Tag: Ann Dowd

American Animals only came up on my radar because the company sent me a link. I almost didn’t watch it. I accidentally had free time because I didn’t feel like leaving the house to watch Incredible 2.

I didn’t know the cast, the story, or anything.

I just knew the shitty title. I haven’t been a big fan of movies American in the front. There are a ton. At this point it lacks any amount of originality. I am not saying that the title makes me hate the film while watching it, but it does make me annoyed. It makes me lose interest before I even start it, which is why I almost decided to skip this film.

And occasionally, I can forgive the film if the title matters.

I cannot even confirm all four of these old men are American! Show me your papers!

This story mainly centers around two individuals, Warren Lipka (Evan Peters) and Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan). We are supposed to believe that these friends have are really different people. Warren is more outgoing and reckless. Spencer is reserved and good-natured. Once Spencer met Warren he got into more trouble, but whatever, they are just kids.

And now Spencer is at college, at Transylvania University, hoping to become an artist some day. And while on tour, he is taken with a crowd to the special rare books department, and he sees The Birds of America by John James Audubon, a large book full of very detailed paintings of, well, American birds. And it is incredibly rare and worth millions. So are other books in this tiny room in a library.

Once he mentions this to Warren, Warren wants to steal it. Why not? They just need to get a buyer ahead of time, and work on a plan. It isn’t a very security heavy area, no one would expect it, they could probably get away with it and get super rich. They have to overall bring in two others, Eric Borsuk (Jared Abrahamson) and Chas Allen (Blake Jenner) as their getaway driver. And then they can work on being infamous. Or at least infamous enough to get a movie made about them.

Also starring Ann Dowd as the rare book collections librarian and Udo Kier as mysterious man. Oh, and the real four thieves, narrating the story and telling their point of views as they recall the events.

We know they get caught because we know this story exists.

I loved American Animals. It was captivating, and despite knowing the eventual outcome, it was thrilling nonetheless. And of course, the title technically fit the film, but I can’t help they still chose it because they thought American sounded cool like the other movies.

A lot of the time having the real people involved in the picture means bad news. Did you see Act of Valor or The 15:17 to Paris? Both dreadful. But the real culprits of this act were not acting, they were just telling their story. They added a documentary element to this story, making it a sort of hybrid. Having them tell the story, disagree with each other, changing how the story played out was fun. Also adding in the elements of who can you trust from these various point of views was very well done and added a more ominous tone by the end.

Our actors who played the crew did a very good job, displaying appropriate amounts of angst and fear and young stupidity. I was definitely shocked and a bit afraid during the actual heist, heart pumping and on the edge of my seat.

American Animals took a real story, framed it in a unique way, and created suspense in a story where we already knew the outcome. Needless to say, this film surprised me in all the best ways. It makes since that it was directed by Bart Layton, who has only done documentaries in the past, most famously The Imposter, an amazing documentary.

4 out of 4.

Another year, another A24 movie hailed as a masterpiece of horror. And yet, there is doubt.

Sometimes A24 overhypes their films. Understandable. And sometimes they advertise things a bit different and piss off a lot of people. Some people have not forgiven them over this. Other people think these highly acclaimed horror films are shit.

But here is something I think most people can agree with. 2017 was a strong year for Horror films. Probably the best in quite some time for the genre. And for Hereditary? Well, it is sure as hell my favorite horror film in at least the last decade.

As sure as hell that hell is often talked about in horror movies.

The Graham family has had some troubling times. And it all seems to funnel around Annie Graham (Toni Collette). Her mother just died. But like, they weren’t close at all. She was living her last days in their home, but that doesn’t really change their past relationship.

Annie is an artist, in that she designs small dollhouse like arrangements and has a show coming up this summer. She is extremely crafty and can make a lot of things. Her husband (Gabriel Byrne) is trying to keep her life as stress free as possible, but it is hard when there is so much angst in the household.

Angst? Heck yes angst. They have two kids. The oldest, the boy (Alex Wolff) doesn’t get along with the mom and vice versa. They have had an interesting past. The younger, the girl (Milly Shapiro), has an unfortunate look and aura to her. She was the only one close to the deceased. And she has a lot of issues on her own, dark drawings, antisocial, you name it.

