Temple Grandin (2010)

THE MOVIE: Temple Grandin (2010)

MOVIE SLOGAN: Autism gave her a vision, she gave it a voice.

MAJOR PLAYERS:
* Claire Danes – Temple Grandin (best known for My So-Called Life or Juliet in William’s Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio)
* Catherine O’Hara – Aunt Ann (I remember her best as the mom in Home Alone with Macauley Caulkin)
* Julia Ormond – Temple’s Mother, Eustacia (I know her best as Lady Guinevere in First Knight with Sean Connery and Richard Gere)

BEST QUOTE(S): "Nature is cruel, but we don’t have to be." – Temple Grandin

WHY THE GUYS WILL SEE IT: It has an interesting story about cattle and has cowboy-ish themes.

WHY THE LADIES WILL SEE IT: It’s an inspiring tale, a Cinderella story for the autistic.

MARKETED AS: Cinemantic Biography

SYNOPSIS: Temple Grandin was diagnosed with autism as a small child. Before there was much known about autism, autistic children were often sent away to live in asylums. Her mother refused to believe that she wouldn’t be able to function as a normal person, and continued to work with Temple integrating her into society. With determination, she was able to attended regular schools, and college, and even excelled in her studies (with the exception of foreign language.)

Although Temple’s integration was not an easy feat, her autism allowed her to see the world in pictures, and with a whole new perspective. Working on her Aunt’s ranch, she found a fondness for ranch animals, particularly cattle. After graduating college, Temple wanted to continue studying cattle and her autism allowed her to see patterns among the animals that normal people wouldn’t recognize. This singular talent led Temple Grandin to design much more efficient and humane slaughter houses.

MY THOUGHTS: The story doesn’t sound that compelling. And to be honest, the only reason I was interested in this movie to begin with is because I have a friend, named Emily, going through vet tech school right now in Colorado. In a conversation about two months prior to this movie coming out, she had asked me if I had ever heard of Temple Grandin, and told me a few details about her. I guess Temple Grandin is a professor at Colorado State University, and teaches about autism and animal husbandry (the care of animals.) She sounded rather interesting a lo and behold, there was a special on HBO about Temple Grandin. Planning on recording it for my friend, I started watching it, and got sucked in.

My first thought was that I recognized the actress playing Temple, but couldn’t quite place her. So, I IMDB’ed her (Internet Movie Database – www.imdb.com) and holy crap, it was Claire Danes. (I missed the opening credits, so I didn’t see that Claire Danes was in this.) Last I saw Claire Danes, she was the fallen star, Yvaine, in the fantasy film Stardust. And I know her best from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and her run with My So-Called Life. She always plays a pretty, soft-spoken, yet strong female lead. And here she was in this film: loud, obnoxious, ugly, weak, and annoying! But that was her character! Her acting in this was phenomenal! Her portrayal of someone with autism was astounding. I believe that Claire Danes deserves an Emmy for her performance as Temple Grandin, and I hope she will at least be considered when the 2010 Awards come around.

As for the actual movie itself, I said before, I had no intentions of watching the movie as I was just recording it for a friend, but it sucked me in. It definitely wasn’t a topic of interest to me, and I have a hard time eating anything with a face. (Don’t get me wrong, I am NOT a vegetarian… and do love my meat, but I don’t care to think about the living ,breathing animal that was slaughtered for my nutrition.) And let’s face it, this movie is about Temple Grandin’s struggle to become a part of society and her contribution to this world is her designing slaughter houses. But it was fascinating how they portrayed the images in Temple’s mind so you could relate to her. And relating to her meant that you could relate to the animals she was studying. I was really impressed with this film.

THE VERDICT: I would say go see it in the theaters, but this wasn’t a movie that came out in the theaters. This is a movie made specifically for HBO. So, if you have HBO, I highly recommend that you On Demand it, or when it comes out on Netflix, rent it. It’s not action packed, but it is really interesting.

