Here’s my second review for MovieRob’s June Genre Grandeur of Derivative movies, this time the zombie romance Warm Bodies. I’m sure Shakespeare never saw this coming when he wrote Romeo and Juliet.
In honor of Independence Day (both the holiday and the movie), be sure to vote for your favorite alien-related film in Round 13 of Opinion Battles. I picked James Cameron’s Aliens, but there’s a fair number of great choices this round.
Over the years we have had so many films revolving aliens, be it them invading Earth, visiting or just whacky space sagas. The alien characters have become iconic in cinema because of the mystery surrounding outer space so today we are going to look at our favourite film with alien(s) as the main part of the film. We are selecting this to celebrate the release of Independence Day: Resurgence.
If you want to enter the next round of Opinion Battles we will be looking at our favourite Leonardo DiCaprio roles, if you want to enter send your choice to moviereviews101@yahoo.co.ukwith closing date being Sunday the 10th July 2016.
Darren – Movie Reviews 101
Independence Day
I have chosen Independence Day because it is easily the film I have seen the most, the idea that aliens have come to destroy the…
Rain – the soothing sound that lulls us to sleep or the raging downpour that frightens cats and children. Except for the desert, rain is a world-washing constant everywhere, especially England and Seattle, and thus makes for popular movie weather. It can be a symbol of rebirth, a mere annoyance, a passionate setting for a wet kiss, or a dramatic backdrop for a climactic fight. With so many examples of precipitation to choose from and because it’s rained a lot lately where I live, I’ve made up my own list of twelve favorite moments caught in the rain.
(These are only for movies I’ve actually seen all the way through, so apologies to anyone missing famous scenes from Road to Perdition, Say Anything, Magnolia, Garden State, Unforgiven, and Blade Runner. Feel free to suggest any others I missed.) Here goes….
Have you ever felt like there’s a rain cloud hovering over your head, raining only on you? Probably not as literally as Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey), who experiences such a technical malfunction in his reality show life.
The waterworks don’t just come from the sky when Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) finally escapes his island and finds his girlfriend (Helen Hunt) remarried. They reunite in the driving rain, yet both know that the past is as unchangeable as the weather.
For all the flak that the Star Wars prequels get, they do boast some of the best action sequences around. For instance, when Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) visits a water-covered storm planet in search of a certain bounty hunter, he finds the perp as well as a thrilling scuffle on the landing platform.
The Garden of Words (2013)
Rain plays a prominent role in Makoto Shinkai’s slow but exquisitely animated The Garden of Words. A high school student and an older woman meet by chance during rainy mornings, and since both are lonely and in need of support, they begin hoping for rain to again bring them together.
Spoiler warning, I suppose. After being sent to Camp Green Lake, “a magical place where it never rains,” Stanley (Shia LaBeouf) endures manual labor and uncovers his own past and that of the lake, leading to a climactic curse reversal.
How many times have you seen someone eaten off a toilet in the rain? At least once, I’d bet. Our first introduction to the T. Rex is made all the more memorable by the pouring rain that makes its entrance even scarier. Not to mention, the Dilophosaurus attack on Wayne Knight happens in the same rainstorm.
Akira Kurosawa definitely loved rain in his movies. There’s the beginning and end of Rashomon, for instance, and it’s never just a shower but a full-on atmospheric assault. Speaking of assault, the final battle between his seven samurai and the attacking bandits occurs in a raging storm, distinguishing it as an even more impressive feat of classic cinematic warfare.
The Notebook (2004)
Sure, Nicholas Sparks movies tend to be sappy and formulaic, but romance is romance. The Notebook is certainly a flawed story, but that passionate kiss in the rain is among the most iconic scenes of modern romance.
Speaking of iconic passionate kisses in the rain, Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson share a uniquely inverted smooch after he saves her from some thugs. I’ve heard Tobey Macguire could hardly breath while filming, but the end result was worth it (says this uninvolved viewer). The Andrew Garfield movies never had anything this good.
