Fictional Friday :: 6 more real life faces for more Disney princesses

The term “princess” being used loosely, and to define basically any Disney heroine.  (Anyway, the ones that aren’t properly royalty are often the most badass.  Mulan.  What.)

6. Alison Brie (Snow White, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves)

Much like how I imagine Reese Witherspoon can speak to mice, I imagine Alison Brie can in fact understand birdsong and whatnot.  She’s just the cutest ever.

5. Elle Fanning (Alice, Alice in Wonderland)

We wanted an Alice who was actually close to Alice-age.  Because Mia Wasikowska was a rad grown-up Alice, but Alice isn’t grown up in the cartoon.  (Not that most of our other casting choices aren’t grown up, but Alice is younger than the others, so it works.  Okay?  Also, Elle would just be a fantastic Alice.)

4. Jennifer Hudson (Tiana, The Princess and the Frog)

She’s a good fit.  She’s triumphed over professional adversities and stuff, like Tiana.  She didn’t win American Idol, but she kept at it, and then she won an Oscar.  So.

3. Liza Lapira (Mulan, Mulan)

So technically, she’s part-Chinse, part-Filipino, part-Spanish, but I think she’s adorable, and I love her, and I think she could be a super badass.

2. Moon Bloodgood (Pocahontas, Pocahontas)

A lot of Hollywood actresses have some Native American heritage.  But a lot of the are the ones who look like Cameron Diaz, who have some, but it doesn’t count for much.  I’ve only seen Moon Bloodgood in the most recent Terminator, really, but she does have the most awesome name of all time, so that counts for something.

1. Lara Pulver (Meg, Hercules)

Meg is my favorite.  Meg is my girl.  We’d originally discussed Maggie Siff as Meg, which I thought would have been equally brilliant, but my friend said “OH!  What about the girl who’s Irene on Sherlock?”  I hadn’t yet watched this season (and I’ve only watched the first episode, so don’t spoil me, I don’t have a good excuse, but I haven’t got around to the other two yet, I’m a busy girl) so I made a mental note.  Then I watched it.  And I went holy hot damn.  Irene is also my girl.  It makes perfect sense.  (And I didn’t realize until right now that Lara Pulver also played Sookie’s fairy godmother on True Blood, so that’s irrelevant, but my mind is still a little blown.)

–your fangirl heroine.

Spoiler Alert Saturday :: my thoughts on We Bought a Zoo

Five things I usually despise:
1. Inspirational “based on a true story” movies
2. Inspirational animal movies
3. Inspirational single/widowed dad movies
4. When movie audiences audibly go “awwww”
5. Soundtracks that involve a song sung by a man in a high-pitched, incomprehensible voice

Five things that will get me in the door anyway:
1. Patrick Fugit
2. Patrick Fugit
3. Patrick Fugit
4. Patrick Fugit
5. Cameron Crowe directing Patrick Fugit

This may be the most overtly fangirl movie review I’ve put up in a while, but nobody (who isn’t Fran Kranz, Summer Glau, or Christina Hendricks) can uniformly melt me into a puddle of fangirl want like Patrick Fugit.  Eight years and counting.  My crush on him has lasted longer than… most real life relationships I know that aren’t belonging to parents.

Yes, I understand that he had… not that much screen time.   I understand that We Bought a Zoo was a movie about Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson and Matt Damon’s children.  But it’s been approximately five years (since Wristcutters) since I actually got to see my Patrick on a big screen, and I couldn’t resist.  Even though the first time I saw the trailer to this movie, and didn’t see Patrick in it, I shot myself in the head with a fingergun.  Inspirational anything movies make me want to crawl into a hole and never emerge, a lot of times.

But.  I’m not sure if it’s because I was in a happy place, or because it was actually sweet, or because there are times when I can become a total sap for a minute before reverting to my usual morbid self, I actually did think it was a nice movie.  “Nice” isn’t a very apt descriptor, but it’s an appropriate one, I think.

