Win A Signed Poster from the Star of In a World

PartnersHub and Roadside Attractions have teamed up to promote Lake Bell's In a World and to also award a lucky reader a signed poster from the star/writer/director herself!

In this hilarious and heart-felt new film, In A World... Lake Bell (No Strings Attached, “Children’s Hospital”) stars as a struggling vocal coach who strikes it big in the cutthroat world of movie-trailer voiceovers, only to find herself in direct competition with the industry’s reigning king—her father!

Want to win? Simply take the movie trailer voiceover quiz in the app above and post your score (and email if possible) in the comments below. Scores will be tallied and the winner will be announced on August 24th.

U.S. residents only please.

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Review: Elysium

The summer movie season, in this day and age, is almost strictly reserved for rock 'em, sock 'em superheroes, super spies and giant robots and monsters. Escapism is in full swing during these months and audiences generally reward those pictures that put a smile on their face as they exit the theatre.

Neill Blomkamp is no stranger to this season (his debut film District 9 was also a summer release) but where he differs from the action crowd is a tendency to lean toward the subversive. District 9 was an example of dropping some real-world truths into the cineplex and introducing viewpoints typically not seen in a blockbuster.

Earth in the year 2154 is a world made up of favelas and a lack of resources, the wealthiest citizens have left and inhabit a station above the Earth where overpopulation, hunger and sickness is no longer an issue. With the technological innovation of medpods present on Elysium, broken bones are mended immediately and cancer can be waved away in seconds. Citizens there are virtually immortal.

Such luxuries are vied after by people like Max DeMarco (Matt Damon) who we meet as an impoverished child reaching toward a paradise he could never afford to live in. Flash forward a twenty or so years, and the boy is now a weary ex-con, who no longer rages against the machine. His only opportunity to vent lies in trying to shoot the breeze with robotic police and parole officers, who have a failing in humor or sarcasm. For put upon Earth dwellers like Max the only recourse available to leave Earth is a hacker (Wagner Moura) named Spider with few qualms about stealing and kidnapping to get others to Elysium.

Opposing those seeking a reprieve are Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) and her private mercenary Kruger (a maniacally unhinged Sharlto Copley). Delacourt is the head of Homeland security on Elysium, tasked with protecting the space station in all the ways that would be deemed unacceptable to others, especially Elysium leadership. Kruger renders these services personally for Secretary Delacourt and takes great delight in doing so.

Max refuses Julio (Diego Luna) and Spider's initial offer to earn some cash moonlighting as a car thief, but after he is doomed to death by a mishap in the workplace, Spider is his last chance to get to Elysium and to one of the medpods that could be his salvation. That chance? It comes by kidnapping the CEO of Armadyne, the company that services Elysium.

What follows afterward will be familiar to those who watched District 9: careful world building that loses itself in the high-speed chase between Max and Kruger.

Matt Damon and Sharlto Copley ground the proceedings with physicality while both operating from the opposite spectrum of humanity. Damon distances himself from his Bourne character here by falling prey to the fears and selfishness that don't inhibit other template action characters. Copley, known mostly for his roles as Wikus and Murdock (The A-Team), creates a vicious chracter in Kruger, one whose psychotic nature gives Max a very frightening obstacle.

The degree of world building that takes place in Elysium is staggering, District 9 was very impressive for its budget, but Elysium shows off what a talented filmmaker can do with a bigger budget. The panicked nature of living in a slowly dying, overpopulated planet blends seemlessly with the surveillance state that is Earth in the twenty-second century. It's a lived in Los Angeles that doesn't resort to that over-saturated cityscape of most sci-fi films.

However, a movie is only as good as its flaws allow it to be and there are some incongruities as the third act rolls out. The security on the habitat consists of gigantic holes that should not be there in order for Max to proceed through his journey. Robots are on the spot immediately to throw poor people out of med pods, but when firefights break out later, they are nowhere to be found. Other characters find themselves making spontaneous changes of heart that don't correlate with any prior scenes.

Given those issues, the overall product and positive impressions regarding all other aspects of Elysium are more than enough to recommend Blomkamp's sophomore effort. Original material like this should be rewarded.

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Breaking Bad Series Primer

The second half of the fifth season of Breaking Bad premiered on Sunday night and for those of you who aren't in the know, it's not too late to catch up before one of television's best series concludes. Here is everything you need to know before catching the next episode of Breaking Bad on AMC.

