Underwater

 Underwater (2020)

Starring Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassel, Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher, Jr., Mamoudou Athie, and T.J. Miller

Directed by William Eubank

Written by Brian Duffield and Adam Cozad

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Charlie's Angels

Charlie's Angels (2019)

Starring Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, Ella Balinska, Elizabeth Banks, Djimon Hounsou, Sam Claflin, Noah Centineo, Nat Faxon, and Patrick Stewart

Directed by Elizabeth Banks

Written by Elizabeth Banks

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: D

Personal Shopper

Personal Shopper (2017)

Starring Kristen Stewart, Lars Eidinger, and Nora von Waldstätten

Directed by Olivier Assayas

Written by Olivier Assayas

Summary (in 500 words or less):  Maureen (Kristen Stewart), a personal shopper to European celebrity Kyra (Nora von Waldstätten), finds herself coping with the recent death of her twin brother by trying to connect with him on a spiritual "ghostly" level.  All the while, she's dealing with a mysterious texter who seems to know a lot about her, but won't reveal his or her identity, creating a situation that leaves Maureen both uncomfortable and oddly intrigued by this stalker-like person.

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: C+

Movie Review - Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016)

Starring Joe Alwyn, Kristen Stewart, Chris Tucker, Garrett Hedlund, Makenzie Leigh, Vin Diesel, and Steve Martin

Directed by Ang Lee

Prior to its release last year, there were some high Oscar hopes lobbied about for director Ang Lee's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, but its failure at the box office didn't help it gain any traction during the awards season.  Sometimes deserving movies just slip under the radar of both the public and the cinematic voting blocs...and sometimes movies that people thought were going to be deserving turn out to be epic flops.  The latter is the case here with Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk proving to be one of the worst 2016 movies I've seen yet.

Nineteen year-old soldier Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn) has just returned home from Iraq to great fanfare after a video of him attempting to save his superior from Iraqi warriors goes viral.  Celebrated as a hero, Lynn and his troop are being treated like celebrities including being placed front and center in the Thanksgiving Day Dallas Cowboys halftime show.  With Cowboys owner Norm Oglesby (Steve Martin) attempting to broker a deal to make their lives into a movie, Lynn and his mates are faced with attempting to enjoy their fifteen minutes of fame knowing full well that when Black Friday rolls around they have to ship out for another assignment.

The potential for an in-depth look at PTSD is ever present around the edges of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, but the screenplay by Jean-Christophe Castelli and direction by Ang Lee can't find a balance as it attempts to depict the drama of the horrors of war and the semi-comedic satire of our celebrity-driven American culture.  This uneven dichotomy is frankly a failure and leads to one of the most stilted acting ensembles I've seen in ages (including a horrendous performances by Steve Martin).  The film builds itself on being über-realistic, but many of its scenes and most of its dialog never feel real.  Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is just a huge dud.

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Movie Review - Café Society

Café Society (2016)

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell, Blake Lively, Parker Posey, Corey Stoll, Jeannie Berlin, and Anna Camp

Directed by Woody Allen

***This film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime***

Café Society is a nonstarter when it comes to a Woody Allen movie.  There's nothing about it that really pops, but there's nothing about it that's bad enough to rouse hatred.  In the end, it's just a middle-of-the-road flick from a prolific auteur who has maybe run out of ideas when it comes to comedy despite still having some life in him when it comes to writing and directing dramas.

It's the 1930s and Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) isn't happy working for his jeweler father in New York City so he decides to move to Los Angeles where he gets a job running errands for his uncle Phil (Steve Carell) who is one of the biggest agents in Hollywood.  At his uncle's office, Bobby meets secretary Vonnie (Kristen Stewart) and immediately becomes infatuated with her.  Unfortunately for Bobby, Vonnie happens to be secretly seeing her married boss, Phil, but she's aggravated that he won't leave his wife despite promises that he will.  With Phil leaving her in limbo, Vonnie acquiesces to Bobby's advances, but their relationship eventually causes some tension between Bobby and Phil, leaving the young man to head back home to New York City where a whole second half of the story begins involving a ritzy supper club.

