A Shower of Golden Dreams

1st Annual Golden Unhappy Faces Awards

The Best of 2011

The year is coming to a close tonight and as I will be too drunk or tired to write this after midnight, I will do my best to weave for you my best of list. I know that it is a tired fad but I swear that my list will not be the same let's love what everyone else loves because that is the same and sameness is awesome! I tried to avoid the obvious choice although I think they are the right choices regardless of what a naked golden man will say three months from now.  And now the first golden unhappy face goes to?

Best Movie of 2011

50/50 

This was a hard category for me but in the end the cancer comedrama starring Joseph Gordon Levitt, Seth Rogen and Twilight’s Anna Kendrick was by far my most enjoyable and the most complete movie I saw this year. The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo was very competently done and The Adjustment Bureau made my heart go pitter patter but 50/50 took a subject that is not funny and made it humorous. It dealt with real life issues and was by far the best movie I saw this year.  It also proved to me that a one note character from Twilight can move onto bigger and better things. Kendrick was amazing as a psych student learning how to treat someone who in essence was given a death sentence. If you missed this movie in theaters, you best pick it up on Blu-Ray or (gasp) regular DVD.

Best Horror Movie of 2011

Insidious

With the disappointing Paranormal Activity 3, no new Saw movie and very few truly terrifying films, Insidious brought back the days of The Exorcist and The Omen. I felt as though I was transported to a seventies movie which had a big creepy old house, a young happy family that will soon be torn apart by a tragedy with supernatural aspects. It’s been said recently that the things that scare you the most are the things you cannot see. Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity are prime examples of this but Insidious lets me know is that the thing that scares me the most are things I see quickly, are smiling, and then disappear from sight but not the room. This movie is on Netflix Instant Watch for you brave enough to turn off the lights, snuggle up with your sweetie and clutch each other for support.

Best Action Movie of 2011

Fast Five

I didn’t want this to be a good movie if only because I do not want to support the career of Vin Diesel. Yet this movie delivered on all levels of action movie goodness. Sure it doesn’t have Bruce Willis jumping of Nakatomi Towers but few action movies do. Fast Five gives you what you want from a Fast movie, cars and pretty women bending over in awkward unnatural ways.  The Rock raised the tension as to whether the inevitable driving robbery would succeed as a tough as nails bounty hunter. I can’t say that Fast Five made me excited about the action genre again but it certainly made its own stamp on the genre. And in a year of 50,000 sequels this is the best as much as Transformers 3 is the worst.  

Best Drama of 2011

The Adjustment Bureau 

A definite contender for best picture of the year. I find it a bit of a travesty that it came out before March and therefore will be largely ignored by the Oscar race this year. Emily Blunt and Matt Damon both give stellar performances as people who fight the system of how life itself goes. I cannot say anything bad about this movie and the drama, sci-fi and spiritual things this movie delivers make you think about it for days afterward…hell months. I wish Hollywood would look at The Adjustment Bureau and realize that this is what a good movie is supposed to be. Emotional, smart, and engaging not explodey, cheesy and in slooooow moooootion.

Best Dark Comedy of 2011

The Beaver 

Given Mel Gibson’s year and recent divorce settlement, he needs to be thrown a bone. The Beaver is a depressing and sometimes downright suicidal movie but it has a heart and it speaks to you. Mel Gibson is great and shows that while he may be insane, he can still act. Playing a man who after attempting to take his life begins to talk to other people using a stuffed beaver puppet on his left hand is a challenge but Mel makes the character likable and the story of how he tries to get his family back is enjoyable. Is the premise weird? Yup. Does the Beaver make you smile and be less depressed? Yup.  Should you hold a movie responsible for the problems of the star? No. Go ahead and give it a chance. Mel Gibson might start the long road of winning you back and Jennifer Lawrence, Jodie Foster, and the rest of the cast will win you over.

