What a Glee-ful start!

This my friends, will no doubt sound like a fluff piece to you when you're done reading it. But, I swear to you, it's not! I just really, really loved it. And by "it" I mean the second episode of the marvelous Glee. The pilot showed a lot of potential, but potential doesn't always turn into greatness. Well, my dear readers, here it does, and in spades of it.


"Showmance" is the much-hyped series second episode, arriving a full 4 months after the pilot premiered in May. With something as hyped-to-the-heavens as Glee, one has reasonable fear that it'll disappoint when it actually shows up. This, of course, is a mistake. Not only did the episode deliver on the pilot's promise, it went above and beyond. The script had some brilliant, snark-tastic bits of dialogue. Of special note in this department is Jane Lynch's cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester. I swear, there's not a dull moment when she's on the screen. The rest of the cast, however, is not neglected by the script, which delivers equal parts satire and heart.


Of course, one of the main features of the show is the musical numbers, and they did not disappoint. Whether rapping to Kanye West's Gold Digger (who knew Matthew Morrison could rap? Apparently, Lea Michele: "We don't call him Mattie Fresh for nothing...") or belting out to Rihanna's Take a Bow (in a scene that is further proof that Lea Michele really is as good an actress as she is a singer), the show really delivers on its musical premise.

Overall, I really liked the series and hope the rest of the public will agree with me, lest this turn into my new Pushing Daisies. And you, my readers, what did you think of Glee? Let me know in the comments.

Le verdict (so far): ****

P.S. All images in these post can be originally found in gleeimages.com's gallery.

Thoughts on Orphan

Scary movies have a love-hate relationship with me. I always see the trailers and grow interested and then fight my reticence to see them. Almost always, immediately after exiting the theater I feel regret. Regret because I know I'm gonna be skittish all night long after watching a scary movie, yet again. Orphan, however, was enough of a draw (the trailer was suitably intriguing) for me to momentarily put aside my fears. I do not regret it.


Orphan is the story of the Coleman family and their newest member, Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman). We learn at the very beginning of the story that Coleman mother Kate (Vera Farmiga) had a miscarriage and that prompted her to attempt adoption. She already has two other kids: a partially deaf daughter named Max (Aryana Engineer) and a spoiled-yet-ignored son named Daniel (Jimmy Bennett). Her desire to make up for the miscarriage and get another kid is just too much, so she and her husband John (Peter Sarsgaard) register and start looking around orphanages. They eventually find a very charming and proper girl named Esther.


As is customary in these kind of movies (the child-from-hell genre, specifically), everything seems fine at first. It soon becomes apparent, however, that Esther has a dark side to her charming persona. Not only has she lied about her past, she actively undermines Kate and manipulates the people around her. One of the more odd things surrounding Esther is her fixation with the ribbons around her neck and wrists. She never removes them and any attempt to do so results in her screaming and flailing around. All of this arouses Kate's suspicions, but her misgivings about her new child are not well received by the people around her.


Even if the heroine-who-nobody-believes is a tired element in the horror genre, here it plays seamlessly; all thanks to Esther's machinations. What isn't half as easy to swallow is Farmiga's performance. She overacts in each and every scene she's in. You would think it's a bit hard to look fake when you're screaming after your endangered children (not much to do really, just scream and run after them), but Farmiga is so ham-endowed she even botches this.


More decent (though not by a long shot) is Sarsgaard's John, who (along with Kate, come to think of it) plays the stereotypical yuppie XXI century father. The scenes where he does lash out at Kate in frustration, however, ring true. Sarsgaard manages to remain bitter and oblivious yet oddly relatable.


The film's standouts lie not, however, with the adults. Rather, it's in Engineer and Fuhrman's performance's that the film really shines. Not only does their twisted sister dynamic manage to stay interesting; they also manage very decently when on their own.


Engineer's Max is a role that (much like Jadagrace Berry's in Terminator Salvation)requires her to be very expressive with her face without going overboard. Her fear and pain also genuinely make you feel sorry for her situation.


