The Humane Society of the United States announced they’ll be honoring pop star Ke$ha for her commitment to animal welfare as the 2013 recipient of their Wyler Award. Ke$ha will be receiving the honor at the 2013 Genesis Awards Benefit Gala on March 23, 2013.
The Wyler Award (named after actress/animal advocate Gretchen Wyler) is given to a celebrity who helps increase animal issues via the media. Previous winners of the prestigious award include Sir Paul McCartney, Hayden Panettiere, Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, Kristin Davis and Ian Somerhalder.
As a Global Ambassador for animals, Ke$ha has brought attention to the plight of street dogs, “the trophy hunting of endangered lions, shark-finning, Canada’s commercial seal slaughter, dogfighting, and cruelty-free cosmetics.” She also uses her website to highlight a different issue involving the welfare of animals each month.
“It means so much to me to be recognized by The Humane Society of the United States because advocating for animals is second nature to me,” stated Ke$ha. “My affinity with animals and the natural world inspires me and my music. I don’t understand how anyone can justify abusing or exploiting animals, and as long as it continues, I intend to keep talking about it.”
“The animals have a bold and passionate ambassador in Ke$ha, who is not known for holding back on what she thinks,” said Beverly Kaskey, senior director of The HSUS’ Hollywood Outreach and executive producer of The HSUS’ Genesis Awards Benefit Gala. “The Humane Society of the United States is grateful to Ke$ha for informing her millions of fans worldwide about new and ongoing threats to our fellow creatures, while connecting them to resources that enable them to take action.”
“This is what you’ve been doing, 007?” asks John McClane (Bruce Willis) who’s just discovered that his son Jack (Jai Courtney) is a CIA agent who’s deep cover has been blown while on assignment in Russia in the action film A Good Day to Die Hard.
Believing his wayward son is mixed up in all kinds of serious trouble, McClane travels to Russia to see if he can help. He quickly gets mixed up in a high-speed car chase on the freeways of Moscow while his son breaks a political prisoner out and heads to a CIA safe house. Once there, John discovers the truth about his son and the real reason for his being in Russia.
Both McClanes also discover the safe house isn’t so safe after all when the Russian mob attack, sending them back on the run without an exit strategy out of the country. So father and son have to team up and work together to take on the Russian mob and find a way back home.
Loud, ridiculous, and at times boring, A Good Day to Die Hard is without a doubt the weakest and worst addition to the film franchise. The dry humor, great stunts, smart and cunning villains, jaw-dropping action scenes, and engaging performances by Bruce Willis as New York Detective John McClane – who always happens to be at the right place at the wrong time and in way over his head – is all gone. Not even a glimmer remains in this shallow, terrible excuse for an action sequel.
The plot is uninteresting and near the end before the big showdown between the bad guys and the McClanes it becomes laughable. Bruce Willis is doing nothing more than a walk and shout-through here while occasionally trying to be funny with lines like, ‘I’m supposed to be on vacation,’ said while he’s being shot at or is in the act of jumping from an explosion. There’s zero character development with all the other characters being one-dimensional. The one attempt to make one of the supportive characters be more than they seem is both obvious and silly.
The original Die Hard film is one of the top ten best action movies ever made (yes, you can expect a top ten countdown of the best action films this summer) and this latest addition to the franchise is so awful it’s unworthy and undeserving of being a part of the Die Hard series.
GRADE: D-
A Good Day to Die Hard hits theaters on February 14, 2013 and is rated R for violence and language.
The racy fan fiction trilogy The Submissive as well as author Tara Sue Me’s first book of her Fire series have been acquired by New American Library (NAL). Author Me posted the good news on her website, saying: “I met with the Penguin team a few weeks ago and trust me when I say the books could not be in better hands.”
The trilogy (think Fifty Shades of Grey) consists of The Submissive, The Dominant, and The Training. The first print edition of The Submissive is planned for the US and UK on June 4, 2013 followed by The Dominant on August 6th. The Training will be released on October 1, 2013.
“Tara Sue Me writes the kind of erotic romance people want today, and she does it better than most anyone else we’ve seen. She’s been a sensation online for years, and it’s time for the mainstream audience to discover and enjoy her works,” stated Claire Zion, Vice President and Editorial Director of NAL.
The Submissive was originally published as fan fiction in 2009. After being posted on the fanfiction.net site, the story generated 3+ million views.
