Month: December 2016

I wasn’t able to see Nocturnal Animals before it came out, mostly due to screening conflict. But without knowing the plot of the film, I was interested in the cast alone.

But given that I wanted to see it, the title did a lot of work with only two words.

Nocturnal. Animals. It sounds mysterious, secretive, and of course, primitive. It riles up a lot of fears, especially for those people afraid of owls.

Jake Gyllenhaal already had a good year thanks to Demolition, so regardless of how this one went, I consider it to just be bonus Gyllenhaal.

And a bonus amount of this guy, who I didn’t recognize in the film.

Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) is miserable. She lives in a giant house, with her husband (Armie Hammer). She is an art director, but feels like it is all junk. They are close to being poor, selling their items, waiting for a big business deal to come through, but she doesn’t care. She cares that her marriage is just a shell and pointless.

Then she receives a package from her ex-husband (Jake Gyllenhaal). He is a writer, she criticized him a long time ago, he just didn’t write from his heart. But now he has a new story, one he says was inspired by her, to write from his heart, even dedicated to her. It is even called Nocturnal Animals, his old nickname for her to explain her insomnia.

The story is about a family, a husband (Gyllenhaal), his wife (Isla Fisher), and teenage daughter (Ellie Bamber). They are driving through Texas in the middle of the night, heading to a vacation, empty roads, no signal, simple. Until they do catch up to a few cars, who are up to no good and willing to make a few choices to ruin a few lives.

Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Robert Aramayo, and Karl Glusman as some bad dudes, Michael Shannon as an older, smoking cop, and Laura Linney as Susan’s mom. Real mom in this story, not the book mom.

But also all of these people are fake anyways because: acting.

Nocturnal Animals made me feel a whole lot of emotions. Fright, scares, hope, sadness, angst, tension, extreme sadness, indifference, and even a bit of confusion. Needless to say, I was on the edge of my seat from some parts of the film, and sinking into it later to try and escape the pain.

Nocturnal Animals tells a story, a story in a story, and it does both points so goddamn well. It both made me want it to never end, and to subsequently hurry up so that it could potentially become a sunshine, happy ending. But it sticks to its tone guns and it delivers exactly the perfect ending at the conclusion.

Everyone involved with this project should simultaneously be slapped and hugged because of what I imagine they had to go through to really convey those emotions. The acting, cinematography, directing, fuck, even the costumes, why not. It all just feels so planned to maximize the angst I felt inside.

This movie is extremely hard to talk about because in all honesty, it is something that should be experienced. It isn’t for the feint of heart, it goes into some heart wrenching areas. But if you give it a shot, you will get a smart film that doesn’t hold your hand, some of the best performances of 2016, and a story that will stay with you for a long time afterwards.

The Academy loves them some nostalgia. That is the only way I can explain why they continually love Clint Eastwood directed films. They elevates the okay American Sniper, and now there is wind out there that they will elevate Sully as well.

I didn’t want to see Sully, honestly. I just didn’t care. I don’t care who was involved, it was a story that didn’t feel like it should be a movie. A guy landed a plane in the water, no one died. Shit, didn’t they make Flight just to sort of go off the good will of the Sully situation?

Yes, this film just seemed like a combination of Flight plus Captain Phillips. You know, plane crash landing, but true story with Tom Hanks.

Yep, plane, water, crashing, it is all there.

Did you hear about the plane that went down? Which one? Oh, the one in January of 2009, that left LaGuardia and crash landed in the Hudson River after it ran into some birds and lost both of its engines. It couldn’t make it back to an airport, despite being NYC an close to about a dozen of them, so the pilot just knew he had to glide it down into the Hudson River. Some people came and rescued them quickly, none of the passengers or staff died. And everyone left happy, giving us a movie!

Just kidding. Some people were angry.

