Spoiler Alert Saturday :: my thoughts on The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies

Once again, I preface this with the disclaimer that I am not a Tolkien person.  It has never been my world, while I understand why it is many other people’s.  So I go to these movies more or less because it’s something to do (we go when we’re out of town visiting family, as it’s timed out correctly for the last three years), not because I’m particularly committed to them.

So here… is a collection of random thoughts about this film, thoughts that come from no serious place at all.

• On the subject of Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly).  I sure do wish that she had wound up having more of a role in the narrative than love interest, that would have been nice, but the love triangle… wasn’t the most awful triangle that has ever been (except the behind-the-scenes politics of it, but that’s old news).  At least… at least Legolas (Orlando Bloom) pretty much just accepted her interest in Kili (Aidan Turner) and didn’t try to guilt her into choosing him instead?  And still sided with her against Thranduil (Lee Pace)?  That’s… something, I guess?  I don’t really… know.  I could have done without Tauriel sobbing over Kili’s corpse, as that was… pretty bad dialogue.  Actually, the solution: I could have just watched Tauriel do combat for two hours, probably.  That would have been fun.
• The highlight of the movie for me was probably when Legolas was fighting the Orc on the tower that had fallen across the gap like a bridge and was falling apart brick by brick like a horizontal Jenga game, then he actually ran up bricks as they fell like he was in a game of old-school Mario.  I was glad we were the only ones in the theater, because I was laughing hysterically by that point.
• I actually laughed at a lot of the small details of the battle scenes, because if I get in the right mood weirdly choreographed battle scenes crack me up like few other things.  I’m blanking on a lot of the specifics now, though, a few days removed from my viewing.
• I do remember I kept laughing every time I saw Thranduil on his battle moose.  Especially when he used said battle moose to twelve-point a whole passel of enemy soldiers.
• Another highlight was the scene with Gandalf (Ian McKellen) being rescued from evil by Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) and Elrond (Hugo Weaving) and Saruman (Christopher Lee).  I apparently don’t remember the book at all, because I didn’t recall any such thing happening, but there the others were rescuing Gandalf from transparent evil ghost knights that looked like they were from the commercials from the video game Assassin’s Creed that appeared out of nowhere.  There was Galadriel apparently turning into Samara from The Ring to banish the evil of Sauron or… whatever.

–your fangirl heroine.

Spectacular Summaries Saturday :: the summer movie round-up

For my purposes, summer at the movies begins mid-May and ends… last week.  That’s about the timeframe for hauling out “summer” movies (I say that in quotations because some don’t fit and some are trying to hard to fit in what makes a successful summer blockbuster).  I’m categorizing and therefore judging.  Bolded titles in every category have won the category.

The contenders (summer movies I saw)
Thor
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Bridesmaids
The Hangover, Part II
X-Men: First Class
Super 8
Green Lantern
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
Captain America
Cowboys & Aliens
Our Idiot Brother
Fright Night

Superhero movies!
Thor
X-Men: First Class
Green Lantern
Captain America
This one would have been close if X-Men hadn’t been out.  Thor and Captain America both have the bonus of leading up to The Avengers, which I am geeking for like a boss, and they were both pretty good.  Thor had glassesy Kat Dennings and direction by Kenneth Branagh, Captain America had badass red-lipstick-and-pencil-skirty Hayley Atwell and the killing of supernatural Nazis.  But X-Men was set in the 1960s, starred a crap ton of attractive people that I have infatuations with to varying degrees (James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne, Nicholas Hoult…), featured a whole load of fun moral gray areas, was badass, was directed by Matthew Vaughn… clear winner.

Sequels!
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
The Hangover, Part II
X-Men: First Class (ish)
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
I say ish for X-Men because it’s sort of a prequel, but it still wins.  The other three were very of their franchise.  Pirates was a lot like the first three Pirates movies, except it had the advantages of being minus Orlando Bloom and plus Ian McShane.  The Hangover was exactly like the first Hangover, except it was in Bangkok instead of Vegas.  Transformers was a lot like the first two Transformers movies, except it had the advantages of being minus Megan Fox and plus Alan Tudyk.  X-Men wins in my opinion because it tried to do something different with itself.  You could argue that’s easy, given the prequel nature, but Wolverine was a prequel and it was still pretty similar.  (Not in a bad way necessarily, I am a giant fan of the franchise [probably another reason this was a given] but it was.)

