Beautiful Creatures

I literally just finished watching this movie for the first time.  I wasn't really sure what to think about it.  I had heard so many things about it.  That it was great.  That the book was so much better, etc.  Naturally the book is always better in my opinion, because there are some imaginative thoughts that can never make be imagined the same way as my mind sees them, so I will always have a disappointment factor.  I always try to see the movie first so that I can enjoy them both separately.  With that being said, I have NOT read this book yet (but I definitely will now), and I have to say that I was really intrigued by the story.  Overall I felt that the filming was interesting in that there were very few close ups of people faces, I felt like the characters were all being filmed from far away for the majority of the movie.  They really included the setting as a big part of the filming.  I was left wanting to know more about the background (as is normal in most book to movie stories).  Watching this movie knowing it was based on a book made me feel like the movie was just scratching the surface of an expansive new world.  I loved the glimpse that I got into this world, but I felt like this movie that was beautiful creatures did not have enough time to really tell it's story.  It seemed like with so much to tell that it should have been a 2 part movie to really let the ancillary characters come to life.  Don't shy away from it though, it is still totally worth seeing.

Beautiful creatures was released in February of 2013.  It is considered a romantic fantasy film and is based on the novel Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl.  It starts off with a boy named Ethan Wate living in small town Gatlin, South Caroline, he reigns as the narrator.  It also features a new girl to school named Lena Duchannes who is automatically shunned in a religious zealot town as a devil worshiper.  We learn that lena is something called a caster (akin to a witch), that considers themselves a separate race from mortals (normal boring powerless humans).  Of course it is Romeo & Juliet-esque in that they fall in love.  I won't say too much more for fear of spoilers, but it is definitely a romance, but not in the sort of chick flick manner.  More of an epic story fantasy romance. It is also a challenge between light and dark forces in nature, life, and even a religious aspect.

Alcon entertainment purchased the rights to the movie back in 2009.  Casting began in late 2011.  Jack O'Connell was originally slated to play the Ethan but dropped out of the film due to a scheduling conflict. The filming took place in New Orleans.  Filming included practical special effects as well as computer based ones, in the dining room scene, the table, chairs and chandeliers all really moved.

The cast included:
Alden Ehrenreich as Ethan ( Blue Jasmine, Stoker, Tetro)
Alice Englert as Lena (In Fear, Ginger & Rosa)
Jeremy Irons as Macon (Lion King, Man in the Iron Mask, Borgias, Eragon, Kingdom of Heaven)
Viola Davis as Amma (The Help, Ender's Game, State of Play, Law & Order: SVU, Antwone Fisher)
Emmy Rossum as Ridley (Devil Wears Prada, Phantom of the Opera, Shameless, Poseidon, Nola)
Emma Thompson as Mrs. Lincoln/Sarafine (Nanny McPhee, Saving Mr. Banks, Harry Potter)

Beautiful Creatures was considered a box office flop in America bringing in only $19 million domestically against a $60 million budget.  Internationally it reached $40 million in sales for a total of just over $60 million, barely recouping it's budget.  The film received mixed reviews averaging at about a 50%.  Most critics considered it a watered down Twilight with roles in reverse. 

Overall I give this movie a 3.5 star out of 5 total stars.  I think the storyline and potential was there, but the time limit was not enough to show the full story.  I was left wanting to know a lot of details that I felt were left out.  Jeremy Irons did a great job of playing Macon in a development role and I felt that Ethan was played well as a developing character as well.  However, I feel like outside of Emmy and Viola, the women fell short.  They didn't seem to embrace their roles and really bring the characters out.  I didn't really like Ethan's "ignorant mortal" character until about 40-50% into the movie.  There were some great sweeping shots, but overall the story was lacking.  The ending definitely left you off at a possible major cliffhanger.  I also felt like the dark side was emphasized a lot, while the light side was only the alternative you want, but never really explained much.  Even so, it was still worth a watch.

