Valentine’s Marathon: The Last Song (2012)

The Last Song maybe hold the personal record of a DVD I’ve owned and haven’t seen for the longest amount of time.  Part of the reason I pushed forward for this marathon is so that I make myself watch it.  When this movie first was released, I went out and got the novel to read.  The novel didn’t disappoint at all and I actually enjoyed it but unlike Dear John where I could picture their lead roles as the couple, I could not picture Miley Cyrus in the lead role here…I just couldn’t.  Let me just say, my expectations are EXTREMELY low.  So, really, this movie cannot suck more than it does in my mind already.  I’m trying to stay objective as I push play…Maybe there will be a surprise waiting for me 🙂

Director: Julie Anne Robinson

Cast: Miley Cyrus, Liam Hemsworth, Greg Kinnear, Bobby Coleman, Kelly Preston, Hallock Beals

Ronnie (Miley Cyrus) and her brother Danny (Bobby Coleman) are sent to spend the summer with their dad (Greg Kinnear) in his beach house.  While Danny looked forward to the quality time with his dad, Ronnie had trouble with her parents separation and dreaded having to face it.  After a little spilled milkshake incident on the beach, she meets Will, a beach volleyball player/mechanic worker/volunteer at the local aquarium. As they bond over protecting the sea turtle eggs by the beach house, they begin to see they both can open each other’s hearts and this allows Ronnie to see the music and passion for piano that she’s hidden in her for so long.  With the growing passion, her connection with her dad also starts to build again.

At the point in time, I’ve learned that if you are to sit through a Nicholas Sparks books, you have to be ready for the cheesy lines.  I’m actually okay with that because I’m a pretty cheesy person to start with.  I am a cheesy romantic, I’ve admitted that.  Thats probably why I can find enjoyment, even in the slightest for each of these movies so far.  I liked the book so obviously, the story here wasn’t going to be my problem.  And it wasn’t.  With the last year or so getting into knowing about movies and exploring that world so much more, I’ve grown to know a lot more actors and their works.  One of those is definitely Greg Kinnear.  I haven’t seen him play big roles but in the previous stuff I’ve seen him in, he is always entertaining to watch and in this one, I actually found that he was possibly the best one of the whole crew.  The rest of the cast is due to young green actors.

With that said, first up, lets take a look at Liam Hemsworth.  I have to say that the Hemsworth brother has been blessed with some very fantastic genes because although I do believe Chris  Hemsworth is just awesome manly, Liam Hemsworth does have a boyish charm.  Of course, I’m talking about this role and not say, his more manly charms in The Hunger Games.  Still, as one of the earlier roles that he did, I liked it a lot.  He definitely added to my enjoyment of The Last Song.

But we all know that as much as he was the love interest, the back story here is something of a soul searching experience for our dear Miley Cyrus’s character, Ronnie.  Let me confess that I have not seen any Miley Cyrus.  I never got on board with the Hannah Montana thing.  I even had to search to make sure it was actually that that she was playing.  Either way, I don’t really think Miley Cyrus was ever meant to act because she really didn’t do it for me.  Which comes to the point that her acting almost brings down the whole movie.  Plus, she wasn’t really how I pictured Ronnie as I was reading it.  Thats the problem with doing book adaptations, right?

As much as I didn’t like Miley Cyrus, the movie has some really nice back music.  The actual “last song” was pretty awesome that I’m planning on finding the sheet music for it.  I included the song up there in case you wanted to hear it.  I play the piano so I’m a sucker for piano music in movies.  Also, as always I enjoyed the side story with Ronnie’s dad in the picture with family and loss.  The story is a basic troubled teenager soul searching experience and finding the courage to follow your passions and doing what your heart wants and doing things for yourself.  It has a nice message 🙂

I hate to be sounding like I’m hating on the movies every single time (in regards to Nicholas Sparks adaptations) but seriously since I had really low expectations, this one turned out a lot better than I had expected.  Greg Kinnear, the little brother (played by Bobby Coleman) and Liam Hemsworth all do a great job to keep this alive and because of the novel, they do have some nice dialogue and quotes here and there but if you do intend to watch this, just remember that I warned you about Miley Cyrus.  I could picture so many other girls that could’ve excelled in that role instead of her but well, whats done is done…

Have you seen The Last Song? Any thoughts? What do you think of Greg Kinnear/Liam Hemsworth?

