That’s the question asked by this part prequel/part sequel to The Huntsman.
You’ll be hunting for some spoilers if you read further.
Freya (Emily Blunt) is sister to Ravenna (Charlize Theron) aka the Wicked Queen.
Prior to the events of the first Huntsman film, Freya becomes irrevocably heartbroken, and sets out to take over the Northern part of wherever the hell this fantasy world is.
To do so, she raises an army of “Huntsmen” and thus we learn Eric the Huntsman’s (Chris Hemsworth) origin.
Freya proclaims love to be a lie and bans it, leaving Eric and his secret wife, Sara (Jessica Chastain) to hide their relationship.
Yadda yadda yadda. Flash forward to a time post the original movie. The magic mirror has gone missing. Eric and two of his dwarf pals have to find it. Some dwarf women come into play.
Freya wants the mirror. Ravenna also wants to keep doing evil shit. That’s about it.
Lots of action. Great special effects. Not so great Scottish accents but you can’t have everything.
For whatever reason, Kristen Stewart’s not in this one. Occasionally, you get to see Snow White with her back turned. Maybe they figured with all these stars they’d save on a salary. Or maybe K-Stew’s post-Twilight fame is in its twilight. Who knows?
Emily Blunt is convincing as an ice queen. Charlize has been lamenting lately that tall, hot statuesque blondes have a hard time making a go of it in show biz, but somehow she was able to soldier on through this flick so I give her props.
I enjoyed it but it is a popcorn movie. Is love real or is it just an unattainable fantasy that we just torture ourselves with?
I ask myself that all the time. Yikes. Maybe I missed my calling by not becoming an Ice King.
Do they have Ice Kings? Queens seem to have a monopoly on the ice game.
Don’t be too hard on her. I think I kind of know what she was trying to say but…it’s not something someone who looks like her should say.
Yes, yes we live in a country where there is freedom of speech but…come on.
I believe she’s making the argument that people shouldn’t be assumed to be dumb just because they’re pretty and ergo should be considered for roles for smart people but…I literally can’t count the number of times I’ve seen movies where geniuses, scientists, doctors, lawyers etc. were played by people who look like they spent more time in the gym than at school.
Is it fair that smart pretty people (i.e. those who were lucky enough to have beauty AND brains) are believed to be dumb?
No. But it’s about as fair as it is that I, as an ugly man, could invent a cure for cancer and people would still look at me like I belong living under a bridge.
Between being pretty and assumed dumb or being ugly and assumed a bridge troll, I’ll pick the former every time.
Being assumed to be a dumb pretty person is a problem I would love to have. Sure, I will be briefly sad for 3.5 seconds that everyone thinks I’m dumb and then I will cheer myself up by hanging out with one of the ten zillion people who won’t stop calling me with requests to hang out because I’m so dang pretty.
Sigh. And Charlize…I never thought you were dumb…until now. Now I’m concerned.
Lots of articles popping up on social media. Here’s one from wetpaint.com
EDIT: Oh God I made the mistake of reading more:
CHARLIZE: “How many roles are out there for the gorgeous, f—king gown-wearing, eight-foot model?”
Every role, Charlize. Like practically every movie every made has a hot blonde chick in it. Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure you’ll be ok.
CHARLIZE: “When meaty roles come through, I’ve been in the room, and pretty people get turned away first.”
Slaps my forehead. You won an Oscar for playing an ugly woman. They had to ugly you up with make-up and prosthetics and shit. Pretty people play pretty people and holy shit, pretty people even play ugly people because Hollywood is winking to the audience, “Don’t worry audience, this ugly character is really being played by a pretty person with ugly makeup on!”
Just wanted to say I was sorry to hear Patty Duke passed away. She won an Oscar at age 16 for playing Helen Keller and also was the star of The Patty Duke Show.
To my surprise, I just learned she was also Sean Astin’s mom. I never knew.
BQB here with a review of Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice.
SUPER SPOILERS AHEAD.
Have you seen this yet, 3.5 readers?
I want to avoid spoiling too much but this movie has brought to my mind a number ideas about comic movies, Marvel vs. DC, the direction DC is taking, etc. So I’ll probably come back in a week or two (once people have had a chance to see it) and get all spoilery.
For now, let me say this: I don’t think the critics and I saw the same movie.
The critics are up this movie’s butt. It’s too long. It’s got too much going on. It’s too confusing.
I’ll agree there is a lot going on and at times it was confusing…but come on, a lot of movies are. Half the time I go to movies and I’m like “I…uh…wait what just happened? I don’t know. Me shove popcorn into face now and enjoy pretty colors.”