But it turns out their family has a lot of secrets. Some that Annie is aware of, and some that are going to come crashing down on them whether she wants them to or not.

Also starring Ann Dowd and Mallory Bechtel.

“Unfortunate looking” is the nice way to talk about it.

Let’s just compare real quick. Get Out. It Comes At Night. It Follows. Stoker. The Babadook. The Witch.

All fine horror films, or thriller films depending on how you want to argue them. And yes, I think Hereditary beats the list, including The Witch, which is my favorite from that list.

It is so hard to describe the feelings that Hereditary brings up. Given the family nature of the film, my mind went several places I thought it might go, and it didn’t really touch them. It went down a relatively unique path that seemed natural, and plenty shocking. It is definitely a slow movie, until it decides to fully embrace the “regular” parts of the genre.

Because by all means, the end is full on horror movie. We don’t have jump scares to get us to that point. We have unsettling events. Some shocking moments of course, but nothing is cheap, it is all earned.

And acting wise, I will talk about Wolff first. This is probably the best he has ever done in a movie. He was seemingly typecasted in my eyes and this movie will hopefully get him out of those teenage romance dramas. But Collette? Holy fuck, Toni Collette. I have definitely never come close to watching all of her movies, but I can’t imagine her ever better. And she has been in a lot of bad things lately.

Bold statement – Collette deserves acting nominations by the end of the year. She helped carry this movie and elevate it to an amazing status. I cannot see this film not being in the top five by the end of the year.

4 out of 4.

Have you seen the trailer to Collateral Beauty? Well, please do so. Here is one and here is another. They are both great. I saw it first a few months ago and knew I had to see that movie, right away preferably.

It has actors I like in it, the story looks neat, and looks like a perfect holiday film, without being cheesy Christmas. And it looks like it would make me cry.

But man, it turns out this movie is incredibly fucked up and inappropriate.

Ah love, Knightley knows all about that one.

Like I said, please watch the trailer. Now here is the real plot.

Yes, Howard (Will Smith) used to be good at his job. He ran an advertising firm, preached that every ad should speak to three absolutes: Love, Time or Death, and people loved him. And then, he had his daughter die. Now, the majority of the film takes place TWO YEARS LATER. And now, he is still dealing with his grief. He is barely audible, he spends most of the time just making dominoes just to knock them down, not even looking at them as they fall.

And this leaves most of the company to his three main friends/colleagues. Whit (Edward Norton), Claire (Kate Winslet), and Simon (Michael Peña). Whit is recently divorced and his pre-teen daughter hates him. Claire wants to maybe get a surrogate baby. And Simon, well, Simon might be dying.

All of them have their own issues, but they are still doing their jobs, and right now their company is failing. They have an offer to sell their company though, for $17 a share, which is more than what they really are worth! They just need Howard’s approval, but he refuses to do anything. So they think, sure, maybe they can just show he isn’t right in the head to make decisions without him.

So they develop a scheme, hire a P.I. (Ann Dowd), and she finds out that he has sent letters to Love, Death, and Time. Whit decides that the best option now is to hire actors to be these three entities, make him look crazy in public, record the display, digitally remove the actors, and bam, they can sell the company and do good things.

Yay morals. Featuring Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley, and Jacob Latimore as the actors, and Naomie Harris as a grief counselor.

Two of these characters are considered more of a main character than Will Smith.

My eyes could not believe what I was seeing. I had to both shake my head and put it in my palms at various points in the film. What trailer did I see and why did it lie so hardcore to get viewers?

Oh yeah. Money.

I haven’t seen a trailer so deceptive of a movie since Hercules, but in that case it was a nice surprise. It didn’t change the plot of the film. In this case, people go in expecting a heart warming tale and get a story about very dickish people and they don’t get punishment. Seriously. There may still be heart warming elements, but they come to people who are not worthy of our sympathy.

Here is a fact. Yes. I teared up a bit in the film. But making me cry does not a good movie make. It is frankly really easy to do nowadays, especially if part of the plot involves a dead daughter. But I cried during Jem and the Holograms and could still see its shitty elements.