Here is the official website for the movie: Beautiful Creatures

The Croods

I have been wanting to watch this one since I first saw a preview for it.  Now that it is on netflix, I keep trying to convince Liam to watch it with me.  Finally I forced it upon him.  I can say that I enjoyed it more than he did, but he was ok with it.  He likes the visuals, but I think the moments between action would start to bore him a bit as it was more  of a story and not a musical like some kids movies are. 

In case you also have not seen The Croods, it is a 2013 3-D animated adventure comedy.  It did definitely have some hilarious moments that had me laughing.  The Croods was produced by Dreamworks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox.  The Croods are a cave dwelling prehistoric family that have their world turned upside down with the world starts to shift.  It takes place in a fictional prehistoric time with imaginary creatures.  The man of the cave (Grug) finds his place as leader and security provider threatened when a prehistoric genius gets the family to leave their comfort zone for future safety. His teenage rebel daughter Eep is enamored by Guy (the genius) which makes him even more adverse to the new guys "ideas."






The voice talent of The Croods is as follows:
Nicholas Cage as Grug (National Treasure, Ghost Rider, Lord of War, Windtalkers, Family Man)
Emma Stone as Eep  (The Help, Easy A, Amazing Spiderman, Zombieland, Superbad)
Ryan Reynolds as Guy (Green Lantern, Just Friends, Turbo, Definitely, Maybe; Smokin' Aces)
Catherine Keener as Ugga (40 Year Old Virgin, Captain Phillips, Capote, Death to Smoochy, 8 MM)
Cloris Leachman as Gran (Raising Hope, Beerfest, Malcolm in the Middle, Touched by an Angel)
Clark Duke as Thunk (Hot Tub Time Machine, Two & a Half Men, The Office, Greek, Kick-Ass)

The Croods premiered in the US in March of 2013.  It received mostly positive reviews and was considered a success with earnings of over $587 million on a $135 million budget.  This success caused the movie to launch a sequel that will be released in June in 2017 and a tv show that is already in development stages.  The Croods was the first feature film to be featured in 4DX format featuring strobe lights, tilting seats, blowing wind and fog as well as odor effects in Budapest, Hungary.  The Croods is the second highest grossing Dreamworks Film behind King Fu Panda. It received a lot higher reviews internationally and opened at number one in 54 countries.   It was nominated for many awards including the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Overall I thought this was an excellent movie.  I think that the American crowd prefers the animated features with musicals.  I thought that the story line was great, it even made me cry, and had some great witty humor jokes built in.  I think that older kids and adults would enjoy it a lot more than my toddler did.  I definitely recommend this movie and give it a 4/5 stars. 

The Croods Movie Dreamworks Official Site

Frozen

This was the first movie that Liam ever saw in the theater.  Grandma was here and insisted on taking Liam to his first movie, and auntie Shayna came along as well.  I was very worried about Liam going to see a movie and actually sitting still through it at his age (he is three in case you don't know).  He actually did remarkably well...  Now as far as the movie selection, the big Disney movie showing at that time was Frozen.  It started off kind of awkward with the new revival initiative of Disney to try to add on snippets of old black and white Mickey cartoons at the beginning of movies.  Now Disney makes a living on mostly children's movies, and in so doing you think they would have picked a bit more of a tasteful excerpt.  Instead we had a cow flashing her udders and someone kidnapping and trying ti simulated take advantage of Minnie Mouse....  Now I didn't have a problem seeing it myself, but I did think that Disney studios have to know the society of parents and children right now and that it probably wasn't the greatest choice to show before a kid's movie....  With that being said let's move on to the actual movie.
Frozen is about two sisters Anna & Elsa.  Elsa is the elder sister and has a magic with ice, winter, snow.  This is something that can be used by evil if anyone were to find out and so her parents force her to hide it from everyone so that no one will ever be hurt, forcing her to look herself away while growing up.  Anna is the littler sister that has no idea why her sister is locking herself away and is spending her life being lonely.  When Elsa accidentally released some of her power on her coronation she runs away leaving Anna to fend for herself.  Anna only wants to find love and to have her sister as a friend, so they set out on a treacherous journey with unlikely allies in an attempt to save her sister and her kingdom.

