Elysium: What a Coincidence!

What else to do on a Sunday but go to the movies? Just discovered that the theater near where I've just moved is craaayyyyy. I kind of felt like I was in a movie theater from the future. The concessions stand had a digital soda fountain and the seats are assigned. Not to mention the fact that the seats are CUSHIONY RED RECLINING THINGS.

Seriously, how the hell did it take so long for 

someone to think of this?

But after I got over the initial shock of this spaceship facility, I settled down to watch tonight's feature, Elysium.

Elysium takes place in the future, 2154 to be precise, and at this point in time, Earth has been abandoned by the wealthy in favor of living in a space settlement called Elysium. While Earth is covered with disease, bad air, filth, and overpopulation, Elysium is immaculate and convenient, complete with robot servants and total healthcare machines that can cure anything from a paper cut to leukemia. We are shown the life of a guy that lives on Earth named Max. Raised by nuns, he grows up to become a bad boy stealing cars, but by the time we catch up with him he is reformed from all that and trying to make an honest living working at a factory that makes droids. After he gets stuck in a room where he's exposed to high levels of radiation one thing leads to another and he ends up hijacking the mind of an Elysian and being the one man that can change the futures of the people that live on both Earth and Elysium.

The wheeel in the skyyyy keeps on tuuurrrrniiiinnn

So woah, right off the bat there's a LOT of stuff going on in this movie. It got off to a pretty good start; they show you that robot police keep the citizens of Earth in order cruelly and without humanity, that people rely on thieving to get by, and that there's little to no promise of upward mobility. Interesting commentary. But then they introduce plot point after plot point and things get a little...over-ambitious.

Parallel to Max's story is the Elysian president's, focusing on her ruthless way of fighting refugees from gaining illegal access to Elysium, which is by blowing them up before they can land there. We also see   a whole string of events involving illegally employed agents from Elysium sent to "take care of" Max and other refugees, Max's childhood friend and her daughter, and computer hackers.

Another case of Could Have Been Cool But Wasn't. Sometimes you can't squish everything into a two-hour movie and this was definitely the case here. Instead of the story flowing as we get to know a little bit more about the characters, it seems to jump from conflict to conflict and coincidence from coincidence. Like:

"Oh crap, I have radiation poisoning, get me to Elysium, please!" 

"Well that is certainly convenient because I happen to have this chip where I can hack into the minds of the wealthy! I'll send you to hijack the vehicle of an Elysian and maybe we can find something useful in their minds to use for our own benefit!"

"Great! Let's get her installed!"

"Glad we could accomplish that despite the rampant disease and obvious lack of hygiene in this establishment (not to mention your progressive death from radiation poisoning). You have survived the installation of mind-hardware and mechanical exoskeleton!"

"Hooray! Let's hijack this gentleman!"

"Quite! My goodness, his mind is full of hacker software that will overthrow the entire political system of Elysium!"

"Again, sir, I say how convenient!"

"Indeed!

So easy we should've done it two hundred years ago!

As the guy sitting next to me put it "Well, that's all very convenient isn't it?" It was just kind of like they worked a little too hard to find a happy ending. And each progressive event just felt a little too good to be true.

Thematically it's a very interesting commentary on our world and the United States. Earth citizens are so desperate for healthcare that they pay a fortune for the chance to fly to Elysium and break into the homes of the wealthy to use their health machines. Also an interesting commentary on immigration as the Earth citizens we see all speak a mixture of Spanish and English while the Elysian elite speak a mixture of clipped English and French. Their philosophy of keeping people out (blowing them out of the sky) is met with little controversy and, at best, a slap on the wrist. What does that say about us as a country? Makes you think about the different methods people talk about to "keep people out of our country brawrawrarwaarr."

Bet that healthcare you got is pretty convenient... :X

Anyway, cinematically political agendas aside, it could have been really really cool. It made an excellent social commentary on the United States (Are we Elysium? Or are they making statements about big business in the US?) but too convoluted to be good.

5 outa 10. Sorry, Matt Damon.

Also it bothers me that in the trailer they make it seem like his hydraulics are what make him special. That has nothing to do with how they're going to overthrow Elysium. Just sayin.

