My Review: A Million Ways to Die in the West (5/10)

"I'm not the hero. I'm the guy in the crowd making fun of the hero's shirt; that's who I am."

A Million Ways to Die in the West is a comedy that fails at so many levels, but since I had gone into it with low expectations I wasn't really disappointed by it and found some of the scenes extremely funny. On paper this should have been the year's best comedy because it had an excellent cast and an interesting premise. MacFarlane proved he could direct a comedy in the big screen after the success he had with Ted (which I liked, but wasn't blown away by). The first major issue I had with the film was that despite its Western setting it never felt like any of the characters belonged to this world. My second issue was with Seth MacFarlane's performance. He is a funny man, but he is good at writing and doing voice work, not acting, and that was a major flaw in this film because he was one of the main characters and the way he delivered some of the jokes fell flat. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about this comedy was that every time they were trying to get the story going and forcing some dialogue scenes they would try to add a poop or fart joke in there somewhere. It was way overdone. I can see how people might have been disappointed with this considering it had so much potential, and despite not liking this film I didn't think it was as terrible as many people claimed because at least it had some funny moments. Still, this is a rotten film and barely enjoyable because it's full of flaws and way too long.

Seth MacFarlane is talented doing voice work and writing some great jokes, but he has some problems with the delivery (something we saw when he hosted the Oscars a couple of years ago). He really hurt this film considering the rest of the cast was pretty funny. Amanda Seyfried, Neil Patrick Harris, Giovanni Ribisi, Sarah Silverman, Charlize Theron, and Liam Neeson all give some funny performances and deliver a few laughs. My favorite moments were definitely the cameos (there were some great ones that had me laughing really hard, but I won't spoil them), and I also enjoyed the surprising death scenes and found them kind of hilarious. Maybe I just have a weird sense of humor, but those scenes worked for me. The rest of the film is just overlong and a bit tedious with several jokes that fall flat, making me feel the same way as the townspeople after hearing MacFarlane trying to deliver jokes and avoid getting killed during the duels: dead silence.

My Oscars Reactions (17/24)

¨And the Oscar for Best Picture goes to Argo¨

Last night the 85^th Academy Awards were celebrated in a big way. Hollywood´s top actors made their way through the red carpet with a lot of glamour. I´m not a fashion expert so I won´t comment on who was wearing what, but I can say that everyone looked beautiful. The ceremony began with a monologue from first time host Seth MacFarlane who got some laughs out of the audience with his song ¨We saw your boobs¨ and with a sock puppet version of Flight while he was interrupted by Captain Kirk (William Shattner) who came from the future to warn him about his terrible hosting gig. He showed us some glimpses of what went wrong and MacFarlane tried to make amends by following Captain Kirk´s advice. The jokes were funny although not that irreverent as the Family Guy and Ted director has us used to. I still enjoyed his opening and I think he did a decent job hosting the Oscars, which once again ran about three and a half hours long. I know many people complain about the length of the ceremony, but I really enjoy this once a year event and loved every minute of it.

Despite opening with a surprise win for Christoph Waltz for best supporting actor, the Oscar were pretty predictable and the heavy favorites won. I loved Waltz´s performance, and he was my favorite in that category but I didn’t think the Academy would give him his second Oscar in three years. I was wrong, and I was happy about that. I was 17 for 24 in my predictions, but I knew some of the categories were going to be close races between one or two picks. So close in fact, that in one category we had a tie which hadn’t happened since the 1960´s. Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall shared the Oscar for Sound Editing. The biggest surprise of the night was Ang Lee´s victory over Steven Spielberg in the best director category. Life of Pi was one of my favorite movies of the year so I was very pleased once again with the Academy´s decision. The other categories I didn’t predict were both writing categories which did go to the favorites: Argo (adapted screenplay) and Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino). I loved Tarantino´s acceptance speech and this was his second win after Pulp Fiction. It was a long awaited win, but he finally got his moment. Brave beat Frankenweenie in the Best Animated category (a film I really didn’t like too much), Lincoln beat Anna Karenina in the Production Design category, and Inocente beat my pick Open Heart as the best short documentary. Those were my only misses; everything else went on as predicted.