Most Horrific Movie of 2011 

Megan is Missing

I wanted to give this the Best Horror Movie but this movie is more horrific than it is scary. This cautionary tale for parents everywhere made me curl up in bed with the covers up at my eyes, not wanting to look but unable to look away. This movie still gives me a chill as I pass it on my Netflix Instant Watch Queue.  This movie is simple and at sometimes poorly acted but the story crawls into you and then for 28 minutes at the end, grabs your heart and twists it. You feel culpable to these girls plight and you really don’t want to know what is in the large blue barrel. Don’t watch this alone and don’t think you’ll forget about it anytime soon.

Best Sappy Romantic Comedy of 2011

Crazy Stupid Love

I love this movie and it again was a candidate for Best Picture of the Year. Steve Carell stars as a middle age man, starting over meeting women and dealing with the very real loss of the love of his life. Not to death but to boredom and an extramarital affair. It is pitch perfect. Ryan Gosling is the Lothario playboy who takes Carell under his wing and helps him get laid. As far as romantic comedies go, this is the type to strive for. Not contrived bullshit but warm sentiment and a respect for love that is rarely shown. And seriously…Ryan Gosling does look photoshopped. 

Best Actress of 2011 

Rooney Mara in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

In the movie The Social Network, Rooney Mara takes a 5 minute scene in the movie and permeates throughout the rest of the film. In The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo, Rooney becomes the enigmatic Lisbeth Salander and creates a character so rich that the entire film is touched by her. Even scenes where she is not involved seem rich with Lisbeth's touch. The scenes she does appear in, many times naked, show the power and ability of a young actress becoming a great actress. We should expect nothing less of this actress in years to come. Long after the scars (literally) of this character are left behind on her resume, the rolse she will play will continue to amaze not because of the screenwriter or director but because of the passion and hard work of this actress. I expect a lot from Rooney Mara....don't let Mr. Unhappy down.

Best Looking Actress of 2011

My Girl Ashley Greene (Alice Cullen from Twilight)

In a world of Team Edward and Team Jacob I am firmly entrenched in Team Alice. Since the first moment she slow motion walked through the cafeteria of Forks High School, I was entranced with the smallest Cullen. Her beauty outside the Twilight universe is only magnified by her long flowing legs and well maintained physique which is obviously minimized by the Twilight films. I recently saw her on an episode of the TV show Pan Am. In that role, the classic beauty of Ashley Greene is accentuated and you feel drawn to her. At least I did...OK parts of me did....not the heady part or the chesty part either...the nether parts...OK I've said too much. All of this is brilliant but Ashley also seems more than willing to remove her clothes for roles, Sobe ads, whatever! Can’t ask for much more... can you? Here's hoping we see a lot more (subtext not subtle there is it?) of Ashley in the near future. You know before she starts sagging in places you shouldn't sag.  

Best Actor of 2011

Jonah Hill, Moneyball

Yeah I could have slobbed Brad Pitt’s knob on this movie and category too but Jonah Hill broadened his horizons in Moneyball and played a character that made the movie. Both funny but understated in his Moneyball role, he shows his range as an actor and makes you feel as though good things are to come in the future. Probably not the 21 Jump Street movie but after that. So yes, Brad Pitt was awesome in Moneyball but everybody and their shiny knobs love Pitt. I am giving Hill a little lovin. (This post is turning very gay…or is it just me?)

Best “For the Ladies” Actor of 2011

Ryan Gosling, Crazy Stupid Love

To keep with my kind of homosexual vibe in this post… Gosling was perfect as a ladies’ man who gets what he wants from women but who is blindsided by Emma Stone’s character and finds himself in new territory. The chemistry of Stone and Gosling and their back and forth about how a night with him usually goes leads to the aforementioned photoshopped abs and a call back to Dirty Dancing. You want to hate Ryan Gosling for being so pretty and yet, you just can’t. Oh yeah and ladies...you are welcome.

