air force one Tagged Articles at Cinematical
When Do You Side with the Bad Guy?
Filed under: Fandom »
Oh, the wiley and elusive bad guy. The masses might wonder why guys and gals always fall for the bad boy or bad girl, but let's face it -- evil looks irresistibly good on the big screen, and it's hard to settle for the vanilla world of reality when evildoers make life look fun. We're supposed to follow the good guys -- cheer for the hero -- but then the nemesis sweeps in and steals all the thunder.Sometimes, they steal it before the film even begins. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Justin Theroux has joined Your Highness. David Gordon Green's comedy follows Danny McBride's lazy prince as he sets out to save his father's kingdom. Theroux will be "Leezar, an evil wizard with a bejeweled magical staff" who kidnaps the virginal princess (Zooey Deschanel) -- bride of James Franco. Luckily, he doesn't steal Natalie Portman's character, because there is no way that a princess would be fighting her way out of Theroux confinement to be with McBride. Heck, even with Franco, I'm already rooting for Leezar.
Our Favorite Summers: 1997
Filed under: Summer Movies »
I was 13 years old in the summer of 1997. I don't know if it's my favorite movie summer, but I do know that it was seminal -- at least in the sense that it was the first summer when I made a concerted effort to keep up with Hollywood's weekly output and see as much of it as I could. Already, I was jotting down my thoughts on everything I saw, fancying myself a budding film critic. The following year, I would start my own website on the now-defunct Geocities, and the rest would be history.
But, 1997. I didn't see everything (so I won't try to cover everything), and there's a lot I haven't caught up with. Still, looking back, I can see the beginnings of my current tastes and predilections. And amazingly, I can still remember the circumstances under which I saw some of these movies. Here are some of my memories.
May 23
The Lost World: Jurassic Park: I remember the talk about whether The Lost World would join the exclusive $200 million club, which just seems so darn quaint now. (It did, by the way.) I also remember the hype about it being the largest opening ever (3,281 screens). I saw the actual movie while visiting family friends in Tennessee. I loved it. Arguably, it began my love affair with Steven Spielberg (I had not, at the time, seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, though I believe I had seen E.T.)
Cinematical Seven: My Favorite Screen Presidents
Filed under: Casting », New Releases », Politics », Cinematical Seven »
We've got two portrayals of U.S. Presidents vying for Oscars this year: Josh Brolin as W in W. and Frank Langella as Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon. I've yet to see either one, though I did see Langella in the Broadway play, which I hear the movie faithfully replicates. On the eve of W.'s release, it seemed like a good time to get a discussion going on Best Screen Presidents, real or fictional. Here's my list, which is surely missing some obvious choices -- but that's part of the fun.
1. President Jackson Evans (Jeff Bridges) - The Contender
For the past couple of elections, pollsters have asked people which of the two presidential candidates they would rather "have a beer with." Inevitably it is pointed out that the person you would rather have a beer with is frequently not the person you would want to run the country. Jeff Bridges's President Jackson Evans, though, wins at life: he's the guy I'd want to have a beer with, and the guy I'd want running the country. Seriously, I would vote for Jackson Evans over either John McCain or Barack Obama. He's charming, and funny, and a bit of a jerk when called for, but he stands up for what's right and gives the best Rod Lurie Speech to date. My favorite movie president -- though for the record, I think The Contender is only pretty good.
Cinematical Seven: Men We Shouldn't Love
Filed under: Fandom », Cinematical Seven »
I have a problem. As a moviegoer, I'm always attracted to charisma over deed. More times than I can count, I find myself rooting for the bad guy and hoping that they bring the bland hero down. Of course, sometimes it's a fight between hero and villain for who has the most charisma, and sometimes the film wants us to love the villain, but whatever the case, the thorn is usually a lot more fun than the hero he's stuck onto. And this means that I'm often disappointed at the end, because the bad guy almost always dies.
Still, this is what's so great about film -- you can love the baddies without the real-world consequences. We've all heard about bad-guy lust, but this way, the baddie can do his bad thing for us to enjoy, without us getting all of the negative repercussions. We get the wild eye without the body count, the ripped muscles without the steroid set-up, and the twisted humor without the reality.
However, seeing that bad guys are my kryptonite, it's hard to pick just seven. While the following is, by no means, all-encompassing, it's a list of some of my favorite baddies. Some we're told to love, and others, well, they just steal the show.
Jason Dean -- Heathers
This is probably what started it all. When my friends and I gathered around the television to watch Christian Slater's new movie, we were immediately smitten. We didn't care that J.D. had a thing for doling out his own deadly justice. By the time he said: "Alright, so maybe I am killing everyone in the school... because nobody loves me!" We were exclaiming: "We love you!" J.D. had the drawling, Jack Nicholson voice, the sexy trench, and the need to row out to the middle of a lake somewhere with a bottle of tequila, his sax, and some Bach. He was very. Very very.
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