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Lay The Favorite Review: LTF starring Bruce Willis, Rebecca Hole, Joshua Jackson & Catherine Zeta Jones

Posted on November 17, 2012 Written by ripitup

Lay The Favorite starring Bruce Willis, Rebecca Hall, Joshua Jackson & Catherine Zeta Jones — Image via teaser-trailer.com.

Based on the autobiography of Beth Raymer, Lay the Favorite is the story of the highly colorful background of the writer:

Beth Raymer (Rebecca Hall) gets tired of her weird clients as a stripper, and decides to live the glamorous life a Las Vegas cocktail waitress. No, seriously-she does think that it is the adventure of a lifetime. But before she can land a job as a waitress, she lands a job as a sports bettor next to the interesting Dink (Bruce Willis), who immediately takes a liking to this weirdly naive ex-stripper/porn site entrepreneur/star. Of course no wife (Catherine Zeta Jones) will be pleased to see Beth liking her husband too much, so things get a tad complicated for Beth. And to add more to the complications, she meets the cute writer Jeremy (Joshua Jackson), who happens to be the first normal guy she gets involved with.

Frankly, I prefer the trailer to the movie. I had no idea that it was a memoir, and I’d thought that I would just see a fun, if not a little quirky, comedy about 4 interesting people. Instead I got a movie that seemed off in many directions, and despite the good cast, I just couldn’t get into it. And when you can’t get into a movie your mind wanders:

11 Things Lay The Favorite Might Make You Think

1) I was thinking why anyone would want to tell this story, then I realized it was a memoir. So truth is stranger than fiction.

2) Apparently people can have sex first and have a relationship later.

3) Shy people can run porn sites and strip.

4) Diablo Cody (Juno) is not the only ex-stripper that became a successful writer.

5) Catherine Zeta Jones is still beautiful.

6) Joshua Jackson could star in Benjamin Button the Sequel- that guy does not look 34! Apply little eye cream, and he could still star as a high school senior.

7) Beth Raymer is one protagonist that is borderline impossible to identify with.

8) Bruce Wills in comedy is fun in small doses, but I’d rather have him go around kicking ass and saving the day. Can A Good Day to Die Hard come to the theaters already?

9) As much as I like Vince Vaughn, even I’m retiring from watching him play a fast-talking gambler/player/swinger/bookie. Remember the times he did movies like Cell or Return to Paradise?

10) I’d rather have Stephen Frears direct period pieces. Remember that stunning movie Dangerous Liasions?

11) I want to read Beth Raymer rather than watch a movie based on her. She has been published in pretty prestigious magazines after getting a writing MFA.

Also on the Cast

Joshua Jacskson:

Fringe starring Joshua Jackson, Anna Torv & John Noble

The Shadow Dancer- romantic drama starring Joshua Jackson, Harvey Keitel & Claire Forlani

BRUCE WILLIS:

Red starring Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, John Malkovich, Karl Urban, Morgan Freeman & Helen Mirren

Surrogates starring Bruce Willis & Rosamund Pike

Top 5 Movie Endings feat. The Sixth Sense

Actor Musicians and Musician Actors feat. Willis and Travolta

What Ricky Gervais said on 2011 Golden Globes about Bruce

10 Celebrity Break-ups You Didn’t See Coming

CATHERINE ZETA-JONES

Death Defying Acts starring Guy Pearce & Catherine Zeta-Jones

REBECCA HALL

The Awakening starring Rebecca Hall & Dominic West: Good Enough

Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona starring Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Hall and Penélope Cruz

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Red starring Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, John Malkovich, Karl Urban, Morgan Freeman & Helen Mirren

Posted on February 14, 2011 Written by ripitup

Red starring Bruce Willis, Mary-Loise Parker, John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren & Karl Urban. Image via c-medya.com

Retired CIA agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is living the quiet, suburban life. The highlight of his days is when he talks on the phone with Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker) – his representative for the pension fund: Even though they never met, they both have a crush on each other.

While Frank makes plans to meet in person, a team of assassins try to kill Frank. Frank escapes but now that he is a target. So he has to kidnap Sarah, who is unwilling to believe that Frank is in fact ex CIA. But she eventually believes him. Frank realizes that the hit has been ordered by CIA itself. And it is not just Frank. A past Guatemala operation has gotten lots of agents and a news reporter killed. So Frank pulls up a team he can trust – although he has to let each member know that he is not trying to kill them first.

