Soup Cannes- GRAND REOPENING

Let’s talk about Bellflower. 2011. First feature film directed by Evan Glodell who also starred in it and is a serious cutie. 
Bellflower is a pre-apocalyptic indie romance-gone-bad with flamethrowers that will make you want to hug your best friend and watch Mad Max and feel like everything is going to be okay. Love, rage, friendship, let’s make stuff explode and go vroom.
 
All the feels forever. A+.

It’s on Netflix instant and is just one of those movies that everyone needs to watch right now. The best film I’ve seen this year that wasn’t Django Unchained. You will like it if you are awesome and like awesome things and also when stuff blows up.

I’m getting ready to live my new life as Lord Humongous.  

Sincerely,
M 

Gangster Squad (dir. Ruben Fleischer)

Gangster Squad is about a team of secret police officers trying to take down Sean Penn and his big nose. Ever since I saw the commercial advertisement for this film, I was so excited to see it. It was a disappointment. It had all of the clichés it should have, but it was clumsy and a mess. Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling (I wish he would have wore something else other than a tuxedo but hey, it’s Ryan Gosling) and the action scenes were probably the best attributes in the movie. Overall, my expectations were not met for Gangster Squad.

★★

-S

I imagine that someone who meets someone handsome on a dating site and then goes to meet them and it turns out that the picture is ten years old and now that person is obese or maybe a little pustulent would probably feel the same way that I do after watching Gangster Squad. God dammit. It should have been good. It could have been good. What fucking happened.
Okay it really wasn’t that bad.
But it still wasn’t really good.
It was really just only okay.
Heavily stylized, the whole movie -looked- really cool. That’s really not enough to make a great movie, though, is it. You could photograph one of your dumps and put it through an Instagram filter and say it looks cool. But it still came out of your butt.
Gangster Squad really wanted to be brutal and pulpy, but it was far too airbrushed to achieve any level of grit. It really wanted to be noir, but it only took it as far as giving Josh Brolin a trenchcoat and telling him to gnash his teeth. Yellow lighting is not the same as creating a tone or atmosphere.
None of the characters were ever given a chance to establish any sort of identity. With a cast like this one, it’s a damn shame.
How the fuck is there a black policeman in the 1940s. Black people weren’t even given equal rights to water fountains in the 1940s. Seriously.
Best scenes: Opening scene, Sean Penn chains a guy to two cars and rips him in half oppa Genghis-style. Climactic fight scene, Josh Brolin and Sean Penn on either side of a hotel Christmas display, slow-mo shooting at each other through poinsettas and shit.

C

-M

Our next movie reviews will be Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained and Les Miserables. STAY TUNED!

I cannot deny I would scoop Eli Roth up with a spoon, but what the fuck did I just watch. 
Where were all the blood and guts? This film throws titties at the screen, but starves for guts. 100% more boobs than blood. If I wanted boobs, I wouldn’t have picked the movie with menacing pincers on the cover.
C’mon. That’s, like, the point. 
We don’t need no titties let the motherfucker burn.

Most disturbing moment: Dude eats salad with his hands. Dude.

I, Shea, will be doing a film review by myself tonight.  This will happens one and a while when one of us watches a film the other hasn’t.  Just FYI.

This movie was a surprise to me, from the trailer I saw I thought it was going just “alright”.  But, this movie was more than two hours long and I didn’t want it to end, it was just so good and well written and Anna Paquin did a wonderful job in it (spoiler: you get to see Anna Paquin cry and scream at the same time.  For those of you who watch True Blood, who doesn’t love that face?)  The only problem I have with Margaret was the directing, I wasn’t a fan of it but that’s just me.  If you’re into over-the-top dramas, I would seriously recommend watching this because it was an A+ film.

I give this movie 5 Anna Paquin crying faces out of 5 Anna Paquin crying faces.

- S

P.S. We are so sorry that we haven’t posted any reviews in a while, but we will try our best not to be lazy fucks and get back to it.  Thank you!

Prometheus (director: Ridley Scott)

I am one of those people who have unfortunately not seen Alien yet.  To answer the question of “Do you need to watch Alien or Aliens to watch Prometheus?”  The answer is no, you are in luck.  Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron and Idris Elba give wonderful performances but Noomi Rapace out-shined everyone in this cast and let me tell you why (Spoliers!  Fun!)  There was this scene and she finds out she’s pregnant and it turns out she’s carrying an alien or whatever that thing was.  She gave herself an alien abortion and I just so disgusted and impressed and I was in love.  I wanted this movie to be longer, just for my enjoyment (even though it was two hours long.) 

I give five alien abortions out of five alien abortions.

