Bust-A-Block Movie Reviews
« Previous EntriesTWO AND A HALF MEN – THE VILLAIN’S PLAYGROUND HAS CHANGED
By Cindy Baker Gilbert
John Cryer’s character, an uptight, affable goof, is controlled by his villains. His Bandit villain, manifested as brother Charlie, ensures John continually comes up short in looks, money and women, no matter how hard he tries. The Sorceress controls John because he is unable or unwilling to find his rightful place in the world and hangs on to brother Charlie for life support ike a cleat-clinging girl to an athlete. The Saboteur causes John to doubt his intelligence, his manhood, his very being. Congratulations, villains. Mission accomplished. Something very powerful must happen to allow John’s character to change.
CUT TO:
Present reincarnation of show. With Charlie’s character dead and gone, brother John has lucked into a similar living situation with the rich guy who bought Charlie’s beach house in which the brothers lived. Hello Sorceress. We see you are still alive and well. While new guy Walden, played by Ashton Kutcher, has the looks, money and girls, he is not the street-wise playboy of Charlie’s character, but rather an innocent who never grew up. This crack in Ashton’s character provides the entry John Cryer needs to realize he has more intelligence and life smarts than he ever suspected when called upon to get Ashton’s character out of scrapes and help him handle romantic situations. Who knew he knew? Certainly not John. If it hasn’t dawned on John’s character yet, he will soon realize his growing confidence and see the importance of the qualities he has in abundance. As the story line progresses we may see the Bandit and the Saboteur begin to fade followed by the Sorceress for he will no longer feel the need to rely on the kindness of strangers. And that’s when the show ends, because watching a well-adjusted person go through life just isn’t interesting or fun. We laugh at characters through our identification with them, and come away feeling much better about our own circumstances.
Bandit Villain running fast and loose in THE BIG BANG THEORY
By Judith Parker Harris
Suppose your character is loaded with blocks, yet has no idea these blocks are causing him problems. In fact, he thinks quite highly of himself and loves his life. Sheldon Cooper in the Big Bang Theory is the physical manifestation of this situation and of the various villains in the lives of his friends.
From the lofty, intellectual tower in his mind he lords his knowledge of everything over his friends but especially Howard Wolowitz who only has a masters degree in engineering and not a PH.D. in physics like Sheldon. Howard lives with an over-bearing, loud mother who controls him, and he is hard-wired for Sheldon’s Bandit Villain.
It is Sheldon’s Bandit Villain that makes him controlling to the point of having his roommate and fellow physicist, Leonard, sign a ridiculous roommate agreement to include but not limited to how far to stand from the bathroom mirror when flossing, leaving Leonard confused and then resigned to this odd behavior.
Sheldon’s Bandit Villain meets up wtih Penny, the neighbor who is a waitress/aspiring actress from the Midwest who is always broke. fact of which Sheldon repeatedly reminds her. Penny’s Bandit Villain has her feeling she is not talented enough, rich enough, or from the right area to succeed, and Sheldon is the happy messenger that affirms her fears.
As in real life, film characters bust through their villainous blocks and take us along for the entertaining ride. A cathartic catapult from stuck to unstuck. Blocked to blockbuster. Or, they don’t change and suffer the consequences.
In television, it is the promise that a character will not bust through his blocks that keep viewers coming back. Writers armed with this knowledge keep these characters continually acting out their villains in varying comic situations.
One Day
By Judith Parker Harris
The Lost Love Villain has a hay day in ONE DAY. On July 15th every year for 20 years we get to see how life is developing for two friends who met in college and established a life long friendship. She is from a working class family, he is from upper middle class; She is a dreamer, he is a player; She never gives up and he succumbs to most every temptation. She knows how to love, he wouldn’t recognize love if it hit him in the heart, that is until…
Ann Hathaway’s Emily Morley and Jim Sturgess as Dexter Mayhew give us almost enough to root for. The problem is that Jim Sturgess is no Hugh Grant, whom he’s been compared to in many reviews. He’s missing an essential element – he never turns from bad boy into a man the woman can finally love, and that’s the dynamic we romance lovers live for. I felt the love in Emily’s smoldering eyes, but not in Dexter’s impish grin.
Both of my favorite definitions of love never saw the light of day in ONE DAY, “Love is the flow of truth and personal power from your heart to another heart,” and “Love is the ability to fully appreciate life.” I wanted more life and love in this movie.
Even the Villain Sorceress couldn’t make that happen as she had both Emily and Dexter saying, “If ___________ happens, then I’ll be happy, then I’ll be loved, then I’ll be successful. The “If,” finally does happen, but for me too late, too little and too lost.
