Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

[caption id="attachment_19946" align="aligncenter" width="478" caption="Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. The Hunger Games Catching Fire Portrait."]

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Katniss Everdeen is representing her District 12 in couture-like glamour.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

is set for a November 2013 release and in a clever stroke of marketing, Lionsgate and Capitol Couture have put out a series of portraits of the film's cast members. The photographs are made to look like oil paintings. Oscar winner [and "it" girl],

Jennifer Lawrence

who play's Hunger Games victor, Katniss Everdeen, wears a gorgeous white, beaded and feathered gown in her Catching Fire portrait.

See more Capitol Couture portraits: Banks, Kravitz, Tucci, Harrelson, Malone.

[caption id="attachment_19951" align="aligncenter" width="478" caption="Lenny Kravitz"]

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[caption id="attachment_19952" align="aligncenter" width="478" caption="Stanley Tucci"]

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[caption id="attachment_19954" align="aligncenter" width="478" caption="Woody Harrelson"]

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[caption id="attachment_19955" align="aligncenter" width="478" caption="Jenna Malone"]

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[caption id="attachment_19956" align="aligncenter" width="478" caption="Elizabeth Banks in McQueen."]

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A Good Day To Die Hard

Director: John Moore

Starring: Bruce Willis and Jai Courtney

The

Die Hard

franchise is one of the most succsessful action series in cinema history.  

Bruce Willis'

sharp tounged New York police officer, John Mclane, has been killing bad guys since 1988.  

Die Hard (

1988),

Die Hard 2

(1990), and

Die Hard With A Vengance

(1995) were all well written, acted, and directed.  The characters were vulnerable and most importantly there was real danger.  

Live Free Or Die Hard

(2007) took the franchise in a new direction.  A

Good Day To Die Hard

has officially  jumped the shark.

After reconnecting with his daughter in the last film, this time around McLane heads off to Russia to spend time with his estranged son played by

Jai Courtney (Jack Reacher).

The action begins with McLane walking in to a violent confrontation between Russian militants and his son.  The opening sequence is a wild car chase through the streets of Moscow with enough property damage to bankrupt any insurance company on the planet.

Die Hard has now been elevated to the ridiculous.  Remember McLane fighting a hover jet with a semi in the last movie?  Bruce Willis does things now that Batman would have trouble pulling off. 

This film is Die Hard in name only.  It could have stared any actor and been given any name and you would not even know the difference.  Director

John Moore (Max Payne)

really missed the mark.  He had the chance to take Die Hard back to its roots, but he chose to make a cartoon.

Jai Courtney is great to look at, and he does a nice job when he is not running from massive explosions.  Willis should be able to play this role in his sleep but at times it looked like he needed a nudge.  I still hold out hope that this series can return to its former glory.  But I would not be shocked if they sent McLane to outer space in the next sequel. If they can't come up with something better than these last two films then it would truly be a good day to let this series die hard.

fashionado

film

score 4 out of 10

fashionado

film

Jamie Clemons

MINK STOLE at Macon Film Festival

I'm headed down to Macon Georgia in the morning for the 8th Annual

Macon Film Festival

(MaGa) happening right now. To say that I'm thrilled about meeting and interviewing

Mink Stole

is a huge understatement. Long before

Hairspray

fame, I was a fan of the

John Waters

goddess... she's right up there with

Divine

. With films like

Polyester

,

Desperate Living, Pecker

and

Serial Mom

I fell under Mink Stole's naughty spell!

fashionado

Warm Bodies Movie Review

Director:

Jonathan Levine

Staring:

Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, and John Malkovich

Have you ever wondered what would happen if a zombie fell in love?  If the answer is yes, you are in luck!  

Warm Bodies

is based on the 2010 novel written by

Isaac Marion.

The setting will sound familiar.  Earth has been decimated by a plague and most of the population is left brain hungry.  A band of survivors have constructed a wall around a city and only venture out for supplies. 

