Smurfs 2 in Theatres Now

Last week my family was invited to a fun party to celebrate the release of Smurfs 2 at Sony Studios. We were treated like blue kings and queens and got to see an advanced screening of the film. We even got to play the new Smurfs 2 video game on PlayStation!

This film's action centers on Smurfette and her issues with being an adopted smurf. If you aren't familiar with the back story, Smurfette was created by Gargamel (Hank Azaria AKA the bad guy) to infiltrate the Smurfs but once there Papa Smurf made a formula to change her into a real smurf and, of course, make her blue.

                     

                                                

Now Gargamel has taken her back and with the help of his two other faux smurfs he's trying to convince her to come back to "the dark side", for his own evil gain. Lots of interesting questions for kids about choosing your identity, rather than just being who your parents are, are raised.

But my daughter just thought it was fun. As did the 4 boys we watched the film with ranging in age from 6 to 10. There were also much younger children in the audience who seemed to enjoy it. I'd say this film is pretty safe for all age ranges.

Touring MGM now Sony Studios

The first thing about the old MGM studio is there is nothing that says MGM there, with the exception of the manhole cover pictured above. You'll see lots of Columbia stuff and Sony but no MGM.

I was on the lot for a screening the other day and grabbed a few shots of interesting sites. I tweeted most of them live but just incase you missed those I thought I'd post them here.



Here is the Irving Thalberg building, the boy genius who was a producer and married to Norma Shearer. The Building was named for him after he died suddenly at the age of 37.



Inside the Thalberg building there are many Oscars on display with their movie posters. Here's one of my favorites, It Happened One Night.

Hope you enjoyed the tour. I really love going on these old lots. Living in LA I get to go a few times a year and it still gives me little shivers knowing I'm at MGM. Even if there is only a manhole cover to prove it.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Last night I went to see the Swedish film The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo, AKA Men Who Hate Women, that's what it's called everywhere but English speaking countries. I gotta say it was way too violent for me, but then CSI is generally too violent for me. So I'm kind of a baby. But there was a lot of violence, sex, and sexually violent scenes. With all of that said, it was a really good film.
This is the most viewed swedish film ever. It is the first of a trilogy based on the best selling books. Since I haven't read the books I can only tell you what I saw last night. Lisbeth is an emotionally damaged person, hacker, and great in a fight. She joins forces with a discredited journalist to discover the truth behind the 40 year old disappearance of a girl.
I hear that there will be an American version of this film made by Sony. With interest being shown by all the likely suspects.

I should thank KCRW, my local NPR station,and Matt's Movies who hosted this event for KCRW members. Supporting NPR is not an all together altruistic endeavor, when you get these kind of perks.

You can check out my whrrl on going to the movie at my new blog with Mar Vista Mom and Yvonne in LA called Women Who Whrrl


Here's the trailer for the English realease. Honestly they have a subtitled one from the swedish release but even the trailer was a little too intense.

Legion

So last week Sony was nice enough to invite me to come see Legion on the lot opening day. If any of you followed me on facebook or twitter that day, you know I was a little scared to see it. The commercials look pretty violent, and I can be kind of a baby. But you know what I really liked it.

I did spend a fair amount of the movie with my hand over my eyes, but there was a great message under the carnage. I should say up front that I respect all religions, but I haven't much patients for zealots. That said I thought the movies message was about people who blindly follow their religion word for word.

The premise of the film is that God has lost faith in Man and has sent one of his angels down to wipe us off the face of the earth. I can see his point, we really are screwing it up lately. But the angel, he sends down, still has faith in us and he decides to prove to God that we aren't a complete lost cause.

Now God isn't easily convinced so he sends another angel down to wipe us off the face of the earth. This angel is a "do as your told" kind of angel so whatever God says is good enough for him. the two angels argue over it, boiling it down to giving God what he asks for or giving God what he needs. Of course it turns into a fight to the death.

We also have a scene were the angel, who is trying to save our bacon, is running off a list of our failings and slips in, following archaic books with war, hate, and pettiness. I'm guessing he means the Bible, Koran, Torah, etc... and not the Illyad.
He also holds up one boy/man as an example of why there is still some good left in humanity. He loves a girl who is carrying someone elses baby, and he is just generally selfless and caring.

So my point is the film has this great message about being religious but not being literal about it. That the real lesson is kindness, and even God can be wrong sometimes. So pass same sex marriage already. OK maybe that's part is just me but you get what I'm saying.

So go see it and see for yourself, also if you like zombie movies there is some of that thrown in too. That's the part I covered my eyes for.