There’s Something About Kristen

BAKER STREET | REVIEW

by Eric J Baker

Kristen Stewart’s critics aren’t wrong: When she isn’t being plain old bland, she’s being morose. She’s not an exotic beauty, nor is she the all-American girl next door. Yet still she manages to captivate us. Maybe it’s that half smile she gives up about an hour into every one of her stone-faced performances. It’s like we’ve been given a great, unexpected gift. And the occasional twinkle in her eye would be a full-frontal nude scene from another actress.

Stewart: There’s a happy girl in there somewhere. (Ph: W Magazine)

Stewart brings her weary good looks (imagine her in a movie with Ben Affleck called Pretty, Tired People) to the role of Snow White in Universal Picture’s Snow White and the Huntsman, which opened this weekend. This Tolkien-esque take on the familiar fairy tale involves a serial usurper named Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) who, like me, needs beautiful women around to feel young. However, whereas I am satisfied with a charitable smile or the occasional act of harmless flirtation, Ravenna sucks the life right out of these girls.

Sacha: Comedy Fuck Up for Make Benefit Glorious Studio of Paramount

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES | REVIEW

by James Killough

I said on Monday that I would never see The Dictator, not even if I secured my favorite seat, C-22 in the handicapped section at the Arclight Hollywood, which is exactly where I saw it from last night.  I am allowed to go back on my word because my evil twin Andrew Sullivan flip-flopped about Obama last week, so now it’s all the rage.

Let me clarify, however: flip-flopping actually means something completely different to Gheys than changing your mind.  I assure you that I will never go to that point.  No, really.  Sullivan may engage in the gay version of flip-flopping to his heart’s content, but this total top’s sphincter remains puckered shut, never more so since seeing The Dictator.

Cult of Personality

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES | REVIEW

by James Killough

It’s not easy for someone like me—a member of a spiritual group in which the devotees wear all white on ceremonial occasions, perform ablutions before meditation, touch our heads to the floor before a ritual meal and obey the Master of the Path without question—to sit through the first parts of Sound of My Voice, much less be interested in seeing it at all lest it make me squirm right out of my preferred movie theater seat, C22 in the handicapped section of Arclight Hollywood, the most legroom in the galaxy.

The transcendent Brit Marling.

Granted, the secret Sufi handshake of my group isn’t as elaborate as the one in SOMV, but nor is it particularly secret.  A sort of cross between a bro handclasp and a kiss, it is elegant enough to be performed quickly on the street; it doesn’t even look like a secret handshake, more like the Middle-Eastern equivalent of a European air kiss, which is what it is: very Arabian Nights somehow, or how Crusaders in an esoteric brotherhood might have met or left each other in medieval Jerusalem.

A Week Late and a Titan Short

BAKER STREET | REVIEW

by Eric J Baker

When did B movies become 150-million-dollar epics? Wrath of the Titans has all the qualities of one (including the casting of semi-big stars in small parts to lend faux gravitas) but at 25 times the price. At least with B movies, whatever money the filmmakers have usually ends up on the screen. And if you spend wisely, 150M buys you a lot of Wrath.

Kronos shows Sam Worthington how to emote, unsuccessfully.

This film resumes the exploits of Greek demigod Perseus (Sam Worthington), last seen in the Clash of the Titans remake two years ago, as he travels to the underworld to rescue his father, Zeus (Liam Neeson), who has been imprisoned by Hades (Ralph Fiennes) at the behest of their father, Kronos (good to see the Balrog getting work again). At its heart, Wrath of the Titans is a tender drama about everything getting smashed to fucking pieces or blown up, though these moments are contrasted nicely by whatever’s left collapsing on itself in a mushroom cloud of annihilation. In a clever subplot, lots of punching and stabbing happens.

It’s Raiding Men

THE WEEK FROM MY VIEW | REVIEW

by James Killough

When a movie you’ve never heard of—starring actors you’ve never heard of, either, whose names suggest they might be speaking a language many time zones removed from English—is playing on four screens at the Arclight Hollywood, the best movie theater in the world, damn it, then it gets my attention.

Uwais isn't as handsome as Bruce Lee, but he's still kick-ass.

When this same film, The Raid: Redemption, has an eight-point-five rating on the IMDb and a whopping ninety-four percent positive on Rotten Tomatoes, then it is time to book my favorite seat, C 22, in the middle of the handicapped section without reading another word about it, not even a synopsis.