-S

Prometheus. I saw it twice in theatres, and I would see it again. I loved it, and although it is definitely flawed, the overall spectacular visuals and acting save it from being anything other than a sci-fi jizz fest. I’ve only seen the first Alien film, and I quite enjoyed it, but it’s important to remember that Prometheus and Alien are vastly different experiences and you don’t have to like one to enjoy the other. 
The best thing about the film in my opinion was Michael Fassbender’s performance as David the android. He’s just playing basketball on his bike and watching Lawrence of Arabia and combing his hair and watching people’s dreams and I love it. The rest of the cast was amazing too- Charlize Theron, Noomi Rapace, Idris Elba all did fantastic jobs. Well, Noomi Rapace’s English accent was just a Swedish accent and the occasional use of the word “bloody”. I found the whole aliens created humanity but then were like oops nevermind thing really interesting, and I love that it raises really interesting questions about where we came from and why we exist and why we should be destroyed but isn’t pretentious enough to answer them. There are lots of things that don’t make sense and things that should be elaborated on but aren’t, like why did David do what he did and why did Weyland pretend to be dead and why was the biologist afraid of a 2,000 year old skeleton when that’s his job and why would they run in a straight line from a giant falling wheel-shaped thing and why were the Xenomorph eggs kept in jars on the floor instead of locked up somewhere, but I just choose to ignore these flaws because thinking about them too much would ruin something I like and the trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.
I give it four android hearts out of five android hearts.
Oh, and the alien squid baby self-abortion was fucking awesome.

-M

Snow White & the Huntsman (2012)

Snow White & the Huntsman: one of my most anticipated movies of 2012.  I’m not going to lie, I was a bit disappointed.  The only thing that held Snow White together was the visuals and Charlize Theron’s amazing acting.  The movie was a little long for how bland the plot was.  Even though, Kristen Stewart looked gorgeous through out the whole movie, I would have chosen someone else to play Snow White.  It seemed like she barely had any lines in the movie.  I would like to state one thing that annoyed me when I left the theater: towards the end, when K. Stew was on the horse, there would a blanket on it and then when there would be an up close shot, and it wouldn’t be there; could’ve been totally avoided (I’m probably the only one who noticed that.)  I wouldn’t call Snow White a bad film because it wasn’t; it was actually good if you look past K. Stew and the not-so-good writing.

-Shea 

Snow White and the Huntsman was a fairly decent movie. If I said it was good, I’d feel like I was being too generous. There were lots of really good things about it, but it was also lacking in a few crucial ways.
First off let me say that the scenery is absolutely gorgeous- from the enchanting fairy wonderland to the dark and foreboding forest. And in that regard it’s definitely reminiscent of the Tim Burton’s Alice and Wonderland.
The best thing about the film was Charlize Theron’s performance as the evil queen, Ravenna. And I’m not just saying this because she’s one of my favourite actresses- she truly did a wonderful job portraying the anger and the jealousy and the desperation of her character. Charlize Theron is a beautiful and amazing woman, but somehow she’s a fucking powerhouse when it comes to playing ugly, empty people. Chris Hemsworth is a good actor, but his character didn’t really allow that to shine through; he’s just a meaty, drunk, angry guy with an axe. Kristen Stewart- yeah, okay, whatever, until I see some evidence she’s actually a good actress, I just can’t give a shit about her or anything she does. “Oh well OMG I like twilight and she is so talented and pretty OMG” No, you’re a twat. It’s easy to be successful if you just keep landing roles where you play characters who are special for absolutely no reason. And I have to say, that’s led me to resent her a little bit, especially since she is no-shit the highest paid actress in Hollywood right now. Of course, I’m not just hating her blindly because she was in Twilight; I think she probably hates herself for that as much as anyone else could, so if I joined in it would just be a little redundant. Her performance in Snow White wasn’t bad or good, just impossibly to give a shit about, and I think the only reason they didn’t make a better choice for the role (because c’mon in what fucking universe is Kristen Stewart fairer than Charlize Theron) is they knew her name in big letters on the poster would attract the Twihard demographic and bring in the big bucks.
I feel this film was lacking heavily in the character department. Just because it’s based on a classic tale does not mean it has to remain bound to the rigid structure of the tale- I really don’t think anyone would have been outraged if they changed the basic Snow White fairy tale outline. From the beginning you know how it’s going to end, and I think the good-must-triumph-over-evil thing shafted the characters a bit. They all had particular molds to fill, and they filled the molds to the best of their ability, but none of them were able to have any depth or any secrets or anything fucking interesting to say.
And that’s the other great flaw- the writing. With an excellent supporting cast (Nick fucking Frost, people), there was a gaping opportunity for clever and interesting discourse between the characters. And I think the failure to capitalize on that is what really dragged the film down. Like, imagine a movie like Pirates of the Caribbean, right, which is visually spectacular and great cast, except without the clever exchanges between the characters- and suddenly no one gives a shit because that’s what made it so great. And that’s where Snow White failed- it’s fun for your eyes but the rest of you is really excited for it to end so you can leave. It’s good enough to watch once without walking out, but never again, because it doesn’t have anything to offer you that you didn’t take away the first time.
I give it three out of five dwarves and a medal for just showing up.

-Marge (excuse her long review)