And today is the double review day 😉 The next Nicholas Sparks adaptation coming up in the afternoon…be sure to come back to check it out!

The Hunger Games (2012)

Surprisingly, being the bookworm I am, I didn’t get to see The Hunger Games in theatres.  My boyfriend did however and thats why its taken us so long to actually watch it after I bought it in November, since he got addicted to the novels and wanted to finish it before we watched it.  The Hunger Games is possibly one of the most interesting reading experiences I’ve had.  It was very addictive, especially since it was in first person narration.  I’ll have to re-read those books though.   Sitting through this movie, I started getting glimpse of the novel but was missing details here and there.

Director: Gary Ross

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Stanley Tucci, Wes Bentley, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Donald Sutherland, Isabelle Fuhrman

In the now ruined North America, Panem is now what the nation is called, because of its past revolution, it is now separated into 12 Districts, each with their own specialty to contribute to the Capitol.  Every year, children are chosen randomly: a boy and a girl to join the Hunger Games from each of the districts, resulting into 24 tributes.  They are put into a designated area where they need to battle each other until there is one tribute remaining.  That tribute will win the games and be rewarded a lot of wealth and comfort for their future.  Some children will have their names in more times than others because in the poorer districts, like the one in District 12, where The Hunger Games start, children use this to trade in for more ration to help feed their families.  District 12, we see the morning of the tribute selection, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Gale (Liam Hemsworth) meet to hunt outside of their boundaries (which is illegal) just before they need to prepare for the selections.

This year, Katniss sister, Primrose is also in the run to be selected.  At the selection, Primrose “luckily” gets selected and to protect her sister, Katniss volunteers to take her sister’s place.  Going with her is another boy who had saved her before, Peeta Mellark  (Josh Hutcherson).  As they get whisked away onto the train heading to the Capitol where the games are held, they meet their mentor, previous winner of District 12 and a man who drinks away his sorrows, Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) and their guardian of sorts, Effie (Elizabeth Banks).  In the Capitol, they need to be prepared to show off and prepare for the games.  In the parade, they end up meeting Cinna (Lenny Kravitz), who is their costume stylist and also from afar, President Snow (Donald Sutherland) who starts off the games.  After a while for preparation with all the other tributes on skills and impressing their possible sponsors, we are lead to where the games begin and as they say, “may the odds be ever in your favor”.

Hunger Games is possibly one of the most gripping movies I’ve seen in a very long time.  Because the Bluray I had seemed to be so quiet and the conversations were so quiet, I ended up moving closer to the TV in order to focus into the movie and not miss out.  That usually is a sign that its something that peaked my interest.  I can’t remember the last time that I did this.  The action, the quiet, the buildup was all very similar because I already had read the novel beforehand.  The fact that it could still capture my full attention and make me feel the tension that the story is definitely a sign that it was made extremely well.  I would have to say that it is one of the better novel adaptations that I’ve watched.

One of the major contributions to the success of this movie has to go to its cast.  I have never seen Jennifer Lawrence before this flick. However, her interpretation of Katniss Everdeen was as perfect as it could be.  She portrayed the emotions right on and it made it even more real.  Her chemistry with her fellow co-actors whether it be Josh Hutcherson when expressing mixed emotions towards her companion and opponent in the games or Woody Harrelson as her mentor.  Her emotions carried us through the movie perfectly.  The outstanding cast can’t be forgotten in this as well.  The rest of the cast really pushed it up to a higher level as the cast itself with Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci, and Donald Sutherland just to name a few, are veterans in the business.  Even the younger actors, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth (the little part he was in) did their roles very good.  Aside from that, the supporting role that impressed me the most was Lenny Kravitz who played Cinna.  He gave me the exact impression of the personality of the character that I read.

The actors may be important but the director did a great job at shooting this film.  He managed to capture the environment and tension very well and matched it with the emotions that were all over the place.  The drama and the violence that came from the games itself and the whole process was shown perfectly.  What really helped was the interpretation of the Capitol itself because with the book, it was first person narration and now, they help us by seeing not only through the eyes of Katniss but elaborating what was originally in the novels.

