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Tumbledown Review: Tumbledown starring Rebecca Hall, Jason Sudeikis and Joe Manganiello

Posted on December 25, 2017 Written by Pinar Tarhan

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Tumbledown starring Rebecca Hall and Jason Suedekis
Tumbledown starring Rebecca Hall and Jason Suedekis. Image via Amazon.

Writer Hannah (Rebecca Hall)’s world comes tumbling down – pun intended- when her musician husband and the love of her life, Hunter, dies. A legend in the making, his death draws many to his grave, allowing her to continue her grief.

New York writer/university lecturer Andrew (Jason Sudeikis) is one of his fans, and he wants to write a book about him. But when he makes his intentions clear in the small town where Becky lives, she is more than a little hostile. She doesn’t want his memories distorted, and she wants to write his biography herself.

As Andrew is about to give up, however, the feedback she receives from her boss/friend/mentor Upton (Griffin Dunne) makes her reconsider working with him.

As the two begin work on her own terms, they get along better than either thought was possible. As understanding and attraction form between them, we start wondering if Becky will want to live in the present again.

*

Tumbledown is a sweet drama with enough comedy and romance to keep it realistic yet lighthearted enough.

Both characters walk a fine line between being likeable and unlikeable, but for the most part, we like them just enough to follow their journeys.

Tumbledown was written by Desi van Til, Desiree Van Til and Sean MewShaw. Directed by Sean Mewshaw in 2015.

*

Favorite scene

-When Hannah leaves Andrew home to go interview a local woman, he gets the dogs out, locks the doors and snoops around the stuff Hannah hasn’t shown him. As he hears Hannah’s car, he rushes out in a T-shirt, trying to get the dogs in, falls down in the snow and freezes his ass off. He also gets locked out.

Fun notes:

Joe Manganiello plays local, “real man” Curtis, with an ever-present crush for Hannah.

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Filed Under: Movies and Actors Tagged With: drama, griffin dunne, Jason Sudeikis, joe manganiello, movies with writer characters, Rebecca Hall, romance, sean mewshaw, tumbledown, tumbledown cast, tumbledown movie

Iron Man 3 starring Robert Downey Jr, Guy Pearce and Ben Kingsley: Fun, Fun, Fun

Posted on August 26, 2013 Written by ripitup

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iron-man-3-poster
Image via marketsaw.blogspot.com.

 

If I had to choose just one word to describe Iron Man 3, it’d be fun. It’s a fast-paced, action-packed, and highly entertaining superhero movie. It could use some more rock numbers that made the first 2 awesome, but overall it is the right type of film for the series.

Of course like any movie, Iron Man 3 isn’t without its haters or discontent viewers. But given that you know what to expect, you shouldn’t be disappointed – especially if you like director/co-writer Shane Black’s more mainstream work (the action classic Lethal Weapon, for instance).

In addition to the usual cast of Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle (who took over from Terrence Howard after the first Iron Man), we get Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley (Gandhi, Schindler’s List, House of Sand and Fog), and Golden Globe nominees Rebecca Hall (The Awakening, Vicky Cristina Barcelona) and Guy Pearce (Memento, Lockout, LA Confidential).

Keeping in mind Robert Downey Jr.  has 2 Oscar nominations, Don Cheadle has one, and Paltrow has one Academy Award, we can add the cast of Iron Man 3 to the superhero movies that casts critically acclaimed actors who also happen to be box-office draws – e.g. check out the cast of Man of Steel.

Some viewers weren’t happy with the twist, but I found it quite fun- it was one of those laugh-out-loud moments for me, and it was perfectly acted and directed.

It was also fun to see our beloved cheeky hero Tony Stark to be suffering from anxiety attacks after everything they went through in The Avengers. Alien attacks can get to a guy, apparently…

And yes, there are clichés in the movie.

The Story:

In 1999, at a Christmas part in Bern, we meet the ever-cheeky Stark hooking up with an intelligent hottie (Rebecca Hall), and ignoring anyone who is not his date. Among the ignored and humiliated is Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), a geeky scientist adoring Tony’s work and wanting to work with him.

Fast-forward to now, Tony is with his former assistant/current managing partner/acting CEO Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow). While she is busy running the firm, Tony is obsessing over creating back-up Iron Man outfits, paranoid that there can be other alien attacks he will need to protect Pepper from.

In the meantime, the recent terrorist leader The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) who is hacking satellites and distributing scary messages and threatening the president (William Sadler).

When a different kind of bomb badly injures Tony’s friend/head of security Happy (Jon Favreau, director of the first Iron Man) and puts him into hospital, he openly threatens The Mandarin, and Mandarin responds more openly and violently than anyone could have predicted.