When in Rome (2010)

THE MOVIE: When in Rome (2010)

MOVIE SLOGAN: Did you ever wish for the impossible?

MAJOR PLAYERS:
* Kristen Bell – Beth (you’ll recognize her as Sarah Marshall from Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the TV series Veronica mars)
* Josh Duhamel – Nick (known best from TV series Las Vegas or the recent Transformers movies)
* Will Arnett – Antonio (He’s Amy Poehler new husband, and known best as Gob from TV series Arrested Development)
* Dax Shepard – Gale (Been in several slapstick comedies such as Employee of the Month, and Baby Mama. Also is engaged to co-star Kristen Bell)
* Jon Heder – Lance (The one and only Napoleon Dynamite)
* Danny Devito – Al Rousso (If you don’t know who Danny Devito is, you’ve been living in a cave for the last three decades.)

BEST QUOTE(S):
NICK: I give it a year?
BETH: I would not even give it 6 months. This marriage has the shelf life of a banana! They’ve known each other for two weeks!
NICK: That’s not even long enough to have a credit check!

WHY THE GUYS WILL SEE IT: Probably because their girlfriend has dragged them to the theater or because they have brought it home to watch.

WHY THE LADIES WILL SEE IT: Because Josh Duhamel is in it

MARKETED AS: Romantic comedy

SYNOPSIS: Beth, a curator and workaholic, has not had her luck in love yet. However, her sister has decided to marry an Italian man that she’s known for only two weeks. While at the wedding which happens to be located near the Fountania d’Amore (Fountain of Love), Beth meets Nick, who is the groom’s best man. They share a spark, but Beth quickly brushes it off when she sees another woman making advances on Nick. Sad, defeated, and heavily infused with wine, she wades into the Fountain of Love, and begins to take coins from the fountain. Although, little does Beth know that people throw coins into the fountain to hopefully fall in love. However, if someone takes the coins, then whoever the coin formally belonged to, will then fall in love with whoever took their coins. Beth takes five particular coins from the fountain. Then five particular fellows begin to pursue her and hilarious hijinks ensue, forcing Beth to take a step back from her work and consider adding love into the equation of her life.

MY THOUGHTS: This movie not artistic, it’s not really witty and it’s certainly not smart comedy, but it is very entertaining. This is what I would call and consider a brainless comedy. You don’t have to have brain cells to watch the movie. My friend, Natalie, seems to think that Kristen Bell can’t act her way out of a paper bag, but I disagree. Granted, this movie doesn’t take a whole lot of acting prowress. When you have B-actors like Dax Shepard, Jon Hedar, and Will Arnett, you know the acting quality isn’t going to be spectacular. And this is certainly one of those movies where you repeat consistently in your head, that would never happen.

But when you have a Street performing Magician (Hedar), an artist (Arnett) a narcissistic model (Shepard) and a “Sausage King” (Devito) all chasing after the same girl using their own weird antics, it makes for a pretty entertaining movie.

THE VERDICT: When in Rome! I’ll probably pick this up when it comes out on DVD just because it’s pretty funny and will make for a great movie to watch when I don’t want to have to think. But I would recommend Netflixing it before you decide that you like it or not.

The Lovely Bones (2009)

THE MOVIE: The Lovely Bones (2009)

MOVIE SLOGAN: The story of a life and everything that came after…

MAJOR PLAYERS:
* SAOIRSE RONAN – Susie Salmon (not quite her debut, but definitely her first major role)
* RACHEL WEISZ – Abigail Salmon (known best for her role as the mummy killing historian Evelyn O’Connell in The Mummy saga)
* MARK WAHLBERG – Jack Salmon (the one and only from the Funky Bunch)
* STANLEY TUCCI – George Harvey (known as Miranda Preistly’s fashion editor in The Devil Wears Prada and also as Julia Child’s husband in “Julie & Julia”. It appears he likes to work with Meryl Streep a lot)
* SUSAN SARANDON – Grandma Lynn (the one and only Louise from Thelma and Louise)

BEST QUOTE(S): “Grandma Lynn predicted I would live a long life because I had saved my brother. As usual, Grandma Lynn was wrong.” – Susie Salmon

WHY THE GUYS WILL SEE IT: Because it appears to be a thriller with their favorite “baller” Marky Mark.