The most efficient thing to do is to respond to the criticisms one by one:
THE PLOT ISN’T THAT HARD TO BELIEVE
We’re humans. We’re suspicious bastards who screw things up early and often due to our paranoia. It isn’t that far fetched to think that if someone like Superman showed up to save us, that we’d immediately suspect he was up to some shit and ruin everything by looking the ultimate gift horse in the mouth.
BEN AFFLECK AS BATMAN
He was a worthy Batman. He’s an older, world weary, tired of the bullshit Batman in this one. Affleck allowed himself to be shown with a little touch of gray. That’s commitment for any pretty boy actor.
JESSE EISENBERG SUCKS
Jesse Eisenberg did not suck. He played the part he was hired to play and he did it well. His character was just incredibly annoying, so much so that you wonder why Batman or Superman don’t just bitch slap him into next Tuesday and be done with it.
Sadly, Hollywood has never been able to provide us with a good Lex Luthor. The comics do. In the comics, he’s big, strong, menacing his power comes from his cunning and cruelty.
Here, they basically just had Eisenberg take a spritz of the Mark Zuckerberg role that made him famous and then kick it up a notch. At times his voice is screechy and almost Joker-like, which is a bad idea, as this world already has a Joker.
IT IS TOO DARK
DC Comics are dark. Because…Batman, damn it. To paraphrase Ben Affleck from that other movie he was in (Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back), Batman is one “morose motherf&*ker.”
Clearly, DC has seen the success that Marvel has had with The Avengers. There is an obvious market for movies in which beloved superheroes work together. Thus, DC is working its way toward making Justice League movies.
But this path has always been an uphill climb for DC. DC has been making comic book movies for a lot longer. The public knows their characters better. Marvel, on the other hand, had the opportunity to introduce each individual member of the Avengers to the public with their own movies, building up to the Avengers movie.
But we don’t really need another Batman origin movie. We get it. He saw his parents get shot in front of him and became a vigilante. (Hollywood finally gets that here…well, sort of…some suit still decided there needed to be a quick Wayne family massacre scene just in case there happened to be one jackass in the movie theater who didn’t understand why Batman became Batman.)
WONDER WOMAN WAS CROWBARRED IN
She really wasn’t. I found her to be a good addition to the movie and am looking forward to her movie.
TOO MANY TEASERS FOR UPCOMING DC MOVIES
What should they do instead? Make everyone wait until after the credits for a thirty second scene in which Nick Fury recruits someone new?
Although in keeping with my, “DC has the harder path than Marvel” argument…they’ve got a very big challenge in getting people to give a shit about Aqua Man.
“Hi we’re the Justice League. We’ve got an all powerful god man, a Bat ninja, a warrior princess and oh yeah….this shit head who can control fish.”
Holy Shit you suck, Aqua Man. If Jason Mamoa can make Aqua Man watchable he deserves an Oscar.
BATMAN AS PART OF A TEAM
He’s a loner, that’s for sure. And he’s always been out of place in the Justice League world.
We love Batman because out of all the superheroes, he is the most plausible. True, a mega rich buff dude who fights a crazy clown isn’t very realistic…but if you let your mind wander…it is easier to pretend to be Batman, whereas it is not as easy to pretend to be Superman, because being Superman is just totally impossible. If you’re not from Krypton, then you should just stop pretending to be Superman. You’ll never be Superman.
You’ll never be Batman either…but at least there’s a .00000001% chance that you could become Batman.
The Justice League fights aliens and monsters and other supernatural stuff. Batman’s forte as a “realistic” hero is fighting gangsters, mobsters, and psychopaths. That’s why we loved Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, right? Nolan did his best to provide a Batman that was plausible (again, as plausible as a story about a Bat vigilante can get.
But the comics have always addressed that by having Batman being suspicious of his super powered friends. He works with them, but he usually makes back up plans in case they get out of line.
You have to compartmentalize. There’s on his own Batman who uses his training, skills, and money to fight crime…and then there’s Justice League Batman who helps other heroes fight aliens and shit.
BATMAN SHOOTS GUNS
Yes. That was unfortunate. Batman isn’t a shooter. Although it has always been acceptable for him to blow the shit out of people with rockets and guns attached to the Batmobile, Batman has never packed a piece. Technically he doesn’t in this one either….but well, then at one point he does but…ahh just watch the movie.
THE PLOT TURNS TOO MUCH ON UH…TWO PEOPLE KNOWING THE SAME NAME
Shut up, stupid critics. That part was touching as shit.
FINAL THOUGHTS
It wasn’t perfect. But I did enjoy it. And I think it is the start of a promising line of Justice League movies. I can’t wait for Suicide Squad.
A woman is either John Goodman’s guest or hostage.