Sully (Tom Hanks) is a long flying pilot, who did what he thought he needed to do. He flew in a war, he was a crop duster, the typical stuff, and he has survived many hard situations, and he survived this one as well. Now the guys in charge are saying he had time to get to a couple different airport and needlessly endangered lives on a hunch. They have computer and other pilot situations! Looks like Sully is fucked. Unless he…isn’t fucked!

Aaron Eckhart is his mustache wielding co-pilot, and it also features Mike O’Malley, Anna Gunn, and Laura Linney. And other people I recognize as minor passengers, but they aren’t important.

Mustaches tend to raise a rating on average a single point!

Somehow like I imagined, Sully ended up being a very simple movie. It is only an hour and a half and even that seems too long. We get to see the crash from their point of view, from an air traffic controller, from flashbacks from news people, from random passengers. Eastwood literally made this movie 90% about this one event and that is it.

We received two flashbacks from Sully’s youth of other situations and training, but honestly, they drag the movie further. The only other aspect of the movie is a couple scenes of investigation threats, and the final conference involving computer and pilot simulations.

My biggest beef with the film is obviously the point of the movie. It is about a true event, technically not a super heroic landing all things considered, and it feels too long at only 90 minutes. This maybe should have been a documentary, a 45 minute one, with some re-enactments. That might have been worth my time. The re-enactments for this movie had some intense moments, but that was about all it had going for the movie.

Sure, Hanks’ acting is fine in it (not extraordinary), Eckhart is okay. But there is nothing really worth writing home about. I don’t see why this film is in the awards talk at all. Hell, final scenes ends on a joke, people laughing, and then a fade to black, like a crappy TV sitcom.

La La Land gets the honor of most anticipated film of 2016. Yes, it even beats Doctor Strange, which I have been waiting for years.

I was told Damien Chazelle (who just gave us Whiplash), plus musical, plus two wonderful stars and I knew I just had to see it. And then it got pushed back! Several times, to the wonderful Oscar seasons, meaning more waiting and more desire.

The good review hype just made my train go even stronger. If anything, by the time I saw it, I was disappointed it wasn’t a four hour long movie.

And now that I have seen it, my hype has immediately switched to next years Christmas release of The Greatest Showman starring Hugh Jackman.

I just really like dancing and musicals, get over it.

Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) is a great pianist, lover of jazz, and a dreamer. Mia (Emma Stone) is an aspiring actress, not successful, former writer kind of, and hey, a dreamer.

So of course they meet in one warm winter, LA evening and things go, well, they don’t go. But then they meet again later and something starts to flicker on between them. Romance, hopes, dreams. And hey, a song and dance number.

Sebastian wants to open up his own jazz club, at a historic location, to bring the genre back to the public, but he also might sell out his skills to make money in the mean time with an old (poppy) friend (John Legend). Mia is tired of going to auditions against girls prettier and more experienced than her, getting her no where, so she puts more of her focus towards creating a play that she can star in herself, to get her name out.

And then there is romance, hopes, and more romance.

But love can’t be the only thing in a relationship. Can they even last a year with their goals, or more?

Also featuring Callie Hernandez, Jessica Rothe, Sonoya Mizuno, Rosemarie DeWitt, J.K. Simmons, and Finn Wittrock.

The only pictures from this movie involve dancing, and hey, even they are getting over it now.

This has been a very hard review to write. First off, I didn’t really want to watch it until I could listen to the soundtrack in its entirety, and thankfully that came out December 9th. The soundtrack isn’t actually that long, and quite a few songs are instrumental only. But the music is something special and for most of the soundtrack, just sitting down and hearing the music is a wonderful thing. Jazz heavily influences the soundtrack, which should not come to a surprise given the director’s previous film and the subject matter. Let’s start at the beginning.

The opening song is what appears to be one long shot, for minutes, involving dozens of extras, cars, and hijacking the LA Freeway at some point for presumably days to practice and get it all right. It gets you in the mood and sets you up. The second song, a bit stranger, but ends on a strong note and really gets the message going. And those two songs are our “classic” musical songs, for the most part. They ooze out nostalgia from the 1940’s and 50’s, with dancing, color and more.

