It looks like Ellen Degeneres has a small role in a very crucial moment in the new Twilight movie: Breaking Dawn – Part 1.
You don’t believe me? Well, check it out:
Well, I wasn’t entirely truthful. She doesn’t quite have a role. But it’s still hilarious (and probably the only nonexistent highlight from the movie I still haven’t seen.)
I recently started watching a new American TV series titled “Once Upon A Time,” brought to us by the creators of one of our generation’s best TV shows: Lost.
The premise of the show is highly interesting and, even though it starts off weirdly, picks up right at the middle of the first episode and enthralls you. A testament to that is the show catching my brother’s attention as he was engaged with multiple Facebook chats with his friends. You know teenagers and their chats can go on forever. He stopped them to watch.
The show is a modern twist on the fairytales we’ve heard over and over again as we grew up: Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio, etc…. On the day of Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming’s (Joshua Dallas) wedding, the Evil Queen (Lana Parrilla) barges in and threatens them with a curse where no one would have a happy ending, except her. Months later, a pregnant Snow White goes to Rumplestiltskin who tells her that the curse can only be broken by her unborn daughter, as she turns 28.
As the events in that alternate world take place, we are introduced to Emma (Jennifer Morrison) who lives in our world, on the day of her birthday. She was turning 28. It is then that her biological son finds her and tells her that he lives in a town in Maine called Storybrooke where people are the characters of those fairytales, brought to our world by the Evil Queen’s curse without them knowing who they are or where they come from. None of them can leave the town and none of them have an inkling of their past.
Emma, who gave up her son Henry for adoption ten years prior, drives him back to Storybrooke to give him back to his adopted mother and, without intending to, finds herself wanting to help her son out of his “crazy” fantasies, not knowing that her presence there is changing everything.
The overall story might look childish for many (the foundation is a fairytale after all) but the execution is captivating, which is expected from the creators of Lost. They managed to continue the stories of those fairytale characters that we all know and add another dimension to them – one that transcends the magic in which they live, making them look raw and real.
The performances, mainly that of House‘s Jennifer Morrison, are great as well. Morrison portrays the cynical Emma but keeps her character sharp enough as to not repel viewers. She makes the transition to a caring “mother” and makes it look fluidly easy.
All in all, with three episodes in (the fourth one set to air this Sunday November 13th), Once Upon A Time is definitely one of the better new shows to be introduced. It’s a must watch that will surely spark the imagination of million, just as I’m sure its creators intended. Even the fairytales we thought we knew keep surprising us by having links between all the different stories. And if you’re attentive enough, you’ll notice allusions from Lost, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and other Disney movies there.
Start downloading…
It seems that the radio run of Remind Me, the #1 country smash, is not over by it reaching the penthouse of the country charts on the September 10th issue.
Arista, the label behind country music’s biggest stars Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood, who delivered this stunning duet to the masses on Paisley’s latest album, This Is Country Music, is releasing the song to US radio outside the country genre.
On November 14th (one day after my birthday so I’ll take this is a belated gift), radios that play Hot Adult Contemporary and Adult Contemporary music (ie: music by artists like P!nk, Kelly Clarkson, Adele, Daughtry, Lady Antebellum, Maroon 5, etc…) are invited to add this song to their playlists, after being remixed to suit their sound.
Hot AC success for country songs is seen by many as a gateway for entry to pop radio, which is becoming more and more receptive to country songs without remixes, as shown by Taylor Swift’s “Back To December” and Lady Antebellum’s “Just A Kiss,” currently at #25.
In other news, Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley co-hosted the CMA awards for their fourth consecutive time yesterday, opening hilariously with a sketch that played on Hank Williams Jr.’s slur of Obama being like Hitler and Kim Kardashian’s 72 day marriage.
Carrie and Brad also performed “Remind Me” to a standing ovation.
Set in a futuristic alternative universe, In Time is a sci-fi drama about a world where currency is time. People are born with thirteen yellow digits imprinted on their forearms. Once they turn a certain age, these digits give them a year to live. It is then that their strive for more life starts. Bargaining, buying more time, playing poker for more time, etc… become common activities.
And as it is with our world, that world is also divided into a downtown called “New Greenwich” and the ghettos. People living in New Greenwich have too much time whilst those in the ghettos don’t have enough. They live in fear of their seconds ticking away and that is the world Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) lives in, at least until he randomly stumbles on a man in a bar with over a century on his watch, getting him to go on a journey that leads him to Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried), daughter of a time-company tycoon.
The premise of the movie is fascinating to say the least. It’s very easy to get engrossed in the whole idea of the movie – at least for the first half, after which it becomes dreary. The problem with the story of In Time is that it goes nowhere. While the foundation of the idea is great, the execution is less than stellar and sometimes cringe-worthy, especially when you couple it with Justin Timberlake’s acting.