And therein lies the biggest problem with Café Society -- it's two disparate stories that don't really mesh together as well as they should.  The film really is broken into two halves and while neither half is disproportionately worse than the other, it just doesn't really click as a whole.  Fortunately, Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart have nice chemistry (in what I believe is their third film together) which helps Woody Allen's words come to life.  Anna Camp, Parker Posey, and Blake Lively take on cameo-sized roles and inject a lot of character into them as well.  In the end, though, Woody Allen may have been better served if he just chose one half on which to focus.  Still, Café Society isn't the worst of Allen films, but it's certainly not the best.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Movie Review - American Ultra

American Ultra (2015)

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Topher Grace, Connie Britton, Walton Goggins, John Leguizamo, Tony Hale, and Bill Pullman

Directed by Nima Nourizadeh

I recorded American Ultra on the DVR during a free preview weekend of some pay cable network and before watching it, I deleted it.  Did I really wanna watch a movie whose main character is a stoner pot smoker?  In the opening minutes, Jesse Eisenberg's Mike Howell and Kristen Stewart's Phoebe Larson must've lit up at least five times.  Longtime blog readers know that I'm not a huge fan of drugs mixing with comedy -- I just feel it's an easy, cheap way to elicit laughs -- so I actually deleted the film.  For some reason, though, I decided to restore it to my DVR and give it a go -- and I'm glad I did.  American Ultra isn't going to set the world on fire, but its ultra-violent premise yielded enough laughs (in a non-drug-centric manner) and a clever, well-acted story that I found myself pleasantly surprised.

Mike is a convenience store clerk who, when not smoking pot, spends his free time hanging out with his girlfriend Phoebe and writing a comic book about a heroic ape.  One evening, Mike is approached at the store by a strange although very put-together and sophisticated woman (Connie Britton) who begins babbling some nonsensical words to him.  Mike shrugs off the exchange, but minutes later when he's jumped by two guys, Mike goes into violent beast mode, attacking and killing the duo with ease.  Mike slowly begins to realize that he may have been programmed by the government to commit such crimes and now that he's been "activated," some government officials may want him dead.

Moving along at a rather rapid clip, American Ultra smartly doesn't overstay its welcome because its entire story is essentially summed up in that aforementioned paragraph.  Without a huge amount of plot, we're instead treated to incredibly violent set pieces that are played for laughs -- a tricky balance to achieve, but executed successfully for the most part by relative newcomer director Nima Nourizadeh.  Tarantino-level in their graphicness, the violence is undoubtedly over-the-top and at times unbelievable, but the film is able to cleverly get the audience to embrace the insanity because the flick's main character can't believe what he's seeing either.  Stoner Mike's expert combat techniques are just as incomprehensible to him as they are to us in the audience so that surprisingly immediately connects us to the character and allows us to "accept" the elevated violence because we're on the same page as Mike.

Eisenberg and Stewart are a nice match for one another, although neither lights the world on fire here.  They're both a bit too monotone throughout for my liking, but that's really their acting style most of the time, I've always felt.  The supporting cast of Connie Britton and Topher Grace as CIA agents respectively for and against Mike are enjoyable, bringing some additional laughs to the flick.  My review may be slightly overpraising American Ultra which is by no means exceptional, but it was a bit of a surprise for me.  Certainly not for everyone, the flick is much better than I ever expected.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - Clouds of Sils Maria

Clouds of Sils Maria (2015)

Starring Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, and Chloë Grace Moretz

Directed by Olivier Assayas

There is an enormous level of pretentiousness that runs rampant through Clouds of Sils Maria.  That's not necessarily a death knell for director-screenwriter Olivier Assayas' film, but it does create some issues in terms of the audience connecting with the characters who perhaps may have interesting stories to tell, but are oftentimes burdened with dialog-driven scenes that reek of pompousness.

Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) is a famous movie star who started her career by starring in a play by (fictional) Swiss playwright Wilhelm Melchior.  The play -- Maloja Snake -- revolves around the tempestuous relationship between the fiftysomething Helena who begins to fall for Sigrid, a young girl who is working for her.  Eventually, the verbal and emotional battle between the two women leads the older Helena to suicide when her feelings are not reciprocated.  When traveling to Switzerland to accept an award for the now-reclusive playwright, Maria learns that Melchior has died.  She also speaks with a young director who wishes to revive Maloja Snake on the London stage with Maria playing the older Helena now and up-and-coming actress Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloë Grace Moretz) as the younger Sigrid.  Reluctantly, Maria agrees to the revival and in order to prepare for the role, she goes to Melchior's Swiss house where she and her personal assistant Valentine (Kristen Stewart) spend a lot of time talking about how age affects women among other things.