This does continue into A Lovely Night, which gives a modern sarcastic feel to it all, finally including our main two leads fully, and a huge (once again long take) dance number. It is truly a wonder to watch and it made me annoyed that I was in a theater and couldn’t just rewind and see it again and again.

Eventually we get to the main theme of City of Stars, which is hauntingly beautiful and won’t annoy you the many times it comes up, humming, singing or otherwise. City of Stars and The Fools Who Dream are the emotional pinnacle points of the film and are reasons why this film is having so much buzz.

La La Land is about acting, dreamers, with a shit ton of nostalgia and classic feel. I ignored the fact that I saw cell phones early on and assumed it was set in the 50’s until the Prius joke brought me back down from my cloud. La La Land is an experience that deserves the big screen, deserves multiple viewings and will be a musical staple for some time to come. The actors relationship feels real, their love and their arguments. This is the third time Gosling/Stone have been together in a film, after Crazy, Stupid, Love and Gangster Squad (which was a travesty).

Go see one of the best films of the year. The hype is real. Go dream or go home.

It has been five years since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 hit our theater screens and ended the Snape is great series. Seven books, eight films, and honestly, it ended it a bit lamer thanks to the split in my mind. But I am over there.

But what if there were more books out there to milk the franchise? I remember when I was a kid when the books were only four volumes deep. My parent gave me Christmas presents, and in them included Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them and Quidditch Through The Ages. Two strange Harry Potter spin off books, one basically just talking about made up creatures, the other talking about a made up sports history. I read them, forgot about them, and moved on with my life.

And now look. Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them is now a movie, a movie based on a book of just made up creatures with no plot whatsoever. Not only that, but it will be FIVE films. And I am okay with it. Mostly because it basically can be whatever it wants to be without getting in anyone’s way. People who read the bestiary won’t get angry that it doesn’t match the book, because there is nothing to match. We can get more magic, without going about it in a weird way, and not involving Potter at all. Awesome. Well done.

Ah, there is a beast right there! I found it!

FBaWtFT is set in the mid 1920’s and in America! Yay America! Our hero is Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a slightly weird looking wizard with a weirder suitcase. It keeps coming undone, has a broken lock, and of course it is magical. Inside that briefcase he has a large collections of, well, fantastic beasts. They are creatures he has saved or is studying. He has gotten to America in order to bring one of his biggest specimens to Arizona, for its wide open skies and climate.

But things immediately go wrong when one of his creatures gets out. This leads him to bumping into Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), a Non-Maj (non magic user, american wizard term for muggle). A guy who just wants to get a loan to become a baker. Their suitcases get mixed up, and Kowalski unknowingly lets some more beasts into NYC. They are followed by Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterson), a government magic employee who wants to bring Scamander in for his suitcase and for being undocumented. Needless to say in the mix up, she ends up helping Scamander and Kowalski get the beasts back, along with her sister Queenie (Alison Sudol).

While all this is happening? There is a bad wizard out there, Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) and causing problems. There is also a magical bad creature wrecking havoc occasionally on NYC, who the magic president (Carmen Ejogo) is going to go and blame on Scamander too.

There is also a relevant plot of a anti-witch woman (Samantha Morton) who is using her orphans or real kids (not sure) to spread witch hysteria. She is also mean to the kids, including the oldest and most emo looking (Ezra Miller). Also there is a littler girl who is important (Faith Wood-Blagrove).

Also featuring Colin Farrell and a heavily CGI’d Ron Perlman!

Heavily CGI’d because Ron Perlman plays that suitcase!

Fantastic Beasts has a lot riding on it. It is the first film of a franchise they want to start, and if it bombs or fails to set up the world they aren’t going to get filthy rich! Also, thankfully, Harry Potter fans eat up anything world related regardless of quality, which is why some shitty book like Harry Potter and the Cursed Child* can somehow win best fantasy book on Goodreads.