Comedies!
Bridesmaids
The Hangover, Part II
Our Idiot Brother
This is a tricky category, because every one of these movies sort of made me want to slap some bitches a few times.  But Our Idiot Brother only made me want to slap the characters; the actors and writers were mostly imaginary slap-free.  Bridesmaids and The Hangover made me want to slap the characters and the writers both; the former because I am just so freakishly sick of women movies being hailed as great stories of sisterhood or whatever when really they’re doing nothing but buying dresses and bitching each other out, the latter because it was, as mentioned, exactly the same as its predecessor.  They were all occasionally funny, but I laughed the most and the hardest at Our Idiot Brother.

Action!
Thor
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
X-Men: First Class
Green Lantern
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Captain America
Cowboys & Aliens
Well, I’m giving every award ever to X-Men, so I decided I should mix this one up a little.  All superhero movies, regardless of how little action they actually have, are often categorized as action movies; all of these had some pretty epic fight scenes, but again with the mixing it up.  And Cowboys & Aliens had gunfights, alien fights, AND space explosions.  The others can’t say that.  So most diverse action!  Harry Potter ties in, because of epic magic battles.  And just my need to give it some win out of intense love.

And now begins the chosen from everything awards.

Sexiest cast: X-Men, obviously.  You have McAvoy for the cocky intelligent pretty-boy thing, Fassbender for the smoldering vengeful brilliant antihero thing, Hoult for the a-freaking-dorable nerdboy thing, Byrne for the brainy brunette thing, Jennifer Lawrence for the cute blonde/sexy mutant thing, January Jones for the ice queen thing, Zoe Kravitz for the exotic thing, the other X-boys for their own things… there’s something for everyone.

Girlcrush created: Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter in Captain America.  I appreciated her in Pillars of the Earth, but I legitimately crushed on her here.  Kickass British vintage women win always.

Girlcrush intensified: Kat Dennings as Darcy in Thor, of course.  If that wasn’t evidenced by my repeated mentions of her in her glasses, she’s also the funniest thing in the movie.  Way more interesting than Natalie Portman’s Jane, too.

Girlcrush allowing me to forgive your character: Zooey Deschanel as Nat in Our Idiot Brother.  She messed up her relationship with the also-adorable Cindy (Rashida Jones) all over the place, but damned if I don’t still sort of love her.

Mancrush created: Nicholas Hoult as Hank/Beast in X-Men.  More at the beginning of the movie, because I have a harder time being attracted to him after he’s an accidental jerk to Raven (Lawrence).  But when he’s all 😀 SCIENCEGEEKING! and sweatervesty and glassesy, oh yeah.

Mancrush intensified: Michael Fassbender as Erik/Magneto in X-Men.  I sorta had a thing for him since Basterds, but damn can that man wear a suit!  Also, I find his ability to speak so many languages massively sexy.  And though it’s not the easiest to deal with in real life, I find moral grayness more interesting than black or white in fiction.

Mancrush allowing me to forgive your character: Anton Yelchin as Charlie in Fright Night, at the beginning of the movie mostly.  He manned up and geeked out as it went on, but he was sort of lame and trying to be cool at the start.

Epic bromance: Charles (McAvoy) and Erik (Fassbender) in X-Men.  This one is pretty straightforward.

Fail bromance: Stu (Ed Helms), Phil (Bradley Cooper), Alan (Zach Galifinakis), and Doug (Justin Bartha) in The Hangover, Part II.  Fail because they repeated the exact same mistakes they made last time, fail because they behaved completely like people do not behave ever, fail because they weren’t really that amiable towards each other, and fail because they left Justin Bartha out of a lot of screen time.