Blue Jasmine (Seriously Blue. And Also Crazy.)

Had a "me party" yesterday and went into Philly to see such sites as the Philadelphia Art Museum, Ultimo Coffee's new coffee shop on Catharine St, The Continental, and (of course) The Ritz 5 movie theater, where I saw Woody Allen's latest Blue Jasmine.*

May I firstly say that I love Woody Allen as a director? The jazz music, the black and white 20's style intertitles and alphabetical credits, the funny/tragic realistic characters--you had me at Small Time Crooks. He is truly a craftsman and I tend to love everything that he puts out. Even To Rome With Love, haters. (Although, as a side note, I frequently ignore all of his 80s-90s films that include Mia Farrow as a headliner. Except for Hannah and Her Sisters.) I kind of pre-loved Blue Jasmine right after I saw the trailer. So let's get to it.

Jasmine (née Jeanette) has just moved in with her sister. She has just suffered a nervous breakdown following her husband (Alec Baldwin) being charged with fraud and subsequent prison suicide. After a life of luxury (Actual luxury. Like five houses and a personal jet.) she is staying at her sister's lower-middle class apartment and trying to figure out her life. But Jasmine has never had to do this before. She states more than once throughout the movie that Hal, her husband, swept her off her feet before she could graduate from college.  Resultantly she doesn't have any life skills. And has never had to be a real adult.

Pre-real life. Like an episode of Downton Abbey.

After a friend of Ginger's finds her a job as a receptionist at a dental office, Jasmine begins taking computer classes with the dream of eventually getting a degree in interior decorating online. But when one thing after another happens at the dentist's office, she quits and approaches a WASPy friend with the question "Do you know any men?" The rest of the movie is spent with her quitting everything to become a rich man's girlfriend, lying to him about her past and masquerading as a qualified interior decorator, which (predictably) doesn't end well. Her story is also cut up with vignettes from her past life, hosting parties, telling friends how she and her husband met, talking to their adopted son, listening in on deals that her husband was making, etc.

This movie was fascinating for a number of reasons. In some ways it reminded me of The Queen of Versailles, the real life tale of the Segiel family and their fall after the recession. But Jasmine, in a lot of ways, is so much more pathetic. Here we have a look at the inability of the rich to function in lower-middle class life. Relying on the increasingly imaginary "American Dream," Jasmine originally plans to pull herself up by her bootstraps and go back to school. However, faced with the harsh reality that school costs money, she then realizes that she has to fund it by getting a job appropriate to her resume (which is presumably blank).

Don't we look ravishing today.

After becoming uncomfortable with things at her menial job, she moves onto the only thing that she knows how to do: relying on a man. And this method of survival, which is pretty archaic in this day and age, does not end up panning out. We see her struggle through her life in denial of her surroundings and acting a bit like lost child looking for her mom. Or, rather, a lost wife looking for her husband.

By contrast, her sister Ginger is totally happy being a member of the lower-middle class. She bags groceries, she has two nice kids, and a boyfriend who is a mechanic. When Jasmine comes in like a tornado of judgement, though, Ginger starts to falter and question her romantic and lifestyle choices. It's a hard road back to reality for Ginger, but she gets her happy ending. Jasmine not so much.

It's ok though. She's got her vodka.

This movie seems to be making an interesting commentary about women's options today. Whereas in the 80s women may have been excellent trophy wives, it seems to be less and less acceptable for a woman to function today without an actual function. Even stay-at-home moms do more than Jasmine does. And while she's not a bad person, she doesn't seem to have the first idea as to how to pick of the pieces of her life. It also tells the eternal moral: money isn't everything.

Excellent excellent acting by Cate Blanchett. I totally believed that she was going off the deep end. If for nothing else, I would recommend the movie for her excellent acting.

8 outa 10. 

I literally had to go through this entire post and delete all of the times I'd written Blue Ivy. Thanks Jay-Z and Beyonce. Rude.

IN A WORLD...(Where Lake Bell Creates Movies)

Running behind a little this week, guys. But last week I had the privelege of getting a sneak peek of Lake Bell's new movie, In a World..., which she wrote, directed, and starred in herself. Also (if my Twitter strategy is working) y'all should know that she also made a personal appearance with a Q & A after the film as well.