For me to judge this movie as a standalone work is hard, I’ve already read the book and was really drawn into it.  I think this movie is a great adaptation and I look forward to the next movie, Catching Fire coming out this year.

Have you read the Hunger Games novels? Did you think it was a good adaptation or not?

The Expendables 2 (2012)

Last night I finally got around to going to see The Expendables 2 with my boyfriend (of course!).  He’s a big fan of all the old school action stars, so it was really a lot of excitement on his end.  I’d be lying if I wasn’t a bit worried (as usual) for a sequel.  A lot of the actors added onto this one that I haven’t had much exposure to so my boyfriend was telling me a short description of who they were during the movies.  You know, general description like martial artist or wrestling, etc.  Honestly, thats what you need to expect what awesome moves they’ll pull and surprise you.  Enough with the rambling…here we go!

Lets say I wanted and expected to get exactly what was in the first.  If they managed to be at par, I was going to be extremely happy because I had a happy thrill ride in the first one.  I LOVE testosterone movies.  I’m serious…explosions, gun fights, fist fights, martial arts, etc.  I didn’t expect this movie to have a crazy plot either, nothing too deep.  I just expected it to have the minimum to get the action going.

What did I get? MAXIMUM SATISFACTION!! My eyes were glued to the screen.  Right from the beginning to the final showdown, I was hooked.  It was so fun!

It had a really nice mix of humor also.  I felt it was mostly because the old cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews and Randy Couture had a really good chemistry, especially Stallone and Statham and their random bickering was just absolutely hilarious.  You have Lundgren with his random comments and then Crews’ remarks.  On top of that, they added Liam Hemsworth which had a little side story to supplement.  I have to say that I really enjoyed his appearance.  I haven’t seen any of his other movies yet since I didn’t catch Hunger Games in theatres and then I haven’t wanted to sit down and watch Last Song yet either.  This will definitely motivate me to do it though.  We also got an Chinese action actress, Nan Yu who started off not doing too much but built into a character that pulled off some pretty cool moves.  Of course, the extended appearance of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis is always a plus (despite its constant referral to its past movies, first 2 times was alright, eventually was starting to roll my eyes).  They played an interesting part in how this movie flowed.  Then we have the new roles played by Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and even Scott Adkins.  These roles pulled my boyfriend mostly because he grew up with them and that was the fun part I think.  Scott Adkins had left his mark for my boyfriend in Undisputed 2; Jean-Claude Van Damme was for the reknowned martial arts and well, Chuck Norris…is Chuck Norris.  The cast itself boost this movie’s raw action up so many levels.

Seeing as the cast itself are a lot of awesome action stars, we are expected to have just an amazing experience.  Let me tell you, it didn’t disappoint me at least.  I thought it was amazing.  It started off with lots of explosions, guns, big cars, ramming through obstacles.  There’s a lot of sticking up for each other going on as well. We get surprise covers everywhere.  From the beginning, with Hemsworth’s character in the sniper role and making his appearance as the addition to the Expendables crew.  Chuck Norris also comes to the rescue for a little snapshot in the middle with lots of shooting.  Honestly, there really wasn’t much drama going on in terms of the plot.  Its start forward: The team starts with a mission to introduce the cast, then falls into a mission that they are assigned with by Bruce Willis’s character as making up a situation to retrieve something from a destroyed plane.  They go in and things end up going bad when another team, the villain played by Jean-Claude Van Damme (called Vilain) and his right hand man, (played by Scott Adkins) comes in.  The plan afterwards in response to Statham’s question, “What now?” Stallone responds, “Track him, find him, kill him”.  At that point, you know that the intensity level is going to shoot up.  If nothing else caught you, the final showdown was seriously awesome!  I mean everyone shows their crazy fighting, shooting, tackling, martial arts abilities.

All in all, I really enjoyed The Expendables 2.  I would even say that I liked it even more than the first one, which is actually quite rare (in my movie view experience at least).  The cast was great and had a huge amount of intense action. It was all I expected and I think, it exceeded my expectations so thats even better.

How about you? Did you see this movie yet? If yes, what did you think? If not, will you eventually see it when it releases on DVD/Blu-ray?