 |
| Daisy (Saoirse Ronan) tunes out when she gets to the English countryside |
 |
| A fun day in the country is interrupted by bomb fallout |
 |
| The military separates men and women |
Related:
short take on how i live now
Showing posts with label Saoirse Ronan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saoirse Ronan. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 04, 2018
favorite movie #36: how i live now
Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #36 - How I Live Now (2013) - Dystopian novels (quickly converted to film) have been a trend in the early 2010s. Some are better than others, but this film, How I Live Now, is a standout. Focusing less on a heroine who becomes a superhero fighting the Powers That Be, How I live Now follows Daisy, a pretty annoying American teenager who resents her family's efforts to send her to spend the summer with her English cousins. Like most kids her age, the big picture is not something she can immediately grasp. Daisy doesn't know how to react when her aunt, a terror analyst, is suddenly called away to London to deal with an impending threat. Daisy slowly and reluctantly starts to interact with her cousins Eddie, Isaac, and Piper. Eddie is closest to her in age, and the two are drawn together. Just as things seem to be getting fun, and even romantic, disaster strikes — Daisy and her cousins find themselves in the middle of a dangerous world war. The movie is filled with scenes of real beauty, ugliness, and sadness. It is memorable, and Saoirse Ronan's performance as Daisy is a stand-out.
Tuesday, June 02, 2015
short take on ... how i live now
Every once in a while I see a movie that really captures my complete attention. That's saying a lot in the crazy frenetic, distracted world we live in. How I Live Now is a British film based on the 2004 YA novel of the same name by Meg Rosoff. The heroine, Daisy (Saoirse Ronan), is sent by her father to live with her cousins in the country. She is resentful and haughty, but it is slowly revealed that the country is in turmoil and her exile is actually an attempt to protect her from an impending war.
Daisy falls for her cousin Eddie, and the movie works as a teen wartime romance while also delving into the deeper themes of loss, trust, and survival. All of the actors are excellent. The film is quiet and beautiful, which makes some of its depictions of wartime violence even more jarring than if it had been done in a standard action-adventure mode. How I Live Now is set in the British near-future, but its story has echoes of the WW2 and other past conflicts. Its the sort of film that will grow more meaningful on subsequent viewings.
 |
| The sullen Daisy has no idea hoe good her life is at the moment |
 |
| What looks like snow is actually something more sinister |
Daisy falls for her cousin Eddie, and the movie works as a teen wartime romance while also delving into the deeper themes of loss, trust, and survival. All of the actors are excellent. The film is quiet and beautiful, which makes some of its depictions of wartime violence even more jarring than if it had been done in a standard action-adventure mode. How I Live Now is set in the British near-future, but its story has echoes of the WW2 and other past conflicts. Its the sort of film that will grow more meaningful on subsequent viewings.
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
summer movies
The New York Times had a summer movie preview section this past Sunday and for the first time in a long time there were a whole lot of movies that looked interesting to me.
The kid got interested too, as I was reading off some of the descriptions of upcoming films featuring actors or concepts that appealed to me. So I have adapted their list to reflect our summer movie preview.
What I want to see (on my own):
May
GREETINGS FROM TIM BUCKLEY - I love Jeff Buckley's music, so this sounds pretty interesting to me. With Penn Badgley, Imogen Poots, William Sadler and Norbert Leo Butz.
THE GREAT GATSBY - I am almost positive that I won't like this, and it will be a huge mess, but director Baz Luhrmann is sure to have made a visually stunning mess with great costumes.
THE ENGLISH TEACHER - I'm not always in the front row to see a Julianne Moore movie, but this sounds fun. She's "a small-town schoolteacher [who] risks it all to mount a high school production of a play by her former star student (Michael Angarano), who has come back home after failing to establish himself as a playwright in New York. Bonus: Greg Kinnear and Nathan Lane.
June
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING - Joss Whedon, Shakespeare, Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Nathan Fillion. 'Nuff said
WORLD WAR Z - I usually avoid zombie movie like a post-apocalyptic plague, but hey, Brad Pitt.
BYZANTIUM - This one sounds a bit like The Hunger, but it stars Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan and is directed by Neil Jordan, so it's definitely worth a shot.
THE HEAT - Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy sound like mis-match made in heaven. And they're cops.
