Actor Profile: Anna Kendrick

Pretty, and in a movie with
George Clooney. Swooning galore.

Personal Life

Kendrick was born on August 9, 1985 in Portland, Maine. She was driven to acting as a child by her high energy level and outgoing personality, initially focusing on theater. Most of her life was relatively “normal”; she was an honors student at Deering High School, and a fair amount of stage acting eventually led her to the big screen.

Actor Profile: Viggo Mortensen

En kjekk fyr. (That's "one handsome guy" 
in Norwegian)

Personal Life

Viggo was born in New York City on October 20, 1958, although his parents met in Norway. (Seriously guys, Norway. Super awesome. ) As a child he lived in Denmark, Venezuela, and a few Argentine provinces. Their family remained there until Viggo was 11. His parents then divorced and he went with his dad to Copenhagen, but they eventually came back to New York. After pursuing a career in truck driving back in Denmark after high school, he came back to America in order to act. At his graduation from St. Lawrence University, he refused to wear the robes since they were made by sweatshop workers. (Let me just come out and say how awesome this guy is.) He has a son, Henry, with his ex-wife Exene Cervenka. Viggo can speak English, Danish, Spanish, Norwegian, French, Italian, Catalan, and Swedish. He is also a poet, musician, photographer, and painter.

Movie Review - The Last Airbender

Can you feel the excitement?

The movie Eragon (2006) has become the poster boy for horribly bad book-to-movie adaptations. And with its laughably wrong plot, obnoxiously dull characters, atrocious dialogue and plain silly CGI, it’s easy to understand why it’s become infamous. The Last Airbender, the latest M. Night Shyamalan film, has been compared to Eragon in terms of badness. For fans of the original Nickelodeon show, Mr. Shyamalan's adaptation is nearly as offensive as Eragon, and while it’s easy to understand why the comparison is made, The Last Airbender doesn’t quite live up to the horrible reputation it’s received.

Director/Producer Profile: Peter Jackson

Good facial hair.

Personal Life

Jackson was born on October 31, 1961 in Pukerua Bay, New Zealand as the only son of 2 British immigrants. He grew up as a film enthusiast, but has no formal training; most of his knowledge is from personal trial and error.  King Kong and The Lord of the Rings have been passions of Jackson’s for many years. In 1993, he and others founded Weta Digital, a digital visual effects company used extensively in his films. He continues to live in New Zealand with his wife Fran Walsh, who is a screenwriter and producer, and their two children Billy and Katie. Most of the filming for his movies takes place there. Jackson is known to make cameo appearances in nearly all of his films.

Actor Profile: Emma Watson

Um. Yes, please.

Personal Life

Emma was born in Paris on April 20, 1990 to 2 British lawyers. Following their divorce at age 5, she moved to Oxfordshire with her mother and younger brother. She did all sorts of non-professional acting as a child up until her big role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series. As she grew older, she started to show an interest in fashion and modeling, working for both Burberry and People Tree. She is rather intelligent, as evidenced by her straight A’s on her GCSE exams in 2006 and her admission to Brown University. Emma has 1 brother, 3 half-brothers, and 2 twin half-sisters.

As If Mulan 2 Wasn't Bad Enough....

. . . as Mulan?

Zhang Ziyi has officially bitten more off more than she can chew. This actress has recently announced her intention to both star in and produce a live action version of Disney’s Mulan.
Once an animated classic, Ziyi brought the idea to Walt Disney studios to create a remake of this ancient tale which follows an awkward, young girl in China rising to become a renowned and self-fulfilled warrior woman. Critically acclaimed, the original Mulan is definitely must-see material, but trying to follow up with a different version of this film is about as foolhardy and ill fated as rapper Eminem’s post Curtain Call comeback attempt.

The Boring Bounty Hunter: A Review of Jonah Hex

Bow Chicka Bow Wow

The film Jonah Hex follows the story of, well, Jonah Hex, a Confederate soldier turned bounty hunter with a taste for violence, vengeance, Native Americans, the supernatural (he was awakened from the grave by the aforementioned Native Americans and now has the ability to communicate with the dead. Pretty neato, huh?), and holds an apparent disregard for the government and society in general. One day, Hex is informed that his old nemesis, a man named Quentin Turnbull, is not quite as dead as he would have hoped and is back to create some mischief … in other words destroy the United States. (After the Confederacy lost during the Civil War, this Yankee hater decided to go all old-school terrorist and kick some serious Union tail end.) Incidentally, Turnbull happens to be the same man who killed Hex’s family in retaliation for his own son’s death and thus is the perfect target for some fancy gun-slinging.

The problem is that Jonah Hex, which could at this point have become a fairly intriguing, mystical, and historically-revisionist Western, quickly ends up being, instead, little more than a clunky, soul-less mess.

Following the discovery of Turnbull, the movie settles into a tedious and repetitive cycle: Hex heading to a new location, Hex having a muddled and uninteresting conversation with a new character in order to lay down exposition, Hex growling and spitting out a cheesy one liner, and finally Hex shooting down anything moving within the surrounding area. Rinse and repeat.