Walter White (Bryan Cranston) started in life as a good man: a schoolteacher with a wife and son who love him dearly. To make ends meet he works part-time at a car wash for a man who treats him like garbage. Then a cancer diagnosis changes his whole existence. He has lung cancer and not much time left.

Suddenly, the unremarkable life Walt led isn't enough anymore. He can't leave his pregnant wife and son with the debts that are bound to plague them with a stage four cancer diagnosis. In the hopes of leaving his family with something--anything--he teams up with former student and current burnout Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). Jesse knows the business of meth, Walt knows the chemistry. They have to be careful though, Walt's brother-in-law Hank is a DEA agent, so the duo cook in secret in an RV out in the wilderness.

Their start is an mixed one: the first drug deal is a success, but ends with two dead and a hole in Jesse's house. To protect himself from the dangers of the meth market and Tuco, Walt creates a persona: Heisenberg. Still, Heisenberg isn't enough to scare off men like Tuco. Walt and Jesse find themselves kidnapped by Tuco and taken to a home in desert, presumably to be murdered. They escape that situation by the skin of their teeth and an appearance by Hank, who kills Tuco.

Of course that disappearance needs an explanation, so Walt fakes a nervous breakdown and Jesse talks his way out of a police interrogation room. With Tuco out of the way, Albuquerque is theirs for the taking. A new influx of cash prompts them the two to hire ambulance chaser, Saul Goodman.

Roses aren't all that blooms for Walt and a new set of challenges spring up. Jesse's new relationship with a new girlfriend prompts him and Walt to part ways after a financial disagreement. Jane takes it upon herself to blackmail Walt and he eventually gives in, but Walt feels obligated to make sure the money goes to Jesse. Walt returns to the apartment to discover that they have taken heroin again and this time Jane chokes to death right before Walt's eyes.  Paralyzed by indecision, Walt could save her, but Jane could also send Walt to prison for a long time. Walt never tells Jesse her death wasn't his fault, and Jesse falls into a deep depression blaming himself.

To boot, Skyler discovers that Walt is a drug dealer through his second cell phone and she tells him she wants a divorce. After she leaves the house, Walt witnesses a large explosion in the sky.  Jane's father, an air traffic controller, distraught by his daughter's death mistakenly directed two planes into one another and the wreckage rains upon Walt's home.

The aftermath of all that has transpired has worn on Walt: his family has left him, Jesse is no longer as close as he once was, and Jane's death is a guilt he has to shoulder alone. The 737 carnage rained down on him literally and his role in that disaster is quickly becoming a harder one to distinguish. Walt may only manufacture crystal meth, but his cold-hearted rationalization in the ordeal is a reach for certain. The big dilemma for viewers throughout the series is how much can one enjoy a show where almost all of the characters are morally reprehensible?

The third season opens with a simple premise - death is coming for Walt. Two identical twins, nameless for a majority of the season, make their march across Mexico into Albuquerque with as many casualties as possible. Even innocent bystanders suffer brutal deaths as exhibited when they blow up an entire caravan of immigrants traveling to the states just because one talkative teen recognized their boots. The twins are undoubtedly used as an example of the horrifying violence taking place in the Tijuana drug wars. Driven by a single purpose - killing Walter - the two wait in plain sight only to be called off by Gustavo Fring in a move that has horrific reverberations throughout the season.

Gustavo Fring runs a large meth operations behind his fast food chicken business and, thanks to the beckoning of Goodman, Walt is convinced to quit playing small potatoes and cook enough so that they can sell to Fring. Gus is another plateau for Walt to reach. The quiet man exudes a stone-cold authority that forces Walt to swallow his pride. He can calmy waltz into work at the chicken fast food joint in the morning and ,with no qualms at all, order the death of his competitors at night before going to bed. He earns the majority of the profits put forth from the crystal meth trade, but does not bloody himself in the process. He is the banality of crime that is such a dangerous step in the evolution of the drug trade.

Jesse and Walt's relationship shifts from a father-son bond to one at odds over the course of the show. When Walt tries to warn him that he can't protect them both any longer Jesse can only respond with indifference. How long Walt and Jesse can work together again after Gus became involved in their operation is anyone's guess. Jesse seemed like a tragic figure at the beginning at the season pining for his dead girlfriend Jane, but it doesn't take long for him to fall under Saul's spell to start cooking again (the most disgusting scene of the season is when he uses the recovery sessions to put out his product). Walt insists to himself that, "he can't be the bad guy" but Jesse seems to revel in it. After being informed by Gus that he is only kept alive by Walt's wishes, Jesse is told and to keep peace between himself and the dealers. Jesse replies with an indignant "No." This is the first time this season that someone has shown a backbone against Gus, and Jesse refuses to let the dealers continue to have children do their business. A deal is struck and the issue is resolved, or so we think.