Of all the battles in the rain (and there are many), none is as awesomely epic as the siege of Helm’s Deep in the second Lord of the Rings movie. With their trapped forces hopelessly outnumbered by the approaching Uruk-hai, Aragorn and the men of Rohan just can’t catch a break, and it starts raining even without someone saying “It can’t get any worse, can it?” It pours through the entire night, a wet and messy melee of good against evil.
After crawling through a sewage pipe to escape Shawshank Prison, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) could use a good shower, and the rain that aided his escape acts as a symbolic cleansing from all the dirty deeds he did and saw behind bars. Such a powerful scene!
When it comes to famous scenes in the rain, nothing can compare with Gene Kelly’s marvelous musical number to the title song. Even though he was sick with a fever at the time, Kelly joyously splashes through puddles and revels in the sheer joy of wet contentment. Who needs an umbrella when you have love, right?
Runners-Up (as you can see, it was tough narrowing the list to twelve):
A Bug’s Life – The rainy season can be a big problem when you’re as small as an insect.
Aliens – It’s pouring when Ripley and the Marines land on LV-426.
Back to the Future Part II – It’s pouring when Marty gets a 70-year-old telegram from Doc and actually tries to read it as it gets soaked.
Bee Movie – Rain and insects again – you get the picture.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s – It’s pouring during the touching final scene. Animal cruelty is rarely this romantic.
Beauty and the Beast – It’s pouring during Gaston’s confrontation with the Beast.
The Day after Tomorrow – It’s pouring (and I mean pouring!) when New York is swallowed by a massive tidal wave.
Forrest Gump – “One day, it started raining, and it didn’t quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin’ rain… and big ol’ fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath. Shoot, it even rained at night.”
The Goodbye Girl – It’s pouring when Richard Dreyfuss is in the phone booth.
The Hunger Games – It’s pouring when Peeta throws some bread to a starving Katniss.
Inception – It’s pouring when Cobb and his team first enter Fischer’s dream world.
Jumanji– It’s pouring even inside houses, thanks to that board game.
Les Miserables (2012) – It’s pouring at the beginning when Valjean and the other prisoners are hauling in a ship.
The Matrix Revolutions – It’s pouring during Neo’s climactic fight with Smith.
Midnight in Paris – Gil prefers women who don’t mind getting wet since after all, “Paris is the most beautiful in the rain.”
My Neighbor Totoro – Not the biggest fan of this movie, but I do love certain scenes, like the picture at the top.
Noah – Forty days and forty nights – that’s a lot of rain.
The Outsiders – It’s pouring when the Greasers and the Socs have their big rumble.
Here’s my first review for MovieRob’s June Genre Grandeur of Derivative movies based on some other source: Robinson Crusoe on Mars, a surprisingly good piece of classic science fiction.
Spanning the gap between each tower,
Not a trap, but source of power,
Hangs a cord you pray is taut,
In which is stored your only shot.
Your heart is racing, mind is bracing for the danger you’re embracing,
It’s, you know, a dream worth chasing.
You stand so high upon the brink,
The edge of sky, the towers’ link.
The world must fade, the thought of loss
Or accolade, to walk across
The peril you yourself have set
For public view and public fret.
You must not fear; you must not stumble.
Wisdom here will keep you humble.
Take a breath and tread with care;
Think not of death when in the air.
Dreams unskilled can get you killed,
Yet all are thrilled when they’re fulfilled.