Argo finally won for Best Picture and Ben Affleck got his redemption for not being included in the best director category since he was one of the producers of the film along with George Clooney. He gave one of the best speeches of the night and reminded the audience of how young he was when he won his first Oscar for writing Good Will Hunting. He never thought he would be back, but he made it and has proved to be one of the best directors of this last decade. Daniel Day Lewis won the Oscar for his portrayal of Lincoln and also gave a gracious speech. He is the only actor to have won 3 Oscars in a leading role. He made a joke about Meryl Streep who presented the award to him and his acceptance speech felt natural and authentic. Jennifer Lawrence was also a big winner as she won for her role in Silver Linings Playbook. She tripped while climbing up the stairs and also made fun of herself while accepting the award. She was gracious enough to congratulate Emmanuelle Riva on her 86^th birthday and was very classy. Anne Hathaway won for her performance in Les Miserables in the supporting role. Amour received love in the Foreign Language film category, and Searching for Sugar Man won best documentary (one of my favorite moments of the night because I really loved that doc). Adele was also a big winner for her song Skyfall which she got to perform live on the show. There was also a tribute for the 50 years of the James Bond franchise, and a tribute to musicals as well as we saw some of the cast from Chicago, Dreamgirls, and Les Miserables perform.

The awards were pretty much scattered throughout as there wasn’t one movie to take home a lot of awards as it usually happens. This is because there were a lot of strong contenders this year. Life of Pi was the big winner of the night as it took home 4 Oscars (Director, Visual Effects, Cinematography, and Original Score), Argo 3 (Picture, Adapted Screenplay, and Editing), and Les Miserables also took home 3 Oscars (Actress in a Secondary Role, Sound Mixing, and Makeup) and Lincoln only managed to win 2 (Lead Actor and Production Design) out of the 12 nominations it had. Django Unchained won two as well (Original Script and Best Supporting Actor). Zero Dark Thirty and Silver Linings Playbook each took home one Oscar, so the only Best Picture nominee to leave empty handed was Beasts of the Southern Wild, but that small independent film was a winner simply by being nominated.

It was pretty much an even race, but Argo won the biggest prize of the night in a ceremony which I really enjoyed. I thought it was one of the best in recent memory. I don’t know why people watch the Oscars if they always complain about how bad and long it is; I watch them because I really enjoy them. My favorite moments were the big acceptance speeches from Ben Affleck, Daniel Day Lewis, Quentin Tarantino, Chris Terrio, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Lawrence, and Ang Lee. If you missed them then perhaps you might want to look them up in YouTube. I also loved the musical performance from Les Mis cast, from Adele, and from Barbra Streisand who sang during the touching memorium tribute. We can´t leave out the most expected star of the show: Ted who entered with his co-star Mark Wahlberg and made some funny remarks. I thought the was a great show and hopefully next year I will improve my score, but for now satisfied with the overall picks. 

  

http://estebueno10.blogspot.com/

My Reaction to the Acadamy Award Nominations

There were some pleasant surprises this year as the Acadamy Award nominations were announced to us by future Oscar host Seth Macfarlane and Emma Stone in a very short but funny presentation. I will begin by mentioning some of the pleasant surprises, because there were also some negative ones as some major directors were ignored.

First of all I must say that I´m excited for all the love that Beasts of the Southern Wild received after being nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Actress in a Leading Role, and Best Adapted Screenplay. This was one of my top three films of the year (although I have to admit I still have to see five of the nine nominated films for 2012 since most of these films haven´t come out here in Ecuador yet). The other favorite of mine was Life of Pi which also received a lot of love from Acamdey voters by getting 11 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Cinematography. This film blew my mind visually and it deserves all the technical awards. The film with most nominations was Steven Spielbergh´s Lincoln which received 12 nominations including all the big awards. Daniel Day Lewis gave one of the best performances of the year and I think he will win this category easily although he has some competition in Joaquin Pheonix (The Master) and Hugh Jackman (Les Mis). I´m glad Denzel Washington received some love for his work in Flight, although I don´t think he has a chance here. However, I loved his work in that film. The small independent film, Silver Linings Playbook received a lot of love from the Academy as well receiving 8 nominations including all the important ones (director, actor, actress, and picture). I haven´t had a chance to see this film yet, but it looks good. The German film, Amour received much love as well as it will be competing for Best Picture and Best Director. It received 5 nominations. Les Miserables got 8 nominations, although it didn´t receive a Best Director nod which was a surprise for many. Finally, there´s Django Unchained, that received 5 Acadamy Awards including Best Picture although there was no love for Quentin Tarantino in the Best Director department. 

