The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

The third film in the Twilight series did not disappoint. There was bad acting, uncomfortable silences, terrible dialogue and teen angst layered with some great one-liners, another fantastic soundtrack, and enough make out scenes and men without shirts to keep any woman entertained. There were less awkward Bella (Kristen Stewart) scenes than in the previous two movies mostly because there were so many other moments and actors to cover that the director could keep her quiet and/or off camera. If it were possible I'd recommend she not speak for the final film at all. I am anxious to see what they do with the final book, Breaking Dawn.

Although I will miss Bella's father, played by Billy Burke - brilliantly, might I add, as he has a very small role in the final book. He adds much needed grounding and comic relief for all the teen drama. The book lovers continue to prefer the novels whereas I find the re-writes for the film scripts way more compelling, ironic, and able to poke fun at the writing.

I may go see this one again.

All About Steve

Just do yourself a favor and miss this one.

Brothers

I'm left confused by the promotions for this movie. The previews set it up to be a movie about an affair and two brothers in love with the same woman but as it turned out the movie was more about war and how it changes people. I felt like it ended a little too soon or was over-edited. What were the long term consequences of what happened to Sam (Tobey Maguire) in Afghanistan? Does he eventually overcome his stress, shame, guilt, and anxiety and function as a normal man/husband/father again? There is a scene with a random woman named Tina, introduced by Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) that tries to address some of this and a conversation with Sam and Tommy's father about his return from Vietnam, but those are mere seconds in the film. They do little to highlight what I believe is meant to be the message of the film. And in what I can only assume is a need to justify the film's title, Tommy and Sam call each other brother often and with such determination as though the word is some type of magical spell they are casting on each other. I truly saw no need for the subplot of love between Tommy and Grace (Natalie Portman) because nothing happened, there was no indication that anything was going to happen, and it only took the focus of the audience away from what really should have gotten most of the attention: a family trying to cope with war.

The acting alone is worth watching.

Precious (based on the novel Push by Sapphire)

First off, the title of this movie sincerely annoys me. It seems as though the author of the book, Push, needed some serious validation. Watching this movie was like reading bad non-fiction. Oh wait, it isn't shocking enough? Well what about if we add incest, not just the dad, the mom too, and lets have her get pregnant, and give them all AIDS, oh and make this her second pregnancy, can the mom beat her? Yes! With a television and a cast iron pan. etc. etc. They throw in these fantasy Hollywood scenes for what? Escapism? Can't she just dream of having a nice home and good food and parents that love her? Oh wait, is that too much like Annie? This movie literally "pushed" too hard for my liking. Shock value has been in the bargain bin for a long time.

I stopped sympathizing and started analyzing pretty quickly into the film. They lost what makes a movie interesting - the human element. These characters weren't human. I believe Mo'nique's Oscar came from just that, her ability to lose any and all of her human characteristics. It was some cruel shit and a lot of it was just plain gross.

No, thanks.

Remember Me

Once again I got to witness the down-syndromesque face making that is Robert Pattinson's acting. To be fair he was edited quite a bit, taking out - I'm sure - the worst of his scenes, but he got through his lines, kissed the girl when he was supposed to while acting too suave and handsome to be giving her the time of day, and flew off the handle whenever the stage directions read "angry" or "mad." Meanwhile, Bronson walked through the movie like he was on his way to get coffee. He read his lines in passing and put nothing behind them.

The only other actor worth noting was mother of the the female lead (Ally), played by Martha Plimpton - who wasn't even credited with the role, good for her - and she was taken out within the first few minutes of the movie.

I buckled down, got through the awkward wooing scenes and the abrupt angst-filled love scenes, and near the end when the family was acting as though cut hair somehow requires the same amount of mourning as death, it seemed everything would wrap up soon. They were playing somber music, the main character was feeling happy, I knew it had to be a matter of seconds before something tragic happened. And then...

Well the movie was bad, I'd say imagine you went to see a high school play and they decided to tape it. You bought a copy went home and put it in the VCR ready to enjoy watching some kids have a good time - but then the stage blew up. The ending made this movie tragically bad. It reminded me of a Dean Koontz novel or some really bad King, when they've written for so long that their hands are cramping up and the page limit has been reached. They stick their hand into their bag of tricks and pull out some apocalyptic ending involving earthquakes/aliens/alternative universes and boom it's a book.
And no, Will Fetters, I am not putting your name along side those two writers because at least they write their own endings. You copped out in the worst way possible.

Bad Movie.