Character of the Week: Terry Bellefleur

I love a majority of the characters on True Blood and one of my favorites is Terry Bellefleur. Even in the beginning when his role in the show was very small he still had some of the best dialogue like "I can't listen to politicians, it gives me seizures." He is Andy Bellefluer's cousin and is a cook at Merlotte's. He is also a war vet who suffers from PTSD. I just think that it is hilarious that this is the same guy who played Lane's bandmate turned husband on Gilmore Girls. I did not recognize him at all when I started watching this show and I watched Gilmore Girls religiously. I love that he has become a bigger part of the show because everything that he says is just hilarious. My favorite Terry quote is probably when he says to Arlene "I didn't mean to be peculiar at you." I also love the scene shown below.

My Review: Hugo/ Best Picture Nominee #3

I'm totally bummed that I didn't get to see this in 3D. The closest theater that had it in 3D was way to far to go by bus, so I was stuck with 2D. But, even though it probably would have been a lot cooler in 3D, it was still an amazing film. I swear I was alternating between laughing and crying every five minutes while watching this movie. It is just further proof of the amazingness of Martin Scorcese. Not only does he do amazing with violent gangster movies, but he can do really amazing family films as well. I enjoyed every second of Hugo. Being a Film Studies major I loved it that much more because a major part of the plot had to do with George Melies (I've watched Trip to the Moon in several of my film classes) and the early days of cinema. It was just fantastic seeing the montage of all of the early silent films. This isn't the first time Scorcese has paid homage to early cinema either. At the end of Goodfellas he has a little nod to The Great Train Robbery when Joe Pesci shoots the gun straight at the camera. I thought that the little boy who played Hugo did a great job. You just can't help but cry when you see those big blue eyes of his get sad. Chloe Grace Moretz is great as usual as a girl who befriends him, and I loved Ben Kingsley as George Melies. I knew right away that the little robot used to belong to him because of his reaction to the notebook, but it was a delightful surprise when we found out he was George Melies. It was just heartbreaking seeing his films get burned to make shoe heels. It is disgusting how many old films have been lost forever. There was also a great performance by Sasha Baron Cohen as the Station Inspector. He was an interesting character because he was a villain who sent little boys to orphanages, and yet he was also a pretty sympathetic character. I just couldn't help but feel bad for him the first time he tries to talk to the girl with the flowers and his leg brace stiffens up on his way there so he just gives up. It was just sad (like I said I was basically crying this whole movie). This movie was had great performances, was just visually stunning, and was really fun to watch. My rating: 10/10

Song of the Week: Diva Dance

Best Picture Nominee #2: Midnight in Paris

I just got done watching this movie and I loved it!!! It is definitely on my list of my favorite Woody Allen films now along with Annie Hall, The Purple Rose of Cairo and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. In my Sexuality and Culture class we watched this documentary about these "sin cities" and one part was about Paris in the 20s, so it was really cool to see all of these people portrayed in this movie. It really made me want to learn even more about this era in Paris. I remember thinking that Josephine Baker was really interesting so it was cool to see her for a tidbit. I also loved Allison Pill and Tom Hiddleston as the Fitzgeralds, and the guy who played Hemingway. Plus Adrien Brody was great as Salvador Dali. This was just a really funny and interesting movie about how we all look back at different eras and think that they are better than our own.

A Fassy-less movie? How could it be?

After seeing The Artist, I saw this on my bus ride home and thought it was hilarious. It is at the Landmark Uptown Theater. BTW, the last two movies that played there were A Dangerous Method and Shame....hahaha.

