Tag: Biography

Time to start a movie with some controversy. Maybe two levels!

First of all, I remember when the book American Sniper came out. I remember a lot of people getting it and loving it too. Biography of Chris Kyle, the deadliest sniper in military or something like that. I also remember all the controversy after that about all the lies in the book. He lied about several things, Jesse Ventura even won a lawsuit about the lies in the book, and the fact that he lied about seemingly random things, brings the whole truthfulness of the book into question.

How much of it is exaggerated? Apparently there isn’t even a stat of confirmed kills, so that part might have no merit either. Basically, a curve ball into the biography thing if it is based on a fictional book.

Second controversy? Oscars. American Sniper got nominated for a lot of awards and people are angry for some reason. Mostly people clamoring for diversity. Or that the Academy is old pro-war people. I dunno. I think it was mostly people who hadn’t seen the movie. Like me, until now.

Guns, America, Yee-haw, and patriotism!

Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) came from humble beginnings. Texas. His dad told him he needed to help and protect others. He was a cowboy in the rodeo, but thought about going into a more noble career after seeing war news on TV. No, not 9/11. Some 1998 U.S. Embassy attacks in Africa.

He became a Navy SEAL, which lead to him becoming a sniper, and he went off to fight some wars. Namely, four separate tours of duty, which I have been told is quite a lot. He had a few important missions there and had to kill a lot of people, but he also saved lives. And some he did not.

Hey, and between these, he also met his future wife, Taya (Sienna Miller), who he had kids with. Being away a lot really caused a strain on the family, but at least he was doing something America.

Also with some other bros, like Kyle Gallner, Sam Jaeger, Luke Grimes, and Jake McDorman.

And here is the now infamous fake baby scene!

Since them movie is based on a book based on lies, it is probably okay not calling this a biography. Right? Yeah, if we just examine this as a work of fiction, it becomes easier to judge and biases can be ignored.

Nice and simple. On its own, it is actually a pretty good war movie. It has the training, the motive, the childhood story. We have several different war plot lines with some moral ambiguity. It isn’t just about “getting the brown people!” and never even gets close to implying that. It examines PTSD and ways to work through it. It covers the whole spectrum.

I didn’t get super emotional near the end, especially since I knew kind of how it was going to end, but I can see how it tear jerks.

Cooper still looks like himself, but like, a fatter, slightly more buff version. He also has a killer Texan accent. I can say he definitely acts really well in this movie. I can understand why he is considered for Best Actor, but he has no chance of winning. At least three or four people I can think of who acted better, unfortunately only a couple of them also got nominated for that category.

Despite the controversy, despite the lies, Clint Eastwood makes a pretty good modern war movie with a character people might find relatable, that examines a lot of issues with war. It also isn’t inherently pro or anti war. Just pro soldier. That is a fine enough message.

I’ll be honest, when I first heard of the movie Selma, I had no idea what it was about.

When I found out it was a pseudo-biographical film about a moment in MLK’s life? I assumed Selma was his wife.

Nopers, I was way wrong. Selma is actually a city in Alabama! Yeah, who knew? Not only that, but it was a huge staging ground for civil rights in the mid 1960s, and it had nothing to do with sit-ins, busses, or fire hoses. That is pretty exciting on my part, because that means I will actually learn something new instead of the same few tales they teach us about in school. As it deals with race relations, it will probably end up being topical too in some way.

Not sure how, but I am sure someway it could be topical. Hmmmm.

Martin (David Oyelowo) (We are on cool enough terms for me to just use his first name) had just received his Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, but he wasn’t done yet. This was after his I Have A Dream speech. There was a big issue with Jim Crow laws in the south. Sure, technically, everyone now had the right to vote. But people were getting in the way of that.

Poll taxes, literacy tests, inconvenient hours, and rude as shit clerks made things like that hard. Not to mention the general threat of violence for those who might attempt if they were black. Martin wanted LBJ (Tom Wilkinson) to make fixing this issue a priority, but LBJ wouldn’t have it. He had other issues like poverty he wanted to work on. So Martin and his comrades (Common, Andre Holland, Wendell Pierce and more!) found the staging grounds for their next battle in Selma, Alabama.

A student group (Stephan James, Trai Byers) was already working there, building up community support, and of all the registered votes, only 1% were black despite about equal numbers. It was a great battleground. Even had a super racist sheriff (Stan Houston)! Martin just also has family issues with his wife (Carmen Ejogo) while all this is going down, so, pretty intense stuff.

Oh and a whole lot of people are in here as smaller or villainous roles as cameos. We have Tim Roth, Giovanni Ribisi, Cuba Gooding Jr., Martin Sheen, Dylan Baker, and Oprah Winfrey.

People walked a lot more back then, just a matter of fact.

Thinking back on it, I don’t think I have ever seen a high quality film about MLK and his life. He has appeared in other movies I have seen, like Nelsan Ellis last year in The Butler. But filmmakers seem to be afraid of his life, despite clearly being a popular figure. I wonder if people are afraid of doing him badly and not living up to his larger than life persona?

