The Girl Who Played With Fire – Review
The Girl Who Played With Fire is the second installment in author Stieg Larsson’s
Posts Tagged ‘review’
Books
March 8, 2010
Film
March 2, 2010
Percy Jackson And The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief is a new film from director Chris Columbus (first 2 Harry Potter movies, RENT, Adventures In Babysitting) and writer Craig Titley (Cheaper by the Dozen) based on the book
The film is about a teenager who discovers he is the son of the Greek god Poseidon and that he himself is half-god. His entire life is changed by this discovery, also Zeus’ lightning bolt has been stolen and Zeus thinks Percy is to blame. If the bolt is not recovered in a few days the gods will all go to war and it will change everyone’s life as they know it. He’s brought to a camp for demi-gods and sets out to find his mother, who has been taken by Hades, and clear his name. He’s joined by his protector (Brandon T. Jackson) and Athena’s daughter Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario). Along the way to the underworld they run into some other Greek figures like Medusa.
Film
February 23, 2010
The Messenger – Movie Review
The Messenger is about a soldier (Ben Foster) who was badly wounded in Iraq and with 3 months of service left is assigned to the Casualty Notification Office. It becomes his job, along with his mentor/partner (Woody Harrelson) to inform soldiers next of kin as soon as possible after they are killed. It’s directed by Oren Moverman and written by Moverman and Alessandro Camon. Both are troubled men and while Harrelson’s character deals with alcoholism, Foster’s deals with the loss of his girlfriend (Jena Malone) and his feelings for a wife they notified about her husband’s death (Samantha Morton).
So first off most people searching for this movie are just looking for naked pictures of Jena Malone. I do not blame you. Besides being a terrific actress, she’s also very attractive. So click the censored image to get a bigger uncensored version.
Film
February 20, 2010
Sorority Row – Movie Review
Sorority Row is a horror/slasher film that was released last year. It’s plot is pretty simple. A bunch of sorority girls are throwing a party and decide to get back at a guy who cheated on one of them by playing a prank. So one girl gives the guy (who is incidentally another of the girls’ brother) fake roofies to give to the girl (played by Audrina Partridge of fake reality show fame). The girls all gather and watch on a webcam from the next room while he tries to have sex with her unconscious body (doesn’t this sound wonderfully funny? Apparently it is as the girls crack jokes the whole time), then she pretends to have a seizure or something and die. They drive him and her out to an abandoned mine (you know cause there’s just abandoned mines all over the place) and pretend like they’re going to dump her body there. When the girls split up for a second, the guy who is freaking out actually takes a tire iron and shoves it through her chest, actually killing her. Then they have to actually dump her body in the mine. This is all only slightly more complex then I’m making it sound.
Film
The Hurt Locker – Movie Review
This movie has received a ton of press and awards already so you probably know the plot but if you don’t here’s a simple summary: The Hurt Locker is about a military bomb squad unit in Iraq. The squad gets a new leader who’s a rogue type. The film follows the squad’s day to day operations during their deployment.
Albums
February 19, 2010
David Bowie – A Reality Tour Album Review
David Bowie’s Reality Tour travelled the world in 2003 and 2004. A DVD was shot in Dublin over the course of November 22nd and 23rd 2003. This dvd has been available since October of 2004. But since Bowie is now pretty much retired after suffering a heart attack during the Reality Tour (his final tour to date) they just recently released a CD version as well as digital versions.
You can preview the tracks using the handy Amazon widget:
This newly released audio only version includes 3 additional songs: Fall Dogs Bomb The Moon, Breaking Glass, and China Girl. I personally attended The Reality Tour when it hit NYC and can tell you that it was a great show. The set is both a compilation of greatest hits with a bunch of new songs from the new Reality album. Reality unfortunately wasn’t a huge hit. I still defend it though as it has some pretty good songs on it. But even if you skip over those you still have a live show featuring tons of great classic material for a pretty good price.
Film
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant – Movie Review
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant is a movie about Darren Shan (Chris Massoglia), a teenager who with a friend attends a mysterious freak show where it turns out the freaks are really supernatural in nature. Through a course of events he winds up having to become the assistant to a vampire (John C. Reilly), becoming half-vampire himself in the process and joining the Cirque to save his best friend’s life. But his best friend may not be such a great person after all.
The movie is directed by Paul Weitz (American Pie, American Dreamz) and written by Weitz and Brian Helgeland (Salt, Conspiracy Theory). It is based on the first three books
Film
February 14, 2010
The Informant! – Movie Review
The Informant! is a comedy directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Matt Damon as Mark Whitacre, an executive for a food company who comes forward to the FBI about his company price fixing a food additive in virtually everything called lysene. These are the same people who pretty much put high fructose corn syrup in everything. It’s based on a book
I really did not know what to expect from this. I went in knowing pretty much nothing. The advertising was horrible. I mean look at that poster above. It gives you no clue of what this movie is about. The commercials were similarly vague and only hinted that it was funny. The idea that I formed for myself would be that it’d be like a sort of funny version of The Insider. It really wasn’t though. The narrative is mostly driven by a voice over delivered by Damon’s character. This voice over is probably the best part of the movie. It is extremely funny. They mostly have nothing to do with what is going on and just give you an inside line into the character of Whitacre’s brain on some level. Here’s an example:
TV
February 13, 2010
Life Unexpected – TV Review
Quite obviously you’ve probably read reviews of this show on other sites by now. It’s aired 4 episodes. But I held back my review based on my television review standards (read about them here). I liked the pilot a lot. But I’m skipping ahead of myself. Let’s start with what it’s about.
Life Unexpected is about an orphan named Lux (Brittany Robertson) who is trying to get emancipated on her 16th birthday because she hates life in foster care. To be able to do this she needs to get signatures of her birth parents. So she tracks them down. The first one she is able to find is her father, Nate Bazile (Kristoffer Polaha), better known as Base, pronounced basil without the il. He is running a local bar and had no idea he had a kid that was out there. When Lux asks about her mother she discovers that she is actually a well known local radio host, Cate Cassidy (Shiri Appleby). Base and Cate have not talked since High School and even then no one knew about the baby or the fact that Cate and Base even had sex. Apparently Cate had it secretly and gave it up for adoption but Lux had a heart condition and needed a lot of surgeries which is why she was never adopted. Anyway long story short both Cate and Base wind up with a bit of a connection to their spawn and also are both total opposites. When the day of Lux’s hearing comes up the judge declares she cannot be emancipated but since she has 2 birth parents who can care for her they will have to take care of her. So now Cate and her fiancee/co-host and Base must care for teenage Lux who they are just meeting.
Film
February 4, 2010
An Education – Movie Review
An Education is a true coming of age story set in 1960’s suburban England. It’s about what happens when a 16 year old girl (Carey Mulligan) meets an older man (Peter Sarsgaard) who seems to be cultured, refined, and much more interesting than anything else in her life. It’s based off of a single chapter of the memoir of Lynn Barber, a british journalist, with both the book and the chapter sharing the movie’s title. The screenplay was written by novelist Nick Hornby (High Fidelity) who has had several of his own books adapted for the screen and the film is directed by Lone Sherfig. As of the time I am writing this An Education is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, Carey Mulligan is nominated for Best Actress, and Nick Hornby is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.