Epic ladybromance: …for what it’s worth, Megan (Melissa McCarthy) towards anyone in Bridesmaids.  She was the only one of the women who was actually good at being a friend, really.

Fail ladybromance: Annie (Kristin Wiig), Lillian (Maya Rudolph), Helen (Rose Byrne), and… well, all the rest of them in Bridesmaids.  They were all just awful friends towards each other, which I’ve already ranted on plenty.

Epic romance: Moira (Rose Byrne) and Charles (McAvoy) in X-Men.  Not that we saw any of it except for that one kiss, but I was so very into it.  Also Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) in Harry Potter, because they finally kissed and they’re finally together and aw.

Epic fail romance: Nat (Deschanel) and Cindy (Jones) in Our Idiot Brother.  Epic fail meaning they were so cute, and then failing just had to go and happen.

Fail romance: Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and Angelina (Penelope Cruz) in Pirates.  Annie (Wiig) and Ted (Jon Hamm) in Bridesmaids.  Sam (Shia LaBeouf) and Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whitely) in Transformers.  Need I go on?

Most wasted performer: Ian McShane as Blackbeard in Pirates.  He did everything he could, bless his heart, but he still didn’t have enough to work with.  Not for his brilliance.

Most intense emotional reaction: the entirety of Harry Potter.  Because of everyone who died, because of the story, because of the battling, because now it’s over and I’m sad.  Because it was just perfect.

Best diversion from canon: Neville (Matthew Lewis) and Luna (Evanna Lynch) in Harry Potter, because it’s obvious, we all know that they should have been together and they so totally had the feelings.

Eager anticipation incited: thanks to Captain America, for The Avengers, of course.

–your fangirl heroine.

Spoiler Alert Saturday :: my thoughts on Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Mixed feelings.  Mixed feelings in spades.  I mean, it’s a Pirates movie, it’s not Shakespeare.  But by the same token, just because something is designed to entertain and swashbuckle doesn’t mean it can’t be genius.  Pirates has never been genius.  The first one probably seemed funnier because I was younger and sillier at the time; now the same three jokes getting respun in varying contexts is a little old.  They’re four movies now that are the same thing each time, a bit different window dressing, but no more than that.  It’s not a hideous formula, but it’s also not thrilling.

I’m just going to sort this for you into LIKES and DISLIKES.

LIKES:

• Ian McShane.  He just does articulate sociopath so damn well.
• Johnny Depp’s accent.  I’m sort of over Jack Sparrow as a character, but I’m still fond of most lower-class British accents, so.
• Penelope Cruz’s corsets.
• The vampire/Spider-man/cannibal/siren mermaids.  Because, what?
• Astrid Berges-Frisbey’s face.  I dunno, I’d like to see her in something where she actually did something, I got an endearing vibe off of her.
• Spanish guitar music.
• An absence of Orlando Bloom’s Will and Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth.

DISLIKES:

• Geoffrey Rush’s bad I’m Trying To Look Poncey wig and makeup thing.  I got that that was intentionally bad, but it was still unpleasant to look at.
• The fact that Penelope Cruz’s alleged backstory changed five thousand times and I didn’t really get a clear read of what her character was in it for.  First she wanted to make Jack sad for having… driven her out of the convent with sex?  Then it was all OHAI let’s go to the Fountain of Youth~  Then it was all lolhe’smydadrlysrsly.  Then it was all I HEART GOD AND SALVATION AND STUFF.  Pick something and stick with it, babygirl.
• The fact that, while Ian McShane was clearly enjoying what he had to do, he didn’t have to do nearly as much as he deserves.
• Richard Griffith’s absolutely ridiculous (flaming) King George.
• I started mentally clock-watching about forty-five minutes before the ending.
• (Also sort of a like in a different way.)  My dad and I had the exact same snarkthoughts the entire time.  It’s nice to be on the same wavelength, but it’s also a sign of the movie’s predictability.

I wasn’t expecting much.  I wasn’t expecting great brilliance, hell no.  It was entertaining enough for what it was, it just… well, I miss Cry-Baby Johnny Depp.

–your fangirl heroine.