Category: (by verdict)

safe house

if only.

actually, the first 40 odd minutes are not bad. then it goes downhill fast, doubling its rate of descent every 15 minutes. i hate to say it but one of the biggest problems with this film is denzel. he’s one of the executive producers and this i think is what led to his character essentially going through the entire catalogue of charming denzel washington tics. casting a lesser known actor, or even someone like jeffrey wright who could disappear into the role, would have been a better idea.

[spoiler warning]
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The Walking Dead

No wolves or vampires here, just zombies. Do we have a Walking Dead thread? I was wondering if anyone else is a fan. I am, and would like to talk about it. We now do TV, right? Hello?

Okay, I’ll throw this out there: Sarah Wayne Callie is the weakest thing in the series. Her acting is so bad at times it makes me cringe. Here’s a tip, Sarah: when you need to emote powerful feelings, do NOT lift your head up slightly, breathe deeply, and look around wildly EVERY TIME.

Strongest thing in the series: Spike Milligan. He’s my favorite.

tintin

i watched this last night. i’d wanted to see it on the big screen when it first came out but fear of seeing a major part of my childhood destroyed kept me away. i’d read that the film mashes up the plots of a few books and rewrites characters etc. and all of this seemed like more desecration than i could take. and, of course, i feared the spielbergization of the whole thing: tintin as a young man trying to gain the love of his father (captain haddock probably) and so on.
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Prometheus

more like plotholetheus or portentous, amirite? nonetheless, it held my attention. michael fassbender is a delight, channeling o’toole as lawrence of arabia. idris elba has some moments and the set design is beautiful. all else is crap. the lack of explanations at the end was nice, but i fear that this was done a) to set up the sequel, and b) to force fanboys to watch it over and over to come up with theories of their own. still, it’s rare to see a summer blockbuster that is willing to leave so much ambiguous and open to interpretation, even if it seems that this may be a byproduct of a shoddy script.

Girls

Is anyone watching this? I felt duty-bound to watch it since Lena Dunham went to Oberlin, and there still exists video footage of some of her performance art around campus. I found Tiny Furniture to be too precious and privileged for my taste, but I’m very impressed with Girls. I don’t pretend to really understand the current generation of college students (and recent graduates) but something rings true about Dunham’s portrayal of them. The combination of hyper-awareness, deep insecurity, simultaneous comfort and disgust at their own bodies, ability to critique consumer culture while being embedded in it, all seem to capture something real, and quite distinct to this generation. The show is constantly compared to Sex and the City, though it has a far harder edge, shorn of the romanticism of the earlier show. The awkwardness of sex is also front and center in Girls, something very different from Sex and the City. It is too early, three episodes in, for the other friends to have really developed beyond caricatures, but Dunham’s Hannah is a remarkable, and remarkably fully formed, character.