The cause of this fear and pain, of course, is the increasingly deranged Esther, who shines in Fuhrman's hands. She is charming, as noted above. This, of course, does not stop her from also being a chilling sociopath. It's the little things really: an evil glare here and there, a sadistic smile watching a fire, a realistic Russian accent, et al. The movie uses a lot of psychological thriller conventions, so the villain role really has to stand out for us to get interested. If it weren't for Fuhrman, the film wouldn't be half as interesting (or spooky) as it is.


Like I said above, the film works entirely within the conventions of the genre. These go from the lone-standing female heroine nobody believes to the shocking reveal of the villain's nature/identity. As a friend of mine noted, the makers of this film must have worked pretty hard to avoid stepping on clichés in this department. The ShockReveal isn't as shocking as others, but I'll still give it points on originality. Some better casting decisions and a tighter script around some scenes could've really elevated this to classic, Rosemary territory.

Le verdict: **

Thoughts on The Breakfast Club

As many of you may know, 80s teen flick auteur John Hughes passed away recently. In honor of this, I decided to show The Breakfast Club to my Film Club. I started the year with something light and teen oriented (Charlie Bartlett, more on that later) so as to get them going in the right direction with something that wasn't as heavy as, say, The Seventh Seal. The film is far from perfect and I don't agree with it being the ultimate high school movie, but it's cultural impact is still undeniable. Allow me to elaborate.


The film follows a Saturday in the lives of five high school students in detention. They're all from different cliques and don't really get along. Because of their locked-in circumstances, they're forced to interact and get to know each other. Throughout the day they manage to get behind the assigned personas of their cliques. If this sounds cliched, it's because this film practically started this trend in teen and coming-of-age movies. Even if the character labels are a tad obsolete and simplistic, the movie's intention is what's remarkable. The reason they simplify the characters into archetypes even as they attempt to remove their masks is that this way it's much easier to explore a wide range of topics.


On the acting front, I must say I didn't truly dislike anyone's performance, but I did feel some of them could've been done better. Chief among these is Molly Ringwald's Claire, who I just couldn't ever like. Ally Sheedy's Allison, however, nicely treads the line between Ringwald and Judd Nelson's overacting. Even if the message they send through her character in the end is atrocious, I enjoyed watching her go from quiet and insane one second to pathological lying and crazy dancing the next.


The movie succumbs to some of the 80s most dreadful film making mistakes (music video-esque montages, random exaggerations, etc.), but it manages to relay it's message somewhat convincingly. There are films I say could've been better, but weren't, and as such deserve no special consideration. This film on the other hand, is not one of those films. The film is not interesting for what it could've been, but for what it attempts to say. The message, not the product takes precedence here. Of course, the film makes mistakes regarding some of its messages (the aforementioned Allison storyline), but overall the script is not half-bad. Maybe I'm just removed from the generation that grew up with this film, but I still understand what it meant back then. Should this impact my verdict on the film?

Le verdict: **1/2

Thoughts on The Hangover

The comedic front in cinema has been on a rut as of late. "Where is the big comedy of the year?", we clamored. Well, mesdames et messieurs, The Hangover should assuage us all (at least for now). Here is a movie that squeezes every ounce of fun it can from one of the most random, chaotic script we've seen this year (even if its chaos detracts from it as a whole). Even if the movie's brand of crass humor wasn't always my taste, I have to recognize there's no situation or line that wasn't funny within it's own style. That's ambiguous, isn't it? Let's get on with the explanation, then.


The movie's premise is quite simple: four guys wake up in a trashed hotel suite after a night of debauchery with no memory of the events that happened in the aforementioned night. They must now find the fifth member of their motley crew, who just happens to be getting married in two days. As they go about piecing information about the night's events, they run into such random characters as a pair of sadistic police officers, a hooker with a heart of gold and an enraged Chinese gangster. See what I meant about the chaos?