________________________
MPAA rating: PG
Except for those who remember the headlines back in 1974, most were probably first introduced to Philippe Petit’s daring tightrope walk between the Twin Towers by 2008’s Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire. I, however, did what anyone would do who isn’t well-versed in documentaries; I waited until Hollywood made a “real” movie about it. Luckily, Robert Zemeckis took up the project and created a film that is not only entertaining as a fact-based drama but actually makes me curious to see the “real real” story in Man on Wire.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt effortlessly adopts a French accent to play Petit from the beginning of his tightrope career to his greatest achievement. In many ways, he’s the definition of a misunderstood artist, bearing the weight of a dream that most people consider foolhardy, even his own father. We watch as he “learns the ropes” from high wire master Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley), gains a few supporters like the lovely Annie (Charlotte Le Bon from The Hundred-Foot Journey), and draws ever closer to his ultimate dream of traversing the space between the towers of the World Trade Center, which was still under construction at the time.
Since his exploit is clearly illegal, involving much trespassing and personal risk, the lighthearted dream morphs into something of a heist, as Petit scopes out his target, meets accomplices, and memorizes careful plans that could easily go wrong. The climactic walk itself is a marvel of invisible effects work (alas, no Oscar nomination), placing Gordon-Levitt in what appears to be the most dangerous place imaginable. I happened to watch The Walk with my mom and dad on either side of me, neither of whom knew how Petit’s dream would end, and I got a huge kick out of watching their reactions. I, of course, did know and was able to watch much more calmly and chuckle as they practically went into anxious convulsions with more unrelieved tension than Petit’s tightrope. Suffice to say, the protracted finale is not for anyone even mildly afraid of heights.
The Walk is a highly enjoyable biopic that lets Petit’s dream come to fruition with pleasant fluidity, making him someone worth celebrating while acknowledging his mysterious obsession with his goal. Why does he want to walk between the towers when it’s so dangerous? To prove he can? To be the first to try? Because they can’t resist? Even though this question is asked right from the start, it’s never fully explained, but I suppose the answer isn’t far from why mountaineers climb Everest. It doesn’t make sense to us mundane folk, but the thrill and the satisfaction of accomplishment are everything to them. In recreating the Twin Towers and one man’s fascination with them, The Walk also takes on a bittersweet note in the final scene. The World Trade Center towers may no longer stand, but Petit’s dream at least lets them live on in our memory as more than just the site of tragedy.
Best line: (Barry, who works in the WTC after being told of Petit’s plans) “It’s something only a twisted, antisocial, anarchistic, pissed-off malcontent would have anything to do with…. You have your inside man!”
Bishop to knight and rook to queen,
As pawns patrol the ranks and files.
Spectators gawk as masters preen
And intellects complete their trials.
Obsession is a healthy thing
While meditating o’er a board,
But once you’ve captured every king,
You’ll find the game of life ignored.
______________
MPAA rating: PG-13
There are plenty of movies about unique contests: spelling bees, dancing competitions, even ice sculpting, and in the case of The Luzhin Defense, a chess competition. Based off a book by Vladimir Nabokov, the film shows how unexpectedly intense a seemingly “boring” game like chess can be. John Turturro plays Aleksandr Luzhin, a chess prodigy with clear mental issues. He’s a strategic genius, but years of pressure to prove his brilliance have left him fragile and antisocial. At one fateful contest in Italy, Luzhin encounters his greatest fear in his manipulative former mentor (Stuart Wilson), as well as his greatest love in Natalia Katkov (Emily Watson).
Turturro is quite good as the troubled mastermind, though his personal eccentricities and obsessive tendencies make one wonder what Watson’s character sees in him. Years before her stern motherly roles in War Horse and The Book Thief, Watson manages to outshine Turturro’s attention-grabbing oddness with a performance that sells the unlikely attraction between them and makes it that much more bittersweet. While good overall, The Luzhin Defense is ultimately a less inspiring version of A Beautiful Mind, which was to follow the next year, and I’d rather see Russell Crowe’s troubled genius any day.
Best line: (Luzhin, preparing to play his rival) “As Pushkin’s doomed duelist said, ‘Let’s start if you’re willing.’”
If your freedoms were taken, your rights undermined,
To worship, to write, or to speak your own mind?
Would you flee?
Would you fight?
Would you stay out of sight?
Would you trigger a war?
Would you pray less or more?
