Movies and Actors | pinartarhan.com

Choosing Movies According to the Actor

Posted on November 21, 2009 Written by ripitup

I have a favorite video store and I just have to get in there and browse through their stuff. My friends do occasionally try to stop me so I just tell them to hang out somewhere and I go in the store anyway. Sometimes they come in and look around. Occasionally the store manages to catch up with my speed and has some promising movies I haven’t seen. When my friends ask why I pick on particular movie I give a simple answer like: “Oh, Christian Slater is in it! Can’t believe I haven’t seen this one before”. Or “it has Hugh Jackman! ” “you wouldn’t know him- but James Spader is a great actor.” One time one of my friends went: “What? You pick the movie according to the actor?” And I said yeah. I know he thought I was just being superficial and picked the movies where the leads are hot but I really didn’t bother correcting a guy whose favorite actress is Megan Fox.

A movie consists of many elements. It has the behind the scenes crew, the actors, the story…I always read the plot summary before I buy a movie but that’s hardly enough. This is the year 2009 and so many movies have been made that complete/partial originality is almost a luxury. I can follow a director but a director usually favors a genre and there are hardly many directors out there whose most work I enjoy. I mean I don’t like Quentin Tarantiono or Oliver Stone. I only liked one movie by Stone so far. I am not a fan of Brian De Palma and I like half of Spielberg’s work but I am not sure he mixes personal with entertainment well. I love Richard Donner- the guy directed a lot of my favorite Mel Gibson movies. Since directors usually shoot less movies than a famous actor appears in on average, it is statistically better to follow an actor if you like his movies. The style varies yet there is a possibility that you will enjoy his choices.
For the 90s and up until his “I- love- directing- so -much -more”- phase, Mel Gibson was a great choice. He did drama,thriller, romance,action,epic, adaptation and he did them all well. The 90s have great actors in that sense: Kevin Costner, Tom Cruise, Christian Slater… Keanu Reeves still makes good movies, and a recent fav. of mine is Gerard Butler. As for actresses, Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock have made some great movies, as well as Nicole Kidman. See how many movies it made in total? If you know the actors’ work, why not choose according to the cast?

Never Been Kissed starring Drew Barrymore, Michael Vartan and David Arquette

Posted on November 21, 2009 Written by ripitup

I have kissed guys. I just never felt that thing.

Never Been Kissed with Drew Barrymore, David Arquette and Michael Vartan

Please get your minds out of the gutter, after all English is a pretty flexible language. : ) But, this is a PG-13 romantic comedy and there are not any explicit scenes. It might even be considered unrealistic in many aspects. After all people totally buy that Drew Barrymore and David Arquette are high schoolers, and sometimes romantic movies feel less realistic than an extra futuristic fantasy /sci-fi movies. But it is all in the name of some good fun and unless you are feeling cynical (or you despise the genre as a rule), this movie is good to watch.

That thing…that moment when everything around you becomes hazy and the only thing in focus is you and this person

The lead character is Josie (Drew Barrymore)- a totally unhip, unattractive and anti-social female working as a journalist. She is also a die hard romantic who feels like she has never had the perfect kiss. Yeah, girls in general tend to enjoy kissing more if there are some intense feelings going on. One day she gets to do a feature undercover story about today’s highs schoolers. But there’s a problem. As her brother Rob reminds her, she used to be an unpopular, fat kid everyone made fun of. She was of course in love with the most popular guy and as you can imagine, she didn’t get him. Now she has to put herself put there, make friends, get popular and find some juicy story to write about. She might be wiser and much lighter this time around, but she’s still clueless when it comes to social activities and popularity. She just gets along better with the nerds than the popular kids. And to make matters more complicated, her English teacher (played by Michael Vartan) might just be the guy she’s been looking for all her life…

The movie is a romantic comedy but it generates enough laughs before it gets all romantic on you. Drew Barrymore and Michael Vartan make a nice couple but there are some interesting names in the cast with small roles such as James Franco and Jessica Alba. Try to make sure you catch this film from 1999. I revisited it recently and it is still fun.

IMDB rating: 5.7 from 25,370 people.

[pro-player width=’530′ height=’253′ type=’video’]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d97O5zOBwcw[/pro-player]

Other Posts on Michael Vartan

Alias starring Jennifer Garner, Michael Vartan and Bradley Cooper

Monster in Law starring Jane Fonda, Michael Vartan and Jennifer Lopez

Other Posts on Drew Barrymore movies

Whip It starring Ellen Page, Kristen Wig, Juliette Lewis and Drew Barrymore

He’s just not that into you starring Barrymore, Scarlett Johansson, Bradley Cooper and More

Donnie Darko starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Jena Malone and Patrick Swayze

Timeline starring Paul Walker, Gerard Butler & Frances O’Connor

Posted on November 18, 2009 Written by ripitup

Timeline with Paul Walker and Gerard Butler

I am not much of a history fan and I haven’t been that fond of archeology either. But I just love the idea of time travel. It is great to get your imagination juices flowing and wonder what your life could have been like in the past and of course you can always fantasize about the future. It is always fun to join in on another person’s imagination and share the ride, whether the concept is presented through a DeLorean (Back to the Future) or another form of time machine (referred as a human fax machine in Timeline). I have quite a fascination with this genre. Now I haven’t read Michael Crichton’s novel but I plan to. Naturally, not all the readers of the novel are pleased with this movie adaption but I don’t really care at this point. If you like entertainment, this movie provides it. The cast is impressive enough with Paul Walker and Gerard Butler, along with Billy Connolly in a supporting role. Some parts of the script may defy logic but then again, what is that logical about time travel in the first place?

