Fashion Beats: Red Riding Hood

On Occasion, The Makin Movie blog will feature guest writers to give us their opinion about certain movies. This post features Erin Spencer, creator of the Fashionista {In Training} blog, as she gives us a review of the movie, Red Riding Hood.

Jordan asked me to review this film for y'all. (Okay, I begged) But after much persistence he asked.  Mostly because Jordan refused to see this movie.  I know.  Jordan?  Refuse to see a movie?  When he told me this movie would be terrible I just ignored him, naturally.  Some of my very favorite movies he doesn't love and vice versa.  For instance, I did not love The Adjustment Beareau.  He loved it!  He didn't love Rio.  I haven't seen it.  Because he didn't invite me.  But I'm sure I would have loved it.  Anyway.  We just have different tastes in movies and what we think makes a good film or not. 

 

Jordan does, however, have a pretty non biased opinion on movies.  He'll watch {almost} any movie and is pretty right-on about how people will like the movies, generally.   That being said, I'll try my best to follow in Jordz' footsteps with this review.

 

Red Riding Ho....er..  I mean Hood.

 

Now, I loved the idea of this story.  When I watched the trailer I was intrigued by the thrilling/mysterious aspect that would put a fun twist on a classic tale.  I was really looking forward to seeing this movie!  I love Amanda Seyfried (Mean Girls, Letters to Juliet, Mamma Mia) and was excited to see her play the role of Valerie (Red Riding Hood).

 

In this telling of the story, there is a werewolf who keeps killing people in the village.  They discover that the werewolf takes human form during the day and one of the villagers is the werewolf/murderer.  When I heard that, I was even more excited.  I love a good mystery movie!

 

Wrong.  This movie was painful to watch.  Literally, hurt my insides. I think it hurt even more because I had such high expectations.  Not only was it extremely cheesy, but there were a few makey outey scenes that made me feel uncomfortable to watch(which is why I've nicknamed this movie Red Riding Ho)..  I was disappointed to say the least.

 

If this movie were a fashion trend it would be the mullet. But in the early 00's when it was totally uncool... 

Which is why I give this movie an E.  For Epic Fail.  

Fashion Beats Grade

(for epic fail)

 

And also a lesson learned;  When Jordan says a movie will be good or not, he is, more likely than not, correct.

Review: Rio

Watching Rio feels a little bit like this

Making a children's movie is a surefire way to make a lot of money at the box office. Rio opened with the most lucrative weekend in 2011, making over 40 million dollars. In second place is the animated Rango, which opened with 36 million and now has made almost 120 million since it's opening. I definitely understand parents wanting  90 minutes of their kid's time to be filled so they can catch their breath, it's just frustrating when movie makers take advantage of that. Kids will be entertained through the bright colors, but Rio doesn't deliver on any other level. Unfunny, boring, and relentlessly dumb.. Welcome to Rio.

I would be lying if I said I didn't have high hopes for this movie. The star studded cast includes: Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, Will. I. Am., Jamie Foxx, Leslie Mann, and Tracy Morgan. Eisenberg plays "Blu" an endangered bird who is taken from his comfortable home to go to Brazil so he can mate with the last female of his species. Things get a little tricky when the black market bird traders get involved! (seriously..) Blu and Jewel (Anne Hathaway) must escape these crooks and overcome Blu's inability to fly to make it back to Blu's owner. There's never any real sense of danger as the bad guys are bumbling fools from the beginning. In fact, they seem pretty nice.

The plot sets up a plethora of slapstick jokes. Honestly, I don't think the movie goes 2 minutes without some character getting hit in the head or falling over or tripping another character. Apparently, every character being excessively uncoordinated makes for some big laughs...  Any other jokes they have are predictable and not funny. With such a funny cast, it was disappointing to see none of them live up to their comedic potential.

With a lackluster opening weekend for any movie ahead of us, It's pretty likely that Rio will be number 1 again this weekend and rack in a lot of money. Save yourself the pain, don't go see it, go see something that actually took some thought instead. If you need to see a kid's movie, go see Rango at the dollar theater, which is clever and hilarious.

Makin Movie Blog Grade

Thoughts: 127 Hours vs. Saw

To start off, let's get something straight. 127 Hours is a great movie. I'm sad I waited so long to see it. It's beautifully made and artistically unique. James Franco finds a way to capture the audience while being the only person on screen for the majority of the film.