July
THE WAY, WAY BACK - Sam Rockwell. Here's the NYT description: "A shy 14-year-old (Liam James), neglected by his mother (Toni Collette) and her new boyfriend (Steve Carell), gets some essential life lessons from the manager of a water park (Sam Rockwell) over summer vacation. Nat Faxon and Jim Rash directed; with Allison Janney, AnnaSophia Robb, Maya Rudolph, Amanda Peet and Rob Corddry." What a cast. And again, Sam Rockwell.
THE ARTIST AND THE MODEL - I'm not sure I'll be able to catch this French film at the theater, but it sounds great; "Jean Rochefort plays an aging sculptor who escapes the troubles of Vichy France by moving to a remote village in the Pyrenees, where a Catalan woman (Aida Folch), her life shattered by the civil war in Spain, becomes his new model. With Claudia Cardinale; Fernando Trueba (“Belle Epoque”) directed, in black-and-white."
GIRL MOST LIKELY - Kristen Wiig, with Annette Bening as her mom.
ONLY GOD FORGIVES - Ryan Gosling, with Kristin Scott Thomas as his mom.
BLUE JASMINE - Woody Allen assembles another fantastic cast: Alec Baldwin, Cate Blanchett, Bobby Cannavale, Louis C.K., Andrew Dice Clay, Sally Hawkins, Peter Sarsgaard and Michael Stuhlbarg.
August
AUSTENLAND - Keri Russell is looking for her own Mr. Darcy, and any movie with Jennifer Coolidge has got to be fun.
What I want to see (but may end up having to wait for on cable):
May
FRANCES HA - A tale of girlfriendship, starring Greta Gerwig.
June
VIOLET & DAISY - Alexis Bledel and Saoirse Ronan turn to crime to get designer duds. With James Gandolfini.
COPPERHEAD - A Civil War story set in the north (New York), with Billy Campbell, Angus MacFadyen and Peter Fonda.
July
THE HOT FLASHES - Another sports underdog movie, directed by Susan Seidelman with a great "mature ladies" cast: Brooke Shields, Wanda Sykes, Virginia Madsen, Daryl Hannah, and Camryn Manheim. And Eric Roberts, too.
RED 2 - The first one was fun. It's probably just a DVD, but the cast is hard to resist: Bruce Willis, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Mary-Louise Parker, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and David Thewlis.
R.I.P.D. - "When a cop is killed in the line of duty, he’s promoted to the Rest in Peace Department and assigned to find his killer, from the other side." With Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Bacon, Mary-Louise Parker, and Jeff Bridges.
August
BLOOD - Will probably be ultra-violent, but how to resist some of my favorite Brit actors, "a brutal police chief" played by Brian Cox, his sons, played by Paul Bettany and Stephen Graham, and their colleague, played by Mark Strong.
THE FROZEN GROUND - "A 17-year-old street kid (Vanessa Hudgens) gives an Anchorage detective (Nicolas Cage) the vital clue he needs to stop a serial killer (John Cusack). With 50 Cent." This sounds like such a mess, but I love me some Nic Cage. I don't care much for John Cusack, so I would probably enjoy seeing him as a bad guy.
What I am willing to see with the kid:
EPIC - We liked Rise of the Guardians and this one is based on another book by William Joyce. Plus, Colin Farrell and Chris O’Dowd are two of the voice actors.
June
MONSTERS UNIVERSITY - The trailer is clever. How bad can it be, with Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Helen Mirren, Alfred Molina, Charlie Day, Sean Hayes and many others in a Pixar film?
July
DESPICABLE ME 2 - The first one was cute, so I was prepared for the kid wanting to see this one. Steve Carell and Russell Brand are back, also joined by voice actors Ken Jeong, Steve Coogan, and Al Pacino.
THE SMURFS 2 - I knew before the credits rolled on the first one that we would have to see this.
August
PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS - We both liked the first movie, and the sequel has Nathan Fillion and Stanley Tucci — not-too-shabby.
What we both want to see:
May
STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS - Yeah, Star Trek, Spock, blah, blah, blah. Cumberbatch!
NOW YOU SEE ME - An interesting cast with a crime/magician twist: Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman.
June
MAN OF STEEL - Henry Cavill looks great in the previews as Superman. He's got A-list back-up: Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Laurence Fishburne and Russell Crowe.
July
THE LONE RANGER - Johnny Depp as Tonto, but will anyone care about the Lone Ranger? It will be interesting to see Depp in a movie with Helena Bonham Carter and no Tim Burton.