With that introduction, Fantastic Beasts wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t amazing either.

The cast was eclectic, but also felt over stuffed. We had four protagonists really, of which Queenie didn’t seem to do a whole lot. Our Non-Maj was funny, but even he didn’t help with the final encounter (despite a conversation with Queenie about how they were all in it together). They didn’t even show him at the same scene, so I am not sure what the point was. Tina was a character that had her backstory eluded to and explained, but she really had the personality of a wet noodle. It isn’t a bunch of exciting leads like it was with Harry Potter.

In terms of twists, there are technically two of them. The one more important to the plot I didn’t see coming, but the other one by the end felt extremely obvious from one of the first real scenes. It was an annoying reveal, given the circumstances. The ending had a few deus ex machina moments, and was extremely rushed given the overall pace of the film. Editing was surely an issue, given that it was over two hours but still felt like it didn’t give all the important details.

On all of those notes, I did enjoy Redmayne as the lead. His character felt different but not over the top. The beasts shown were diverse and fantastic looking. But I don’t appreciate that the answer to “where to find them” is apparently in his brief case. There is no hunting of beasts in their natural habitat at all. Well, maybe one. The visuals were fun, the briefcase gag was used well, and there were a few cute moments.

Overall, I have no idea where this franchise is going, but I am certain soon it will eventually give us a young Dumbledore, so that is fun.

* – I haven’t read this one yet. I am assuming it is bad though. Judging a book by its cover. I can do that for books, just never movies!

Lately I feel I have seen a lot of social rights documentaries, including the blight of the black man or woman in America. It has definitely grown in recent years, from learning of prison/arrest rates, to news reports, to the war on drugs, to civil rights, to modern slavery. Heck, I just did O.J.: Made In America.

So initially I didn’t want to see 13th. I figured it would just be more of the same of other recent documentaries, or a more detailed Last Week Tonight With John Oliver segment. But the reason I finally picked it up is because it was nominated for a Spirit award for Best Documentary and likely also for the Oscars.

Thankfully it is one of the many Netflix documentaries, and while watching it I felt like I was hit over the head, in a good way. It is only around 100 minutes long, but I could not look away. I wanted to play phone games or write while I watched, but it was impossible. And once I found out it was directed by Ava DuVernay it all made sense.

And this isn’t even the most powerful imagery the film has.

DuVernay recently directed Selma and a few other smaller things, but 13th elevates her to a whole knew level. I have never seen such a modern, information packed documentary like this one. It is so dense and factual, with archival footage, expert testimony, law wording, and more. It is basically impossible to argue against it (if you felt like arguing). It started with the 13th amendment getting into a law, jim crow laws, the modern civil rights era and how that led to the war on drugs and the sudden increases in mass incarceration of black men.

Not only that, but it seemed to do it all in the first thirty minutes.

It became modern quickly, including why Bill Clinton signed the bill that increased prison rates even further, the entire political climate of the time, up to the Black Lives Matter movement (that totally started this year). Fuck, it is relevant and informative.

13th is just a documentary that everyone in their life should see. They should go in with an open mind, free of distractions, and be ready to change some of their perceptions of the American dream and reality. On that note, I didn’t think that DuVernay should have been nominated for Best Director for Selma. But I sort of feel it is warranted for this documentary. 13th is so good, I can’t even spend more time talking about it. Just go see it, please.

I wrote a shit ton for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Like, 1300 words or so. I had to explain my history with Star Wars, my avoidance of hype, and the film itself, so it was a lot to say. Overall, I enjoyed it, but it had its issues. I won’t reharp on any of that here.

I will instead just talk about Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and spin-offs. When they announced the new episodes and the spin-offs, I was honestly more excited about spin-offs. Finally, stand alone stories that don’t involve a Skywalker. Of course then they announced a Han Solo prequel, which eh, whatever I guess. And I will sound hypocritical when I say I sincerely hope one of these movies ends up being a solo Obi-Wan Kenobi film, because I loved Ewan McGregor in that role.