Look, trailer lies aside, the main ending after all of it is pretty easy to figure out. Except for one element and that is because it doesn’t make any sense. It could have maybe been considered an okay film, but I have to shake my head about the last final reveal. It seems tacked on and never explained, and makes me question how it even got to that point. Almost as bad as the reveal at the end of Now You See Me.

There are a lot of big names in this film and I was really excited to see it after I saw the trailer. But it is easy work for basically everyone involved. Smith feels like a supporting character until the end of the movie. No one is giving I their all and everyone seems to be collecting an quick paycheck.

Collateral Beauty is emotionally manipulative while being morally terrible. That is not a good combination anywhere. And especially not around the holidays.

1 out of 4.

That’s right, there are two Captain movies this year. But Captain Fantastic isn’t a superhero in the normal definition of the word, but if you think about it, he is still a hero to the intellectual community out there.

Which you shouldn’t be thinking about yet, because this is the introduction.

I will note that this film has Viggo Mortensen penis in it, so for those Lord of the Rings super fans, this should really get you on board.

And their outfits are even fantastic!

Ben Cash (Viggo Mortensen) and his wife, Leslie (Trin Miller) have decided to say fuck modern society and to live in the woods. In fact, they made this decision a long long time ago. And at this point, they have six kids. Bodevan (George MacKay), Kielyr (Samantha Isler), Vespyr (Annalise Basso), Rellian (Nicholas Hamilton), Zaja (Shree Crooks), and Nai (Charlie Shotwell). Unique names of course, so they can be unique people in the world.

Speaking of being unique, when I say living in the woods, I mean totally outside of society in Washington state. They hunt and grow their own food. They teach their kids to learn about the world, to be socialists, humanitarians, free thinkers. They train them to survive, to hunt, to build their endurance, to think through dangerous situations. They are teaching them many different languages and how to play many instruments. It is an intellectual smorgasbord.

And then Leslie dies. By her own hands, suffering from a form of PTSD after their last child died. And now they are in a strange situation. Because of how they live, her body is sent to her parents (Frank Langella, Ann Dowd), a rich couple who never approved of her life style choices and of course her husband. They are all the way in New Mexico and the father has threatened to take his children if he shows up, child endangerment laws and all, blah.

Fuck that. They are trying to give his wife a normal, casket, Christian burial. But she is Buddhist and had explicit instructions in her will, and they are not honoring that. So he has to load up their bus and take his family down to New Mexico, through civilization, where the hardest training is yet to come, for all of them.

Also starring Kathryn Hahn and Steve Zahn.

Learning how to break and enter into a house can be the difference between life and death, technically.

It is hard to classify Captain Fantastic into a few genres, it turns out. I called it a Black Comedy, but it really doesn’t even fit that bill, and Black Comedy is usually the “weird films that are uneasy and funny catch up” category. A serious drama, comedy, absurd movie maybe. Not Rubber absurd, but it just comes out with such completely counter culture points of right off the back it can take you by surprise.

None of the philosophies or ideas expressed in the film are new of course, they are just taking an idea to the extreme and seeing how it plays out. It leads to a unique film and one where the viewer is happy to take the journey.

The cast of characters is wonderful, with at least 4 of the children having pretty distinct personalities. It is harder for the youngest two of course. Mortensen plays a dad trying to do what he thinks is the best for his children, and it shows. The acting is phenomenal all around, with plenty of smaller amusing scenes and intellectual arguments to show the good and bad of their situation.

The ending is a bit weird, but he movie is entirely weird, so that shouldn’t be too surprising.

If you want an intellectual, weird, and slightly morbid film, Captain Fantastic is for you. If you don’t want any of that, then you might not like good films.

4 out of 4.

I just now realized that the title Gimme Shelter is spelled wrong. What the hell, movie makers. I demand another i.

Besides that, this song didn’t use the The Rolling Stones song either. All I knew about this movie is that I heard some good things about it, and that it of course never came to my area when it was out in theaters. Typical, typical lame area.

Oh well, DVD releases wouldn’t be exciting if I always saw the stuff before they came out, right?

Spoiler – The Shelter is a church.