My Review: The Artist/ Best Picture Nominee #1

Making a silent film in 2012 is such an odd thing to do, but I'm really glad that they did it. I really enjoyed this movie! I thought it was funny and entertaining, but there were also times where it was sad and heartbreaking. There were a couple times where I got a little choked up. Jean Dujardin is great as George Valentin, a silent film star whose career comes to an end with the advent of sound. He just has a great face for silent film. It is really expressive and he has that great Gene Kelly-esque smile. The plot of this movie was even similar to Gene Kelly's Singin in the Rain. It is about the rise of talkie pictures and the fall of silent films, except in this film, the silent movie star doesn't want to adapt to the changes. He is stubborn and proud and lets his career fall away because he doesn't want to face the facts that people don't want to see silent films anymore. So while he is fading away, a new star is rising named Peppy Miller, who got her start with the help of Valentin. I thought that this movie would be more of a love story, but it is more about her helping him out than falling in love with him. The two of them don't even kiss in this movie. What I really loved about this movie was how they did have the little bits of sound. I loved the dream sequence when Valentin was having the nightmare after finding out about talkie pictures. He starts hearing everything make noise, but can't make himself speak. This movie also had a great ending. I don't know what it is about tap dancing, but whenever people tap dance in movies it just always makes me happy. My rating: 9/10

Academy Awards Best Picture Nominees 2012

Last year I was really on the ball with the Best Picture nominees because I saw all 10 of them. This year, it is completely different because I have not seen any of the nine Best Picture nominees! This is something that I plan to remedy. I added The Help, Moneyball, The Tree of Life, and Midnight in Paris to the top of my Netflix queue, and I am going to go see The Artist today. That just leaves me with The Descendants, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Hugo, and War Horse, which are all playing at theaters nearby. Honestly, I really have no desire to see Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close or War Horse, so if I do see those, they will probably be the very last ones. I also really want to see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy because I am really curious to see the movie that Gary Oldman was (FINALLY) nominated for. So...I have a little under a month to see nine movies. It shouldn't take me half that long.

Michael Fassbender Appreciation

I did my weekly Spotlight post on Michael Fassbender back in June, but I see now that I really should have waited. Not only have I seen a few more of his older films since then, but he has had three films come out in theaters since I made that post. In fact, three of the last four movies that I have seen in theaters featured this sexy Irishman. He has just been everywhere in the past year and I love how popular he has become. While the first movie I ever saw him in was 300, the first movie that I really noticed him in was Inglourious Basterds. I just thought he was a handsome devil, and I was thrilled to see all of the cool upcoming roles he had after that. You can pretty much track my Michael Fassbender obsession on this blog. My very first Fassy related post was back in November of 2010 and was about how much I wanted to see Jane Eyre. I even featured him in my list of Actors I'd Watch in Anything back in March before I even saw Jane Eyre. I was definitely true to my word because I have seen every movie he has been in in theaters since then.

Jane Eyre

I love the Brontes! While I prefer Wuthering Heights, I still really love Jane Eyre. I thought that Fassy was amazing as Mr. Rochester. He just oozes sex appeal in this movie, even though it is a pretty unsexy role (Rochester is supposed to be unattractive after all). After seeing this I really just wanted to see Fassbender in a million more romantic leads! I actually cried during the part where he proposed to Jane. Speaking of Fassy and the Brontes, I actually read somewhere that he was originally cast as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights with Abbie Cornish as Cathy before Andrea Arnold became the director. THAT is a movie that I want to see!

X-Men First Class

I remember being really psyched when casting news started coming in for this movie. I remember thinking James McAvoy would be great as Professor X, but I was really intrigued about Fassbender being cast as Magneto. Even though I had only ever seen him in 300 and Inglourious Basterds at this point, I knew that he would be great. Which he was!!! His performance as Erik was definitely the best thing about this movie! I can not wait for a sequel because I really want to see more of Magneto and Mystique!

Shame

Fassbender gave a really powerful performance in this movie. (I'm still annoyed at him being snubbed by the Oscars). I really thought that this movie would be really sexy, but it is more sad than anything because you know that each time his character has sex (which is many many times) he is just feeding his sex addiction. The scene where his sister walks in on him masterbating was really hard to watch because even though it just should have been an embarassing moment, he was so ashamed that he flipped out on her and it was actually somewhat frightening. Oh and BTW...George Clooney really wasn't exhaggerating with his comment at the Golden Globes. ( I mean WOW!)

