A Violent and Bloody Good Period Piece: Our Review of "Lawless" (2012)

Directed By: John Hillcoat (The Road)

Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, Guy Pearce, Mia Wasikowska

Rating: R for strong bloody violence, language and sexuality/nudity

Run Time: 1 hour, 55 minutes

Synopsis: In the middle of Prohibition-era Virginia, Forrest Bondurant (Hardy) and his brothers Jack (LaBeouf) and Howard make and bootleg the best alcohol in the area. When local authorities start looking for a cut and bring in Special Deputy Rakes (Pearce) to crack down on them, tempers and blood start to run.

REVIEW

Andrew: Hello readers! Sarah and I hit up the local AMC tonight to catch an early evening showing of this week’s new R-rated drama Lawless, starring a personal fav of ours in Tom Hardy, as well as Shia LaBeouf, Guy Pearce, Jessica Chastain and Mia Wasikowska.

It’s based on a true story about the bootlegging Bondurant brothers in Prohibition-era Virginia who fought against local authorities who tried to extort them into sharing their profits. This is one we’ve been looking forward to because we’ve been seeing the trailers for a while now and it looked gritty, it looked like it had a lot of drama involved and it had a great cast.

So now that we’ve seen Lawless, Sarah, what did you think?

Sarah: I was thoroughly impressed! It was a long movie that had a slow burn; it’s a very well done period piece. It’s incredibly engaging in both the cinematic aspects as well as the acting involved.

Real and Sincere, One of the Year's Best: Our Review of "Celeste and Jesse Forever" (2012)

Directed By: Lee Toland Kreiger

Starring: Rashida Jones, Andy Samberg, Ari Graynor, Eric Christian Olsen

Rating: R for language, sexual content and drug use

Run Time: 1 hour, 32 minutes

Synopsis: Celeste (Jones) and Jesse (Samberg) are two best friends who got married but decided to divorce after six years to preserve their friendship. When Jesse starts to date other women, Celeste begins to realize she may have blown the best thing she ever had going in her life.

REVIEW

Andrew: Hello readers! Yesterday Sarah and I caught a late afternoon showing of Celeste and Jesse Forever, the new dramady starring Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg (which was also co-written by Jones). This is a film that’s been in limited release so far and we just recently found out it was in our neck of the woods so it’s not one we’ve had a chance to preview but we’ve seen the trailer for it many times and it certainly caught our eye.

The topic of the film, with Jones’ Celeste and Samberg’s Jesse being best friends who were married for six years but are getting divorced yet hang out with each other constantly was something that piqued our interest. The different take on a relationship like that made us want to check it out.

Sarah, when we left the movie you seemed a bit ambivalent about it.

Sarah: I don’t know how to feel about it! It was funny, I will give it that. There were some parts that literally made me laugh out loud. Not just a chuckle, but an honest to goodness laugh. It was hilarious.

Nothing More Than A Brief, Action-y Sugar Rush: Our Review of "Premium Rush" (2012)

Directed By: David Koepp

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Shannon, Dania Ramirez, Jamie Chung

Rating: PG-13 for some violence, intense action sequences and language

Run Time: 1 hour, 31 minutes

Synopsis: Wilee (Gordon-Levitt) is a law-school dropout turned NYC bike messenger who loves to ride fast on his brakeless bike. One day he gets a call to take an envelope from a friend (Chung) and deliver it to Chinatown. Shortly after he’s intercepted by a Detective Monday (Shannon) who needs the package to pay off a gambling debt. From there and with the help of his ex-girlfriend (Ramirez), it becomes a race between Wilee, Monday and the clock to get the package to its destination.

REVIEW

Andrew: Hello readers! We know it’s been a little bit since our last review and we thank you for your patience! I’m back from my two-week stint working on location in the middle of Pennsylvania and now Sarah and I can get back to seeing movies together on a regular basis.

For the first movie we’re going to review after my return (and as a new member of The Large Association of Movie Blogs, what up?!) we saw Premium Rush, the new action film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Dark Knight Rises) and Michael Shannon (Take Shelter). JGL plays a NYC bike messenger named Wilee (pronounced “Wiley” like the cartoon coyote) who picks up a parcel that Shannon’s corrupt NYPD detective needs to intercept so he can pay off some gambling debts.

Sarah, this isn’t a film we had a chance to preview last week but I’d say it’s one we’ve been looking forward to because we like JGL. Now that we’ve seen it, what do you think of Premium Rush?

Sarah: I’m going to say that I didn’t mind it. I went into it knowing that it was going to be nothing but bike chase sequences and JGL trying to get this package from Point A to Point B as fast as he could and insanity would ensue in-between those points.