The guys get divided into regular, male comedy archetypes. The whipped wimp, the socially awkward idiot, and the suave ladies man all make their appearance here. The roles are decently portrayed by Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis (I had to double spellcheck that name), and Bradley Cooper, respectively. It's nothing we haven't seen before, but within the context of the film it manages to still be fun. Even if at times Helms' whining and Galifianakis idiocy get a tad grating, it doesn't detract too much from the film.


The film's star, of course, is not its leads, but rather the random messes they stumble into on their search for their friend Doug (Justin Bartha, who just can't seem to get his big break.). The situations are, more often that not, politically incorrect and go from merely embarrassing to outright dangerous. If there's one issue the script has regarding these encounters is the fact that they don't really have cohesion. To put it another way, even if the situations are funny, they're not really connected. They're like roommates that don't hang out much; they share the same space but don't have much of a relationship.

Overall, the film provides a healthy amount of laughs and will keep you entertained from start to finish. It is not, however, anything we haven't seen before. Nor is it, as some people seem to think, the next Big Thing. It's a summer comedy, and a good one at that, but nothing else.

Le verdict: ***

On sharing what you have

This week was the first week of school and the first week of the semester I've once more tended to my duties as creator and president of my school's Film Club. This year I have twelve members, an all-time high for the club. I am very excited to be able to share my love of movies with them and to maybe even be able to teach them a thing or two. Even better is the fact that if all goes according to plan, we may take a trip next year to the Sundance Film Festival. Cross your fingers, people!


Au revoir,
Monsieur Cinema

New York, I Love You

The first trailer for New York, I Love You is making the rounds and I gotta say I am in love. I enjoyed its predecessor, Paris, je t'aime, so this was a no brainer. However, I was still surprised at how much I liked the trailer. I've seen better trailers than this, sure, but there's something about this one that gives me a gut feeling few others do. Maybe it has to do with my lifelong love of New York and my undying desire to one day live in it (Clichés are there for a reason folks. It's people like me that keep them alive.). In any case, here I give you the trailer. Enjoy!



Let me know if my feelings on it are mine alone or if you share them.

Au revoir,
Monsieur Cinema

Thoughts on Valkyrie

Let's get something out of the way. I've never really liked Tom Cruise. I don't necessarily dislike him, but I don't get excited when I hear he's on the cast for an upcoming movie. Valkyrie does not provide a 180° on my opinion of him, but it does change it up a bit.


Valkyrie tells the story of the 20 July plot, a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler that was orchestrated by the German Resistance. The film's protagonist is Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Cruise), a war veteran who lost an eye and a hand during a British attack. Stauffenberg, disillusioned with the Third Reich, joins a clandestine group planning on staging a coup.


Overall, the supporting cast in the coup plot does a decent job but no one really stands out. Particularly alluring, however, was David Bamber's Hitler, who was subdued yet deranged. He doesn't have much screen time, but he works wonders (particularly with his eyes) during that time.


Carice van Houten (marvelous in Black Book) is wasted here as von Satuffenberg's wife, Nina. It's really a shame when a great actress is given a role she can't do anything with. This is not the same as saying small roles should go to bad actors. Dame Judi Dench did marvelous in Shakespeare in Love, despite her limited screen time. Carice's performance doesn't lower its quality standards from her other work, but we just don't see enough of her.

The film is interesting, but it's main flaw is that it is never truly engaging. For a film inhabiting as tired a historical period as WWII, this is particularly problematic. The way I see it, if you're gonna get into WWII, you must either bring something new into the game or be really good at what everyone else has done. The fact that the proceedings play as a thriller in a scenario whose ending we already know further sink this into exercise-in-futility territory. As I've asked before, if a thriller isn't particularly thrilling, is it failing? Maybe as a thriller, but the other thing this film has going on for it is its attempt to inform us; to let us know that not every German (indeed, that not even every Nazi) in WWII was a monster. Some attempted to fight back, to redeem themselves. It's a shame their courage is exploited here with such low quality standards.

Le verdict: **