The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Expectations:
If it is possible to be sold on a movie solely because of the song in the trailer, that's what happened for me and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Imagine Dragon's "It's Time" was one of my favorite songs of the summer, and I was introduced to it by the trailer for this film. (here it is if you haven't heard) Not only did I love this song, but I also downloaded like five more of Imagine Dragon's songs, as they joined Fun. and The Lumineers among my favorites in music from the summer of 2012. And, yes, you did here correctly... I have great taste in music! However, we are here to talk about movies, and I must say that I was moderately excited about seeing Wallflower. Because I live in a small movie market, it took a good while for the film to make its way to my local theater, but I think the wait just increased my desire to watch. Also, my wonderfully sweet girlfriend preferred Wallflower over Cloud Atlas, and it would be wrong to displease her...

Plot:
The plot of Wallflower can be boiled down fairly easily. However, for a simplistic story, there was a TON of depth. There is even a nice twist at the end that I did not see coming at all, which added even more to the depth. Being a book-adaption movie, there is a tendency to wonder whether the story was told as effectively as it was told in the book. Luckily for us, we don't have to even think about this, because the author of the book wrote and directed the film. To all of you "the book's always better" people, you can't criticize this movie in any way. If you want to criticize the author for telling HIS story, then you should be forced to never speak about books or film ever again! Nonetheless, this story was absolutely brilliant, and its execution was flawless. Not only was I interested in the outcome of the story, but I was also totally drawn in to these characters' lives...

Characters:
As I have said many, many times, I am a sucker for young actors. I love kid actors, because of their innocence, and I love actors that are my age (20's), because I can easily relate to them. Why was 50/50 my favorite movie of 2011?... Probably because I could imagine myself in that situation, and it just felt so real. Or in the case of Wallflower, I felt "infinite!" (You'll get it after you watch.)

Negatives:
Although I am a huge American Horror Story fan, which makes this difficult to say, I was not a huge fan of Dylan McDermott in the role of the father of the main character (Charlie). Maybe it's because of American Horror Story or because that's how the character is supposed to be, but I just didn't feel like McDermott's character had a very fatherly feel about him. The only other performance that I didn't care for was Johnny Simmons's Brad, who was the star quarterback at the kids high school. His character becomes hugely important, but I just didn't think his performance was that great, compared to the other, young actors.

Positives:
Where do I begin? How about I start with one of the greatest performances of 2012? Ezra Miller was absolutely amazing as Patrick (the obviously gay friend of Charlie). I'm usually not a huge fan of leading gay characters, because they usually either start off or end up as this huge gay rights social protest. It's not that I have a problem with characters being gay, but I don't pay $8 to watch someone be gay, just because Hollywood loves it. Patrick, on the other hand, was a completely unique character who stole the show, not by being gay, but by being the guy that ANYBODY would love to hang out with. Kudos to Miller for his great performance, and kudos to creator Stephen Chbosky for creating such a character. As great as Miller was, the awesomeness did not stop there. I don't know how Logan Lerman acts in real life, but he did a brilliant job of portraying the troubled lead character, Charlie. Miller may have stolen the show, but Lerman is the one who created the show and gave it the ability to be stolen. Also, give credit to Paul Rudd, who played the coolest English teacher ever.

Conclusion:
Even though I wasn't particularly stoked about seeing The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I can easily say that it was one of my favorite movies of 2012, thus far. The story was great. The acting was great. It just made me feel great. In my opinion, you can tell how good a movie is by how much you think about it the day AFTER you watch it. I was thinking about Wallflower for many days after I watched, and I still can't get the song "Come On Eileen" out of my head because of it. My hope is that each and every person who reads this post will watch this movie when it comes out on DVD. I guarantee that you will not be disappointed (especially if you are my age). I give The Perks of Being a Wallflower 4.02 out of 5 stars.

Great Expectations: November 2012

November and December are going to be huge, huge months for movies, so get ready! If recent years are any indication, we will likely find our 2012 Best Picture winner in these last two months, especially considering we haven't heard too much buzz about any films that have come out in the first ten months of 2012. How sad is it that we have to wait until November to even think that a movie may win best picture? The answer is "pretty sad." Anyway, here are a few movies that I'm looking forward to this month. Sorry that two of them are already out. I'm a laggard!


1. Flight (November 2)

2. Wreck It Ralph (November 2)

3. Silver Linings Playbook (November 21)

Argo

Expectations:
In the midst of my busy schedule and ridiculously awful semester, it has been so nice to be able to go to the theater and "forget about life for a while" (Piano Man reference). I have been to the movies a few times over the past month, but I haven't had time to blog, so I will be playing catch up this week. Look out for more reviews soon! Because of my current stress, I'm pretty sure that I would love anything that I watched, so my expectations for Ben Affleck's Argo were not super high. If you have seen The Town, which was similarly directed by Affleck, you know that his films have an edgy, dark, dreary feel about them, and Argo looked to be no different. While I don't mind the darkness, it can get old after a while, so I was a little worried about that aspect of the film. However, I was hoping that the interesting and true story would be enough to overcome the feel of the movie.

Plot:
Honestly, it has been a very long time since I have really been THAT into a story. I was seriously on the edge of my seat. Then, I checked my phone to see what time it was, and the movie wasn't even half over! It really was THAT intriguing. Even The Dark Knight Rises wasn't this intriguing, with all the passion I had invested in it. Usually true stories are a tad too predictable, but that wasn't the case with Argo. In fact, although I expected a successful/happy ending, I couldn't figure out whether I was going to get one. Nevertheless, kudos to Affleck and his ability to write a great story. Also, the story was a lot less dreary than The Town, mostly due to the prescence of Alan Arkin's Lester Siegel and John Goodman's John Chambers. These two brought some great laughs, which took the edge off in a very good way.

Characters:
As I said, Arkin and Goodman's characters were brilliant, but they weren't the only impressive ones. Almost the entire cast was amazing, including Affleck, who must really love himself to keep giving himself these lead roles.

Negatives:
While there were very few negatives, I must say that Bryan Cranston was one of them. He is in like every single movie nowadays, and I guess I'm just sick of hearing about him and Breaking Bad, so there. Additionally, I wasn't too impressed with Tate Donovan's Bob Anders. It was nothing but a poor performance.

Positives:
Although I've never been a huge fan of his, Ben Affleck did great in every job that he took on with Argo. I did find his backstory and family situation a bit of an unnecessary addition to the story, but what do I know. Other than that, he was great! Scoot McNairy, who played Joe Stafford, gave the best performance of the hostages that Affleck was sent to rescue, probably because he was given the most screen time of the hostages. I do, also, love to watch Christopher Denham (another one of the hostages). He always intrigues me, because he is so gosh dern freaky. Finally, Alan Arkin stole the show, and should be given some serious award recognition for this role. I absolutlely loved his character.

Conclusion:
Typically, I find that movies stemming from true stories are either extremely sappy and emotional or overly historic and boring. Argo was none of the above. I really loved the way that Affleck was able to create so much drama and suspension with a true story and WITHOUT any action. I actually cannot remember a single action scene, which is very rare. Unlike The Town, Argo never had a single dull moment, and I loved it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was able to garnish some Oscar attention, as awards season quickly approaches. I give Argo 3.35 out of 5 stars.