Boner Games: Jennifer Shrader Lawrence.

Had you watched Winter's Boner Bone (2010) where the surely sweaty-palmed Jennifer Lawrence on her first blockbuster exposure, one cannot deny that "...Lawrence's eyes are a road map to what's tearing [Ree] apart." (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone) is a katniss observation to her revered performance. Ever since "Mommy, I volunteer to be an actress."

Probably in a cheerleader outfit, or tensely struggling in between her bulky duffel bag and dangling hockey stick, evidently fresh from practice, both of which, incidentally, are her hobbies, Lawrence had always cheered on a goal to be an actress that which impassioned her to audition in the New York spring of 2004, fourteen years of protecting her dream like a defensive player in a touchdown pursuit. The Kentucky hotshot, after a series of minor appearances, eventually signed thirty (30) episodes in The Bill Engvall Show in 2007 (below).

Lauren Pearson in The Big Engvall Show.

A 2010 Young Artist Award nomination was her tribute.

Fast track from The Poker House (2008) and The Burning Plain (2008) that, briefly, are complete opposites in critical reception, before District Twelve's Katniss Everdeen, she was Raven Darkholme alias Mystique in X-Men: First Class (2011), timely preceding Rebecca Romijin as the younger, perilously reluctant mutant. Ever since then, what with lip locking with one of Hollywood's sex gods Michael Fassbender, she shapeshifted through the eyes of the people a refreshing breed of fantasy, both men and women alike. Even reportedly can turn gay men straight. The true nightlock to your current girlfriends, Lawrence caught the world's attention - as if our worlds don't already consist of her - at the 74th Hunger Games in the avaricious and politically implied Capitol. Alongside Josh Hutcherson (Peeta Mellark) and Liam Hemsworth (Gale Hawthorne), the love triangle everyone's head over heels for is as prevalent in the books as it is in the real world. In fact, the film was so loved by both fans and critics it earned $686.5M in ticket sales - one would think that's enough money to build a mall in District 12. It is also documented that Katniss Everdeen is the first female action star ever to convene the $300-million benchmark box office hit (and remarkably surpassed).

Widely recognized in the elitist and hard-to-please Academy, at a self-loathing age of twenty-one, she was only testing the waters of her full potential when it already landed her a nomination at the 84th Academy Awards for Best Actress in Winter's Bone. The transformation from a starlet to one of the most coveted actresses is arguably as blinding as a projectile arrow; the target ever so adaptive with her.

Jennifer Lawrence in The Silver Linings Playbook.

Featured in the Metro Manila Film Fast (click it) blog entry, this long overdue, 8-time Academy Award nominated, including Best Actress in a Leading Role awarded to, who else, The Silver Linings Playbook is the mutual connection of two complete strangers once was for personal gain. Neither knew an emotional bond took place; an emotional bond for two emotionally unbalanced individuals. Quick, it premieres tomorrow!

WITCH Perspective?

Strangely, the three (3) films watched have a bottom line. At least Russovoir thinks so. This is the complexity, simplicity, universality, specialty, comfort, inconvenience, human, and nonhuman nature of love. Kudos to the MTRCB (Movie and Television Review and Classification Board) for consciously or unconsciously adhering to the "love month".

Love is Compassion.

"I don't hold equality in all things, just equality before the law."

Lincoln is easily a national favorite; a manifestation of the well-recorded, persistent as it is worthwhile to be reminded of, the righteousness of President Abraham Lincoln. Three (3) hours went by so quickly that how must the editing be so professional to keep the audience absorbed, lost in the thick forests of Lincoln's beard. Riveting and inspiring, Russovoir is lately in questionable urgency to sign up for the military services of the United States of America. 

Steven Spielberg is easily a national favorite; a manifestation of masterful craftsmanship. He can make a foreign entity belong on this earth, in fact, revered. Oh wait, he's had: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Jurassic Park (1993), War of the Worlds (2005). Spielberg's filmography, Russovoir notices, has always been serious business; films with so much weight, it's become an expectation of him. And so far, disappointment is merely Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001).

Twelve (12) nominations at the 85th Academy Awards, it's an amendment in the constitution of our refined taste in films to watch Lincoln.

"Buzzards' guts, man!"

Love is Sacrifice.

Right off the bat, Beautiful Creatures is brilliant! Up until now, it's always been the woman who's human and the man with supernatural origin, that which the woman fancies, and the man obviously cannot stand up to the impossible challenge - we cannot watch a woman sleep and tell them how peaceful they look because, we sleep too. Always the man has the leverage, that special feature that separates them from other men by which competition is only limited against another supernatural. The Twilight Saga is beautiful, Russovoir doesn't mean to mislead, it's just that, it's always a delight to be acquainted with something new, in a different angle; this time, in favor of men.