Would you just play along,
With no thought to the wrong,
And in fear knowing well
That one word could bring hell?
Would you plot and resist?
Would you cease and desist?
Would your final resort
Be but silent support?
Would you bear the blood spilt
And accept your own guilt?
Would you think yourself smarter
As traitor or martyr?
Now ask what must happen, what action or vision,
To weigh on your conscience and change your decision?
___________________
MPAA rating: R (for scenes of war and torture, could be PG-13)
This is my contribution to the Remembering James Horner Blogathon over at Film Music Central, where the music of the late great film composer is being celebrated. I’d wanted to see For Greater Glory for years now, and this gave me the perfect opportunity, while illustrating how Horner was equally at home scoring small-budget historical dramas as well as multi-million-dollar blockbusters.
I’ve been waiting for that moment when Christian filmmaking manages to keep up with Hollywood, because despite the inspirational appeal of movies like Fireproof and Miracles from Heaven, Christian films always tend to lack the polish of their secular counterparts. Thankfully, For Greater Glory has that polish, boasting cinematography, editing, and a name-recognized cast worthy of Hollywood while telling a story at once faithful, gritty, and timely.
Most people have probably never heard of the Cristero War, a Mexican revolt from 1926 to 1929 caused by the viciously anti-Catholic policies of President Plutarco Elías Calles (played by Rubén Blades). Because of the history of devout Catholicism that seems synonymous with Latin America, it came as a surprise to me that anti-religious positions were written into the Mexican constitution, and when Calles began enforcing them by deporting foreign priests and killing priests and parishioners alike, the people rose up against him with the battle cry of “Viva Christo Rey!” It’s a struggle largely forgotten but comprehensively recounted through the experiences of various freedom fighters: famed general Enrique Gorostieta (Andy Garcia), lone wolf Victoriano Ramirez (Oscar Isaac), priest-turned-general Father Vega (Santiago Cabrera), peace-seeking lawyer Anacleto Flores (Eduardo Verástegui), and pious youngster José Sánchez del Río (Mauricio Kuri).
The entire cast deliver excellent performances, from Garcia’s conflicted attitude toward defending a religion he doesn’t share to a brief but impactful role for Peter O’Toole. Garcia as General Gorostieta is the most intriguing, an atheist like Calles who nonetheless staunchly believes in religious freedom; his calls of “Viva Christo Rey” encourage the troops as they become perhaps more heartfelt, reminding me that impartial atheists can do wonders with spiritual material. (For example, Amazing Grace was directed by Michael Apted.) The sporadic action is also tense and visceral (though more worth a PG-13 than an R), with ambushes, battles, and an especially cool one-against-fourteen shoot-out with Oscar Isaac. As for Horner’s score, it’s not among his most memorable soundtracks but one which masterfully complements every scene, rousing during the war scenes and suitably intense in the most emotional moments.
Despite the epic scope that the film mostly achieves, it’s rather slow-paced overall, and one might have trouble telling the various characters apart at first. What makes For Greater Glory worthwhile, though, is its commitment to telling a story that has been swept under the rug of history, an injustice explained by the fact that history is told by the winning side. As the film progresses, it becomes clear that this is more tragedy than triumph, and sacrifices toward the end bring to mind death scenes in The Passion of the Christ and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Even if none of the characters are deeply explored, the historical notes before the end credits give them the depth of reality as we learn that many have since been beatified or canonized as saints.
With ever-growing distress over religious freedom in America and throughout the world, it’s important to see where religious intolerance can lead. Again, it’s hard to imagine that, in the country of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Christians were hanged from telephone poles less than a century ago, like crosses along the ancient Appian Way. Some have considered the film to be one-sided in its blessing of the rebels who committed some glossed-over atrocities of their own, but the heroics and devotion on display are still worthy of admiration, remembrance, and prayers that such abuses may never happen again.
