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Reality Bites starring Ethan Hawke, Winona Ryder and Ben Stiller

Posted on October 26, 2009 Written by ripitup

RealityBites-GerceklerAcitir — Reality Bites starring Ben Stiller, Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke

Favorite Line (not just from this movie, but one of my favorite movie lines ever):

Lelaina (Winona Ryder): I was really going to be somebody by the time I was 23.
Troy (Ethan Hawke): Honey, all you have to be by the time you’re 23 is yourself.

Reality Bites is a sincere and funny movie about what really awaits us after college. No matter how well we do at the university or how enthusiastic we are about starting out our lives, things almost never quite turn out the way we expect them to be. The movie is from 1994, written by Helen Childress and Ben Stiller.

Lelaina (Winona Ryder) is the class valedictorian. She hangs out with her best friends from college:Vickie (Janeane Garofalo), Sammy (Steve Zahn) and Troy (Ethan Hawke). Each has their own unique set of problems. Sammy has to deal with his sexuality, Vickie has AIDS concerns, Troy is the one with the tortured artist soul- which does make him popular with the ladies but his lack of a job and his negative attitude towards finding one pisses his friends off. After all, good looks and guitar don’t help pay the bills. As for Lelaina, the only job she could find has got nothing to do whatsoever with her ideals and dreams. Things are also complicated in the love department. She and Troy are very close and obviously attracted to each other. But they haven’t done anything about it. However Troy is not pleased when she starts dating Michael (Ben Stiller) – who is the exact opposite of Troy: He has a regular job as a TV executive, he wears suits to work and has a regular paycheck. He is also ready to have straightforward, uncomplicated relationship with her.

Reality Bites has been labeled with more adjectives than I can possibly count. Some of the negatives include outdated and pretentious. I don’t think so. I am amongst the group that finds the movie true to heart. If you are considered some sort of rebel and can’t help thinking outside the box, and have lived a part of your teens/pre-teens in the 90s, this movie hits home. It’s just the icing on top that the movie comes with a good soundtrack.

Not that things have changed so much since the 90s. We are still on the lookout for AIDS and other STDs. We still have hard time after college. Most of us still have a hard trying to convince our parents that we won’t be happy unless we follow our own desired lifestyle.

It’s not hard to identify with the artsy,brooding and broke Troy. Why should we have to work at jobs where we know we will be fired immediately because our hearts weren’t in it in the first place? Or how many times have been in Lelaina’s shoes, where we had to work at some shitty job, for an arrogant, intolerable boss- just because it was remotely related to our dreams or we simply needed the paycheck to pay for our bills and support our dreams? We go through heartbreaks and disappointments, crushes on friends and a million other complicated situations. At the end of the day, all we want is to have our financial independence and live by ourselves and hang out with our friends.

Maybe you are past the whole post-graduation depression where reality truly bites. Well, reality bites most of the time, but some people have given up on their dreams and therefore have no empathy. If you have, you may not enjoy the movie as the rest of us. But if you do remember what it was like and/or if you are still struggling to make sense of things, this is your movie. Trust me.

You can watch some scenes here.

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reality_bites3 — From left:Ethan Hawke, Winona Ryder, Steve Zahn and Janeane Garofalo

Other Ethan Hawke Movies and Posts

– Lord of War starring Nicolas Cage, Ethan Hawke and Jared Leto

Ethan Hawke trivia

– Brooklyn’s Finest starring Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke and Don Cheadle

– Cheating Celebrity Trivia: 8 Male Celebrities That Cheated (feat. Ethan Hawke, Jude Law, Kevin Costner and more)

– Before Sunrise

– Before Sunset

– 10 Celebrity Break-ups You May Not Have Seen Coming

– 10 Most Entertaining Sci-fi Movies: Favorite Sci-fi Movies of a Non-fan

– Reality Bites starring Ethan Hawke, Winona Ryder and Ben Stiller

– Alias

– Actors and Literature: Ethan Hawke, Hugh Laurie and Viggo Mortensen

The Life Before Her Eyes starring Uma Thurman and Evan Rachel Wood

Posted on October 25, 2009 Written by ripitup

SPOILERS !! SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!!!