A woman is a witch (technically, a castor), and the man is no more human than the mundanity of where he lives. Excitingly, Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich) is no more interesting than the books he reads, his southern accent, his sense of humor - in short, just being himself. All men will benefit from his character, Russovoir supposes. The only thing attractive about his character that draws women to fancy, and this time it's doable (but usually it's more of an attitude), is his tenacity for a woman. It's frankly what kept the film going, really.

"You are not going dark and you're not losing me!"

A revealing perspective of existing yet unrealized human attributes from [an] entity/entities closer, yet not similar to a human being, and although while Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert) is of the supernatural, and in ominous dilemma to latterly understand, it's a bewitching reminder to us, the audience (maybe for some, otherwise).

Powerful, not solely because it involves witches, Beautiful Creatures is appropriately titled. Humans and witches are not too far different. Okay, maybe just in each other. But hey, opposites attract, yes? Yes.

Love is Lust.

Predominantly annoyed, Russovoir basks in the consolation that Anna Karenina is a circa 1870 novel that which explained the overused story line. Diane Lane's Unfaithful (2002) comes into mind as invasive as what medical or psychological disease Anna Karenina (Keira Knightley) has. Yet what's bothering Russovoir is for the same reason it's a circa 1870 novel. One would think society has become what it is now because of degenerating subtleties from mediums not invented then. We, well for some of us at least, now understand that the carnal desire - daresay cravings - is as old as time. Had the cavemen had a pen and paper, one precocious savage would've written Uuuuoahhle (Cravewoman).

Cinematography, the necessary distraction from bitch Anna's PMSing, is experimentally artful. Costume design was stunningly lavish as to be curious and imagine how much time do they spend on undressing. Surely enough time for Anna to think really carefully of what she's brought herself into. And what's bothering Russovoir - aggravatingly! - was that someone had readily and lovingly took responsibility of her mess, then she goes on spilling her blood on the floor. Define madness.

"I was feeding off your love."

Let me ask, my chaste reader, is it worth it to ruin a turning decade of marriage for the desire of the flesh? A turning decade of marriage conceived in the eyes of God, bonded once so strongly with the birth and raising of a child? Suppose all things being equal that both men could provide anything one's heart's desire, which has more weight?

"You don't ask why in love."

The problem with Aaron Johnson (Count Vronsky) is: nothing. Russovoir knows, well, discretion aside, Johnson is only the perfect, as to be convincing, actor for the role because he embodies the character in real life. Depending on your level of patronage, a scattered few of us know that he's married (and going strong) to 45-year old, English filmmaker Sam Taylor-Wood. The chap's only 22. In college, he's classified as a cougar hunter; in high school a stud; in elementary - what, you didn't know? - we have a word for that too - pedophilia.

Kidding aside, Aaron Johnson is a unique actor and should only be in unique roles of which Kick Ass (2010) is not one of them. Russovoir basks in the consolation that he simply wanted to experiment on his quirky side; it worked, Kick Ass had positive reviews; he earned nominations. Yet no money in the world can change how Russovoir sees him. He's like Colin Firth (The King's Speech, 2010): an actor whose roles are of considerable value that anyone than him in his films is unimaginable. Exhibit A: Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging (2008).

Movie Recommendation Time: Sassy Pants.

Don't you just hate it when your parents still choose to believe and keep the umbilical cord that chokes you with their antiquated and draconian say-so's? Understandably, one's formative years, yes, tighten, contrive a knot along the cord - by all means - because your love and attention are most crucial to a child's disposition. But the minute a child knows what he/she wants, how things should and shouldn't be, as a parent, not exactly letting go but, bestow the key to your cord, and let them keep it until they decide to come back.

But that's just Russovoir and his paternal inclinations because in Sassy Pants, one divorcee, emotionally-stricken from a wayward marriage, has been raising her teenagers, including college bound Bethany Pruitt (Ashley Rickards), within the reach of her mailbox. In fact, she's a high school graduate of her mother's home schooling! If only Bethany can lick a stamp onto herself and ship off to San Fransisco, where her dreams await; what she can do, unfortunately and for the meantime, is to be patient; that, and running away, of course.

"Do you know what they say about girls who play? They pay."

To run away, supposedly, is to flaunt one's sassy pants. Impudence. But that's just really from the parents' perspective. Remember the umbilical cord analogy? June Pruitt (Anna Gunn) shackled her daughter with it that, inquisitive Bethany had to saw off her leg to discover the world she was shut off from. It's not about being rebellious nor uncaring, rather, it's about possibly cutting the cord when already there's abundance of a mother's love to sustain for college.

