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Larry Crowne starring Tom Hanks & Julia Roberts

Posted on July 12, 2011 Written by ripitup

Larry Crowne starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. Directed and co-written by Tom Hanks. Image via collider.com

Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks) is a middle-aged guy working at a sales job he really likes. But when he gets fired due to his lack of university education, he is quite upset. And when his attempts at landing a job fail, he decides to go to the community college, with some inspriation from his negotiation-loving neighbor (Cedric The Entertainer).

The dean at school encourages Larry to take Enonomics, a speech & communications class along with one other.So along with nutty teachers, moped gang member classmates, exams and struggle to survive financially, Larry takes us on a very sweet, but incredibly familiar and somewhat ordinary journey.

And of course no Hollywood journey would be complete without some romance at stake. So Larry falls for his communications teacher Mercedes (Julia Roberts), who is not exactly happy with her blogger husband who spends his days at porn sites rather than write things that would bring home money…

I believe sweet, ordinary and familiar are the perfect three words to describe this Tom Hanks film, where he directed and also co-wrote the screenplay. Larry Crowne flows like a day out with your good friends where you hang out at your favorite coffee shop or bar. It is not very eventful, there are no surprises and there’s no adrenalin rush. It is sweet, and Tom Hanks is his usual likable romantic comedy self. But that’s about it.

Rated 5.9 on IMDB.

Fun notes:

– That 70’s show’s Fez, Wilmer Valderrama, has a fun part as the jealous boyfriend of Larry’s newly found friend.

– Tom Hanks’ wife Rita Wilson has a small role as the bank official.

– Breaking Bad’s chemistry genius Bryan Cranston plays Julia Roberts’ loser husband.

– Cougar Town’s Andy Ian Gomez plays Larry’s friend.

– Larry Crowne was co-written by My Big Fat Greek Wedding’s writer and leading actress Nia Vardalos.

Also on Tom Hanks:

You’ve Got Mail starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks

Also on Julia Roberts:

Valentine’s Day starring Julia Roberts, Bradley Cooper, Ashton Kutcher, Jessica Alba & more

Duplicity starring Clive Owen and Julia Roberts

Julia Roberts Trivia: 15 Facts About Julia Roberts Movies and Her Private Life

Something to Talk About starring Dennis Quaid, Julia Roberts, Kyra Sedgwick and Robert Duvall

Tall Actresses: Julia Roberts, Bridget Moynahan, Natascha McElhone, Liv Tyler and Charlize Theron

Pretty Woman: Movie Review of the Unrealistic Yet Adorable Romantic Comedy

Hanna starring Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana & Cate Blanchett

Posted on July 7, 2011 Written by ripitup

Hanna starring Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana & Cate Blanchett. Image via thewolfmancometh.wordpress.com

Hanna – The Plot

14 year old Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) has been raised in the cold and wilderness of Finland by her father Erik (Eric Bana). She knows how to hunt, fight, use weapons and she can speak several languages. They have led this isolated life to raise and train Hanna, while Erick could stay out of CIA’s radar. When she is ready, she “lets” CIA find her. By the time the operatives arrive, Erik has already left. The plan is to kill Marissa Wagner (Cate Blanchett) – The CIA agent who wants Erik dead and Hanna captured.

And while Marissa was prepared for the kid to be good, her strength, agility & strength surprise her. Hanna ecapes from custody, and this unleashes the much darker side of Marissa- who enlists the help of the weird yet brutal Isaacs (Tom Hollander) to do her dirty work. It becomes the ultimate journey of survival for father and daughter, as they try to cross countries to meet in Germany. Things could have gone more accordingly to plan, however, if Erik had been able to anticipate Hanna’s social awkwardness, need for friendship and curiosity.

Is it worth seeing?

Hanna is a weird film. It is highly enjoyable, so as long as you can embrace the hybridness of the plot, the characters, the genre, cast and the director. Here’s what I mean with hybrid:

– Joe Wright is best known for his critically acclaimed period drama/romances such as Pride and Prejudice, and Atonement. If I were to choose a director for an action/sci-fi combo with dramatic and surreal elements, he wouldn’t be the first to come to my mind.

– The movie combines elements of fairy tales, genetics, the wild, the city, family, friendship, chase, fighting scenes, road trip – and spices it up with electronic music by The Chemical Brothers.

