Bumblebee - Movie Review

Starring Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena, John Ortiz, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Jason Drucker, Pamela Adlon, Stephen Schneider, Len Cariou, Glynn Turman, Edwin Hodge, the voices of Angela Bassett, Justin Theroux, Peter Cullan and Dylan O'Brien.
Written by Christina Hodson.
Directed by Travis Knight.

★★★

Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) stars in what is easily the best Transformers movie to date. It's a prequel to Michael Bay's five films, featuring Bumblebee on his initial landing on Earth in 1987. After narrowly escaping a couple Decepticons, he has no memory and no ability to speak. There he befriends a girl with her own issues.

I liked how the movie leans into 1980's cinematic cliches. The mean girls from school. The militant jock-villain. Big Government's desire to kill aliens first, ask questions later. A good song changing everything. When Bumblebee is fumbling around a house, it had a distinct Harry & the Hendersons vibe.

I can't help but think that giving screenplay duties to Christina Hodson (Shut In) as opposed to Dudebro McSplosions contributed to it being the first Transformers movie with a heart. Someone give her the He-Man live-action movie. We'll know then that Teela, Sorceress, and Evil-Lyn will be characters that actresses would want to play besides for just the paycheck. (And who knows. John Cena as He-Man? I digress.)

Term Life - DVD Review

TERM LIFE (R) Starring Vince Vaughn, Hailee Steinfeld, Bill Paxton, Jonathan Banks, Terrence Howard, Shea Whigham, Mike Epps, Jon Favreau, Jordi Molla and Taraji P. Henson.
Written by AJ Lieberman.
Directed by Peter Billingsley.

★★

This movie has a lot of interesting ingredients, but I was never sure what it was actually trying to be.

Vince Vaughn plays a small-time hood, a specialist in setting up heists, then selling the plans to highest bidders. When he gets framed for murder, he's wanted by the mob, the police, and the crooked cops who framed him. The title comes from the term life insurance he takes out on himself. As long as he can survive three weeks, then he can leave his daughter (Hailee Steinfeld) a ton of money.

It's not really a comedy, nor do the stakes ever feel high enough to be a gritty drama. His life's in danger, but he seems detached from everything. I was impressed by all the names that signed on to this project. Too bad their director didn't know what to do with them.

The Edge of Seventeen - Movie Review

Starring Hailee Steinfeld, Woody Harrelson, Kyra Sedgwick, Haley Lu Richardson, Blake Jenner, Hayden Szeto and Alexander Calvert.
Written & Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig.

★★★½

In a just world, this would be more successful at the box office, but I suppose it's more likely to gain its followers when it goes to iTunes, Netflix, and so on.

Hailee Steinfeld plays Nadine, an 17-year-old insecure frustrated teenage girl in the tradition of John Hughes heroines. She's constantly fighting with her widowed mother (Kyra Sedgwick), her overconfident older brother (Blake Jenner), and 99% of people at school. When her best friend Krista (Haley Lu Richardson) falls for and starts dating her brother, Nadine has had it.

Nadine is a jerk to everyone around her, and yet we're sympathetic with her all the way. We can see she's just in a lot of pain and hasn't figured out how to get out of her own head. The one person who seems to be able to get through is her teacher Mr. Bruner (Woody Harrelson), who mostly acts annoyed anytime she interrupts him during lunch to let her know her latest angst.

This is a star-making tour-de-force by Steinfeld, who first made audiences take notice as the girl in the Coen Brothers' True Grit. She's had decent roles in films like Begin Again, Ender's Game, 3 Days to Kill, and Pitch Perfect 2. This is the film that announces she's arrived.

Ender's Game - Movie Review

Starring Harrison Ford, Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, Viola Davis, Ben Kingsley and Abigail Breslin.
Directed by Gavin Hood.

★★★

It's been forever since I read the book so while I remember the basics and the ending, there was still a good amount of discovery for me to do.
I liked the central performance of Asa Butterfield (Hugo) as Ender, a brilliant but alienated child, in training to become the next great military tactitian on a future Earth that's being threatened by an alien race.  There are times it can feel confining (most of it takes place on a space station), but the plot is paced nicely between progress and discovery.

Ford, Davis and Kingsley are the adults who provide the gravitas, and this is the best Ford's been in years, as though he actually cared about this movie being good.

Gravity is #1, Captain Phillips #2

Box-office for the weekend of Oct. 11-13.

1.  Gravity - $44.27 million ($123.4) - 2 wks (WB) -20.7%
 . . . 3660 screens / $12,094 per screen
2.  Captain Phillips - $26 - 1 wk (Sony)
 . . . 3020 / $8609
3.  Cloudy with Meatballs 2 - $14.2 ($78.04) - 3 wks (Sony) -32.2%
 . . . 3874 / $3665
4.  Machete Kills - $3.8 - 1 wk (OR)
 . . . 2538 / $1496
5.  Runner Runner - $3.73 ($14.11) - 2 wks (Fox) -51.7%
 . . . 3026 / $1231
6.  Prisoners - $3.67 ($53.62) - 4 wks (WB) -36.2%
 . . . 2855 / $1284
7.  Insidious Chapter 2 - $2.65 ($78.45) - 5 wks (FD) -32%
 . . . 2156 / $1229
8.  Rush - $2.36 ($22.2) - 4 wks (U) -47.2%
 . . . 2130 / $1110
9.  Don Jon - $2.34 ($20.14) - 3 wks (Rel) -43.7%
 . . . 1996 / $1172
10. Baggage Claim - $2.08 ($18.27) - 2 wks (FS) -49.1%
 . . . 1320 / $1572

Captain Phillips was the best opener for a live-action Tom Hanks movie since Angels & Demons (2009).  Even then, it was no match for Gravity, and with a mere 20.7% drop in week 2, it's on its way to being a monster hit.  Sandra Bullock is the most bankable actress in Hollywood right now. Weird that she has nothing official on her plate besides providing a voice in Minions. The Heat 2 was announced but they're nowhere near ready to film.  The 49-year-old probably has dozens of scripts to choose from right now.

Nothing else is doing that well. Machete Kills may have a low budget but it's still a dud. The first Machete movie opened to $11 million.  The latest Romeo & Juliet movie, which stars True Grit's Hailee Steinfeld as Juliet, tanked in limited release.

Random Movie Stuff 5/20/11

- Joey King (Ramona & Beezus), Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket) and Tom Conti (The Tempest) have joined the cast of The Dark Knight Rises, starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway, Tom hardy, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Juno Temple and Nestor Carbonell.

- Tom Cruise has officially signed on for Oblivion, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi actioner directed by Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy). Cruise has Mission Impossbile 4 opening this December, and the musical Rock of Ages next summer.

- No word yet who she'll play, but Holly Hunter has joined the cast of Romeo & Juliet directed by Carlo Carlei, which will star Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) as Juliet. Hunter has also joined the cast of Still I Rise, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis as two women trying to change a public school in inner-city Pittsburgh.