Friends with Benefits
By Judith Parker Harris
The movie begins with a girl in New York, Jamie (Mila Kunis) and a guy in Los Angeles, Dylan (Justin Timberlake) being dumped by their respective lovers. Each decides to forego love and concentrate on other things in life. Soon, of course, the dumpees meet – and it’s predictably adorable. She’s a headhunter and he’s the prey that she succeeds in delivering to GQ Magazine. The new job requires Dylan to move to New York. He knows no one except Jamie, so they become friends with the same goal in mind — not to fall in love or become vulnerable in any way. The Lost Love Villain is in the Driver’s seat, allowing fear to bring in a whole bunch of those pesky complications they think they are avoiding.
Some of the best moments in the picture come when they are making love, I mean – having sex. Why? Because as friends they tell each other exactly what they want sexually, without judgment or fear — something romantic partners seldom do. The result is great sex mixed with exhilarating fun, which when they are not looking morphs into love, but, of course the audience knows that way before they do. Two scene-stealing supportive cast members bring their own versions of lost love to the mix: Jamie’s crazy, hippie “free love” mom (Patricia Clarkson) has lost herself to the ‘60s, and Dylan’s Alzheimer’s –ridden dad ( Richard Jenkins) is slowly disappearing through illness. Both are handled more with poignant humor than sadness, allowing for the love to live on.
The questions become can these two sex partners overcome their lost love villains to find true love and is romance dead or on life support? Fortunately, it’s worth watching to find the answers.
Hanna
By Judith Parker Harris
The MONSTER VILLAIN is the action engine in the film Hanna. When CIA director Marissa B. (Cate Blanchette) closed the file on her experimental birthing project years ago, she eradicated all evidence except one, Hanna.
Now sixteen and raised in the wilds of Finland by her ex-CIA father who has taught her extreme self-defense and knowledge of world cultures, inquisitive Hanna wants to merge into civilization, but at what cost?
Marissa, our monster villain, is a force of nature that refuses to let go, refuses to stop until all evidence of her failed program is gone. The only way for Hanna to live in the world is to find Marissa and kill her before she herself is killed. Hanna willingly sounds the alarm and awaits the CIA agents who swarm their cabin ad take Hanna to Marissa. But her father has taught her well and Hanna eludes her captures. Marissa is relentless in her pursuit of Hanna who discovers there is more to life than what her father told her. As Hanna and her father struggle to survive, they discover that while MONSTER VILLAINS make us feel helpless and hopeless, they succumb when their victims become heroic.
Editor’s note: There are rules in writing and structuring movies. One is that the protagonist (who often starts out as the victim) must rise up and kill or destroy the Monster. That’s the only way the audience can be satisfied. The archetypes in this movie are clearly drawn. The monster is pure evil and must die for Hanna to thrive. The father has fallen victim to his own saboteur voices as he single-mindedly dedicated his life to “saving” Hanna from her fate, but in so doing prevented her from experiencing a real life. His fate is sealed in Hanna’s survival.
Who or what represents the monster in your life? What beliefs or attitudes have to die in your life in order for you to move forward into your authentic self and the fulfillment of your purpose?
ARTHUR
By Judith Parker Harris
Oh yes they did, they remade Arthur. Hesitant to give it a go, I was pleasantly surprised and actually enjoyed seeing how throughout the story the LOST LOVE VILLAIN was so pervasive and powerful. To lose the thing you love, to never have the love you need, is the emotional state in which the Lost Love Villain thrives.
Having lost his father when he was three, Arthur was left with an uncaring mother and raised by his nanny, Hobson. This powerful love loss has Arthur suspended in an infantile state and keeps him from learning how to love himself and, therefore, anyone else. He is over powered by the fear that if he grows up and becomes an adult, he will be like his mother who is unable to love anything that can love her back. He chooses to remain stuck in the mentality of a child.
Hobson, Arthur’s nanny, reveals to Arthur that when he was three she was to go to Spain with the love of her life. When Arthur’s father passed, she chose to stay and raise Arthur. Her LOST LOVE VILLAIN kept her from finding another as she hid out in caring for Arthur all those years. She never broke free to find happiness once again. She died never busting through her Lost Love Villain block.
Arthur is still only half a man, weighted down by the expectations of who everyone else thinks he should be. Right before his wedding to the wrong woman begins, Arthur reads a note left by Hobson before she passed. She learned too late the importance of busting through her Lost Love villain but is it too late for Arthur? Or is he just another victim of the Lost Love villain manifested in this film as his mother?
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