Genre Grandeur – Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist (2008)

Check out my entry for MovieRob’s Monthly Genre Grandeur. April was all about Romantic Comedies. I had a hard time choosing one to write about but in the end, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist was my final choice.

A HUGE thanks to Rob for putting this together and being so awesome about my very last minute entry. Remember to check out the other great entries as well.

May will feature crime movies so if you haven’t followed him, you definitely should and catch up with the reviews. Or maybe, you have one you’d like to share 🙂

MovieRob

For our last guest entry in this month’s Genre Grandeur (before my finale), I present you with a review from Kim of Tranquil Dreams.  If you don’t already follow her site, I urge you to do so.  Her site is filled with great movie reviews, photo challenges, workout updates  and lots of interesting recipes.

without further ado, here’s her review…..

Romantic comedies are one of my favorite genres.  When Rob chose this for April, I stared at the screen and started wondering what to choose.  I think 30% of my collection (at least) is romantic comedies.  Plus, I’ve already reviewed most of my faves on my own blog so after some debate, I decided to not go mainstream and chose Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (2008)

Director: Peter Sollett

Cast: Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, Ari Graynor, Jay Baruchel, Aaron Yoo, Rafi Gavron

Nick is…

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Thor:The Dark World (2013)

I’ve been saying to go see a movie in theatres for so long and finally, the other day (last Friday), my friends and I went to go see Thor: The Dark World.  Honestly, I think I was super hyped up about it mostly because of Table 9 Mutant at Cinema Parrot Disco’s adoration of Chris Hemsworth.  I wasn’t a huge fan of the first one so as much as the trailer looked fantastic, I still had a few reservations. Lets see how I actually felt!

Director: Alan Taylor

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Eccleston, Jaimie Alexander, Idris Elba, Kat Dennings, Stellan Skarsgard

Thousands of years ago (I think), the Dark Elves lead by Malekith wanted to purge the world into darkness.  Asgard’s leader then, the current King’s (Anthony Hopkins) grandfather destroyed the evil and sent the powerful source of energy,Aether to a hidden location so that no one could find it.  however Malekith and a few of his army survived and escaped, ready to be awaken when the Aether summoned them again.  Back to the present, its been 2 years since Thor (Chris Hemsworth) had left Jane (Natalie Portman).  While Jane waits for him, Thor has been trying to bring peace to the nine realms.  However, Jane and her assistant Darcy follows an anomaly and Jane ends up entering another space and find the Aether that enters her body. To protect her, Thor brings her back to Asgard and this leads to some serious consequences.  Thor has to make decisions to save Asgard, protect Jane and choose whether to trust Loki as he asks for his assistance.

I don’t think I revealed too much. I feel like I’m just basically recapping the trailers released.  Thor: The Dark World is a pretty awesome treat, at least in comparison to the first one.  I love Chris Hemsworth and goodness, its HOT! but doesn’t help that I thought Thor was not all that great and I was yawning a lot.  This one was really good.  It felt a bit long for just a little while but did pick itself up rather quickly afterwards.  Visually, Asgard is beautiful.  The costumes were beautiful and everything was done so nice.  The story was pretty solid and the characters were all fantastic.

I know many of you will give me crap but I loved Avengers but what I felt fell short was Loki as the bad guy.  So unconvincing.  Most of you thought he was fantastic, I didn’t.  Now, Loki in this one, so convincing.  I loved him to absolute bits as the gray area dude.  Is he bad? Is he good? Has he changed? And c’mon, that ending ruled.  Most of you that saw it (and I know all of you did, since my inbox had about 50+ reviews of that movie on the first 2 weeks or something if not more), so you know what I mean.  And then that final sequence, I was like OMG! *ahem* I’m all over the place but point is, I loved Loki.  Now,  I’m excited to see him more!

I’m not afraid to admit my girl crushes but Natalie Portman is not one of them.  Maybe I need watch Black Swan since I haven’t yet, but as Jane, she’s a bit meh. However, I seriously love Kat Dennings.  Everything I’ve seen her in makes me laugh out loud.  She’s fun to watch.  I probably should start watching 2 Broke Girls (or whatever its called). Okay, aside from them, how awesome is Rene Russo as the queen? She is pretty awesome even though her screen time isn’t that much.