Ultimately, the problem with Clouds of Sils Maria is that it feels flat, failing to really create meaningful, interesting arcs for both its characters and its story.  The film thinks it's deep -- and maybe it really is -- but it meanders so mind-numbingly slowly that any metaphorical or psychological importance is lost as the viewer loses interest.  Juliette Binoche is fine and Kristen Stewart (who received rave reviews and the French equivalent of the Oscar for this role) is playing her most natural role yet, but the latter just doesn't have a whole lot to sink her teeth into and the former is mired in depressing malaise for 120 minutes that the audience simply doesn't want to have anything to do with her despite the fact that she's onscreen for every moment of the film.  While nicely shot, the boredom Clouds of Sils Maria inspires in the viewer just can't be overcome.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - Still Alice

Still Alice (2014)

Starring Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kate Bosworth, and Kristen Stewart

Directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland

While I wouldn't necessarily call Julianne Moore's performance in Still Alice a tour de force, I must admit that due to her acting choices and the way she reads certain lines, she nearly made me tear up in certain scenes in this film about a fifty-something year-old woman who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's Disease.  While the film itself is "just fine," Moore does elevate things which is likely a reason she walked away with the Oscar for Best Actress this past year.  (It also certainly helped that the roles for women in films in 2014 were decidedly weak.)

While I could list a summary for you, quite frankly I've already written all you need to know about Still Alice in the opening paragraph.  Thanks to a relatively quick running time, the directing and screenwriting team of Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland place the focus squarely on Alice (Moore), a linguistics professor who can't help but find irony in the fact that her education in language and communication is failing her personally now thanks to the incurable disease that is slowly deteriorating her mind.  With her three adult children and husband (Alec Baldwin) by her side, Alice must come to terms with the fact that her life will unfortunately never be the same.

While Moore is in every scene in the film, the moments that ring the most true for me were the ones in which she is discussing her disease with her family.  Baldwin as her husband and Kristen Stewart and Kate Bosworth as her daughters help to humanize things even more by reacting in a variety of believable ways to their wife/mother's diagnosis.  Without them to play off of, Moore wouldn't have shined nearly as bright as she does.

Still Alice certainly works as a movie and it doesn't particularly do anything wrong in any aspect, but don't go into this one expecting to be blown away because that won't happen.  This is a good film that I admittedly don't think can be any better than it is -- but it's simply good, not great.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part II (2012)

Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, and Michael Sheen

Directed by Bill Condon

From the opening scenes, I think I laughed more in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part II than I did in the entirety of this supposed comedy.  Unfortunately, I'm fairly certain I was supposed to take newly vampiric Bella (Kristen Stewart) taking down a mountain lion by chomping it in the throat fairly seriously.  As was I not to laugh at Bella getting angry that werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner) has imprinted on her three day-old daughter Renesmee (thus bonding the two together for life) by spouting the words, "You nicknamed her Nessie!  You nicknamed her after the Lock Ness Monster?!?!"  Let's not even discuss the computer-digitized baby Renesmee giggling and touching her hand to her mother's cheek.  All this craziness happens within the film's first fifteen minutes!

I'd rather director Bill Condon had relished in the kookiness of vampire-werewolf relations as he did in Part 1 of this epic finale, but instead he's forced to tackle the conclusion of The Twilight Saga which deals with the Volturi headed by Aro (Michael Sheen) who want to kill Renesmee because they believe she is an immortal vampire child.  Vampire children are untrainable and thus will wreak havoc by making vampires more visible to humans in some way.  Therefore, for centuries the Volturi have been killing vampiric kids and murdering their parents who sired them.  However, Renesmee is not an immortal because she was born from vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) and now-vampire-but-formerly-human-and-human-when-she-gave-birth Bella.  Pretty much the entirety of the film is Edward, Bella, and the rest of the Cullen clan bringing together "witnesses" who can attest to the Volturi that Renesmee is not an immortal and thus causes no threat to their secretive civilization.  This assembly of fellow vampires may play like a Who's Who for the Twilight fans, but to this reviewer, he didn't understand why we were wasting so much time listening to these people talk about their problems as if they mattered in the grand scheme of the plot because they didn't in the slightest.