A Dangerous Method

While I didn't think Shame was all that sexy, I thought that this movie was really sexy. But...what do you expect in a movie about Freud? Keira Knightley goes way over the top with her performance in the beginning of the movie, the scenes with her and Fassbender are much better after her character starts to get over her crazy. While this movie has a sex scene with the two of them, plus two (!) spanking scenes, I thought that the parts of the two of them just talking to eachother were much sexier.

Haywire

I was super bummed that his role was so small in this movie. He plays a British Intelligence guy who gets killed off right away. (LAME!) He does have a really cool fight scene with Gina Carano though, and what few scenes he has are further proof that he would make a great James Bond!

Now what?
Now that I have seen Haywire, I have to wait five whole months to see him in movie theaters again! I think it will be worth the wait though, because Prometheus looks super cool!

For starters, it may or may not be related to the Alien movies (which I love! Ellen Ripley FTW!). How badass is that? I also think that I read somewhere (of course I could just be making shit up) that he is playing a cyborg, like Ash in the first Alien movie. Also, how amazing is the cast for this movie. Not only does it have Fassy, but also Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Noomi Rapace, Idris Elba, and Patrick Wilson! I do not object to any of those actors. AMAZING CAST!

He is also doing another movie with Steve McQueen called Twelve Years a Slave which will also feature Brad Pitt and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Looking forward to it!

What will I do until June to get my Fassy fix? I suppose I could watch one of my (five, I think I have a problem) DVDs that feature Fassbender. (300, Fish Tank, Inglourious Basterds, Jane Eyre and X-Men First Class). To be fair, those DVD purchases weren't only due to my fangirlishness....I really love all five of those movies.

My Review: Haywire

Why do female action heroes always have to be super serious? There really aren't that many female action stars (it is basically just Angelina Jolie, Milla Jovovich and Kate Beckinsale) and when we see female action heroes, they never get to be funny or charming like James Bond. That is plainly shown in Haywire. Gina Carano is a badass in this movie. She is kicking ass and taking names but is just super serious throughout. I really just want to see a movie with a female action star who can kick some serious ass but still smile and make jokes and have cool dialogue. Female action heroes get really lame dialogue, or they just don't speak at all like Miho in Sin City and Etain in Centurion. So anyway....movie review. I thought that this movie was okay. I really didn't think that it was all that memorable. I ended up not really caring about the plot at all and was just waiting for the fight scenes, which were the best parts of the movie. I thought that all of the supporting cast members were really underused. With the exception of the main character Mallory, you hardly saw any of the characters. I really don't understand why this movie needed so many bad guys. I hate to say it but I really didn't see why we needed Michael Fassbender's character. He was barely in the movie and it was a total waste of a good actor. Michael Douglas' and Antonio Banderas' characters also seemed pretty unimpotant. The movie was really only worth seeing for the awesome fight scenes. She kicks the shit out of some really good looking guys! (Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, AND Ewan McGregor....DAMN!) The fight with Fassbender in the hotel room was probably the sexiest man/woman fight scene since Mr. and Mrs. Smith....If I were you I would wait for the DVD and skip past all the boring parts. My rating: 5/10

Spotlight On: Anthony Hopkins

This week's spotlight is on one of my all-time favorite actors, Anthony Hopkins. I just think that he is absolutely brilliant in everything that he is in, whether is is being scary or crazy, or sad or happy, he is just amazing. He has such a long a great career and I look forward to seeing even more movies with Mr. Hopkins. Here are my favorite movies of his.

Magic

I really loved this movie. Hopkins plays a ventriliquist named Corky, who can't stop talking to his dummy Fats. The main reason I love this movie is for Anthony Hopkin's performance. It is basically two hours him talking to himself and it is just creepy and unsettling and fantastic. One of the best scenes in the movie is when his agent asks if he can make Fats stop talking for five minutes. You'd think it would be easy, but you end up seeing how hard it is for Corky not to talk to Fats.



The Elephant Man

I just watched this movie again about a week or two ago and it still makes me bawl my eyes out. Hopkins plays a man who takes the "Elephant Man" aka John Merrick out of the circus freak show and takes care of him in his hospital. While I think that John Hurt as Merrick has the stand out performance in this film, Hopkins is great as always as a man who grows to care for him.