Voices featured in this movie:
Anna is voiced by Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars, Sarah Marshall, Gossip Girl)
Elsa is voiced by Idina Menzel (Rent, Enchanted, Glee, wife of Taye Diggs)
Kristoff (an unlikely ally) is voiced by Jonathan Goff (Glee)

Frozen is a 3D computer animated musical fantasy comedy movie.  It was released in 2013 and is the 53rd Disney movie to be released.  It is loosely based on the story the Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson, which may explain why it has a bit of an older feel to it.   So far is has grossed $764 million worldwide and has won several awards.  The awards won include Golden Globe & Critic's Choice for Best Animated Feature as well as Critic's Choice award for Best Original Song for "Let It Go" also sung by Idina Menzel.  Frozen became Fandango's top advance ticket seller among animated features beating out Brave.  It is the 4th highest grossing 2013 film.


Disney has been looking at producing their version of the Snow Queen since the 1940s but had trouble getting the story to a place where they felt that the audience could relate to it.  They had a hard time modernizing it and trying to lighten up an originally dark and seemingly inhumane story.  One main way in which this happened was by making Anna & Elsa sisters.  In the late 1990s Disney picked the story back up and worked on it for almost a decade before it was scrapped again in 2002.  In 2008 a new idea with the film was pitched by director Chris Buck under the title of Anna & the Snow Queen with plans to use traditional animation and portray the Snow Queen as light-hearted as opposed to a villain, but by early 2010, there were again complications with making the story work.  In December of 2011 after the success of Tangled Disney decided to again pick up the story and move forward with 3D and a new development team.  With the character Anna now being written by Chris Buck as the Snow Queen's little sister they were able to show new dimensions in the relationships of the characters while subtracting a lot of the darkness away from the story.  Jennifer Lee (one of the screenwriters from Wreck-It-Ralph) was brought onto the team.  Her work and involvement became so involved and extensive that she ended up being promoted from screenwriter to songwriter and pre-devlopment and was brought up to director alongside Chris Buck.  This was a major accomplishment as in all of these years Jennifer Lee became the first woman to direct a full-length animated motion picture by Walt Disney Animation Studios. 

Frozen had a very nice clear and crisp picture.  It was definitely a musical and seemed like there were more songs than dialogue.  The songs were quite pretty though and easy to sing along.  I did however feel that the theme of the movie was more directed at the tweens-pre-teen age group as opposed to the younger crowd.  There wasn't much for a young child to relate to like there is in some Disney movies.  Liam was definitely enthralled with the snowman Olaf and I myself found Sven the reindeer to be the best character in the movie.  I did notice that with the older theme, that when the sister Anna finds her independence and possibly older, slightly darker stage that her whole appearance changed, her hair was now in a messed braid instead of in a tight orderly braid, and she was wearing a lower cute almost sheer dress, it was definitely showing that becoming darker is sexier and more appealing...  but perhaps I was reading too much into it.  On a positive note it did a great job of showing the independence of women and was the first Disney film to question a woman marrying a man that she just met.  There was the grand theme that true love comes in many forms.  My adult self sees Disney movies in a different light and as a mother knowing how much every little detail is sponged into the minds of youth.  Overall I give this film 4 out of 5 stars.  I would give it 5 stars because it had great songs and great characters, but it seems like there were a lot of holes in the story and if given more time it could have told more about the story instead of just touching upon elements such as Anna's power and the Trolls.

You can visit Disney's Official Site here: Frozen

I suggest not watching this hilarious unnecessarily censored video of excerpts from the movie unless you have seen it already,  It could ruin it for you.

Disney's Robin Hood

It has been many years since I last watched Disney's version on Robin Hood.  I must admit that I was very excited when I saw that it had been added onto Netflix's instant watch.  This is the Disney version of Robin Hood as told my animals.