This all leads to the big standoff between the Volturi and the Cullen-led "witnesses" in which a lot of vampire's heads are decapitated (seriously, there's more disembodiments here than in any movie I've ever seen).  But, in the big surprise twist (and I'm gonna reveal it here because I have to discuss how ludicrous the finale is), the big showdown actually doesn't happen.  In fact, it was all playing out in the mind of Aro who was magically "touched" by one of the Cullen clan and was able to see the future which didn't pan out too well for his fellow Volturi.  Instead, Aro decides to quietly leave, therein creating perhaps one of the biggest letdowns in the history of movies.  Five movies and nearly ten hours of film lead to people walking away from each other rather than fighting for what they believe in.  You've got to be kidding me, right?  Come to find out, this whole fight scene was added just for the movie -- it wasn't even in the book.  What was the point of the books then?

Good Lord, what a horrible way to end a horrible cinematic series.  I won't even delve into criticizing Kristen Stewart or Robert Pattinson because I've done enough of that in previous reviews of the series (and, actually, they were their best in this two-part finale which isn't saying much).  What I don't understand at the end of this whole series is why these books became such a huge pop culture obsession.  I guess it's that "love triangle" aspect, but the screenplays of these movies lack any modicum of fun or excitement and the finale proved to end things on a huge sour note.  Thankfully, I won't ever need to venture near these movies ever again.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Previous Entries in the Series

Breaking Dawn - Part One -- C

Eclipse -- C-

New Moon -- D-

Twilight -- C-

I'm actually frightened by how highly I've rated the series as a whole...

Movie Review - Snow White and the Huntsman

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

Starring Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Eddie Marsan, and Toby Jones

Directed by Rupert Sanders

The more financially successful of the two Snow White flicks released in 2012, Snow White and the Huntsman is certainly darker than the lighthearted Mirror Mirror (which is now available to stream on Netflix), but they're essentially telling the same story we're all familiar with since our childhood.  Shockingly enough, I found both oddly enjoyable to watch in their own ways with both ultimately creating interesting enough twists on the well-known tale to make them never fall into the been-there-done-that realm.

Despite being called Snow White and the Huntsman, the film certainly revolves around the evil Queen Ravenna who is played with wicked abandon by Charlize Theron.  Sexy and alluring, but frighteningly menacing, Theron sinks her teeth into the dark side and goes for broke rather successfully.  When she isn't on the screen, you want the film to shift back to her.  [It should be noted that I said the same thing about Julia Roberts in Mirror Mirror so the role is obviously ripe for scene-stealing.]

But, despite the focus on the Queen, the film's title certainly implies that we're probably going to spend a bit of time with those two title characters, played in this film by Kristen Stewart and Chris Hemsworth, both of whom are perfectly adequate, but undeniably bland.  Hemsworth fares better than Stewart, but that really shouldn't be a surprise considering that I've yet to see Stewart show any smidgen of realistic emotion onscreen in anything.  Here, I'm not sure she even utters fifty lines -- most of the film is her simply reacting vaguely and emptily to things -- but she still manages to prove irksome to this reviewer.

Still, despite the fact that the character of Snow White in a film called Snow White and the Huntsman is a bit of a dud, the film's delving into magic and eerie fantasy is a welcome addition to the tried and true story.  Sure, the Evil Queen has always dipped her hand into the dark arts, but here that's amplified by several degrees to great success and helps to add just enough variations to the tale.  Also amusing, the dwarfs here are typical "munchkin" height, but are played by some fairly famous faces -- Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, and Toby Jones to name a few -- which allows for some more solid acting than we're likely used to seeing from these smaller statured figures.

Overall, the comparison of Snow White and the Huntsman to Mirror Mirror ends up being a bit of a wash.  I'll admit that most will like this version better, but I can at least recognize that for more light-hearted kiddie fare, Mirror Mirror is a solid picture as well.  Neither are fantastic films, but both are acceptable interpretations of the fairy tale.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part One

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part One (2011)

Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner

Directed by Bill Condon

This is probably not a popular opinion, but I think Breaking Dawn - Part One is the best Twilight movie to come out yet.  However, don't let that praise fool you.  It's still a movie with one of the silliest concepts imaginable and this is the most foolish segment of the series yet.  However, there's part of me that feels like everyone knew they were dealing with utter ridiculousness and gave into the absurdity rather than trying to mask it.

For you see, the first part of the inexplicably divided Breaking Dawn starts off with the wedding of human Bella (Kristen Stewart) to vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and director Bill Condon wastes no time getting to the proceedings.  We get to visit with characters from past Twilight movies (including a forty-five second cameo from Anna Kendrick who steals the movie in her scene) and then we just jump right to the honeymoon on a private isle off the shores of Brazil.  Bella and Edward consummate their marriage which leaves Bella happy, but Edward upset because his uncontrollable animalistic tendencies rear their ugly head whilst in the midst of sex and he not only literally breaks the bedposts, but bruises his darling bride.  The two mope around the fancy honeymoon house because they're seemingly sexually incompatible for the time being -- Bella has yet to determine when she'll step over to the vampire side of things, you see.  All this is cheesy enough, but then Bella starts throwing up and she realizes that after fourteen days on the island and following a nice product placement for Tampex that she's late which must mean that she's pregnant.  Mere seconds after coming to that conclusion, she feels the baby kicking inside of her.  But wait!  Vampires and humans can't have babies together, can they?  And if they can, what the hell is growing inside Bella?  A vampire?  A human?  One thing is for certain -- whatever it is it's certainly going to be the palest baby ever to come out of a mother's womb if Bella and Edward's genes have anything to do with it.  All that and I didn't even mention the werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner) whose fellow lycanthropes are fed up with vampires taking humans for brides -- hell, that's what the werewolves want!

The whole thing is utterly ridiculous with some of the most inane dialog around...but it's kinda fun.  I mean, even writing that ludicrous summary, I couldn't help but smile about the whole thing.  Sure, I'm sick and tired of the whole premise of this godawful series.  But at least in Breaking Dawn the stupid subplots about European vampires wanting to bring an end to the Cullen clan are brushed aside and the focus sits squarely on the insanely idiotic dynamic of human-vampire sexual relations.  Dare I say it, but Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson weren't as annoying as in past movies and I think new director Bill Condon actually managed to pull average performances out of them (which is more than I can say from past directors).  Condon also makes the film rather nice to look at and has a moderately deft hand at pacing the flick out...although in the grand scheme of things, I'm sure these two Breaking Dawn pictures could have easily been condensed into one without any problems at all.

The end credits scene alluded to the fact that the second film will shift focus to more of a battle between the Cullens and this aforementioned European vampire group headed by Michael Sheen...and this will inevitably bore me to no end.  But, Part One of Breaking Dawn surprisingly managed to hit that "so bad it became laughable" point that at least made the whole thing not as tedious to watch as the other movies in the series.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - The Runaways

The Runaways (2010)

Starring Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, and Michael Shannon

Directed by Floria Sigismondi

The Runaways...also known as "the movie that actually showed this blogger that Kristen Stewart can act." Coming off of all wooden performances in the Twilight movies that made her famous, Stewart proves that there may be some significant acting chops in her after all as she portrays teenage rocker Joan Jett, lead guitarist for the 70s short-lived chick rock band The Runaways.  With Dakota Fanning (as always) performing admirably by her side, Stewart and Fanning make this rock biopic better than it really deserves to be given its by-the-book method of storytelling.

Just like any other rock band that's had a movie made about them, The Runaways dealt with the same exact stuff -- sex, drugs, an overbearing and shady manager, egos, in-fighting.  The list could go on and on, but it's nothing new or surprising.  The only difference here is that it's a bunch of girls dealing with it rather than guys.  Even though director-screenwriter Floria Sigismondi isn't able to produce anything special with the screenplay, the film looks pretty darn good.  Apparently best known for her music videos, Sigismondi certainly brings a frenetic energy to the screen, but absolutely knows when to scale back the pizzazz for the more intimate moments.