What Would Two Tickets For... Do?: Casting "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire"

Andrew: Hello readers! So a couple of months ago Sarah and I tried out a new column on our blog called What Would Two Tickets For... Do? where in our inaugural post we talked/ranted exclusively on what we would have done differently had we made Battlship. The reaction was tepid at best, but we enjoyed writing it and haven't had a real chance to bring the column back.....until now.

This week in movie news we all finally found out one of the biggest casting questions of the year: who would be playing Finnick Odair in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Turns out Sam Clalfin (Snow White and the Hunstman) nabbed the coveted role, and with that choice Lionsgate gave us the necessary fuel to do another WWTTFD?

Sam Claflin, who's star is a bit on the rise with starring
role in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
and Snow White & The Huntsman, has
been cast in the coveted role of Finnick Odair.
He is NOT, however, who we would have chosen.

So Sarah, we're going to go down a brief list of who has been cast for pivotal roles in Catching Fire, whether we agree with them or not, and who we would have cast instead, yes? Which role should we start with?

Sarah: Well, let's go ahead and start with Finnick. Sam Claflin is a good looking guy that is built like I would think that Finnick should be. However, I think his acting is sub-par. When he acted opposite of Kristen Stewart I had a hard time figuring out which one was the more boring actor to watch. And that is where I think he will fail at this role. Finnick needs to be a presence. Fun but tough, with an air of cockiness. This role would have been much better played by Ryan Kwanten from True Blood.

Stop-Motion Hasn't Been This Scary Fun Since Jack Skellington: Our Review of "ParaNorman" (2012)

Directed By: Sam Fell (Flushed Away) & Chris Butler 

Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck

Rating: PG for scary action and images, thematic elements, some rude humor and language

Run Time: 1 hour, 33 minutes

Synopsis: Blithe Hollow is a small New England town famous for being cursed by a witch they hung 300 years prior. Norman Babcock (Smit-McPhee) is young boy who can talk to dead people, and on the night of the 300^th anniversary of the witch’s death, his crazy uncle passes on the responsibility of saving the town by suppressing the witch’s curse.

REVIEW

Andrew: Hello readers! Slowly but surely we're getting to the day on the calendar when I return to Connecticut from Central Pennsylvania and we can get back to a normal blogging routine. In the meantime, Sarah caught this past weekend's new animated film, ParaNorman, on Monday night and I saw it this afternoon. ParaNorman is the latest film from Laika, the animation studio that brought us Coraline a couple of years back.

ParaNorman is a stop-motion film (like Coraline) about a young boy named Norman who has The Sixth Sense and can talk to dead people. Kodi Smit-McPhee (Let Me In) stars as the voice of Norman, and he's surrounded by a pretty star-studded cast including Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad), Leslie Mann (Knocked Up), John Goodman (The Big Lebowski) and more.

So Sarah, I know I personally had been looking forward to this movie for a while, but I can't remember if you were the same. So remind me, where you looking forward to this? And now that we've seen it, what did you think?

Explosions! Gunfire! One-Liners! Chuck Norris!: Andrew's Review of "The Expendables 2" (2012)

Directed By: Simon West (Con Air)

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jean Claude Vanne Damme, name an action star from the past 30 years and he’s probably in this

Rating: R for strong bloody violence throughout

Run Time: 1 hour, 42 minutes

Synopsis: Barney Ross (Stallone) and his crew of mercenaries, The Expendables, are called into action and sent to Bulgaria to recover sensitive information that went down with a plane. When they run into a competing mercenary named Vilain (Van Damme) and their mission goes awry, Ross and his boys go looking for vengeance.

REVIEW

Sarah: Andrew is still away on work,but did he got the chance today to see The Expendables 2, starring just about every big action star of the 1980s and 90s with Liam Hemsworth thrown in for good measure. I mean they have to throw at least one young actor in there to get some of the younger crowd. This is not a movie that I will be seeing, one because I didn't see the first and two because it just doesn't really appeal to me.

But, Andrew, you've seen the first one and thought it was a fun action movie. What did you think of this new one?

Site Update (8/19/2012)

Andrew: Hello readers! It's late at night as I'm working on a remote shoot for work still, but I wanted to take the quick time to mention that we now have a new Two Tickets For... banner courtesy of Nick over at the fantasic Cinematic Katzenjammer! He took the time to make a new custom banner logo for us (a few different colored versions, in fact) and even was great enough to take a few suggestions we had to fine tune it into the final product. We cannot thank him enough for his generousity and we highly suggest you check out his sweet blog when you get the chance.

Also, we know it's been a little slow thanks to me being away from Sarah for a week now, and I still have another week before I get home, but we promise we'll try to get some new reviews up this upcoming week. I'm going to try to catch The Expendables 2 at some point in the next few days, and Sarah and I are both going to try and see ParaNorman so we can do a normal review. So be on the lookout for those!

It's a Disney Movie, So Of Course We Cried: Our Review of "The Odd Life of Timothy Green"

Directed By: Peter Hedges (Dan in Real Life)

Starring: Jennifer Garner, Joel Edgerton, CJ Adams

Rating: PG for mild thematic elements and brief language

Run Time: 2 hours, 5 minutes

Synopsis: When Jim and Cindy Green (Edgerton and Garner) are told they can't bear their own children, they bury a box full of their slips of paper containing descriptions of what their perfect child would be like. Magically, overnight, a 10-year-old boy named Timothy sprouts into their life just as they described him, and he goes on to positively effect not only them but their entire town.

REVIEW

Andrew: Hello readers! So we know it's been a little slow lately but it's for good reason. I'm currently out-of-state working on the Little League World Series in Pennsylvania while Sarah is still back in Connecticut. So my schedule's pretty busy AND we're not able to see movies together until I return on August 26th. That said, while we can't see any movies together right now, we were each able to catch this week's first new release, Disney's The Odd Life of Timothy Green, starring Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton.

Sarah, we're probably not going to be able to do a full preview this week, but we've seen the trailer for this film about a hundred times and I know I personally have been looking forward to it just to see what it's really about. Also, I'm a fan of Edgerton's after his turn in Warrior. What about you?

A Couple Upcoming Movies That Have Piqued Our Interest

Sarah: Hello Readers! While Andrew is away I am going to be posting some content for you all to enjoy! Today while at work (oops!) I was checking out some new trailers. There are a couple that are new and some that we haven't seen before the movies yet. So for your viewing pleasure...

Red Dawn (2012)

Now, this one we have seen once on the big screen and it looked AWESOME. Much like Cabin in the Woods, this movie was filmed a couple of years ago (2009 to be exact) but was shelved in 2010 because of MGM financial issues. This remake of the 1984 film of the same name follows the story of a group of teens trying to save their town from an invasion of North Korean soldiers. Check it out!

On the Road (2012)

Neither one of us had seen this trailer until today. We saw a write-up on it in this week's Entertainment Weekly, the Fall movie line-up and it looked interesting. Based on two guys straight from the "Beat Generation" traveling through the United States searching for "It." This movie first was viewed in Cannes Film Festival this year and opened with mixed to negative reviews. I think it looks interesting. You be the judge!

The Paperboy (2012)

This film starring Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman and John Cusack looks to be different than anything that I have ever seen with these actors. Following the story of a reporter (McConaughey) and his little brother (Efron) as they follow a case involving a death row inmate. 

So there you go! Some fun trailers for this Tuesday evening. Which films are you guys most looking forward to this Fall?

This Assassin's Bullet Just Missed the Mark: Our Review of "The Bourne Legacy" (2012)

Directed By: Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton)

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton

Rating: PG-13 for violence and action sequences

Run Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes

Synopsis: Aaron Cross (Renner) is a black ops soldier under the Outcome program, an off-shoot of the Treadstone and Blackbriar programs that spawned Jason Bourne. After Bourne begins to pull the curtain on the programs, the government decides to destroy all parts of the programs, including Cross. After narrowly avoiding death, Cross joins together with Dr. Marta Shearing (Weisz), who might be able to help him avoid being eliminated.

REVIEW

Andrew: Hello readers! Early today Sarah and I caught a matinee showing of this weekend’s new action film The Bourne Legacy, a “side-quel,” if you will, to the Jason Bourne trilogy that starred Matt Damon. The newest addition does not star Damon but instead stars Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross, a black ops soldier in a different program than Bourne’s. It also stars Rachel Weisz, a.k.a. Mrs. Daniel Craig…

Sarah: a.k.a. Mrs. James Bond!

A: Correct! Mrs. Craig stars as Dr. Marta Shearing, a scientist involved with Aaron Cross’ secret program. The Bourne Legacy also stars Edward Norton - a new addition to the series - as Eric Byer, a retired Air Force colonel who sort of oversees some of the black ops programs the CIA runs.

So Sarah, this was one of the films we previewed this week, and as we mentioned in our preview over the last three days we have watched the first three Bourne films to get you caught up on the series and to refresh my memory. So now that we’re caught up and we saw this almost right after watching The Bourne Ultimatum, what did you think of The Bourne Legacy?