The negative surprises from today´s nominations came from the lack of love for Argo and Zero Dark Thirty which seemed like Lincoln´s main rivals in this year´s Oscars. They both received Best Picture nods, but neither Bigelow nor Affleck received director nominations for there work in these highly critically acclaimed films. Not having a Best Director nomination usually means they won´t end up contending for Best Picture. Argo did recieve 7 nominations however and Zero Dark Thirty ended up with only five when many were predicting each one of these films would get at least 10. I was sad that there was no love for Moonrise Kingdom although it did recieve a nomination for Original Screenplay for Wes Anderson. I was hoping it would recieve a Best Picture nod considering it was one of his best films in quite some time. My favorite film of the year, The Dark Knight Rises, received no love whatsoever, and I was hoping it would at least get a couple nods for vissuals. There were a couple of smaller performances I wished would get recognized like Richard Gere´s work in Arbitrage (his best work to date) and Jack Black in Bernie, but I knew they were long shots. 

Well those were my reactions to this year´s nominations. I look forward to watching the Oscars on February 24 to see who ends up with the big prize at the end. I still have several films to watch before I can make my predictions but this looks like it will be a very tight race between Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Life of Pi, Amour, and Beasts of the Southern Wild. I Think Lincoln has the big edge for now. In case you missed the nominations this morning, here is a video.

My Review: Ted (6/10)

¨No matter how big a splash you make in this world whether you're Corey Feldman, Frankie Muniz, Justin Bieber or a talking teddy bear, eventually, nobody cares.¨

Since 1999 Seth MacFarlane has made a name for himself in television thanks to the success of Family Guy. He`s also the man responsible for other successful animated series such as American Dad and The Cleveland Show. He`s not only the creator of these shows, he also voices many of the characters as well. In his first venture into live action film he also voices the star of the movie: Ted, a teddy bear that magically comes to life after a lonely boy makes a wish. Ted is an R-rated comedy due to the fact that he happens to be very vulgar and getting stoned all the time. The film has had huge box office success in the United Stated and I was expecting Ted to be hilarious, but I guess my expectations were a little too high because I wasn`t blown away by this movie. There were some funny scenes, but for the most part the film felt like an average comedy and it wasn’t what I was hoping for. 2012 has failed to deliver a successful comedy, and for now 21 Jump Street reigns as the best one in my opinion. Ted is full of irreverent humor, but it`s repetitive and you have the usual sexual, drug, and poop jokes. I couldn’t find much originality to it, but I do have to say some of the scenes did work thanks to Ted and his best friend played by Mark Wahlberg, whom I`ve always said is great in comedies. This is a pretty formulaic buddy comedy where you have the typical two slacker best friends and a girl who gets in the way of their friendship and wants them to mature. The only difference is that this time around one of them is a talking teddy bear.   

The film begins with a narration (voiced by Patrick Stewart) about the story of lonely boy who gets his wish one Christmas morning when he asks for his teddy bear to become his best friend. When the teddy comes to life, John Bennett (played by Mark Wahlberg, and the younger version played by Bretton Manley) discovers that he has found his best friend who he names Ted (voiced by Seth MacFarlane). Ted becomes an instant celebrity as he is all over the news and is invited to all kind of talk shows. Ted changes young John`s life for the better. The film then jumps to the present day where both have grown into adults. John is now 35 and has a healthy relationship with Lori (Mila Kunis). They`ve been dating for four years now. Ted is still living with John and has also grown up in the same way that his human buddy did. John and Ted like to spend time getting high together and talking about girls, drugs, and Flash Gordon. Everything seems to be going well for the trio until Lori gives John an ultimatum. It`s Ted or her. Lori realizes that Ted is keeping John from realizing his full potential since they`re always getting stoned and John is always late to work. John realizes that he has to make an important decision if he wants to save his relationship with Lori and the movie moves along from here.