You should either have watched the movie, or you really shouldn’t mind spoilers. Because I’m going to dig deep with this one.

2ni71qc — The Life Before Her Eyes with Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood and Brett Cullen

the_life_before_her_eyes06666 — Brett Cullen plays Diana’s husband

When you really like a movie, you don’t really have to go out of your ways to find reasons to explain why you liked it. And when you really didn’t enjoy it, even little things bug you. For me, I really don’t know where I stand with this movie. During the first half, I found myself lost in the story. I was mesmerized.

Uma Thurman has become one of my favorite actresses to watch. She has grown up from the young innocent looking girl to this incredibly beautiful and talented woman. She was good to watch in her earlier roles in movies like Dangerous Liaisons, Gattaca, Tape and later on in Prime. She is versatile; like any good actress should be.

I was curious about Evan Rachel Wood. She became so popular lately and I hadn’t seen really seen her in anything before and this was a chance to see if she was a promising actress. She is.

The movie gave me a good surprise too. I didn’t know Brett Cullen was in it until the opening credits rolled and I have always loved seeing him. Seriously. No matter how big or small his role is, you bring Cullen on any time. Yes, I admit I have had a bit of a crush on him ever since I first saw him in Something to Talk About. He is handsome on a very classy level and has this aura that suggests you can trust him; which makes him good for the nice guy parts and even better for the not so nice parts, since you wouldn’t really see it coming.

So three good actors, a wonderfully sad& tragic event told in flashbacks. So far so good. Let me go over the story.

Diana is in her 30s, living in suburbia with her loving husband and beautiful little daughter. They have a beautiful home and a great family. But it is a tough time for Diana. 15 years ago, her school witnessed one of the worst tragedies ever. One of her classmates brings a gun to school and shoots almost everyone. Diana and her best friend Maureen are in the girls’ room when the boy finds them. He says that he is going to shoot only one of them so they have to choose. It is horrible. It is terrifying. Both girls are scared shitless, and in shock. But Maureen suggests that if he is going to shoot one, he should shoot Maureen.

Diana (Uma Thurman) has led a good life. A life that seems like Maureen would have wanted for herself, had she lived. You see, Maureen has been the good little Christian. She was a loving friend, a dutiful daughter, a church-going virgin who really wanted to get married and have kids. She was the one with romantic fantasies. Diana (young Diana is played by Evan Rachel Wood) on the other hand was a rebel. She smoked pot, wasn’t exactly the best student and she slept with boy(s). She even had to get an abortion. Maureen was there for her as always. They were really different, but they had a strong bond and a true friendship.

So Diana still feels guilty, 15 years later. She has stayed in town, like Maureen would. She has got the husband and kid and the teaching job. Hell, her daughter even goes to a school run by the nuns.

As the movie progresses, she starts to lose control. She remembers more and more about her time with Maureen and her mind frequently revisits the day of the shooting. She also seems to have hallucinations. Things seem a certain way for a moment and then…they don’t.

So I’m thinking, it should be the post-traumatic stress coming back. I mean, it might have been 15 years but it was an awful tragedy. Her best friend was killed by a psychopath. Hell, almost all of the school was killed by him. Moreover, he told her about his plans the day before and she didn’t take him seriously. So, it is OK for her to be “losing it”. It is expected. Half the movie, I expected her to open her bathroom cabinet and reveal to us that she has been using anti-depressants. Otherwise, how could she stay in the same town and drive by the same school everyday, on her way to drop her daughter off? You should have to be heavily medicated or well, some sort of a masochist.

