Adams On Screen

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

What?????

I can’t decide if I’m offended at the historical inaccuracy of this movie or if I’m really excited about seeing Honest Abe chop down zombies left and right…

…But as long as he kills Edward Cullen and changes the future of tween fiction, I will support this new Abe all the way.

Moonrise Kingdom

A pair of lovers flee their New England town, which causes a local search party to fan out and find them. (Summary from IMDB.com)

What IMDB doesn’t tell you is that these lovers are maybe around 12-years-old, and one of them is a camper or boy scout or something. I don’t know. Watch the trailer — it’s a weird and interesting one.

-Adams

The most beautiful love story ever told.

And, incidentally, my favorite film.

Nominated for Best Picture at the 1992 Academy Awards, and the winner of Best Score and Best Song;
Winner of the Golden Globes Best Picture Award for Comedy/Musical, etc.;
This movie opened a lot of doors for Disney, animation, and films.

Beauty and the Beast (1991) is out in theaters in 3D for a limited time, starting today!

Don’t miss it in theaters!

(I’m seeing it tomorrow with a bunch of friends.)

-Adams

Abduction (2011)
Starring Taylor Lautner, Lily Collins

A thriller centered on a young man who sets out to uncover the truth about his life after finding his baby photo on a missing persons website. (from IMDB.com)

Disclaimer: I solemnly swear I’m not being a film elitist or trying to show off my knowledge about film in any way. I think this is all pretty obvious to anyone who has watched a decent number of films.

This movie is, first of all, edited horribly. There are things better explained in the trailer than in the movie. There are awkward and blatant continuity errors between consecutive camera shots every where.

The acting is also horrible. But that’s to be expected of Lautner, who makes up for it by taking off his shirt and being his usual one-time-karate-champion self. Rest assured, the rest of the cast was just as bad at acting. (Or was it that the characters were so flat as to assure bad acting?) (I exempt a couple of characters from this category.)

The plot line is disappointingly flat, conventional, and weakly held together, at best. It’s sad, because the premise is so promising: a kid who finds out his parents aren’t his real parents but potentially his childhood abductors. But the film gives you a story that is as stupid, flat, and cheesy as possible. AS POSSIBLE.

I might sound really whiny and snobby right now, but I swear, as much as I rag on 80% of things I watch, I still enjoy most mind-numbingly simple Hollywood flicks. (After all, I love romantic comedies, inspirational and formulaic sports films, and action flicks.) But there are some films that are just so poorly made, like Breaking Dawn and Abduction, that I can’t even enjoy the film.

[SPOILER ALERT] One more complaint. So Karen (Collins) follows Nathan (Lautner) throughout the film. You know how most Hollywood films at least TRIES to pretend the female character is somewhat strong and independent? Abduction didn’t even try. Karen gets in the way everywhere, is always crying, and does nothing. In fact, when she’s threatened, she easily betrays Nathan and gives up his location, so that a trained killer can jump Nathan and come very close to killing him. So it pisses me off when Sigourney Weaver (who, as far as I know, was a very respectable lead in the Aliens series and so should know a couple of things about strong female characters in action films) admits that she was wrong about Karen before, when she declared Karen useless and someone that Nathan should just ditch. GAH. I at least wanted some small admittance on Nathan or Karen’s part of Karen’s betrayal, but… you know… whatever. You can’t have character depth or development in these kinds of films, after all.

/endrant

-Adams

(Source: imdb.com)

The Lucky One
Based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks
Starring Zac Efron, Taylor Schilling and Blythe Danner

Coming out in theaters April 2012.

Logan, played by the (visually) stunning Zac Efron, finds a photo during a battle, and it saves his life. After his service, he is determined to find the woman in the photo.

…Something like that.

It looks pretty good, actually. I didn’t like The Notebook very much, but this one seems more loaded with the more serious sides of life, and come on. Zac Efron. Let’s face it, he’s gorgeous, has talent and ambition, and is a great guy. I’m planning on watching this. Who’s with me?

-Adams

P.S. Also, as a huge fan of 1776, I can’t believe that Mrs. Jefferson has become such an old lady. Oh, how time flies…

Hugo 3D

Ben Kingsley, Asa Butterfield, Chloe Moretz, Sasha Baron Cohen

This is a story about a boy who tries to fix an automaton (machine toy from the early 20th century) because he believes that once he does it will have a message from his late father. This quest embarks him on an incredible journey based on true historical events. Hugo lives in Paris’ central train station in the 1930’s where he runs all the clocks. As Hugo manages to fix the mechanical man, he uncovers the toy shop keeper’s secret together with a girl (the god-daughter of the shop keeper) named Isabel. *** SPOILER ALERT***** They discover that he is the world renown Georges Melies, the creator of 100’s of the world’s earliest movies. 

I found all the characters to be very likable and the children adorable. Though this is a family movie, it entails so many little, but important views of life. Maybe I’m looking too much into it, but it makes you more aware of time and the people around you, even strangers (not in a strange way). Martin Scorcese does a wonderful job directing this movie. There are some incredible shots of Paris and the tunnels/ hidden walkways at the train station which look sureal with all the 3D steam. Yes, 3D is used effectively in a non-animated movie. It’s a real pleasure to see. 

Mamba

Margin Call

Kevin Spacey, Zachary Quinto, Stanley Tucci, Jeremy Irons, Paul Bettany, Simon Baker, Penn Badgley, Demi Moore

If you’ve seen Ides of March, this is the economic version of it. Margin Call successfully manages to go behind the scenes of the 2008 economic crisis by focusing on what one fictional company did once it realized it was absolutely broke. Since the movie doesn’t really spend time explaining how all these companies managed to collapse to begin with, one should come in with some basic knowledge of it - basically people and companies were spending money they didn’t have as a result of greedy, ambitious and risky deals/ changes, so that people ended up trading with virtual money (money they may or may not have depending on how the tables turn).

This movie not only manages to tell the true stories of why and how companies liquidate themselves but it manages to do it in a humanized way. It taps into the psychology of the workers who have been fired, who are going to be fired and the high ranking people calling all the shots. I really enjoy movies which finally “spill the beans” and show things the way they are, black on white, no BS. 

Though some characters seem to be used simply as props (e.g. Penn Badgley) they all ultimately have a good reason for being there since they add extra depth and complexity to such a sensitive issue. 

Every single actor plays his part with near perfection in this movie. 

Only complaints in this movie are that I wish someone had committed suicide (Stanley Tucci’s character would have been the best for this) in it, please don’t think I’m sadistic or anything like that, I just feel like it would have made the issue more serious. The other thing is that by the end of the movie, many characters had been up for 48 hours without one minute of sleep and they looked perfectly awake, make-up artists could definitely have done something about that. 

Bottom line: if you loved Ides of March, you’ll love this even more.

Mamba