I wanna goooooooo...

I'll just get this out of the way first - Austenland is not a very well made movie. It's structured poorly and written badly. And that hack who wrote Twilight produced it. Really, there's nothing for anyone except Jane Austen freaks and chicks who like guys with British accents. Luckily, I fall into both those categories. Lucky you! Mostly, this movie is a romcom and a love story to Jane Austen fans. Jane (yes, that's the lead character's name) is an Austen addict who bankrupts herself to go to a gaudy Austen theme park in England, and she embraces it at first until she realizes that she can't really tell what's real and what's being acted out. Really, that's it. It's based on a cute book, though. Read the book! Keri Russell (Felicity, bitches!) does a cute, ditzy turn as Jane, and she has a meet-cute with Bret Mackenzie (of Flight of the Conchords and the coolest Muppet songs ever written - he won an Oscar last year!), and a meet-Darcy with JJ Feilds (whom I recognized from his preformance on a Northanger Abbey rendition made a few years back - I need help). The traditional love triangle ensures, but I say Bret wins just by charm alone. Jennifer Coolidge gets to ham it up as the resident comic relief, and James Callis (of Battlestar Galactica fame)is a hoot as one of the actors. (Even though, yes, the character's gay, movie writer. No need to shove it down our throats.) The actors make the movie what it is. Anyhoo, it's all over the place. I can't wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone, but it's funny and cute and has a great joke revolving around Nelly's "Hot in Heeere" song. Enough said.

Abra Cadabr....oh, who gives a crap?

So, finally saw "Now You See Me" (or is it Us?  Eh, who cares?) on video, and while I found the movie to be at times entertaining, mostly it was just utter crap.  But, being the supposed academic I would like to be, I did find myself asking many questions when the film was completed.  Among them are:

1.  Is Jesse Eisenberg just a really good actor who gets constantly typecast as the arrogant assmunch, or is he just a gigantic d-bag in real life and can't act worth a crap?  I found myself hating Facebook after watching him in "Social Network" (Yes, I know, I put the link to this on FB.  Shut up.)  And now I kind of hate magicians because he played one.  Gallagher must be very disappointed.

(By the way, did you know he played the main love interest in one of Woody Allen's movies in the last few years?  Who made THAT wise casting decision?  That's like making, well, Woody Allen a love interest.  Sorry Woody, that pedophilic train left the station a loooooong time ago.  But I digress.)

2.  Did Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine need to pay off bookies, so they had to take this film?  Their roles are negligible, especially Caine's, and I can't imagine either one of them read the script and thought, "I gotta have me some of that!"  Mr. Caine, I've seen pictures of your beautiful wife.  GO HOME, and leave this nonsense to lesser actors.

3.  Mark Ruffalo is a great actor, and I mostly wanted to see this film because of him.  This man played The Hulk onscreen, and yet this is the movie where he decides to overact his face off.  I would have thought that playing a giant green monster would have brought out the jazz hands onscreen, and yet he's surprisingly subtle in The Avengers.  With this movie, he's doing everything but swinging from the rafters.  I guess my question is: Mark, what gives, man?

4.  You know how you saw adds for this movie and how it looked like Woody Harrelson et al were the stars of it?  Au contraire, mon frere.  Their roles are almost non-existent, and their characters are written so paper-thin, you could shine a light through them.  So what does it say about a movie when the marketing for it is better than the actual film?

5.  And last, while I realize movies are just...movies, not real life, WHO COMES UP WITH A PLOT LIKE THIS????  No one in their right mind could formulate a plan this elaborate.  Look, I know that I'm trying to assign reason to a medium where Supermen fly, vampires sparkle, and Kristen Stewart could be paid a fortune to be onscreen, but come ON, people!  I like my stories twisty, not spine-crackingly stupid.

In short, it's fine.  Just don't go into it thinking you're going to get any more out of it other than the occasional good moment and two hours worth of MST3K jokes out of it, and you'll be, well, not satisfied, but at least...  Eh, I don't know what you'll be.