Mr. Unhappy sez: For Mr. Unhappy this year was up and down, much like movies. Sequels and remakes, Smurfs and originality. Mr. Unhappy sez that in this year, the movie world took a step back and only a few movies (see above) really worked to get me interested. For that...I thank them. 

Up Next: Worst of 2011

The Girl who Blew Santa…away

The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo

So in this holiday season when movie producers want to wow you with the next big Oscar contender, we find these dark, smart dramas creeping into the fabric of a time when no one was raped in the behind and simple tales of red nosed reindeer or tom hanks as conductor of the polar express used to be all that populated the screens of the local cinema. This year, in tune with those years of old, we have The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo. The heartwarming tale of a Swedish family filled with Nazis, murder and missing children. It warms you in ways that hot chocolate cannot. That’s not true of course, this movie is a dark cold movie that chills you with its apparent lack of caring if you like it or not. Everything about this movie is cold, distant and dark.  I did read the book first and would recommend anyone who is going to see this movie do so before plunging headlong into the world of Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander. After all, the movie is 3 hours long (although it doesn’t feel that way in the all important Mr. Unhappy tingly ass test) and to invest that kind of time to a movie you may come out of feeling as though you were raped may not be the way you want to spend a cold winter night.

<<Spoiler Alert to some of the story that is told, no major surprises though>>

                The movie (directed by the usually brilliant David Fincher) plunges you into the middle of the action, at the end of a libel trial in which Mikael (007 abs extraordinaire Daniel Craig, for the ladies) has been found guilty. This story, which serves just as a catalyst to get the main character where he needs to go, is mostly glossed over in the movie. More importantly, is that the case is the first string pulled to bring the antisocial and brilliant Lisbeth Salander into Mikael’s life. She carries herself as someone who does not want to be seen and yet screams against the world at large. Lisbeth is first intrigued by Mikael and is eventually drawn to Mikael and desiring of his approval and love. All this I guess as Lisbeth gives nothing away especially as performed by Rooney Mara. The young actress shows in grand fashion what she briefly showed in The Social Network as the object of Eisenbergian obsession; that she is worthy of that obsession. She emotes rather than use dialogue to tell the movie viewer what she is thinking in each instance. As Lisbeth, she has been tortured at the hands of men her entire life and could be looked at as a fragile victim. So when Mikael disrupts her routine and offers her the opportunity to help catch a killer of women, she dives headlong into the project. Lisbeth, as a character in a novel, is remote and distant. Mara captures the essence of her character perfectly, treating the act of looking someone in the eye as a great chore and bending almost too easily to the advances of the guardian who is supposed to protect her best interest. She is a tragic character and we can see that from the first scene.

                Craig, for his part, plays Blomkvist admirably and keeps the story of young Harriet Vanger (gone these past 40 years) moving along until he finally teams with Salander and begins the headlong dive into the climax of the movie. It can be hard to seem almost a secondary character in this movie but as with the books, this is Salander’s show and we are only there to bare witness to it. Craig plays it well, the aloof reporter who lulls you into telling him all the salacious family details you have to offer. Stellan Skarsgard appears as the brother of poor Harriet and the seemingly most normal member of this horrific and wicked family. All of the major players came to this movie to elevate. Christopher Plummer plays his character as both strong and completely fragile.  Joelly Richardson delivers in a small role as a member of the Vanger family who wants nothing to do with Blomkvist or her family for reasons known only to her. Robin Wright as a weathered newspaper woman trying to deal with Blomkvist’s departure and what it could mean to the future of their magazine gives weight to a character that could easily have been overlooked. There are many scenes that could have become laughable had they not had the correct people playing them. Fincher and Co. hit every character perfectly.

