Don Jon
Previously titled Don Jon’s Addiction, this is Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s directorial debut, and if you haven’t been paying attention . . . I might be minorly obsessed with the actor. (Side note: the Little Red Squiggly Line of Doom is informing me that “minorly” is not a real word. Why isn’t minorly a word? Majorly is a word. Minor is the opposite of major — it makes sense that there would be an equal opposite for the -ly version of said adverb. This is dumb. I am now officially ignoring the Little Red Squiggly Line of Doom.)
Anyway, when I read the synopsis for this movie . . . guy obsessed with porn, has shallow life, meets Beautiful Girl, etc . . . well, I wasn’t very interested, even for Gordon-Levitt. But I’ll admit, this trailer surprised me into laughing a couple of times. I’m hoping that “ohmygod, my boyfriend watches porn” isn’t the serious conflict of the movie because, wow, that’s dumb, but I could potentially watch this as a rental for Gordon-Levitt and Scarlett Johansson. Well, and for “Good Vibrations.” Obviously.
Machete Kills
Oh, wow.
You know, Machete was okay, but it wasn’t quite as fun as I wanted it to be. I wasn’t real enthusiastic about a sequel, but . . . well, if you’re looking for ridiculous, it’s hard to top Charlie Sheen as President Carlos Estevez. The cast also includes Danny Trejo (obviously), Michelle Rodriguez, Sofia Vergara, Amber Heard, Jessica Alba, Mel Gibson, Antonio Banderas, William Sadler, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Lady Gaga.
Oh, who am I kidding. Even if it sucks, I’m totally going to see this.
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints
Well, I’m kind of jealous of the title. And the music is great. Cast, too, obviously. In fact, the whole look of this movie is kind of awesome. That being said . . . this isn’t exactly my cup of bourbon, if you know what I mean. It’s not so much that I hate depressing stories, more that inherent tragedies are somewhat less than appealing. And I was kind of shaking my head before we got to the love triangle part. Jesus. When a critic calls it a “grand, doomed love story,” and you’re using that quote to sell your story . . . sorry. Not even for you, Ben Foster.
Prisoners
Fair warning: this trailer seems to show a lot of the movie. Also, I love trailers that start like this: I just want to scrawl, “Oh, the good times before everything goes to hell,” right over the screen.
I’ve got to say, I’m not really sure this is my brand of bourbon, either, although the cast is pretty stellar, and hey, Roger Deakins is doing cinematography. (I didn’t even know who he was this time last year, but since looking up his body of work and discovering he’d never won an Oscar . . . I feel oddly offended on his behalf.)
Maybe I’ll rent it or something, when I feel like being depressed. And to see if Jake Gyllenhaal is actually the bad guy. I mean, come on. Detective LOKI? Please.
And Finally . . . Almost Human
This one isn’t actually a movie. It’s a television show starring Karl Urban, and I was interested before I saw the trailer cause, you know, KARL URBAN. (Also crime procedural set in the future, android partners, and JJ Abrams. But mostly Karl Urban.)
Now that I’ve seen the trailer . . . damn, I’m ready for fall already. This looks awesome. Please let this be awesome, and please don’t let it appear on my Queen of the Gone-Too-Soon list. I’m about as excited for this as I am for Agents of Shield, and that’s saying something, considering how obsessed I am with The Avengers.
My Geek Blasphemy 
Is it me or is Rooney Mara not actually a very good actress. In the “Nightmare On Elm Street” remake some people pointed out that she wasn’t a very good lead actress and my response was that she isn’t really the main character – Kyle Gallner is. But thinking about it, I realised that actually what happened is that Kyle Gallner completely out-acted her. Okay, so she says that she wasn’t really trying on that performance (um… why not?), so what else has she done.
Now Rooney Mara actually got some praise for her performance in Fincher’s version of “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”. However, the argument seems to be that she did a fantastic flat performance for a flat character. I was seriously unimpressed, but I realise that some blame has to go to the director’s vision.
That’s all I’ve seen her in so far, but I’m seriously beginning to wonder. Is it just that she sucks? She might be a perfectly serviceable actress, but she’s clearly been given this role in “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” (shouldn’t there be a question mark at the end of that?) because they want a moving performance from her. Was she, like, REALLY good in “Side Effects” or something?
Honestly, I haven’t really seen Rooney Mara in much. I’ve seen a couple of clips of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo that seemed good, but I haven’t watched the whole film, so I couldn’t really judge in context. I never saw Side Effects, nor did I want to, and I actually didn’t realize she was in the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street. I only remembered Kyle Gallner and Katie Cassidy. And Jackie Earle Haley, of course.
That sums it up nicely. She’s essentially the main protagonist in “A Nightmare On Elm Street” and she’s entirely unmemorable in the role. And now she’s supposed to be a big hollywood actress, why?
Well, like I said, I haven’t seen A Nightmare on Elm Street, so it’s not so surprising that I didn’t realize she was in the movie, considering that was before she hit it big with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Anyway, I guess enough people find her memorable. I’ll have to actually see more of her movies before I can really comment.
I don’t know what everyone thought about Side Effects (and I haven’t seen it, or the Elm Street remake) but I started hearing a little praise after her small role in The Social Network, and then a lot more after The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
As far as her performance being flat, I think there are a surprising number of different ways of playing flat, or blank, characters, so it’s trickier than just supressing emotion. Also, because most of these characters do still have feelings to some degree, the actors have to emote while still coming off as blank. It’s hard to say why, but I also find that all performances of this nature (or at least, good ones) are quite different to watching an actor who just can’t not be flat.
That was sort of long and possibly pointless, but I’m trying to say you probably just disagree with most people about her performance in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Like, you saw bad or boring flat as opposed to nuanced and alien flat.
I suppose I just don’t really see any difference between her flatness in “A Nightmare On Elm Street” and her flatness in “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”. Also by contrast I found Keanu Reeves MORE nuanced in his performance in “Constantine” than she was in either of those movies.
I think I know what a flat performance is and, by my reckoning, she was definitely giving a flat performance in those movies. All I’m wondering is whether it was HER fault or the DIRECTOR’s fault.
I would like to see more romantic dramas that aren’t related to Nicholas Sparks or going for the same kind of tone, but I really hate love triangles. So… probably not.