Snow White and the Hunstman

Can we talk about Snow White and the Huntsman for a second?

Just a second, I promise.

First of all, I couldn't be more stoked about the current fairytale trend in the entertainment industry. I love fairy tales. One of the biggest was "Snow White and the Huntsman" that came out earlier this year.

I really don't think this reboot of the well-known fantasy got a fair shake. Despite the truly unfortunate casting choice of the main character Snow White, played by Kristen "This is the only face I'm ever going to make so you might just want to get used to it because for some unknown reason I still get work." Stewart and a few accents that got a little wonky, I thought this was a thoroughly interesting movie. The visual aspects were really beautiful and I thought Charlize Theron's evil queen was suitably terrifying. Chris Hemsworth brought an ordinarily overlooked character in the Huntsman to a level of a protagonist that I was really rooting for.

Thinking about the screenplay after the fact, touting this piece as a "empowered" Snow White might have been a little patronizingly ambitious, but the story was interesting, if not a little bit unfocused. There were a lot of loose ends that seemed like they were there to add length/look pretty adn the ending was pretty abrupt. Still, the entertainment value was enough to satisfy me.

Okay, second over. Go back to happily ever after.

Iron Man

Okay, I think I should get a round of applause for my restraint on putting a bunch of superhero movies on this little blog of mine.

Because I love them. Good or bad. I love them.

Thank you, thank you.

That being said, restraint is now gone.

I recently re-watched one of my all-time favorites: Iron Man.

I'm talking about this movie out of all of the superhero films not only for the fact that it started a multi-movie blockbuster franchise by itself and with the Avengers, but also for the fact that I really think this movie rewrote what Superheroes were supposed to be about.

There was solid characterization and a very engaging plot, but this movie made superheroes fun again. Tony Stark is a great, multifaceted character with a whole lot of depth, but he's also a partier and keeps living his life along with the fact he's a superhero.

I found the character to be engaging and believable in a way I never thought of him before and to this day it is one of my favorites of all time.
 

Spring Awakening

At the risk of sounding like the worst kind of theater kid, I want to talk a little about Spring Awakening.

Now, this has been well-established as a blockbuster Broadway musical about teenagers navigating their wonderful, terrible sexual awakening in 19th century Germany.

The reason I bring this up is I'm currently working on a production of this at Washburn and I've been thinking a lot about the script and what it's about.

Reading through the script, I found the subject matter to be surprisingly topical, if only told in that melodramatic way that musicals are famous for. People having trouble with sexuality and watching to hide it, even what can happen when kids are not properly informed about what is happening to their biology. I'm not sure I can get behind the style of this type of media because I'm not sure I'm the type of actor that can get behind spontaneously bursting into song and dance, I think it's going to be a pretty great production.

Okay, I think I'm done self-promotion for a little bit. Go about your business.

Cloud 9

Venturing into contemporary dramatic literature can be rather traumatic to put it mildly. There are certain parts of yourself you have to suspend when you read these kind of things, and when you're done, you close to book, look up calmly, and have a mild outburst that is something along the lines of "The f**k did I just read?"

Now, when you push that feeling aside about these pieces of work and discuss these pieces and really analyze them, you can stretch yourself and really get to places you never really thought you could, really see into someone else's lives in a way you didn't think was possible. Intellectual push-ups, if you will.

Then again, I love plays.

I might be a dork. I've made my peace with this fact, if you're wondering.

I'm saying all this because I recently enjoyed a play entitled Cloud 9, a play by Caryl Churchill. It was a complicated play not necessarily in content, but in its intended execution. The first act is about a British family that is a part of the Victorian colonization of Africa. The second act takes place in London in the 1970s, but is 25 years later for the characters.

Yeah, you read that right. It is surprisingly seamless, if you're wondering.

Usually casting is not something the playwright has much influence with, but this play required some female characters to be played by men and some males to be played by women actresses. This is a creative decision that gave a strong illustration to how women, men, and sexuality is viewed in society.

Usually I like  to focus on performances, but this play was very striking to me.

Street Kings

Ah, gritty cop dramas. I don't think I will ever be able to get enough of you.

These things are very...uncomfortable. I think that's the best way I can put it. It's a subject matter that I know nothing about, therefore when watching these movies, i have a complete suspension of realities.

I bring this up because my copy of Street Kings became available at the library.

Yup. The library. Great place to get movies from. Check it out. For the low, low price of $0 you'll never get anything done again but be thoroughly entertained while doing it.

But I digress.

Street Kings features a tough as nails LAPD detective used to crawling through every underhanded loophole he can manage in the name of getting scum off the streets.

It's really fun to say stuff like that.

This troubled detective, no stranger to tragedy, investigates the violent death of his former estranged partner and gets thrown into the underbelly of the politics of enforcing the law.

I thought this movie was incredibly engaging. Despite the character's abrasiveness, I found myself rooting for them by the "Oh, my God, this can't end well" conclusion.

It's a hard life out there in the world of cop dramas. Watch your back.

The Losers

Anybody that knows me will tell you I have a special place in my heart for throwback action movies.
There's nothing quite so satisfying as a well put together (complete with gratuitous violence, against all odds victories, and a generous amount of one-liners).

My recent cheesy action movie fix was The Losers, a shoot-'em up action movie based on a graphic novel that came out in April 2010.

This film followed the formula that I stated earlier pretty closely. A military unit, victim of a betrayal and abandonment by their our United States government, turned influential psychotic villain named "Max" set about getting their revenge and clearing their names.

Now, anybody that sees the poster for this flick (shown above) is probably going to gather that it's not going to be in the running for any Oscars, but suspending your other intellectual, sipping fine wine and watching Citizen Kane movie-watching self for a moment, there's something to be said for some brain suspending entertainment. This movie was solid, the dialogue was easy most of the time, and I had a good time watching it.

The only real glaring issue was the ending. While I thought there was plenty of room for an ending that would tie up the movie nicely, but we are currently living in a culture of sequels and this made a dump-truck sized opening for one when it really wasn't needed. It was like it didn't have enough confidence to finish with itself. Even if there was a need for a sequel because the material was based off a comic book arc, it should have had an ending with a lot more resolution.

Still I highly recommend any movie with the tagline "Anyone else would be dead by now". How can that possibly go wrong?