In an unprecedented negotiation victory, the cast’s contracts allowed them to rewrite the entire screenplay between takes to their own satisfaction and without the director’s input. Believe it or not!
Marvel’s merry mutants are back! Academy Award Winner Jennifer Lawrence and her amazingly lower-paid friends return for X-Men: Apocalypse, the ninth film in a cinematic universe that’s unwritten at least 3¾ previous installments out of its own continuity. Everything you thought you knew, every film you thought was worth saving, every character you thought was more important than other characters, you’re wrong. Shut up, go to the concession stand, and don’t come back until you agree to stop thinking so hard about any of this. Just be happy that director Bryan Singer is finally telling the one major story that You, the Viewers at Home, clearly demanded most: the secret origin of Professor X’s bald head.
I saw Silver Linings Playbook over a week ago and have been procrastinating saying anything about it because it’s tough to express my opinion without ruining the ending. I suppose the ads aren’t that coy about the gist of the film, but part of my enjoyment was derived from that rare feeling of having no idea what would happen next. Under the guidance of director David O. Russell (previously appreciated for The Fighter and Three Kings), I wasn’t sure if Playbook would be predictably atypical or deceptively Hollywood about the strange relationship between its May/December starring couple. Would it end in for-your-Oscar-consideration breakup and tears? Would it opt for the mushy happily-ever-after ending, complete with gratuitous dance party at the end? Would the payoff be just-good-friendship, like Lost in Translation? Would they both die horribly of movie cancer? My second-guessing was useless against it.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 