Agnes/Apple (Vanessa Hudgens) is your typical troubled teen girl. Her mom (Rosario Dawson) is a crack whore, they live in the slums, with lots of drugs and gross stuff. And she is pregnant from a boy she met, who wants nothing to do with her now. So she has had it, cuts her hair, and runs away from home.

Where to? Maybe her dad’s house! Who she has never met before, because he was a kid in college when he met the mom for basically a very short relationship. He didn’t find out about her existence until years later, and felt bad, but didn’t come and save her from her life either. Either way, he (Brendan Fraser) is now a rich dude with a family, some wall street shit. She wants to stay with him, but his wife doesn’t appreciate the fact that she is pregnant and doesn’t want to raise the baby for her. She wants Apple to get an abortion!

Well, Apple doesn’t like that either. So she goes back on the streets. Then she gets eventually put into a home for teenage girls who are pregnant. Yay shelter.

Starring also James Earl Jones as a preacher, which may be his first time in a role like that, and Ann Dowd as the troubled teen home owner.

Give it up for the make up department for grossing us out with Dawson’s teeth.

I am pretty sure during this movie I saw a fade to black. One of those things to signal an end of scene or commercial break or whatever. Is this secretly a made for TV movie that instead went to theaters? Because that is what it felt like. It felt like a Hallmark after school special or something. A movie about why abortions are bad and your family might not be your real family.

Here is a positive. I can say this wasn’t an expected role for Vanessa Hudgens. There was no singing, no dancing, she wasn’t sexy, just a teen with a lot of emotions and not many people she could trust.

But the movie felt like a giant lecture. The ending too was kind of odd. That is when I found out it was just based on another fucking true story, that they thought was good enough for a movie, but in reality it wasn’t. Yeah. This review I guess will be shorter than a normal one, because I am already done.

1 out of 4.

Let’s talk about psychological thrillers based on real life stuff. I only am bringing this up, because guess what, Compliance might mess with your head, and it is totally based on a real story.

Kind of like The Experiment. Except in The Experiment, it was a real psychological test and they fictionalized aspects of it in the movie, and it was still good. In Compliance, it is based off of THIS real life event, and it keeps true to what actually happened. Roughly. I think. Shit, I just read about it again and got all disgusted at it.

Not as disgusted as her face, which looks like someone farted. At a restaurant that is totally not McDonalds but something generically different, it is a busy Friday night. Why are Friday nights busy? Fuck you, that is a dumb question, learn the real world.

Well, they get a phone call from an Officer Daniels (Pat Healy). He says they have a situation at the store, a young blonde girl at the register apparently stole some money from a customer, right out of their purse, so the customer went to the police station to complain. He has the regional manager on the other line, and he needs the manager (Ann Dowd) to take Becky (Dreama Walker) back in the storage room and question her.

Officer Daniels is on the phone the whole time, including when the strip search happens. But it turns out, Officer Daniels isn’t a cop at all, and just some dude prank calling some fast food places to make them do fucked up shit to employees.

What a twisted dude! Bill Camp is also in here as the fiance to the store manager, who might have to take over for her cause it is such a busy Friday night.

This is not sexy. Sure, she is just wearing an apron, but the torture-esque part kind of ruins it. I think reading the story via text gave me a worse emotional reaction than the actual film showing the events. Somehow, I wasn’t able to really get affected by the story when it occurred in front of my eyes.

I am not saying the acting was bad (and it wasn’t great either) because that isn’t necessary. They are just trying to be real people. Because it was close to the actual events, as the film unfolded I found it harder to stay interested.

Basically, whenever they amped up what they had to do to Becky in the room, there was always uncertainty involved, and the phone people didn’t want to do it (yet always did) and it got annoying. They always repeated the instructions starting with “He said I have to…”, which just got ridiculously annoying. I mean, if half the dialogue is hearing the same stuff twice, that gets annoying.

I am pretty sure in real life, especially when the fiance got there, if he was watching her and making her do things for over two hours, eventually he wouldn’t phrase it like that anymore. But we never get to see the really shocking stuff that happens. Only two of them were implied. They spent so much time on the initial get naked and find someone else to watch, it was stalling for no reason.

Overall, it is an okay movie, but didn’t fuck with me psychologically enough for me to love it.

2 out of 4.