Well, if they were afraid in this movie they shouldn’t be. David Oyelowo did an INCREDIBLE performance. His walk, his talk, his power, he had it all. His looks weren’t perfect, but man were they believable. And when he did his speeches or sermons in this movie? Yeah, his voice carried it hardcore, and not in the same stereotypical way people normally do Martin’s voice. It had its own uniqueness and similarity that made it seem just as awe inspiring and just as real. Shit, the final speech he gave? I was almost certain it was an actual recording instead of Oyelowo, but I was wrong. It almost made me tear up.

My only issues with the film is that despite its superduper lead, the supporting cast didn’t seem to catch up with him. I think this is the worst ever portrayal of J. Edgar I have ever seen. Out of no where it all seemed more comical instead of serious. Roth was awkward as the evil Governor and he also felt quite cartoonish. I couldn’t take these guys seriously, limiting the seriousness of the film.

I learned a shit ton about the subject though and it is an incredible story, even if certain aspects are fabricated. A very nice watch to learn about a very overlooked yet important event in American history. And damn Oyelowo. You good, you good.

2014 has been the year of the Doppelganger. Not Doppelganger Movies, that was just two Hercules movies.

No, 2014 gave us Enemy and The Double (which may have been 2013) and The One I Love. Clones everywhere.

But The Imitation Game, despite its clone sounding title, is totally not about clones! What’s up with that? No, instead we are getting a historical drama about Alan Turing, a British man who did things during World War II. Yes, this is another World War II movie, but instead of bombs and death, we instead get math and death.

“The square root of a bullet is still a bullet.” – Albert Einstein

You see, Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) was one of those very eccentric individuals who also did smart man things. Aka, the perfect type of person to make a movie about, because acting!

Alan Tuning is most famous for kind of leading the science way towards real life computers. Back in the 1940s, they didn’t even have the internet, so presumably all their free time went towards doing crossword puzzles. Especially Mr. Turing! A professor at Mathematics, he loved puzzles and solving cryptography. So he gets himself into an interview with the British Royal Navy to join their puzzle solving squad. Namely, trying to crack the German Enigma Machine.

The Engima was thought to be uncrackable. They had a copy of it, but they didn’t know the code. The code changed daily, right at midnight, and their first message intercepted would be at about 6 am. So they have to go back to square one, even if they solve that days code, every morning. It would be a tireless effort, but these men (Matthew Goode, Allen Leech, Matthew Beard) are up to the job! Just not with the anti-social awkward Turing. Who also doesn’t want to help their daily efforts, but instead build a machine that can crack the code almost instantly and help the Allied forces win the war!

Hurrah!

And he was gay. That is important, because homosexuality in the UK was illegal at the time, so his mere existence was causing him to be an outlaw, yet a huge savior of World War II.

Also featuring Keira Knightley as Joan, a WOMAN on the team (kind of), Charles Dance as the head of the Navy, Mark Strong as a MI6 agent involved as an overseer, and Rory Kinnear as a detective trying to find out what Turing is really up to.

Being a woman in a male dominated field of doing puzzles really makes you stand out.

I am pretty sure a lot of this movie was fictionalized to increase drama and make everything a lot more exciting…and I am completely fine with that. Man, was this film tense and exciting. And well acted! Not just the Cumberbatch either, but the other guys and gals, they did pretty good too.

As for Cumberbatch, it is interesting that in an episode of Sherlock, he referred specifically to Alan Turing’s life and issues they had after finally solving the Engima machine. It was a huge plot point and involved moral ambiguity (which I am always a fan of), and shit, now he is Alan Turing doing the same thing he talked about in another role! Crazy! And a bit eerie. But even more importantly, like a lot of his recent roles, this role was very different from his past jobs and you could tell a lot of fantastic acting was going on there. So good the acting. Acting that shows a love of the craft and maybe a love of the subject matter.

Is it the best at acting? Nah, probably not. But it is up there for sure.

I found the whole thing easy to watch and follow, and it was great that we also got a story of Turing when he was in grade school before he got his PhDs. It is great having WW2 movies that aren’t just about how war is terrible and people are dying and all of that. Which is I guess what The Monuments Men tried to do and failed.

Tally-ho!

It is really hard to find a time to properly use the exclamation Tally-ho, so when I find an appropriate time, I kind of go all out. For those not in the cool kids club, tally-ho was a cheer for Fox hunting, a noble British sport about sitting on a horse while a dog finds a fox and you kill it.

Err yeah, not as popular nowadays I guess, but a sign of someone who has a lot of money back in the day.

Foxcatcher, taking a similar approach, is about rich people and men’s wrestling. Yeah, that makes sense.

I do believe that shirt is NSFW.

Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum). Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo). Brothers, both of them gold medal winning Olympic wrestlers. That is pretty good, especially since they almost kicked wrestling out of the Olympics for 2020 games and on, but those guys fought hard to keep it in, so we are still good. They both won gold in the 1984 Olympics, and they also won medals at World Competitions, World Championship games, and Pan American games. They were the cream of the crop.

Dave actually won a bit more than his younger brother Mark, so Mark usually felt like he was the lesser of the two, even if technically he was a bigger and stronger guy.