With his house and lab pretty much destroyed, Tony has his intelligence, Jarvis on zero battery and smart kid he runs into to deal with Mandarin, as well as the weird Terminator-like human/robots who just don’t get killed easily…

**

Have fun!!!

 

Also on Robert Downey Jr.

Due Date starring Robert Downey Jr. & Zach Galifianakis

Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Mark Strong and Rachel McAdams

Iron Man starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and Terrence Howard

Iron Man 2 starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Mickey Rourke

Also on Guy Pearce

Death Defying Acts starring Guy Pearce & Catherine Zeta-Jones 

Guy Pearce Trivia

Lockout starring Guy Pearce & Maggie Grace

The King’s Speech starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter & Guy Pearce

 

More on Gwyneth Paltrow 

A Perfect Murder starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Viggo Mortensen and Michael Douglas

Shallow Hal starring Jack Black and Gwyneth Paltrow

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Filed Under: Movies and Actors Tagged With: Ben Kingsley, Don Cheadle, guy pearce, Gwyneth Paltrow, iron man 3, iron man 3 cast, Jon Favreau, Rebecca Hall, robert downey jr, robert downey jr. iron man 3, shane black, shane black iron man 3

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

Posted on November 17, 2012 Written by ripitup

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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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Filed Under: Movies and Actors Tagged With: Bruce Willis, buy lay the favorite dvd, catherine zeta jones, Joshua Jackson, lay the favorite cast, lay the favorite dvd, lay the favorite movie, lay the favorite movie review, Lay The Favorite Review, Rebecca Hall, Stephen Frears

The Awakening starring Rebecca Hall & Dominic West: Good Enough

Posted on March 14, 2012 Written by ripitup

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The Awakening starring Rebecca Hall & Dominic West.
The Awakening starring Rebecca Hall & Dominic West. A 2011 movie.

Horror-thrillers are more inclined to be torn apart by the critics and movie-goers than any other genre.

Sure, romantic comedies are doomed to be put-down because they follow a formula, but nobody really expects a twist at the end. And even the haters know that the best thing a romcom can do is to provide some good jokes, better-than-average acting and some non-cheesy romantic moments.

And please don’t give me the “but 500 Days of Summer (I do like that movie by the way- just not as a romcom) was a different, unique romcom” reply. First of all, it is not a romcom, it is a romantic/comedy/drama. And yes, even that gave a happy ending-just not with the real girl.

Sorry if I gave you spoilers, but I am sure you knew something was different with that movie since it was rated at 7.9 on IMDB and it had Joseph Gordon Levitt in it as opposed to Matthew McConaughey in it.

Romantic comedies don’t typically feature drama and unhappy endings so that’s why even the ones that guys loved hardly ever see a rating close to 7.

But horror-thrillers are an entirely different story. Not only we want to be frightened, but we want it in a subtler, creepier way. We don’t want the director to think he can get us with big stars and stupid sound effects (aka What Lies Beneath- to this day I still don’t know what Harrison Ford or Michelle Pfeiffer ever saw in that script!)

It is very rare for a horror/thriller to pull off a twist to fool even the most-movie-going folks won’t see coming. But even those good-twist movies run the risk of being all about the twist and nothing else. I’m sorry, but The Sixth Sense was a bore until we found out about what happened to Bruce Willis.

I’ll be impressed, however, when you shoot a haunting type of movie where you are creepy without being gory, where you count on the story and the acting than sound effects to scare me. It is great if you can engage me throughout the whole movie using some clichés (but not too many), care for the characters, sit curious till the end and give me a twist that is not all The Sixth Sense or The Others.

And The Awakening is all that. Not that it doesn’t have its issues and some boy-we-have-seen-that-coming moments. But it also manages to be unique in its own way. Rebecca Hall and Dominic West were a joy to watch and the ending can be interpreted in different ways.

It has the atmosphere, good ideas, intelligent protagonists and solid acting. And in this day and age where all the stories were pretty much written, this story is done pretty well against the odds

P.S. I really simplified the story to avoid giving spoilers-so don’t think it is that plain.

The  Awakening: Story

Post WW1, Florence (Rebecca Hall) is a Cambridge graduate published author who exposes ghost scams whenever she can.

Her next mission is to expose the imposters at a boarding school. And at first she does find a prankster and unravel a mystery. Unfortunately, there seems to be other pranksters around. But the longer she stays, the more she begins to question her own sanity, will to live and her ability to connect with others. Could it be that there are real ghosts haunting the school? And if there are, what the hell do they want from her?

Dominic West plays one of the teachers/love interest/wounded ex-soldier with quite a few mysteries on his own.

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Filed Under: Movies and Actors Tagged With: dominic west, horror, nick murphy, Rebecca Hall, rebecca hall the awakening, stephen volk, the awakening, the awakening 2011 movie, the awakening movie, the awakening movie review, the awakening rebecca hall, thriller

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