Movies | Amy C. Shaw

Dreamcast: Seraphina

July 9, 2014 • 10 Comments

Recently I decided to try my hand at dreamcasting a YA book as a possible new feature here on the blog, starting with The Scorpio Races. Due to my love for Seraphina, I decided I wanted to try my hand at dreamcasting it. There are a lot of characters in Seraphina and I feel I barely scratched the surface with my choices, but it’s hard to come up with so many people (and the right people)! But here’s what I did come up with…

Kaya Scodelario as Seraphina – Josh Hutcherson as Kiggs – AnnaSophia Robb as Princess Glisselda

I don’t feel the need to elaborate on any of these choices. I don’t care if Josh is Peeta; he can totally be Kiggs too. Moving on.

Jeffrey Combs as Orma

I’m sorry if you haven’t seen enough Star Trek (specifically Deep Space Nine and Enterprise) to know the awesomeness that is Jeffrey Combs. Here you see normal Jeffrey Combs to the left, and kinda creepy Jeffrey Combs to the right. I’ve just got to say this guy has got the range, the wit, the everything needed to play the often deadpan and ornery Orma. Other, more well-known possibilities I considered for Orma were Gary Oldham and Paul Bettany, both who would be great. But really, I love Jeffrey Combs.

Helena Bonham Cater as Lady Corongi

Crazy lady who (highlight for spoilers) is actually an old man dragon in disguise? Helena’s your woman!

Sam Claflin as Earl of Aspig

Needs to be creepy to some and charismatic to others? Totally perfect for Finnick!

Michael Caine as Viridius

Michael Caine has played Scrooge and Alfred and many personalities in between, so I think he would be fabulous as the well-meaning but often cantankerous Viridius.

There’s so many other characters but I just didn’t know how to cast them! Let me know if you have suggestions! How do you feel about the choices I made?

Mini Reviews: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and How to Train Your Dragon 2

June 23, 2014 • 14 Comments

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

I don’t really watch quirky, indie movies, and while The Secret Life of Walter Mitty isn’t indie, it is certainly quirky. The message of living your life is extremely heavy-handed in the film, and yet, it’s OK. I can’t explain why it is… I suppose because of the style of the movie. Words of wisdom are written out on the street and on buildings as Walter talks to a guy on the phone about his online dating account, which he only has so he can “wink” at a girl that works with him that he is too shy to confront in real life. And the humor (minus a really weird scene where Walter imagines growing old but backwards a la Benjamin Button) is spot-on and really makes most every character interaction and moment just charming and endearing. This isn’t your typical movie, but it’s a character study and it speaks of the human condition, and to me those are two very important elements of storytelling. And the music was spot-on too. Even though the music featured in the film is not the typical fare on my iPod, it fit so perfectly with the movie and I instantly wanted the soundtrack. If you’re looking for something a little different and a little inspirational, Walter Mitty is definitely worth checking out.

How To Train Your Dragon 2

This is a hard review to write (even in miniature form), especially without spoiling things. Here’s the thing: when you hear they’re releasing a sequel to a beloved standalone movie, it’s easy to be nervous. But for some reason, I didn’t feel that with How to Train Your Dragon 2 at all. The first one blew me away so much I figured this would be have to be incredibly awesome just like it. Well, in many ways it was. But here’s the problem… it’s the sequel to something that was meant to be a standalone. It took something fairly light and made it a bit darker. It changed the characters’ lives in a more dramatic way than I was bargaining for. But it really is still very, very good. But it did make me sad and I did cry. And that was something I was not expecting at all. I understand why the story happened the way it did academically, but I still wish they had done it a little differently. But overall, still really good. I loved seeing how Hiccup, Astird, and the others had grown.

Have you seen either of these movies? What are your thoughts on them?

Dreamcast: The Scorpio Races

June 19, 2014 • 12 Comments

As far as I know, The Scorpio Races has not been optioned for film, but I thought it might be fun to make dreamcast anyway. (This may or may not be a new feature… it depends how often I am inspired to try it!) I thought this one would be relatively easy since it has a somewhat small cast of characters. I don’t have actors/actresses for every character, but included most of the main characters I believe.

Hailee Steinfield as Kate “Puck” Connolly – Logan Lerman as Sean Kendrick

So yeah, I totally picked them as my Jo and Laurie for my Little Women dreamcast. I clearly like these two, and apparently I want to see them together on the big screen. I don’t think Hailee really looks the way I pictured Kate, but I think she would do a great job portraying her.

Daniel Huttlestone as Finn Connolly – Freddie Highmore as Gabe Connolly

I pretty much picked Daniel because I was looking for someone younger than Hailee that I have heard of, but he did a pretty job in Les Miserables! I haven’t seen much of Freddie Highmore since he’s grown up from his August Rush-Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-Finding Neverland days, but he’s still acting and I think he could play Gabe well.