The first spin-off makes sense. It is something giving us a whole lot of new characters, while also keeping it relevant to the main story line. It is a safe beginning, while also allowing them to show new characters for merchandising. Erm, for diversity. That is what I meant to say.

Oh please tell me I can have a Donnie Yen action figure now?!

Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) is a brilliant scientist, and unfortunately with that, great at building weapons. He was working for the Empire, but felt pretty bad, went off grid to live with his wife and daughter as a farmer. But then, Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) finds them and forces Galen to head back to the Empire to work on this Death Star thingy. This leaves his daughter alone, parentless, and pissed off.

Now older, Jyn (Felicity Jones) is a bit of a rebel. Not a Rebel, just a rebel. And then she gets taken up by some Rebels, including Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and his sarcastic strategy robot, K-2SO (Alan Tudyk). She gets pushed into a plan by the Rebel Alliance, wanting to use her to get to her father, Galen, before the Death Star is completed to put a dent into those dirty Empire scums.

And along the way they meet the blind Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) who loves him some force, his friend Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang) who looks like Mickey Rourke in Iron Man 2 sort of, Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed) a pilot who wants some redemption. Also featuring Forest Whitaker, Alistair Petrie, Genevieve O’Reilly, and returning Jimmy Smits and James Earl Jones.

Oh yeah, and a strong female lead above this giant group of male characters.

Despite an over 2 hour run time, Rogue One flew by like a sweet, enjoyable breeze. The new characters were all three dimensional and most importantly, I cared about them. Even the one who ended up being sort of a recurring dick.

Jyn was a complex character and not just someone who seemed naturally good at every situation. I loved, loved, loved, Yen as Chirrut and happy to see him included in such a big movie. And K-2SO was a robot for my own heart. He wasn’t as amazing as HK-47 from KOTOR, but gosh darn it, he must be my favorite droid after him.

Despite knowing how the film has to end (right into Episode IV‘s lap), the journey becomes a thing of beauty. There is danger at every turn and there is a real feel that at any point, a character might not make it. If this dealt with any character from the original trilogy, then you would know they can make it through to tell their story. But these are new people, unknowns, they are expendable. And it was refreshing to see.

There are a lot of call backs to the original movies of course. This film is almost like a giant wink to those extreme fan boys out there, and I admit that I wrote down the parts where people laughed and clapped that I didn’t understand. Don’t worry, I asked them afterwards for each reference.

Rouge One is certainly a step in the right direction and will be a wonder for Star Wars fans and regular movie goers alike. But at the end of the day, this film doesn’t offer a lot of completely new elements to the franchise just yet. Like I already said, it was a good safe story to tell, keeping us in familiar territory. Once Star Wars gets away from the Skywalkers, Solos, and Death Stars, when it can tell a truly original story set in their universe, then it might truly reach a new greatness.

But until then, this is a good great stepping stone between the trilogies, with strong characters, and a film many will enjoy.

Storks came out in September of this year and as far as I can tell was immediately forgotten. The theme was original, this year was flooded with animal animate films, and I only remembered it existed thanks to it coming out on DVD in early December. Feels fast, just 2 and a half months, which means they wanted to rush it to attempt to get some holiday sale loving.

I am only watching it to be a competionist, with no actual knowledge of the plot before hand or even how it did in theaters. I literally just forgot it existed. And it is about birds, babies, and I dunno, adults?

There is an adult! Or at least a teenager.

Storks used to deliver babies, everyone knows that right? But they got out of that game, and now they just deliver packages under the name cornerstore.com! And business is successful. They stopped delivering babies because one stork, Jasper (Danny Trejo), went insane with a baby, breaking her beacon (so they couldn’t find out where she belonged), and sort of ruining their reputation. Once again, they just deliver packages now, and that baby, Tulip (Katie Crown) has just been awkwardly growing up in their work place.