GROWN UPS 2 - Hey, I liked the first one, so sue me. The gang's all back — Adam Sandler and all his friends: Kevin James, Chris Rock and David Spade, Salma Hayek, Maya Rudolph, and Maria Bello. Hopefully Steve Buscemi will turn up for his usual cameo.
I'll have to check this list again in the fall and see how I did ...
The kid got interested too, as I was reading off some of the descriptions of upcoming films featuring actors or concepts that appealed to me. So I have adapted their list to reflect our summer movie preview.
What I want to see (on my own):
May
GREETINGS FROM TIM BUCKLEY - I love Jeff Buckley's music, so this sounds pretty interesting to me. With Penn Badgley, Imogen Poots, William Sadler and Norbert Leo Butz.
THE GREAT GATSBY - I am almost positive that I won't like this, and it will be a huge mess, but director Baz Luhrmann is sure to have made a visually stunning mess with great costumes.
THE ENGLISH TEACHER - I'm not always in the front row to see a Julianne Moore movie, but this sounds fun. She's "a small-town schoolteacher [who] risks it all to mount a high school production of a play by her former star student (Michael Angarano), who has come back home after failing to establish himself as a playwright in New York. Bonus: Greg Kinnear and Nathan Lane.
June
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING - Joss Whedon, Shakespeare, Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Nathan Fillion. 'Nuff said
WORLD WAR Z - I usually avoid zombie movie like a post-apocalyptic plague, but hey, Brad Pitt.
BYZANTIUM - This one sounds a bit like The Hunger, but it stars Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan and is directed by Neil Jordan, so it's definitely worth a shot.
THE HEAT - Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy sound like mis-match made in heaven. And they're cops.
July
THE WAY, WAY BACK - Sam Rockwell. Here's the NYT description: "A shy 14-year-old (Liam James), neglected by his mother (Toni Collette) and her new boyfriend (Steve Carell), gets some essential life lessons from the manager of a water park (Sam Rockwell) over summer vacation. Nat Faxon and Jim Rash directed; with Allison Janney, AnnaSophia Robb, Maya Rudolph, Amanda Peet and Rob Corddry." What a cast. And again, Sam Rockwell.
THE ARTIST AND THE MODEL - I'm not sure I'll be able to catch this French film at the theater, but it sounds great; "Jean Rochefort plays an aging sculptor who escapes the troubles of Vichy France by moving to a remote village in the Pyrenees, where a Catalan woman (Aida Folch), her life shattered by the civil war in Spain, becomes his new model. With Claudia Cardinale; Fernando Trueba (“Belle Epoque”) directed, in black-and-white."
GIRL MOST LIKELY - Kristen Wiig, with Annette Bening as her mom.
ONLY GOD FORGIVES - Ryan Gosling, with Kristin Scott Thomas as his mom.
BLUE JASMINE - Woody Allen assembles another fantastic cast: Alec Baldwin, Cate Blanchett, Bobby Cannavale, Louis C.K., Andrew Dice Clay, Sally Hawkins, Peter Sarsgaard and Michael Stuhlbarg.
August
AUSTENLAND - Keri Russell is looking for her own Mr. Darcy, and any movie with Jennifer Coolidge has got to be fun.
What I want to see (but may end up having to wait for on cable):
May
FRANCES HA - A tale of girlfriendship, starring Greta Gerwig.
June
VIOLET & DAISY - Alexis Bledel and Saoirse Ronan turn to crime to get designer duds. With James Gandolfini.
COPPERHEAD - A Civil War story set in the north (New York), with Billy Campbell, Angus MacFadyen and Peter Fonda.
July
THE HOT FLASHES - Another sports underdog movie, directed by Susan Seidelman with a great "mature ladies" cast: Brooke Shields, Wanda Sykes, Virginia Madsen, Daryl Hannah, and Camryn Manheim. And Eric Roberts, too.
RED 2 - The first one was fun. It's probably just a DVD, but the cast is hard to resist: Bruce Willis, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Mary-Louise Parker, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and David Thewlis.
R.I.P.D. - "When a cop is killed in the line of duty, he’s promoted to the Rest in Peace Department and assigned to find his killer, from the other side." With Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Bacon, Mary-Louise Parker, and Jeff Bridges.
August
BLOOD - Will probably be ultra-violent, but how to resist some of my favorite Brit actors, "a brutal police chief" played by Brian Cox, his sons, played by Paul Bettany and Stephen Graham, and their colleague, played by Mark Strong.
