BuzzSugar

2012: Apocalyptic Good Times

BuzzSugar — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:30:00 -0800

In terms of end-of-the-world movies, 2012 packs it all - a love story, teary family moments, action-packed adventure, over-the-top-CGI, and a ton of recycled film cliches - in a two and a half hour package. That's lengthy by today's standards, but I wasn't bored for a minute. This is pure escapist entertainment.

The film opens in 2009 as a scientist in India and his American associate Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) discover that the Earth's core is overheating. His forecast: Tectonic plates will shift, thereby causing a worldwide catastrophe that will wipe out the human race.

Dun, dun, dun! (Doesn't take long to pull you in, does it?) To hear my full assessment, read more.

The real action goes down three years later in 2012 when, according to the Mayan calendar, the Earth will reach its end. The entire So-Cal coast starts crumbling, so our hero Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) and his family begin a journey to China where the governments around the world have supposedly assembled spaceships to carry select humans to safety.

What? You expected this to be plausible?

Of course not, but the film does include tons of cool CGI - volcanos, snow storms, giant tsunamis. It's like every disaster movie you've ever watched combined. (That should come as no surprise seeing as how the director is Roland Emmerich who created The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day, and Godzilla.)

As for the characters, we've seen them all stereotyped in other films before, but they're still enjoyable here. (Even though I admittedly winced over a Russian family complete with a fur coat, tiny dog, and an employee named Sasha.) This is thanks to the actors who play their parts with believability, even when the scenes feel ridiculous. Ejiofor portrays a great bleeding heart swept up in a governmental plan that's looking out for No. 1, and Cusack pulls off his father role without being over-the-top or sappy. Also, watch for Woody Harrelson as a nutty conspiracy theorist living in Yellowstone National Park.

2012 is purely meant to be fun, and it succeeds. There's a constant barrage of cliff-hanger moments that never let up, and though you pretty much know where things are headed, it's easy to get sucked in.

(Don't forget that if you see a movie that you'd like to review, you can post your write-up in the Movie Review Group in Community - I may even post it here on the site!)

Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures

Movie Preview: The Messenger

BuzzSugar — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:30:33 -0700

We've all seen 'em: those heart-breaking, suspenseful scenes in war movies, when the family of a missing soldier anxiously waits by the window for an update. From Army Wives and beyond, our sympathy naturally gravitates to the friends and family as they take in the news, but what about the soldiers who have to issue the depressing notices?

In The Messenger, Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster star as two soldiers responsible for informing families that their loved ones aren't coming back from the war. As the younger of the two, Foster's character finds himself faced with a moral dilemma when he extends some extra sympathy to one of the widows he meets along the way.

It's refreshing to see Harrelson back in serious mode for a change, and the premise brings a different aspect of war into focus as we learn more about the inner workings of the seemingly stoic men in uniform at all those front doors. The film hits theaters on Nov. 13, and to see the trailer, just read more.

Zombieland: The Feel-Good Zombie Flick of the Year

TresSugar — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:30:23 -0700

A Note From Buzz: With so many new movies this week, my friend Très was nice enough to apply her scary-movie expertise to review the box office's newest zombie flick.

In the United States of Zombieland, zombies outnumber people. A mad-cow tainted burger tipped the population in favor of the drooling, limping, and grunting set, and now zombies roam a crashed-car littered, empty-minimall-blighted zombiescape.

Columbus (Adventureland's Jesse Eisenberg), the virginal antihero of horror-comedy Zombieland, has learned to survive this zombie apocalypse by keeping a list of necessary survival skills. Rule #1? Cardio. If you don't want zombies gnawing on you like an hors d'oeuvre, you'd better be fast and limber. In addition, beware of bathrooms, practice the "double tap" (make sure your zombie's actually dead after you kill him), and don't be a hero. (Regarding this last rule - some rules were made to be broken.)

When Columbus meets up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a swaggering cowboy type with a penchant for tank-like cars, shotguns, and Twinkies, and the spitfire sister duo of Wichita (Emma Stone) and Arkansas (Little Miss Sunshine's Abigail Breslin), Zombieland takes off like a scary/fun amusement park ride. To find out what happens on this motley crew's wild road trip from hell, read more

There's something funny about zombies and the zombie genre, and in his first feature film, director Ruben Fleischer plays their comic possibilities to the hilt. Zombies don't have what you'd call well-rounded personalities; they're pretty predictable. They have bad attitudes, come out of nowhere, grunt, and see all nonzombies as food to feast on. They're the perfect foil (or straight men, even) to a cast of characters with more than enough personality to make up for the zombies' boorish one dimensionality.

Take nebbishy Columbus. The world changed for him, he tells us in an early voice-over, when a pretty neighbor he calls #406, asks to stay over because a crazed homeless man tries to bite her. Sadly, although she falls asleep on Columbus's shoulder, she wakes up as a rabid zombie and begins chasing him around his apartment, forcing him to repeatedly knock her over the head with a toilet lid. "The first time I let a girl in my life," deadpans Columbus, "and she tries to eat me."