As I mentioned above, the film is carried by Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning.  Stewart brings a raw, macho edge to Joan Jett that I haven't seen in anything else from the actress.  She was surprisingly winning even in some fairly dramatic scenes.  Fanning, once again, proves why she's one of the best younger actresses ever to appear on screen.  This girl is only sixteen (possibly younger when she made this) and her role as the drug-addicted lead singer Cherie Currie is 100% believable.  With the looks of an angel and the attitude of a punk, Fanning undeniably disappears completely into this role, providing me with some very uncomfortable, but tremendously effective, moments (re: the lesbian kissing, snorting cocaine, etc...this is Dakota Fanning...not Lindsay Lohan!).  Michael Shannon also is quite good as The Runaways' manager, Kim Fowley, who knew that in order to be successful, he needed to turn the band into the bad girls that every guy wanted to screw.  (Yes, that sounds harsh, but just wait until you hear some of the lines he spouts...most of them were ridiculous, but oh so true from a music biz standpoint.)

The RyMickey Rating: B

Movie Review - The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)

Starring Kristin Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Anna Kendrick

Directed by David Slade

To say that Eclipse is the best of the Twilight movies thus far isn't exactly a ringing endorsement.  The original fell into that "so bad it's good" category.  The film itself was awful, but with dialog like "hold on tight, spider monkey," you had to appreciate its sheer corniness.  Movie #2, New Moon, was just horrendous.  It had no story at all spread out over 130 minutes.

Eclipse at least moves beyond #2's "epic" struggle of young Bella (Stewart) choosing whether to be with pale but shiny vampire Edward (Pattinson) or hunky six-packed werewolf Jacob (Lautner).  Yes, Bella still needs to make a decision (what gal would want to hurt either of these two Adonis's feelings?), but the film at least moves on a little bit from the relationship drama.  Back in movie one, Edward was responsible for the death of some vampire and that vampire's girlfriend is now out for revenge.  She sets up a posse of sorts to avenge his death, but Edward's creepy family and Jacob's werewolf tribe join forces to save the angst-ridden Bella.

Since there actually is a story in this one, that's certainly a positive.  Director David Slade is the best director of the bunch so far.  There's some moderately enjoyable action sequences and he manages to pull out at least watchable performances from Stewart and Pattinson, although this duo is still an incredible bore to watch onscreen.  Lautner, once again, is the only one of the main trio who shows any amount of charisma.

The problem with this whole series is that screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg brings no life to any of these characters.  Granted, I'm sure that she's probably not working with much from the original source, but I'm utterly shocked that they decided to allow Rosenberg to write all of the flicks for this franchise.  Her dialog is ridiculously silly and she has no sense of dramatic tension.  All of her scenes involving Bella and Edward feel interminably long.  Considering that these are your film's two main characters, I should at least give a damn about them -- and I don't in the slightest.

In the end, this film will get the same rating as the first flick in the "saga."  That being said, this one's a better crafted film thanks to the director.  The first one's good for some laughs.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)

Starring Kristin Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner
Directed by Chris Weitz

My lord. I don't get this phenomenon at all.

I could maybe get it if there was actually a story to spread across this film's 130 minutes. At the end of the first Twilight (which I liked in a so bad it's good kind of way), dreary loner Bella (Kristin Stewart) has fallen in love with vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson). Everything seems fine. But, at the start of New Moon, Bella's celebrating a birthday which means she's aging and Edward isn't. She begs Edward to make her a vampire, but he won't. Additionally, since vampires don't age, Edward and his family must move away from their home, thus leaving Bella. Bella is devastated and turns to her best friend, Jacob, who, it turns out, is turning into a werewolf. And, of course, werewolves and vampires don't get along! As Bella and Jacob's relationship blossoms into something more than just a friendship, Edward comes back into her life...the decisions she must make! There's no story here...at least not a story that can sustain itself over the run of this movie. Whittle this down to 100 minutes and you may be okay.

I also don't understand that fascination with the actors. Robert Pattinson, paler than ever, is so one-note it's laughable. Fortunately, he's only in this movie for 20 minutes. Instead, we get to spend all our time with Kristin Stewart who, opposite from Pattinson who looks like he's hopped on meds, must have been denied her daily drug dosage because she seemed to be twitching nonstop in this movie. Stewart somehow manages to have no chemistry with either of her male costars...so congrats on that failure, Kristin! Unfortunately for Stewart, Taylor Lautner (while not a great actor by any means) shines next to the dullness of Stewart and Pattinson. Any scene that Lautner's in with these other two actors just makes them seem even worse by comparison. The real bright spots in this movie are the five minutes we get to spend with Bella's high school friends. The actors portraying them actually show some life and vigor and provide this dreary movie's few laughs. Make a movie about them and I'm there.