Who Knows? So Many Possibilities for George Holly!

I love George Holly. And I really like all these actors (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zachary Levi, and John Krasinski) and can see each of them nailing this enthusiastic American trying to figure out Thisby Island and Sean Kendrick. Whose your pick out of these guys?

Lily Tomlin as Dory Maude

Lily Tomlin can do eccentric, and that’s what we need for Dory Maud.

Who would your choices be for the cast of The Scorpio Races if it became a movie? (Please feel free to cast characters I didn’t mention!)

Mini Reviews: X-Men Days of Future Past & The Monuments Men

June 9, 2014 • 10 Comments

X-Men: Days of Future Past

I’ve discussed my feelings on X-Men in general before, but in case you don’t know, I don’t really love the franchise, but I keep up with it anyway. I thought 1 & 2 were pretty meh. I actually liked 3 OK, but everyone else hated it. X-Men Origins: Wolverine was OK. I did really enjoy X Men: First Class. The Wolverine was fine. X-Men: Days of Future Past was thankfully more in the First Class vein, and I enjoyed it.

First off, if you’re going to see this movie (and you haven’t already), you might want to brush up on your X-Men movies because I was confused a few times and had to ask my husband a few questions after the fact. Also, I somehow missed the memo that the first part of the movie was in the future, so that part confused me too. So just know, it’s in the future! Well, until it’s in the past. But that part is pretty obvious. 🙂

This movie is heavy on Hugh Jackman and Jennifer Lawrence as Wolverine and Mystique, which I wasn’t expecting, and of course on Charles Xavier and Eric/Magneto, mostly on the portrayals done by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. The whole cast is great, but if you’re looking for a lot of people from First Class, you’re not going to find many outside of those already mentioned. Most of this movie also takes place in the 70’s, and I thought the way they filmed much of the 70’s storyline was great with a grainy film look.

My two biggest reservations about this movie though are that the cast is so large that you don’t get as much of any one character as you’d really like (unless you’re a big Wolverine or Mystique fan), and that the story felt a bit convoluted to me. The idea of changing this one thing to change everything else and then not expect that it couldn’t go wrong another way seemed really naive, and then of course when that did happen, how they managed things didn’t feel like it would have actually worked well enough. And what happened to Magneto after the 70’s story? I’m dying to know!

You’ve probably heard a lot about the addition of Quicksilver in the movie, and that scene in the kitchen was a lot of fun, definitely a high point in the movie. His time was so brief though that it almost felt pointless. But not pointless enough for me to mind him being there, since it was entertaining.

This is a hard movie to only “mini-review,” yet at the same time I don’t want to go on and on about it. If you enjoyed First Class, then see this movie.

Also check out:

Funk House of Geekery’s The 10 Best and the 10 Worst of X-Men: Days of Future Past

Natalie’s (Natflix and Books) review

The Monuments Men

So imagine if Danny Ocean (Ocean’s 11) was into art and had a purer heart and lived during WWII, and you would kind of have an idea of the premise of The Monuments Men. This was an interesting sort of movie. It’s written and directed by George Clooney, and while it was beautifully filmed, it’s clear he doesn’t have much screenwriting experience (though I did look up his writing experience and he did also write the screenplay for Good Night and Good Luck, which was a snore of a movie for me when I really thought I’d like it). The first part of the movie has a very strange pace and it felt very disjointed. We’re “introduced” to the different Monuments Men, though not in a very coherent fashion, so it took me a while to remember who all these people were.

But once you realize who everyone really is and get into the story, it’s interesting. There was a really poignant scene where Bill Murray’s character gets a recorded message from home that really stood out for me in the movie. There are other little vignettes, just glimpses into these these men’s missions, that build up to the climax of them finding particular art that they have been seeking for much of the film after the death of one of their own.

The Cate Blanchett character was a disappointment for me since she’s a great actress and her character was so distant and not very interesting. She’s so cold for most of the movie, and then warms up to Matt Damon’s character after she realizes he and the other Monuments Men want to genuinely protect art, so much so that she’s coming onto him (even though she knows very well that he’s married), and it felt weird and unnatural. Thankfully Matt Damon’s character, James, didn’t give in, but it just felt a little odd. If all that really happened in real life, I’m sure it unfolded in a more natural way than the way the movie presented it.

To me, this movie felt like it was just scratching the surface of something larger, just trying to give me a glimpse into a much grander story. During the credits I Googled to see if there was a book and then proceeded to add it to Goodreads, because I wanted to know the whole story instead of just these little parts. This movie wasn’t enough, and some of the script was weak, but it gave me a craving for more and had some interesting elements to it.

If you’ve seen either of these movies, let me know what you thought of them!