This kind of witty dialogue abounds in Zombieland, and although fans of gore and violence against zombies will be more than satisfied (Tallahassee's scenes of zombie-killing, especially, have a Tarantinoesque choreography to them), it's really the mismatched goofball characters and how they bond and evolve, surprisingly, that hold the film together. A hilarious cameo from Bill Murray in the Beverly Hills sequence of Zombieland, also, is practically worth the price of admission.

Harrelson chews the scenery as Tallahassee, but as we find out, part of the reason he's hell-bent on killing zombies is because they took away his baby boy. As for the sisters, tough-girl Wichita just wants to take care of her little sister Arkansas (who, as a good shot, doesn't seem to need much help), but a beautiful girl has needs, too, and before long she develops feelings for Columbus. Will he or won't he finally be able to live out his nerd-boy fantasy of brushing the hair over a girl's ear?

You probably know the answer to that question, but just because Zombieland adheres to certain formulas doesn't mean that it doesn't revive them in witty ways. Although the zombie-killing gore fest may not be for everyone, Zombieland's amazing visuals, charming characters, and witty dialogue may leave a goofy grin on your face as you leave the theater.

Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures

Movie Preview: Zombieland

BuzzSugar — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:30:26 -0700

As I mentioned when I came back from Comic-Con, I'm not really big on zombie movies, generally speaking, but after attending the panel there for Zombieland, I'm pretty much sold on this particular zombie movie. They screened the trailer, of course, as well as some funny clips from the movie, including a great scene with Abigail Breslin and Emma Stone as sisters that actually made me kind of sad - before it turned funny. It's really the cast that makes me want to see the film: Jesse Eisenberg is the dorky little guy who gets paired up with the crazy, Southern-drawlin' Woody Harrelson, and the two make for a very fun zombie-fighting team as Eisenberg's character uses the movie to run through the rules for surviving "zombieland."

Zombieland opens Oct. 2. To check out the trailer, read more.

Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures

Movie Preview: Management Gets a Trailer

BuzzSugar — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 13:30:34 -0700

When I think of Jennifer Aniston, things that immediately spring to mind include stuff like high-profile relationships (and breakups), really toned arms, nice tan, perfect hair. In other words, she can sometimes seem larger than life, and it's easy to forget that she can still play the "everyday gal" with the best of them.

I loved her in The Good Girl and really enjoyed her performances in Office Space and Friends with Money, which is why it's exciting to get a good look at Management, a movie in which she portrays a pretty average lady alongside Steve Zahn and Woody Harrelson.

That said, um, I don't know what to make of this movie. The essentials all seem to be there (quirky with emotional depth) but something is a touch off about it. There are some strange scenes with Zahn flying through the air and dropping into pools, and Zahn on a tandem bike, etc. And then there are more earnest moments that look like they're aiming for realism. I'm up in the air about this one, but I'll keep an open mind.

Management will have a limited release on May 15. To check out the trailer and tell me what you think, just read more.

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Seven Pounds: Slow and Frustrating

BuzzSugar — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 12:30:56 -0800

If you were confused by the trailer for Seven Pounds that's because the movie is mostly one long guessing game, meant to have a confusing, slow build-up to a twisty surprise ending. There seems to be such an emphasis on keeping the audience wondering what's going on, and I was frustrated not because I didn't understand the "why"s of the plot but because it's hard to care enough about these characters - even the lead played by Will Smith - to truly want to figure out what the heck's going on.

Mostly I just wished they would stop talking in gratingly general terms ("Remember that thing you took from me?" "Yes, and I remember the thing I gave you, too." "It's all about that pact we made a while ago! Remember the pact? And that other thing?"). This goes on for an absurdly long time and I just wanted to shout "Enough already! Tell us what the deal is so we can all go home!" This is not a good sign. I stuck with it until the end though, so for some of my thoughts on it all, read more.

The movie is basically a puzzling series of events leading up to a climactic end, so in order to not spoil everything, I'll sum up the plot like this: Will Smith plays an IRS agent who carries around tremendous guilt for an event that took place years ago. So, he sets out to find redemption for the terrible thing he feels responsible for by dramatically improving the lives of seven people. When he starts to develop a relationship with one of them, Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson), he finds not just redemption but the glimmer of love and hope, even though he knows it can't last forever.

In theory and perhaps on paper, the concept for this film is intriguing, and I can imagine being drawn to it as an actor or filmmaker. But something goes awry on the way to the screen. These are capable actors, Smith is fine in this role and I found his relationship with Dawson's character to be surprisingly endearing at times. There are moments of sweetness and true drama, but they are few and far between and they nearly drown amid the majority of the scenes which plod along at a glacial pace. It all errs on the side of sappy and sometimes it's downright boring. Adding to all this, there's some cheesy metaphoric stuff going on (the woman he loves needs a new heart) that certainly doesn't help the overall melodrama.