The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Anthony Hopkins plays the famous dead hunchback Quasimodo in a TV movie version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The best parts of the movie were definitely when he was talking to Esmeralda.


The Silence of the Lambs

Anthony Hopkins is best known for his role in this film, and with good reason. Hannibal Lecter is one of the best movie villains of all time. Hopkins is one of the very few people to win an Oscar for a horror film role. He is a murdering cannibal, but is also a brilliant forensic psychologist. I liked both Hannibal and Red Dragon, but neither of them come close to being as amazing as The Silence of the Lambs. It is just a classic performance in a classic movie!



Dracula

People say that he goes a little over the top in this movie, but I love Anthony Hopkins as Abraham Van Helsing. My favorite scene in the whole movie is the scene where he kills Lucy. (It would be the shadow scene, but that gets bumped down to second place because Keanu Reeves is terrible...)



The Mask of Zorro

I loved this movie when I was a kid and used to watch it all the time. I haven't seen it in forever (I believe that the last time I watched it was on VHS), but I remember loving the sword fights, the love story, and the scene where he is training the new Zorro how to fight. Hopkins just has that great voice where you just want to listen to everything he is saying.



The Wolfman

"Terrible things Lawrence...you've don't terrible things." In the original Wolf Man, Lawrence Talbot's father kills him, but in this version, he is the one who past the werewolf curse onto him. I don't care what anybody says, I loved the remake of the Wolfman! I thought it was entertaining, it has a cast of actors that I love, the Wolfman make-up looked really cool, and it was just awesome!



Thor

Seriously, who else would they have gotten to play Odin? Hopkins was just great casting.



Upcoming: He has a lot of really interesting looking movies coming out, but the one I'm really excited for is Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho where he plays, guess who...Alfred Hitchcock! One of my favorite actor's playing one of my favorite directors!

Character of the Week: Constance Langdon

Constance Langdon could have easily been a character that everybody hated. She is a racist, homophobic, Southerner who murdered her husband, Moira, and told Larry to kill her son Beauregard. Why is it that she is so amazing then? Well, she is wonderfully played by Jessica Lange, who makes her into a villain you just love to hate instead of just plain hate. She had four children, and by the end of the season we find out that three of them are dead (Beau was murdered, Tate was killed by the police after setting Larry on fire and shooting up his school, and Addie was hit by a car) and we never find out about her fourth child. On the very last episode, however, we see that she is now taking care of Tate's child that he had with his girlfriend's mom, and oh yeah, the child turns out to be a murdereous toddler. One of the most heartbreaking moments on the show was after Addie died and Constance went to the morgue to make her a "pretty girl."

Star Wars: Uncut

Holy Shit! I just sat through two hours of amazing amazingness! I was on Stumpleupon and I came across this article on Star Wars: Uncut, which is a fan made remake of A New Hope where fans shot 15 second clips of the movie that were edited together. Being a massive Star Wars fan, I of course had to check it out. I planned on only watching a few minutes, but I ended up watching the entire thing which clocks in at about two hours. It was amazing!!! While some of the clips were a little annoying, most of it was creative and awesome and hilarious. Definitely worth the watch!

Character of the Week: Sheldon Cooper

This week's character of the week is Dr. Sheldon Cooper from one of my favorite shows, The Big Bang Theory. He is a physisist with a genius I.Q. who went to college at a very young age. He has very little social skills and has some obsessive compulsive habits like always having to knock three times and having to sit in the same spot. I love Sheldon because he always says what's on his mind. It's not because he doesn't care how it will affect people, it's because he doesn't think that people should be offended by facts. He is definitely the character with the best dialogue on the show and Jim Parsons is just hilarious as Sheldon.

My Favorite Movies of 2011

One of my favorite things to do is to go to the movies. I went to a shitload of movies this year and really enjoyed writing my little movie reviews after I got home. This year I only gave one movie a 10/10, which is my number one movie on the list. (Check it out below...) The five movies that I gave the lowest scores to were Sucker Punch, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, Breaking Dawn Part 1, The Rum Diary, and Your Highness. Anyways...here is my list of the 10 movies that I enjoyed the most in the year 2011.