It is on one of these supply runs that Julie, played by

Teresa Palmer (I Am Number Four),

is left behind  after the rest of her group are eaten.  A cute looking zombie, 

Nicholas Hoult (X-Men First Class),

sees her and it is love at first sight. Unable to vocalize his emotions, R, a zombie who only remembers the first letter of his name, 

helps Julie escape.  They hide in an abandoned jet liner waiting for the zombie hoard to disperse.  By spending time with Julie, R begins to recall his humanity and his vocabulary. 

After realizing that R has no intentions of harming her, Julie escapes back to the walled city.  R follows her to the human stronghold in an attempt to reconnect.  In a Romeo and Juliet like manner,  the two are reunited.  Julie's main concern becomes keeping her father, Oscar winner

John Malkovich (Red)

, from putting a bullet through R's head on sight.

This is a light hearted and surprisingly well written zombie romance.  Our culture is in the midst of a zombie zeitgeist.  

The Walking Dead

,

Resident Evil

, and the upcoming

World War Z

are just a few of the mainstream examples.  Zombie comedies are not new.  Remember the hilariously funny

Zombieland

?  The romance twist is what sets Warm Bodies apart.  

Director Jonathan Levine (50/50)

has brought humor to unexpected subjects before.  His previous film 50/50 managed to find humor with cancer. Warm Bodies delivers the goods in a genre that has a hard time with originality.  The central character might be a cold dead body,  but this tale about  a zombie who just wants to love and live again will leave you feeling pretty warm.

fashionado

film

score  : 7 out of 10

fashionado

film :

Jamie Clemons

Zero Dark Thirty

Director: Kathryn Bigelow - Starring: Jessica Chastain, Kyle Chandler, Jason Clarke and Chris Pratt

Zero Dark Thirty

is not an easy movie to watch.   Not because it is a poorly made film but for the emotions that it evokes. The film begins on September 11, 2001. There have been movies since the tragedy that have exploited that horrible day.  We know all too well about the horrors that occurred in New York City, Washington D.C., and in the skies above Pennsylvania.  I do not need to see those events dramatized on the movie screen after watching it live from my TV that day.

Oscar winning director

Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)

begins her masterful film with a simple black screen.  A mix of frantic phone calls from the Twin Towers and  the highjacked airlines are all you hear.  This black screen and those voices are far more dramatic than any footage that could have been shown.

The film focuses on the clandestine operation to track and capture Osama Bin Laden.  Oscar nominee

Jessica Chastain (The Help)

is a young CIA agent whose entire mission is to track and find Bin Laden.  The search takes years and you see and feel the physical and emotional toll played out on screen through her performance.  She battles bureaucracy, a male dominated intelligence community, and the murder of colleagues.  Chastain has already won the Golden Globe for best actress.  Her stunning performance certainly deserves an Oscar next month.

The film spans both the Bush and Obama administrations.  There has been some controversy about the torture depicted in the movie.  Bigelow does not pass any judgement on either administration.  Like a true story teller Bigelow is able to present the material and allows the audience to make up its own mind.

The actual raid on Bin Laden's compound comes at the very end of the two and half hour film.  Famed Seal Team Six's operation is truly heart stopping.  There are no unnecessary beats.  I give much credit to the editors of this film:

Oscar nominee William Goldenberg (Seabiscuit)

and

Oscar nominee Dylan Tichenor (There Will Be Blood)

.  It felt like a shot by shot sequence of  what must have occured that May night in 2011.

Zero Dark Thirty is a difficult film to review.  It feels strange praising artistic achievement that is based on the deaths of over 3000 citizens on September 11, 2001 and countless service men and women who have lost their lives in the decade since.  But this film does honor the sacrifices of our intelligence community and our armed forces.  Bigelow has made a film that is reverent and thoughtful, and the actors' performances are a testament to how serious this subject matter was approached.  A top notch effort and deserving of its five Oscar nominations.

fashionado

film

score 8 out of 10

fashionado

film

Jamie Clemons

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Taken 2

Director: Olivier Megaton

Starring: Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, and Maggie Grace

In 2008, Taken became a huge crowd pleaser and box office smash. With a modest budget of $25 million, it grossed over $200 million world wide.  The movie about a father with a particular set of skills, rescuing his daughter, was a well crafted suspense story.

