2 Razors

The Age of Adaline

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Age of Adaline
  • IMDb: link

The Age of Adaline

The Age of Adaline takes an intriguing premise about a woman who has lived for more than a century, through the rise of women’s rights, technological booms, two world wars, and the rise of an Information Age all of which it effectively turns into a Nicholas Sparks trashy romance novel. Blake Lively stars as Adaline Bowman who, through a ridiculous premise of laughable pseudo-science a narrator (Hugh Ross) is needed to help explain, stopped aging and looks the same today as she did in 1929. Hiding for most of her life with only a daughter (Ellen Burstyn) who knows her secret, Adaline sheds her identity every ten years to hide her condition. Preparing for just such a move, Adaline encounters a wealthy artist (Michiel Huisman) and, for the second time in her life, falls in love.

Despite the film’s sci-fi set-up neither director Lee Toland Krieger nor screenwriters J. Mills Goodloe and Salvador Paskowitz are interested in exploring the various times and lives Adaline has lived except in the most superficial of ways. It’s sad because the film casts an actress that looks at home in a variety of styles and the period set direction (what little we see) is competently done.

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Lady Rawhide / Lady Zorro #1

/ / Comics


Lady Rawhide / Lady Zorro #1After faking the death of Zorro to protect Don Diego’s identity while he is out of town helping to build a new mission, Lady Zorro and Lady Rawhide discover a town full of kidnapped girls and agree to continue working together to return the young women home safely before they are turned into slaves and whores by those responsible for their abduction.

The first issue of the new Dynamite Entertainment four-issue mini-series sets the stage for what’s to come. I took a look at the first issue out of curiosity more than anything else. A mix of sex and surprisingly brutal action Lady Rawhide / Lady Zorro #1 isn’t the kind of series I’m likely to stick with.

I have no connection to or knowledge of the ludicrously-garbed Lady Rawhide and her motivations, and Dynamite still hasn’t sold me on Lady Zorro as anything more than a somewhat ridiculous supporting character. Fans of either, or both, of these women are likely to enjoy the issue more than I did. Pass.

[Dynamite Entertainment, $3.99]

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Blade Triple Feature

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Blade, Blade II, Blade: Trinity
  • wiki: link

Blade Triple FeatureRe-released in a new three-pack Triple Feature Blu-ray Wesley Snipes‘ Blade trilogy is far from the best comic book movies have to offer. Collecting Blade, Blade II, and Blade: Trinity, the set has one good movie, one mediocre flick, and one so awful it might as well be an Underworld movie. Each comes with its original special features including commentaries for each film and assorted featurettes and trailers.

Snipes is fine as a human/vampire half-breed based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. The first film, other than introducing the world and its core characters, is largely forgettable. Blade II, involving the hero teaming with a group of vampires (most notably Leonor Varela and Ron Perlman) to take on a new deadly version of vampires known as reapers, is the only one that holds up to multiple viewings. As for the horrifically bad third film, introducing Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel as vampire hunters and Dominic Purcell as the most ridiculous version of Dracula ever, the less said the better.

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The Interview

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Interview
  • IMDb: link

The InterviewThe Interview is known mostly for North Korean pressure stopping its wide release in theaters. The controversy that followed brought attention to a throwaway cheap-laugh comedy that would have otherwise been quickly forgotten. The script by Dan Sterling is part Spies Like Us and part Saturday Night Live skit as the star (James Franco) and producer (Seth Rogen) of a talk show get an inclusive interview with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (Randall Park). The pair are quickly approached by the CIA who attempt to use the opportunity to kill Kim by turning a pair of complete morons into assassins without proper training or back-up.

Franco and Rogen are funny guys but they’re just going through the motions of various gags (including a surprisingly bloody action sequence). In someone else’s hands the premise might have led to a subversive satire but its clear Rogen and company only care about stuffing the film with as many cheap laughs as possible with the Franco-Rogen bromance in full swing complete with several dick jokes and multiple discussions of hiding spy gear up Rogen’s ass.

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Fifty Shades of Grey

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Fifty Shades of Grey
  • IMDb: link

Fifty Shades of GreyWell, at least the foreplay was mildly entertaining. The attempt by director Sam Taylor-Johnson and screenwriter Kelly Marcel to adapt E.L. James‘ novel of the same name feels every inch a Hollywood adaptation of a trashy romance novel.

Fifty Shades of Grey, which could just as easily been titled “Porn for Women” or “Wild Orchid 3: The Seduction of Anastasia,” offers us the ridiculously named duo of college student Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) and businessman Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). Despite their initial attraction through a random plot device involving Anastasia’s roommate and an article for a school paper Ana doesn’t work for, the pair struggle to get together because of Christian’s aloof manner and odd sexual proclivities.

Through a mix of celebrated bad dialogue and nonerotic and unromantic sex scenes shot like music videos we, along with Ana, learn of Christian’s sadomasochistic tendencies as he offers her a way into his world. Overwhelmed by the attention of a hunky millionaire, Ana fights back her doubts in order to be with a man she’s quickly fallen for.

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