10. The Muppets

This movie was totally cheesy, but I loved it anyway. I've always loved The Muppets and this movie just put me in a really good mood. When ever I leave the theater after seeing a movie that I really like I end up walking on sunshine all the way home, and that was definitely the case with this movie. It was made even better by having the always adorable Jason Segel. I was bummed that I didn't get to see this movie with my little sisters, but they probably already know all the words to Man or Muppet because that song was stuck in my head all through Christmas break so I was singing it all the time.



9. Like Crazy

This movie stars Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones as two young people who try to make a long distance relationship work after the girl overstays her visa and is no longer allowed in the United States. This movie has lots of really cute and sweet parts, but also a lot of parts that are really sad. They have to deal with jealousy, breaking up and then missing eachother and getting back together and trying to lift the ban on her visa while they are both leading really separate lives in their different countries.



8. Fright Night

This movie really surprised me. I love the original Fright Night, so I was really curious about how they would update the movie (since the old one is VERY 80s). I think that Colin Farrell makes a very sexy vampire, and I liked the way they changed the character of Peter Vincent. He went from old school vampire hunter in the original to a Criss Angel-type magician in this one. I just think that this movie is really fun to watch.



7. Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil

This was definitely one of the funniest movies that I saw in 2011. It is about these two rednecks who this group of college students think are serial killers. In reality, they are just on vacation while the students accidentally kill themselves one by one. I just love it because you see so many movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre where this group of kids get murdered by random rednecks who live in the middle of nowhere, and this movie is a comment on those.



6. Young Adult

I absolutely love Charlize Theron and I think that she was amazing in this movie. She plays a YA novel writer who goes back to her hometown to try to get back together with her ex-boyfriend (who is married with a new baby). The best scenes in the movie were definitely the scenes with Theron and Patton Oswalt, who plays a guy she never really talked to in high school, but confides in about her mission to get her ex back.



5. Jane Eyre

I loved this book so I was super excited when I saw that this movie was coming out. I think that the casting for this movie was perfect and that Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender were both really great as Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester. In the book Mr. Rochester is described as unattractive, so casting Fassbender wasn't staying true to the novel, but I really don't care! Fassbender is soooo sexy as Mr. Rochester and he is definitely the best part of this movie.



4. Rise of the Planet of the Apes

I never thought that a CGI monkey would make me cry, but when Caesar draws his window on the wall it just got to me! Anyways, I always think that prequels are a rediculous idea, but Planet of the Apes was a good movie to make a prequel to since it takes place after so much has happened. It was really cool to see the beginning of how apes take over the Earth. While I love me some James Franco, the real star of this movie is Andy Serkis as Caesar. You see him become more and more human as the film progresses and (SPOILER ALERT!) when he finally talks it is NUTS! I just love how I can watch a whole movie of apes talking and think nothing of it, but when he shouted NO! I just went "WHHAAATTTTT!?!?!?!"


3. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

I know that a lot of people were really annoyed about an American movie version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but I was always super excited. Although I love Noomi Rapace and thought that she was great as Lisbeth Salander, I just did not care at all for the Swedish films. I think that Daniel Craig was the perfect choice to play Blomkvist and that Rooney Mara did an amazing job as Lisbeth. It also has one of the coolest opening sequences ever! I really hope that David Fincher directs the movie versions of the next two books as well.



2. X-Men First Class

There were a shitload of superhero movies that came out in 2011, and X-Men First Class was by far my favorite! I thought that the casting was perfect for all of the characters with the exception of January Jones as Emma Frost (I'm sorry I just don't like her). The star of the movie was definitely Michael Fassbender as Magneto and I'm not just saying that because I love Michael Fassbender. Magneto is one of the more interesting X-Men characters and he is just a badass in this movie! I am bummed because I can't find a Youtube video of that scene where he kills those German guys in Argentina...Whatever...here is another cool scene. I loved the parts with Magneto and Mystique and am hoping that we see lots more of them in the sequel!