Junior (Andy Samberg) is one of their best delivery storks and has just completed his 1,000,000th package. So the boss, Hunter (Kelsey Grammer), calls him up to tell him the news. Hunter is getting promoted, and Junior will take his place as the boss, but only if Junior will “fire” Tulip from their warehouse. She has turned 18 today, so she is no longer their responsibility. She has been causing problems though, and bringing down profits, so she has to go.

But Junior can’t fire her, so he puts her in a room alone, the letter division, to process incoming mail. This isn’t in use anymore, it was for baby requests. But one kid, Nate (Anton Starkman), wants a baby brother with ninja skills, and his parents (Ty Burrell, Jennifer Aniston) don’t want one really. Tulip receives the letter, processes it, and boom, a baby is created, and now there is a big problem.

Now Junior has new problems. He has to deliver the baby so the big bosses don’t see it, while hiding Tulip and taking her to the planet below. But his wing is broken and he can’t fly. Shit. What’s this? An adventure in the making?

Also featuring Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Stephen Kramer Glickman, and Christopher Nicholas Smith.

Some very strange scenes also with the baby and other animals.

Storks basically went how I expected. Literally almost every single element. Sure, you wouldn’t know every detail about why wolves are involved. But the sorts of struggles involved in getting the baby to its home, who the bad people are, and how the film will probably end? Yeah, entirely as expected.

In the entirety of the film, I really only enjoyed two moments. The absurdity of the wolf pack working together, and the “silent fight” near the end in order to ensure that the baby would stay asleep. Those few moment save the movie from the zero rating, because everything else just felt dull, unfunny, and unoriginal. Another positive note from this film is that not every major role was from a famous celebrity, but actually voice actors. That is rarer nowadays, so it get a few props for that.

Not even my current love of babies could make me enjoy this film. And practically every damn movie with a baby (especially a girl) can instantly affect my emotions. Let that be a lesson to you films, make them good first, then add in the kid for me to care. I’m looking at you, The Boss Baby.

Biographies are weird. They should generally be saved for people who have changed the world or done great things in their life. But what about those great people who people don’t know about? Those are the really important biographies that we are missing and we don’t know we are missing. We don’t need another Biographical film about Steve Jobs now, for instance. And we didn’t know we needed a biographical musical on Alexander Hamilton.

And that is where Hidden Figures comes in. Celebrating the lives of a few individuals who you didn’t know you should know.

And with this regular introduction basically done, I will note this is the second year in a row with a very Pro-NASA movie, along with last years The Martian.

They wouldn’t be legally allowed to watch The Martian on a TV that small. It just wouldn’t be right.

Hidden Figures is about three women, all working for NASA at the Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. Katherine Goble (Taraji P. Henson) is our lead, a brilliant mathematician since she was a kid but held back by her gender and skin color. There is also Mary Johnson (Janelle Monáe), another brilliant mind. Both of them are Computers, people who check the math and solve longer problems for the “Real engineers” and workers at NASA, basically a bunch of white men.

There is also Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), a computer herself, but basically running the entire colored department without getting the job title of supervisor. Three women, all hoping to do something better.

Katherine gets a temporary assignment to be a computer for the Space Task Group, a big room full of white male engineers trying to figure out how to predict where their capsules will land AND how to get their rocket out of orbit to get their astronaut at a predicted landing. It is led by Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) who barely has time for the head engineer (Jim Parsons), let alone a colored women. Spoiler, she ends up doing the most important math.

Mary faces trying to apply to become a real engineer, but requiring to take classes offered only at an all male school, so she has to go to courts to fight for the right to take the classes. And she has a husband (Aldis Hodge) who doesn’t always agree with the fights she chooses.