‘Hunger’ Strikes

THE WEEK FROM MY VIEW | REVIEW

by James Killough

The last time I went to a midnight screening of a movie was last century when David Lynch’s Dune opened.  I’d been a huge fan of the books since about twelve, so I had to get in line to see this.  But it wasn’t even a midnight screening, it was at midday, and the movie was such a mess that they had to tack an intro on the beginning and hand out a glossary of terms at the screening.

Unlike his fellow handsome hobbit, Tom Cruise, Hunger Games' Hutcherson has believable range of emotion and depth of performance.

This is not the case with The Hunger Games, which your faithful movie bitch caught last night at the Arclight Hollywood, where it was playing on all fourteen screens, plus the Cinerama Dome, and all were mostly sold out.  Still, I managed to get one of my favorite seats in the middle of the handicapped section so that I could not only stretch my legs out, I could cross them like a proper intellectual reviewer on a PBS program or something.

Mars or Bust: “Carter” Craters

THE WEEK FROM MY VIEW | REVIEW

by James Killough

I was moping in text messages to Tuttle yesterday afternoon about how lame my weekly round-up was turning out to be, when it hit me that I should write about what I’d been tweeting about all day: the colossal flop John Carter is destined to be.  Which meant that I had to get off my ass and fork over close to twenty dollars for the 3D version plus popcorn surcharge (it is a two-hour-nineteen-minute movie, and I’m a big guy who needs to be fed).  So I hope you appreciate the sacrifices this reviewer goes to bring you the freshest.

With "The Vow" killing at the B.O., and critics saying "21 Jump Street" is the next "Superbad," and advance word that "Magic Mike" is magic, this is Channing's year.

I admit it, I was drawn like Edward Cullen after Bella’s blood in Twilight to the throbbing, heady scent of schadenfreude emanating from the film: the industry awoke Friday morning to find out that analyst Alan Gould from Evercore had revised his predictions that John Carter’s losses could be one hundred sixty-five million, or double what he had previously estimated.  This is a lot of loss, and so far this weekend he is right.

Miss Fire

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES | REVIEW

by James Killough @James_Killough

I had completely forgotten while I was watching Haywire that Gina Carano was cast from the TV show American Gladiators.  Director Steven Soderbergh has chosen to film the fight sequences without hip-hop, rapid-cut editing; rather, he holds the camera steady while we watch the real actress, not a stunt double, kick the living daylights out of actors who aren’t trained up as fighters to anywhere near her degree.

It's cavewoman week here at PFC. Above: Gina Carano for Maxim magazine.

It reminded me of when I was about nine and used to practice judo with my nanny, Diane, a horsey butch lass from Coventry with bad acne and a brown belt in aikido.  She’d just toss me across the living room like a rag doll.  Watching Carano do the same to Channing Tatum, who lists a film called Fighting in his credits, is quite something.  I’d almost say this is the first time I’ve ever felt that the female lead in a film was a bully.

Saint Margaret of Grantham

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES | REVIEW

by James Killough  @James_Killough

This might be a controversial headline for the PFC review of Iron Lady, but fear not, I haven’t gone over to the dark side and become an ultra-right-wing Thatcherite.  It’s just my usual skewed thinking in light of the subtheme of this film: dementia and insanity, which as readers of this blog well know are as fascinating to me as filmmaking itself.

Annie Leibowitz's portrait of Streep for Rolling Stone is still the definitive image of her.

There are parallels to be drawn between Margaret Thatcher, the longest-serving British prime minister of the twentieth century, and Joan of Arc, a saint who is a particular favorite of mine when I am making the case that almost all saints, prophets, and demigods of religions across the globe are textbook schizophrenics.

Extremely Articulate & Incredibly Precocious

KIMBALL VS KILLOUGH | REVIEW

starring Tyler Kimball and James Killough

It’s official: Kimball has become PFC’s very own Tintin, the earnest, passionate young blonde who wishes everyone well, and who wouldn’t sound amiss exclaiming “Gosh, darn it!” whereas Killough is Captain Haddock, the salty old foulmouthed alcoholic curmudgeon.

In the shredder today is Stephen Daldry’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.  Killough suspects Kimball’s manager has been telling him to love absolutely everything and not piss anyone  in Hollywood off, but we’ll see what happens after they’re done with awards season and the crap starts flowing out of the studios once again.

 

Kimball rates EL&IC: 

Killough rates it: