The Host

Happy [late] Birthday Saoirse Ronan!  Just saw your latest movie, The Host, the day after your birthday!  (…not that you'll ever read this...)

Despite my dislike for anything Stephanie Meyers, I did break down and see The Host.

I had my reasons: I like movies about aliens, the concept of the story was interesting, and I was really excited to watch Saoirse Ronan jump off buildings (my inner dare-devil/stunt double got a vicarious experience).  Plus, after the essay I had to write about Saoirse for school, it seemed appropriate to, a) see one of her films, and b) see one of her films as close to her birthday as possible, since I now know when that is.

You know that scary moment when you wake up and realize that you know almost exactly how old some of those actors and actresses are?  Freddie Highmore is an example.  We're roughly three months apart (he's older).  Kinda scary that I would even know that.

Back on topic.

On the surface, The Host doesn't even really seem like something Stephanie Meyers would write.  I mean, where were the vampires?  Where were the werewolves?  Where was the overwhelming confusing love triangle?

This is my theory.  The vampires and werewolves were too busy fighting off the Volturi at the end of the fifth Twilight movie to notice the alien parasites as they first set "foot" on Earth.  By the time Breaking Dawn part 2 ended, it was too late to save humanity or Earth from the invading aliens.  And thus, Bella, Edward, Jacob, and everyone else all you Twilight fans were so fond of, were conquered by little jellyfish looking aliens from another world.  May they rest in peace.

But, that's only my theory.

While people like me may breathe a deep sigh of relief over the welcome absence of vampires and werewolves, the love triangle is still present in The Host.  It is summed up so simply yet appropriately by Wanderer (I think the line is something along the lines of, "These humans are a confusing species."), who expresses her confusion over Jared's reaction to Melanie's slapping him after Jared had kissed Wanderer to "reach" Melanie, who is still trapped in Wanderer's "body" (which is technically Melanie's body that Wanderer "took over").

If you're already lost, it's okay.

As stated earlier, the love triangle is still there, only in a different way.  Allow me to try to explain:

Melanie loves Jared.  Jared loves Melanie.  Wanderer "takes over" Melanie's body, and the two of them go off together to locate Jared.  Jared still loves Melanie, but has a hard time with the concept that Wanderer's in there as well.  Melanie doesn't like it when Wanderer kisses Jared.  Meanwhile, Wanderer and another dude named Ian start having feelings for each other, which bothers Melanie since this is still her body we're talking about.  Wanderer is very confused ("You're angry when I kiss a man you do love, and you get angry when I kiss a man you don't.  It's very confusing.").  Can we blame Wanderer for her confusion?

Saoirse, as I'm noticed in the movies and movie trailers I've seen her in, is very talented when it comes to facial expressions and dramatic scenes.  The whole time you can almost see the wheels turning in her head as she's acting and interacting with the other actors.  It takes serious talent to act like you're being involuntarily controlled by a secondary voice in your head, and even more so to do so while kissing someone.  Saoirse nailed it.

Someone should try putting Saoirse Ronan and Richard Armitage in a movie together.  I think they would go together well, because they're both very good with facial expressions.  Just saying.

Those of you who may have seen The Lovely Bones (Peter Jackson, 2009) may remember Saoirse as 14-year old Susie Salmon (it's okay to say, "Wait!  That was her?").  You may also remember the scene when Susie realizes that she's been murdered (I find it really funny that she has to realize the fact that she's dead), and screams "no!" several times while the background grows almost unbearably bright and she starts to kind of evaporate.  I haven't seen the movie, nor to I suggest seeing it, but I have seen a clip of that one scene.  Susie's screams are heart-rending.  This is a girl who had her whole life ahead of her, who had a date with a handsome classmate on Saturday, and all of that has been stolen from her by a guy who looks like Stanley Tucci with 1970's glasses and a mustache.  You feel Susie's emotions seeping through the screen, threatening to overpower your own emotions as you sit there attempting to eat your popcorn without crying (or passing out from the sight of all that blood).

Like Susie before her, Wanderer has a scream scene, when she accidentally walks into a human clinic and see dead humans and dead aliens lying all over the place.  Can we blame her for freaking out at the sight of all those dead aliens?  And, once again, Saoirse delivers one of those heart-rending "no!" screams that make you want to cry because you almost sorta kinda feel her emotions flooding out toward you from the big screen.  Saoirse nails stuff like that.  I really can't think of another young actress who could have pulled that off.  I say Saoirse is a "young" actress only because she's younger than me (again, kinda scary that I know that).

In closing, I will touch on my last pet peeve: film quality.  In summary, if you go to see The Host expecting it to be as stunning, moving, and/or amazing as Lord of the Rings or Passion of the Christ, you will be disappointed.  But, if you tell yourself you can't believe you just spent $9.75 a ticket to see this movie that is probably going to be a waste of time and money, you will probably be pleasantly surprised.

Ah, where do I begin with quality?

Well, on Friday, I and a classmate were asked about our opinions of the movie.  While I struggled to get a word in inch-wise, I listened as my classmate explained how she thought the storyline was really weak.  I did not find the storyline to be so.  I thought it was cohesive and relatively easy to follow.  Some of the effects are great (the view of Earth from outer space is cool!), and the scenery is vivid even for the New Mexico desert.  However, there were a few things that bothered me.  Just little things, but I tend to be nit-picky.  Some of the sets looked manufactured, which is fine for a building, but I'm talking about the cave-formations in the humans' hide out.  It looked more like plaster than rock at times.  My only other quality pet peeve was Saoirse's eyes.  As Wanderer, she has those really glassy, shiny blue eyes (as do all the aliens in the film).  After the aforementioned scream scene, Wanderer goes running off to be alone (I find it ironic and funny that she dashes off to her prison cell to achieve this solitude).  The scene cuts between her and the outside scenery several times (probably showing the passage of time), but when we return to her, it seems that she no longer has those alien-blue eyes.  Then, in the following scene (a confrontation with Melanie's uncle) she's got the alien-blue eyes again.  Maybe it was just me.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Now that I have thoroughly bashed The Host and made fun of it and it's love triangle, I have a confession.  I still can't believe I'm saying this, but I have to admit that...I actually enjoyed watching The Host.  I tried not to talk about it too much in front of my friend (who saw the movie with me), but I actually did like it a lot more than I let on.  I resisted the urge to talk about it after the movie and on the drive home.

Does this mean that if Open Roads starts selling Wanderer plushies, I would go buy one?  No.  I may have liked it, but I'm not that obsessed.

But, I didn't like it because of the love triangle.  I liked the chase scenes, the intensity of hiding from alien search parties, the scenery, and - of course - the stunts.  The rest of the time it was like, "Oh, there they go kissing...again."

But, I wouldn't mind watching it again.

That's all I've got for The Host.

PS - If asked whether I liked The Host or The Hobbit better, I'm still going with The Hobbit.

The Bible, 2013 - Episodes 4 and 5

Sorry it's taken me so long to finish writing about The Bible TV series.  The series ended on Easter Sunday, but...it's out on DVD now!  So, my review isn't quite irrelevant.  All of the teachers at college seem to have gotten together in a mega campaign to make the last couple weeks since Easter as painfully stressful as possible, which then prevented me from blogging or doing pretty much anything other than school.  When I was finally free, I was temporarily distracted by The Host, which I finally got to see on Saturday (keep an eye out for a Host related post in the relatively near future).  So, now I've finally gotten back on track.

Due to the fact that two Bible episodes have passed since my last Bible post, I'm going to combine my thoughts about both Episodes 4 and 5 into this single post.

Are you ready?

Episode Four

Ah.  Episode 4 was so refreshing after the carnage and bloodshed which has occurred over the course of Episodes 2 and 3.  No one's eyes got gouged out.  No one's throats got sliced.  The fact that I, the person who watches (most of) Passion of the Christ almost every year and forced myself to desensitize to decapitation in order to watch The Hobbit in the theatre, is saying it was hard to watch says something about how violent episodes 2 and 3 were.

Best of all, Jesus was the central character in episode 4!

Episode 4 focuses on some key events in Jesus' earthly ministry.  Therefore, there is a noticeable lack of hand-to-hand combat and all the other stuff that was hard to watch in previous episodes.  Obviously, due to time restraints, they were unable to get ALL of the key events of Jesus' earthly ministry into this episode, but the episode does a very good and accurate job of portraying the events that are shown.

There were seriously, like, no content issues in this episode.  Jesus gets arrested toward the end of the episode, and we do see him get a little beaten up.  This might be a little unsettling for some really young children, but you know what your kids can handle better than I do.

I say "a little" beaten up because I watched Passion of the Christ on Good Friday evening.  Every single other Passion film pales in comparison to Passion of the Christ.  Just saying.

Episode Five

...And, they're back on a violence spry.

Episode covers Jesus' encounter with Pilot, his crucifixion, resurrection, and some of the acts of the apostles.  Considering that it took Mel Gibson roughly two hours to tell the whole Crucifixion story (with a two-five minute resurrection scene to top everything off), the makers of the Bible TV series did really well squashing all of these events into their timeframe.

I'd just watched Passion of the Christ on Good Friday, and the final episode of The Bible aired on Easter Sunday.  So, I watched The Bible's version of the crucifixion with Passion of the Christ fresh in my mind.  I found it very interesting that The Bible's crucifixion scene seemed almost identical to The Passion's.  Little nit-picky things like the high of the whipping post, the amount of times Jesus falls on the way to Golgotha, the manner in which Jesus falls, how Mary (Jesus' mother) rushes to his side when he does fall and how she kisses his feet when he's on the cross, the way they filmed the nails being hammered into Jesus' hands and feet, and even the way the cross is raised into position were all very reminiscent of Passion of the Christ.

The hugest difference was that The Bible's crucifixion scene is much shorter and less brutally gruesome than Passion's.  This is great for those who get a little squeamish around large amounts of blood.  However, there are still large amounts of blood (not as much as Passion, but still), so young children could be disturbed by that.

But, I've watched Passion of the Christ, so I could handle The Bible's crucifixion scene.  But, if you or your kids are squeamish around blood, you might want to be careful.  Know your limits and know your kids.

The Resurrection is beautifully portrayed, though, and in much more detail than in The Passion.

And then comes the persecution of the apostles.

Several people get really beaten up by Paul (before his conversion) and his cronies.  Also, the apostle Stephen takes some pretty hard blows to his head while he's being stoned.  After the killing blow, he see blood trickling out of his nose.  We see other apostles get banged up and kicked around, one apostle gets his head whopped off, and another guy is chained up and forced to drink poison.

Scenes such as Paul conversion, the apostles receiving the Holy Spirit, and what is supposed to represent John's revelation are very nicely done and chill-inducing.

The acting throughout the episode is superb!  The quality of the production are stunning (and meet my ridiculously high standards).

Overall

I personally loved this latest television adaption of The Bible, and I was very sad to see it end.  But, the DVD is on my birthday wish list, so I will (hopefully) be able to watch it again soon.

Plus, I could always just go read the Book again, which is something I always highly suggest.  Especially when it comes to The Bible.