THE FROZEN GROUND - "A 17-year-old street kid (Vanessa Hudgens) gives an Anchorage detective (Nicolas Cage) the vital clue he needs to stop a serial killer (John Cusack). With 50 Cent." This sounds like such a mess, but I love me some Nic Cage. I don't care much for John Cusack, so I would probably enjoy seeing him as a bad guy.
What I am willing to see with the kid:
EPIC - We liked Rise of the Guardians and this one is based on another book by William Joyce. Plus, Colin Farrell and Chris O’Dowd are two of the voice actors.
June
MONSTERS UNIVERSITY - The trailer is clever. How bad can it be, with Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Helen Mirren, Alfred Molina, Charlie Day, Sean Hayes and many others in a Pixar film?
July
DESPICABLE ME 2 - The first one was cute, so I was prepared for the kid wanting to see this one. Steve Carell and Russell Brand are back, also joined by voice actors Ken Jeong, Steve Coogan, and Al Pacino.
THE SMURFS 2 - I knew before the credits rolled on the first one that we would have to see this.
August
PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS - We both liked the first movie, and the sequel has Nathan Fillion and Stanley Tucci — not-too-shabby.
What we both want to see:
May
STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS - Yeah, Star Trek, Spock, blah, blah, blah. Cumberbatch!
NOW YOU SEE ME - An interesting cast with a crime/magician twist: Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman.
June
MAN OF STEEL - Henry Cavill looks great in the previews as Superman. He's got A-list back-up: Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Laurence Fishburne and Russell Crowe.
July
THE LONE RANGER - Johnny Depp as Tonto, but will anyone care about the Lone Ranger? It will be interesting to see Depp in a movie with Helena Bonham Carter and no Tim Burton.
GROWN UPS 2 - Hey, I liked the first one, so sue me. The gang's all back — Adam Sandler and all his friends: Kevin James, Chris Rock and David Spade, Salma Hayek, Maya Rudolph, and Maria Bello. Hopefully Steve Buscemi will turn up for his usual cameo.
I'll have to check this list again in the fall and see how I did ...
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
the fractured fairy tale of hanna
I finally got to see the movie Hanna
. Its plot is simple — a spy vs. spy story that has impacted the next generation, the child of one of the spies. 16 year-old Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is the daughter of ex-CIA operative Erik (Eric Bana). Fourteen years ago CIA officer Marissa (Cate Blanchett) tried to eliminate Erik, Hanna's mother, and two year-old Hanna, who were all involved in a canceled but top-secret project, but she only succeed in killing Hanna's mother.
Erik escapes with the baby and hides out in the frozen mountains of Finland, where he trains her to be a first-class assassin. The movie is essentially a chase film, where Hanna tries to escape Marissa and reunite with Erik. But what makes Hanna special are its striking visuals and fairy tale subtext. Blanchett makes a deadly and devastating wicked witch, complete with evil troll Issacs (Tom Hollander) to do her bidding and killing.
Hanna is an intrepid heroine, bringing to mind Gerda from Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen. She makes her way through a forest, the deserts of Morocco, Spain and Germany. Along the way she makes some friends who become her temporary companions, including a hippie British family and a friendly magician. After being raised in isolation, everything is ne to her, but she adapts quickly, even when she learns some disturbing truths about her parentage. She has been an apt pupil, incorporating all the survival skills from her father and will need to use them if she is to to dispatch Marissa in he climactic showdown, set in Spreepark, an abandoned amusement park in East Berlin.
Hanna is a little too bloody and even callous to be a movie that one would watch more than once. If director Joe Wright had kept the body count down and upped the magical elements more it might have had a more widespread appeal. But it is still an effective, lethal little thriller. Cate Blanchett was truly scary and Saoirse Ronan even has a princess kiss moment, complete with tutu, although without the usual fairytale outcome for this tough little cookie.