– Yes, there are implausibilities, but we did watch the movie with a certain sense of disbelief. After all, it is about a 14-year-old killing machine.

– There are holes in the story that are not necessarily plot holes. Many things – including motive and explanation for characters- have been left out of the script.

– And most of the characters are pretty irrational.

That being said, I have nothing against Hanna’s over user 7 rating on IMDB. It is strangely captivating, and the elements work despite the flaws. But brace yourselves: it is illogical, the characters are totally strange and our main characters cover a lot of miles either by foot, by swimming or by a caravan. But at the end of the day, it provides good entertainment with even better aesthetics.

Fun Notes:

– Tom Hollander has worked with Joe Wright in the movie, Pride and Prejudice. While his character was really annoying, he was definitely not a psychopath there.

– Tom Hollander and Cate Blanchett also worked together before. They co-starred in the movie Elizabeth: The Golden Age where Blanchett played Elizabeth.

Other Movies of the Cast

Eric Bana

The Time Traveler’s Wife starring Bana and Rachel McAdams

Funny People starring Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen & feat. Eric Bana

Cate Blanchett

Elizabeth: The Golden Age starring Cate Blanchett, Clive Owen, Geoffrey Rush and Abbie Cornish

Tom Hollander

Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightley, Matthew MacFadyen & Donald Sutherland

Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence: Fun romcom with Monica Potter, Rufus Sewell and Joseph Fiennes

A Good Year starring Russell Crowe, Marion Cottilard, Abbie Cornish & Tom Hollander

Just Go With It starring Adam Sandler & Jennifer Aniston

Posted on July 3, 2011 Written by ripitup

Just Go With It starring Jennifer Aniston, Adam Sandler, Nicole Kidman, Nick Swardson, Brooklyn Decker and Dave Matthews. Image via soundtrack-movie.com

Successful plastic surgeon Danny (Adam Sandler) has found the perfect way of picking up pretty women without having his heart broken: he tells them that he is married to an abusive woman. He wears a gold band to complete the touch, and he is more than happy with the results. But one day he meets his dream woman, Palmer (Brooklyn Decker).

This 20-something gorgeous math teacher is fun, nice and sexy. And she also falls for him. But when she dumps him because he “is married”, Danny goes to his assistant/best friend Katherine (Jennifer Aniston) for help. She tells him to tell Palmer that he is getting divorced. This wins Palmer over, but she insists on meeting this soon-to-be ex-wife. So Danny makes up an ex-wife, and enlists Katherine’s help to pretend to be her. Katherine plays the part of the annoying yet stunning wife perfectly…until her kids call.

Now Palmer thinks that there are children involved and she wants to meet them too. Single mother Katherine has no choice but lend her children to Denny. Just when Danny thinks he has succeeded, Katherine’s little boy blackmails him into taking all of them to Hawaii for vacation. Things get even more ridiculous when Danny’s obnoxious cousin (Nick Swardson) shows up, pretending to be Katherine’s German lover.

So can Danny handle two very smart kids, his girlfriend, his cousin and well his emerging feelings for Katherine? Oh, add Katherine’s college nemesis Devlin (Nicole Kidman) and her equally competitive husband (Dave Matthews) to the equation and we are all in for a riot…

Just Go With It is a highly entertaining romantic comedy. Sure, it is very typical in many aspects. Of course you know who Danny will end up with. Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston are their typical romantic comedy selves. But, hey- you knew all this already from the trailer. If you are looking for a different film that will reinvent the wheel, this is not for you. And while the film is mostly a comedy, it is not hilarious. It doesn’t often make you laugh out loud. But it makes you smile, grin, cringe and have fun. It is also a lot of fun to see the front man of Dave Matthews band – Dave Matthews – act, and it is even better to have Nicole Kidman play the highly irritating arch nemesis named Devlin.

I really love Hawaii and its resorts, so the scenery is just lovely. Aniston’s make over scenes are also a lot of fun. Oh and the kids are adorably smart and manipulative.

All in all, it is very watchable and very cute.

