable Italian (“Bon-jurr-no”) that really had me laughing. Raine’s rowdy bunch of Nazi killers (the Basterds) added a great deal to the movie as well, from Eli Roth’s Sgt. Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz to B. J. Novak’s Pfc. Smithson Utivich and Samm Levine (resurrected from Freaks & Geeks in all his Jewish glory) as Pfc. Gerold Hirschberg. But I think Christoph Waltz stole the show as Col. Hans Landa – his milk obsession and love of his own nickname were perfect and hilarious.

I’m pretty sure my new guilty pleasure show for the fall (to add to the collection of Gossip Girl and The Hills – I tried to get into 90210 last year but it just didn’t happen) is going to be The Beautiful Life. Created by Ashton Kutcher, The Beautiful Life will be premiering September 16 @ 9 on the CW. Today I saw the clip that the CW is previewing for the show, and I think I’m already hooked. IMDB lists the plot as a show that revolves around a group of models living together in a co-ed residence in New York. Just to clarify, The Beautiful Life is a drama, not a reality show. I think whether I’ll continue to watch after the pilot will completely depend on the actors and whether they annoy me or draw me in, which at this point is a toss up. Mischa Barton is playing Sonja Stone, who from the previews seems like the most experienced model, pretty much a diva who freaks out when Zac Posen (he’s in the first episode!) tells her she’s gotten too fat to walk in one of his dresses. As much as I loved Mischa in The O.C., Marissa was kind of the perfect role for her and her acting skills aren’t the most exceptional. To be honest, I don’t think this role in The Beautiful Life will really ask all that much from her that she can’t give, but if she has to cry a lot there are going to be problems. Sara Paxton (formerly of the Disney Channel) plays Raina Marinelli, who from the previews looks like the baby model, the newest of the modeling group. One of the guy models, Nico Tortorella, is gorgeous. Elle Macpherson is in the pilot for sure, but I don’t know if her role, Claudia, will be recurring or not. I can’t wait to see them all in action! I just hope the show is exciting enough to keep me watching.

I might be a fan of Kristen Stewart. I haven’t figured it out yet… she’s tough to figure out. She’s one of those people who’s either really stupid or really smart, and she’s definitely all wrapped up inside her own head. She’s said herself she’s not funny, even as a kid she took on serious roles in movies like Jodie Foster’s diabetic daughter in The Panic Room (2002) cause she couldn’t deal with kid movies. Listening to her enough, you start to believe in her intelligence. She has a pretty strong vocabulary, and she’s clearly very serious about her work and the way she is portrayed. I just don’t know for sure that she really needs to be taken so seriously. I mean, yeah, she’s been in some gritty movies but does she really have the presence to act the way she does, ie. on stage at the MTV Movie awards? Or is her behavior all because she is just painfully shy, and awkwardly so? That’s what I mean about her… Anyway one thing that really does bug me about her is the way she talks in interviews, particularly when she’s flustered, or possibly just trying to get out a big idea she has figured out in her head but hasn’t been asked to put into words yet. I want to be able to listen to her, but she’s giving me a headache. Here’s what I mean:

There’s an animated film (stop-motion, to be precise) coming out in November that I actually want to see. Here’s why: it’s directed by Wes Anderson, the book was written by Roald Dahl, and the cast is, well... fantastic. Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) is slated to race into theaters November 13, with George Clooney supplying the voice of the title character. The plot sounds like kid stuff – the Fox family and all of their friends live beneath a hill above which live three of the worst farmers in history. When the three farmers band together to stop Mr. Fox from stealing their crops, they try to destroy his whole neighborhood – literally – until Mr. Fox realizes that to retaliate, he must dig under their farms.

Fox’s plot might be the stuff of kid films, but the dialogue is witty and well pulled off by a cast that includes Meryl Streep as Mrs. Fox, Jason Schwartzman as Ash, Michael Gambon, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Anjelica Huston, Brian Cox, Roman Coppola and Wes Anderson himself as Weasel; recognizing their voices behind furry talking animals is reason enough to see the movie.

Despite the change in format from live action to stop, and from catering to a mature audience to a younger generation, Anderson’s screenplay stays true to his unique style of dialogue; in the trailer, Jason Schwartzman’s Ash boasts, “I don’t have a bandit hat, but I modified this tube sock.” “We look good,” his silver-furred friend asserts. “Yeah, we do.” Clooney gets in on the repartee as well: “What’s this thing you do, the whistle with the clicking sound?” a fellow bandit asks Mr. Fox. “That’s my trademark,” Clooney’s Fox explains simply, with a cute shrug. Fantastic Mr. Fox is Anderson’s first full-length foray into animation, though he did use some claymation-like techniques to create the mythical jaguar shark in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004). As far as I can tell, Anderson’s Fox will be making a noteworthy addition to the season of fantastic family films I’m expecting.

Have you seen the trailer for Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland, due in theaters March 5, 2010? I can’t decide if it looks as horrifying as Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) – the only redeeming quality of which was Wonka’s childhood – or as refreshing as his take on Batman (1989). Burton’s almost as well known for his remakes as his quirks (this one will make #7), but remakes can flop – hard – because of the expectations they carry with them for fans of the original version, and because of changes expected by those who found fault with the first (or second, or third) try.

True to form, Burton seems to be finding his inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s more twisted book version over any previous sugary film version - it’s undeniable, his storytelling skills are sensational. As with Wonka, Depp’s Mad Hatter seems to push this level of weird to a whole new level; previews reveal a green-eyed, white-faced, gap-toothed goblin. The movie features two of Burton’s old standbys – Depp and wife Bonham Carter. I have to admit, the only character who has kind of turned me off already is the Red Queen – while true to true to the original illustrations, her digitally distorted proportions freak me out – but Bonham Carter rarely disappoints. Alan Rickman and Crispin Glover, on the other hand, look like perfect fits for their roles as the Caterpillar and the Knave of Hearts. Burton seems to have found a few new muses though, as Anne Hathaway plays a dark-browed White Queen – looking slightly different than her dumpy illustrated counterpart – and newcomer Mia Wasikowska as a grown-up-looking Alice.

While the previews don’t exactly paint it as such, a synopsis released the week of Comic-Con has revealed Burton’s Alice to be a sequel, where Alice returns to Wonderland as an adult to dethrone the Red Queen. Regardless, the trailer still draws me in, although this may just be the effect of good advertising (and splicing) as was the largely the case with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The digital effects look incredible (those flowers have real faces!), and so much cooler than the cartoon version – and combined with the score, Alice seems almost epic in scale; the trailer advertises action, mystery, and plenty of adventure. Hope the movie can live up to its trailer! I can’t wait to find more leaks as the release date gets closer.