The Saw franchise, on the other hand, is a bunch of films ranging from "not very good" to "downright awful." As one of the characters in the latest Scream film says, "I don't like the Saw movies. They're not even scary, they're just gross.. and there's no character development, so I don't even care." That about sums it up. Although, the other viewpoint, given by Utah's Radio From Hell show, is this, "There's something gratifying about going home after a long week of work, sitting down, and watching terrible people get tortured, it's nice." As funny as that is, part of me actually agrees with it, even though they are terrible movies.

Movies about losing limbs always need to have triangle symbolism...

The interesting thing about these two films is that they're based around the same idea - What are you willing to do and how much pain are you willing to go through to survive?

So even though they are based on the same idea, what makes 127 Hours a good movie and Saw(s) a bad movie?

Let's break it down the Scream way.

First Complaint: "Not even scary" - Saw isn't scary because you don't care. It blatantly puts everything in front of you and doesn't leave a lot to the imagination. While 127 Hours isn't necessarily scary, it does do a good job of creating suspense and intrigue through past experiences and clever dialogue.

Second Complaint: "No character development" Saw has so many characters that are continually dying that you don't get a chance to understand who they are. The most you ever find out is that they did something terrible and now they are going to get punished for it. Also, there's no real good guys in the series, it's so sick and twisted that you even find yourself cheering for Jigsaw (the mastermind) at certain points. As mentioned before, 127 Hours is about a guy who has his arm stuck under a rock. A mastermind killing people sounds much more interesting than this, but through flashbacks and cleverly edited scenes, you grow to care about James Franco's character and all the things in his life that led up to his horrible circumstance. You care, therefore it's interesting.

Third and Final Complaint: "It's just gross" The gore that parades itself through the Saw series may give you an initial exhilaration when first experienced, but very quickly it becomes nasty and painful to watch. When they're finally done cutting off whichever limb, you think to yourself "eww, I can't believe I survived watching that scene." What's interesting about 127 Hours is that when he finally gets his arm off, you find this sense of relief, the camera finally becomes less stationary and you feel.. free. That was a huge surprise to me. Even more surprising, while he is cutting off his arm, you feel a sense of emotional sadness and pain, not just a gross-out effect.

While these two movies are based around the same idea, they take two different roads of explaining it. We need more films that can take a simple idea and make it into an emotionally deep journey. Hats off to you, 127 Hours. 

Review: Scream 4

I remember when I first watched the original Scream. I was in 6th grade and I recorded it off TV. Terrified, I sat in my room and watched the movie, I would pause it and catch my breath - trying to get myself to continue watching. It affected me in many ways - for at least a month after, I couldn't enter a room by myself without checking any possible hiding spot a killer could be lurking. As I grew up and watched the rest of the movies, I understood and appreciated the humor and the wittiness I didn't notice before. I loved the self-awareness and intriguing storylines (well, maybe not Scream 3 so much).  So, needless to say, I've been stoked for Scream 4 ever since I heard it was coming out. I got even more excited when I found out the writer for Scream 1 & 2 (Kevin Williamson) was back after the writing job for Scream 3 had been given to someone else in what turned out to be a pretty disappointing movie. Scream 4 makes up for the the last installment and then some. It does not disappoint. Wes Craven fans will be happy to finally see another good horror flick from him.

Scream 4 brings us and the original cast back to Woodsboro. Sidney (Neve Campbell), the survivor of all the previous installments has written a book about her near death experiences and is on her final stop of the book tour in her home town. Just as she arrives, surprise, people start dying. Brutal murders by someone in the Ghostface outfit. There is a new young cast which mirrors the cast of the original and the story follows them mainly. Jill Roberts (Emma Roberts) who is Sidney's younger cousin and her best friend Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) are friends with some movie nerds who offer some insight into what type of movie this is. As opposed to the previous installments, in which the "rules" were always those of sequels, the rules here are that of a reboot, which provides an interesting dynamic to the movie and fans will be able to notice a lot of mirroring of the previous movies. Don't worry, that doesn't make this movie predictable. Courtney Cox and David Arquette offer a lot of the same they did in the original trilogy. It's fun to see them all back together.

Scream 4 may not offer the mystique of the original but it definitely tries to outdo it in every other way. There are more deaths, scares, laugh, and thrills. There aren't just more deaths, but the deaths are most gruesome we've seen in the series. The movie is even more self-aware than the previous. There are self-aware jokes about how self-aware they are! In all, it's a lot of fun. Hayden Panettiere is as likable as I've ever seen since Remember the Titans, her Bad-A character is the standout and she feels fresh to the series. The rest of the cast does it's job. Scream 4 also offers an interesting commentary on how people get famous through the internet. I won't go any further into as I don't want to give any of the plot away, but it's thought provoking.

