The Battle for Verona: Romeo & Juliet

With this newest version of one of Shakespeare's most popular plays hitting Red Boxes near you, I decided instead of a simple review we should discuss, like civil adults, which Romeo and Juliet is best... out of the three I've seen anyway.

Our first version is one I saw a long time ago. I saw it after I saw Baz Lurhmann's. You might recognize it as the one they watch in Twilight: Eclipse. It is often referred to as "The 60's one," because it was made in '68. It was done very well, and many people refer to it as "the best." Although, since I hardly remember it, I'll just say I do remember liking it a lot.

Our second version is Baz Lurhmann's 1996 masterpiece starring Claire Danes, Leonardo DiCaprio, Paul Rudd, John Leguizamo, Lost's Harold Perrineau, Pete Postlethwaite, and even has Jamie Kennedy in there. It's an amazing cast. It might have aired before Leo learned how to act, but Lurhmann's styling, attention to detail, and the way he captures important moments, make up for it. Because it's set in the present, and because it stars Mr. DiCaprio, it gets a bad rap. People are afraid to admit that this movie is amazing, captivating, ground breaking, and beautiful.

Our third version is the monstrosity that is this 2013 version. It stars True Grit's Oscar Nominee Hailee Steinfeld as boring Juliet, and Keira Knightly as Romeo. Oh, wait, what? You mean that wasn't Keira Knightly!? I guess I'll take your word for it. Apparently Romeo is played by a dude, and his name is Douglas Booth. Stellan Skarsgard plays the Prince, and Paul Giamatti plays Friar Lawrence. I didn't know he was in this movie and when he showed up I shouted, "WHAT IS PAUL GIAMATTI DOING THIS?" He's far too talented to be throwing his lot in with the likes of this movie, as is Mr. Skarsgard.

This movie had no character appreciation. Mercucio is the life of the party! He's funny! He's ALIVE! (Well, at least for the first half of the play.) But he nor any of the other would-be-interesting characters had... well, CHARACTER! Shakespeare is king of interesting supporting characters. But you wouldn't know it watching this movie.

And the movie is one big flat line. A movie should have ups and downs; especially a tragedy!

Tragedy indeed... for all who watched it.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

Steve Carell is hilarious.

Is it a good movie? No.

Is it freaking hilarious? Why, yes. Yes it is.

Are parts weird and random much like Billy Madison? Yep.

Is Billy Madison hilarious? YES!

Is it PG:13? Yes.

Is it VERY PG:13? No. There's about two parts that were awkward, but it wasn't one nasty thing after the next.

The Wolverine

I can't tell you how many times I've seen this movie. No. I don't mean I've seen "The Wolverine" more than once, I mean this movie is exactly like 586 thousand other tired movies.

No surprises. No mind-blowing special effects. No plot.

At one point a ninja slices Wolverine in half. HELLO! His bones are covered in a candy shell, a really, really, hard, adamantium candy shell. I'm pretty sure that sword could not cut through him. Oh, unless it's made out of red hot adamantium... apparently.

So, this ingrate wants Wolverine's rejuvenation properties. And Wolverine is like, "No way, bub." And so the ingrate is like, "Oh okay. Well, I'm gonna die now; feel free to go off for the next two hours on this POINTLESS goose chase until I, in a TOTALLY PREDICTABLE TURN OF EVENTS, surface as not-really-in-fact-dead but, rather, Iron Man... or a very poor version of Iron Man... even though I own the number on industry in Japan."

Meanwhile, there's this woman, Mariko, who's like, "My grandpa, the ingrate, died and gave me all his stuff so everyone's trying to kill me, and by everyone I mean my dad, and my grandpa who just "died," so I'm

gonna sleep with you even though apparently I'm engaged to another man who's trying to kill me, but in love with someone else, who, funnily enough, is also trying to kill me. I just meet a man who's not trying to kill me and get all weak in the knees! Kiss me!"

Yeah. Wolverine needs his X-Men friends when he does movies.

Saving Mr. Banks

My husband and I decided it would be more economical to buy the movies we want, and forgo the movie-going-babysitter-paying experience. Neither of us mind since neither of us like being without our adorable baby.

So, we recently bought Gravity, and you know how that turned out.

Well, today I bought and watched Saving Mr. Banks, another hard-to-watch movie but for an entirely different reason. This movie was hard to watch because the flashbacks were mind-numbingly boring, oh, and so was the rest of the film. All the best parts were in the previews.

I spent the entire movie consumed with distaste for PL Travers's attitude, (although, I agree, throw those wretched pears out the window! "Go swimming, crumbly apples!") Certain things she did cracked me up. Putting Mickey in time-out for example, was funny, and such, but... oh man. The boring in that movie was relentless.

Great performances by everyone, (I even liked Colin Farrel in it!) and it had a very sweet message that WE ALREADY GOT FROM MARY POPPINS, so I say...  worthless, boring, film. So, I'm going to tell you one thing...

JUST. RE-WATCH. MARY. POPPINS. And maybe get on Wikipedia if you want to know all about PL Travers.

The end.

Maybe it would have been better trimmed down.

NOW the end.

Gravity

Excuse me while I duck out half way through this movie to put my baby to sleep, even though he's not remotely tired.

Using babies for an excuse is one of the perks of being a mom.

But I'm not the only one who wanted out of seeing the rest of this film.

The movie starts by being hard to watch and grows from there.

These two, (Bullock and Clooney, or Bullcloo,) keep going back and forth between, "Let me die," and "No, you let me die," until I finally don't believe either of them.

Apparently people really like this movie. Apparently I am not one of them.

Frozen

So, this movie was super cute AND it surprised me. The songs were MUCH better than the ones in Tangled, (although, they all pretty much sound the same and are somewhat forgettable.) My biggest gripe was that Anna was Rapunzel in a new story. And I've been tired of klutzy characters since Twilight.

That being said, I loved it. It's a huge step in the right direction. We saw it then went and pre-ordered the DVD.

The Internship

Have you seen Monsters U? GOOD! Then you've pretty much seen The Internship.

But if you haven't actually seen The Internship you might check it out. It's fun. I can't speak for it's use of colorful language, or a certain stripper scene I missed because I was getting a certain adorable 11-month old back to sleep. But it's a cute movie.

2 older guys lose their sales jobs and intern at Google.

Wow. I thought the synopsis would take up more space. That's really it.