 

Don't Kiss DENZEL.

Ambivalence where which sympathy, annoyance, and a rush of gentleness surged in Russovoir's head like an unpressurized cabin, Flight, ultimately was a smooth landing. It was touching because what makes us human was straightforwardly, as it was gripping, shown. From a unique perspective, one man is basically, naturally good, but unfortunately, is controlled by an unattended, thus insidious medical condition.

Alcoholism, as declared by the American Medical Association (AMA), is an illness, further classified as a disease from either psychiatric or medical prognosis. Alcohol mainly affects the brain, its processes and reflexes in which the chemical imbalance distorts judgement. But surely you already know that. Had you known all this time but refuse to believe? Now, that's another story. If you're not careful, you'll find yourself manning a plane and don't know shit about inverting it!

"You gave me a broken plane."

Calm down bro, you're drunk.

We all have our little temptations in life. We need to sin a little to live a little, Russovoir totally gets that. Personally, Russovoir's only vice is Hollywood movies. He spends so much money buying original DVDs, and self-indulgently strict amount of time on premiere nights. Trust his Mom has had enough of this madness to be eventually, simply lenient about it. It does can really destroy relationships, this addiction in cinema, so you can just imagine how alcohol, among many vices, destroys a person. Worst if you deny, lie about their consuming existence on you; that can perhaps ruin you. Lucky for Captain William Whitaker, neither was it predominantly self-inducing nor too late. But tell me, what if it will be? Accept, Reset, Precept your life now.

Take a Peek from his Rear Window.

Where is Anthony Hopkins? That department did a very good job in prosthetics and cosmetics as much as everyone else iconic like Margaret Thatcher (Meryl Streep), Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams), maybe even throw in the most iconic, Jesus Christ (Jim Caviezel). Russovoir was sent straight to the glory days of Alfred Hitchcock. Again, it comes naturally to Hollywood but, it infallibly awes.

Juxtaposition of Hitchcocks

Just like the photo above, we only come to know of Hitchcock superficially. Or at least this generation. And maybe the one before this. This is why presumably the biography had to be filmed; to have a cinematic scope of why and how such a powerhouse is a cultural icon; that although while his films precedes him, he's still yet just a man.

Immediately, the story sucked Russovoir in an uninterrupted silence. Of the lambs. Ha! Sorry, it was right there. If you were a little bit like Russovoir, it's always fascinating to know and understand - it's a privilege - the lives of the influential, of the writers of history. At some point, we got to know of Alfred Hitchcock, and by we Russovoir means the movie aficionados. Hitchcock invented suspense. The film was clear in manifesting the passion (close to obsession) he had in the making of his make-it-or-break-it film Psycho (1960). The aforementioned fed Hitchcock the desired screams long after you realize you now find yourself afraid instead, he had scared love away.

"You're my only Hitchcock blonde."

Truly, behind every great man, there is a great woman.

Here, she is Alma Reville (Helen Mirren).

The Anatomy of Warm Bodies

That was one hell of a storyline.

Here, Russovoir will right away help you where Warm Bodies stand. Daybreakers (2011), have you seen it? That's about the film's resolve. Mythological personalities took an infectious impact for the longest time since The Twilight Saga. They wanted or dare say, enforce their versions of what vampires, zombies, and werewolves should be; a cinematic defiance to the earlier takes. It has been such a trend that they have produced so evidently many, in films and TV series. Yet no fangs bite the same. Each film, a handful of them to be conservative, has a unique approach to the matter. Warm Bodies is yet again.

Teresa Palmer has been irregularly followed by Russovoir from her small roles, first thought her beauty resembles Kristen Stewart, but with an edge, in Bedtime Stories (2008). She might not be in the posters of the films she is in, yet the moment one realizes she's actually there, felt especially in those trailers, she captivates as one anticipates these premieres. Talent and beauty are almost inseparable with which draw the people to watch an actor's films. Trust that her performance, however farce a plot, is a significant milestone to her promising career. Call it a palmer-nition.

"Corpses don't bleed!"

That was one hell of a storyline, Russovoir can't help repeating. It was absurd but, for an acclaimed novel and you didn't like it, the only logical reason for such antipathy is crossed arms to the innovative and bordering weird. Extremely unorthodox is the best description for the film that which needs a mindset like a jar of water and oil; whereby while one keeps the general truth of what a zombie should be, there should be a space for the pan-fried romance.