That’s pretty much it.
End of review.
Crap. That’s only 16 words?
Let’s talk some more then. BQB here with a review of 10 Cloverfield Lane.
SPOILER WARNING!
So here’s the deal, 3.5 readers.
Our tale begins with Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) getting into a car accident. When she wakes up, she’s locked away in an underground bunker.
Her host or captor as the case may be is Howard (John Goodman.) He informs her that while she was knocked out, a major attack occurred up above. It might have been nuclear or chemical, he isn’t sure, but he’s sure that the world above ground is no longer habitable and she needs to stay in the bunker with him. She’s informed that if she tries to leave the bunker, she’ll let in poison gas that will kill everyone.
OK. Show of hands, ladies. How many men have tried the old “the world above ground is uninhabitable due to a chemical weapons attack and you have to stay in this bunker with me until it is safe” trick? Happens to you like every Saturday night, right?
Yup. I understand. It isn’t easy being a woman.
Ah, but here’s the rub. Howard might be telling the truth.
Thus, the major question of the movie unfolds. Is Howard a psychotic wack job who built a bunker to hold people captive in, or is he an eccentric conspiracy theorist/doomsday prepper whose crazy desire to build a fallout shelter of his very own paid off when an attack actually happened?
In other words, is he Michelle’s captor or savior?
To add to the confusion, there’s another inhabitant. Emmett (John Gallagher) is about Michelle’s age. He’s convinced Howard’s right and there was an attack, but he’s also dumb and gullible so that doesn’t help much when it comes to answering the question.
On top of all that, there are other strange doings afoot, but I don’t want to ruin it for you anymore than I already have.
I loved this movie and I highly recommend it. It is definitely something for aspiring writers to check out. It has a Hitchcockian ability to keep the audience on the edge of their seats and J.J. Abrams produced it so you know it’s good.
The writers of this film toss out breadcrumbs and red herrings throughout. As the movie unfolds clues to support the “this is just a trick to hold people hostage” theory as well as “he’s right and there really was an attack” theory are presented, leaving the viewer to wonder what the hell is going on until the very end.
It’s definitely a “less is more” film. Most of it takes place inside the bunker itself.
Go see it. John Goodman’s best work. Our favorite big guy is getting up there in age, so if the Academy wanted to toss him an award for this, it is a worthy performance.
But they probably won’t because he’s fat and you know…#OscarsSoPretty.
NOTE: This is not a sequel to the 2008 film Cloverfield. Remember that movie? It was one of those “people run away from a monster while taping shaky amateur footage because the Blair Witch Project did it successfully in the late 1990s so everyone else wanted to see if they could recreate it” movies.
I thought it was a sequel myself when the trailer came out. Mary Elizabeth looks a little bit like one of the actresses in that film (Lizzy Caplan) so maybe that’s why.
And I foresee this could be Mary Elizabeth’s breakout film.
Just a reminder that I will not be watching the Oscars this year as once again the Academy has made it clear that the hideous are not welcome in Hollywood.
Notable snubs:
Steve Buscemi
Ron Perlman
John C. Reilly
Sandra Bernhard
Seth Rogen
Luis Guzman
Gary Busey
And the list goes on.
Ugly actors and actresses are tired of being typecast as hobgoblins, villains, trolls living under bridges, and the quirky friend that the leads in rom coms stand next to so they can look hotter.
We’re here. We’re hideous. Get used to it. No longer will we shield our faces with the oppressive paper bags of society. We will let our ugliness fly.
Anti-ugly discrimination activist Bookshelf Q. Battler here, continuing to spread the polite of ugly people everywhere.
Case in point. Did you know that Abe Vigoda died this week at the age of 94? It was a shock because most people thought he already died in 1995 at the age of 156.
God bless him though. He was funny, versatile, and he entertained many despite being so very, very ugly.
His big role was as elderly detective Phil Fish on Barney Miller. But he did have a pretty decent part in The Godfather as well.
Yes, Abe spent most of his life looking like a zombie only to get too old to play one once the zombie craze broke out in Hollywood in the past decade. Irony.
An old detective. An evil mafioso. Why wasn’t Abe ever offered the spot of leading man in a romantic comedy? Why? Just because he was so ugly that women wouldn’t have been into dreaming about being with him? Discrimination, I say.
Poor Abe. Died this week so young at 94, so young, never had a chance to experience all that life has to offer, and worse, never got the Oscar recognition he so richly deserved.
If you can think of an ugly actor or actress denied Oscar recognition for far too long, leave your suggestion in the comments.
Be strong, my ugly brothers and sisters. We’re here. We’re ugly. Get used to it.
Bookshelf Battle 