This is how she got to the theater...it's not a shot from the movie..probably...

So the plot of the movie surrounds Carol, a voice coach with a less-than-impressive resume and the daughter of the go-to guy in movie trailer voiceovers. After she gets kicked out of her father's house, she gets the opportunity to promote her own voiceover work and takes off--totally unexpectedly. When the opportunity comes up to voice over the high-profile trilogy of a popular book series (much like The Hunger Games), both Carol and her father chomp at the bit to prove to themselves (and each other) that they are relevant to the extremely competitive industry. Running along side this main plot line are three love stories: Carol's sister hits a snag in her marriage; the ethics of her father dating a woman her own age; and her escapades with two men in the industry.

Wait a second...everyone's mismatched...

So the cool thing about this movie is its subject matter. It doesn't get much more obscure than the land of voiceover. It's only briefly touched on in The Holiday and I really can't think of any other movie where I've even heard it mentioned. When I asked Lake Bell during the Q & A after the movie as to why she picked this as the main subject matter, she basically said that it was just that that has inspired her. Being someone who had briefly tried her hand at the voiceover gig, she knew how competitive the industry was. Not only that but she was inspired because she had never heard a voiceover done by a woman. With the neo-feminism that's taking the nation by storm right now (more into seizing femininity than burning bras), I thought that it was a really cool idea. They even tie in a feminist message at the end, telling girls to take themselves seriously and not to neglect something as impressionable as their voices. In a world (see what I did there?) where girls talk like Kim Kardashian (Omg, kill me. She reminds me of a drunk squirrel), she puts a spotlight on the importance of intelligent speech. A big fat THANK YOU, LAKE BELL from all of my fellow grammar nazis out there.

Omg this picture.

The only things I wasn't crazy about in this movie were the sort of understated humor. While it's subtle and cute and funny, it becomes borderline unexciting. There are chuckles, sure, and plenty of awkward moments with Carol. But it got me wondering at a few points whether this movie was going to take a turn for the worse. Maybe that was its intention? Additionally, the side stories are a little distracting. When Carol's sister's marriage takes a dramatic turn, they create a huge problem and then fix it. Same with the marriage between her father and his thirty-year-old girlfriend. She has a really sweet scene at the end and yet it goes unacknowledged by the two sisters.

I noticed it, girl. I noticed.

It was not bad, it was a pleasure speaking with Lake Bell herself, and I'm anxious to see what other kinds of things she comes up with. However, I would probably put this movie on while doing something else. Like playing Candy Crush. It has a lot of "OOOHHH!!" moments, but in the way that a gossipy magazine does.

6 and a half outa 10. Not bad for your first movie, Ms. Bell!

NOW ON TWITTER (haaayyyy)

Hello, dear readers. This is just a quick note to inform you that I am now also on Twitter. You can tweet or RT me at @LPNB_reviews. Thanks!

Austenland: A Bad Movie Hiding Behind Regency Sets.

Jane Austen has become somewhat of a hot commodity in recent culture. We've got movies and books based on, adapted and spun off of the authoress's numerous love stories coming out our ears. Pride and Prejudice With Zombies, Becoming Jane, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, Clueless (true story; adapted from Emma), and who hasn't seen the BBC Pride and Prejudice? (Rhetorical question; obviously you all have. And if you haven't please find yourself a library immediately) Being an avid Jane Austen fan myself, I was so excited when I got the opportunity last night to see upcoming film Austenland starring Keri Russell, Bret McKenzie, and JJ Feild.

*Let it be noted that I was ten minutes late to the movie because my mom and I couldn't find a parking spot. Damn Narberth parking!

The movie is centered around Jane (Russell), a woman who has been "unlucky in love." Her obsession with Jane Austen bars her from being able to participate in her own life as she is so fixed on finding a man that fits her "fantasy."  When she finds Austenland, a real manor house set up to mimic the English Regency Era with everything from clothes to food to decoration, she feels she's finally found somewhere where she can fit in. Almost immediately she meets the acquaintance of both a servant named Martin and the lady of the manor's nephew, Mr. Henry Nobley. The rest of the film shows her inexplicably flitting back and forth between the two like a pinball and picking one of them at the end.