One of the things the film explores well is the transition from child to adulthood. We don’t only see John grow up, but his teddy bear as well. Now being an adult doesn’t mean you`re mature and John and Ted are proof of that. They are irresponsible and practically only care about getting high all the time. They both are very nice people, but really immature. That`s what drives Lori crazy, but the good thing about Ted is that these characters aren't stereotypical. Lori isn’t a mean person who wants to separate the two best friends, but rather wants them to take responsibilities as adults. Ted also has character development and despite the fact that he`s very inappropriate he also has a big heart and wished the best fro John and Lori. This isn’t your typical face off between best friend and girlfriend. I was pleased with that aspect of the film. Another thing that worked really well for me in this movie was all the references to different films (especially Flash Gordon and Top Gun) and jokes about them. As a film lover you always enjoy those small references and gags. Some of the cameos were also pretty funny and highlights of the film. What I didn’t like as much was the fact that some of the sexual and drug humor got a little bit repetitive and old. There were also several poop and fart jokes which are always a little repetitive in these buddy comedies. Ted is still a funny film, but just not the hilarious movie I was hoping for.

   

http://estebueno10.blogspot.com

My Review: Hellboy II The Golden Army (7/10)

¨The humans... the humans have forgotten the gods, destroyed the earth, and for what? Parking lots? Shopping malls? Greed had burned a hole in their hearts that will never be filled! They will never have enough!¨

(7/10)Guillermo del Toro is one of the best foreign directors at the moment and with hits such as this one he can even be considered along with the best Hollywood directors. His followup to the first Hellboy is even better than the original. Del Toro creates a world very similar to the one he created in Pan`s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) with several mythical creatures living amongst humans and hiding underground. The world that del Toro creates is just fascinating and it captivates your attention from the beginning. He just has an incredible imagination and is able to make these creatures look real. The plot is very immaginative and it absolutely works in a movie that has a main character like Hellboy. This film seemed more similar to what Peter Jackson did in the Lord of the Ring trilogy than with what del Toro had done in the first Hellboy. It really doesn`t make a difference whether not you haven`t seen the first part because the movie works on its own. After watching Hellboy II, I`m really looking forward with what del Toro will be doing with The Hobit next year because of his capacity of creating such wonderful imagery and visuals, and he is a great storyteller as well.

Once again Ron Perlman plays the role of Hellboy to perfection like he did the first time around. He is a very likeable character with strong feelings for Liz (who is also brilliantly played by Selma Blair) and cats as well. Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) also returns for the sequel and the three continue to work as a team for the bureau of paranormal research. Their involvement with the government is unknown by the public and Hellboy dreams of one day being able to receive the recognition he deserves for saving the world time after time. His boss is always covering up his tracks and trying to keep the team private, but after a sort of intentional incident Hellboy is seen by the public and he becomes a public figure along with his team. We all know the media isn`t nice, and they weren`t with Hellboy either. This is where one of the new characters comes to play. Johan Krauss (James Dodd and voiced by Seth MacFarlane) comes to fill in for the boss and do what he couldn`t which was to control Hellboy. Krauss is probably the best addition to the team and most of the laughs come from his character. It was a risky move but it worked for the best. Luke Goss plays the villain: Prince Nuada. His character breaks the truce between humans and mythical creatures because he believes humans aren`t living up to their bargain as they continue to destroy nature and these creatures are running out of room to live in (the green message all over again). His twin sister, Princess Nuada is played byAnna Walton and she decides to look for help in order to stop her brother from calling the Golden Army which will obey the ruler of the crown which has been divided into three parts as a truce between creatures and mankind. The Prince is searching for the three parts in order to rise the army, but his sister is trying to stop him and she looks for help from the bureau.

Hellboy II works because of the great immagery that del Toro uses and because of the action mixed with comedy coming from his lead characters such as Hellboy and Johan Krauss. The movie is very fast paced and the two hours go by quickly. I found this movie much more entertaining than the first one and it was much better than what I had expected. Del Toro also manages to throw some romance into the mix as well as we have Hellboy and Abe singing drunk one night ¨I can`t smile without you.¨ The love Hellboy has for Liz is what fuels him and we saw it in the first movie. But now Abe has also fallen for the princess and he does some crazy things in the name of love as well. There are very few directors who can pull all these things together and del Toro does it very well because he is a great storyteller with a lot of imagination and craft for his work. The movie is very entertaining and really worth a watch, especially if you are into these sort of fantasy movies.