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:

 

Review: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

I finally went to the cinema to see this last week and I was not disappointed (as I knew I wouldn't be!) I am a huge fan of Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man and he completely lived up to my expectations, building on the character from the first film and making you love Spidey even more!! I had to wait till yesterday but I was seriously looking forward to this, the first one is probably one of my all time favourite comic films.

This sequel focuses mainly on Peter Parker (Garfield) trying to find out what happened to his parents as well as battling various enemies including Electro (Jamie Foxx), Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan) and - all be it briefly - Rhino (Paul Giamatti).  It also continues to build on the relationship between Parker and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), which personally is my favourite part, but I'm a sucker for a love story! How can you not be when it's Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, probably the cutest couple on the planet ever?!

As a big fan of the Amazing Spider-Man film, I had high hopes for this and superficially I wasn't disappointed, the flying scenes were particularly impressive, even without 3D.  The comedy one liners from Spider-Man were there and the love story was there.  However, I did feel like the whole film came across a bit choppy and hard to follow.  One minute it's this bad guy, then it's that one and then this one is back and then oh look another different bad guy.  It almost felt like two different versions had been filmed and then cut and pasted together.  Certain parts of the film felt rushed while other parts dragged on and on.  When I left the cinema, I read the reviews as I do for every film and the Total Film review actually mentioned that MJ was going to be in this film and Shailene Woodley had filmed scenes but they were all cut. 

The comical moments were great, with one exception! Electro in Times Square, cue dramatic music, tens of police officers on standby, guns ready, and what does he say? "It's my Birthday...time to light my candles..." Urghhh... This clip below though? Comedy gold!

I wish I watched this at the IMAX Giant Screen like I did with the first, because some of the action scenes would have been incredible! They were great enough in 2D to be honest. My heart was literally racing throughout the final fight scene, it was incredible. I thought the film was fine to follow, but it all got a bit rushed at the end. There was really no need for Rhino at all, he was only really in it for about 5 minutes anyway.

I personally didn't see the big shock of the film coming, but after it happened I looked back at the whole film and they had been teasing and hinting at it all the way through, dragging it out unnecessarily I think.  I won't put any spoilers in here but it was a shock for me but it was clever as it curves away from what a comic book movie would normally do, if you have seen the film this will make perfect sense, if you haven't - well go and see it and get back to me!

I've read the comics so I knew what was coming, but damn they really didn't try to hide it. I've learnt from this to never like a film's Facebook page until you've seen it, as I saw a lot of people's angry reactions when a screenshot was posted with the caption 'Will Peter have to pay the ultimate price?'.

None of these 'issues' took away from my love of the film though, it held my attention and I was gripped from beginning to end.  I love the actors and the way they play these characters (although never saw Paul Giamatti as Rhino but it worked!!) and I did very much enjoy the story and would happily watch it again and again.

Great filming, great actors and great characters, if only the story had kept up this would have been a 9 for me. I can't give this a 10 because even I will point out some flaws, but I loved it and can't wait to see it again.

Looking Forward to in the Cinema this Month, April 2014

We like to mix things up a little around here, so we thought we would share with you what film we're most looking forward to watching in the cinema this month. Oddly, it's a fairly quiet month and after exchanging a few messages, we both fought over Spider-Man. Well, great minds think alike eh? And so, age before beauty and all that...I'll let Jenna kick us off!
 
Sorry for the delay on this one - only I could start the 'looking forward to in April' post on 17th April!! I'm a busy chick what can I say!  I did in fact steal The Amazing Spiderman 2 from Allie as I'm not totally convinced by Transcendence, I have seen the trailer more than once now and it just doesn't appeal to me!  Although I also thought I wouldn't enjoy Captain America:  The Winter Soldier and I loved it (review to follow!) so maybe my first impressions aren't as well founded as I thought.

Anyway, I bloody loved the first Amazing Spiderman film.  I thought I liked Tobey Maguire as Spiderman until I saw Andrew Garfield, he is perfect for this role (as is Emma Stone).  The various actors/actresses have perfect chemistry, particularly Garfield and Stone's Gwen Stacey who is a significant improvement on Kirsten Dunst's disappointing MJ in the first trilogy.

The trailer for this is jaw dropping, you can see why people enjoy these films in 3D (although I'm not personally a fan of 3D).  I can't wait to see the action, but moreso I want to see the development of the relationship between Peter and Gwen (I'm a sucker for a love story!!)

Check it out:

Take it away Allie.

Okay so what did I pick? This.

If I can learn to spell Transcendence by myself by the time I watch this, I will be mega proud of myself! I'm still on the fence about this film, but I'm still really looking forward to seeing it. I'm just not sure I can imagine Johnny Depp in a serious role right now though. After watching Pirates of the Caribbean too many times, I just can't shake the image below out of my head!

The Jack Sparrow Run is actually a thing in my family now...if someone shouts it out loud the rest of us break into a run just like that. Gains us a lot of funny looks mind! - I love this!

But anyway, this is totally my kind of film, but I think it'll either be a completely jaw dropping, amazing film, or a complete let down. There's just no middle ground with that genre. If you haven't seen it already, here's the trailer.

What about you, readers? Is there a film you're really looking forward to that we've totally missed?