A medley of surprising Movies

Recently I was visited by the first horseman of the apocalypse. Do not be alarmed he is having his bedroom redone and is apparently dossing down around Wellington. But while he was staying the selfish bastard shoved a shoggoth down my lungs while I was asleep. 

Needless to say I have been slightly poorly for the last five or so days as I have been attempting to cough up this gloppy monster and this epic quest has delayed this post. But due to the love of a good woman, and despite the stupid government ban on pseudoephedrine, I have succeed for the most part and can now procced.

Worst house guest ever

Now any successful relationship requires a degree of compromise, and living in a household of  girls requires even more so.  While I might fancy three hours of Akira Kurwasara, or The 39 Steps by Hitchcock,  or Gattaca or  Star Wars, the 12 year old in the house most definitely will not.  (well maybe Star Wars)

Frankly I don't understand why, surely any part of a child's comprehensive education should include exposure to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari from 1920? or Han Solo dispatching Greedo before he is killed.

Better than Beiber surely?

Ensue melodramatic sigh.

But we as a family have watched a few DVDs of late and I thought I would give a quick run down  of each of them. All of them were family friendly except for one which was exclusively for Friday the 13th.

Ensue family Hijinx

Beautiful Creatures

This looked much like a Twilight  rip off, but with witches instead of Vampires. However after having to sit down and watch it I was completely surprised.  This is a  film adaptation of the book by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, and sure this movie is cashing in on the  Twilight  francises success, however Beautiful Creatures manages to avoid the obvious cliches and remain entertaining. 

It  is the story of Ethan, a boy living in Gatlin, a tiny town in South Carolina. Ethan  meets Lena, a girl from a family who is ostracised by the rest of the conservative community. Ethan yearns to leave Gatlin, and as Lena is the antithesis of all that Gatlin society likes is instantly attracted to her. His perseverence wins Lena over, and a romance develops. But once Ethan wins Lena over, he also discovers that the rumours about Lena and her family being witches are  true. 

One thing we all found refreshing was that Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich) did not turn out to have any crazy supernatural powers of his own.  He was just a normal kid in a supernatural world, which pretty bucks the trend. The relationship between the two young lovers was romantic without being awkward or unhealthy. Emma Thompson and Jeremy Irons were great as well.  The best thing I can say for it is that, it isn't  Twilight!
 
The girls found it surprising  and it was Squeaky apropriate.

Six Monkeys from me. 

Warm Bodies

I have also heard of this film being referred to as the  Twlight of Zombie films whch sounds like a fairly harsh call.  Although one thing the Twilight movies have done for us is given a new definition of bad. 

I was given the novel by Isaac Marion and I liked it. Not sure if I liked how it ended, but the novel was good. In fact I thought that the movie was an improvement over the book, which was another pleasant surprise.  A little violence, but acceptable standards for a mature 12 year old, and the only thing she was scared about was whether there would be a happy ending or not. 

Nicholas Hoult was a great R, and made the film funny and engaging with his voice over. It was a good zom-rom-com.

Both the girls liked it and Squeaky got more engaged than she thought she would. Despite a little gore it was fine for Squeaky, but on the cusp.

Six and a half monkeys. 

Mean Girls

Before the drugs, the rehab, the dubious dalliance into Lesbians and even more drugs, Lindsay Lohan was a fun, talented actress. In this teen movie classic from 2004 we are reminded of what could have been, but Amanda Seyfried and Rachel McAdams went on to better things and Lindsay went to rehab.

Mean Girls is a enjoyable teen comedy about the new girl  in school who falls a foul of the popular clique and seeks revenge by infiltrating them determined to bring them down from within.

It is your typical school age film, entertaining and fun with a young but familiar cast. Squeaky loved it, especially as she recognised many of the cast from tv she watches now,  The Middle, Suburbgatory  and that is because there is a Saturday Night live link trough Tina fey who adapted the screen play from the book.

Six and a half monkeys from me as it is very re watchable even now.

Rise of the Guardians

Thankfully Squeaky still enjoys animated movies and she decided on this one.  Not a film that previously attracted me to it despite the ensemble cast, but once we sat down to watch it we all enjoyed it.

The Boogy man has returned to plunge the world into darkness and fear through the dreams of children. Opposing him are the four gaurdians, Santa Claus, The Sandman, The tooth Fairie, the Easter Bunny and newly recruited Jack Frost. Jack has identity issues, especially as none of the children he is protecting know he exists.
Alec Baldwin the bane of paparazzi was great as the Russina warrior Claus, Jude Law was excellent as the boogy man, and it took me a while to recognise Chris Pine, recently from the captains chair of the Star ship Enterprise, but in a good way.

Again we were entertained and pleasantly surprised, and the elves were my favorite.
Seven monkeys from me.

Mama

This is not Squeaky  appropriate at all, and was a choice for after she was in bed. A moive  Guillermo del Toro gave his name to as the executive producer but did not direct or write. Andrés Muschietti wrote the original story and the screenplay with his sister Barbara and he also directed it. Jessica Chastain ( Zero Dark Thirty)  and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) star in this creepy creepy movie.

Coster-Waldau plays twin brothers, one who goes mad and kills his wife and flees into the woods with his two daughters and is never seen again. The other brother spends every penny he has to find his missing brother and nieces, and he eventually find his neices alone in the woods. Or are they?

 Mama was a massive dispointment. It started strong and was certainly creepy enough, but there were storylines that went nowhere,  the ending didn't really gel with the story up to that point,  and the film was deeply unsatisfactory.

Four Monkeys from me.

That is all the DVDs we have been watching as of late, well except for the Midsumer Murders (Apparently the Shortland Street of the UK). Once I am well enough I will be taking my Lady to Rush. 

Night