The audience in my theater did audibly go “awwww” multiple times.  Usually at Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones), and I’ll admit that was well-founded.  Even if it’s a plot device that’s getting tired, I can’t deny that the adorable little girl’s presence is a guaranteed way to make people smile.  And this particular little girl was especially adorable.

Also pretty adorable was Lily (Elle Fanning).  In a different way, but damned if she’s not an endearing adolescent.  She’s got one of those infectious smiles, and she wasn’t acting too young or too old, so that’s nice.  Even if sometimes I was rolling my eyes (the “I love you” scene between her and Dylan [Colin Ford], for example, because really) she didn’t seem like a “Hollywood” adolescent.  She seemed like someone who’s actually that age.

And Matt Damon was fine.  Like usual, I don’t have anything particular to say about his performance.  He got done what he needed to.  The hallucinations of dead wife sequences were a little much, and the dancing in the kitchen one made me think about The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood for some reason, but it was okay in the end.  Thomas Haden Church was good, too.  He’s good at being That Other Guy There Talking To The Main Character.

Scarlett Johansson… is a serviceable actress who does what she needs to, and damn if she’s not cute.  And I really liked that they only kissed the once and acknowledged that it wasn’t going to be a relationship right away because of it.  That felt like a real people thing to do.

My Patrick… well, for one I’m convinced that his character, Robin, was totally dating that girl with the flapper haircut who also worked at the zoo, or at least they flirted.  I loved his one little silly interaction with Johansson’s Kelly; that it was just banter, plain and simple, nothing weird about it.  If the inspector (who was a d-bag, and I hated him) had been a woman, and had been eyeing him up, she would have bantered with him in the same way.  He was so capable and helpful and friendly and, like always with him, I felt like he knew more about everyone than they did about themselves.  (He’s really good at that.)

Basically.  It was cute, it was sentimental, it was based on a true story (and I heard someone behind me go “ooh, field trip!” in all seriousness, and I just shook my head, because cute sentimental movies draw in an audience that I don’t wanna watch movies with, I like when it’s late enough that we’re the only ones in the theatre, or close to, and we don’t have to listen to a ton of other reactions from people, but hey), and despite this I didn’t hate it.  It was pretty good.  Which is probably to do with Cameron Crowe, who is commendable always.  (Except for Vanilla Sky.  But let’s not get into my Vanilla Sky problems.)

–your fangirl heroine.

Film Friday :: 2011 in film (4 opinions, 2 predictable favorites, 3 adorable [pairs of] people, 3 awesome cameos, 2 kickass people)

Opinions
4. Christina Hendricks’ talents were wasted in Drive.
I still… don’t really know how I felt about this movie.  Apparently, the processing process is still in effect.  But I do know that my baby could have been given a lot more to do.  She is so capable of so so much.

3. Ian McShane’s talents were wasted in Pirates.
I mean, he was the best thing in the movie, by a long shot, but they still didn’t know what to do with him and his awesome.  Yeah.

2. I’m still a cynical bitch about romantic comedies.
Even the ones that I can logically say that I liked more than the rest, I don’t feel compelled to ever see again.  Crazy, Stupid, Love.: it was cute, and until the end, it didn’t suck, but just… no.  Once was enough.

1. Haters of Sucker Punch to the left.
I mean, I get why people don’t groove on it.  Like I get why people don’t groove on Repo or something.  But… see, the thing is, I actually don’t think it’s just some fetishy fanboy wet dream.  Yes, they’re young women kicking people’s asses. Yes, they’re doing so in a lot of tight, short clothing.  No, Lisa Schwartzbaum of Entertainment Weekly, they are not “psycho sluts.”  In the first reality, yes, it’s a mental hospital.  But that doesn’t automatically mean psycho.  They don’t really go around killing people for fun, they’re just setting themselves free.  And save the deleted scene between the High Roller (Jon Hamm) and Babydoll (Emily Browning), you don’t see any of them actually partaking in sexual behavior except dancing and that time that Rocket (Jena Malone) almost gets raped and Amber (Jamie Chung) sitting on that guy’s lap.  So, uhm… sluts?  How?  It’s not bad to partake in sexual behavior, far from, but it’s not really cool to judge someone in that fashion, or judge a movie in that fashion.  It’s a chicks-kicking-ass movie, and it’s stylized, and it’s weird, and… yeah, I get why it’s not for everyone.  But I have developed a strange protectiveness over it.

