Creepy but effective short.
d e v o n

blake kathryn

tannertan36
Stranger Things

Andulka

JVL
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
Peter Solarz
Cosimo Galluzzi

❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
cherry valley forever
todays bird
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
No title available
RMH
DEAR READER
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her

No title available
Claire Keane
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@rustedeye-blog
Creepy but effective short.
MOVIE REVIEW: BATTLESHIP
Battleship
C- If the Transformer movies were too arty and nuanced for you, this jingoistic assault on narrative logic and thematic complexity from director Peter Berg (Hancock, The Kingdom) is probably what you’re looking for. Like a cinematic demolition derby, Battleship delivers more than two hours of high-priced explosion porn while piling on its chest-thumping “America, fuck yeah!” machismo with a brazenness that makes Top Gun seem Merchant-and-Ivory quaint.
Jon and Erich Hoeber’s idiotically clichéd script seems more like a series of outline note-cards than a fully realized plot — about what you’d expect from a movie based on a board game. Alien spaceships come to Hawaii. Brothers Stone Hopper (Alexander Skarsgård) and Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch), one straitlaced and professional, the other hot-headed and impulsive, are naval officers engaged in international military exercises off Oahu. When the aliens throw up a force-field around the island, the two are caught inside and have to blow the invaders up before they phone home for reinforcements.
The acting is wooden, the dialogue is shockingly awful (did Liam Neeson really need the money that badly?), and the plotting illogical. Why don’t the aliens kill various characters when they have the chance? Rumor has it that the original script cast them as misunderstood good guys in search of a way home. But as depicted here, they are an enemy with lots of advance weaponry and no discernible battle plan.
Remarkably, the best scene in Battleship is when Berg actually re-creates the board game’s guess-based play. Stalking the enemy without the benefit of radar, our heroes’ game of blind man’s hunt generates a fair amount of tension and suspense. Berg is a pretty capable action director, mounting his epic battles with energy and verve (his inclusion of AC/DC on the soundtrack is perfectly timed), and ILM’s special effects are the best $200 million can buy. There are small moments where the movie achieves the kind of dopey fun Roland Emmerich delivered in Independence Day. If the story and characters weren’t so blank-faced serious and relentlessly lunkheaded, there’d be some campy fun to be derived from this adrenalized nonsense.
Unfortunately, by the time an Army veteran with two prosthetic legs (real-life hero Colonel Greg Gadson) teams up with a blond supermodel (Brooklyn Decker) to help derail the aliens’ plans while Kitsch leads a crew of grizzled veterans into battle on the retired USS Missouri (which, despite its museum status, still houses plenty of live ammo) you can’t help but shake your head in appalling disbelief. Although, I guess it helps explain some of the instincts behind casting pop superstar Rihanna as a stoic weapons specialist.
Look, summers were made for movies that blow shit up. But there’s a difference between the giddy inventiveness of The Avengers and a military-industrial-entertainment complex that shamelessly fetishizes America’s trigger-happy approach to diplomacy. As much as I appreciate Berg following in Michael Bay’s selfless efforts to find further employment for supermodels, Battleship is more than just idiotic fun, it’s an ugly reminder that our country is all-too eager to flex its military muscle in the name of cartoonish patriotism and pride.
MOVIE REVIEW: BERNIE
Bernie
B
It's easy to see why filmmaker Richard Linklater (School Of Rock, Dazed And Confused) was drawn to the true-crime story of Bernie Tiede, a selfless and beloved mortician in Carthage, TX, who murdered Marjorie Nugent, the meanest old lady in town. It's just not clear what point the filmmaker was trying to make with this breezy and mordantly comedic docu-drama.
With its quirky characters and cultural specificity, comparisons to the Coen Brothers' Fargo will be inevitable. But Linklater's approach is as ambling and endearing as its sunny East Texas setting, a far cry from the snarky genre deconstructions and eccentric morality plays that populate the Coens' work. Instead, Bernie plays like In Cold Blood — if it had been directed by Christopher Guest.
Read the rest of the review HERE
MOVIE REVIEW: COMIC-CON - EPISODE IV, A FAN'S HOPE
COMIC-CON - EPISODE IV, A FAN'S HOPE
B-
Far from a snarky smackdown on the geeks and freaks who descend on this San Diego fest every year, documentary maker Morgan Spurlock puts aside his barbed sarcasm to indulge in an affectionate and infectiously entertaining look at nerd culture, or what Joss Whedon describes as "members of my tribe."
Squeezing in half a dozen subjects into 86 minutes, Spurlock dedicates himself to validating the fixations of fanboys and fangirls without context or critique, instead offering viewers a vicarious all-access pass to what used to be a giddy grassroots gathering of comic-book fans but has recently morphed into a corporate-dominated, commercially-hyped, carnival-like extravaganza of genre-flavored pop culture.