Best line: (Calles, speaking of Gorostieta) “Filio Diaz used to say, ‘A dog with a bone in his mouth doesn’t bark and doesn’t bite.’ In politics, everything has a price. Go find his.”
Chris Evans is your current Captain America, he has been involved in 7 comic book adaptations in his career to date but between these roles he has also taken his chances at a range of different genres. Today we will be picking our favourite roles but which one do you think it the best?
If you want to take part in later rounds on Opinion Battles the next round will be ALIEN BASED FILM so any film with an alien in a major involvement in the story. the entries will be needed by 26th June 2016 and email your choices to moviereviews101@yahoo.co.uk.
Darren – Movie Reviews 101
Mace – Sunshine
Mace is on the crew of the Icarus II with the last of Earth resources to reignite the dying sun. Mace is the engineer who brings his military side opinions…
There she lies, fair Sleeping Beauty,
Cursed to slumber and to wait.
Those who kiss for wealth or duty
Cannot change her dreamless fate.
Only true love can awaken
And unlock her heavy eyes.
Fear not that she is forsaken.
Love will find her where she lies;
He will come, and she will rise.
________________
MPAA rating for Sleeping Beauty: G
MPAA rating for Maleficent: PG
Now that my cable has been restored after a bad storm knocked it out for a few days, it’s time once again for a Cartoon Comparison, this time between Disney’s classic Sleeping Beauty and its subversive live-action counterpart Maleficent. Sleeping Beauty was the last cinematic fairy tale of Walt Disney’s lifetime and really the last traditional fairy tale until The Little Mermaid thirty years later. Since it’s widely considered one of Disney’s best, modern Disney executives decided to use it (and Alice in Wonderland) to kick off their crusade to translate the entire canon to CGI-filled live-action. So how do these two compare?
I’ll be honest: Despite its reputation, Sleeping Beauty has never been among my favorite Disney films, which is why I haven’t reviewed it until now. Even compared with Disney’s classics, I’ve always leaned more toward Cinderella and Fantasia, simply because I grew up watching them more. I probably saw Sleeping Beauty once or twice as a kid and not since, and I was pleasantly surprised when this latest viewing reminded me of why it truly is a Disney classic. At first, some of the opening animation appears simple and angular, like an illustration from the Middle Ages, but as it continues, backgrounds become increasingly detailed. Close-ups of stone walls and tree trunks border on photo-realistic, and the layering of the forest adds beautiful depth as trees stretch away into the distance. As much as I love Disney’s follow-ups like One Hundred and One Dalmatians or The Jungle Book, the animation quality clearly started declining after this, making Sleeping Beauty, in a sense, the height of early Disney animation.
Not so much, though, when it comes to the story. One thing I always associated with Sleeping Beauty was its namesake being rather boring, and indeed Aurora herself is basically a placeholder, a damsel in distress who doesn’t do things as much as things happen to her. What I forgot was how enjoyable the fairies are. The three colorful fairy godmothers Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather are the true protagonists here, first blessing baby Aurora, then hiding her away from the evil Maleficent, raising her, and playing a key role in the famous climax. Their likable bickering over method and favorite color adds humor to scenes that otherwise might be dull. Likewise, Maleficent is a memorably evil villainess (voiced by Eleanor Audley, who also voiced Lady Tremaine in Cinderella), whose dragon transformation is the most thrilling scene of the movie.
While the film and the story it’s based on are undoubtedly classics, Sleeping Beauty does have more than its fair share of flawed fairy tale logic. For instance, why does King Stefan ban spinning wheels and force his kingdom into sixteen years without thread when Aurora is hidden anyway? Why do the fairies bring Aurora back to the castle the day of the curse rather than the day after, just to be safe, and then promptly give her some risky “alone time?” Why do the fairies put everyone to sleep when, for all they know, Aurora’s true love could be right there and unable to awaken her if he’s asleep too? Regardless of little plot holes like these, Sleeping Beauty has that timeless Disney touch that still captures imaginations, especially during the forest dance between Aurora and Prince Philip as they waltz to Tchaikovsky.