The balancing act between humor and horror feels a little more forced than it does in the original two, but it doesn't hurt it too much.

Who's the killer? What's the motive? Who's going to survive? These questions make the film even more entertaining to watch. It's great to see the series succeed in the new generation of cell phones and Facebook. We need more scary movies like this, so hopefully we see another installment in the future. Go out and see this film.

What's your favorite scary movie?

Makin Movie Blog Grade

RevIew: Hanna

A movie may not always be realistic, but it sure needs to be believable. For example, Quentin Tarantino movies don't necessarily live in our realm of reality, but you buy into them when you're watching. It seems for a movie to be successful, it needs to be completely out of our reality or completely in. A lot of problems arise when we're stuck in between those worlds (I think a lot of comedies suffer from this) - what's surprising about Hanna is that it lives in this betweensie universe and still finds a way to succeed.

Hanna (Soairse Ronan) lives in the forest with her dad (Eric Bana). Dad used to be a special agent, but is now hiding out and raising his daughter. He teaches her all the secret agent fighting stuff he knows and reads to her from an encyclopedia every night. Hanna has never seen the real world, so she really only is an encyclopedia that can kill people. In what seems like an attempt to get back into normal life, Hanna and her father split up and have a plan to meet back up together. This puts Agent Marissa (Cate Blanchett) on their tale along with a whole crew of bad guys.

There is a lot to like about this film. There is some awesome action (honestly, not as much as I thought there would be). Director, Joe Wright has a knack for making some of the most beautiful scenes without any cuts (Think Atonement / Pride & Prejudice), so adding that film making ability to some some well choreographed fighting is great.  The parts that aren't violent explore Hanna experiencing reality, which is interesting. The music fits the movie really well and the sound itself is really amazing, I wouldn't be surprised if it gets nominated for an Oscar for sound editing. Acting is great; interesting characters, likable good guys, hatable bad guys. Some characters fall in to that betweensie universe that we talked about and so does the story, but everything else is so good that it shouldn't bother you too much.

There may have been a couple of scenes I didn't particularly like. Look out for an incredibly awkward kiss scene, it could have been done in a much better way. In all, Hanna finds itself a lot more than it doesn't. Great film, the acting makes it more emotionally deep than it was probably intended to be.

To accurately sum up, my movie watching buddy tweeted this:

Review: Unknown

Hey, wanna make another movie where Liam Neeson fights people, chases people, and runs from people all over a Eurpoean country? Well, Taken did really well. So yeah.

 Okay, that's probably not how this movie came to be, maybe Liam just likes to make movies Europe, who wouldn't? Either way, we have Unkown, which looks and feels a lot like Taken and not just because Liam Neeson is in it - for crying out loud, just look how similar the posters are.

Albeit, Taken was an exciting movie, but it struggled with a feeling that it was a little contrived. If you just wanted an action movie, then you probably weren't disappointed.

Where Taken fails, Unkown succeeds. With an interesting storyline and a stronger supporting cast, it is a much more interesting film. Liam Neeson plays Dr. Martin Harris, who is in Germany for a big presentation when he gets in a car accident and is in a coma for 4 days.  He eventually gets back to his wife who doesn't remember him. In fact, nobody remembers him and there is no evidence of who he is. Yeah, kind of like Bourne Identity, but the opposite.. make sense?

There are plenty of plot twists, but by the end of the movie all the loose ends are tied up. While maybe not as much action as in Taken, the action is well done (especially a very exciting car chase scene). It's a solid and entertaining movie that may have stolen ideas from Taken and from Bourne Identity, but seriously, what movie hasn't stolen ideas?

So far Liam Neeson has destroyed France and Germany in action packed ways (Taken & Unkown) - watch out Sweden and Norway, You're next!

Makin Movie Blog Grade

Review: Insidious

Ya know what I love about Halloween? Those haunted attractions you can go walk through that have fog, and chainsaws and people that jump out at you. I LOVE those, even if they are a little silly. It's an adrenaline rush. Insidious is just that.. adapted to the screen. This movie is lots of fun.