Andrea (Jesse's new girlfriend) receives a call from her grandmother and her son's death is a clear signal that Gus intervened. Jesse, distraught after the boy's death decides to end his long sobriety streak and to take justice into his own hands. Pistol cocked, he attempts to get rid of these bastards personally. Unfortunately, the dealers know he is coming and are waiting for him. When it looks like Jesse is a goner Walt comes rampaging through in his Aztec mowing down the one dealer shooting the other in the head. Although Walt never wanted to be the bad guy, he is completely consumed by Heisenberg now.

Gus is furious that Walt had his dealers killed and rehires Gale, implying that Jesse and Walt will be killed once he learns their process. Convinced that Walt will to be too valuable to be killed if he is the only high quality cook, he persuades Jesse to kill Gale.

The finale of season three conflicts beautifully with the way Walt looked at the beginning of the season. Walt and Skyler, looking considerably younger, touring a house for sale. Skyler seems insistent that this house should be theirs, but Walt is hesitant. They could aim so much higher than this "fixer-upper". The hope that Walt used to possess in his heart is gone and you can see it in his face. Walt stands idly by the pool he once obsessively kept clean and abruptly decides to burn the money on a gas grill. Within seconds he panics and shoves the grill - cash and all - into the pool to save it. Walt was a conflicted man then. That is not the case anymore.

Originally, Walt had only become a meth manufacturer to regain control of his existence and to set aside money for the inevitable point when he would no longer be around to support his family. In an effort to create a more financially stable future for Skyler, Walt Jr. and his infant daughter he put himself in shackles again - only instead of fate being his master, it is simply one man.

Held hostage in the lab, Walt and Jesse await Gus's decision following Gale's death. Gus promptly arrives and, in silence, dresses into lab gear and slits the throat of one of his crew members. Gus leaves the body for Walt to dispose of and business returns to usual. Skyler and Walt buy a carwash to launder their profits and he moves back home. Jesse falls back on drugs and parties and Hank begins investigating Gus for Gale's murder. Gus is not one to let go of his empire that he has built, so he turns on Walt and his family.

Thinking he can circumvent Walt out of his business, Gus brings Jesse to Mexico to see if he can replicate Walt's methods. While there, Gus finishes some old business and wipes out an entire cartel in Mexico with poisoned drinks, his bodyguard Mike is injured in the following shootout and he and Jesse hideout in Mexico.

Later on, Walt is captured, blindfold and brought to the desert where Gus tells Walt he is fired and that he'll murder Hank and if Walt intervenes, he'll kill Skyler and the children.  A panicked Walt rushes home to find that there's not enough money in the crawlspace to disappear, Skyler gave the money to her old boss, Ted, so he could pay back the IRS and she could avoid an audit.

With disaster eminent, Skyler and the kids go into DEA protection with Hank and Marie and Andrea's son, Brock, is rushed to the hospital. Jesse is arrested under suspicion for poisoning the boy and when Jesse finds the ricin cigarette missing (originally intended to kill Gus), he assumes Walt intended on killing the boy.  Jesse races to Walt's house ready to kill him, but Walt convinces him that Gus was behind the poisoning.  The two devise a plan to rig Gus' car with explosives, but before Walt can detonate the bomb Gus suspects something is wrong and walks away.

Left with no other alternative, Walt visits Tuco's uncle Hector, who hates Walt with a passion for his nephew's death, yet his intense hatred for Gus manages to convince the old man to help kill the druglord. After Hector leads Hank on a DEA goose chase, Gus comes in, furious that he spoke with the authorities. Ringing his bell, Hector sets off a crudely made bomb and blows up the wing of the nursing home talking Gus with him. Jesse and Walt torch the lab under that Gus provided them and, with that, they are in the clear.

With Gus out of the picture and Mike joining Walt and Jesse, the sky is looking bluer than Walt's crystal. But what started out as a means to an end has turned into a inherent greed, nothing will ever be enough for Heisenberg to leave the game. The events afterward unfold with Walt convincing himself that all of the menace is gone from their equation, that everything can continue free of complications. That a man with his recent past could think that is almost enough to make the viewer wonder if Walt is deluding himself or everyone around him.