The Submissive Plot:
Abby King has a secret fantasy.
New York City knows Nathaniel West as the brilliant and handsome CEO of West Industries, but Abby knows he’s more. He’s also a dominant, and when she hears he’s looking for a new submissive, she applies for consideration. She’s a complete novice, but Abby yearns to experience a world of pleasure beyond her simple life as a librarian.
After one weekend with the skilled Master, Abby knows she needs more, and she fully submits to Nathaniel’s terms. He’s pleased by her willing spirit, yet her attempts to reach the man behind the rules are met with coolness.
As Abby falls in deeper, she fears Nathaniel’s heart is non-negotiable. But can she salvage her own before it’s too late?
The redband (rated R) trailer for Danny Boyle’s (Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, Trainspotting) Trance finds James McAvoy being put under hypnosis so that he’ll remember the location of a painting. Coming to theaters on April 5, 2013, Trance also stars Vincent Cassel and Rosario Dawson.
The Plot:
A fine art auctioneer mixed up with an underworld gang joins forces with a charismatic hypnotherapist to recover a lost painting. As boundaries between desire, reality and hypnotic suggestion begin to blur the stakes rise faster and more dangerously than any of the players could have anticipated.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Harry Potter‘s ‘Ron’ – Rupert Grint – has signed up to take on a leading role in CBS’ Super Clyde. The series was created by Greg Garcia (Raising Hope, My Name is Earl) and, according to THR, “centers on a meek, unassuming fast-food worker who decides to become a superhero.”
Garcia is writing the series and will serve as executive producer.
Per THR, Grint’s character is described as a sweet, slightly neurotic guy who loves comic books. He has anxiety issues which don’t keep him from wanting to be a real-life superhero. After inheriting a monthly allowance, he decides to act on his fantasies and commit himself to do good.
In addition to this project, Grint will be seen in the feature films Into the White [poster pictured], CBGB, and Cross Country.
Zach Galifianakis’ second part of his Between Two Ferns Oscar interview segments features Zero Dark Thirty‘s Jessica Chastain, Lincoln‘s Sally Field, and Silver Linings Playbook‘s Bradley Cooper. Chastain is asked if the title of her movie has something to do with Chris Brown, Sally Field expresses her hatred of pennies, and Bradley Cooper gets physical by trashing the set and destroying the ferns.
To make a good film, you need several key elements to work well: Script, Direction, Acting, Cinematography, Editing, and Score being some of the more obvious ones. Well, for the fifth installment of the John McClane saga, not so smartly titled A Good Day to Die Hard, none of that worked well.
The end result is such a complete travesty that after watching the final cut, the title should have been changed to A Good Day to Stay Home and Watch Something Else. The one good thing I can say about the movie is that it’s 97 minutes long … not that it doesn’t feel longer as one sits there bored and waiting for the credits to bring up the house lights so you can go home.
I’m really not that interested in making this a long review (it probably will be anyway because I consider reviews like this therapy), all you need to know is that this is easily the worst movie of the franchise. Director John Moore seems allergic to making good movies (Max Payne, Flight of the Phoenix, Behind Enemy Lines) and that continues here. Just picking apart an early car chase scene that involves a large number of potentially interesting stunts and plenty of road carnage, it’s easy to see why continuing to give this man a director’s chair seems reckless at best.
In the scene, he employs shaky cam, snap zooms, whip pans, wide shots, ultra close-ups, and just about every other technique he’s seen somewhere. Between his haphazard lack of style, sound design built around volume rather than clarity, and an editor who seems to have hit shuffle to put it all together, the final product is a complete mess and a chase scene that rivals the action of last year’s clunker, Alex Cross. And this is probably the BEST scene in the movie.
In addition to action scenes devoid of any energy or enthusiasm, there’s the problem brought about by a script that’s sucked every bit of fun out of a series that’s predicated on the notion of this everyman overcoming incredible odds via a combination of luck, will, and dry wit. Going into the finale, it felt more like the midway point of another movie that understood the three-act story structure. And anytime the horse manure hits the fan, the only quip from McClane is that he’s on vacation (something audiences deserve for sitting through this dung heap … yes, the fecal references are necessary).