His team includes ex-CIA Joe (Morgan Freeman), nutty but smart Marvin (John Malkovich), ex MI6 Victoria (Helen Mirren) and Russian Ivan (Brian Cox). At first the CIA was confident that their agent in charge, the highly capable William Cooper (Karl Urban) could take care of a “grandpa” agent but as it will turn out, this team of old agents and a civilian can really kick ass and raise mayhem. Catching Frank will be a lot harder than anticipated…

2011’s Golden Globe nominee for Best Picture (Comedy or Musical), Red is a pretty entertaining action/comedy that deliberately starts slow and follows with fast action and good comedy. The cast is incredible, the characters are hilarious. It is one of the most entertaining movies of Bruce Willis, who has been kicking ass in action films for over 2 decades now. And kudos to Helen Mirren, whose character totally destroys all the stereotypical movie roles a 65-year-old actress can get.

It’s unreasonable. It’s illogical. And the ending is predictable. But it is bloody good entertainment. It is hard to pick a favorite character but for me it is a tie between deadly Victoria and the paranoid Marvin who gets upset when he doesn’t kill anyone.

Written by Jon and Erich Hoeber. Directed by Robert Schwentke (Flightplan, The Time Traveler’s Wife). Based on the graphic novel created by Cully Hamner and Warren Ellis.

7 Fun Red Facts:

– Nip Tuck’s Julian McMahon makes a guest appearance as the Vice President.

– The cast also features Richard Dreyfuss.

– The “Russian” Ivan is played by Brian Cox, who is actually Scottish.

– Sex and the City’s Richard James Remar makes a guest appearance.

– Between the cast, there are three Oscars in acting: Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and Richard Dreyfuss are Oscar-winning actors.

– Weeds star Mary- Louise Parker used to date Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who also appeared in Weeds.

Favorite lines:

Sarah is not happy to be kidnapped.

Frank: I was just hoping you’d be a little more understanding of the situation.
Sarah: I was hoping not to get kidnapped. Or drugged. I was hoping you’d have *hair*. So it looks like none of our dreams are coming true at the moment.

Frank (Willis) and Cooper (Karl Urban) are engaged in a deadly fight. Cooper first thinks he can beat Frank easily because of the age difference but Frank beats the crap out of Cooper.

Frank (locking Cooper in a wrestling position):Krodesky trained you?

Cooper: Yeah.

Frank: I trained Krodesky.

Marvin wants to kill the agent who is trying to kill them and has called Marvin an old man.. Frank had previously made him let her go, thinking she was an innocent civilian.

Marvin: Can I kill her now? (Frank nods and Marvin kills her) Old man, my ass!

Favorite scenes (minor spoilers):

– Pretty much all the action scenes, especially the kidnapping of the V.P.

– The very last scene.

Also on Bruce Willis

Surrogates starring Bruce Willis & Rosamund Pike

Top 5 Movie Endings feat. The Sixth Sense

Actor Musicians and Musician Actors feat. Willis and Travolta

What Ricky Gervais said on 2011 Golden Globes about Bruce

10 Celebrity Break-ups You Didn’t See Coming

Also on Morgan Freeman

Thick as Thieves starring Antonio Banderas & Morgan Freeman

11 Celebrity Bad Behaviour- Inspired by Mel Gibson- featuring Morgan Freeman

Golden Globes 2011- The Best of Host Ricky Gervais

Posted on January 23, 2011 Written by ripitup

The 68^th Golden Globes – Best of Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais at 2011's Golden Globes: He was outrageous, politically incorrect and downright hilarious! image via tvverdict.com

If there is one thing good about not being a Hollywood star, it is that Ricky Gervais won’t get to joke about you at the Golden Globes. The guy is hilarious, but let’s face it, he is not gentle and he is definitely not politically correct. And we love him for it. But I am not sure I’d want to be at the receiving end of his jokes.

Here’re my favorite Ricky Gervais lines from the 68th Golden Globes – the words may not be exact but the punch lines are intact:

on Charlie Sheen:

– It’s gonna be a night of partying and heavy drinking, or as Charlie Sheen calls it: “breakfast”. Wow, so… Let’s get this straight. What he did was he picked up a “porn star”, paid it to have dinner with him, introduced her to his ex-wife: “how do you do?” went to a hotel, got drunk, got naked, trashed the place while she was locked in the cupboard… that was a Monday! What did he do on New Year’s Eve?

on “The Walking Dead” Hugh Hefner and his 24-year-old bride-to-be:

– Talking of the “Walking Dead”, congratulations to Hugh Hefner, who’s getting married at the age of 84 to 24-year-old beauty Crystal Harris. When she was asked why she was marrying him she said: “‘Cause he lied about his age. He told me he was 94.

