Easy A

I don't know what it is about movies that take place in a high school setting, but too often characters in them just look way too old. This is definitely the case a few times with Easy A, but that little stigma aside the movie does deliver.

Easy A, stars Emma Stone, of Superbad and Zombieland fame. She plays the role of Olive Penderghast, a precocious teenager who attends a fictional high school called Ojai North High in Ojai, California. This is significant to mention because of the liberal lifestyle associated with the "Governator" state. Olive's family is quite the diverse crew and her parents, played by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson, certainly give Olive adequate room to express her teenage self.

Express herself is exactly what she does. Olive's English class is studying Nathaniel Hawthorne's, the Scarlet Letter, and she takes it upon herself, after a scathing rumor is started about her, not to deny the rumors, but let them take on a life of their own. This has an alarming effect on the student body at Ojai, who eventually all have an opinion of what she is doing or not doing.

Emma Stone has, in my opinion, solidified herself as a very viable movie star. She basically crushes the role of Olive and is more than easy on the eyes. Also, at 22 years old she has a wide range of roles that she could fit into.

Easy A, has a lot of social commentary directed towards teenagers that might be wasted on them, but it isn't on an older audience that has sat in classrooms similar to the ones in the movie. The advent of Facebook and other social networking sites has made gossip spread exponentially faster, but there hasn't been a movie released in awhile that depicts what types of effects it can have.

The Social Network

The first seventeen minutes of, The Social Network, unravel at a pretty frenetic pace, and is foreshadowing of how the movie will play out. The very first scene in the dimly lit bar with the couple discussing final clubs at Harvard, is definitive of the character of the protagonist of the film, Facebook creator, Mark Zuckerberg. He speaks rapidly, with an immense presence of intelligence and awkwardness about him, but he certainly lacks the ability to properly communicate with the opposite sex. His subsequent dumping and the vengeance he latter seeks out on poor Erica are the driving force behind the billion dollar social networking site and this potentially Oscar-winning film.

The Social Network which stars Jesse Eisenberg, as Mark Zuckerberg, isn't just a hyped up movie that's getting a lot of buzz from Facebook lovers. It's a movie about an idea that changed how the world stays connected to one another. It brings to life essentially everything that was going on in Zuckerberg's life that fall of 2003, when he created facemash, which eventually led to interest from the entire campus, notably the Winlevoss' twins. The film presents these events at a pace that is utterly entertaining, while Aaron Sorkin, the movie's screenwriter, infuses it with a script that is witty, clever, and downright masterful.

The film gets a huge boost from the acting of it's supporting cast, especially Andrew Garfield, who plays Eduardo Saverin, a co-founder of Facebook and it's initial CFO. He generates feelings of sympathy from the audience through his falling out with Zuckerberg over the direction of the company in its early stages. Justin Timberlake plays the role of Andrew Parker, the creator of Napster and Plaxo, who has sort of fallen from grace, but is considered by Zuckerberg to be somewhat of a "god". I remember being initially a bit skeptical of his casting in the movie, but after seeing it am convinced that it was a perfect role for him. Armie Hammer, who plays both Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, rounds out a terrific supporting cast.

There's something about The Social Network, (a certain je ne sais que, I guess) but it was very compelling to see a film about an event so transforming to the culture of the world unfold. Maybe it's because I was in college right at the time of Facebook's explosion, or that Zuckerberg took an idea that perhaps I or some of my friends could've come up with and become the youngest billionaire ever. Whatever it is though David Fincher, the movie's director, and Columbia Pictures have created an already impressively successful movie that could have the legs to carry it to a healthy showing come awards season.

Machete

A little late on this one, but I guess it took me so long to see Machete because I listened to a friend, who isn't a Robert Rodriguez fan. He was surprised why I'd want to see it, instead of The American, with George Clooney, he basically convinced me that it would be bad because of how cheesy the trailers made it out to be. Well, I finally made it to a showing, it was a hole in the wall little cinema that gets movies a month or so after their original release dates. The theater was pretty crowded and pretty noisy, which are pretty ideal ingredients when seeing a Rodriguez picture.

Back during the weeks leading up to the movies original release I remember seeing some TV spots promoting the gory flick, but nothing like the marketing that the Rodriguez/Tarantino movie, Grindhouse, received back in 2007 (Machete is actually based on a "faux" trailer from that movie). Maybe this was because that movie was hugely unsuccessful at the box office and studios noticed that the specific type of moviegoer that enjoys and will pay to see Rodriguez or Tarantino movies doesn't love them enough to sit through three hours of anything (I'm not sure anybody wants to sit in the same place for more than 3 hours). Anyways, I'm trying to make the point that Rodriguez tends to make movies more for a specific "cult" or demographic, than for the masses. A sort-of follow up to Grindhouse seemed like a big risk, but budgeted at around $20 million, I guess it wasn't too much of a gamble for a distributor like Fox.

Machete follows the story of the guy by that very name, played by Danny Trejo, who after being recruited for a hit on a Texas senator is betrayed and seeks revenge on the conspirators. The movie includes performances from Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Don Johnson, Robert DeNiro, Lindsay Lohan, Jeff Fahey, and Cheech Marin.

There weren't any performances that really stuck out to me, but Marin's minor role was acted very well. Alba steals a few scenes and has an oddly inspiring monologue. Lohan's role as, April, was very forgettable, but it is worth mentioning that the theater I was in got a lot louder when she made her first appearance on screen.

Machete has an alarmingly high rating on IMDB, which is undoubtedly due to the fact that Rodriguez fans are movie addicts who spend alot of time on websites making comments or grading movies. I enjoyed the movie, but I'm a fan of Rodriguez's "style", to those who aren't though this movie will probably come across as too bloody, too cheesy, and too stupid.