Also on Jennifer Aniston:

Jennifer Aniston Trivia: 22 Facts About The World’s Most Popular Friend Jennifer Aniston

The Bounty Hunter

Love Happens

Marley and Me

He’s Just Not That Into You

Hollywood Stars in Friends

Derailed

Also on Adam Sandler:

Funny People starring Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen and Leslie Mann

Unknown starring Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, January Jones & Aidan Quinn

Posted on June 26, 2011 Written by ripitup

Unknown Movie Poster- starring Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, January Jones & Aidan Quinn — Unknown starring Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, January Jones & Aidan Quinn. Image via movienewz.com

American botanist Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) travels to Berlin with his wife (January Jones) for an important summit. When they arrive at their hotel, he realizes that he has forgotten his briefcase at the airport, so he jumps on another cab to go back, while his wife is left to check in. On his way to the airport, the cab gets into an accident, and the cab crashes down into the river. The cab driver Gina (Diane Kruger) manages to save Martin- who is unconscious due to bumping his head hard, and disappears from the scene when the paramedics arrive.

Martin wakes up 4 days later in a Berlin. He remembers who he is, and rushes out to the hotel to meet his wife. But he is shocked when his wife doesn’t have a clue who he is. Moreover, there is another guy (Aidan Quinn), claiming to be her husband. And she is agreeing with the other Martin. With his passport left in the briefcase he couldn’t get to, he has no means of proving who he is. Moreover, the other Martin has all kinds of IDs with his pictures, as well as his face on the website. This sends Martin into doubting who he is…until men start coming after him and kill whoever gets in their way. Martin enlists the help of the unwilling Gina, and the old German ex-spy (Bruno Ganz) to help him prove he is the real Martin Harris. While Gina and Martin try to survive assassins, the spy does his best to prove Martin right. And just when he gets some proof, things get even more complicated….

Why would anyone want to replace him? Why would his wife work with them? Can Liam’s Martin and Diane Kruger’s Gina survive long enough to learn the whole story?

Unknown is an incredibly entertaining action/mystery with touches of drama. Watchers of the Bourne series and Liam Neeson’s Taken complain that Unknown is not an original movie. Never mind that the screenplay which was based on the novel by a French writer who might not even have seen Bourne movies, it is 2011. Millions of scripts were written. And I don’t really think Bourne movies were all %100 original when they came out. I mean come on. What you can do as a writer is to take an idea, and tell it in your own unique way. And Unknown is refreshing in the way that the man who has a head trauma remembers who he is, but his wife refuses it. I quite like how they explained this. And there is no point in getting upset if you guessed the twist. It doesn’t mean the movie is bad. It just means you watch many movies:D But this is not a horror film where the twist is the whole point. It is how we get to the twist, and what happens after it that really matter.

As to why this movie is being compared to Taken, Neeson is once again playing an American who kicks butt in a foreign country. But in Taken, he was an ex-CIA agent, forced to travel to France to save his daughter from her kidnappers. Here, Liam Neeson is more trying to save his butt than trying to kick others’. And apart from the American getting involved in action on foreign soil, the two movies vary a lot in story.

Yes, I enjoyed the movie. Frankly, I was so in love with Taken that I was looking forward to Liam being in another action film. And while I found the Unknown trailer unimpressive, the movie doesn’t fail to entertain.

And “the potential plot holes” can be explained very easily. And as to the complaints on how January Jones and Diane Kruger are too young for Neeson, come on! Never mind that Zeta Jones married Michael Douglas in real life, being 6 years younger than January and 8 than Kruger, I have to confess I really think Liam Neeson got more attractive when he got older. Plus, a 25 year-old kicking butt is not that interesting. And we know guys can become action stars in their 40s. And an actor kicking butt at 59 is just way more fun.

Fun notes:

– Diane Kruger’s character Gina is an illegal Bosnian alien in Germany. In real life, she is actually German.

– American Martin Harris – Liam Neeson- is actually Irish.

Other Posts feat. Liam Nesson

The A-Team starring Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel, Patrick Wilson, Sharlto Copley & Quinton Rampage Jackson

Chloe starring Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried

Seraphim Falls starring Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan

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

Other Posts feat. Diane Kruger

The Hunting Party starring Richard Gere, Terrence Howard and Jesse Eisenberg feat. Kruger

Fringe Trivia: 13 Facts About Fringe Cast, Crew, Plot Feat. Joshua Jackson, Anna Torv, Mark Valley…

Wicker Park starring Diane Kruger, Rose Byrne & Josh Hartnett