We go back to that bathroom scene a lot. Too many times, in fact. And then voila! We go back there one last time and we actually find out that it was Diana who was shot, not Maureen. Because Diana tells the guy to shoot her, repeatedly. So the guy does what Diana asks. He shoots Diana. So apparently it was Diana’s life before her eyes- just not as flashbacks as most people admit to experience as they feel they are going to go but vivid, coherent (most of the time) flashforwards. So basically picturing her future life, she decides she can not live with that guilt. She chooses to save her best friend instead. While it is a noble act, it also naturally creates a controversy between the viewers.

I know movies always divide people but this one was actually more than asking for it. Some hate the movie because they believe it is a pro-Christian/anti-abortion movie. I honestly hadn’t seen that one coming. They feel like that the fact the good Christian lives and the “slut” dies insults them. Some believe it is a poetic movie with just the right ending. Some don’t have problem with the ending, they just find the whole movie boring. But having visited some discussion boards, I really didn’t come across anyone who thought Diana had to have a mental problem. I was actually hoping to explain the ending like this: She felt so guilty after all those years and that in order to get a closure , she pictured and/or wished a different ending for what happened.Otherwise, I really have to agree with the others who think that the fact that she can have such a flashforward is absurd. I don’t mean you can’t think your future when you are at gunpoint. I have never been at gunpoint, so I have no insight to what you may or you may not think. But I can claim that it is downright bullshit that she could have imagined all that. Because she had what? 10 seconds? And she had time to develop an alternate life in the future with so many details? It is humanly impossible to generate that many thoughts in such a little time. In fact, I don’t remember even a sci-fi movie with a character who could generate that much thought, in that little time.

This movie actually had the opposite effect on me, compared to the effect of watching The Sixth Sense. I thought that movie was slow to watch. But the ending paid off. The ending made it all worthwhile. But here, the ending made me feel like I wish I hadn’t seen it.

I am not saying you should stay away from the movie, but I can’t whole-heartedly recommend it either. I expected the movie to blow me away. And it did. Then it also put me off. Told you, mixed feelings. Maybe it is because I cared more about having Diana alive rather than Maureen. It just feels like one of those movies where you go with the flow and really enjoy it. And then the main character wakes up. What do you know!!! She had a dream. And you are like What the ….???

Posts featuring Uma Thurman

10 Celebrity Couple Break-Ups You May Not Have Seen Coming

10 Most Entertaining Sci-fi Movies: Favorite Sci-fi Movies of a Non-fan

Looking Up: Tall Girls Dating

The Accidental Husband starring Uma Thurman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Colin Firth

Pulp Fiction

Posts featuring Evan Rachel Wood

Down in the Valley starring Edward Norton and Evan Rachel Wood

33 Actors From My Generation: Actors Born Between 1980-1990

Bizzare Celebrity Couplings featuring Marilyn Manson and Evan Rachel

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The Other Man starring Liam Neeson, Antonio Banderas and Laura Linney

Posted on October 23, 2009 Written by ripitup

The Other Man starring Liam Neeson, Antonio Banderas and Laura Linney

Can I have another movie? Another movie where Antonio Banderas teams up with Liam Neeson? Because this can’t be it. It shouldn’t be. Liam Neeson is a marvelous actor. I have tremendous respect for his work. No matter what the genre, he shines through his role. Take a look at Nell, Schindler’s List, Michael Collins, Love Actually, Kinsey…The list goes on. And last but not least I have seen him in Taken- a breath-taking action drama, where he proves to be an impressive action hero – at the age of 56, which is downright cool. And in the same year as Taken, I saw him in The Other Man, where he plays the husband, as opposed to the other man portrayed by Antonio Banderas. And Antonio Banderas is a good actor. Sure he has to play roles that greet his Hispanic roots (he has never mastered the American accent, as you might have noticed) and this of course blocks his diversity to some level but other than that, he is almost always fun to watch. And under normal circumstances, he would be perfect to play the lover. He has made a name for himself for being hot – and rightfully so. Remember Desperado? Femme Fatale? Original Sin? Never Talk to Strangers? Even if he played guys that fall for the lead females deceptive ways (apart from Desperado), he is perfect as the sexy man. Hell, the first two Spanish guys were blonde, boyish and not nearly half as masculine.