Predictable favorites
2. Hugo
Gorramit, this movie was adorable.  I do tend to like love letters to filmmaking, and I love period pieces, and it was stylistic, and there was a steampunk robot and Chloe Moretz.  A recipe for win.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
There was never any question about if I’d like this movie or not.  I mean, there are things I still wish were there, but… it made me cry.  Nothing makes me cry.  That’s magic in and of itself. 

Adorable (pairs of) people
3. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anna Kendrick (50/50)
Predictable, maybe (especially because I like both of them: Anna Kendrick is one of the only forgivable things about Twilight, Joseph Gord0n-Levitt is unquestionably endearing).  But true.

2. Amy Adams (The Muppets)
Again, true.

1. Kat Dennings (Thor)
Yeah, I get it.  Darcy was a brat, a little.  But she was just a damn precious brat.  With precious glasses.  And honestly, her reactions to all of the superhero stuff seemed silly because that’s not how a lot of people in movies act, but it’s how a lot of real people would probably act. 

Awesome cameos
3. Jon Hamm (Sucker Punch)
Because if you watch the deleted scene with the High Roller, it’s… kind of completely different than how it seemed in the theatrical release.  Baby’s just like… “oh okay, I guess I’ll have this intimate time with you now,” and it’s consensual, and it’s good.  It makes sense why the doctor then says that when he was lobotomizing her, it’s almost like she wanted him to do it.  And Jon Hamm is just… all kinds of good.

2. Jim Parsons (The Muppets)
Spoiler alert, finally.  I don’t think there could have been a better humanized nerdy Muppet man than Jim Parsons.

1. Nathan Fillion (Super)
Nathan Fillion anywhere would have been brilliant, but Nathan Fillion in a terrible wig and a cheap-ass super-suit?  In what just may have been the most effed-up movie of the year?  Priceless.

Kickass people
2. Matthew Lewis (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2)
Neville my darling.  My badass darling.  Coming into his own, being so heroic and amazing.

1. Hayley Atwell (Captain America)
Peggy Carter my darling.  Being so efficient, so adorable, kicking ass and taking names and everything.  She is perfection.

So yeah.  Brief synopses and one giant, giant, 24% of the overall post word-wise tl;dr.

–your fangirl heroine.

Spoiler Alert Saturday :: my thoughts on Super 8

When I saw the trailer for this, despite obvious intentional vagueness, I saw JJ Abrams attached and went “oh, it’s going to be aliens.”  (That is sort of his M.O. after all.)  But once I heard that the kids in the movie were making a zombie movie, I was suddenly interested in going.

Well, it wasn’t particularly original.  My mom called it “E.T. with a scarier alien” and my dad called it “Stand By Me with robots” and I sort of thought that the alien (oh, yeah, spoiler.  There was an alien) looked like if those prawn guys from District 9 mated with some skeletons a little bit.  But it was well-made.

The effects were solid.  (Thank the sweet lord that it wasn’t in 3D; I’m dreadfully sick of that.)  The kids were solid.  I was happy to see kids acting like, well, kids, not deranged Hollywood hyperactive spaz brats.  And hot damn, Elle Fanning.  Way to be way more likable than your sister.  (I couldn’t tell you why, but I have a strange dislike for Dakota.  Overexposure, perhaps, since she was in every single thing for a while there.)

It was nicely 1979 without being too 1979.  Period but not kitsch.  I sort of cared about the kids.  It was pretty predictable, but there were nice moments that made it still worth watching.  It was decently written.

Really, it’s a decent movie.  I didn’t expect more than some kids and omfgcrapaliens, and so when that’s mostly what there was to it, I wasn’t disappointed.

And their zombie movie was sort of adorable.

–your fangirl heroine.