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Vera Farmiga

Movies to Look Forward to in 2014- Manhattan Digest

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Lego, Manhattan, Manhattan Digest
Credit to: HD Wallpapers

 

Here are some of the great movies you should be seeing in the 2014 Calendar year.  From hot guys like Zac Efron to a little movie about one of our favorite childhood toys, Legos, there is something for everyone in the upcoming months.  Take a look!

That Awkward Moment with Zac Efron will be…how do I phrase this politely…appropriately awkward. The writers showed solid sentiment in deciding to portray the “girly” side of men dealing with relationships, and that jibe at Bridget Jones in the trailer forced me to crack a smile. The movie seems to even narrowly miss making everyone in a heterosexual relationship look like a bumbling idiot. To be honest, though, I have never been able to get past the Zac Efron we all know and hate from High School Musical. In theaters January 31st and co-starring Miles Teller and Michael B. Jordan of (fill in the blank if you can) fame, That Awkward Moment may actually provide a novel take on the bromance by making the characters a little less bro-y.

At Middleton with Andy Garcia and Vera Farmiga follows two parents who bring their respective children to tour the fictive Middleton College to find themselves ditching their kids’ tour and falling in love. Not only do Garcia and Farmiga appear to have excellent on-screen chemistry, the pair might even make college look more fun than John Belushi and Tim Matheson do in Animal House. With plenty of airy screen shots that evoke the movie’s message of youth’s ephemeral possibilities (or so I assume), At Middleton should strike a chord with anyone who’s been touched by college or the reality of growing up afterward. Also coming to theaters on January 31st.

The LEGO Movie, boasting an insanely star-studded cast, comes out February 7th. With Chris Pratt voicing “the ordinary man who’s been improbably chosen to save the world,” Morgan Freeman as “the wise oracle,” and Will Arnett as, you didn’t guess it, Batman, the casting director knew how to turn children’s toys into a seemingly hilarious rag-tag crew of misfit super heroes without making us feel condescended to. Liam Neeson, Elizabeth Banks, Channing Tatum, and Will Ferrell also lend their voices. There’s no need to be ashamed attending this one without children under ten.

The Grand Budapest Hotel marks another potential gem by director Wes Andersen. With Ralph Fiennes as Gustave H., a concierge who “sleeps with all of his [eighty year-old plus] friends” at the Grand Budapest Hotel, the lively patterns, ingenious schemes, and fantastical villains will be almost certain to one-up Anderson’s most recent oeuvre, Moonrise Kingdom. The director’s usual suspects (think Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Willem Dafoe) will amicably haunt a plot revolving around family fortune squabbles, fine art theft, and an unusual mentorship between Fiennes and his “Lobby Boy.” The madcap trailer should be enough to draw you to theaters for The Grand Budapest Hotel’s premier on March 7th.

Only Lovers Left Alive directed by Jim Jarmusch just has to be the peak of the several-year silver screen vampire trend. The traditional portrait of vampires who have meshed in with human society à la True Blood prevails in the form of couture blood, high sex drives, and eternal lives of blending into too many centuries. Luckily, Jarmusch manages this in a way that was not amped up for similarly eternal seasons of television. Starring Tilda Swinson and Tom Hiddleston as two, passionate vampires who watch the modern world deteriorate around them after rekindling an old love affair (while navigating Swinson’s vampire sister’s sensual duplicity), Only Lovers Left Alive might comment on modern society without making our toes curl in a bad way. The least cheesy vampire flick you will spot on the big screen arrives there April 11th and will probably leave with you more than the desire to masturbate to some vampire porn.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes features Andy Cerkis again as Caesar, the intelligent lord of the apes, and takes place fifteen years after the prequel’s events. Matt Reeves, also the director of Cloverfield, leads actors through a new battle between a group of human survivors and Caesar’s serious ape army. This should be worth watching since Matt Reeves was allegedly asked back to direct Apes number three. Fans will flock to theaters July 11th.

What movies are YOU looking forward to?

 

You’ll Go Crazy Over Bates Motel

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Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga in Bates Motel (source: A&E)
Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga in Bates Motel (source: A&E)

Bates Motel: Monday’s at 10p.m., A&E.

Throughout the history of the horror genre, we’ve seen our fair share of notable villains. From Jigsaw of Saw who simply sees self-mutilation as the means to appreciating one’s life for the better, to the seemingly immortal Michael Myers of Halloween fame to Jason Voorhees at Camp Crystal Lake, we see the end result of years of psychological illness in the form of a machete and some poor misguided co-eds.

However, Bates Motel asks, what turns these people into our most beloved serial killers? It does so by following around iconic slasher Norman Bates during his teenage years in a prequel to the Alfred Hitchcock classic. This means we will get a glimpse into Norman’s family life, as Norman was always horror’s preeminent mama’s boy.

Our first episode revolves around Norman moving to White Pine Bay and getting adjusted into this new location, trying to get a new start six months after the death of his father. Norman is the sort of nice shy boy that girls seem to take to fairly easily, and his teachers want him to get involved in the school’s athletics (particularly the track team). His mother Norma however, is guilt-tripping him at every turn, claiming she needs him at the Motel all the time. This eventually leads to Norman sneaking out of his house to go to study only to end up at a house party.

The second subplot revolves around a man whom returns to the plot Norma bought in order to “take back his property”. While Norman is out at said party, the man returns, trying to rape Norma. Norman walks in at the last second and smashes him over the head with a iron, which leads to Norma killing him soon thereafter before spending a day or two figuring out where to stuff the body and hiding it from the cops (one of the best whimsical moments of the pilot involved the Sheriff giving Norma a puzzled look as to why she named her son after herself).

The main pairing of Norman and his overbearing mother Norma Louise Bates (as played by Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga respectively) are both played excellently, particularly Farmiga as Norma Louise Bates, playing the sort of unsettling, unstable, mother that leads a man down the road to insanity. Norman is played as a sweet gawky teenager who hasn’t been completely down the road to ruin. Both however, are played with the sort of subdued nature required to sustain a prequel show like this for multiple seasons, and the development of both of those characters over time will be a key factor to the show’s success.

The writers do an excellent job mixing not only the mundane moments that are necessary at the start of the series to establish character, but also providing tension where it does pop up, whether it’s Norman’s discovery of his father’s death or the very intense rape/murder scene that occurs in the middle of the episode. In spite of that, the show makes it a priority to let these moments breathe, as it’s most truly unsettling parts come from Norma’s reaction to both situations (and some lesser ones such as Norman’s request to join the track team).

The soundtrack to this show also is pretty impressive, following the classic horror soundtrack that one would expect from a series built around one of horror’s most psychotic characters. Soft piano music plays through happier segments, while your standard horror strings move through the tense parts. The visuals are equally impressive, often relying a palette of beiges, and yellows to provide a quaint feeling.

The Final Verdict: Bates Motel is everything that a show like The Following wishes it could be. It’s creepy, it’s unsettling, and it’s most intense moments are frankly uncomfortable enough that it eschews the jump scares. It ultimately feels like one part Smallville, one part Twin Peaks, and one part any twisted family drama you can think of. Check it out, you won’t be disappointed.