So normally, it is a good idea to cast Neeson as the devoted husband who gets crushed to find out his wife had an affair. And it would make perfect sense that a woman could fall for an exotic looking stranger. But then there is the movie plot where I didn’t get or sympathize with any of the characters.

The movie overall has a very dark, gloomy and tedious atmosphere. Instead of mystery and curiousity, boredom is much more likely to happen. I couldn’t understand for the life of me why Laura Linney’s Lisa would fall for Antonio’s Ralph. He doesn’t have anything going for him (not even looks- you should see the haircut and the white socks). He is an average guy who doesn’t even have an ounce of mystery around him (well- that’s what you think a woman cheating on a devoted,stable and predictable husband would go for). So Lisa cheats and we can’t see why. I can’t see what it is about Lisa that made those two men love her that much…

Did I not go into the plot? Well, when Peter (Neeson) finds out, he finds out who and where he is and sets out to…well to kill him. The cat and mouse thing gives the movie a little thrill, but then it is slow again and the twists we get do more harm than good.

If it hadn’t been a movie with Neeson and Banderas – and I really like Laura Linney’s work too (especially The Life of David Gale with Kevin Spacey) – I would have just said that it was a slow movie and not exactly my thing. But I know how much excitement the actors can bring to the right parts and how capable they are of picking good scripts. So the result is disappointment and well, hopes for a reunion – fingerscrossed, with a different director and a screenwriter.

Posts Featuring Antonio Banderas

OF LOVE AND SHADOWS (1994)

Favorite Revenge Movies

Thick as Thieves

Dispara

Actors, getting naked and their take on nudity

Someone Like You starring Hugh Jackman and Ashley Judd

Posted on October 23, 2009 Written by ripitup

B00006ZXSO_01_LZZZZZZZ — Someone Like You starring Hugh Jackman, Ashley Judd and Greg Kinnear

Jane Goodale (Judd) is happy. She’s got a good job as a talk show producer and she’s dating Ray (Greg Kinnear), also from behind the scenes. Their relationship is going just great and they both seem totally invested in it, and Ray really makes Eddie (Jackman) look bad. Eddie is also working behind the scenes and a true womanizer. But then Ray does something Jane doesn’t see coming: he dumps her, right after having made plans for moving in together. Jane is now single, bitter, extremely heart-broken; and to top it all, she is homeless. So now moving in with Eddie seems like her only option.

The disappointmet inspires Jane to write a theory that compares men to male animals and labels dumped women as old cows. So the theory suggests that the male would move on to a new cow after a while. It also seems more fun to pen this theory under the identity of a very old professor, the secret identity only known by her best friend Liz (Marisa Tomei).

Eddie is half- amused and half-pissed about Jane’s weird assumptions. And all though he is “using women as ATM machines” as Jane puts it, maybe Eddie and Jane could make a better match than Jane and Ray ever did…

Someone Like You: A Worthy RomCom

So what if you knew she would actually fall for all Jackman right after the movie starts? No, I’m not giving any spoilers. It is just so obvious. Kinnear’s character turns out to be a jerk, and he was too good to be true in the first place. And of course we are introduced to Eddie’s past, and learn he used to be in a serious relationship which ended with the girl tearing his heart out.

And seriously, who can consider Eddie (Hugh Jackman) just a friend/roommate anyway? It just doesn’t happen. So it is a sweet and kind of quirky (what other romantic comedy you watched had so much cow talk and images ?) and funny. Of course it has clichés but they are fun so who cares? 2 men. 1 girl. 1 guy treats the girl a lot better. There are bound to be similarites to stuff you have been before.

But it does its job. It’s romantic and it is funny. And it is not like either sex will have a hard time figuring out why they are attracted to each other. It’s Ashley Judd and Hugh Jackman we are talking about.But be warned, if you don’t like to see the ending coming, please stay away from Someone Like You. And the 99.99% of romantic comedies. I’m just saying.

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