  It was released by Disney in 1973.  It was the 21st animated feature to be released by Disney.  The film is narrated by a singing rooster telling about the story of Robin Hood and Little John and the Sherwood Forest.  It was finished after Walt's death and was as such the first film to be continued on without him. 
Originally Disney considered doing a movie abotu Reynard the fox but there were concerns about whether or not he would be a suitable hero.  Reynard was a trickster fox from European folklore that was based primarily around satirical stories....  Using anthropomorphic tales (animals instead of people) which was probably the base inspiration for anthropomorphic telling of Robin Hood, using a similar casting of a wolf and a lion against the fox.

As the film was made during Disney's financial slump following the completion of Phase One of the Florida Project and therefore allotted a small budget, the artists reused footage from previous animated features. This is most noticeable during the song-and-dance number, "The Phone King of England"; the characters' movements strongly resemble those from The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, and Snow With

In particular, the section where Little John and Lady Kluck dance together mirrors part of the song "I Wanna Be Like You" from The Jungle Book with Baloo and  king Louie respectively, and Robin Hood and Maid Marian mirror the dancing movements of Thomas O'Malley and Duchess during the song "Everybody Wants to Be A Cat" from The Aristocats (from which some of the musicians also mirror the movements of Scat Cat and his gang) and Maid Marian mirror dancing the movements of Snow White during the song "The Silly Song".  The animation of Little John, the bear in Robin Hood, is nearly identical to that of Baloo but Little John more closely resembles a brown or grizzly bear (Baloo was based on an Indian Sloth Bear). At one point, one of the elephants who acts as heralds for Prince John attempts to trumpet a warning. Lady Kluck grabs the trunk, preventing the trumpeting and leaving the elephant flapping his ears ineffectually.The movie also reuses the same animated shots several times, including those of the rhinos walking and running and those of Sis, Tagalong and Toby laughing. Several animated clips of the Sheriff of Nottingham are also recycled at different points in the film.

At the time of it's release it was received with mixed reviews, overall consensus being that it was on par with The Jungle Book, but could not touch some of Disney's greats.

I have to say that although this was definitely NOT Disney's finest work.  I still love it all the same.  I have always loved the story of Robin Hood and I always loved it being told in a an anthropomorphic way.  I think that the songs are catchy and generally fun for the time being.  It had a good ol' Disney Love song, that was actually reused in the "The Fantastix Mr. Fox."
Liam was definitely into it.  It would be in the top half of his attention getting movies, but wasn't the best one yet.

With that being said, it is definitely worth watching and fun to relive.  I give it 4 out of 5 stars.  I love what it had to offer for the 70s.  Enjoy.

To Visit Disney's website dedicated to Robin Hood go to: Disney Robin Hood

Bolt

I was so pleased that Liam seemed to love one of my top favorite Disney movies just as much as I did.  The last five days have had us watching this movie at least 8 times now haha.  You know it's good when you can still sit down and continue to enjoy it that many times in a row.  In case you have been missing out on this truly awesome Disney adventure or in case you need to revisit it, let me tell you what the story is about.

Bolt is a Disney movie that revolves around a dog named Bolt that is an action/sci-fi star for a tv show.  He is the protector of a teenage girl (his human) named Penny and has been altered to have powers such as super bark, super strength and heat vision.  His entire life he has been led to believe that he truly has all of these powers, and the tv sets are set up so that he can never know that it is all just a show.  When the show ratings start to drop, they decided to leave a cliff hanger episode that ends with Penny getting kidnapped and Bolt has not saved her at the end of the episode like he used to doing for years.  This makes him go on an adventure to try to rescue her when he thinks she is in danger.  He accidentally ends up instead across the country in New York and must make his way back to Hollywood to Penny, all the way he truly believes that he has the super powers from the show and ends up on a cross country voyage with an alley cat and a true believe fan hamster as they try to save Penny.

