"You may kiss the Bridesmaids"

The most recent comedy that I can recall watching is the new hit comedy Bridesmaids which was released in 2011. This movie is based upon the life of Annie Walker(Kristen Wiig) and how her life begins to unravel throughout the course of her best friend Lillian's(Maya Rudolph) engagement and activities prior to he wedding. Annie finds herself in a midlife crisis where it seems that not anything can go right in her life, she literally seems to find herself on a downward spiral. Once Lillian starts getting all of the bridesmaids together and ready for the wedding Annie begins to notice that one fellow bridesmaid, Helen (Rose Bryne) seems to be almost stealing Lillian as a best friend and she starts to become jealous, so jealous that she beings to do really dumb things. These dumb things lead her to her downward spiral. 

This movie was directed by Paul Feig. Paul makes a brief appearance in this movie as well. This is known as a cameo and was created by the "Master of Suspense", Alfred Hitchcock. Paul Feig also directed quite a few episodes of The Office, a few episodes of Weeds, and an episode of Parks and Recreation. The two ladies that are given writing credits for this movie include Kristen Wiig, who also is the protagonist for this film, and Annie Mumolo, who also made an appearance in the film as a nervous woman on the plane.

This film is chalk full of scenes that some may find funny, however I did not find it to be a movie that is extremely comedic. I also found the plot very predictable and unrealistic. Almost all of my friends comment towards this movie as one of their favorites and "the funniest movie that they've ever seen", however when i seen it i was extremely unimpressed. Everyone built it up to be something that it definitely was not. I'm not saying that this is a terrible movie and that I would never want to watch it again, I am saying though that it isn't as funny as it was made up to be. I believe that there are many things that could have been done differently to make it more funny. I would give it a 2.5 out of 5 stars because I would watch it again and be entertained. However, from a comedic perspective  which is what i'm grading on it did not live up to my expectations. 

Kids

Throughout my Spring Break i watched a number of movies, all of which were movies that I enjoy. However there was one movie in particular that stuck in my mind and made me want to share it with others, because of it's extreme irony. This movie was Kids that was released in 1995. This movie had been suggested to me by a number of friends that I knew had good taste in movies. This film is a brief story of an HIV-positive young skateboarder teen named Telly that is out to have sex with as many virgins as he possibly can. While he is out doing that one of the girls that he had sex with goes to check herself out at the clinic for STD's and she comes up HIV-positive and knows that it from Telly. After she figured this out she quickly attempts to try and stop Telly's next victim from having the same fate as her, unfortunately she is too late.

This movie was directed by Larry Clark, who also directed Ken Park in 2002, Bully in 2001, and Wassup Rockers in 2005. Although Lary Clark is most famous for the movie Kids.This film featured Leo Fitzgerald as Telly, the main character and antagonist and Chloe Sevigny as Jenny, the protagonist.

I very much so enjoyed the movie; however, the filming was very mediocre and the story line somewhat unrealistic. This movie possesed very good acting from the protagonist Jenny, throughout the movie I felt myself empathizing with her for her current situation. The music was nothing specatcular, and I enjoyed the cinematography. Over all I would give this movie a 3.5 Stars out of 5 Stars. I would reccomend this movie because it very well describes the reprocussions of unsafe sexual activity.

Dearest Zachary

A story of revenge, vengeance, love and loss, Dear Zachary: A letter to a son about his father beautifully designed in all of these characteristics and left you empathizing the whole way through.  A night last week I was scrolling through Netflix trying to find a good movie that caught my attention; I scrolled through new releases, drama, comedy, even Top picks.  I quickly came across documentaries and remembered that we were focusing on this genre in my film class.  I scrolled through the many different subsections of documentaries when one in particular caught my gaze. It read Dear Zachary: A letter to a son about his father.  I read the quick synopsis and began the ride through this beautifully put together film.  I started this film halfheartedly and it quickly took my heart.  It was a story about a murder of a man, Andrew Bagby by his girlfriend Shirley. After the murder she tries to convince everyone that the incident had anything to do with he; although, all traces point back to Miss Shirley. She quickly fled to Canada and four months later calls up the parents of Andrew and states that she is pregnant with his baby. Once the parents find out this fact so does everyone else that Andrew impacted while he was living. They all step up and support the parents in every way that is possible and Andrew's best friend starts making this documentary for the child that Andrew and Shirley have conceived.  He does everything he can to make it so that this child has at least a little slice of his father and has an idea of what a great man he was.  The people of this film were real people that new Andrew Bagby; the director was Kirk Kuenne.  Kirk also narrated the film, we got to visually view him as well.  I believe that this added to the film because seeing him noted that we was really there and a real person.  You could also see the hurt in his eyes and face.  You could also tell how much he loved Andrew Bagby.

This documentary was beautiful; it made you feel great while also bringing you to tears, feeling empathy for the poor parents of Andrew Bagby.  If I were to rate it i would have to give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.  It was beautiful for being made by the best friend of Andrew; although, it is not the best documentary I have ever seen. 

