Month: October 2015

I won’t make a sad intro about the death of Robin Williams. I have already had to talk about that with World’s Greatest Dad and Night At The Museum 3.

No, let’s talk about how Boulevard, good or bad, is going to be his last official film that was released. Actors don’t always leave with the best of films. Recently, James Gandolfini gave us Enough Said, but also The Drop! Philip Seymour Hoffman gave us Mockingjay Part 1. Yuck.

I think I accidentally made this intro sad again. And now that I have stars at the top of the review, you can see where this score is going.

And fuck, right there, there it is. A sad Robin Williams.

This is a story about a man who has lived a very simple life. Nolan Mack (Williams) has worked in the same bank for the last few decades and no, he doesn’t even own the place. After work he goes home to his wife, Joy (Kathy Baker), and they sit around and do old people things. They actually sleep in separate beds now. There is no sexual chemistry between them and they just seem to exist in each others company. Hell, Nolan’s only outlet on life seems to be hanging out with his friend, Winston (Bob Odenkirk), but that is only occasionally.

Things change when his dad (Gary Gardner) goes into cardiac arrest. This is a life changer for Nolan. He realizes he is getting up there in age and isn’t doing a whole lot with his life.

So he actually goes down a shady…boulevard, and ends up meeting a male prostitute. He gives Leo (Roberto Aguire) a lift, but with no real idea of what he is doing. Eventually he takes him into a hotel room and they talk. They just talk and hang out. Nothing sexual, and sure, Nolan will pay him for his time. Nolan seems to just want someone to listen to him, someone he can listen to as well. Nolan wants someone he can help out and buy things for and try to fix. And yes, Nolan too is totally gay. Has been his whole life. He just could never accept who he really was deep down.

Also featuring Giles Matthey as a bad guy pimp!

“Get out of the streets, and into my car. Get in the front seat Leo, get into my car!”

Boulevard has a simple message about a relatively simple man. It is never too late to truly be you. If you have been hiding your whole life and are 70 years old, you can still express yourself and come out, so to speak. And it doesn’t have to be just about being gay or transgendered, it could just be doing what you have always wanted to do before it is too late. Boulevard says you can teach an Old Dog new tricks.

That’s a nice message. Probably a good story. It did not feel as good in the actual movie.

That is because the movie is extremely slow. Most likely deliberately, but still, slow. I don’t end up caring about Nolan’s personal journey, or Leo’s life. I kind of just felt bad for his wife the whole time. I am not saying Nolan should have kept lying. But it was just awkward and uncomfortable, the whole situation.

The acting isn’t that great, the atmosphere is melancholy, and just…well, damn. This might be a great inspirational movie for some. But to me, it is just a bad film and thankfully won’t be the lasting impression on William’s legacy.

Everyone knows that James Cameron really loves the ocean. He is stupid rich and just wants to conquer it.

In some ways, I am starting to think that Matt Damon is like a James Cameron-lite. He doesn’t like water, but he is starting to love the shit out of outer space. Three films in three years have featured a Mr. Damon spending time away from Earth. First in Elysium, he went from the slums to the orbit. But you know, he was just there for a little bit. In Interstellar, he was in space for a long..long time. And he was alone!

Think of it like a Three Bears situation. In Elysium he was in space for a small amount of time, in Interstellar it was too long. But maybe in The Martian, Damon will find his “just right” amount of space time. You know, then he can go back to Earth and start doing political things again. Or Boston things. Or maybe, just maybe, fingers crossed, he can go back to voicing Bill the Krill.

Damon had a lot of time alone to reflect on his career while pretending to be on Mars.

Set somewhere in the future, NASA has successfully put people on Mars! Yay! We rock! Speaking of Rocks, there are a lot of them on Mars. And sometimes there are dangerous rock storms. When a particularly powerful storm begins to develop, Commander Lewis (Jessica Chastain) decides that they need to evacuate the planet. There is a chance their escape rocket could tip over and then they’d be stranded! During the storm though, Matt Watney (Damon), a space botanist, gets hit by some debris and goes flying. All of their suit flashy devices say that his suit has opened and he has to be dead.

So Lewis and the rest of the crew (Michael Pena, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie) escape Mars to begin their flight home a few weeks ahead of schedule.

But it turns out, against extreme odds, that Matt is actually alive. However, he is now stranded. The mission only was supposed to last about 30 days, and they had made it to 17, so his rations aren’t that plentiful. He has a huge checklist of responsibilities suddenly that are all vital to his survival. He has to figure out how to grow his own food on a desert planet. He has to make sure his equipment doesn’t break, so he doesn’t run out of water or oxygen. He has to figure out a way to communicate with NASA. And of course, he has to figure out how to get himself home. Even though Matt wants to survive, he openly acknowledges his impending doom and realizes that almost everything he does is just prolonging his most likely catastrophic death.

Eventually, obviously, he isn’t 100% alone. Or else it would be an impossibility. Back on Earth, thanks to satellites, they are able to eventually note the differences of the site and realize he must be alive and kicking. This is where I can sneak in all the rest of the actors.