on Robert Downey Jr.:

– I love this next presenter. He’s so cool. He’s the star of “Iron Man”, “Two Girls and a Guy”, “Wonder Boys”… Sorry, are these porn films? “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”, “Bowfinger”, really? Here… “Up the Academy”. Come on… He was in all those films, but many of you in this room probably know him best from such facilities as the Betty Ford Clinic and Los Angeles County Jail. Please welcome Robert Downey Jr.

on Jim Carrey, Ewan McGregor and “Scientology”

– Also not nominated “I love you Philip Morris”. Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor: two heterosexual actors pretending to be gay, so the complete opposite of some famous scientologist thing. Um, probably. My lawyers helped me to get away with that joke; they’re not here.

on Tom Hanks and Tim Allen:

– What can I say about our next two presenters? The first is an actor, producer, writer and director whose movies have grossed over three and a half billion dollars at the box office. He’s won two Academy Awards and three Golden Globes for his powerful and varied performances starring in such films as “Philadelphia”, “Forrest Gump”, “Cast Away”, “Apollo 13” and “Saving Private Ryan”. The other is… Tim Allen.

on The Tourist and the nominations of Angelina Jolie & Johnny Depp … AND Cher

– It was a big year for 3D movies: “Toy Story”, “Despicable Me”, “Tron”. Seems like everything this year was three dimensional… except the characters in “The Tourist”. Uh, I feel bad about that joke. I… no… I’ll tell you what… I’m jumping on the bandwagon ’cause I haven’t even seen “The Tourist”. Who has? But, no… It must be good ’cause it’s nominated tonight. So shut up, ok? And I’d like to squash the ridiculous rumor going around that the only reason “The Tourist” was nominated was so that the Hollywood Foreign Press could hang out with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. That is rubbish, that is not the only reason, they also accepted bribes… No. All that happened was some of them were taken to see Cher in concert, how the hell is that a bribe? Really? “You wanna go to see Cher?” “No.” “Why not?” “‘Cause it’s not 1975.

on Robert Pattinson and Olivia Wilde

– The next presenters are very young, thin and beautiful. Which is just as well because they are presenting a category no one in America cares about: Best Foreign Language Film!

on Sex and The City 2

– There were a lot of big films that didn’t get nominated this year, nothing for “Sex and the City 2”. I was sure the Golden Globe for special effects would go to the team that airbrushed that poster. Um, great job! Girls, we know how old you are: I saw one of you in an episode of “Bonanza”.

on Scarlett Johansson & Mel Gibson

Our first presenter is beautiful, talented and Jewish, apparently. Mel Gibson told me that. He’s obsessed. Please welcome Scarlett Johansson.

on Lost:

– One of the biggest events on TV this year was the finale of “Lost”. One of my favorites. And all the questions were answered… yeah. I have to say, though, It was a complicated finale. I’m not sure I totally understood it all, but from what I can work out, I’m pretty sure the fat one ate them all.

– **

Also one of my favorites, he presented Bruce Willis as Ashton Kutcher’s dad!

Billy Bathgate with Dustin Hoffman and Nicole Kidman

Posted on February 24, 2010 Written by ripitup

Billy Bathgate with Dustin Hoffman and Nicole Kidman — Image via:sondheimguide.com

I should be ashamed. I am a Hoffman and a Kidman fan, but I hadn’t even heard of this one. My bad. But then again, I have so many actors to follow. I missed the first 20 minutes or so, but it is a movie where the plot is pretty straight-forward so catching up was easy.

Dutch Schultz’ (Hoffman) is a gang leader. He is smart, quick and pretty ruthless. He is having his fun with the pretty, young and free-spirited Drew (Kidman). He also has a young rookie under his wing: Billy (Dean). Billy wants the glamor and the power. But there are two things wrong with him. 1) He is too nice to be a successful crook. 2) His admiration for Dutch gets overshadowed by his admiration for Drew.

As if these aren’t enough, anyone working for Dutch could be in danger because of a more powerful guy as well. ..

The movie is fun. It is not complicated or really orginal. I am not going to suggest you go running to the closest DVD store but you shouldn’t flip the channel if you run across this one either. I never saw a movie where Hoffman was any less than good. Kidman is so young here. I especially loved Loren Dean- casting him was the perfect choice because he portrays innocence, indecision and conflicts so well. The movie has another couple of niice surprises: It has Stanley Tucci and Steve Buscemi. Even Bruce Willis makes an appearance.

Entertaining experience with actors you like.

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