And then, fifty-five years after Sleeping Beauty, someone at Disney had a grand thought and asked, “Why is Maleficent so evil? She just wants to curse this baby out of spite for not being invited to her christening? Traditionally, evil villains are so old-fashioned, so why don’t we turn her into a good guy?” Thus, borrowing a page from Wicked minus the musical numbers, what should have been dismissed then as a foolish idea became 2014’s Maleficent, a film I fully intended to dislike. I’m not wholly against these live-action remakes, but Disney should be trying to honor and flesh out its classics, not transform them into their opposites.
As I watched Maleficent, I began to accept that it’s honestly not a bad film nor a bad fairy tale. It’s just not Sleeping Beauty, and unfortunately the comparison does make it a bad film. Gone is the line about Maleficent using “all the powers of hell”; instead, she’s just a cute little girl fairy who happens to have big devil horns and eagle wings and a name implying harm and destruction. She starts out good, the guardian of a magical realm called the Moors, whose one meaningful relationship with a human ends in betrayal, pain, and bitterness. As far as villain backstories go, I can actually accept this; the writers do a decent job in providing a reason for Maleficent’s hatred. Once the baby Aurora is born, though, and we get a re-creation of Sleeping Beauty’s opening scene, the sorry consequences of these story changes play out.
Eventually, Maleficent’s rage dwindles to annoyance as she watches Aurora from afar, repeatedly saving her from the thoughtlessness of the three “good” fairies, renamed Knotgrass, Flittle, and Thistlewit, whose bickering loses all its likability when it becomes clear what morons they are. Over the course of sixteen years, Maleficent and her shapeshifting raven Diaval (not Diablo as in the cartoon) are Aurora’s real caretakers, and by the time the curse is to be fulfilled, Maleficent tries first to cancel it and then to break it. Something just doesn’t feel right about giving all these laudable duties to the villain; in making Maleficent good at heart, every other character suffers. The three fairies, or pixies, are negligent fools; Aurora’s father King Stefan is the real villain, an obsessive monster who cares more about killing Maleficent than about his own wife and is nothing like his cartoon counterpart singing “Skumps!”; even Prince Phillip is deprived of everything that made him an appealing character in the original. By the time “true love’s kiss” rolls around, the story borrows a page from Frozen, reminding us that true love doesn’t have to be romantic in nature. That worked in Frozen because it was original; don’t mess with something that is supposed to be romantic!
Basically, everything worthwhile about Maleficent is original. Every time it thinks for itself, it entertains (the magical Moors, the battle scenes, Diaval’s transformations). Every time it tries to borrow from Sleeping Beauty, it pales in comparison (the fairies and their gifts, Aurora and Phillip’s unmemorably unmusical meeting, Phillip’s ineffectual kiss). Perhaps fans of Angelina Jolie could look past all this, but I’m not one of them, and nothing in her turn as Maleficent changed that. I did rather like Elle Fanning as the buoyant Aurora, but most of the cast was intentionally unpleasant, with the girl power message effectively ruining every male character. It’s not just I as a man who felt that way too; my VC felt the same distaste.
Maleficent is a prime example of where Disney should have left well enough alone, letting its past animations speak for themselves. It might have worked better as an original story, but when a voiceover tries to convince us that this live-action subversion with the cool visuals is the real story, it loses credibility. Please, I know the real story, and it’s from 1959.
Best line from Sleeping Beauty: (Merryweather, as Flora uses her as a dummy to make Aurora’s dress) “It looks awful.” (Flora) “That’s because it’s on you, dear.”
Best line from Maleficent: (Aurora, practicing to tell her aunties) “You’ve been very good to me…well, except that time you fed me spiders.”
Rank for Sleeping Beauty: List Runner-Up
Rank for Maleficent: Dishonorable Mention
Music alone can be grand in all kinds,
For banging of heads or relaxing of minds,
And lyrics alone, whether plain or highbrow,
Can be poetry, like what you’re reading now.