And Dorothy, she really wants to be a supervisor, but her actual boss (Kirsten Dunst) continues to seemingly thwart her on every turn. Dorothy is also worried about their whole division being canned when the IBM comes online and does the computing for them. So she sets out to learn Fortran and become an IBM operator.

Also featuring Mahershala Ali as a love interest to Katherine and Glen Powell is John Glenn. Don’t get confused.

I couldn’t handle Chad Radwell from Scream Queens playing a serious role.

Hidden Figures could be renamed “That’s Just The Way Things Are: The Movie” and really drive the same point home. I lost track of how many times a white OR black character uttered something similar but it was definitely more than five times. They wanted to make sure you know these women were facing struggles, there were many opportunities against them, and it took a long, long time in the movie before they started to get any wins.

It could be coming from a state of modern day feelings, but it really dragged down the film in my mind. Making a few quick references would have been fine. But it just felt like it was piling on without letting you escape, which may have been the point, to give that experience. It just made for a less enjoyable film.

Focusing on more than just Katherine was a good idea, or else the film would have felt very repetitive. The other two plot lines gave a nice break to that, giving us something different to focus on to keep the movie from staying stagnant. Henson truly does change during in her role, playing something completely off character for her. She does a great job, but at the same time, she does a few stereotypical nerd things too many times. Including pressing her glasses back up her nose after doing something particularly impressive math wise, this happens again, at least three times.

Hidden Figures tells an important story. It highlights three women that should be known. But it gets bogged down in other messes without truly ever reaching any full potential.

Miss Sloane, that’s a lady, and they want you to know that the lady is not married.

Miss Sloane is a strong independent woman who don’t need no man in her life. Or she doesn’t have time for a man in her life, one of those things.

Miss Sloane is the type of woman that Ne-Yo craves and Kelly Clarkson wishes she could be.

Miss Sloane is so god damn independent, she doesn’t even share the poster with any other person, which is hard in this man led world.

I had to struggle to find a picture from this film with an important character sharing the frame with Miss Sloane.

Elizabeth Sloane (Jessica Chastain), is a lobbyist, and powerful one at that. Normally she deals with tax issues, but the big wigs in her firm (Sam Waterston) want her to get into the gun laws. They are big and powerful groups with a lot of money, so if they join them, they can all get paid. They want her to help them get the women voters to show up and vote against gun bills. To re-frame the image of the woman using a gun for equality, not of the mom crying over her shot children.

And Sloane just laughs at that. It is preposterous, it goes against what she believes in and it is a ridiculous strategy. She is so against it, she takes an offer from a small, third tier firm who is trying to help pass the gun bill on morality alone.

And yes, it is just a bill requiring back ground checks, and no, bills like that never get enough Senate approval because the gun lobby is strong. But she wants to take her team and defeat it, not just because she knows she can do it, but because it is the right thing, damn it.

Rodolfo Schmidt (Mark Strong) is the head of the smaller firm, Pat Connors (Michael Stuhlbarg) is her former boss and now main rival, Jane Molloy (Allison Pill) is her former assistant who refused to move with her, Ron M. Sperling (John Lithgow) is a senator who will lead a committee against her, Esme Manucharian (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) a strong anti-gun lobbyist who was also the victim of gun violence, Forde (Jake Lacy) is her new male escort, and Ennis Esmer/Douglas Smith play two of her lobby lackies.

She commands the screen and camera, allowing no one else to even be focused!

Miss Sloane clocks in at over 2 hours, which is honestly surprising after the fact, as it seemed to fly by. There is so much political intrigue, all fictional, but still enough to keep me at the edge of my seat.

I expected this to be the sort of film where Chastain would be carrying the film on her shoulders and the people around her wouldn’t matter as much. And yes, Chastain was wonderful in the film, but other actors put up pretty decent performances as well. I was most impressed with Mbatha-Raw whom has been putting out pretty decent performances lately, and Strong who gave a more subtle performance than normal. He is not in a lot of dramas (don’t send me letters explaining why I am wrong).