                I’ve heard the rumblings in the Steig Larsson underground that complain about Rooney Mara but she convinced me. I’ll admit I have not seen Noomi Rapace’s Lisbeth but she would be hard pressed to embody the character as completely as Mara does. For a movie in which she must be raped and be fierce, she accomplishes both sides with ease. Her Lisbeth is smart, calculating and able to transcend the limitations a stoic, anti-social character puts on you. She is laid bare for the world to see and I do not know of another actress who could have carried the weight as she has. She is, after all, the embodiment of a character loved the world over.   The most telling sign of an actor for me is whether you can believe them as a character. You look to the completely opposite world of Harry Potter and how Daniel Radcliffe was a great Harry but he was not the Harry Potter you saw when reading the books. Those kinds of limitations to a character can stunt them. The same can be said here for Lisbeth. Can anyone truly occupy the mind of the girl you fell in love with on page? I can’t answer that for you but I can say that Rooney Mara did that for me.

                To not talk about the elephant in the room and the explicit sex in the movie would be like ignoring a naked woman walking down the street. Cannot be done. There is an impressive amount of sex (violent sex) in this movie. If the idea of this turns you off but you read the book, it doesn’t go any further than what is in the novel. Seeing it on page or in a dimly lit theater can be different and the American audience will probably not be prepared for this level of sex and nudity. This is easily the most sexually explicit movie I’ve seen in a movie theater since Jason Biggs diddled a pie and Dragon Tattoo goes far beyond that. Sex does not detract from this story but enhances it in ways that were the movie sanitized for your protection from boobies the movie would suffer about as much as Lisbeth’s handsy/rapey guardian. Lastly, I’d offer that a movie needs to have a voice and this film is about the violence of men against women and sexual violence itself. Prepare yourself for that and don’t be a wuss. You can cover your eyes until it is over.

Mr. Unhappy sez: I love me some Lisbeth Salander and as this movie is everything I wanted, I am curious why that group of teenage boys left after all the sex was over?

Golden Unhappy Awards

Most Heartbroken Award – Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander - I know how it feels to meet someone and almost feel connected to them. I also know how it feels to see them feel connected genitally to someone new and she nailed it (figuratively of course).

Up Next: Best of 2011 –Golden Unhappiness for all!

Valentine's Day 2: New Year's Eve

New Year’s Cliche

I will be the first to say that a “chick flick” does not immediately turn me off. I like the idea that love is a very real and possible thing even though at present I only half believe that myself. I’d even buy that New Year’s Eve is a day when some of those impossible dreams can come true if only for the conceit of the movie. I want a world where love can be present and give us a chance to find it as though opening a curtain and giving us the chance to walk through it. However New Year’s Eve: Valentine’s Day 2 does not make you believe in love. It mocks you and mocks your belief in love and brings cliches to life and lends credence to people who mock and disparage the entire romantic comedy genre. If this movie doesn’t put the nail in the coffin of the romantic comedy I have a few scripts for you and I guarantee they are better than this pile of cheese.

A great ensemble movie has certain elements. Many characters all in search of something during one magical night when things seem possible. A graduation party (Can’t Hardly Wait), Christmas time in England (Love Actually), Valentine’s Day (um Valentine’s Day) or the beginning of senior year (Dazed and Confused). There is also a problem that keeps all of the characters from accomplishing their goals. This is followed by the accomplishment of all their goals but in ways they did not see coming. The happy ending where everyone kisses and we assume they live happily ever after. There is a certain level of bullshit that one must allow in these types of movies so you have to accept that and let it go as soon as the ticket taker rips your ticket and says “Thanks!”

I was willing to accept that and indeed my friend Teresa leaned over and said “This movie is gonna suck right?” So I had the right level of expectation and still New Year’s Eve fell well below even  the bell curve idea of a movie. The stories are all cliched. Abigail Breslin and the chick from Sex and The City (the kind of odd looking one...no not Kim Catrall...no not the red headed one...) are a mother and daughter who are having some teen angsty moments because mom won’t let daughter go to Times Square and let her be groped by teen date rapist #1. Michelle Pfeiffer and Zac Efron are trying to finish all of Michelle’s New Year’s resolutions before midnight for some reason not known. Lea Michele and Ashton Kutcher are neighbors who get stuck in an elevator and learn the true magic of New Year’s Eve to make pretty people kiss. Robert Deniro is a dying man who wants to see one last ball drop. Hilary Swank is the person in charge of the ball dropping. Josh Duhamel just needs to get back to New York to meet his soulmate before midnight. All standard movie cliches but wait there’s more. There are two couples each vying for a cash prize by having the first new year’s baby or maybe you’ll like Jon Bon Jovi as a rock star who did Katherine Heigl wrong but wants her back with the spanish woman from Modern family there to act all crazy and sexy! 