1. Bridesmaids

Fooking hilarious! I saw this movie in theaters with my mom and we were both laughing our asses off the entire time! I thought that the entire cast was brilliant, even the people with smaller parts. This is one of the funniest movies to come out in a long time. I laughed my ass off the first time I saw it, laughed my ass off again when I saw it at the movie theater in Coffman with a full crowd of people, and continue to laugh my ass off whenever I watch it on DVD. Love this movie!

Song of the Week: Rolling in the Deep

My Review: A Dangerous Method

Is is possible for Michael Fassbender to do a bad movie? I really don't think so. I don't know if he just chooses excellent movies or if movies instantly get better with his presence. And what a presence it is. Even looking very old fashioned with his mustache, glasses, and attire, he still manages to be unbelievably sexy. Every time he flashed that Fassbender smile in this movie I couldn't help but smile myself. Oh right... A Dangerous Method. I have to admit that I am totally biased in favor of this film. Not only does it have a cast that I really love, but it is directed by one of my favorite directors, David Cronenberg. Having said that, I did really like this movie. I thought that it was sexy and interesting and was made even better by the fact that I had to read a lot of Freud for my Sexuality and Culture class last semester. Fassbender was great as always, and even though he was smoldering, he probably had the least interesting role. I really loved Viggo Mortensen as Freud. He was the only person who managed to bring some humor into the film and really gave an effortless performance. I understand why Cronenberg likes to work with him so much. I thought that Keira Knightley went a bit over the top playing the crazier Sabina in the beginning of the film, but she was much better as the recovering psychology student version of Sabina. The scenes with Fassbender and Knightley are VERY sexy, including (or especially) the scenes where he's not spanking her. I was bummed that Vincent Cassell's role was pretty small. I loved the scenes with him and Fassbender, where he helps Carl Jung develop the courage to start his affair with Sabina. My rating: 8/10

Just Finished Reading: Oryx and Crake

This is the other book that I bought with my Barnes and Noble gift card. It just shows how expensive books are...I had a $30 gift card and I was actually $5 short with this book and The Hunger Games. Thats why I usually get my books from Amazon. And if you spend $25 or more you get free shipping....so thats always good. Anyways, I loved this book. I've been wanting to read it since researching for my presentation on female science fiction writers for my Women Writers class. The way that the story is told is really interesting. It starts out after everything has happened and then slowly tells everything that led up to it. It starts with Snowman, who takes care of these lab made people that he calls the Children of Crake. We find out that Crake is not a god, but was his scientist friend who made them. My favorite parts of this book were when Snowman/ Jimmy was thinking about Oryx, the woman he loved. He became obsessed with her since seeing her in a kiddie porn video. That is pretty creepy, but he doesn't actually meet her until she is an adult. Oryx is a very interesting character because she always laughs off Snowman/ Jimmy's concerns about her and her past. She has had this pretty traumatic past, but she just shrugs it off like it's no big deal.

Just Finished Reading: The Hunger Games

I don't normally read YA novels, so I was going to wait to see this in theaters. But, everytime I watched the movie trailer I just became more and more curious about this book. So..I used my Barnes and Noble gift card that I got for Christmas and I bought this book. I literally could not put it down. I started reading it one night and got about 1/4 of the way through and then I read the rest of it the next morning. Now I am just super excited to see this movie! I think that Jennifer Lawrence will be great as Katniss. As soon as I become a little less poor I plan to buy the other two books in the series and read them as well. I will never descriminate against a story just because it is a YA novel ever again. Actually...that is probably not true.

Just Finished Reading: The Fall

I have been without working internet for the past three weeks, so that is the reason for the lack of posts. Over my Christmas vacation I read three different books, with the first beeing The Fall, the second book in the interesting Del Toro/ Hogan vampire trilogy. With this book we get more creepy vampires with their long stingers coming out of their mouths. The most interesting character in these books is Setrakian, an old vampire hunter. In my mind I picture him as Christopher Plummer. It was cool learning more of his backstory in this book. This book also ended with a bit of a cliffhanger with Eph's ex-wife (who is now a vampire) having his son... I guess I'll have to read the third book to find out what happens next...