WHY THE LADIES WILL SEE IT: Because we read the book, which was compelling, and want to see how it will be interpreted to the silver screen.

MARKETED AS: A psychological thriller murder mystery. EXECUTED AS: A drama. But for anyone who has read the book, they knew beforehand that this is not a thriller.

SYNOPSIS: Taking place in the 70s when forensics hasn’t quite been developed, a young 14 year old is murdered by her neighbor. Susie Salmon, the juvenile victim, is not quite ready to move on to heaven, and watches over her family, friends and murderer from a heaven-like purgatory. She observes her family and friends as they cope (or not cope) with her absence, and she looks over her murderer hoping for his justice.

MY THOUGHTS: Ok, so let me start with how I really don’t like the marketing for this movie. I mean, really, really, REALLY didn’t like the marketing for this movie. Nothing pisses me off more than when a movie markets itself for one thing, and it’s completely not what you expected. Seeing the previews for this movie, I was really excited to see it because I’m a big fan of the thriller and the “who dunnit” movies. So, what did I do? I got on my little Kindle and downloaded The Lovely Bones right away and started reading it.

Well, I read The Lovely Bones cover to cover (figuratively speaking, since it was technically an ebook) waiting for there to be justice given to the neighbor who takes Susie Salmon’s life. That’s why it was such a page turner, it’s a murder mystery, (although you know the killer from the get go) but you want to know if he ever gets caught. The answer? A big fat no. I was so pissed when I finished reading the book because this is NOT a story about a murderer getting justice. This is a story about the family and the friends of Susie Salmon and how they either bond or fall apart following her untimely absence. Now in all fairness, had I read this book with an empty slate and an open mind, I would think that this was a good book, BUT I was expecting A THRILLER based on the movie ads.

So, now thinking that I didn’t want to see the movie anymore, because the book was more of a tear-jerking drama instead of a thriller… but then I watched the “Sneak Peek of The Lovely Bones by HBO.” And Peter Jackson’s vision seemed intriguing and it was still instilled as a psychological thriller. So, I thought to myself, maybe they changed the book (as movies often do) and made it still into some sort of a thriller. So, I resolved to see the movie. Now, as I mentioned before, the book is not a bad book. I just felt mislead. So, my friend, Natalie and I set on to see The Lovely Bones.

So thoughts on the actual movie itself: If you’ve read the book, like I said, you know it’s not a thriller, it’s a drama. The artistic direction is incredible. The colors and the portrayal of Susie Salmon’s “heaven” is amazing and very creative. But instead of spanning 10-15 years like it does in the book, it only spans like a year to two years. So several key events are cut and repositioned and changed to make the story line fit into two hours. However, if you didn’t read the book, the movie is very confusing and actions of the characters are not given motivation. I may not have felt this aspect of the movie, but until I kept having to turn to Natalie to explain to her what wasn’t there, I realized that this is not a movie to see unless you HAVE read the book.

THE VERDICT: I would come up with a creative pun, but there’s nothing I can come up with that doesn’t sound absolutely morbid or inappropriately sexual. (I mean, really… how can you not come up with something inappropriate with a title of The Lovely Bones? It’s a bad Porno title just waiting to happen.) So, I’m just to come out and say that the movie is a decent portrayal of the book. If you haven’t read the book, it will be confusing and chaotic. If you’ve read the book, wait to rent it on Netflix or On Demand, if you haven’t read the book, wait until it’s free on a movie channel, or don’t bother.