Reel Insight Episode 63: Bryce Dallas Howard

Bryce Dallas Howard brought us an interesting week.  Sometimes when we pick an actor/actress we know a lot about them, and have seen a lot of their movies.  Sometimes we just pick someone who just has a new movie coming out with a quick glance at their career to be sure they have enough movies to make a Top and Bottom 3.   This week we were pretty surprised finding out our original perceptions didn't play out once we saw them all and talked about her career.   This week we also discovered Barney's Version, Trust, and The Lion King 3D.  Oh, and TV Talk makes a return appearance talking about the new fall shows I saw (Rachel wasn't as interested).  Check it out and please send us your feedback.

Movies I saw with Bryce for the first time this week

Manderlay - Lars von Trier makes really strange movies.  I think their concepts are really great (Dogville had a lot of originality) but for whatever reason, Manderlay couldn't keep up - though a supposed sequel.  Howard arrives at a plantation with her mobster dad (Willem Dafoe) and they find out slavery is still going on in the 1920s.  Howard stays and wants to teach the slaves what it means to be free.  It's as bad as it sounds like it would be, and it's done without a set, just minimalist space filling.  1 of 5

Loss of a Teardrop Diamond - This is one of Howard's only real leading roles, and she does a good job getting the whole movie going being a kooky Memphis debutante attending her coming out parties and asking Chris Evans (the grandson of a former governor, now the son of a drunk) to be her escort.  It all comes to a head at one party where she loses one of her aunt's diamond earrings.  When Evans won't help her find it, and starts hanging out with another girl, she goes off the deep end for a while.  She's got issues for sure, but it's a pretty good period piece.  3 of 5

The Village - I didn't want to see this because I don't like being scared.  But Rachel assured me it would be okay, and she was right.  It was a pretty great creepy movie.  This strange village has to stay away from the woods surrounding them because "things that they don't speak of" will attack them.  The twist is a good one, and I like the general relationships between all the different characters - the cast is amazing (Brendan Gleason, Judy Greer, Joaquin Phoenix, William Hurt, Cherry Jones, Celia Weston, and Sigourney Weaver) and keeps the film from being too weird. Adrian Brody is the exception, I really didn't like his performance.  4 of 5 stars/lambs

Lady in the Water - Another M. Night Shyamalan movie, based on a fairy tale.  It's an interesting concept, particularly with the "meta" movie references.  A good cast props up the weak and sometimes ridiculous story, but overall, it doesn't quite make sense enough to keep you interested.  It runs just a bit too long to keep the interesting parts of the story going, but the idea that an Asian fairy tale was coming to life was a great concept, but it just couldn't keep me interested. 3.5 of 5 stars/lambs

Book of Love - She's only in a few minutes, but this is a crazy story.  Simon Baker and Frances O'Connor are married, and O'Connor has an affair with Gregory Smith (a high school swimmer) but then the couple takes him to Disney world, and everything falls apart.  Just an odd Indie movie.  2 of 5 stars/lambs