All this negativity and I haven’t even touched upon how discordant the score is; it’s almost as if every department of the film production has some side bet about which one could perform the worst. Providing feedback on this really isn’t all that hard. The movie is terrible … T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E. It’s only the loyalty to a beloved cinematic character that elevates this above something as awful as last week’s #1 at the box office, Identity Thief (don’t get me started on how annoying it is to see such incompetence being rewarded). Seriously, if you have any desire at all to see A Good Day to Die Hard, I want you to stop, take out $20 from your wallet, and toss it in a roaring fire. That should only take a few seconds, which saves you not only an hour and a half of your lifetime but makes for a much better show.
GRADE: D+
A Good Day to Die Hard hits theaters on February 14, 2013 and is rated R for violence and language.
Alden Ehrenreich as Ethan Wate and Alice Englert as Lena Duchannes in 'Beautiful Creatures' - Photo by John Bramley/Warner Bros
I’m not really sure how to say this so I’m just going to rip the band-aid off and get it over with. I kind of liked Beautiful Creatures. (Please, stop the snickering. It’s rude.)
Now, some of you out there may be saying, ‘Of course you liked it Ian, it features Emmy Rossum,’ and there’s a lot of truth to that. Having her play a supporting role in the film was my primary interest in seeing the movie at all, and she did a nice job in the movie; and, of course, looked spectacular while doing so. However, had the entire movie been a train wreck surrounding her, I’d have no qualms in squashing this like a bug … but given the scope and intent of the production, this pretty much did what it needed to do.
Based on the novel by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl (if this makes money, there’s a new franchise in town), the film is about a family of casters (witches to the layperson). When the girls turn 16, they’re claimed for the light or the dark, and they aren’t supposed to have any say in the matter. The youngest of the clan (Alice Englert) is on the cusp of that auspicious birthday and is worried she’ll be claimed for the dark like her cousin (Rossum) and mother. There’s also a curse and a small town that fears the strange events that follow the family, but that’s all small potatoes to the budding romance between a local boy who’s always dreamed of leaving (Alden Ehrenreich) and Englert.
Due to the young adult audience, the teenage romance, and the supernatural core of the movie, the comparisons for this have largely been of the Twilight variety. But as much as I don’t appreciate losing whatever cool points I may have garnered up to this point in my life, I have to say that there’s a fairly wide gap between this and the sparkly vampires. Aside from the spinning table fight scene highlighted in the trailer, which is nothing short of atrocious and silly, the large majority of this movie handles the hocus-pocus material pretty well.
Also, despite some early rumblings I had heard to the contrary, I was able to buy into the love story. Ehrenreich’s accent borders on the ridiculous at times but the pair of lovebirds did a decent job of capturing that sense of young love, which is the underpinning to the struggles Englert finds herself dealing with on account of the ever-looming Sixteenth birthday that isn’t destined to be so Super Sweet.
On the supporting side of things, having already discussed Emmy’s contributions, the two key actors to talk about are Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson (Viola Davis’s role is more than a little too stock to be considered all that interesting). Irons restrains himself for the most part from diving into the deep end of scene chewery a la something like Dungeons & Dragons. That’s both good and bad, as it spotlights the few moments he goes over the top as near cringe-worthy but also makes for a rather dull portrayal overall. Thompson, on the other hand, showed quite a bit of range in her portrayal of the town Bible-thumper who’s at times possessed by Englert’s mother. Playing both sides of the coin allowed her to be prim and proper when condemning the heathens but also delightfully free in embracing the dark, so it made her quite fun to watch.
Really, the bottom line here is whether or not you’ve read the book and/or are a fan of the teenage supernatural romance genre. I’m actually neither and have reservations about elements of the film but never found myself wanting to bolt for the door. I bought into the story and won’t go kicking and screaming into the next installment should it be forthcoming. I’m thanking every star in the sky, lucky or not, that this wasn’t as horrendously acted as Twilight. What the world doesn’t need is another rampant film series that defies all logic … though I’m sure if we give Hollywood a minute or two, they’ll come up with one. Thankfully, if you were eagerly anticipating the film, I can happily say you’re probably going to get what you want, and that’s more than a lot of movies can say these days.
GRADE: C+
Beautiful Creatures hits theaters on February 14, 2013 and is rated PG-13 for violence, scary images and some sexual material.
Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough star in Relativity Media's "Safe Haven." Photo Credit: James Bridges
Director Lasse Hallström used to make great movies like My Life as a Dog, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and The Cider House Rules. I don’t know what happened (I suspect Y2K) but now he’s releasing his second, HIS SECOND, Nicholas Sparks adaptation, Safe Haven.