Not content with simply being the largest meth operation in the West Coast, Walt uses a connection of Mike's to go global. Jesse and Mike are hesitant, this new associate could make them empire-builders, but he also comes with a much larger risk: there is no one to blame if the Feds figure it all out. It all lands square on their shoulders. Jesse drops out completely and when Mike wants to be bought out, Walt becomes paranoid, any number of loose ends could send his way of life crashing down. Once again, Walt becomes the danger who knocks on the door and he send Mike to an early grave before a DEA investigation sends him to prison.

Jesse is replaced by an apprentice with no scruples and Walt is finally complacent with his lot in life. Millions come pouring in from his overseas meth trade and Walt can claim to be the King that his ego has told him he was for so long. Noting that, he leaves the business for good.

Seemingly, everything is over. Walt is out clean and he and Skyler have enough to live comfortably without working ever again. Last year's finale ends with Walt, Skyler, Marie, Hank and the children sitting and enjoying a pleasant meal together. Maybe they really will just start over again. Any hopes of that are dashed as Hank discovers a misplaced copy of a Walt Whitman novel that implicates Walt as the chemist behind Gale's murder. Now the house of cards that Walt has built is crumbling upon itself. Hank, is just beginning to uncover the many layers of what was Gustavo Fring's and now Walt's drug enterprise.

The last image we see of Walt, he is eating alone at a Denny's celebrating a birthday he never anticipated living to see. There is no Skyler or Walt Jr. or daughter to comfort him, only a presence that scares him enough to purchase a small armory that he stores in a car in the parking lot. Where Walt goes from here is a mystery, but Hank is definitely after him, as is a Czech meth ring. How can this end without bloodshed?

By dispatching Tuco, Jane, Gale, Gus, and Mike, Walt shreds a little more of his humanity with each new notch on the wall of bodies. I sit writing this and still find it hard to depict Walt as evil. Whether that will ever change is beyond me. It took four seasons for Walter White to get here and as you sit watching a man doomed to fall to an inoperable tumor you root for him. From his first run-in against a crazed drug dealer in Tuco, to a showdown against a benignly sadistic corporate man in Gus Fring. After all he is only providing for his family. What harm is there in that?

Do you remember the beginning of season one five years ago? When a drugged-out loser named Jesse told Walter that you can't "break bad," well he was wrong. The little decisions along the way have proven most instrumental in defining a man in such stark contrasts. We might have agreed with some of the choices Walt has made, but the fact is Walt is a changed man. When he didn't turn over a sleeping Jane, when he found himself choosing between Jesse and Gale, when he found no other way to make Jesse change his mind about Gus. These are all his conscious decisions. Being bad isn't a product of your environment, genetics, or attitude, it's about choices.

You can't "break bad," but you can sure as hell not be good. The irony of Breaking Bad is that if Walt had died he would have been better off than he is now. The tragedy is he didn't. 

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The Works of Roger Deakins

Perhaps the greatest living cinematographer, Roger Deakins has been working in Hollywood for the better part of forty years. Cinematographers tend not to have a great deal of name recognition, but his filmography speaks for itself. Chances are if a shot in a movie remains particularly memorable, Roger Deakins was behind it.

His work? The Shawshank Redemption, Fargo, Kundun, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Jarhead, The Man Who Wasn't There, No Country for Old Men, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Revolutionary Road, The Reader, True Grit and Skyfall. And those are just the films he received an Academy Award nod for.

People are so impressed with Deakins' abilities, his announcement that he would no longer be working on celluloid after True Grit was met with disappointment. Some saw it as a small death of cinema that a leading cinematographer would stop using film. Flash forward two years and we have his remarkable digital work on Skyfall, the picture that earned his tenth nomination.

Deakins' work with digital effects has been widely praised, but he knows better than to rely on that crutch. "You've got to know why you’re doing it, it’s got to be for a reason within the story, and to further the story. There’s nothing worse than an ostentatious shot.” And there's nothing ostentatious about his work. The most exquisite sequence of Assassination of Jesse James required no special effects, just the natural light of a train illuminating the West's largest mythic character.

As impressive as his work has been, Roger Deakins has yet to receive cinema's greatest honor in the form of an Academy Award. Deakins has been in the industry since the mid 70s and has ten Academy nominations to his name, yet, zero victories.

On the surface, 2007 appeared to be his year. He lensed for both No Country for Old Men and The Assassination of Jesse James, the Academy Award would have to be his. Well, that didn't happen. Votes were split among the two films and Robert Elswit wound up winning for There Will Be Blood. 2012 also looked like a good shot with his universally-praised work in Skyfall, but Mr. Deakins didn't carry home the trophy that year. It will happen... eventually. Oscar is an foregone conclusion for a man of his talent.

