3.5 Razors

Mamma Mia! Sing-Along

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Mamma Mia!
  • IMDB: link

“Audiences at these specially selected theaters are invited to bring friends and family to experience the smash hit movie musical in a whole new way by singing along to the songs they love.  Mamma Mia!: The Sing-Along Edition will feature the lyrics to every musical number on the screen, and you are invited to sing and dance along.”

I enjoyed Mamma Mia!, but it has a few flaws (read that review) and seemed to be missing something.  It turns out what it was missing was an active audience.  This new Sing-Along Edition, released today in select theaters, provides karaoke style lyrics and the bottom of the screen for all of the musical numbers.  The audience is encouraged to sing along with the actors.

If you can get into a theater at least 2/3 full of Mamma Mia! fans this is the best way to see the film.  First, the audience singing along with the stars helps some of the actors (mostly the men) who struggle with their numbers.  And second, it’s just fun!

Now, if you aren’t an ABBA fan this isn’t going to change anything, but this active experience (much like the Buffy-Sing-Along or The Rocky Horror Picture Show) adds energy, magic, and fun, to the film making it an enjoyable time at the movies.  If, over time, the experience is tweaked even further with the addition of props and audience activities this film could earn a long life in late night screenings.

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American Teen

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: American Teen
  • IMDB: link

“You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions.  But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princesss, and a criminal.”
–The Breakfast Club

A familiar pose
The documentary by Nanette Burstein follows a small group of diverse high school students from Warsaw, Indiana, over their final year through graduation.  Burstein’s chosen subjects run the gamut from the high school basketball stud trying to land a scholarship and the most popular (and nastiest) girl in school, to your typical band geek and the lonely art student who wants nothing more than to get as far from Indiana as possible.

Events over this year include each of the subjects dealing with relationships, both romantic and platonic, fears about the future, the awkwardness of adolescence, bad choices, and a cruelty that can only be found in American high schools and Turkish prisons.

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Swing Vote

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Swing Vote
  • IMDB: link

“You’re ruining America!”

When the outcome of the Presidential election comes down to one uncounted ballot in New Mexico the entire country’s attention becomes focused on Earnest “Bud” Johnson (Kevin Costner) an unemployed single father from a small town called Texaco.

Both campaigns, along with news media from around the country land in Texaco to court this doofus who, in ten days time, will decide the fate of the election.

The film is many things, part parody and part cautionary tale.  At the heart of the film is the relationship between Bud and his much smarter daughter Molly Johnson (young Madeline Carroll, who steals the film in her first performance on screen).  There’s also a subplot about the secret of Bud’s ballot which, although sets up the story, is a bit burdensome to the plot.

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Absolute Batman – The Long Halloween

/ / Comics, Theme Week
  • Title: Absolute Batman – The Long Halloween
  • Comic Vine: link

“The promise I made to my parents, the promise to rid this city of the evil that took their lies, may finally be within reach.”

“I believe in Harvey Dent.”

This being Halloween I though it would be a good opportunity to take a look at the Dark Knight Detective’s holiday themed adventure, Batman: The Long Halloween.  The Absolute Edition comes in an oversized volume complete with slipcase and extras.

The thirteen-issue maxi-series from Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale is collected in this handsome Absolute Edition oversized hardcover complete with an introduction from Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer discussing the influence the series had on Batman Begins, the transcript of Richard Starkings interview with Loeb and Sale, the original proposal for the project, and a look at cover art, sketches, and the toys inspired from the tale.  All in all a nice collection bundled together in a handsome package.

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Ain’t Violence Grand?

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Wanted
  • IMDb: link

“Your father died yesterday on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Building.  He was one of the greatest assassins who ever lived, and the other one is behind you.”

Stuck in a dead-end job with a girlfriend (Kristen Hager) who’s cheating on him with his best friend (Chris Pratt), a ball-busting boss (Lorna Scott), and a general sense of utter futility, Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) is not just having a bad year, but a bad life.

All this changes when he’s approached by a beautiful woman called the Fox (Angelina Jolie) who informs him his father, the greatest assassin to ever live, has just been killed and the man responsible (Thomas Kretschmann) is now gunning for him.  Wesley finds himself thrown into a world he never imagined.

The Fraternity of Assassins led by Sloan (Morgan Freeman) shows Wesley he has the special talent and abilities of his father which make him a perfect candidate for the Fraternity.

Choosing to give-up his old life Wesley jumps into the training which basically entails him getting the ever-living-snot beat out of him over and over again.  He trains to become the world’s best assassin able to bend bullets fired from his gun and kill from even miles away.

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