Imagine a man whose mother dies in his arms… his reaction would be weeping. Justin Timberlake does that but it’s so unconvincing that it becomes borderline comical. And this spotty performance persists throughout the movie, leading to one unconvincing scene after another – scenes that could have been much more had they brought some better actor.
Compared to Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried looks good in the movie – and I do not mean her natural looks, although those eyes are a sight to behold. Her character starts by telling Salas that people in new Greenwich don’t live; everything there is slow and redundant. But she wants to live. And that is precisely the transition she acts out well enough: from a robotic rich girl to a feisty woman.
I can only begin to think what some brilliant director like Christopher Nolan could have done to a movie with the premise of In Time. He would have delivered a cinematic masterpiece, à la Inception or The Dark Knight. But sadly, a masterpiece is far from being achieved here. Couple horrible acting at times with a weak storyline and you have a movie that is spotty at best – although it does have some scenes that will get your heart pounding. But at the end of the day, it’s nothing more than a waste of time. Don’t watch it if you have something better to do. My problem was I did not.
If you’re like me and had no idea what “Ides of March” meant until after the movie, it’s interesting to note it’s Roman for the 15th of March.
The Ides of March is the story of the days leading up to that day, on which a heavily-contested Ohio Democrat primary is supposed to take place between governor Mike Morris (George Clooney) and senator Pullman. Morris is the frontrunner but not by much. He is easily able to inspire many by his rousing speeches and his ability to draw empathy out of his audience. He is seen by his campaign managers as the best candidate to ever grace the US political scene up to the point where they’ve come to believe they cannot be disappointed by him.
Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling) is one of the top managers in Morris’ campaign and he’s also one of those people. After an attempt by the opposing Pullman camp to court Meyers and have him join their side, Meyers will start discovering an aspect to the political life he loves so much that is much darker than he thought. And as his closest friend in the field, journalist Ida Horowicz (Marisa Tomei), had told him without him believing: “[Morris] is a politician. He will let you down — sooner or later.”
The movie itself is highly engaging. It has a dark, somber mood to it that doesn’t let down from the get go, making it highly enriching for you to sink your senses. The movie sets itself as a political drama from the first minute and stays as such for the course of its ninety minute run.
Scene after scene, the movie builds the tale of how Americans elect their leaders. It forms a plot of corruption that goes on behind scenes we can never see and it illustrates the brutality of people towards each other – how in politics, playing everyone is key to survival. This teaches the main character, Stephen Meyers, an invaluable lesson, one that he wished he’d never learn: to reach places in the political world, you have to give up your basic principles in life. And seeing Meyers transform from the utopia boy at the beginning of the movie to the pragmatic man at the end is a very engaging journey.
The acting in the movie is top notch, as is expected from Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman and George Clooney. As mentioned previously, Gosling provides the movie’s crux when it comes to the acting with the other actors and actresses coming in as accessory to his story. You can sense his anger when he is so, you can feel his sadness when he’s devastated. He slightly reminded me in The Ides of March of his outstanding performance in Blue Valentine, although this still doesn’t come close to that.
George Clooney starts off by portraying a leader you all want to follow: one that shouts integrity and honor and respect. His speeches captivate you, his ideas engage you… and sooner or later, with the twists in the story coming to surface, the leader loses that gleam of pride in his eyes and he becomes someone you can’t but run away from. The transition is performed very subtly by Clooney.
Philip Seymour Hoffman is the angry campaign manager whose goal in life is to get Morris to the White House. And as is expected from Hoffman, his performance is top notch.
The script, co-written by Clooney, is very sharp and that is overly obvious by the way it flows and by the realism it exudes. It’s so realistic, in fact, that it could have easily been a conversation between a bunch of people prior to any elections. The movie has many of the issues people discuss and these issues have been weaved into a highly interesting political movie canvas that doesn’t come off as preachy or trying to convince you of one point or another.
Clooney, as a director, provides good subtle nuances. One particular scene that comes to mind is one where Morris is delivering a speech on one side of the American flag, while Gosling and Hoffman are panicking about the campaign on the other side. Such scenes, although mostly go unnoticed, reveal a high attention to detail, one that you cannot but credit.
The Ides of March, however, is far from being perfect. Sure, it’s highly engaging. But the twist in the movie is highly predictable, which ultimately makes the plot more on the deja-vu side, but it’s the kind of deja-vu that remains interesting. And even though you feel connecting to the characters on screen, towards the end of the movie you get disconnected from everyone as they change to characters you don’t want to relate to. The movie leaves you with an ending that feels lacking. You want more mostly because you want to feel that this man you cheered for is better than what he turned out to be.
At the end of the day, The Ides of March remains a highly realistic movie that is sure to please anyone with an interest in politics in general and political movies in particular. It’s a very tightly-produced drama that doesn’t ask much of you except to concentrate and watch, ultimately inherently asking fundamental questions about the values of democracy we all consider a given.
A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares 