Monthly Archives: November 2011

MOVIES

In Case You Missed It: Teenage Paparazzo

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When many of us think of celebrities, we think of the glamorous lifestyle, the notoriety, and all the cool stuff we could do. Fame, noted by most celebrities, has its ups and downs. But of all the good and bad things, the most annoying of all of them might be the paparazzi. Known as the vermin of the entertainment industry, paparazzi are everywhere, but their job is to seem as if they’re nowhere to be seen. But as much as we hate them, it seems as if we know less about them than the celebrities they’re chasing.

Adrian Grenier, the star of HBO’s Entourage in which he plays a movie star, is beginning to have the line between reality and fiction blurred due to his fame in real life. He’s adjusting to the lifestyle of Vincent Chase both on and off the screen, except in real life he’s not playing a character. He’s Adrian Grenier. One day, while coming out of a club, amidst the mob of paps around him, he sees a young boy snapping his picture. He approaches the child; to only find out that he’s a thirteen-year-old paparazzo named Austin Visschedyk, a smooth and fast-talking kid from Los Angeles. This street-smart adolescent had recently gained interest in the life of a paparazzo when he met Adrian. This boy fascinated Grenier and before he knew it, he was making a film about him.


Camera crew in hand, Grenier and Visschedyk began taking the Hollywood streets by storm; Austin for his pictures, Adrian for an answer. Teenage Paparazzo offers not only a look into the life of a celebrity, but the people who put these celebrities on the cover of every gossip magazine known to man. The film, which was directed by Grenier, shows the human side of the paparazzi, insisting on talking to them one-on-one rather than dehumanizing them and writing them off as scum like everybody else in Hollywood has. Austin was only the beginning for Grenier. The life of a pap is unlike anything else; the adrenaline, the constant motion, the 24/7 workweek, and most of all, the money. Austin was making anywhere from $500-$1000 for a good shot of a hot celebrity, more if it met certain requirements.

I don’t want to spoil too much of the things that go on in Teenage Paparazzo, because that’s half the fun, finding out what’s going to happen next. Weaving in interviews with various celebrities as well as Austin’s story, the film really does give the viewer a neutral view of the lifestyle of both the paps and their victims. The relationship between certain paps and certain celebrities isn’t as strained as many think, which I find to be very interesting. With that being said, most of them are and it can get very, very, annoying. The price of fame is a price to pay, and Grenier is sure to convey this to the viewer. He explains what its like to walk out of your home and not three steps later start being flashed by camera lights at every angle.

If Teenage Paparazzo succeeds at something, it’s the truth that rings throughout the entire film. We’ve seen these people on TV, we see them in movies, on the news, on the internet, but do we know them? No, of course not. We think we do, but we don’t. It seems that a lot of people have yet to recognize that, though.

5/5 Bears

MOVIES

In Case you Missed It: Melancholia

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Early this year, Pastor Harold Camping, a former radio host for a Christian family radio station, claimed that Jesus would return to Earth on May 21st of this year, take all the righteous persons, and leave the rest to rot for the next five months until the universe’s destruction on October 21st. Obviously, this didn’t happen. Camping resigned from his position on the station, and refused to give interviews regarding his false predictions. He earned millions of dollars in donations, and when his theories were proven false, he simply said, “We’re not at the end. Why would we return it?” My question to him is, “Why do you even need this money if the world is going to end?” Enough about my resentment of Christian fundamentalists, though, back to the article.

My point is, the end of the world is a scary thing. People tend to worry a bit when it’s announced that all that they know and love will soon be destroyed, including themselves. Others just come to terms with theories like this and act as if nothing is wrong. These two viewpoints are the focus of director Lars Von Trier’s new film, Melancholia. Focusing on two sisters named Justine and Claire (Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg, respectively), one getting married, the other trying to hold everything together. We then learn that a recently discovered planet named Melancholia is going to do a fly-by to Earth, but it will not hit it, as Claire’s husband, John (Kiefer Sutherland), assures her, as well as the audience. We know better though, we know exactly what’s going to happen.

That’s one of the many things wrong with Melancholia. We know all of Trier’s tricks (clever, huh?) before they actually happen. We’ve seen them before, and seeing as Melancholia is strangely similar in many ways to Trier’s previous effort, Antichrist, they do not surprise us.

Melancholia’s opening sequence, a super slo-mo overture set to the theme of Tristan & Isolde, is among the most pretentious, unnecessary scenes in cinematic history. Lasting for almost 8 minutes, it reveals the entire film, as well as serving no purpose other than to look interesting. Using slow motion to capture the, well, melancholic feeling of the entire film worked in Antichrist, but it definitely doesn’t work here. In fact, it detracts from the mood that the film sets for the remainder of its duration.

Opening on Justine’s wedding to Michael (Alexander Skarsgard), her very understanding and helpful fiancé, the film begins to gain momentum in all the eccentric characters presented to us. The wedding sequence itself lasts for about an hour, and opens up the doors to a lot of great opportunities for an interesting second half. Being part one of a two-part film, though, it abandons everything that ever was in its first half, including Michael, who Justine leaves after the wedding is over, and sticks her in Claire’s house for the rest of the movie. The second half is a mind-numbing exercise in pretentiousness, obvious symbolism, and absolutely no direction rather than the inevitable ending of Earth. The drastic contrast between Part 1 to the almost completely standstill Part 2 of Melancholia make the film almost unwatchable at a certain point.

The film’s storyline is fascinating, as are its characters, the situations, the dialogue, and especially the directing, but its refusal to tell a story and some inspired symbolism that is pounded into submission, makes Melancholia too melancholic for its own good.

Von Trier has been under fire recently for claiming that he sympathizes with Hitler at a recent Cannes Film Festival press conference. The blogosphere has named him a Nazi-sympathizer and a fascist. Now, I’m not one to sympathize with Nazis, but in Trier’s defense, his comments weren’t so radical as everyone seems to think they are. He seems to be an intelligent man, and anyone educated on Hitler would know that he was harshly abused as a child by many of his peers, as well as his family. Now, again, I don’t want to take the same path as Trier, say I sympathize with Hitler, and subsequently be known as a Nazi, but there’s two sides to every story, and a lot of times we don’t want to hear the other side. That’s all I have to say about that little shenanigan.

As far as the film itself, I’d go so far as to say it’s crap. I respect Von Trier as a filmmaker very much, and I was one of the few defenders of Antichrist, but he’s really outdone his own narcissism with Melancholia. If he keeps making films like this, being called a Nazi is going to be the least of his problems.

1.5/5 Bears

MOVIES

Hero Express – ‘Booster Gold’ Gets a Pilot, ‘Dark Knight’ Rumors Rise and ‘Star Trek 2’s Unlikely Villain

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Welcome back to the Hero Express, your one-stop sometimes SPOILER filled shop through the news filled world of superhero’s in Film, TV, Video Games and whatever else floats your boat.

This is the Hero Express for November 23rd, 2011:

SyFy shooting Booster Gold Pilot – (MTV)

Here’s a short one to lead us back in to where Scoot left off in yesterday’s Express: Andrew Kreisberg , whose work you may know from Fringe, is slated to write a pilot for SyFy based on DC hero, Booster Gold. Executive Producer Greg Berlanti will be backing the project, which fits in nicely with his previous work on Green Lantern and No Ordinary Family.

It will be interesting to see if DC can find a place for its lesser-known heroes on television, as it seems they remain unable to find a lasting home on the silver screen.

‘Powers’ Pilot getting another Shot on FX – (MTV)

A while ago it was announced that the popular comic, Powers, was shooting a live-action pilot for FX, though it seemed initially like it wasn’t going to make it through. However, word is that FX has passed on a competing pilot and given Powers another chance, provided they can go back and do some more work on the special effects.

The comic’s writer, Brian Michael Bendis, tweeted happily about the news:

“In regard to ‘Powers’ TV: the pilot was crazy expensive and very lovely and shows incredible potential for a long series,” Bendis wrote. “The reshoots are planned for January and are all about tone and clarity. I am very proud of the pilot, as [is] [Michael Avon Oeming]. Stay tuned.”

Supposedly, according to Bendis, the process of going back to work on a pilot is not necessarily a bad sign, as FX is known to do this sort of thing. He mentioned that hit series Sons of Anarchy had to do the same.

A Slew of Set Photos from The Amazing Spider-Man – (SuperHero Hype/Newscom)

Two sets of photos have surfaced regarding The Amazing Spider-Man production. One features an extensive gallery of the cast on set for re-shoots, which you can see here. The other is much smaller, but much more revealing:

Most exciting to see, at least for me, is Rhys Ifans‘ ugly hand up there, which looks a lot like it means Connor’s experiment was a success (Giant lizard-monster transformation notwithstanding).

Empire Magazine’s TDKR Issue – (SuperHero Hype)

And here we are with the the Hero Express segment that likely overshadows the rest of these links; welcome to Dark Knight Station. Here are some photos (The best quality the internet has of them so far) of the Empire issue dedicated to the upcoming Batman movie:

Continue reading Hero Express – ‘Booster Gold’ Gets a Pilot, ‘Dark Knight’ Rumors Rise and ‘Star Trek 2’s Unlikely Villain →

Movie Trailers

Sexy Seyfried in “Gone” – Check Out The Trailer!

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On February 24, 2012, Gone will hit theaters everywhere!

In Gone, Amanda Seyfried (Mean Girls, In Time) plays Jill, a woman who was a victim of attempted murder.

Two years before present-time in the thriller, Jill was kidnapped and thrown down a hole to die. In that hole, she saw other human remains. She somehow escaped, only to experience her sister being kidnapped two years after her attack. Now, Jill must find her captor, as she assumes he also took her sister.
Cast alongside the sexy star are:

Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter)
Sebastian Stan (Captain America)
Wes Bentley (Jonah Hex)
Daniel Sunjata (Grey’s Anatomy)
Joel David Moore (Avatar; Also has a robot vagina)
Katherine Moenning (The L Word, Also played a he-she in an episode of Law and Order SVU)

Here is the trailer that has us so excited:

I expect that I will be in a comfy movie theater seat February 24th to see this.

MOVIES

Hero Express – ‘The Avengers’ Banners, ‘Man of Steel 2’. and ‘TDKR’ Wraps?

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Welcome back to the Hero Express, your one-stop sometimes SPOILER filled shop through the news filled world of superhero’s in Film, TV, Video Games and whatever else floats your boat.

Continue reading Hero Express – ‘The Avengers’ Banners, ‘Man of Steel 2’. and ‘TDKR’ Wraps? →

TV

Dexter: Season 6, Episode 8 – “Sin of Omission”

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RECAP and REACTION:

When Dexter goes to apologize to Deb for leaving for five days when she specifically said that he couldn’t, she informs Dexter of the victim who got away from the “Dooms Day Killer”. He knows now that Travis is no longer his secret, which is unfortunate.

When I see Travis in his sister’s home making him breakfast, it makes me feel very sorry for him. He seems like a tortured soul. He is having a horrible battle with his conscience and it is very obvious. Brother Sam’s funeral would be a very sad and emotional moment for me, had I had time to get attached to his character. Regardless, funerals are always sad. Brother Sam left his Holy Bible to Dexter. He had it when he was shot, so there is some of his blood on the good book. Dexter contemplates whether Brother Sam brought out some light in him. He didn’t kill Jonah, he didn’t kill Travis. When Dexter confronts Travis, he tells him that what Dex told him in his car made him think that he doesn’t have to listen to Professor Gellar anymore. Looks like Dexter did pass some of that light on to Travis. Dexter also old Travis that he has to help him find Gellar. The former Dooms Day assistant tells Dex that Gellar is crazy and will finish his mission.

Dexter performs his magic at a crime scene once again. It is inspiring to see how he can tell a story by glancing at a crime scene. It was an overdose, but he can tell minute details at a glance. (I know that this has nothing whatsoever to do with the show, but I feel obligated to say that I wish Dexter had been with the Seattle Police during the time of Kurt Cobain’s murder… erm… death.) He impresses Louis (Masuka’s intern) back at the station, who is currently seeing Jamie (Angel’s sister, Dexter’s nanny).


Dexter finds an angle to reach Travis with when he quotes the bible. The sin of omission: Travis must help them reach Gellar, for if he does not, he is just as guilty as the professor. I don’t know how I feel about Dexter using scripture to try to reach a man who he is going to kill. That is one of the things I love about this show… it makes me ponder about my own beliefs, and what I would do in a similar situation. After this, Deb confronts Travis’s sister at her home about Travis. She noticed his name on the list of Gellar’s students. Lisa says that Travis is acting like his same old self and Deb leaves.

When Dexter gives Deb the lab report she asked for, she looks for a pen and finds one in his bag. This particular pen is from the Shady Lane Motel in Nebraska, which is where Trinity’s family was killed. He admits to going there and talking to Jonah. He says it was because they both lost people they loved to Trinity, forgetting that Lundy was killed by Trinity.

The Whore of Babylon was proudly displayed for Miami Metro, with Travis’s sister as the whore. Gellar safety-pinned Deb’s card to Lisa which they found on her. Travis has now jumped to the top of Miami Metro’s most wanted list as Gellar’s accomplice. Gellar now has Travis chained up.

LaGuerta was pushing to make Deb close the Jessica Morris case (dead prostitute, OD’d, there was a man in the room, LaGuerta does NOT give a crap about that) to help her close rate. However, after Deb walks away, LaGuerta has a suspicious yet brief phone conversation alluding to the fact that she has something to hide.

As much as I love Deb, I have a whole shit-ton of sympathy for her. The poor girl has already been through so much with her father, the ice truck killer, her relationships, LaGuerta, and now she is in therapy and Dexter is taking advantage of her as his boss. The therapist tells Deb to make some effort to focus on Dexter and his issues when they meet up next.

Dexter found a name on the robe used at the Whore of Babylon scene. He went to find Father Golloway, a priest who suffers from severe dementia. The priest asks Dexter, who he thinks is someone else from his past, to confess all of his sins. Dexter tells the priest that he has killed a lot of people. The priest absolves Dexter of his sins, which seems to shock him. during the visit, he speaks with a nun who tells Dexter about the Father’s abandoned church where he used to lead mass. Then, we see the little light bulb turn on above Dexter’s head. An abandoned church. He goes to visit, and sees Travis chained up. Gellar sees Dexter and escapes.

Michelle’s Beef:

“Sin of Omission” was a great connecting episode. I do have some beef with a few things. First off, how does Deb not notice that the only link between her and the shitty things which have happened to her is Dexter? Also, how did Dexter get away with the whole Nebraska trip? He admitted to going only after she found evidence, and his explanation was that he grieved with Jonah. Who would believe that? If that is not the biggest slap in the face to his sister, I don’t know what else would be. Oh yes I do… it happened at the end of the episode.

Deb was cooking up steaks at Dexter’s house when he got home. She is trying to do what her therapist suggested, to patch up her relationship with her brother. However, he tells her that something came up, he cannot tell her what it is, and leaves. Deb is the best detective on this show. She works at the job, at home, and is constantly thinking like a detective. What should have happened is: as Dexter pulled up to the church she should have been pulling up right behind him. Why, if she is this great detective and cares so much about her brother’s well-being, did she let him leave?

Lastly, I would just like to point out that in the last review, I mentioned that Dexter is getting sloppy. The pen was a rookie mistake. In the beginning seasons, Dexter would never have kept a souvenir from a secret trip. Also, what happens if the Miami homicide department gets Travis Marshall into their interrogation room and he sees Dexter? Does Dexter think that Travis is so trustworthy that he wouldn’t say anything? His sister is dead… he only has himself to look out for now. Dexter failed to protect his sister. I feel like it is only a matter of time before Deb or someone else close to him finds something out.

Overall, this episode was interesting and exciting, as most of the episodes are. I give “Sins of Omission” 3 1/2 Grizzly’s out of 5.