Entertainment Recap!

Here’s a recap of everything you’ve been missing in the entertainment-sphere if you’ve been hiding under a rock-no judgment here.

Downton Abbey’s U.S. premiere of season 4 just wrapped.  The furtive, longing glances were just as good as ever.  I won’t reveal any spoilers but the important thing is that Mary has 50 suitors (just a bunch, no big deal) and poor Edith is still alone.  #feelinlikeedith

This awards season is truly exciting, with fantastic, dynamic performances from the ones in 12 Years a Slave to American Hustle.  Jennifer Lawrence is still supremely charming and my vote for girl crush-if only she actually ate as much as she professes to, then she would be perfect.  Lupita Nyong’o is the most beautiful being that has ever appeared on this earth, on point with all her fashion choices.  If they don’t make a Barbie or some sort of doll-replica of her soon I’ll be shocked.  Matthew McConaughey’s random speeches add to the fun although they are slightly grating (here’s to hoping Leo takes the Oscar).  “Alriiiiight, alriiiiight, alriiiiiiight.”

One award that Matthew McConaughey should win for his immense comeback?  An Emmy.  He is brilliant in HBO’s True Detective, a show with as intense and dark an ambiance as McConaughey’s character himself.  Seriously, though, that Quaaludes scene alone makes Leonardo DiCaprio deserve the Oscar.  His extreme difficulty going down the stairs reminded me a bit too much of myself after midterms.  Can’t. Make. It. To. Dorm. Too. Defeated.  If Pink does some of the acrobatic wonders she did at the Grammys I am going to cry tears of wonder and jealousy.  As long as it’s not like that year Beyonce sang every single nominated song.  I’m not sure Ellen DeGeneres (host this year of the Oscars) will push the envelope as much as Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, though.  Must I remind you of the now-classic lines: “’Gravity’ is nominated for best film. It’s the story of how George Clooney would rather float away into space and die than spend one more minute with a woman his own age.” And, of course: “”Like a supermodel’s vagina, let’s all give a warm welcome to Leonardo DiCaprio.”

After the sad excuse for an Olympics I’m looking forward to the return of new episodes.  Then I’ll finally be able to stop hating myself for watching The Bachelor’s Juan Pablo.  Don’t judge man, it was between that and curling.

Like air hockey, but sadder?

An exciting book-to-film is coming out this summer!  No, not Fifty Shades of Grey, I do have some dignity…it’s The Fault in Our Stars!  Shailene Woodley plays Hazel (or as Augustus lovingly calls her, Hazel Grace)-proving that one can star in an incredibly banal show, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and still be a good actress.

Speaking of ABC Family shows, there is no shame here when I recap the latest on Pretty Little Liars.  It’s the most tweeted about show, I’ll have you know.  Basically, Ezra, the high school teacher, turns out to be just a regular creepster, not an evil genius creepster, which was incredibly disappointing and infuriating.  He did provide possibly the best excuse of all time though (which I will be using as I write my final papers): “I was writing a true crime novel.”  KThx.

Aria finds out how much of a bad writer Ezra really is.

If you’re actually looking for a smart show, may I recommend The Good Wife?  With its spitfire writing, power-house acting, and complex turns it may be the smartest show on right now.  That’s saying a lot, as TV is more like a stimulating lube tube right now for the mind, with provocative shows like Girls, Breaking Bad, and Homeland, than its previously condescending title.
If you’re looking for some cute/smart fun Parks and Recreation is still the most underrated quirk of a comedy gem.  The Mindy Project is also back with a vengeance this season, funnier than ever with absurd shenanigans-including a sexting fiasco gone wrong.

True dat.

Finally, I would be remiss not to mention a couple of things that are guaranteed to brighten up any winter blues.  I mean guaranteed.  First off is The Lego Movie-one of the most clever and genuinely funny animated films in a long time.  Second, I have two words for you:  Broad City.  My sister turned me on to this new show, full of the most awkward hilarity, basically an unpolished Girls.  Perhaps the best episode so far is “Working Girls” when Abbi, one of the main characters, goes to retrieve a package for her apartment crush.  The lengths that must be traveled-man we feel you (fake cough Student Services, just saying).

Alas, we come to the end…of my procrastination.  Enjoy the Oscars tonight!

Star-Crossed Loves

I have found a new doomed romance.  That's my weakness.  Doomed romances, ships passing in the night.

Scandal has the pair that I am obsessed with.  Kerry Washington and Tony Goldwyn portray Olivia Pope and the President of the United States, otherwise known as Fitz, respectively.  They are a duo that never quite find peace.  When one of them is ready to go all-in the other isn't.  One is always begging for the other to trust them, to give in to them while the other is angry.  Still, they can't give one another up.

These romances I find so intriguing.  I am enamored with them and with the whole idea of loving someone that much in general.  I blame my mother for reading Pride and Prejudice with my sister and me when we were younger.  We used to cuddle up under the blankets on rainy days and watch the BBC version of P&P and Ang Lee's/Emma Thompson's angsty Sense and Sensibility.  My dad would see the television and roll his eyes.

Flash forward to today and nothing has changed.  In fact, we still watch those same films with the same enthusiasm.  I would like to review two movies that have come out recently on DVD that are of that genre.


Anna Karenina:

Anna Karenina, famously said to be the most well-written novel ever, is creatively brought to film in a way much unlike the adaptions starring Vivien Leigh and most memorably, Greta Garbo.  This writer/film lover/movie reviewer also admittedly has a bit of a thing for tragic heroines (ie. Tess from Tess of the d'Urbervilles) and not just doomed lovers.  

Keira Knightley captures not only Anna's beauty, but also her strength and her passion in a time and place that repressed such feelings in women.  Anna Karenina is a dutiful wife and mother who discovers that both lust and love do exist in the world although they seem foreign and forbidden for women especially.  

Jude Law plays against type as Anna’s stern, older husband.  Law lends too much sympathy to the character, though.  We must feel for Anna more than for her husband although we may disagree with her actions.  After all, this is the man who forbids her to see her own son after her affair with Captain Vronsky.  Aaron Taylor-Johnson (an up-and-comer) stands out as the striking Vronsky.   

What leads to the film being so polarizing is the way in which it is directed.  Filmed by Joe Wright, who shot Atonement and Pride and Prejudice, the movie is like a play.  It is filmed on a stage with moving set pieces and much imagination (Anna’s letter to her estranged husband crumples into snowflakes) but becomes predictable and tiresome.  It also seems like it gets in the way of the story rather than aiding its message and fluidity.  Whether this direction was the right decision for the film is an important question.  Did Wright mean to say we are all just players in life or as inconsequential as moving set pieces?  Or does he mean to show that country life is the only thing that is real not the falsities of city society?  The scenes set in the country are not on the stage while the scenes in the city are.  What we are meant to take from it is unclear and whether this choice in direction was necessary is unclear as well.

A Royal Affair:

I had been excited to see A Royal Affair for a while.  It had gotten good reviews and it looked right up my alley, a costume drama with a tragic romance.

Luckily I wasn't disappointed.  A Royal Affair is a beautiful film that is hard to forget after the final scene.

The film is set in Denmark in the 1700s before the Enlightenment.  We are being told the story by a young English woman, Caroline, who is married off to the Danish king, an immature, mentally ill man.  He doesn't know how to take care of himself yet alone run a country.  This is where Struensee, a doctor, comes in.  He has high hopes to get close to the king and change the country for the better.

Struensee, with the help of the queen, is able to do this but at what cost?  The ending is a disturbing image of how one's good intentions often don't mean very much in the end.

Alicia Vikander, who plays the queen, is excellent.  She is a talented actress (also in Anna Karenina) and definitely one to watch.  She has a knack for making all of her characters relatable and sympathetic.  Mads Mikkelsen (who I am obsessed with currently) is phenomenal.  His eyes are haunting and he is reminiscent of Charles Darnay.

Even though this film is based on true events in history and you know it cannot end well, you still fervently root for Caroline and Struensee to make it.  A Royal Affair is romantic and heart-wrenching, powerful and poignant at the same time.   

Movies, Movies, Movies

I know I had promised movie reviews for the Academy Award Best Picture nominees (I have seen all the nominees but one it turns out-still waiting for Amour to come out on Netflix and looking forward to how much of an upper that one will be).  As an avid movie lover/watcher I also have quite a few more reviews to add to those from recent films I have seen in the movie theater and at home through Netflix.  (Not to go off on a tangent but does anyone else miss going into actual video stores and picking out what to watch?  I do.  Now I’m in charge of our queue at home and get blamed if the movie is bad, cough cough Prometheus but I’ll get to that later.)

 

As I was getting iced at the end of physical therapy I saw something interesting in Health magazine (the only kind of magazine they have there besides Reader’s Digest unfortunately).  There was a site that had four-word movie reviews.  I took it as a challenge to see if I too could write four-word movie reviews that were still meaningful.  Here it goes.

Best Picture nominees:

Zero Dark Thirty and Silver Linings Playbook- (see older posts for reviews).