Insidious follows the story of a family who's child falls into what they think is a coma. After which, creepy things start to happen (think Paranormal Activityish) and from there, things only get crazier and crazier until you feel like you're actually in a haunted attraction. The good part is that it's scary enough for you to not to laugh at the things on the screen, as ridiculous as they may seem (again, think haunted attraction). I'm a firm believer that a scary movie needs to give you actual bits of humor for you to laugh at, comedic relief, or else the audience will find things to laugh at. Director James Wan's previous movies (Saw, Saw IV) struggled with that concept. Insidious, on the other hand, does a good job. A couple of funny "ghost hunter" type characters that the family calls in provide some laughs throughout and a couple other things will keep you grinning until you are screaming. This movie is scary and relentless. It's not gory enough to gross you out, but there's enough of it to creep you out.

Like any scary movie, Insidious struggles with character development but Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne are very believable as the terrified parents even if the roles aren't grandiose. There's some pretty and creative cinematography at points. The story starts off a little slow at first, the beginning feels dragged out. But when it picks up, it PICKS UP. It does get a little out there, especially towards the end but you probably won't notice it too much as you will be screaming, seriously. No movie recently has as many scares (fun scares, at that) as Insidious. Boys be warned. If you take a girl, your arm may be ripped off by the end.

One of the funnest and scariest movies I've seen.

PS. See if you can find Jigsaw (from the Saw movies) in this film. You will also enjoy who plays the psychic in this movie: Lin Shaye. That's right, she's the mom from cult classic horror movie, Dead End.

Makin Movie Blog Grade

Review: Just Go With It

Adam Sandler, you raised me. As a child and early teenager, I watched and loved your movies such as Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, and especially, The Wedding Singer. As I've gotten older, I have enjoyed your more serious roles: Spanglish, Reign Over Me, and Funny People. Even though it doesn't make as much money, you should stick to the serious roles, please. Because recently I've had to endure the likes of I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, and Grown Ups.

Adam, c'mon man. Those were painful.

Now we have the most recent, Just Go With It. "From the producers of Grown Ups" (please, never ever use that line to promote your movie). Adam plays Danny, a plastic surgeon who tricks women into sleeping with him by pretending he has a wife that is mean to him. One day, he finds a girl that he actually likes and she finds his fake wedding ring. So of course, he now has to enlist the help of his secretary, Katherine (Jennifer Aniston) to be his fake-wife that he is getting a divorce with to convince his new girlfriend that he actually was married... It's just as ridiculous as it sounds. It's actually pretty twisted in its own way, but you kind of have to "just go with it".

This movie is not nearly as bad as Grown Ups. Not even close. The characters are actually likable. Jennifer Aniston is especially likable and she keeps the movie as grounded as she can. She's a refreshing character to have in one of these Adam Sandler movies. There are a lot of laughs. Some really good laughs come from a variety of children in this movie, namely Danny's two fake children, but also some other kids they come across on their little journey of deceit. Of course, some jokes are painful and not funny, but there's enough laughs to keep you watching. Also, a couple of big name cameos will really surprise you (I won't ruin it for you).

Okay, so it's not terrible, but it's definitely not great. I would have appreciated it being about 30 minutes shorter, but you can have some fun with it if you... just go with it. (joke so nice, I used it twice)

Makin Movie Blog Grade

Review: Source Code

When I first saw the trailer for Source Code, I felt like this was a Deja Vu clone. And I thought to myself, "How could anyone like Deja Vu so much that they'd make a movie just like it?"- After seeing the film I realized that while the movies are comparable, they are far from being clones of each other. And in the end, Source Code is a much better movie.

Okay, the storyline for this movie is pretty far out and ridiculous, but it works. It brings in elements of quantum physics and parallel universes.. and it doesn't stop there. I won't try and explain it anymore than that, but the main point is that somehow a government agency has found a way to go back in time to 8 minutes before a terrorist attack killed a lot of people and look for clues as to who did it, they only have 8 minutes every time they go back, but they can go back as many times as they want. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Coltor Stevens, the guy who actually does the going back in time. Now he can't change the past, he can only look for clues that can help the future... They do a better job of explaining it than I can, promise.

Sci-Fi fans and quantum physics experts may enjoy the storyline, but for the average Joe (me), it's a little bit much. On the bright side, while the story isn't too believable; Jake Gyllenhaal is. Jake's a lot of fun and accurately portrays a guy who is trapped in this action-packed-Groundhog's Dayish reality. The supporting cast does it part well enough, although Jeffrey Wright is ridiculous and unintentionally funny as the man in charge of the source code project. I could have done with out him.

Source Code is action-packed and fun right from the beginning. The storyline may be a little out there, but it's still a solid action movie.

Makin Movie Blog Grade