Hi guys, just FYI: I love both of you. Does that work for you? Ok, cool.

I was really disappointed by this movie. You can't appeal to Austen fans and then take away their glory by making your main character a muddle. Here's my problem: Jane is supposed to be a crazy-ass Austen fan, but she doesn't play along with the Austenland game for more than ONE DAY. Um. WHAT?? Anyone who has read an Austen book more than once and seen the movies based off of them should know that taking off with servant would be a CLASS 4 NO-NO. And yet Jane does it without a care in the world. Not to mention the fact that she latches onto this guy after, like a day. Stage 5 clinger. Even in modern times.

Also, for my fellow avid movie-goers, you may be halfway through the movie thinking "Wait. Something is not right." Both men both seem to adore Jane equally and she seems to like them both equally as well. For those of us well-versed in romcom lore, we know that this is simply weird. No conflict = no story. So where's the damn conflict? It doesn't come into play until the third part of the movie, which takes too long, and feels like you're spending the majority of the movie holding your breath. And then by the end you're like "Wait a second, how can you really be in love with this guy when you were acting in love with the other---wait, what?"

Unlucky in love, my ass.

I really hate to see a good plot go to waste. They could've done so much more with this. In my world, Jane would go to Austenland intent on enjoying every freaking moment, playing along with all of the rules and concepts, become disillusioned with the facade, and then fall in love with the servant. Done. That's all you need. Shazam. Not all this confusion about oh, The Regency Era was really full of honest, simple, good people and modern people suck. Um, no. Obviously you've never heard of a Mr. Wickham, a guy so nasty he almost ruined the marriage of Elizabeth Bennett to Mr. Darcy. Or perhaps a Mr. Elton, who is grossed out by the thought of marrying someone of an inferior social class. Or maybe even John Willoughby, who ends up marrying an ice queen instead of the woman he loves because she's got more money. Please read an Austen book before you write a film based on a fan of hers. P.S. There have always been nasty people in the world; the message of your film is bewildering.

Miss Austen is displeased.

The thing that kept this movie entertaining was its clever use of side characters. Miss Charming (played by the hilarious Jennifer Coolidge) is grossly out of her element in Austenland but gobbles it all up anyway, blunder after hilarious blunder. Also notable are Miss Amelia Cartwright (Georgia King), Colonel Andrews (James Callis), and Captain George East (Ricky Whittle).

In summary, I'm becoming more and more annoyed about this movie. If you want to make a film about an extreme fan, next time pick a Twihard for your protagonist.

4 out of 10 stars. Lackluster, but got saved by the chuckles from the minor characters and their (purposefully) awful British Regency accents.

The Conjuring: If You Think Witches Are Obsolete, You Are Wrong.

As a teenager I was pretty religious. Not in a weird person way (at least I don't think so), but let it be known that I regularly went to church and still have the books of the Old Testament memorized thanks to a song I learned when I was nine.

See? No hoodless sweatshirt with bright white tennis shoes.

(Does anyone else picture religious fanatics this way? Just me?

On a separate note, remember when digital cameras were still a new thing?)

But my background has made me a little...sensitive to movies about demons.

Enter: The Conjuring.

Plot: A husband, wife, and their five daughters move into a house that they've recently bought from a bank auction. The house is very old and needs some work, but they seem cheerful enough to move in.

But then (of course) weird things start to happen. During a game, the mother confuses the claps of her child with those of a resident child ghost. Pictures fall off the walls. All of the clocks stop at 3:07 a.m. Children's feet are grabbed while they're sleeping in the night. One of the daughters begins sleep-walking. One sees someone in her room and smells rotting meat. And during one terrifying night, the mother is dragged down to the basement and tormented by a demon, while her two daughters are locked in their room and attacked by the ghost of a witch. People are hurled across the room and the family is reduced to all sleeping in the living room.

See? Dragged to the basement.