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The Disappearance of the Action Star

Every once in a while there will be a murmur through theatre lobbies, "what happened to action stars?" It is a legitimate question and one that has been offered more and more. Over the years there has always been a marquee star of the action genre, but there is a noticeable absence at the moment. Jason Statham is the closest we have to an action star now, but his star burns nowhere near as brightly as the action icons of the 80s, men like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Jean Claude Van Damme, who dominated the cinematic landscape for years without anyone questioning their status.

So what changed?

Read more at GotchaMovies!

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Not Your Average Rom-Com

Romantic comedies are a studio-designed template in this day and age. The formula works, so it isn't tinkered with often. Boy and girl meet cute, go on some dates, fall in love, make love, and an argument is manufactured in before the last twenty minutes so that they can declare their love for each other once again. Then along comes a picture like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, it took the template, bent the frame, pulled it back through itself and added some science fiction along the way. 

Eternal Sunshine isn't alone though, here are eight other romantic comedies that don't follow the formula. Check out my list on GotchaMovies!

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Review: Only God Forgives

Few films in 2013 have been (or will be) as divisive as Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives, depending on who you ask, the film is either an arthouse masterpiece, or an overly existensial mindfreak. The words critic-proof couldn't be a more perfect descripter.

Drive was Refn's big break-through on the scene for mainstream audiences, but this effort is much closer to the rest of the auteur's filmmography. Those who were big fans of Drive may want to temper their expectations before walking into Only God Forgives, this picture is much closer to something like the acid trip that was Valhalla Rising than the more straight-forward Ryan Gosling vehicle.

Brothers Julian (Ryan Gosling) and Billy (Tom Burke) run a boxing club that serves as a front for a drug operation. Dealing drugs is the least offensive attribute of Billy, who regularly seeks the services of underage prostitutes and beats them for his amusement. One evening, he goes too far and murders one of the prostitutes, drawing the ire of Bangkok police lieutenant Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm). Rather than arrest Billy, Chang allows the father of the murdered girl to exact his own revenge.

Chang is less an officer of the law and more an archetype completely aware of every evil act committed, particularly those done by Julian's clan. He enforces justice, not as we know, but more in the Old Testament sense, taking an eye for an eye, or in Billy's case, a life for a life.

News of Billy's death reaches Billy and Julian's mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) in Florida and before long Crystal comfortably muddles herself in the filth of the locale, hiring thugs to take care of Chang. Outraged that Julian didn't kill his brother's murderer, Crystal chastises Julian for not only not seeking vengeance for his brother's death, but thinking that he deserved it in the first place.

Julian is impotent in all aspects of his life except rage. The only time he feels in control is when he smashes his fist into someone's face. Bound to protect his mother, Crystal's decision to take retribution into her own hands places Julian and Chang on a collision course.

No one would accuse Refn of loading up on plot for Only God Forgives and in many ways, the film serves as the perfect example of an economic narrative. All you need to know about the characters and story is present, but nothing more is given. Dialogue is on the sparse bordering on the verge of becoming a silent picture. Communication is limited to glances, clenched fists and awkward silence.

Refn knows exactly how to visualize Julian’s internal pain, keeping him bathed in neon red and framing him within narrow halls and cages. As impressive as Refn's handling of the film's aesthetic is, there isn't enough on the screen to justify a full-feature. The characters are thinly sketched and the motivations provided are not enough to sustain the visual oddities and dreamlike sequences that pop up.

If the camp of the material isn't immediately obvious, the string of obscenities that flows from Thomas's mouth with regularity will make it clear. Kristin Scott Thomas relishes the role of Crystal in a way that would make Mommie Dearest blush. Thomas doesn't just chew scenery, she swallows it whole. The only problem with that is she is the only actor relishing the opportunity, Gosling and Pansringarm act on a purely physical level, rarely venturing to anything compelling. Such flaws are expected from a grindhouse homage, but Refn lets himself indulge in incredulous moments too often.

An exercise in audience identification, Only God Forgives utilizes violence as a currency like many of Stanley Kubrick's works or those of Martin Scorsese, but Refn has no such social messages present in his film. Coupled with overly-stylized moments that have no meaning and a waste of a very talented leading man, audiences can only hope that Refn and Gosling's third film together will be closer to Drive than Only God Forgives.

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