Julia Roberts – Seven Inches of Your Time https://seveninchesofyourtime.com Mon, 01 Jan 2018 01:49:45 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.11 Movie Drinking Games: “Hook” Edition https://seveninchesofyourtime.com/movie-drinking-games-hook-edition/ https://seveninchesofyourtime.com/movie-drinking-games-hook-edition/#comments Fri, 07 Mar 2014 01:21:59 +0000 http://seveninchesofyourtime.com/?p=808 Get hard]]> hook2

For many in my generation, HOOK is a seminal film, perhaps outstripping even Disney’s original animated tale PETER PAN (1953). To film experts, it’s mostly reviled, or a love/hate affair. When you grew up in the 90’s (or consuming its many delectable treats), it’s hard to fathom anyone ever having a negative word to say about HOOK, but like fairies, they do exist. It’s got a 31% on Rotten Tomatoes after all, and is considered one of Steven Spielberg’s biggest duds.

But for many of us, the Academy can keep SCHINDLER’S LIST; we’ll be too busy re-watching HOOK all over again, crowing and Ru-Fi-Oh-ing to care. The film was envisioned as a sequel to J.M. Barrie’s PETER AND WENDY, positing Peter Pan after he’s all grown up and forgotten the thrills of Neverland, and his most fearsome nemesis: Captain Hook. The script came from James V. Hart and Malia Scotch Marmo, which I originally only included because Malia Scotch Marmo is an awesome name. She also co-adapted Michael Crichton’s JURASSIC PARK with David Koepp, so clearly she has some chops. James V. Hart followed up HOOK with his own children’s book in 2005 called CAPT. HOOK: THE ADVENTURES OF A NOTORIOUS YOUTH, a prequel about the crocodile fearing Captain’s adolescence. He also wrote MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND, so clearly he loves pirates, and is a genius (SAHARA, AUGUST RUSH and EPIC not withstanding). I’d say that the world of Peter Pan is all he’s got, but he also wrote CONTACT and BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA and is far more successful than I’ll ever be.

HOOK is pretty ridiculous; and it only gets crazier the older the movie gets. Robin Williams, the hairiest man alive, plays a grown up Peter Pan. He’s no longer fun or a kid, so in many ways, the mission is for Peter to become a lot like the character in JACK, when Robin Williams is a 5th grader in a 40 year old Robin Williams body and banging Jennifer Lopez (no wonder that movie is so friggin’ disturbing). Dustin Hoffman as a Rollie Fingers-like mustachioed Hook (because David Bowie turned the role down) who says lines like “To a ten year old, I’m huge” (which is a. creepy and b. hilarious since Dustin Hoffman is about 4 feet tall)? Julie Roberts as Tink? Glenn Close foreshadowed her Oscar nominated role as Albert Knobbs (in the aptly titled film ALBERT KNOBBS) as the “pirate shut in the chest with a scorpion.” A heavily made up Maggie Smith was Granny Wendy…who now kinda looks like what Maggie Smith looks like today (if she was in GANGI). It even has (the) Phil Collins as Inspector Good, and he doesn’t even break out into song. For all of these reasons and more (there’s a reason every single pop song has a line longing to be “forever young”), HOOK is a perfect nostalgic drinking game. And, since we can’t prevent ourselves from getting older by following the second star on the right, straight on till morning, at least when we drink enough, we can revert back to being a stupid, helpless child for a night. It’s just what J.M. Barrie would’ve wanted.

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DRINKING GAME RULES: “Drink At Home, Jack” Edition

1. Drink every time you see a watch or a clock. Each separate watch/clock counts. I’d double it for the Crocodile Clock Tower (or, Croctower).

2. Have a sip whenever someone screams “Bangarang”! This could include those in the audience cheering on the Lost Boys.

3. Drink if anyone in the room mistakenly thinks Robin Williams’ character is named Peter Panning (so I guess keep this rule a secret). No, it’s hilariously Peter Banning. Subtle.

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4. “Looky looky, I got Hoochie”: Drink for every Rufio chant. If you’re not crying when he wishes Peter Pan was his father, you’re either stone-hearted, or realized Robin Williams was a terrible Dad throughout the entire film. Also, watch this if you wanna get sad about Dante Basco’s “career”:

5. Take a sip and exalt in happiness and glory whenever Raushan Hammond’s Thud Butt smiles. Thud Butt’s smile is one of the purest pleasures in life.

6. Waterfall for however long Thud Butt is in “bowling ball” mode.

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7. Drink any time a character crows.

8. Finish your drink whenever a fairy dies.

9. Drink for every over-the-top (Peter’s afraid of flying!) to subtle (check out his immense shadow when he’s about to blow up at his kids) reference to Peter Pan and his Neverland origins.

10. Drink when you realize Gwyneth freaking Paltrow is young Wendy. There’s probably a joke in here somewhere in the fact that she plays a young Queen Elizabeth and Dame Maggie Smith…is British and not Dame Judi Dench.

11. Take a sip every time Robin Williams brandishes his super old and dated cell phone.

12. Drink every time Hook says “Run home, Jack.”

13. This isn’t a rule, but when we learn that Peter Pan’s origin story involves his parents leaving him in a bundle floating on the river…it’s clear that in an alternate universe, when Peter Pan grows up, he becomes THE PENGUIN!

Alright, that’s all for now. Until the inevitable RUFIO movie that absolutely needs to happen, and would break box office records if so (or at least it would if James Cameron was directing it in the ENTOURAGE movie).

