Review: Jane Eyre

Meet the homely Jane Eyre.

It's safe to say that Jane Eyre isn't my favorite type of movie. A period piece based on the book by Charlotte Bronte that has been redone a number of times, it leaves a similar taste in your mouth that the latest Pride & Prejudice movie. Pride & Prejudice wasn't my type of movie either, but I was able to enjoy the great filmmaking and cinematography. The same can be said about Jane Eyre. I was able to enjoy this movie without being particularly interested in the style or plot, thanks to the strong performances and some interesting cinematography.

Jane is played by Mia Wasikowska, who does not look as pretty as she did in The Kids Are Alright, purposefully of course, because Jane is not your average 1800's woman. She's very smart, self sufficient, and moral (The novel is considered to be an early feminist statement in itself). The bulk of the story is based around Jane's stay as a governess (Teacher/Babysitter) at the Rochester residence. Mr. Rochester and her start to have a little electricity between them while something seems very wrong at the house. The movie works well with its eerie tone. It is definitely a darker film than Pride & Prejudice, which makes it more interesting and accessible. The narrative will flash back and forward to other times in her life, helping a very dialogue-heavy plot stay interesting.

The children in this movie are very likable and give great performances along with Mia and Judi Dench. Jane can drag a little bit and you may get lost in the sometimes clever - sometimes cheesy dialogue. For those new to this story, you shouldn't have too hard of time understanding it, the movie is coherent, but I feel like it could have capitalized on some of the more interesting plot elements. A lot of scenes don't necessarily progress the storyline, but look pretty. You start to notice it more as the you start to enter the final act of the 2 hour story.

The good outweighed the bad in Jane Eyre. If you're a fan of this genre of movie or book, then you'll probably enjoy it even more than I did.

Makin Movie Blog Grade

Review: Fast Five

Apparently Vin Diesel doesn't watch much WWE

Fast Five amazed me before I even had a chance to see it. It's opening weekend cashed in an amazing 83.6 million dollars, making it the largest opening weekend for a movie in April, ever. Also, making it the largest opening for the year so far. A benchmark held by Rio, which cashed in about 40 million it's opening weekend and, ironically enough, is set in the same setting. So maybe it wasn't necessarily Fast Five that impressed me so much, but the movie-goers. American movie-goers must like their action, cars, and scantily clad women. Even with the surprisingly good reviews it had been receiving, I went into Fast Five pretty skeptical. It turns out that, while it's far from being a great movie, it's really not that bad.

Fast Five brings back all your favorite characters from the previous films. Vin Diesel and Paul Walker head the crew which also includes Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson,  Jordana Brewster and others. They've all come back together to do one last job against a dirty Brazilian drug lord. They are gonna take his money, all of it. The ensemble class makes it feel like a less glamorous Ocean's 11. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (who is ridiculously huge in this movie) plays the U.S. Special Agent assigned to bring Vin and crew down because they have been wrongfully accused of murder, adding a Fugitive element to the movie. So now we have Ocean's 11  mixed with Fugitive mixed with some crazy car action scenes. Though the ideas are far from being original, they work pretty well. Fast Five shines the most with it's action scenes. They're all very well choreographed and stunning to watch, it's fun, and from the opening scene, you're constantly wanting more crazy stuff to happen. On a smaller note, there is a lot of Portugese spoken in this film and the creative way in which the subtitles are done give Five an almost undeserved creative flare.

The movie is bogged down by a lot of unnecessary dialogue that boils down to each character saying a ridiculous one liner, over and over. Seriously, try and count the one liners in this movie; you'll lose count. Much of the dialogue could have been cut. The movie clocks in at over 2 hours when it could have easily been 90 minutes. The acting isn't great - The Rock is probably the best actor in this movie, which isn't saying much. Vin Diesel is sometimes incoherent. I don't understand it, but sometimes he sounded like he was trying to do an Adam Sandler impression - not that you even need to hear what he says to understand the movie, but why couldn't we have had some of those creative subtitles for his dialogue?

While it has many flaws, the action in Fast Five will keep you entertained, the one liners will occasionally make you giggle, and you'll have some fun. It's a good movie to start the Summer Movie Season. Undoubtedly, it will not hold it's spot at the top this weekend with the release of Thor, but I guess it's okay for America to enjoy this parade of cars, action, and women for the time being.

This just went from "Mission: Impossible" to "Mission: In-Freakin'-Sanity" (Chalk up a one liner)

 Makin Movie Blog Grade

 

Review: I Am Number Four

This is John. He's an alien. A teen heart-throb alien.

What do all teens love? Let's see - they love very attractive versions of themselves, melodramatic love, Top 40 music, cliche high school scenarios... and some teens love aliens. Throw those all into a movie and it's a surefire success! Not really, but that probably went through the minds of the film executives that ok'd this film into production. To be honest, I haven't read the book that this movie is based on, but I sure hope it's a lot better than the movie. I Am Number Four is one of those movies that's so painful, you'll have a lot of fun making fun of it after you see it.

Here, we follow John. John is an alien. He lives on Earth now because his planet was destroyed by some bad guys. The bad guys are now looking for him on Earth because they need to destroy him and the other "numbered" ones so they can take over Earth, or something.. it's never really made clear. The story isn't very good, which is one thing on a list of many things that aren't so good about this movie. Let's list them:

1. The story (incoherent)
2. The acting (painful, seriously painful)
3. The dialogue (does the book sound like this?)
4. The bad guys (they look like thrown out concepts of what Voldemort could look like)

You're probably thinking that a movie that fails on these 4 concepts cannot be a good movie. You're right. I'm sorry I Am Number Four, but no matter how much trendy music you throw at me (we're talking Jimmy Eat World, The Black Keys, Kings of Leon, Beck, etc..), you're still not a good movie. I'll give it this, the movie builds up to a pretty wiz-bang fight scene finale. You'll just have to endure much, and by the time it happens, you just want the movie to be over.

Makin Movie Blog Grade

I Am Letter...

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?

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