On the terms of our main baddie, Malekith, played by  Christopher Eccleston. I really don’t have a lot of attachment to this character.  He wasn’t bad, ok? I’m going to get that straight.  I was pretty impressed with The Dark World in general.  It was fun, had lots of action and nice stuff to see and all the cast did a pretty decent job.  Plus, there was more Anthony Hopkins than in the previous one and I like him.  Malekith was alright.  I actually can’t remember much of him in the movie.  Is that a bad thing?

Overall, Thor: The Dark World was enjoyable and entertaining.  It had great action and the story was nice, maybe just a tad long but it picked itself up well.  Also, other than loving the very awesome Chris Hemsworth as Thor, I also really bought Loki’s role this time around.  I think it possibly had one of my favorite endings this year.  This was a pretty fun one and I’d definitely recommend it! 🙂

Which Thor do you like more: the first or this one? How much do you like Loki? What did you think of Malekith?

The House Bunny (2008)

Right after the crazy horror movie Insidious that got me all freaked out, I went through my collection and picked out this comedy, The House Bunny.  The first time I saw this was actually the first time I saw Anna Faris plus I had heard about one of my friends saying they surprisingly enjoyed it.  At least it was a vague memory.  I remember my boyfriend and I closed it and thought that was some weird stuff. Still, I don’t know why I decided to check it out again…but I did!

Director: Fred Wolf

Cast: Anna Faris, Emma Stone, Colin Hanks, Kat Dennings, Hugh Hefner, Christopher MacDonald, Katharine McPhee, Rumer Willis

Orphaned as a child but then brought to the Playboy Mansion to live because of her beauty, Shelley (Anna Faris) had planned to have her happy life there forever with Hef (Hugh Hefner) and the other girls.  On her 27th birthday, she wished to be a centerfold but to her surprise, she wakes up after her big party to a letter asking her to leave because she was too old.  In a twist of fate, she ends up becoming the house mother of the desperate and close to ending sorority Zeta.  Shelley teaches the group of misfits composed of Natalie (Emma Stone), Mona (Kat Dennings), Harmony (Katharine McPhee), Joanne (Rumer Willis) and co. how to be sexy and attract more attention from guys in order to get 30 pledges and raise enough money for their philanthropy before they lose their home.

Shelley: “Car Wash!”

This one has a lot of potential to be really funny.  I still found it weird this time around but I found that its mostly some parts of Anna Faris’s humor I don’t get (sometimes).  After seeing her in Whats Your Number?, I know that she has a  different type of humor.  Its really her.  Plus, she always does quite daring roles where she has to expose her body a lot.  In this one, she does have to match up to being (or seem like) a blonde bimbo but actually have something more underneath .  Honestly, she really does a lot of it really well and even at times, she can get really silly  and it just grows on you (well, on me).   I started with rolling my eyes and facepalming to actually getting a lot of laughs from her jokes.

The transformed Zetas

The girls who play the Zetas are pretty funny as well.  I mean a lot of it has to go to Emma Stone because she is a sweetheart on screen.  However, it is one of her earlier roles so nothing compares to what she can pull off for say, Easy A.  I love her in all her earlier roles as well.  She does exactly what the nerdy girls would do.  I mean I’ve been there and done that…maybe not sorority stuff since thats not how my university work (not sure if any in Canada are like that…).  Before and after the transformation, they still kept a lot of the humor here and there. I ended up enjoying in the way that I’d like Mean Girls.

 

There had to be a little bit of romance for Anna Faris’s Shelley that turns out to be a riot in the end.  And then we switch over and have a younger romance bloom with Emma Stone’s Natalie and her long time crush Colby.  Although the latter wasn’t very focused on as much.

As always, there is always a hidden meaning with these flicks.  This one focuses a lot on acknowledging on who we are on the outside and not let the superficial take over.  Its alright to be physically attractive but to not forget to be nice and not stop others from being themselves.  I like the message even though it was set in a comedy.

It may not be the most creative plot in the world but it has its goofy characters and if you like Anna Faris, I’m sure she’ll be worth the watch.  Second time around, this was pretty enjoyable.  You might get a few laughs from this 🙂

Have I asked about Anna Faris before? If I have, maybe you have some new thoughts.  What do you think about her? Do you think she has a unique type of humor? How about Emma Stone? Whats your favorite role of hers?