Beasts of the Southern Wild- Whimsical, almost better afterwards

Les Miserables- Could have been better

Lincoln- Smart and vastly underrated

Life of Pi- Great effects but soulless

Argo- Extremely close to perfect

Django Unchained- Powerful in every sense

Amour- (Review to come after Netflix)

Netflix DVDs:

Animated:

Brave- Spunky heroine, cute bears

Indies:

Moonrise Kingdom- Childlike but also childish

The Sessions- Poignant, subtle love observations

Safety Not Guaranteed- Indie without direction/endgame

Robot & Frank- Funny and surprisingly heartfelt

The Master- Unlikable to a fault

Foreign Language Films:

The Intouchables- Eye-opening, new Odd Couple

Elena- What was the point?

Footnote- No-one to root for

Lemon Tree- Heart-wrenching look at loss

(Other foreign film recommendations: Caramel, A Separation, and Paradise Now, all excellent.)

Blockbusters:

Flight- Don’t waste your time (P.S. Seth MacFarlane’s hilarious Flight sock puppet sketch for the Oscar opening is quite accurate even though it is also somewhat offensive.  The part with the socks in the washing machine is genius.)

Prometheus- What was that? Ewww (My family will never let me live this choice down.  It was tres horrible and I got mean looks at the end for the two hours that we will never get back.  Squids freak me out more than usual too now.)

Current movies out in theaters in the time, as I like to call it, when movies go to die (post-Oscar/pre-summer period):

Side Effects- Solidly good, watchable thriller

Beautiful Creatures- A much lesser Twilight (Speaking of which The Host got horrible reviews so I didn’t even attempt to see it, and I see a lot of movies.)

Admission- So intensely, incredibly disappointing

Olympus Has Fallen- Circa Air Force One

Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor- Hack-job writing, preachy hilarity (I dragged my sister to this one and she said some of the funniest things when we came out.  I believe her best quotes were, “So basically the gist of the movie was ‘Woman thou shalt not cheateth lest you be alone and miserable for the rest of your life!’”  Another great one was, “When Kim Kardashian is the best thing in the movie you know you have a problem.”  Lastly, “Jurnee Smollet-Bell deserves an academy award for acting in this film.”  I have to add that I thought it was so awful that nothing happens to the men in the movie and Judith, the main character, was deciding between dull and duller.  Their banality alone should have led to some consequences instead of only the women suffering.  All in all, my sister wasn’t too happy I made her see it with me but I thought it was hilarious nonetheless-though not as funny as Beyonce in Obsessed.  Need I say, “Did you not get my message?”)

Not much to look forward to on the movie front.  That's why I'm always sad when the awards season ends.  I’m waiting to get Rust and Bone on Netflix and A Royal Affair which should be good.  The films that are out right now that I thought would have gotten better reviews didn’t.  The Place Beyond the Pines (with Ryan Gosling), Trance (a Danny Boyle film), and The Company You Keep (a Robert Redford film) all received middling reviews.  Coming to theaters soon are the Tom Cruise futuristic/sci-fi film, Oblivion, and The Great Gatsby (which got pushed back to spring instead of this past winter).  I am afraid of Baz Luhrmann’s interpretation even though I’m sure Leonardo DiCaprio will make a fantastic Gatsby but I guess we’ll see.  Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock are teaming up in The Heat this summer and I’m excited for that.

Never Been Kissed Part 2

I wonder why Drew Barrymore hasn’t done those kind of sweet, likable films like Never Been Kissed and Ever After in quite some time.  She’s the original “adorkable” heroine that is also utterly relatable.  It turns out I have a lot in common with her character, Josie, in Never Been Kissed.  Like Josie I too am shy, was a nerd in high school, and want to be a writer.  The biggest similarity between us, though, is far more embarrassing.  Yes, like Josie Geller I have never been kissed.  I take comfort in the fact that she was a few years older than me (three to be exact-I’m 22 and she is 25).  I have no excuse for this fact (I feel like I should have an excuse as mostly everyone says their first kiss was in their teens) except that I was a complete nerd in high school like I have previously mentioned.  I also was reserved.  Then my first year in college I was excited to meet people who dreamed and weren’t afraid to be different.  Soon enough, though, I was disappointed to find that people are people no matter what.  People can be mean, they can betray, they can hurt.  Most of my experiences have either been strictly flirtatious friendship or unrequited love.  The times that I thought it could happen never panned out.  A 22 year-old who has never been kissed sounds pretty lame.  It may be even lamer that I want that first kiss to count, to mean something, to be special.  I want it to be with someone I really like.  I’m not sure if it will happen like that or anything and frankly I will be mortified to share with the person that they are the first.  Maybe I won’t mention it; maybe I will only share this with you.  Call me naïve or silly but I like to think of myself as a daydreamer with a penchant for romanticism.  Tragic heroines like Tess of the D’urbervilles, witty banter, and doomed loves or ships passing in the night are my proclivities.  I guess I’m standing on the pitcher’s mound like Josie but unlike her I just haven’t found my Mr. Coulson (played by the handsome Michael Vartan) yet.

