The Help Blu-Ray review

The Help (5 out of 5 stars)

Touchstone/ December 6, 2011

I loved The Help the book. I couldn’t put it down. So the movie had very very large shoes to fill and I fully expected to be disappointed as I am with ALL movie adaptations of books I love (Something Borrowed, anyone?) But I LOVED the movie. He casting was spot-on and the story stayed true and was perfectly adapted.

If you’ve been living under a rock, The Help is about a group of women in the 1960s south—the black maids who run the white women’s homes and raise their children, and one such white woman, Skeeter (Emma Stone), who writes a book telling their stories. What makes The Help so utterly likeable is the characters. Not just the main ones, but even the side characters like Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain), a daffy blonde who doesn’t fit in with the other ladies but desperately wants to.

The scenes with Aibileen (Viola Davis) and baby Mae Mobley and her mother Elizabeth completely broke my heart. That poor child was completely neglected by her mother and found a connection with the maid who loved her. That was a common story at the time.

Not everyone loved the film, but I did and I’m super-picky. Don’t get me wrong—it’s not perfect. Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard) at times comes off a little over-the-top, but the story is just so powerful and engrossing, I can overlook it to give it perfect stars.

The Blu-Ray is gorgeous to look at and the sound is great. The movie is mostly talk so there’s not much to look for there. Extras include:

·         Deleted Scenes

·         Music Video: "The Living Proof"

·         Additional Deleted Scenes

·         Featurette: "The Making of 'The Help': From Friendship to Film" looks at the lifelong friendship between director Tate Taylor and Kathryn Stockett, author of the book.

·         Featurette: "In Their Own Words: A Tribute to the Maids of Mississippi" profiles several black maids who outline their duties, talk about their thwarted dreams and grueling schedules, address the issue of segregation, and share some personal memories.

I will be including this movie when I teach “To Kill A Mockingbird” as I think the story will really appeal to grade 10 students as an accompaniment to the novel. Despite the trailers, this isn’t just a feel-good comedy, but a real hard look at what was happening in the Jim Crow Laws era. I say it was one of the best movies of last year.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (4 out of 5 stars)

Fox/ December 13, 2011

Remember the Mark Walberg version of Planet of the Apes? Man, that sucked. So I was a little apprehensive about watching this new incarnation of the franchise. Helena Bonham Carter with that stupid monkey face still haunts my nightmares.

Surprisingly, this new movie is quite awesome. I was able to get past my hate-on for James Franco and

get into the story. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is all about Caesar, a chimpanzee that inherits the intelligence-boosting effects of Alzheimer's drug ALZ-112 from his mother, who is killed while protecting Caesar from lab technicians. Scientist Will Rodman (Franco) is forced to start drug trials over from scratch after the mishap upsets the board of his biotech company. Will adopts Caesar and takes him to the home he shares with his aging father, Charles (John Lithgow), who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. Caesar continues to grow smarter, and Will uses the chimp's DNA to create what he thinks is a successful cure for Alzheimer's.

Of course, the drug makes monkeys awesome and humans suck so the monkeys take over the world. I’ve gotta say, the effects in this flick are pretty insane—the monkeys are incredibly lifelike. The blu-ray picture is killer with every hair on the monkeys’ heads crystal clear.

There is a bunch of special features here:

• Two feature-length commentaries - Included on the disc are two commentaries, one from director Rupert Wyatt and the other from writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver.
• Deleted scenes (12:00/HD)
• Mythology of the Apes (7:11/HD) - The filmmakers talk about the earlier films in the series and how they drew from them.
• The Genius of Andy Serkis (7:48/HD)
• A New Generation of Apes (9:41/HD) – How they created the apes.
• Scene Breakdown (1:34/HD) -
• Character Concept Art Gallery
• Breaking Motion Capture Boundaries (8:43/HD) – About the Golden Gate bridge scene.
• Composing the Score with Patrick Doyle (8:07/HD)
• The Great Apes (22:37/HD) – It’s all about apes!

I really recommend this one. Just don’t pick up the Marky Mark version by mistake.

Bond 50! How amazing does this look? 50 years of James Bond--one box

JAMES BOND CELEBRATES FIFTY INCREDIBLE YEARS

WITH GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY BLU-RAY COLLECTION

BOND 50

THE WORLD’S MOST Successful Secret Agent MEETS THE WORLD’S BEST HOME ENTERTAINMENT EXPERIENCE

AVAILABLE FOR WORLDWIDE PRE-ORDER STARTING TODAY

LAS VEGAS, NV (Jan. 10, 2012) – In celebration of James Bond’s monumental golden anniversary, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment today unveiled BOND 50,  a collectible box-set  featuring all 22 James Bond films on Blu-ray Disc for the first time in one complete offering. The longest running film franchise of all time, the Bond 50 collection marks the debut of nine James Bond films previously unavailable in high definition Blu-ray.  Fans around the world can pre-order now with participating online retailers.

Acclaimed Bond directors John Glen (five Bond films including For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View to a Kill, The Living Daylights & Licence To Kill), Martin Campbell (GoldenEye, Casino Royale) and Michael Apted (The World Is Not Enough) with special guests Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace) and Caterina Murino (Casino Royale) made the Blu-ray announcement today during a Directors’ Panel discussion in the Panasonic Booth at the annual Consumer Electronics Show.

BOND 50 showcases fifty years of Bond neatly packaged into one cool, sleek collectable box-set featuring all six iconic James Bond actors.  Produced using the highest possible picture quality and audio presentation, the collection includes all 22 James Bond feature films from Dr. No to Quantum of Solace and more than 130 hours of bonus features including some new and exclusive content.

“With all 22 feature films available on Blu-ray in one collection for the first time this is a great way for fans to catch up on 007’s epic journey before Skyfall hits theatres next Fall,” said Michael Brown, Senior Vice President, MGM Home Entertainment.  “Now viewers can enjoy the intense action of the innovative franchise in the most immersive home experience possible.”

Jersey Shore Fourth Season on DVD

Jersey Shore Uncensored: Season Four (1 out of 5 stars)

Paramount/ December 27, 2011

Uuuuuuugggggghhhhhhhhhh…. Aren’t these kids over yet? Seriously. MTV tried to revive lagging ratings by sending the annoying cast to Italy. Poor Italy. I bet they’re never seen a herpes outbreak like the one that surely plagued Florence once these kiddies left. And this is a country that had some pretty kinky emperors.

We find these morons doing the same shit they always do, just in a different place. They’re orange and dirty and I can’t believe how lightly they take “hooking up” and its consequences. As a high school teacher, I just can’t handle knowing my kids are watching these dummies and thinking they’re cool.

I think it’s all supposed to be funny but I didn’t laugh during these twelve episodes. At all. I pretty much sat there with a judgemental look on my face while I covered my baby boy’s ears so he didn’t go stupid through osmosis. Please don’t watch this and support it.

I Don't Know How She Does It

I Don’t Know How She Does It (3 out of 5 stars)

Miramax/ January 2, 2012

I love me some rom-com. I love me some chick-flicks. I love me some SJP. I don’t know how they did it—I didn’t really like this movie.

The book by Allison Pearson was decent. As a working mom, I completely relate to the dilemma of trying to balance both. But something in the movie just didn’t work—the acting was pretty lame, the jokes were old and the dilemmas just seemed fakety fake.

On Blu-Ray, it’s not as bad as in the theatre—I’ll give it that. But that’s still not giving it much. I felt like the whole working mother/martyr  and men vs women issues seemed overwrought. Yes, it’s hard to juggle everything. But I kept thinking—if it all bothers you so much (as it does little miss SJP) then quit. Find new work. Don’t take on the huge projects. Perhaps I’m setting feminism back but I just don’t think it’s worth the stress. Don’t get me wrong—I’m all about working (I wouldn’t give up my job) but if you’re travelling here weeks out of a month, that a little different.

But I digress. Olivia Munn is the best thing about the movie but she seems out of place. It’s hard to see SJP next to her because she completely out-comedies her. If you like this type of movie, it’s definitely watchable and somewhat entertaining. But it certainly has its flaws and at times it’s hard to get past them. Pierce Brosnan as the hunky business colleague? Ew. If you’ve read the book, there is plenty cut out for the movie, be warned.

Rent it.

Contagion

Contagion (4 out of 5 stars)

Warner/ January 2, 2012

This movie is Howie Mandel's worst nightmare....

Contagion holds a special place in my heart as the first movie I got out to see after I gave birth to Owen. I was giddy with the thought of a couple of hours childless and fancy-free. Perhaps I didn’t choose the happiest and most cheerful movie to do it with, but content didn’t matter as much as just getting out of the house.

I actually really enjoyed Contagion despite the creepy factor. It’s chock-full of famous faces—Gwyneth, Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Marion Cotillard among others. The movie opens with a woman who looks a little pale and sickly. Not a particularly strange sight in our everyday lives but within hours, this woman convulses on the floor, foams at the mouth and drops dead. The movie then chronicles an epidemic as it quickly spreads through the world. It’s startlingly realistic and disturbing and seems to warn of what could potentially happen in the future if such an outbreak did occur.

I swear I washed my hands for an hour when I got home and for a week looked at anyone who coughed as if they had the plague (because what if they did?) It had no explosions or chases or other thriller-movie type gimmicks but it still thrilled. I was wholly engrossed and super-disturbed.

The blu-ray looks amazing—crisp and clean. There are very few extras though which is pretty surprising for a current film of this magnitude. It’s not a fuzzy feeling flick but I dug it. Highly recommended.

Then Came You....

Then Came You is Jennifer Weiner's new book. I read a while ago but the demanding newborn in my life has not let me post anything lately! I loved this book. I wasn't crazy about Weiner's last two offerings but here she's back to form. It's about three women: Jules, a Princeton senior who donates an egg; Annie, a struggling housewife who decides to be a surrogate, and India, the new wife of a wealthy man who cannot get pregnant. You kind of see where this is heading right? We can figure out how the women get connected but it doesn't detract at all from the story.

The three women are all completely different but equally compelling. Weiner rocks at creating women you can relate to and get lost in. The least relatable is India and she does something near the end that seems pretty ridiculous to me but that was the only part of the book that didn't resonate. Reading it while pregnant also gave me a whole new perspective. Would I ever be able to give up an egg or be a surrogate? I don't think so. There are so many emotional and physical repercussions I hadn't even thought of!

Fantastic read--your book club would love it.