I don’t hate this movie but I don’t like it either. It is as though Hollywood has given up trying to come up with ideas and instead just throw a new day up on the title and make some bland generalizations about how you need to trust your heart and it will lead you through any adversity. This is a valuable lesson that has been done better. See Love Actually if you want holiday romance. It is a better movie and well has more heart to it. I appreciate the try Garry Marshall but in the end we need you to just go away and try something new. It’s not that you are not trying...no wait it is that.

Let’s face it just like this movie most New Year’s Eve are ultimately disappointing and you wake up hung over. I’ve had exactly one great New Years and it was last year. And New Year’s had nothing to do with it.

Mr Unhappy sez: If you want a good movie for New Year’s...see When Harry met Sally...try to get wood after that...whahahahahahaha...

The good the sweet and the muppety...

The Muppets

As a child I was not a fan of the muppet show. It very well could have been above my head but as I grew up I began to watch movies (which has become a vice worthy of the worst addict) and fell in love with Kermit and the gang through The Muppet movie, The Great Muppet Caper (a personal favorite) and The Muppets take Manhattan. The blend of music, humor and great lessons like love can conquer anything. Sitting on my couch instead of a log, I sang along with Kermit singing The Rainbow Connection. It was the beginning of my somewhat love of movies such as The Dark Crystal, The Neverending Story, and many others which blended humans with muppets and allowed a child to believe these felt creations lived among us.
So when I saw that Jason Segel was resurrecting the muppets and bringing them back to the big screen, I was excited. I knew Seagal’s love of the muppets would not allow for a ruination of my childhood friends and would fall nicely into the collection of muppet movies. They have succeeded in creating a movie that draws us once again to their world and bring the legacy of Jim Henson back to the big screen. While their movie may be overly sweet and saccharine in a world so jaded and cynical, I’d say that Kermit and the gang can be brought to a new group of children who can marvel at the head swaying beauty of The Rainbow Connection or the damn mind sticking Manamana.
The movie follows lifelong muppet fan and oddly out of place Walter who idolized The Muppets along with his older brother Gary (Segel). Gary is dating the sweet shop teacher Mary (Amy Adams at her Enchanted best) and for their 10th anniversary they are leaving Smalltown USA and going to Los Angeles. Gary, ever aloof of his girlfriend’s needs invites Walter along so they can see the now decrepit Muppet Studios. There is a story involving an big oil villain played by Chris Cooper but the real story is that the muppets, who are long forgotten and not famous anymore, need to reunite for one last show to save their old theater.
Does this movie have a lot to say about our changing world. Will Kermit threaten George Clooney’s or Brad Pitt’s Oscar chances? Probably not but the sweet and happy movie transports you back to the time when you could believe in a happily ever after. And sometimes, you need that. I loved the many cameos from mainstream stars as they did in the original Muppet movies. Dave Grohl, Neil Patrick Harris, John Krasinski, Jim Parsons, Rico Rodriguez and Selena Gomez and more all offer up their services to The Muppets.
I want to say that this movie is a must see and certainly if you have kids, I’d take them to the show but for a guy like me, who doesn’t have even anyone to share a trip back into memory lane with, I can’t say I needed to see this. I can say that I wanted to see it though. And I am not mad that I did.
In the end...


Mr. Unhappy Sez: Someday I’ll find it, the muppet connection, a lover, a dreamer and me.... Whoa is that a three way?