Best and Worst: Emma Stone

What feels like a lifetime ago, I created a post about the best and worst Ryan Reynolds films I'd seen. He was a great place to start because I'd actually seen all of his films that had been released! Or at least I thought, until I remembered Turbo. Jenna and I then started frantically searching IMDB for other actors or actresses we loved, and I realised that there were only 2 Emma Stone films I'd never seen, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and Marmaduke.

 

I want maybe be a little controversial here and say that I don't think animated films should count. Not for this anyway. I've seen Ghosts of Girlfriends Past now but I really don't think Marmaduke is going to make it into the best or worst category. If you really disagree then speak up, and I'll watch it!

 

 

I'm telling you, this was such a hard decision. I was stuck between Zombieland, Easy A and Crazy, Stupid Love. I almost resorted to a game of 'eenie meenie miney mo' to choose, but then I thought about which one I'd watched the most, and then Crazy, Stupid, Love won hands down. I actually watched this for the first time because I love Steve Carell so much, but I didn't expect to love it as much as I did.

 

I'll try to do a proper review for this soon, but for now I'll focus on Emma Stone. This, for me, is the role she was born to play. It's the role that made me fall in love with her and if I could pick an actress to play me in a film about my life, it would be her. She's so elegant and beautiful, and yet at the same time she's an absolute klutz and comes out with some cracking one liners. If you've never seen this, go and see it now!

 

 

When I first heard about Movie 43 I was really excited. The cast looked amazing! I actually thought it would be a sort of spoof on Love Actually, and that the individual stories would tie in at the end, but no. It was just a series of sketches ranging from actually kind of funny to just plain awkward. Never again will I look at Hugh Jackman in the same way. I think it shows how bad this film is when my favourite sketch was done by an actor who I just really can't stand, Stephen Merchant.

 

Emma Stone's section wasn't too bad actually to be honest. It was pretty funny to begin with, but then it just turned a little awkward. I've lent Jenna the DVD and for her benefit, it's most definitely NSFD! 

 

Here's just a little shout-out to some of Emma Stone's other great roles:

 

The Meaning of NSFT, NSFP and NSFD

We can get a little crazy sometimes, us Flick Chicks. You should see some of our emails to each other when we're blog planning. There's lists of lists, colour codes, side comments, and then side comments of side comments. Somehow, it all makes sense to us. You might have seen us mention NSFT, NSFP or NSFD before, and we might do it some more now that we've told you what they mean!

If you've read our About Us page, you'll know a little about how this all started. While we sent our emails back and forth, with mini reviews and recommendations, we also tagged warnings too.

I used to travel to and from work by train, and my journey was an hour each way, so it was a great opportunity for me to catch up on my TV shows and films. Now, if you've ever commuted to work using public transport, you know how busy it can be. Quite often I would find the person sat next to me staring at my tablet screen, and well as several people standing watching it too.

I remember clearly this one journey, I was watching an episode of Arrow, and just as we pulled into Birmingham New Street and flocks of people got onto the train, Oliver Queen and Laurel Lane get all friendly and started kissing and taking each other's tops off. I'm actually turning pink just thinking about it again. What was I meant to do? Shut my tablet down and let everyone think I was watching soft p*rn? Or wait it out in the hope that it was only a kiss, just to find that it got worse?

Poor Jenna got to hear all about it the next say and so 'Not Safe for Train' was born. Unfortunately, for me, NSFT includes anything that involves two characters kissing. I watched What's Your Number too on the train once and I'm pretty sure I remember a scene where Chris Evans opens his apartment door, completely naked - that was a good scene ;-). Thankfully that was at a quieter part of my journey.

Moving swiftly on, Jenna travels far and wide quite often in her job now and watched a fair few films on her plane journeys.  And so NSFP was born after an awkward incident where I thought it would be safe to watch Spring Breakers on a flight to Dubai, it was not safe!  If you have seen the film, you might remember the first 5 minutes which includes boobs, arses and more boobs!!  Then as Allie said you have to make the decision of whether to turn it off (and potentially let people think you were watching p*rn on a plane) or leave it on and hope it gets less NSFP, this did not get any safer, in fact I had to turn it off because leaving it on made it look like I was watching porn, it was just neverending!!

Then there is my Dad, we are both big film fans so we go to the cinema a lot.  Allie will kindly provide me with updates as to whether a film is NSFD (not safe for Dad) i.e. is there awkward sex scenes that go on for more than 2 minutes.  This is an even worse situation, you have to just sit there and it feel like one scene is longer than the rest of the film put together.  You can't get up and 'get a drink' or 'go to the loo' because then you are highlighting the fact that its happening when so far we've done well pretending nothing is happening.  But then there is Dallas Buyers Club, I knew what the film was about but I didn't expect the first half an hour of the film to be sex scene after sex scene and as Allie hadn't seen it I had no NSFD warning.

So if you are commenting on any of our 'Looking forward to seeing...' posts and you know it's NSFD, please give me a clue as I can't suffer Dallas Buyers Club situation all over again....

I just hope we still have readers after admitting all this crazyness!

Review: The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

I couldn't bear to watch this film at the cinema. I really wanted to see it, and I did at the second opportunity, but I can't sit still for 3 hours in a cinema! I can happily say that I've watched it in the comfort of my own home in two sittings.  I really wanted to see this at the cinema but had to be aware that it was NSFD, the D being Dad!!  I usually head to the cinema with the old fart but I have to be careful what we see (a prime example was the opening scene of Dallas Buyers Club - awkward!!!)

So, the film is based around the rise and fall of Jordan Belfort, a stockbroker who after joining a 'penny-stock' firm decides to start his own company and so begins Stratton Oakmont.  What follows is divorce, prostitutes, drugs, money, drugs, more prostitutes, parties and a trophy wife.

Jenna had warned me about some of the scenes in this film. It is most definitely NSFT, NSFP and a lot of other acronyms which we need to dedicate a blog post of its own to. There are some shocking scenes, but I think what shocked me the most was learning that many of them had been toned down during editing! I dread to think what the originals would have looked like!

I really enjoyed this film, but I have to admit it did lose me in certain places. I get distracted easily and I stopped paying attention at one point. To be fair to the film though, I have absolutely zero knowledge of the stock broker market, nor do I have any interest in learning about it, so it wouldn't be fair of me to call those parts boring.  I have to disagree, I was gripped from beginning to end, I didn't even notice how long the film was until it finished.  The story was great and somehow made you love a character that you should hate, DiCaprio does help with this though as he is just so likeable! As someone who isn't a die hard fan of Scorsese's work (I think Goodfellas is a must see on our to-do list!) I think this might be by favourite of his (at the moment!) and particularly my favourite partnership between him and DiCaprio (I found Shutter Island too dull until the end and lost the plot completely with The Departed)

Can we all just take a moment to appreciate the scene below? It was my favourite scene and had me howling with laughter!  This was also by far my favourite scene, as well as the morning after when he sees the car!! Brilliant!



So all in all for me, an enjoyable, funny film, but far too long! I certainly won't be watching the extended, 4 hour long version. - I will!!!  I'll post an update when I've seen it!

Very funny, very enjoyable would happily watch it again.  Although, I wasn't bothered by the length of the film, it could have been cut shorter and been made more concise in certain places to accommodate the Allie's of the world ;-)
What I really needed was you there to explain all the bits I dozed off to!