Read the rest of the review HERE.
Love it. Don't pretend to understand it.
Geeky to the nth degree!
You know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together and blow...
MOVIE REVIEW: Damsels In Distress
Damsels In Distress
B-
Who knew anal sex could be so quirky and whimsical?
Roping together everything from college-comedy stereotypes (toga parties, campus cliques, etc) to the origin of dance crazes to Catharism, writer-director Whit Stillman's (Metropolitan, The Last Days of Disco) first film in 14 years is daffy, arch and, ultimately, meaningless.How much you enjoyit will depend on your tolerance for Damsels in Distress' dry, self-consciously screwball sense of humor, and a storyline that seems to lose track of itself with alarming frequency.
Read the rest of the review HERE.
MOVIE REVIEW: The Five Year Engagement
The Five Year Engagement
B-
It's a given that Emily Blunt immediately elevates whatever movie she's in. Funny, charming, sexy and intelligent, she is able to take command of the screen while engaging with her co-stars in a way that's both authentic and spontaneous. She is that rare actor who seems to have chemistry with everyone.
What's surprising about The Five-Year Engagement, a mostly unsurprising romantic comedy, is how convincing Jason Segel is as a romantic lead. Since his center-stage debut in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (a movie he wrote), I have been skeptical about his ability to play a persuasive male love interest. While perfectly likable as the disheveled comic foil (I Love You, Man; Knocked Up; Bad Teacher), Segel never seems to have the weight and presence to sustain a leading role. Even in The Muppets, another movie he helped pen, he struggled to hold his own against Kermit, the gang and Amy Adams. But in The Five-Year Engagement, his performance really connects. And he isn't really doing anything different. Maybe it's the Blunt factor.
Too bad his screenplay, co-written with director Nicholas Stoller, is simultaneously too stuffed with subplots and too thin on its central drama to stand out. Like Segel's past roles, it's humorous and good-natured enough to pass the time but far from memorable.
Segel's Tom Solomon is a San Francisco sous chef who pops the question to his girlfriend, Blunt's Violet, on New Year's Eve. Though only together a year, the two are clearly in love, and plans for the big day begin. But then Violet is offered a post-doctoral position at the University of Michigan, and the couple decides to put those marital plans on hold as they adjust to the shift in locale and career opportunities. Tom gives up a head chef position at a trendy restaurant to support Violet's dream job, with the expectation that their stay is temporary. Of course, plans change yet again as Violet's psych studies gain momentum under the guidance of her charismatic boss (Rhys Ifans) and two years turn into five. Feeling neglected, hating Michigan and lacking career options, Tom slips into a bitter funk, putting into doubt whether the couple's relationship will survive.
As women achieve ever-greater economic success and couples contend with conflicting career paths, the potential to explore the sacrifices, compromises and frustrations of modern love are ripe with comic possibility. Unfortunately, The Five-Year Engagement mostly opts for predictable plot turns and schematic rom-com complications. Blunt and Segel make a good team, and the jokes, especially in the first third of the film, are solid. But the movie runs too long, stretching its contrived and disconnected situations beyond their ability to generate laughs or pathos. This creates increasingly awkward tonal shifts as the story bounces from funny to serious to tangential.
The supporting cast — which includes Chris Parnell, Brian Posehn, Kevin Hart and Mindy Kaling — is utilized in a similarly uneven fashion. Only Chris Pratt (Andy from Parks and Recreation), playing Tom's dim-witted best friend, shines with any consistency, stealing almost every scene he's in. There are certainly moments that work, but others just flop like a dying fish. In between, we get shots of Michigan's changing seasons, unconvincing attempts to convey the passage of time. Toward its end, Segel even manages to squeeze in a reference to his beloved Muppets — one of the film's better moments.
Hearts are broken. Hearts mend. A few good chuckles are had along the way. Ultimately, The Five-Year Engagement ends exactly where you expect it to. And yet, its finale is fresh and heartfelt enough to win us back from its meandering third act. It should be another profitable arrow in super-producer Judd Apatow's rom-com quiver — not quite as barbed or pointed as you hoped, but landing close enough to the target to inspire a decent date night at the movies.
Another day at the gym.
William Fitcher. A distracted puppet. Chess. It's good.
Best use of Legos I've seen all year! (Except for whatever my six-year-old son has created of course). See the rest HERE.
I have nothing to say about this. Like it. Don't. I think it's kinda cool.
Girl from The Ring throws out the first baseball pitch of the season.
Someone really really digs Bill Murray!
New trailer for David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis.
Bill Plympton + The Simpsons = Genius