But lyrics can caper and dance with the notes
When coupled and wed by the truest of throats,
And music can whisk up the words in its pull
And render fair splendor from mere doggerel.
Just one by itself could exist happily
Alone, on its own, not unlike you and me.
But if they can merge as a unified song,
We still will be humming it all our life long.
_______________
MPAA rating: PG-13
I love a good rom-com, and there aren’t nearly as many as I’d like that could actually be described as good. So many fall flat, whether because they’re more crude than romantic or because they’re just not funny, and their success always hinges on two key ingredients: chemistry and the script. One without the other leaves the film wanting, but when both are present, it’s magic, like the blissful merging of words and music. For me, When Harry Met Sally… and You’ve Got Mail rule the genre, but Music and Lyrics takes a comfortable spot not too far beneath them, thanks to (you guessed it) the script and its two leads (Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore).
Alex Fletcher (Grant), formerly of the popular ‘80s band PoP!, is content to coast on his past fame, a “happy has-been” whose career consists mainly of state fairs and throwback nights. When his manager (a welcome Brad Garrett of Everybody Loves Raymond) urges him to salvage his career by writing a song for megadiva Cora Corman (Haley Bennett), he grudgingly agrees to the music but needs a lyricist. Enter Sophie Fisher (Barrymore), a mousy substitute plant waterer, who accidentally lets her talent for lyrics show and is drafted to assist Alex in writing a hit song.
As far as the plot is concerned, Music and Lyrics is wholly predictable, with Alex and Sophie’s relationship budding and rollercoastering exactly as you’d expect in such a film. Alex has confidence issues and an ego; Sophie has a painful past romance. They need each other professionally and then on a deeper level. It’s all stuff we’ve seen before, but what could easily be written off as clichéd is enlivened by amusing character quirks, some surprisingly catchy tunes, and clever dialogue that ensures frequent chuckles. Grant’s dry wit mixes well with Sophie’s slight neurosis, and rare chemistry is the result.
In addition, many modern romances manage to turn me off with some kind of boundary-pushing crudity, but Music and Lyrics is a pretty clean affair. While Cora delights in her “steamy and sticky” dance routines, she actually serves as a reminder of how a lot of modern music has degraded from Alex’s good ol’ days of the ‘80s and acts somewhat as a critique of overly sexualized pop stars with fans far too young for their on-stage gyrations. Heck, Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” sounds exactly like something Cora Corman would sing. Ugh. (Not to offend Katy Perry fans; I do love “Wide Awake.”)
I’d rather have PoP’s “Pop Goes My Heart” any day; played at the beginning and end, this little earworm perfectly recreates the cheesy charm of ‘80s pop, and though Alex himself derides it as “dessert,” the song and film alike are my kind of dessert. I convinced my VC to watch Music and Lyrics after a rough day at work when she was in the mood for some undemanding fluff, and she ended up enjoying it even more than I, even insisting I review it as a VC pick. Sure, it’s not the most original of rom-coms, but when clichés are done this well, it doesn’t detract from the entertainment one bit.
Best line: (Sophie’s sister Rhonda, calling to her kids in the bedroom) “Okay, okay, everybody goes to bed. I’m sending your father in there.”
(one of the kids, giggling) “Whoa, we’re so scared!”
(Rhonda) “And then I’m coming in!”
[giggling immediately stops]
(Rhonda’s husband) “I’ll just go check to make sure they’re still breathing.”
VC’s best line: (Sophie) “How was the movie?”
(Rhonda’s husband) “I enjoyed it.”
(Rhonda) “He fell asleep.”
(her husband) “I enjoy sleeping.”
For this month’s first review for Genre Grandeur – Derivative Work Films, here’s a review of Warm Bodies (2013) by SG of Rhyme and Reason.
Rhyme and Reason 