Bridesmaids

The movie stars Kristen Wiig of SATURDAY NIGHT LIFE as Annie, a single gal past 30 who goes crazy when her best friend, Lillian, finally decides to tie the knot. The movie opens with Annie having a lengthy one-stand stand with a very handsome but totally callous man. Lillian chastises Annie for stooping to that level, but Annie brushes her off.

As Lillian plans the wedding, Annie tries to set up the pre-wedding events as Lillian’s maid of honor. Annie clashes, however, with another bridesmaid named Helen, a snobbish rich girl who tries to upstage Annie at every turn. Things go from bad to worse for Annie, who can’t seem to do anything right and just recently lost her boyfriend and her bakery business.

As Annie comes more and more unglued, she accidentally meets a kind, generous policeman with an appealing Irish accent named Rhodes. In his own charming, witty way, Rhodes tries to woo Annie, but Annie’s fear of commitment and her poor self-image keep getting in the way. Meanwhile, her attempt to be the perfect maid of honor goes from one disaster to another. Making matters worse is the fact that Annie is jealous and resentful of the rich bridesmaid’s superficial charm and overcompensating super-confidence.

The characters in BRIDESMAIDS are very well developed, but there’s a tremendous amount of crude and lewd situations and language. The movie also goes on too long. Though Kristen Wieg is hilarious when she comes unglued, the best scenes are when she’s with the policeman, who’s extremely appealing and a really nice guy. Regrettably, Annie and the policeman do go to bed together at one point, but it’s implied rather than depicted.

Ultimately, the crude parts in BRIDESMAIDS turn out to be the movie’s undoing. Also, BRIDESMAIDS only has the slightest sense concerning the biblical, godly foundations of marriage and family.

The Help

"You is Kind.
You is Smart.
You is Important."


Anyone who have seen this movie is familiar with those three lines, which is popularly said by Aibileen in the movie called "The Help". The said movie is based on a film with the same title. The movie evolves on the life of black or as they prefer to call the colored maids during the civil rights, early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi.

The story takes off when Skeeter played by Emma Stone graduates from Ole Miss and returns home and takes a job at the local newspaper. Possessing observation skills and humanity that her lifelong friends can’t comprehend, Skeeter desperately wants to tell a story from the perspective of the maids. As expected, the maids are hesitant, but Aibileen played by Viola Davis does relent. The stories begin to flow and soon the robust Minny played by Octavia Spencer joins in.

When Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), the cold ice-queen bee of her social set, proudly announces that her idea to mandate separate bathrooms for the help because “they carry different diseases” has caught the attention of the lieutenant governor, the shot of her self-satisfied smugness cuts to the face of her maid, Aibileen (Viola Davis). Aibileen, inured to the status quo, barely registers the insult as she stands next to Hilly, but it’s in that barely preceptible shadow of hurt and anger that the story of a time and place is told with stunning, infuriating clarity. Skeeter’s reaction is more pronounced, but even her shock is muted, and that she changes the subject rather than challenging Hilly speaks volumes. When she takes the unprecedented step of then privately apologizing to Aibileen, Taylor lets the expressions on each woman’s face in the pregnant silence that follows tell its own paradigm-changing story.

It’s a moment that also gives Skeeter the idea to write a book about life from the point of the view of the help, one that she must finish quickly before, as her New York editor puts it, this whole civil rights thing blows over. It’s an idea that is fraught with the danger of more than just getting fired if Aibileen tells the truth, a fact brought home by the story of Medgar Evans dominating the headlines and television reports that are in the background of the film. Aibileen eventually agrees, despite the implacable resistance of her best friend and mutual support, Minny (Octavia Spencer), Hilly‘s new maid. Minny has no love for her employer, but she adores Hilly’s only occasionally lucid mother (Sissy Spacek). When her patient if grudging toleration of Hilly’s viciousness reaches its limits, it inspires a revenge has a profane poetry of monumental proportions that will inform the rest of the story. 

Spencer all but steals the film from a formidable cast that is the quintessence of ensemble acting. Hers is a face of uncommon beauty powered by a solid performance of such vibrancy that it leaps off the screen even in its many quiet moments of introspection. Imbued with her whole lively heart, it is by turns funny, tragic, compassionate, proud and fearful, and always there is a keen sense of herself as a woman of quality in a world that refuses to recognize it. Davis has the quiet dignity of a broken heart and no options, but it’s Spencer’s Minny who signals the way the times are changing when she, too finally agrees to talk to Skeeter. Stone is the perfect counterpoint. Bright, bubbling, and fierce without being caustic, exploring the new freedoms she is creating for herself and others with a sense of delight and determination. It’s a performance that is as subtle as Skeeter isn’t and all the better for it.

The snobbishness of Jackson’s elite, the hypocrisy it breeds seeing color and class rather than people, and the sublimated unhappiness it causes everyone is a nice metaphor for the proposition that if some are not free, no one can be free, with the inclusion of the “white-trash” element who married up. The loud but sweet Celia (Jessica Chastain) welcomes Minny into her house with open arms, ragged desperation, and a first-class generosity of spirit. Yet her respect for the first maid she’s ever had creates its own uncomfortable, yet revolutionary atmosphere for Minny.

THE HELP has its own revolutionary atmosphere, refusing to divide the world into, pardon the expression, black and white. Without intricacies of the relationships, without the emotional stakes that those intricacies represent, the film would fail monumentally, becoming just another screed about the injustice of the times. Instead, it is a celebration of the heart with an indictment of racism, ageism, sexism, and all the others that is irrefutable.

Crazy, Stupid, Love

At forty something Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) is living the dream-good job nice house, great kids and a marriage from the girl he met since highschool, Emily (Julianne Moore). But then he learns that his wife cheats on him and wanted a divorce and his "perfect" life unravels.

Night by night, he spends his free time sulking alone on a bar to release his sadness, and in this club is where he meets his wing-man, 30 year old player, Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling).

In an effort to help Cal get over his wife and start living his life, Jacob opens his eyes to the options he have before him: flirty women, manly drinks and a sense of style that can't be found at Supercats or The Gap.

As the story goes on, it wasn't only Emily and Cal who were looking for love. Robbie (Jonah Bobo), their 13 year old son is crazy about his 17 year old baby sitter Jessica (Analeigh Tipton) who then happens to have a crush with Cal. And Cal's oldest daughter, Hannah (Emma Stone) also stuggles with her love life with her lawyer boyfriend Richard (Josh Groban) who then she thoughts would be proposing to her once she pass the board exam, but later on she finds out that what Richard would offer her was a job on his own law firm.

After breaking up with Richard, she immediately went to the bar where she met Jacob and then Jacob takes home Hannah but instead of having sexual intercourse the two then have meaningful conversations that made Jacob change for the better and made him fall in love with Hannah.

On the latter part, when Cal tried to surprised his wife and Hannah tried to introduce Jacob to her parents, a "disaster" happened. Cal was surprised to find out that her daughter's boyfriend is his player wing man Jacob. Knowing what kind of person he is, Cal got mad and never gave him the approval for their relationship but then after seeing how happy Hannah is with Jacob he then approves their relationship.

“Crazy, Stupid, Love” might not be for everyone. I mean, I’m pretty sure no matter who you are you’ll find something funny and enjoyable about this film. But not everyone will fully appreciate it. This story is about love. It’s not just another romantic comedy, but instead it seems to really have a deeper understanding of love. In one case how it can change someone overnight, in another how it can never really leave and in yet another case, how it knows no age or restrictions. In any case, it’s about how love can be messy, and it can cause you to do crazy and stupid things. But it really exists in people, and it’s something that can be put through awful circumstances and still be there on the other end. So some people, who may have known true love in their life, can understand why very little about this film is cliche. It’s a laughable, painful and uncomfortable mess. And in the end, everything is far from perfect, but it’s hopeful. And that’s the truth.

THE CAST:

• Steve Carell as Cal Weaver
• Ryan Gosling as Jacob Palmer
• Julianne Moore as Emily Weaver
• Emma Stone as Hannah Weaver
• Analeigh Tipton as Jessica Riley
• Jonah Bobo as Robbie Weaver

Colombiana

Zoe Saldana stars this action filled movie entitled Colombiana as Cataleya Restrepo whose parents were killed by Don Luis a drug lord.

At her young age, Cataleya witnessed how her parents got killed by Don Luis' team and left as the only survivor. In the midst of the chaos, as the young  Cataleya , she manages to survive and flees to Chicago to meet up with her uncle.

Little detail is given about what information her father gave to his boss, and what exactly is Don Louis’ profession except for a few soft mentions of the exchange of drugs is all that is revealed. The purpose is that her parents are dead and now she wants to become an assassin. Essentially, we jump from young  Cataleya  to wanting to become a killer, since she wanted to take revenge on the death of her parents. 

Cataleya grew up being an assassin, killing everyone who is connected to the person who killed her parents, and she also then works for her uncle  Emilio, she remains focused on her ultimate goal: to hunt down and get revenge on the mobster responsible for her parents’ deaths.

The movie was pretty awesome and I admire how Zoe Saldana portrayed her character since I'm always fascinated by actresses who portrays a badass character, the only thing I didnt like on this movie was its ending. My reaction was "Really? That's how the story ends?" It was like a blink of an eye then the movie ends.

Casts:

Zoe Saldana ... Cataleya Restrepo

  Jordi Mollà ... Marco

  Lennie James ... Ross

  Amandla Stenberg ...Young Cataleya

  Michael Vartan ... Danny Delanay

  Cliff Curtis ... Emilio Restrepo

  Beto Benites ... Don Luis

Trailer: