Category Archives: Movies

Breaking Dawn Picture leak

For the Twihards, or whoever might be interested in this, a picture has leaked from the upcoming and penultimate Twilight movie: Breaking Dawn.

And yes, as it shows… this is one of the interesting (right?) moments of the book.

Black Swan – Movie Review

Black Swan is a new psychological thriller, brought to you by Darren Aronofsky, starring Natalie Portman as a perfectionist ballerina who lands the main role in a remake of “Swan Lake”.

“Swan Lake” is basically a ballet about a princess who falls in love with a prince, only to be turned into a white swan. To get rid of the curse, she needs to find true love’s kiss. However, the prince she loves is seduced by the black swan and the white swan ends up killing herself. Usually, the swan parts are played by two different actors. But in Black Swan, the director of the struggling ballet institute wanted to have the same person play both roles, possibly to show the dueling sides of humanity. Natalie Portman’s character, Nina, excels at being the White Swan. But her frigid, perfectionist self makes it hard for her to be the Black Swan, seductive and darkly sensual. The movie is her becoming the Black Swan.

As many of you know already, Natalie Portman is getting major award buzz for her role in this. She has won almost every award this season for her role in this movie and deservedly so. She gives an intense, haunting performance of a girl breaking out of her shell on so many levels that she’s not herself anymore. The movie itself can be considered simply as Portman’s vehicle. She is the fragile ballerina who is, for lack of better words, losing it. And she loses it perfectly.

I remember sitting dumbfounded after watching this. I haven’t watched it since. But it’s one of those movies that leave you in shock by the end. You don’t want them to end. You want to see what happens next, what kind of twisted psychological game Aronofsky has up his sleeve. And this is exactly what this movie is. A huge twisted psychological maze that is so open to interpretation that my friends and I cannot even agree on who the villain in this movie is, if there’s a villain in the first place. Some say it’s Nina’s mother – a woman who had to give up her dreams of becoming a ballet icon to raise her daughter and is now trying to live her dream through Nina – or Nina herself, with her Black Swan alter ego.

Others say that it’s Lily, the character portrayed by Mila Kunis. Lily is a newcomer to the ballet institute and she can be the perfect Black Swan. She doesn’t worry about the perfection of her moves, she doesn’t care about anything basically. She just lets go. And soon enough, Nina begins to feel threatened by Lily. Or is she?

Mila Kunis gives a pretty remarkable performance. She did not get an Oscar nomination for her role, although she got a golden globe nod and lost to Melissa Leo.

All in all, this is a movie with acting of extraordinary power. And if the hair on your neck don’t stand up when the last movie of the movie comes up, then there’s something really wrong.

The King’s Speech – Movie Review

The King’s Speech. The frontrunner at this year’s Academy Awards, with 12 nominations, including best picture. Where do I start with this… if there was one performance to top what I think James Franco pulled off with 127 Hours (you can check out the review here), it would be Colin Firth.

His performance in the role of King George VI, the father of current queen of Britain Elizabeth II, is astonishing.

The movie’s plot is, in a nutshell, the unexpected rise of Prince Albert, the Duke of York, to become King George VI after his older brother abdicates the throne. The twist? Prince Albert has a severe stutter that limits everything he does in life – from the moment he was a kid. So the movie is him, trying to learn ways to cope and overcome this stutter.

Any actor that can pull off that stutter for almost two hours deserves recognition. The stutter is so limiting, as I said, that there are moments where you simply hold your breath for this man as he tries to utter words that don’t come out. There are other moments where you feel utter joy for him as sentences pour out of his mouth. Regardless of whether you actually know the history of Britain (I don’t), Colin Firth is beyond credible in his impersonation of the character he portrays. He is up for best actor at the Oscars and is the favorite to win. And in all honesty, if either he or James Franco won, I wouldn’t mind.

Off to the other cast in the movie. The other two notable actors are Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter. Geoffrey Rush was amazing. Probably my favorite in the best supporting actor race, although he will not win. His role is the unconventional speech coach Albert hires to help him with the stutter. His interaction with Colin Firth on screen is gold.

Helena Bohman Carter was very good as well as the supporting wife. She’s always in the background. But she’s like the catalyst that gets things going. She is up for best supporting actress for her role in this.

There’s a couple of scenes that I think were brilliant but I can’t divulge them here so I don’t spoil them to anyone. However, to conclude this, the movie does not have dull moments. It keeps you engaged throughout.

And it also makes you want to visit London.

Another interesting thing to ask is, what would the current queen of Britain think about this movie?

Here’s the trailer:

Blue Valentine – Movie Review

Overall, a good movie. There were points where I thought it was great. It’s all about the acting. This is a movie built on two brilliant performances.

Michelle Williams deserves all the recognition she’s getting. She has too many scenes where she shines, the best one, in my opinion, being when she’s at the clinic. You can’t but feel what she’s feeling when she’s lying on the doctor’s gurney there and if you don’t feel anything, then you need to get checked. She got an Oscar nomination for her role, and deservedly so.

Ryan Gosling is brilliant in this as well. He delivers a raw, gut-wrenching performance of the man trying to keep himself together and to keep his marriage still standing. I felt he was another snub at the Oscars this year. He deserved a nomination for his performance in this. I honestly thought he was a lock for a nomination.

I liked the story itself, the blooming of a love, told in flashbacks, and its disintegration, in the present, going in parallel. But I felt that both plots were underdeveloped. Like why are they falling out of love? How did they fall madly in love in the first place? that’s one of the shortcomings of this movie. But, as I said, the brilliant performances make up for it.
It’s very interesting, however, to see how this mismatched couple (and they are seriously mismatched) actually comes to the realization that they are, in fact, not suitable for each other. Many marriages are like this, I believe. The couple stays together because they have a child that’s gluing their crumbling relationship apart… and the movie is basically this couple getting to the realization that even the child is not enough anymore. And this is the crux of the movie: the reality. You forget you’re watching a movie at certain points as it draws very close to the life you know many people are leading.

127 Hours – Movie Review

I watched 127 Hours about two weeks ago but didn’t have a blog to share my ideas about it. To say this is a must-watch is an understatement. Brought to you by the same crew that gave you “Slumdog Millionaire” two years ago. And if you thought that movie was brilliant (which most of us did), wait till you watch this. It is one of the most breathtaking, exhilarating, awesome, amazing, brilliant, captivating movies I have ever watched. It was beyond perfect. The movie is James Franco and James Franco is the movie. No one else matters. Nothing else matters. You live the movie with him. You share the emotions he’s going through in the movie and at one point, you’d be holding on to dear life when he does the act that would ultimately save his life.

However, unlike Slumdog Millionaire, this doesn’t look like a surefire hit at the Academy Awards this year. But don’t let the lack of awards fool you. It’s a brilliant movie that simply got lost in the momentum of other movies out there (The Social Network comes to mind).

James Franco got nominated for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for this performance. He is said to be Colin Firth’s main competitor for this year’s award season. He lost the Golden Globe and I believe that, even though this was a more raw performance than Firth, he will lose the Oscar as well because The King’s Speech (Firth’s movie) is building momentum. I will post my thoughts regarding The King’s Speech later.

I won’t go into the plot here but I have to say that Danny Boyle did another great job with directing this. And the overall result is a movie that, as I said, will probably get you to take a look at your life differently – at least for a while.

The score is done by A.R. Rahman. The movie’s theme song is titled “If I Rise” and was co-written with Dido. It is a beautiful tune, representing the movie’s tagline: There Is No Force More Powerful Than The Will To Live, and calling you to rise above the little things in life to lead the best life possible. Check it out: