"the libertine" and "accepted"

"the libertine" -- a vile, unsavory account of john wilmot, the 2nd earl of rochester, in 17th century england. a crude cynic with a vulgar tongue and sharp wit, depp portrays wilmot without apology or a desire for the audience to find him likeable. be prepared to hate the main character not due to poor writing or acting but because that is how the viewer is supposed to feel. he is meant to be despised. both admired and abhorred by those closest to him in life, wilmot lives his life in perpetual pursuit of visceral gratification; his life and death are on his own terms. depp once more takes on the biopic of a legend, and plays his part expertly. it takes a daring actor to portray a man accurately regardless of the critical fallout of the role.
other biopics in depp's repertoire include "fear and loathing in las vegas," " finding neverland," "donnie brasco," "ed wood," "blow," and "lost in la mancha".

"accepted" -- justin long, lewis black and a formidable cast of lesser-known actors comprise the cast of this coming-of-age comedy. following up his supporting roles in various comedy films long became a household face with last year's "waiting" and his current mac computer commercials. he is fast on his way to becoming an icon for those who refuse to play by the rule and accept life as it comes to them. after being denied admission to eight separate colleges, bartleby gaines (long) and he decides to create a fake acceptance letter to south harmon institute of technology (s.h.i.t.). he then has his best friend design a web site for the fake institute to decieve his skeptical father. hoping only to decieve his "college-is-the-only-way" parents long enough to get his life straightened out he is faced with a serious problem when his dad chooses to drop him off at school and speak with the dean in person. using the tuition check his father wrote, he renovates a decripit asylum into the facade of a real college and hires a friend's uncle to act as the school's dean. but that's only the beginning of his troubles; through an oversight in the website design, a couple hundred other college hopefuls are accepted and show up for orientation unexpectedly.
the story isn't as shallow as it first appears as it turns into a force of resistance against mainstream thought and re-evaluates what higher education is all about. and though the plot is completely improbable in real life, it makes a statement to which many young (and possibly older) viewers can relate. it goes from a slacker's rouse to a rebel's statement about choosing one's own path in life and not exchanging one's dreams in order to fit into the mindset of modern expectations. it's not about whether a man takes the road beaten path or the one less traveled, it's about him having the freedom and courage to choose which one he takes.
the title itself has a layered meaning. first, it's the sory of a college that not only accepts any applicant but also his view on life. and second, it's an open rebuke to what many parents feel is an acceptable path for their children to take.

masøn's "worst films ever" list

feel free to add on your most-hated flicks:

1) ultraviolet - there's no reason this should ever have even left the script's rough draft stage. why, milla jovavich, ehy?
2) deception - saw it when i was a kid. it was my "worst movie ever" for years
3) miami vice - i mean, seriously, did they pay so much money to get colin farrell and jaimie fox that they didn't have enough left to pay a scriptwriter?
4) bloodrayne - total b-flick. michael madsen, michelle rodriguez, kristanna lokken -- what were you three thinking? you're so much better than this.
5) superman returns - i thought it was supposed to based on a comic book, not a romance novel.
6) any batman movie except the first one and the last one - christian bale and michael keaton kick ass and the scripts were well-written; all of the others are a scar on the reputation of the only good superhero dc comics ever had.
7) cool world - brad pitt and gabriel byrne should've known better. hell, even kim basinger should've known better.

descent

for the most part, i loved this movie.
the less you know about it going in the better. so if you've yet to see it, stop reading now.
the story starts out as a group of six women engaging on a spelunking trip on the first anniversary of the death of one woman tragic loss of her husband and only daughter - on that daughter's birthday, no less. the team's leader opts to take them into uncharted caverns rather than the ones they had planned on but chooses not to let anyone know until it's too late to turn back due the collapse of a tunnel through which they had just crawled. then they realise that other spelunkers had been here before when they find equipment that hasn't been in use in about a century.
then the twists begin. the leader is accused of changing cavern in out of insatiable pride and reckless abandon. there are even hints that she had been involved in an affair with her friend's husband at the time of his death. then someone runs off and breaks her leg. but being trapped beneath the earth with no way of escape, an injured member and internal bickering just isn't enough. that's when the creatures appear and start attacking the women and eating them alive. literally.
the action gets an adrenaline kick at this point -- as does the frantic emotional state of the group. desperation, cold-hearted abandonment of friends and self-preservation take over. they get separated. some get injured, some injure each other, some get eaten, one finds out about the affair.
then they all get mad. they begin fighting back. they fight with knives. they fight with bones and antlers. they fight with those nifty rock-climbing axes that they all brought with them. they even take on these beasts with their bare hands. and sometimes they win. the blood, gore and betrayal mount as the remaining women descend (get the double entendre of the title?) into an animilistic state of survival.
in the end, the main character reaches a moral impasse just shy of the newfound escape passage as she stares down her dead husband's mistress and has to decide whether or not to forgive her trespasses. by this point, however, she's spent hours killing these subterranean, evolutionary ancestors of the human race and is quite comfortable with the concept of murder. what will she do?

superman

odd isn't it that brian singer and james marsden jumped the marvel/x-men ship to go off and do the new superman movie?
anyway, the graphics are much better this time around - superman actually seems to be flying, not just hanging from ropes. they insert a little bit of realism to the plot that most superhero films leave out, as well. what happens when a hero can't leave saving the world to be with the woman he loves? lois lane marries someone else. what happens when a hero doesn't get the concept of miranda rights and forgets to appear in a court of law as a witness against the accused? lex luther gets off scott-free. what happens when the hero has a sexual relationship and forgets to use a condom? superman fathers a childout of wedlock. what happens when doctors need to administer life-saving medical attention to a man with impervious skin and a high tolerance toward electrical shock? well, they can't.
but the film also fails in a few ways. how can a shard of kryptonite tear through superman's blue tights and into his kidneys, yet a rapid-fire, high-powered gattling gun doesn't even cause a loose thread? how can superman's son have life-threatening allergies, asthma and a botched immune system? and if he doesn't have any of the super stuff how does he shove a piano across the room? besides that, how come he shows neither emotion at having pulverised a man with a grand piano nor astonishment at his ability to do so?
and most of all, why does superman's comeback movie seem so much like a bleeding romance novel than a comic book?