Oh my, it's Time for the Oscars!

I absolutely love and adore movies (on an equal level with writing).  Old and new, quirky and haunting, all poignant in their own way.  They, like books, give us a glimpse into places we may never see and people we will never know.  They can open our eyes, make us laugh and cry, and give us an escape, if only for a little while.

I am so excited that the Oscars are tomorrow!  I am dedicating my entire day to watching the pre-pre-show, the pre-show, and all the red carpet goodness.  Bring on the pizza and the popcorn.  My family takes it seriously-winner of most accurate predictions gets lunch.  I've got this in the bag.
 

In a year of great films and not-so-great music (see further down), this awards season has been exciting.  Exciting is not usually the adjective first thought of to describe these awards shows because of past years of fairly predictable wins.  This year is up for grabs, though.  The only sure bets are Anne Hathaway for Best Supporting Actress and Daniel Day-Lewis for Best Actor.  I’m thinking that Jennifer Lawrence will and should take it for Best Actress.  Best Supporting Actor methinks will go to Tommy Lee Jones but the Academy may pull one of those “Here’s an award for all of your work that we should have rewarded earlier” and give it to Robert De Niro (or Bob as Lawrence calls him).  Christoph Waltz could be a surprise here as he won the BAFTA and Golden Globe but probably not.  Best Picture will most likely go to Argo but the division of awards is weird this year because Ben Affleck was snubbed for Best Director.

The awards shows have been fun so far, save the slowness of the BAFTAs (even the dry, witty host can’t save that).  The SAGs moved quickly and the Golden Globes were hilarious due to Amy Poehler and Tina Fey’s brilliance.  It truly was a night full of girl power and star power.  

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hosting the Golden Globes and just being hilarious

The dresses this season have been pretty but also pretty safe.  There have not been any major blunders but some standouts have been all of Anne Hathaway’s choices (love her short hair), Marion Cotillard is always stunning (except for wearing the yellow version  of Jennifer Lawrence's SAG dress at the BAFTAs-why they made it a split level dress so that it looks like it is falling apart I'll never know), and Kerry Washington never misses.  Jennifer Lawrence looked beautiful at the Golden Globes but could even step outside of her box a little more.  Remember how gorgeous she looked at the Oscars a few years ago when she was nominated for Winter’s Bone?  She had her signature blond locks and a form-fitting red Calvin Klein dress.  **This just in, I just saw a picture of Jennifer Lawrence at the Film Independent Spirit Awards (damn you IFC for not showing on my TV) in a gorgeous short black Lanvin dress.  She looks young and fresh and I love love love it!  Jessica Chastain also chooses safe looks usually; I have to say I did not like the dress and hair she had for the Golden Globes this year. 

Anne Hathaway at the SAGs

Jennifer Lawrence at the 2011 Oscars

Jennifer Lawrence at the Golden Globes

Marion Cotillard at the Golden Globes

Music, on the other hand, has been disappointing this year.  Did anyone see the Grammys?  They were as lackluster as a potato chip.  I’ve never been so bored during the show.  My sister said we have officially entered Dante’s Inferno as Taylor Swift opened the show.  Clowns and Taylor Swift.  I like Taylor Swift but I didn’t think she needed all that stuff around her.  It was just distracting.  All the artists kept making it seem like Justin Timberlake was the best thing we'd ever seen (don't lie to us people, seriously not cool) and I don’t even like his new song, “Suit & Tie.”  If he doesn’t want to do music anymore then listening seems like a waste.

Taylor Swift opening the Grammys

  

I haven’t heard a song that I genuinely want to listen to over and over since Gotye’s haunting “Somebody That I Used to Know.”  Is it bad that I want that to be my theme song?  A few years ago my theme song was Papa Roach’s “Scars,” so it can’t be any worse than that.

I like Mumford & Sons but I liked their earlier music like “The Cave” and don’t get me wrong, Fun.’s “Some Nights” is catchy but should they have been nominated in almost every category?  I don’t think so.  One hit song or two does not a great album make.  I must be missing something because everyone loves Miguel and Frank Ocean and I just don’t get it.

Back to the movies, though.  Here are some of the movie reviews that I've written.  The films have all been nominated for Best Picture.  This year I actually have gotten to see all of the Best Pic nominees before the show.  The rest of the nominated movies' reviews to come along with a recap of the Oscars!