For those who don’t remember, he was at the helm for the Channing Tatum & Amanda Seyfried led Dear John … which I will admit I didn’t hate. So how would I feel about Hallström now ordering Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough around a rainy set?
Safe Haven is a slight departure from the Nicholas Sparks films I’ve sat through to this point. All that I can probably say without spoiling things is that there are certain key moments/plot developments that he’s become known for that don’t actually happen here, and change is often good. This is still a love story, and I will admit upfront I liked this far more than the last few Sparks’ adaptations, but I hope the ladies don’t feel the need to make Valentine’s Day a torture gauntlet for the guys by thinking that makes it okay to make this a date movie. Like all the others of its ilk, this is something you gather your girlfriends together for and leave the guys at home in blissful peace.
That being said, perhaps the most surprising aspect of the movie is that Julianne Hough put in a generally good performance. Her turns in Footloose and Rock of Ages have been less than inspiring and seeing her given the lead here, I was expecting to be laughing under my breath from start to finish. However, she ably captured the unease and fear necessary for the role in the early segments of the movie and shared some nice chemistry with Josh Duhamel, who’s made a habit of these rather bland but innocuous leading male roles. He dishes out what we’ve seen time and time again but I’m not expecting anything more in a film like this.
The lynchpins to the success of the movie are the two actors portraying Duhamel’s kids: Noah Lomax and Mimi Kirkland. Lomax is the older brother and does a decent job of capturing the confusion and anger that follow the loss of a mother at such a young age. Kirkland is a ridiculously adorable and sweet little girl, bringing a warmth and lightness to the proceedings that help keep it afloat during other elements of the movie that don’t work quite so well.
Now that I’ve given myself the green light to find the negatives, I’ll start with the villain of the movie, portrayed by David Lyons. There’s a traumatic event that precipitates Hough’s flight to the sleepy North Carolina town where she meets Duhamel. That’s all well and good, but the foreshadowing of Lyons’ intentions and connections in relation to Hough ruin what could have been a quasi-decent twist. Also, there’s another attempt at a twist (which seemed to work for much of the screening audience) that I’ll admit took me about half of the movie to figure out … but when I did, I just shook my head and rolled my eyes, waiting for the shoe to drop and be completely annoyed; sometimes thinking critically about a film gets you in trouble and this is definitely one of those cases. That last twist is actually so cheeseball that it eroded some of the admiration I had begun to feel for the movie.
That being said, I hope no one reading this would confuse me for the target demographic and if I can sit through this somewhat comfortably, it should mean the Sparks’ fan club should feel right at home here. The screening audience loved it, and there’s a sweetness to the production that manages to carry through, even with a rather ineffectively plotted conflict scenario. I’m by no means saying that moviegoers not already interested in the movie should give this a shot at the theaters and let the die-hards wade through the schmaltzy, predictable romance. For all you Y-chromosomes, there’s literally a Die Hard to choose from instead (though at the time of writing this, I haven’t seen McClane’s latest so the best choice may be not to play at all. We’ll see.).
Oh, and BOOM. Wargames quote. Deal with it.
GRADE: C
Safe Haven hits theaters on February 14, 2013 and is rated PG-13 for thematic material involving threatening behavior and for violence and sexuality.
Image Entertainment’s showing off a new The Numbers Station trailer starring John Cusack as a CIA agent and Malin Akerman as a woman he’s charged with protecting. The dramatic thriller was directed by Kasper Barfoed and will hit theaters on April 26, 2013.
The Plot:
After his latest mission goes disastrously wrong, veteran CIA black ops agent Emerson Kent (Cusack) is given one last chance to prove he still has what it takes to do his job. His new assignment: guarding Katherine (Akerman), a code operator at a top-secret remote CIA “Numbers Station” where encrypted messages are sent and received.
When an elite team of heavily armed assailants lays siege to the station, Emerson and Katherine suddenly find themselves in a life-or-death struggle against an unknown enemy. With the station compromised and innocent lives at stake, they must stop the deadly plot before it’s too late.
The Humane Society of the United States announced they’ll be honoring pop star Ke$ha for her commitment to animal welfare as the 2013 recipient of their Wyler Award. Ke$ha will be receiving the honor at the 2013 Genesis Awards Benefit Gala on March 23, 2013.