With a script like this, in which there's a series of mysterious things happening that we're supposed to be eagerly piecing together, it helps if there's something to keep us interested or if there are tense scenes alternating with the slow and quiet ones. As it is, the narrative is like a reverse death, flatlining for an hour and a half before jolting alive briefly at the end. This ending is, I believe, supposed to be hopeful and sweet in its own way - certainly redemptive. I'm just not convinced that it makes up for the previous hour and a half or so of trudging somberly along toward it.

Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures

Movie Preview: Will Smith in Seven Pounds

BuzzSugar — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:30:16 -0700

It's cool that there's a new trailer out for Will Smith's upcoming heartwarming drama Seven Pounds, even if it doesn't offer much insight into what the movie is about. I turned to IMDB for a little help, so here's the plot description as found on the Seven Pounds page: "Ben (Will Smith) is an IRS agent who is depressed and guilt-ridden about mistakes from his past. He sets out to make amends by helping seven strangers. When he meets Emily (Rosario Dawson), a beautiful woman with a heart condition, he falls in love with her, thereby complicating his plans." Ahhh, got it now.

The film is brought to us by the director of The Pursuit of Happyness and it opens Dec. 19. To check out the trailer and tell me what you think, read more.

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Buzz News Roundup, 8/27

BuzzSugar — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:31:32 -0700

Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns is becoming a TV series for TBS. - Hollywood Reporter
The cop drama Pride and Glory will open the Woodstock Film Festival on Oct. 2. - Variety
After some controversy, the Mad Men Twitter accounts have been restored. - Silicon Alley Insider
The Jonas Brothers can celebrate their second week at No. 1. - Billboard
Cuba Gooding Jr. is coming to TV (briefly) for a TNT TV movie. - Zap2it
Woody Harrelson has signed on for the lead in a horror movie, Zombieland. - ComingSoon
Morgan Fairchild and Alias's Carl Lumbly are among the latest guest stars for Chuck. - Entertainment Weekly
Two writers of The Office, Gene Stupinsky and Lee Eisenberg, have sold a feature film script called Bad Teacher. - Variety

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Movie Preview: Matthew McConaughey's Surfer Dude

BuzzSugar — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:31:32 -0700

"I'm not some ass clown in a green room. I'm a surfer, dude." Hmm. . . some might beg to differ, Mr. McConaughey.

After months of watching Matthew run around the shores of Malibu shirtless in those black and white swim trunks, we now get to see what all that ~~really hard~~ work was all about. The trailer for Surfer Dude prominently features the very tan manjoyment that is Matthew as well as Woody Harrelson (doing his ordinary clueless shtick), Willie Nelson and a bunch of ladies in bikinis.

According to IMDB, the movie is "a wave-twisting tale of a soul-searching surfer experiencing an existential crisis," which sounds almost. . . deep. But let me know if you spot any actual acting going on here because from what I can tell it looks like Matthew and friends just doin' what they do off the clock. To see for yourself, read more.

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The Results Are In: Recast Family Ties

BuzzSugar — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:32:02 -0700

Every other Wednesday on BuzzSugar, I post a Recast challenge, where I ask you to choose new actors for a classic TV show or movie. The reader who submits the best cast wins a BuzzSugar t-shirt!

There were some excellent ideas for this week's recast challenge, Family Ties. I especially loved some of the ideas for ex-hippie and lovable patriarch Steven Keaton, like WhiplashGirlchild's suggestion of Jon Corbett and leeluvfashion's Woody Harrelson pick.

I'm also with LaurenG22 on bringing Lauren Graham back to the small screen as Elyse Keaton and I totally agree with her that Adam Brody would make a hilarious young Republican. Also, big extra credit shout-outs go to sfmastiffmom for casting all musicians (Justin Timberlake as Alex!), and The Pickle for going that extra mile and recasting supporting characters Skippy and Mallory's boyfriend Nick.

I think my biggest smile came from bobo2854's suggestion that Lynne Spears play mom to little American Idol superstar David Archuleta. Would that Alex P. Keaton turn out like Britney?!

Thanks to everyone for chipping in ideas - it was an entertaining trip down memory lane. I thought that Alex P. Keaton would be the biggest factor for me, but Nitachequita's suggested recast for Elyse was so spot-on, I had to go with her recast list! Congrats!

To see who Nitachequita picked, along with a new cast photo, read more.

Nitachequita's cast:
Elyse Keaton-Ally Walker
Steven Keaton-Matthew Broderick
Alex P. Keaton-Anton Yelchin
Mallory Keaton-Zooey Deschanel
Jennifer Keaton-Vivien Cardone

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