While this plot line is moving along, we are also introduced to Ed and Lorraine Warren, experts in the paranormal field. Not frauds, these two are dedicated to helping people debunk their "ghost stories" and help solve any that happen to be real. When approached by the mother of five, they decide to help her. Lorraine, a psychic, sees the demon latched onto them all as soon as she enters the house (giving a reason, in this instance, why they can't all just "RUN!!"). She also gives insight as to why there are so many ghosts in the house: a child and his mother from the turn of the century, a maid, another woman, and the demonic presence of a witch that had been hanged on the property during the 19th century.

After the Warrens come to help, things gets cray. That's all I'm going to say. Prepare to be scared.

Yes. That is a woman wrapped in a sheet, sitting in a chair.

Upside down on the ceiling.

I would say that The Conjuring did give me some trouble sleeping. If it hadn't added the quotation before the credits from the real Warrens on the reality of God and the devil I probably could've put it out of my mind a little bit more easily. Seeing the picture of the real family during the end credits didn't help much either. If you'd like to learn more about the real story behind The Conjuring (which, let's be honest, could be a load of crap), check out www.chasingthefrog.com, a site which examines the verity of various Hollywood films "based on a true story."

The only thing that bugged me about this movie (which, in hindsight, I should probably be grateful for), is that they didn't make the witch look all that scary. After looking at IMDB, the witch's role is apparently played by a man (not unlike the role of Zelda in Pet Sematary). However, it's clear that there's something a bit...off. She looks a little too weird to be true, and it diminishes the thing that makes the movie so scary: its basis on fact.

With the exception of this scene. During which I nearly peed my pants.

So, in conclusion, The Conjuring I found to be pretty frightening. Like so many other modern demon movies, the fact that there is a malevolent spirit latching onto people rather than their properties is terrifying. We're not dealing with a poltergeist. We're dealing with evil. And that makes the movie especially scary.

8 out of 10. If you're looking for a scare, you won't be disappointed.

Despicable Me 2: Kristen Wiig is Taking Over the World...And That's Okay.

Felt like I was in high school again this past Friday when I went out to see Despicable Me 2 with my boyfriend and his little brother (just to clarify, his "little" brother is a 6'2 sophomore in high school, and yes, we are all nerds).

If the one in the middle was a girl...then this would look like us...

Plot: Gru, now a single dad, spends his days looking after his little ones and (unsuccessfully) trying recipes for various jams and jellies that he hopes to sell.  When he is suddenly kidnapped by a woman who ends up working for the Anti-Villain Agency (or something), he is then recruited to reach back into his darker days and try to help them find a villain that has been tampering with a top-secret serum that turns cute things into monsters. Bonding with the woman, named Lucy (Wiig), he finds that maybe his feelings for her are a little more than professional. And of course, bringing up the rear are hilarious characters such as El Macho (who was rumored to be the most manly man in the world, dying as a result of being tied to a shark strapped with bombs that landed in an erupting volcano, hahaha), Dr. Nefario, and the three little girls (with a special emphasis on Agnes; omg so cute).

Could he finally have met his match?

Hmm, what to say. Did I like the movie? Yes. Was it funny? Yes. Was it hilarious even? Yes. But was it as memorable as the first one? Impossible.

Unfortunately for kids' movies, I think that sequels' screenplays and plots tend to revolve around events and not necessarily character development. What makes the original Despicable Me so hilarious is the fact that Gru is so grumpy and hateful in the first half and then finds his mushy side when he decides to adopt the three girls. This is missing in the newest edition. Gru, instead of being his regular hateful self like in the last one, is made to find compromise between being a grump and the kind-hearted man that he discovers within himself in the first film. Therefore there isn't much to expand upon character-wise besides highlighting his romantic side (which has always been decidedly awkward). Who better to match his awkward turtley-ness than the Queen of Awkward, Her Majesty, Kristen Wiig.

This girl.

Wiig definitely brings the humor in her first heavy role in a kid's movie. However, her flighty/spazzy sort of humor doesn't really add much depth to her character either and we're sort of left with a cartoon romance. Which, I guess isn't a big deal since it's a kid movie and all, but it doesn't make the film particularly memorable. I would've liked to see them stir up some conflict with Gru going back to his evil ways or something a little more interesting.

Would've liked to see a little more of Evil Gru though...

However, the minions (as always) really beefed up the chuckles and I was laughing the whole time regardless.

Not bad, Dreamworks. Solid 7 outa 10.