Movie: Much Ado About Nothing (2012)

Much Ado About Nothing
Comedy, Drama, Romance

There's a few reasons I watched this. One, it's Shakespeare and I'm an English major. Two, it's a Joss Whedon (Buffy, Firefly, The Avengers) film and I love him. And three, it has a brilliant Whedonesque cast. I also heard it was filmed entirely at Joss' house and who doesn't want to get an inside look at that? Beware, it is a Shakespeare play so the dialogue is archaic and you really must pay attention. It is also filmed entirely in black and white but I think it works better that way.

I spent a lot of time star spotting in this movie. The two verbally dueling leads are played by Amy Acker (Dollhouse, Person of Interest) and Alexis Denisof (Angel, The Avengers) and they are backed up by an amazing cast including Nathan Fillion (Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Castle), Clark Gregg (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Fran Kranz (The Cabin in the Woods, Donnie Darko), Sean Maher (Serenity) and Tom Lenk (Transformers, Argo). I spent more time pointing out actors to my husband than listening to the first half of the film.

I didn't mind it. Like I said, I didn't pay a lot of attention at first but then by the second half I was into it. Maybe it took a little while to get used to the Shakespearean. It was quite funny in places as well. I will probably rewatch it somewhere along the line as part of my study.

3 out of 5 Whedons...

Movie: The Cabin In The Woods (2011)

The Cabin In The Woods (2011)
Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

I love a good horror movie and its been a while since any really good ones have been released in my opinion. Then someone told me about this one... At first I thought it was going to be another one of those piss-take horror films packed with cheesy one liners. Well, it is full of cheesy one-liners but it's actually a pretty good horror flick - I know, I'm surprised too!

I was surprised that is, until I saw Joss Whedon's name on it and now it all makes a little more sense. That man is a god and if you don't know who he is, we can't be friends...

It's a very Whedon-esk cast too with Amy Acker of Angel fame and Fran Kranz from Dollhouse, but the star was Kristen Connolly who's most well know for her appearances as iGirl on Youtube's iChannel, and Aussie Chris Hemsworth - Thor, Norse God of Thunder, duh! I also recognized one of the zombies as Jodelle Ferland (Twilight: Eclipse)- yes, zombies!

It took me a little while to figure out what was going on. I hadn't seen any previews and the only thing I'd heard about it is that it wasn't what I would expect of a horror. From that I half expected it to turn into something like Tucker and Dale VS Evil, hehe, but that wasn't it. It's kind of like Big Brother's Haunted House... at least we know what happened to the Cube machine, ha!

It's a relatively short film at an hour and twenty-five minutes, but how long do you really expect people to survive in these situations? I love the idea of it, something really different and the ending is pretty awesome. Sigourney Weaver as The Director made me chuckle.

Will recommend to friends. Should have watched it in the dark...

4 out of 5 monster cubes...

[Quote] "Oh no, don't kill the gorgeous man, we're endangered!" - Hemsworth