There are of course a lot of twists and turns, given that Sloane is meant to be this excellent tactician, who always has back up plans and wants to keep the other side surprised, playing a trump card right after their own trump card. This allows surprises, but also gives us a character that becomes more and more unbelievable.

I have before complained about the character who is so smart, plans were put into action that require a dozen things to go right, but of course they do, because they are so smart. They take me out of the film real quick and usually put me on edge. And in a way, the ending does that. Everything gets wrapped up so neatly, even if not everyone good comes out on top, that it just seems annoying.

Technically a minor complaint, but a crutch too many films want to rely on to prove their point.

Miss Sloane is topically relevant and still a good ride for those who want to learn an exaggerated amount about lobbyists.

Movie titles can get pretty descriptive. The ones that can really sell you on a setting with just a title do a lot of work and can help draw people in.

Something like The Assassination Of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford? That is a descriptive and specific title, you know the main people involved and the event in question!

That is an extreme example. For Manchester By The Sea, it just really wants you to know which Manchester the film is set in. “Is it the Manchester by the forest? Is it the Manchester in the mountains? Is it the Manchester in Iowa?” No damn it. It is the Manchester by the sea!

And this is presumably a Casey by the sea!

Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) is a seemingly miserable prick. He lives alone, works a basic janitorial job for a complex and deals with shitty tenants, and sometimes he is shitty in return. He just wants to drink and forget his worries. And this is how he was before his brother (Kyle Chandler) died.

Lee has to head up to his hometown of Manchester to help deal with the aftermath. Funeral arrangements, will stuff, and checking on the kid, Lee’s nephew, Patrick (Lucas Hedges). Lee has a problem in Manchester, something that happened in his past that the locals talk about and spread rumors. And nope, you aren’t getting that spoiler in this review.

Needless to say, Lee wants this whole thing to get finished as soon as possible so he can get back to his new life and out of this town. And then he finds out his brother left him as the guardian of Patrick, not their uncle like they talked about. This will also shake up Lee’s life, forcing him to either dump the kid off with a friend or worse, Patrick’s mom (Gretchen Mol) who was a trainwreck throughout his youth.

Or, strange as it may seem, maybe just movie back to his old town and be this guy’s guardian?

Also starring Michelle Williams as Lee’s ex-wife, Tom Kemp, Anna Baryshnikov, Kara Hayward, C.J. Wilson, and Matthew Broderick.

If you look close you can see them in a boat. A boat ON the sea.

All I wanted to do was see some realistic acting and maybe cry a little bit. Instead, I got fantastic and realistic acting, and bawling my eyes out.

Thankfully the film reveals what happened in Lee’s past about halfway through the film, and the moment and scene really got to me in the theater. I felt horrible and I was forced to imagine how it would affect my own life. Even after the flashbacks were over, I then had to consider every scene of the film from that point forward in relation to Lee’s past. Normally regular dramatic scenes became sadder from this knowledge and the cries came intermittently.

In the final conversation between Affleck and Williams you would be hard pressed to find a viewer who doesn’t become emotional as a result. They bring so much into their characters. Affleck of course, being the main character, and it is expected, but I was surprised at how much pain I felt with Williams who had significantly less screen time.

The film wasn’t just sad, but it was awkward. There were awkward situations/reunions, uncomfortable conversations about death, and it was a funny film. That’s right, laughter, I laughed about as much as I had cried. I officially classified this as a drama/dark comedy, but honestly it could still be considered just a regular comedy. The balance between the two was extremely precise in this film that it really fits both molds.

Other notes: The setting was gorgeous, the cameras were well placed, the actors and people involved all felt like they belonged. This was a snapshot on a community as much as it was on a single person. Affleck will most likely be nominated for an award for the film, and hopefully Williams for Supporting Actress. I still haven’t seen all the potential contenders to know if anyone will actually win though. Affleck just continues to impress with every film he is in.

Also, there are accents. Accents!