LOSE YOUR MARBLES VERSION: Drink every time someone says Hook. Seriously, don’t try this at home, or anywhere, or you’ll be saying Toodles to your sanity, and the cleanliness of your carpet.

EXPERT VERSION: Don’t buy any beer at all, and just “imagine” there is booze in front of you. If you pull this off, you’re either God, or a psychopath. I want you at my party either way.

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Not So Random Power Rankings: The Oscars https://seveninchesofyourtime.com/not-so-random-power-rankings-oscars/ https://seveninchesofyourtime.com/not-so-random-power-rankings-oscars/#respond Sun, 02 Mar 2014 02:23:51 +0000 http://seveninchesofyourtime.com/?p=743 Get hard]]> Don’t run away. This isn’t another in a long line of Oscars prediction columns where we pretend we know the bizarre criteria in which voters select winners (I like to think it somehow involves the infallible logic, belied by the weights & pulley system, found in Monty Python). No, this post is much worse than that: power rankings of the best films and performances, organized by category.

Thanks to a few Hollywood screeners, a lot of gift cards and unemploymentmy independent nature, I’ve never watched more Oscar nominated films than this year (and I’ll pretend that matters). In this age of scrutiny, controversy and Twitter, every movie has been hated on, drug through the mud or found wanting (some more deservedly than others). In fact, each movie’s director, producers, stars, and DP’s all likely feel (DP’d) a lot like Rufus Sewell’s character at the end of (best movie of all-time contender) A KNIGHT’S TALE right now:

But for a few minutes, can we check our attitudes at the door, pump the brakes on our eternal desire to make callous judgments without knowing what the fuck we’re talking about, and just talk about the movies themselves? Can we be a mindless drone in THE LEGO MOVIE (here’s one prediction: Best Animated Film winner, 2015) and accept that everything is indeed, awesome, and relish in the fact that this was one of the best years for films in recent memory (says someone every year), and dig that people get so heated up about movies? Sit back, pop open the Andre, and I promise, I won’t say awesome again for the entirety of this post.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

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5. Julia Roberts, AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY: I almost feel bad for Julia (and her painfully obvious crowns in that awesome photo), and every other incredible actor (Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Ewan MacGregor, Benedict Cumberbatch, Sam Shepard, Margo Martindale, Abigail Breslin and whatever Juliette Lewis is) that somehow got roped into the hate-filled, manipulative, WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? wannabe that is AUGUST: somewhere in Oklahoma. But then I remember how unfortunate a movie-going experience the film was, and I can’t help but be mad at them. Julia Roberts was probably the best of the bunch in a role that potentially foreshadows the next act of her career in movies (should she choose to accept it) as a real, approachable, tortured (but no less pretty) woman, finding herself back where she started (after the OCEANS movies, preggers and EAT PRAY YUCK), as the every-woman.

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4. Sally Hawkins, BLUE JASMINE: The next four are fairly interchangeable (because they’re all terrific), but I’ll snub Sally Hawkins just like Cate Blanchett’s Jasmine continually snubs Hawkins’ Ginger. BLUE JASMINE is an unholy cocktail of a bunch of awful people (kinda like AUGUST and nigh every other movie that came out this year), and while Ginger screws up just as often as any of them, and you’re constantly wondering why she puts up with the mess that is Jasmine, overbearing bf Chili (Bobby Canavale, future Oscar winner in 2018) and how she keeps kids, boyfriends and a working class job together, but you never doubt how real this character is. It could’ve been a caricature, but instead, she’s heartbreaking. When Louis C.K. even treats you like shit, it’s time for a good cry.

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3. June Squibb, NEBRASKA: I love June Squibb to death in Alexander Payne’s underrated NEBRASKA. Squibb is hilarious as the cranky, tough-as-hell firecracker of an 80 year old housewife, and the idea that the scene where she flashes her knickers at former would-be flames at the cemetery could be HER Oscar clip is proof that the world rules in some respect. But, the thing is, any 84 year old woman supplied with her lines would get buzz because of how startling and refreshing an image it is to see on screen. But June’s charisma and scene stealing presence is all her own.

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2. Lupita Nyong’o, 12 YEARS A SLAVE: And now I regret doing rankings entirely, because things like this will happen, where I automatically become an asshole. Probably one of the cooler stories that is impossible to get tired of is Lupita Nyong’o’s casting and how she got discovered for Patsey. She was absolutely fearless and mined new depths of sorrow, and like the movie as a whole, makes you want to kill yourself. For art.

1. Jennifer Lawrence, AMERICAN HUSTLE: You either loved or hated or didn’t get AMERICAN HUSTLE, but anyone who saw it HAD to be in awe of whatever the fuck J-Law was doing on screen. In my textual fellatio/review for PopInsomniacs, this is what I said about her performance as the lunatic Rosalyn:

“Jennifer Lawrence breaks acting. She summons new depths of sheer insanity…she’s manipulative, sexy, unpredictable, dangerously naive and stupid. I found myself giggling with glee at each of her scenes, or the opposite: just speechless and giddy with her surely Oscar nominated performance. The only thing scarier than her character is how talented this woman is, and she’s still just 23 years old. Watch her song-and-dance routine to Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” and try to keep your head from exploding.”

Without question, watching her performance was the most fun I had a movie theater in 2013, and sometimes, I like enjoying myself at the movies.

NEXT: Best Supporting Actor, ranked in order of attractiveness.

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