It is indeed A Wonderful Life

The past few days we have been watching Frank Capra's movie "It's a Wonderful Life" in class and I have thoroughly enjoyed myself with this movie. I have always heard nothing but good things about this Christmas classic yet i am not a big TV person so I had never seen it before. Although, I always hear people chat about how they have watched this movie on television throughout the holiday season every year. At first I thought this movie was a little bit cheesy because it started out with what looked like stars but they were glowing and talking, we later find out that they are angels and that is what sets up the whole context for the movie. I believe the reason I liked and respected this film so much was because we read the original short story it was written after "The Greatest Gift". While they had many similarities, Capra's film was also very different from this short story as well. He unleashed a fantastic inspirational film that has a phenomenal ending, it truly moves.Despite the fact I usually don't prefer the movies that I watch be in black and white; this film truly rocked it. I was just extremely incredible.
This film featured John Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore. (Yes that is a family member of Drew Barrymore, incase you were wondering). John Stewart and Donna Reed has great chemistry throughout the whole movie and it really did show.
I would give this movie a 4.5 stars out of 5. The only reason it is not a five is because I still feel like there is something missing from the movie that could have made it from great to spectacular.

A Sequel That Shoudn't Have Been

Not many things happen to scare me. I can go to Knotts scary farm and get followed around the entire park and not become the least bit frightened. I am the same with the movies I watch; the movie has to extremely terrifying to even scare a little bit. I kept on hearing great things about the movie Paranormal Activity 3; i heard it was the scariest one yet and everyone who had went to seen always would talk about how good and scary it was. The trailer looked down right frightening; i didn't even know what to expect. I figured since so many people had said nothing but good things about it I would go off and see it. I had extremely high expectations of the movie and too say the movie was a disappointment is an understatement.
This film was a collaboration of the directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. Henry also directed a few other films, the documentary Catfish(2010) and the film NY Export:Opus Jazz(2010).  While Ariel Schulman also directed the documentary Catifish(2010), as well as the short Jerry Ruiz, Shall We Do This? The both together created a movie that brought the supernatural world into play through a young child by the name of Kristi who is often visited at night by what she calls her invisible friend "Tobie". As the interactions between the two become more frequent Kristi's mom's boyfriend becomes more and more suspicious and starts putting cameras up around the house to record anything disturbing happening.  Young Kristi is played by Jessica Tyler Brown and her sister Katie is played by Chloe Csengery. While their mom and her boyfriend are played by Lauren Bittner and Christopher Nicolas Smith. There acting was alright, although its pretty ironic to me that they were trying to act like they weren't acting since it's supposed to be a "homemade" film, or that's the look they were going for.
This movie is supposed to be hand-filmed, but i think that it looks to professionally done for it to be played off as a home movie kind of thing.
 The music throughout the film was nothing too special, or atleast nothing worth remembering. It was pretty average and it didn't help nor hurt the film. The lighting was so so, nothing like i haven't seen before. It was pretty average and bland in my eyes.  The mis-en scene was very ordinary; everything strewed through the seens look like it was meant to be there since most of the setting was just in the family house.The directors tried to create a scary movie but if you ask me it was too predictable, the ending was too abrupt, and it was not scary at all. In my opinion this film turned out to be more humorous than anything. Also, now looking back on it the first scene was completely irrelevant to the entire movie and it has nothing to do with the rest of the plot. I honestly do not understand why it was even added in. The fact that this movie was only 84 minutes should have told me to begin with, usually the movies i enjoy are of the longer variety. Long story short this movie is not one i would reccomend to anyone and i go as far to say that I would not spend my money on this movie; let that be seeing it in the movie theaters, renting it, or even buying it on DVD. The Paranomal Activity directors should not have made any sequels of this movie to begin with. The Original Paranormal was incredibly mediocre. If i were to rate Paranomal Activity 3 i would have to give it 1 and 1/2 stars out of 5. A horror should be able to scare you at least a little, it was a complete let down.

Emma Stone Strikes again, but this time in a new light.

"You is kind. You is smart. You is important." These are the words of Aibileen (played by Viola Davis), a nanny in the movie "The Help" which came out sometime in September. This is a movie set in Mississippi in the 1960's when racism was at its peak. It gives a glimpse on three very special women that made a big impact on white families lives, whether they choose to admit it or not. It is a very real, very raw, and very sad movie. 

I'm not going to lie; I was a little indifferent about going to see this movie. It was my mom's birthday and her only wish was for the family to see "The Help" in theaters with her. We did so and I was surprisingly pleased. Although, this movie was a great tearjerker, even my dad teared up a little (SHHH- he would be embarrassed if he knew I put this on here). It covered a very hard topic to portray, almost perfectly and the reasoning behind it being so sad was the fact that this was not a fiction tale, everything that happened in this move actually happened in the United States at one point in time. We actually let ourselves discriminate because of the color of ones skin, not the content of ones heart.

Many may know Emma Stone from her quirky persona and extremely humorous attitude; she has been seen is “Easy A” and “Crazy Stupid Love”. This movie shows Emma Stone in a new light. She plays the role of Skeeter and is the only one who seems to actually want to help these women in more ways than one. I believe she is so concerned for these women because she even had a nanny herself when she was growing up and knows what an impact hers had on her. Skeeter is the one who writes the book “The Help” and it seems she is the only one who genuinely cares for these women.

I am almost positive this movie will bring in some awards at the next Oscar. This move definitely deserves to be recognized. I give the move "The Help" a 10 out of 10, easily.