. Its plot is simple — a spy vs. spy story that has impacted the next generation, the child of one of the spies. 16 year-old Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is the daughter of ex-CIA operative Erik (Eric Bana). Fourteen years ago CIA officer Marissa (Cate Blanchett) tried to eliminate Erik, Hanna's mother, and two year-old Hanna, who were all involved in a canceled but top-secret project, but she only succeed in killing Hanna's mother.Erik escapes with the baby and hides out in the frozen mountains of Finland, where he trains her to be a first-class assassin. The movie is essentially a chase film, where Hanna tries to escape Marissa and reunite with Erik. But what makes Hanna special are its striking visuals and fairy tale subtext. Blanchett makes a deadly and devastating wicked witch, complete with evil troll Issacs (Tom Hollander) to do her bidding and killing.
 |
| Hanna has been raised to survive in the wilderness |
 |
| The world is wild and wonderful for Hanna |
 |
| Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? Not Hanna. |
Hanna is a little too bloody and even callous to be a movie that one would watch more than once. If director Joe Wright had kept the body count down and upped the magical elements more it might have had a more widespread appeal. But it is still an effective, lethal little thriller. Cate Blanchett was truly scary and Saoirse Ronan even has a princess kiss moment, complete with tutu, although without the usual fairytale outcome for this tough little cookie.
Friday, January 21, 2011
in praise of older women
Article first published as In Praise of Older Women on Blogcritics.
Amy Heckerling needs to make more movies. And they all need to feature Paul Rudd. Apatow's OK, but more Heckerling, Rudd.
This movie went straight-to-DVD, which is usually considered a bad thing, but the way people watch movies these days—on cable, the internet or via Netflix and similar services is an ideal way to catch up with "little" films that wouldn't have been at the box-office anyway. I do find it strange, however, that studios are willing to wide-release a movie like this week's latest rom-com with Ashton Kutcher and is-she-already-overexposed Natalie Portman but passed on this one with Pfeiffer and Rudd.
The quick answer is that they think that because the female lead is of a "certain age" that no one will go see it. Any woman over twelve should love this movie, as would most men, I suspect. Saoirse Ronan is great as Pfeiffer's daughter and Jon Lovitz as her ex-husband. You can see how they might have gotten together once upon a time and totally get why they aren't together anymore.
I've had a crush on Rudd since Clueless and obviously so has Heckerling. She has a new movie in the works about vampires, Vamps, starring Alicia Silverstone, which should hopefully give all those mopey and boring teen vamps a much-needed kick in their glittery pants. Maybe she should do the rumored Buffy reboot. The director is faithful to her actors—Rudd, Stacey Dash, Silverstone, Wallace Shawn—she obviously likes who she works with and works with who she likes.
One of the best and shortest scenes in I Could Never Be Your Woman is Pfeiffer reacting to a couple of Hollywood types trashing and dismissing women:
The movie is filled with funny, well-written moments, such as Pfeiffer's character Rosie bantering with younger boyfriend Adam (Rudd):
Rosie: Remember when we had that talk about you being 29? I keep thinking about how... young that is.
Adam: Well, I'm planning on getting older.
Rosie: [laughs] Yeah, well I'm not planning on getting younger.
Adam: That's just being stubborn.
I tend to forget how funny Michelle Pfeiffer can be, because it's so easy to be blinded by her beauty, but she gets to be goofy and smart-talkin' in I Could Never Be Your Woman and it suits her.
Amy Heckerling needs to make more movies. And they all need to feature Paul Rudd. Apatow's OK, but more Heckerling, Rudd.
Rudd's dance scene alone should sell this movie.
The quick answer is that they think that because the female lead is of a "certain age" that no one will go see it. Any woman over twelve should love this movie, as would most men, I suspect. Saoirse Ronan is great as Pfeiffer's daughter and Jon Lovitz as her ex-husband. You can see how they might have gotten together once upon a time and totally get why they aren't together anymore.
I've had a crush on Rudd since Clueless and obviously so has Heckerling. She has a new movie in the works about vampires, Vamps, starring Alicia Silverstone, which should hopefully give all those mopey and boring teen vamps a much-needed kick in their glittery pants. Maybe she should do the rumored Buffy reboot. The director is faithful to her actors—Rudd, Stacey Dash, Silverstone, Wallace Shawn—she obviously likes who she works with and works with who she likes.
One of the best and shortest scenes in I Could Never Be Your Woman is Pfeiffer reacting to a couple of Hollywood types trashing and dismissing women:
The movie is filled with funny, well-written moments, such as Pfeiffer's character Rosie bantering with younger boyfriend Adam (Rudd):
Rosie: Remember when we had that talk about you being 29? I keep thinking about how... young that is.
Adam: Well, I'm planning on getting older.
Rosie: [laughs] Yeah, well I'm not planning on getting younger.
Adam: That's just being stubborn.
I tend to forget how funny Michelle Pfeiffer can be, because it's so easy to be blinded by her beauty, but she gets to be goofy and smart-talkin' in I Could Never Be Your Woman and it suits her.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)