And I don't get why they got rid of the director of the first one because this new director, Chris Weitz, certainly didn't help move the story along. There are some really awful shots here, coupled with some really ridiculous looking CGI. He manages to never allow for any sort of tension across the film's lengthy running time. Even the final climactic scene where Edward fights some other vampires was just silly (my response while watching it -- "It's nice to see Lurch from the Addams Family still getting jobs...and who knew he could fight like that?").

So, I'd be happy to receive an explanation of why this series is loved by so many...because the movies certainly don't do these bestselling books any justice...or maybe they do and the books are just plain awful, too.

The RyMickey Rating: D-

Movie Review - Adventureland (2009)

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, Bill Hader, and Kristen Wiig
Directed by Greg Mottola

I really wish I could've cared about anyone in this movie, but I couldn't. Not in the slightest. Any movie where all the characters pretty much sit around and smoke pot all day never really does a thing for me. Life's so bad, let's smoke pot. Life's so boring, let's smoke pot. Let's smoke pot and giggle a lot.

The simple story is that James (Jesse Eisenberg) just finished college and can't find a job. He goes to work at the local amusement park in his hometown and he meets Em (Kristen Stewart) and falls in love with her. She's an emotionless bore and he's not much better.

Everything about this movie was just humdrum -- the actors, the story, the cliché 80s music. Em's dating the married park maintenance guy at the same time she's going out with James, but she gets angry when James starts dating the hottie worker from the amusement park, Lisa P (Margarita Levieva of Spread fame). What gives her the right to be angry? Who cares? There's some scene at the end where people cry and then they fight and it's all so unimportant.

Ugh...I really disliked this one. I realize this is one of the worst reviews ever, but I just don't care enough to give a damn about it.

The RyMickey Rating: D

Movie Review -- Twilight (2008)

NOTE: Although in the past I've lumped dvd reviews together, I've decided to flesh out some of these reviews for particularly spectacular or simply popular films.

Starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke

Written by Melissa Rosenberg

***Spoilers in this one***

I don't even know where to start with this one. This was by no means a good movie. There were so many things wrong with it that it was incredibly frustrating when I watched it.

But for some reason, I kinda sorta liked it.

And it wasn't because of the acting. Because the two leads lacked any type of charisma. Schoolgirl Stewart in particular was like a lump just sitting onscreen. Brooding vampire Pattinson started out awful, too, but he became slightly more appealing as an actor as the film progressed.

It wasn't because of the direction. I feel like I could've directed this thing better. There were scenes that were completely unnecessary. There were awkward pauses in dialogue. There were some horrifically awful shots in this thing -- one in particular that sticks in my craw is a scene where the camera pans around the two main characters in a circle, stops when it gets three-quarters of the way around, and then cuts to a shot looking at the characters straight on...um...you could have just continued that circular pan. And don't even get me started on the Matrix-ish slow motion and sped up action scenes (that baseball scene...unintentionally hilarious!). Fortunately, Hardwicke got kicked off of directing the sequel.

It wasn't because of the dialogue. With choice lines like "Hold on tight, spider monkey" and "Your scent is like a drug to me. It's like you're my own personal heroin," I was cracking up when I wasn't supposed to. And it wasn't just the dialogue...whole scenes were laughable. How about the scene where Bella drops an apple on the ground and Edward catches it with his foot and then kicks it up, catches it in his hand, and puts it on her plate? It was ridiculous when Tobey Maguire did that in Spiderman and it's still ridiculous here.

And it wasn't because of the silly ending where a rival vampire gets attracted to Bella's scent and follows her all the way from Washington to Arizona just to taste her sweet, sweet blood.

So, why the hell did I kinda sorta like this movie?

I honestly have no clue. Now, obviously this wasn't a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, and I honestly don't even think I can list off anything that I really liked about it.

But there was something weirdly appealing about the film...and I kinda sorta wanna see the sequel.

The RyMickey Rating: C-

Side Note: Can anyone explain to me the appeal of this Robert Pattinson guy?