 This movie is just amazing!  I love everything about it.  The elements of the show.  How much thought went into the entire thing.  The way that the characters all play off of one another and work together in this show.  I think this is one of the top genius shows that Disney has put out. 

Bolt was originally released in 2008 as the 48th animated film by Disney.  Bolt is voiced by John Travolta, and Penny by Miley Cyrus.  It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Film but ended up losing out to Wall-E.  What a great year for animated films. 

At first, the film was going to be titled American Dog, the story of a dog named Henry, a famous TV star, who one day finds himself stranded in the Nevada desert with a testy, one-eyed cat and an oversized, radioactive rabbit who are themselves searching for new homes, all the while believing he is still on television.  However once reviewed it was decided that some changes need to take place, the original director was removed and the new directors were given just 18 months to complete the Bolt which we see today.  Normally computer animated films are slotted with 4 years to create, so 18 months is quite a feat and to have such an amazing result, I have to say that I am incredibly impressed with the result.  It opened up at the box office in the 3rd position behind Twilight and Quantum of Solace.  It grossed a worldwide total of $309,979,994.

Seven Psychopaths

The previews of this movie definitely intrigued me, and then I heard good things about it.  It has an all-star cast bringing in names like Sam Rockwell, Colin Farrel, Abbie Cornish, Christopher Walken, and Woody Harrelson.
Seven Psychopaths is about a movie script with the same movie being written by Colin Farrel's character who happens to be a dog thief, while also living in the real world and a psycho mob boss coming after them for stealing his dog.  
 I guess I should have known with the movie being British and having Woody Harrelson that this was going to be a weird ass movie haha.  I wouldn't say that it was a BAD movie per se, but it was definitely very strange and jumped around a lot.  As far as weird Colin Farrel movies go, I have to say that I prefer In Bruges to this one, and that movie was really weird, but the story line was really great.  The storyline in this isn't horrible, but it does seem shaky and is missing much flow.  Setting the movie up took about half of the movie.  Towards the end it takes on a different tone and you actually get the culmination of the movie script being written and real life going on.
Although the first half seemed to jump around like an episode of Lost, I got why people ended up with a good review of the movie.  If you can remember all of the jumping around it all gets tied back together and the holes are filled in.  The last half of the movie definitely redeems it and makes me give it a good 3 and a half stars.  If the first half would have been better it would have earned at least 4.  Definitely worth watching, but expect a weird jumpy beginning.  Enjoy!

You can go tot he official site at: Seven Psychopaths

Man On A Ledge

When I initially saw the previews this looked like a pretty dumb movie.  I saw the preview again and got somewhat intrigued by it.  I took my time getting around to actually watching it though and when I finally did sit down to it, I was enjoyed it quite a lot.

The movie is about Nick Cassidy, an ex cop who was sent to prison for stealing an enormous diamond and supposedly selling it off in pieces.  He escapes from prison right at the beginning of the movie and checks into a hotel and goes out on the ledge as a jumper to try to protest his innocence, hence the movie title.  I can admit that there was some immediate action but then a fairly slow start and a plan that didn't not seem overly thought out.  However as you delve deeper into the movie you notice things such as how great Elizabeth Banks is doing at playing a character that is not exploring her humorous side.  I was impressed with her ability to pull off the serious cop psychologist character.  I must say that the last half of the movie is the greatest and the ending half an hour makes the entire movie worth watching.  I actually found that some events were not as predictable as in many movies, and I think that the delivery went well.  There were definitely some shaky parts in the middle and some holes in the side story that never got fully filled in.  But the last part definitely jumped the ratings up in my book.  I give this movie 3 and a half to 4 stars out of 5.  Definitely not the greatest movie you will ever watch, but entertaining none-the-less and better than many movies I have seen lately.  Not to mention I love Sam Worthington from Avatar who has a nice voice to listen to :)  Ed Harris always plays a great bad guy to me as well.

It got about a little over a 50% approval rating and was ranked 5th when in the theater.  Worth a see on a lazy afternoon or when you can't sleep at night.