The movie revolves around a group of archeleogy enthusiasts: Kate (Frances O’Connor), Andre (Gerard Butller), Josh (Ethan Embry) and François) and Chris (Paul Walker), who is much more interested in Kate than the science itself. The group is run by Chris’ father Professor Johnston (Connolly) who mysteriously disappears one day, leaving a note that asks for help. The strange thing about the note is that it has been written in the 14th century.

All the scientific tests prove this to be true, to all of their amazement. When they dig deeper, they find out that Johnston is working with a technology company, which has been funding his studies. They also find out that the company has invented a time travel machine and that the professor is indeed in the 14th century. Of course he is in trouble.

The company sends one of its employees to oversee the mission and the friends volunteer, apart from Josh. They don’t take any weapons or any other modern thing. They dress accordingly& take the medallions that are supposed to bring them back. The company guy takes two of him men and together they embark a bizarre journey. Of course it could have been a painless trip with beautiful scenery and a real-life study but they actually find themselves right in the middle of the on-going war between England and France: They run from English soldiers and eventually get captured. To make matters more compicated, they have met a French girl who warned them about the attack, adding one to the list of the people whose backs they have to watch and it is not very safe to travel around the English-invaded lands with a Frenchman…

Of course I have more than enough reasons to like the movie:

– Gerard Butler is one of my fav. actors and he is one of the leads.

– Director Richard Donner knows how to satisfy his audience. Do you want me to remind me of his other stuff? Does the Lethal Weapon series ring a bell? Or Conspiracy Theory?

– -Paul Walker always makes entertaining movies. Sometimes it has substance and originality (The Lazarus Project) or just lots of speed and adrenaline (Fast and Furious saga) but the result is you have fun. And yes, if you are a girl, it never hurts to have Butler and Walker playing the major roles. Plus, not only the men are cute and strong but they also play romantic and sweet roles.

– And boys, if you like girls pretty and petite, then you have Anna Friel (Lady Claire) and Frances O’ Connor (Kate).

[pro-player width=’530′ height=’253′ type=’video’]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja-DSzxhRIo&feature=related[/pro-player]

All in all, Timeline is not going to play mind games with you. You are not going to question life or death. But it is a lovely combination of the modern and period piece. It has the 21st century and the 14th. It will put a smile on your face. Timeline is one of the movies I wish I could have been a part of; whether being behind or in front of the camera, not because artistically brilliant. But because it is definitely one of those movies where you can tell the whole crew had a blast makingit. If you want unexpected twists, character analysis and sophistication, do by all means stay away from this movie.

Dispara (Outrage) starring Antonio Banderas and Francesca Neri

Posted on November 16, 2009 Written by ripitup

Dispara! (Outrage) with Antonio Banderas and Francesca Neri

For me there can be two reasons not to watch the same movie twice: Either I hated the movie or although the storytelling is captivating, it is far too depressing to revisit. For Dispara, it is the latter. It’s a Spanish movie from 1993, starring Antonio Banderas and Francesca Neri. The story is drama and not really action – so don’t let the poster and the title fool you. Some of the actions of the lead characters border on being unbelievably foolish and you can’t help feeling frustrated. But then again, the situations they are both in are disturbing and well, you can understand to why they panic.

Ana (Francesca Neri) works at a circus. She is a good horse-rider and a master at shooting. She performs impressive shows using both her talents. One night journalist Marcos (Antonio Banderas) cathces her show as an assignment for his newspaper and he really is captivated by Ana’s both beauty and on-stage performance. He tries and finally manages to get an interview from her. She has had an interesting life and she is genuinely nice. After spending little with each other, they fall in love. Marcos leaves town for a job and has every intention of seeing her again.

But then something horrific happens. Three mechanics working on a circus vehicle set their eyes on Ana and one night they rape her. They are violent and Ana is more than shaken by what she goes through. The next morning, she takes their address, her bullets and rifle and sets out to kill them. This time the men do not stand a chance. She shoots and kills all three of them. Although there is one eye-witness, she could probably have gotten away with it but one unfortunate event follow another: she is badly injured and has internal bleeding from the previous night’s rape, Marcos has come to her place to find out something has gone terribly wrong- when he gets a hysteric message from her and learns about the deaths of the three man, he intuitively thinks it’s her and makes some bad judgment calls- and well….the movie gets more and more depressing.

The last time I got this depressed by a movie happened during Requiem for a Dream. While this movie does have its faults (it doesn’t have the perfect visual quality but maybe it was just my DVD) but I couldn’t help but thinking how the director just could have shot some scenes better, especially the beginning.

The characters are both easy to empathize with, although but make mistakes with horrible results. You might also think the strange combination of romance, drama and vengeance do not work. It all depends on your expectations. As long as you are not looking for a masterpiece but a heartfelt yet disturbing drama, you will not be disappointed. Plus the performances are solid.

P.S. This is the only video I could find on the movie:

http://845b2903.ugalleries.net