Review: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

April 6, 2014 • 10 Comments

Since I saw the first Captain America movie, I knew Captain America was going to be my favorite of the Avengers. I mean, he’s such a gentleman! And he hails from the 1940’s, one of my favorite time periods in history! And Peggy Carter! Oh, I adored her too! But then, spoiler if you haven’t seen the first movie, when Steve crashes and he ends up asleep in ice for decades, of course this separates him and Peggy. SO sad! We saw him adjust to his new life in The Avengers, but we see more in The Winter Soldier.

First, my shorter, non-spoliery thoughts on the movie. I will always love the period feel of the first Captain America movie, but I do believe this was a better film. There is some great character development, the stakes are high, and there was a lot added to the overarching storyline of SHIELD. Steve has a bit of an identity crisis, but he works through and continues to act on what he knows is right, and there was never a heavy-handed *STEVE HAS FOUND HIMSELF* moment, but I think he did find his place in the end. This is a great movie for secondary characters as well with Nick Fury, Natasha/Black Widow, and Sam Wilson/The Falcon (a new character) all getting good screen time and moments in the film. If you’re a fan of the Marvel universe, I think you’ll really enjoy this latest installment.

Now for the longer review, complete with spoilers…

So first off, the TV show Agents of SHIELD has clearly been setting up for what happened in this movie, and if you haven’t been watching it, I can only imagine that Fury showing Steve the message “SHIELD has been compromised” had to take you for an absolute loop. But on the show, we’ve been catching wind of something amiss. Now the exacts of it were definitely still surprising, to find out that SHIELD has been infiltrated by Hydra for decades reminded me of the movie Salt and was really surprising to me. Also, Agents of SHIELD has featured Agent Sitwell from time to time, so to find out in this movie that he’s with Hydra was a big deal, whereas it wouldn’t have been had I not been watching the show. So for the folks who gave up on the show or never gave it a chance, it’s gotten better, and now it’s clearly tying in with the movies. WATCH IT!

I liked that Nick Fury and Black Widow had larger roles in this movie. I was curious to see how Steve and Natasha would work as a team since they’re so different, but they worked well together. I loved how Steve actually took Fury’s advice to trust no one and was skeptical of Natasha until she proved herself. And I love that they team up with Sam Wilson, a military veteran who Steve meets turns out to be quite skilled in his own way.

I think most Marvel fans knew going into the movie that The Winter Soldier is, in fact, Steve’s old friend Bucky Barnes, who was experimented on (Steve rescues him from an operating table in the first movie, in case you have forgotten), and somehow was able to survive his nasty fall and then be turned into this villain of The Winter Soldier. I did hear one moviegoer in the theater with me audibly gasp once we finally get a good luck at Bucky’s face, and I could tell Steve certainly felt a gut punch in that moment as he realized it too. He tries to reason with his old friend, though it’s clear he does know who Steve is, but then at the very end, when he’s trying to figure it out… wow. I wonder if that’ll come back up. Marvel doesn’t seem to have arbitrary scenes in their movies though, so I’m thinking it must be important. That’ll be interesting.

Now, let’s talk about Peggy Carter. SHE’S IN THE MOVIE! (Hopefully you already knew that, if you’re down here reading the spoilery stuff.) We find out that she did marry a few years after Steve “died,” which is understandable, and we also find out that Steve has reconnected with her, and she is now of course elderly and living in some sort of assisted living or nursing home. At first it was really sweet as we watched the two of them talk like old friends, and I was so happy for some kind of closure with her and Steve, but then suddenly she got confused and was like, “Steve! You’re alive!” and oh my heart broke. Dementia. Uh it was so sad! Hasn’t poor Steve suffered enough?! And then we never got to see the two of them together again after that scene. It doesn’t detract too much from the movie, really, I just wish we could have ended on a better note with the two of them. But kudos to whoever did the makeup job on Haley Atwell because WOW, it looked so real.

Also speaking of Peggy, it’s clear Steve still cares for her, but he knows he needs to be open to meeting 21st century girls. But when Natasha asks Steve if she’s his first kiss since 1945 and he says no, I’m like, seriously?! He’s spent the whole movie acting like he has not been socializing with ladies and then suddenly he’s been kissing them? I don’t buy it. I’m just pretending that line doesn’t exist, or that he was being so sarcastic I couldn’t tell, because it didn’t feel in character. Maybe I care too much about my belief that Steve was a true, chivalrous romantic, but yeah, that line about the kissing is definitely not in my personal head canon.

Needless to say, I really enjoyed a lot about this movie and thought it was very solid. And I’m really curious to see the next Agents of SHIELD episode (which I am about 99% positive is going to be aftermath of this movie) on Tuesday, as well as see what’s in store for this ever-changing universe.

What are your thoughts on Captain America: The Winter Soldier?

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