Director

Olivier Megaton (Colombiana and Transporter 3)

has his highest profile job to date with

Taken 2

.  Action sequels very rarely exceed the original.  The story moves fast in this short action adventure, roughly 90 minutes long.  The formula is exactly the same as the first film:  a trip to an international destination, a kidnapping, and ass kickery.  Regurgitating the successful formula of the original film will make a fast buck, but the quality will certainly diminsh.  Remember how hard you laughed when you first saw

The Hangover

and then didn't laugh at the exact same jokes, told in a different city, in

The Hangover II

?

Oscar nominee

Liam Neeson (Schindler's List and

The Grey

)

does just fine reprising his role but is

fine

the benchmark?   His intensity from the first film is missing the second time around.  

Famke Janssen  (X-Men Parts 1-3)

has an expanded  role as Neeson's ex wife from the first fim.  Neeson and Janssen are  actually the ones taken in part two.  Disappointingly, she is simply the helpless victim waiting to be rescued.  For me, I am turned off by the helpless woman cliche.  

Maggie Grace (Lockout),

the abducted daughter from part one, is actually the highlight in Taken 2. Her character gets to come full circle from victim to hero.  After her parents are kidnapped in Istanbul, it is up to her to assist her dad in rescuing her mother.

The Bourne Supremacy

,

Lethal Weapon 2

, and

Terminator 2

are all examples of sequels that surpassed the original.  Taken 2 will not be joining those ranks.  But for those of you who love this series do not be disheartened.  The door is wide open for Taken 3.  I am a huge fan of Liam Neeson and his films.  I just wasn't taken with this one.

fashionado

film

score 5 out of 10

fashionado

film

Jamie Clemons

End of Watch

Director: David Ayer

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Peña and Anna Kendrick

It may be hard to get excited about another cop movie. Television and film bombard us with the boys in blue, and more often than not the results are less than stellar.   End of Watch is a gritty and dark cop drama that manages to stand apart from the typical Hollywood fare.  The film focuses on two LAPD officers who bite off more than they can chew by unknowingly interfering with a Mexican drug cartel.

Director David Ayer (Street Kings)

is quite comfortable in the cop genre.  He wrote two underwhelming cop dramas

S.W.A.T.

and

Dark Blue

, and the  exceptional Oscar winning

Training Day

.  Ayer's affinity for law enforcement will continue with his next endeavor,

Breacher

,  which  supports the return of

Arnold Schwarzenegger

as a leading man.

Oscar nominee

Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain and The Source Code)

proves why he is one of the top actors of his generation.  A future Oscar win is not an" if" but just a matter of "when" for Gyllenhaal.  There is not a moment of screen time where you do not fully believe that he is an ambitious LAPD officer.  Oscar nominee

Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air and The Twilight Saga)

gives an impressive performance, albeit brief,  as Gyllenhaal’s love interest.  This relationship grounds the movie to a large extent.  The stress and violence of the film would eventually make an audience numb.  The tenderness of their relationship is a reminder that, amidst the violence, there is a life to be had once the badge is removed at the end of watch.

Michael Peña (Crash and Battle Los Angeles)

is Gyllenhaal’s partner.  Peña and Gyllenhaal’s chemistry on screen is close to perfect.  Both men spent five months riding along with real LAPD officers. That five months was well spent.  There are several  improvised scenes in the film which feel effortless in the framework of the story.  That effortlessness is a testament to the talent of these two actors.  The film blends the officer's personal and work lives over a period of several months; culminating in a violent confrontation that changes both of their lives.  I will not say that this film offered anything new to the cop genre, but I will say that End of Watch does it better than most.  This is a solid effort full of tension, tenderness  and violence. Well worth an afternoon at the movies.

fashionadof

ilm

7 out of 10

fashionado

film

Jamie Clemons