Love is like the wild rose-briar,
Friendship like the holly-tree
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms
But which will bloom most constantly?
The wild-rose briar is sweet in the spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again
And who will call the wild-briar fair?
Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now
And deck thee with the holly's sheen,
That when December blights thy brow
He may still leave thy garland green.
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Monday, July 9, 2012
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Movie 18# Inception
Dom Cobb is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb's rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible-inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming.
Movie 17# The Kingdom
In the aftermath of a deadly attack on American forces in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, diplomats are slow to act, but meanwhile, FBI special agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) assembles a secret team of U.S. counter-terrorism investigators to enter the city and find the criminal behind what has quickly become an international incident. The crew, however, finds their attempt to capture the perpetrators stalled by bureaucracy and their presence unwelcome. Desperate to gain the trust they need to accomplish their mission in just five days, the team enlists the aid of a Saudi Arabian police officer (Ashraf Barhoum), but as the agents infiltrate the dark and complex world of the Saudi crime scene, they find that the perpetrator's next target may be them. Directed by Peter Berg, The Kingdom also stars Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper, and Jason Bateman.
Movie 16# X-Men Origins Wolverine
The gruff, adamantium-clawed Marvel superhero Wolverine strikes out on his own in this X-Men spin-off starring series regular Hugh Jackman. The story gets under way as the boy who will become Wolverine makes a shocking discovery about his family bloodline, and gains a brother in the process. Flash forward to find the mutant siblings battling side by side through two world wars and Vietnam -- where they are sentenced to death for killing a commanding officer -- and Logan (Hugh Jackman) and his brother, Victor Creed (aka Sabretooth, played by Liev Schreiber), have joined a top-secret government task force. When their targets begin to include innocent civilians, conscientious Logan escapes to the Canadian Rockies, where he builds a home with pretty schoolteacher Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins). Informed by his old commanding officer William Stryker (Danny Huston) that the members of his old team are being targeted for death, Logan is heartbroken when Victor finds and kills Kayla. Vowing revenge, Logan agrees to take part in a dangerous experiment that will fuse his bones with a powerful metal alloy called adamantium, which makes him virtually indestructible and gives him the strength needed to defeat his powerful brother. Subsequently betrayed by Stryker, Logan (now Wolverine) sets out to find his blood-lusting brother and stop the cycle of violence once and for all. Along the way, the temperamental hero is joined by fellow mutants John Wraith (Will.i.Am) and Remy LeBeau (aka Gambit, played by Taylor Kitsch). But before Wolverine can seek vengeance against Striker and his brother, he'll have to do battle with Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) a formidable mutant instilled with many powers. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Movie 15# X-Men First Class
There's a specific feeling I get only when watching a blockbuster film that's working, a feeling almost like vertigo, being lifted out of my seat by the power of special effects and pounding score and explosions that are used really, really well. There are a lot of moments like that in X-Men: First Class, a rousing and full-throated adventure that's technically a comic book movie but influemced by everything from battleship war films to 60s-era James Bond. Even with a script that sometimes loses its grip on subplots and sells short more than a few characters, it's exactly what a comic book movie ought to be, full of energy and wit and actors who seem to know exactly how much fun it is to be a superhero.
If there's any magic ingredient that makes X-Men: First Class, a notoriously rushed and sloppy production, it's the dynamite chemistry between James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, playing telepath Charles Xavier and magnet-powered Erik Lensherr in the early, ambitious days of their partnership. We meet each of them briefly as children, Charles growing up privileged in Westchester and taking in a fellow mutant girl (Raven, a.k.a. Mystique, played later by Jennifer Lawrence), and Erik suffering in a Poland concentration camp. The two finally meet in the early 60s, after a spectacular and fiery action sequence, and discover that they are fighting a common villain: Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), another mutant who has gathered an underground group called the Hellfire Club and is bent on wreaking global nuclear havoc. Strait-laced Charles has teamed up with the CIA to avert this disaster, while feral and angry Erik hunts Shaw alone for far more personal reasons; despite their reservations Erik and Charles agree to team up, recruiting any other mutants they can find and building the only army capable of stopping Shaw.
McAvoy and Fassbender are the undeniable center of X-Men: First Class, the push-pull relationship between Charles's logic and Erik's paranoia boiled down to a friendship between two men who know they need each other. It helps to have seen this relationship crumble into fierce rivalry, as played by Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in Bryan Singer's X-Men films, but Fassbender and McAvoy so fully inhabit their characters that you don't really need it; you get what they see in each other, just as you get that this relationship can never hold. But the group vibe that's such a highlight in the original X-Men films is present here too, largely among the younger mutants who build a quick rapport at the encouragement of Raven, who soon dubs herself Mystique and helps come up with nicknames for all the other new recruits. Charles doesn't seem that interested in being known as Professor X, but Erik is clearly intrigued by the intimidating potential of Magneto.
Matthew Vaughn, adapting beautifully to the zippy adventure style, directs in a way that reflects the contrast between Charles's optimism and Erik's darker impulses; the action is entirely bloodless and almost always spectacular, but scenes with Erik and especially Shaw and his cronies are shot with the kind of shiny, cynical zing very familiar from Vaughn's last film Kick Ass. Shaw comes very close to becoming a campy villain, holing up under an iceberg in his mod submarine with his fashion plate sidekick Emma Frost (an appropriately frozen January Jones), but both Vaughn and Bacon nail his undercurrent of real menace, and between him and Erik you understand how problematic and maybe impossible Charles's dream of a utopian mutant-human future may be.
There are tons of hints sprinkled throughout about the future for these mutants that we've already seen, from jokes about Xavier's hair to some very well-placed cameos, but X-Men: First Class never suffers the kind of turgid explication that crippled the Wolverine movie; Vaughn and his bevy of fellow screenwriters knit these characters so well into the real world that you don't need to know Beast from Banshee to understand their motivations. That's a rare, rare thing in comic book movies, particularly when elsewhere in the Marvel movie universe every film seems to be geared not toward its own characters, but toward a larger mythology that requires hours of research to understand. Though it is certainly the kickoff of a new franchise, and lugs around a story more sprawling than it needed to be, X-Men: First Class feels spry and self-contained, a blast of colorful and passionate enthusiasm with just enough weight to matter. It feels phenomenal to have these mutants back.
Movie 14# Get Smart
In the World of covert intelligence, only one man is Smart. Steve Carell is in Control as Maxwell Smart, the novice agent often out of his depth but never out of options in this action comedy pitting him against the nuclear scheme of the evil spy group Kaos. Anne Hathaway partners with Max as ever-capable Agent 99. And director Peter Segal (The Longest Yard) guides his stars (including Dwayne Johnson and Alan Arkin) through the dangerous realm of molar radios, multifunction pocketknives, exploding dental floss and more. "Get Smart works as an action film and it's funny."
Movie 13# Bedtime Stories
Funnyman Adam Sandler stars in Walt Disney Pictures' Bedtime Stories, the magical comedy that's packed with adventure and lots of heart. When Skeeter Bronson (Sandler) babysits his sister's (Courteney Cox) children, his imagination runs wild as he dreams up elaborate bedtime stories-alway's casting himself as the hero. Entranced, the children add their own ideas to these once-upon-a-time tales of heroics and chivalry. Then...nighttime fantasies become Skeeter's daytime realities, leading him on a real-life adventure in search of his wn happy ending. Filled with colourful characters, humour and whimsy, this heartwarming comedy will enchant your entire family again and again.
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