Who is involved in the mission to get him back? Well, of course, the Head of NASA (Jeff Daniels), a different head of NASA type guy (Chiwetel Ejiofor), head of the Mars program (Sean Bean), head…engineer…of the shuttle? (Benedict Wong), an Astrodynamics guy (Donald Glover), head of NASA PR (Kristen Wiig), and Mindy Park (Mackenzie Davis) who controls a satellite. Or something.

This unfortunate scene reminded me too much of Fantastic Four and now I am undergoing PTSD.

Ridley Scott has been not putting his best foot forward recently. Exodus: Gods and Kings and The Counselor were terrible, and Prometheus had a lot of issues. So I have to go into every new movie of his with a bit of a hesitation.

Thankfully, Scott did not disappoint this time and knocked The Martian out of the park.

The absolute best part of the film is its attention to detail and scientific accuracy. I don’t know how hardcore they went into it, but I will be checking Neil Gegrasse Tyson’s twitter to see if the stars on mars were at least accurate. But everything else is so damn sound and smart. I almost stood up in the middle of the movie to chant U-S-A and show off my Science Boner. That is a bit graphic, but the metaphor is necessary to emphasis how sexy it all was. It isn’t dumbed down and they just go full on smart people talk on the viewer.

After the science, we have to talk about the Damon. Damon plays what has to be the greatest Botanist ever on the silver screen. I don’t know how praise worthy that statement actually is. The writers made him smart, charming, witty and a guy with a morbid sense of humor. He tells jokes to logs where he notes everything he is doing, with the caveat that it probably won’t matter since he will most likely die. And he even got to say “Fuck” twice in the film, despite the PG-13 Rating!

Basically everyone in the cast was great in their roles. Even Stan, Mara, and Hennie, the crew members who people don’t care much about. I want to give special shout outs to Glover, who had a small role but was extremely convincing, and Wong, who was an important side character who for some reason didn’t even make the IMDB credit list.

The film is of course also visually wonderful. Mars, the future Houston space center, outer space, all of it is great. I don’t think 3D added much to the film, and it should be a good experience without it. It isn’t as necessary as Gravity.

Despite how much I liked the film, it only has one issue. There is a sort of epilogue after the events, so you can find out what happened to characters. It seemed off to me. It was also a bit sudden of a tone shift. The previous scene I was almost at the point of tears (You don’t get to know if from happiness or sadness, sorry), but they ended it too quickly for all the emotions to rile up in me. And the last few minutes were just…meh.

Oh well, 99% of a film is still pretty damn awesome.

Divorce sucks. No way to sugar coat it. It breaks up families, people start having trust issues, children get fought over, you know.

There are some pros I guess. For the kids, they get two Christmases, and everyone knows that means more toys. And you don’t have to spend much time ever with someone you presumably hate!

But, in America, getting a divorce is actually very hard. From alimony to child support, from splitting of assets, to the legal code, it can get very confusing very fast. In fact, a lot of people out there seem to be making assloads of money over the break up of couples.

It isn’t a bad thing that people make money off of doing a job, that should be expected. What is unexpected is the lengths the entire system goes through to make sure your divorce hurts you in the wallet as much as possible. Which is really what Divorce Corp. is all about.

So what kind of shady shit is going down? Glad you asked. Obviously the documentary goes into extreme amounts of detail and personal anecdotes, so watch it for the full picture.

See? It is a giant office building behind a church? Fuck your subtle metaphors.

First of all, the family court law has gotten very complicated over the last few decades. It used to be relatively simple, but due to increase in complexity, for really no reason at all, it is basically impossible to represent yourself in court. You are basically forced to hire a lawyer regardless of how amicable your divorce will be. And of course, the divorce court lawyers can cost anywhere between 500-1000 dollars an hour.

If children are involved, Child Support isn’t a set in stone amount, it is based purely on the difference of income and how much custody the parents have. So, if someone has 100% custody, the other parent has to actually pay a lot more. This actively encourages couples to fight it out. Fighting it out makes the trial take a long time, which racks up the hourly fees, in order to earn money to probably just pay off your lawyer fees. The two lawyers probably know each other or are friends, and they both know the longer they take, the longer they get paid.

It is a shitty situation to be in. But that isn’t the end of it.

The court can appoint people to come in and monitor both households/parents. I don’t remember what they are called. These people have a fee as well, and the judge can force a couple to pay for them. These people aren’t neutral, can be friends with one firm, and can say whatever they want to make one parent seem bad. Of course, they have also been shown to accept bribes and more. Yayy.

These things are just the bottom of the barrel. I actually had to pause the documentary 20 minutes into it, sort of shocked with how fast and hard the information was coming at me. The whole thing is kind of disgusting and can make you just afraid of stepping outside.

Why only a 3 out of 4? Well, it is definitely dense and very detailed, but at the same time, it still just felt a bit one sided. Most of the anecdotes they showed have a lot of the “he said, she said” element, and for all I know, the people in these situations were bad. The evidence at times could easily have been hidden from the viewer.

Clearly the documentary has an agenda, and the agenda seems like a good one. But I feel like things can’t 100% be as bad as described everywhere. Maybe some parts of the country are just worse than other parts. Maybe. Hopefully.