They were also living paycheck to paycheck, wherever they could make money at. Inspirational speeches, teaching camps, whatever. So when John du Pont (Steve Carell) invites Mark over to his mansion, of course he goes. du Pont is loaded, from a rich family of horse breeders, and for whatever reason really likes Olympic wrestling. Namely, he would love it if American could whoop Soviet Russia. So he wants to invite Mark down and a whole lot of other hopefuls for the Olympics to train at his facilities, live rent and utility free, AND earn a bi-weekly pay check at the same time. They can train for qualifiers and then hopefully the Olympics.

He wants Dave too, but Dave doesn’t want to uproot his family and move from his home. Other than that though, seems sweet.

But du Pont has a lot of secrets. He is already a very eccentric and strange guy and he acts like he is maybe fulfilling some weird fantasy that he never got to experience as a youth. Or maybe something even darker! Who knows!

Goodness gracious I think his nose can be used to literally catch foxes in!

So, this story is based on a story written by Mark Schultz of his life with du Pont. It was taken by another guy, written better, and the movie was based on that book. Originally, Mark Schultz was all about this movie. Loved how much of it was based on his notes and scenes he saw were based off of things he directly wrote about.

But now? Mark Schultz really really really hates this movie. He went crazy on facebook and twitter, click the link if you want some spoilers. He is all sorts of pissed about how it made him look and implied scenes that went on the film.

Despite this, he still wants to make sure the actors win some stuff though. And that is because the acting was definitely the best part of this movie.

Steve Carell is not Steve Carell in this movie. He also isn’t Michael Scott, and he definitely isn’t Brick. He is a completely different person, with a prosthetic nose, mannerisms, walk, voice, everything. I LOVE it when comedic actors go serious, and it is definitely an incredible performance.

It is a good story, but I feel like too much of it is focused on the not so important aspects of du Pont, and not the really really bad stuff. The really really bad stuff seems rushed and time wise, it makes it seem like in real life they happen quickly after the rest of the movie, when in real life, it is many years difference.

And you know, not knowing the real life stories of the Schultz and the du Pont brothers, it took a long time for me to realize just what the point of telling this story all was. It could have definitely been improved by some telling out of order, I think I would have had a deeper emotional level connection to the film.

But despite the issues, it is still a very well acted movie, and an interesting black spot on the sport of Olympic Wrestling.

“Hey, it is that guy!”

Those were my first thoughts seeing anything about Mr. Turner. An actor who normally plays a weasel-y villain character, never really a main dude. But clearly that dude is playing the main dude in this role!

And that role is Mr. Turner. Uhh, apparently some sort of guy who is some historical person who is popular enough to have a biographical film about the end of his life. Yeah, I don’t know anything about this guy. I don’t think I have ever heard his name. But I do know it was one of the movies hacked from Sony and placed online, like Fury and Annie. So if it was going to make any money, it probably lost like, 5% of its sales thanks to it.

I am just saying, if it is going to be hacked and put online, hopefully it is good enough to be worth the effort.

He painted those bitches a painting. Bitches love paintings.

Joseph Mallord William Turner (Timothy Spall) was an artists in Britain. That much you probably already know. I mentioned he was a loyalist, because he apparently left a lot lot of his artwork to the British people, so they can be hung up in museums for people to see. He avoided selling them for outrageous wealth and fortune.

He never married, but he had some sweet mistresses. Also brothels. Also relationships with maids and neighbors.

And you know, he liked art in a weird way. And went to great expanses to get some nice scenes to paint later I guess.

And then you know, eventually he died.

Also with Marion Bailey, Lesley Manville, Dorothy Atkinson, Martin Savage, and other British people.

This shit right here? This is my shit. This is good shit.

Shit. Mr. Turner is another 2.5 hour long movie, and it is another 2.5 hour movie that tends to drag forever. Mr. Turner was so long and unbearably slow that I actually questioned my hobby as a movie watcher and review writer. I didn’t want to finish the film 90 minutes in and I didn’t want to watch any movie ever again. I had such extreme disappointment while it was on the screen that I thought the movie could fall down and kill me.

I had to convince myself that Mr. Turner couldn’t be the death of me. I was like, “No, this movie will not be the final one for my site. Boo! Boo! Boo!”

Which is why most of my discussion here isn’t even about the film.

But yes, overly long and drawn out. Who the fuck is Mr. Turner? A famous British painter? Apparently he was a dick and loved to paint boats. But he was a loyalist to his country. I guess. But if you don’t care about this guy or his paintings, this movie won’t convince you to care. You might learn a little bit, but it won’t be something you remember forever.

I think this movie is for only people who like him and want some sort of biography film. I have said many times that just because someone was famous or had a true story that there doesn’t need to be a movie about it, and this seems to be one of the strongest cases I have ever came across. Fuck Mr. Turner.

I had planned to watch this before the latest health development from Mr. Hockey / Gordie Howe. Thankfully he didn’t have another stroke, but man, I have to face it that one of the greatest players is going to die soon. That is very sad, but at least I was old enough to really know about how awesome he was and that he is such a big face in the Red Wings scene over the last few decades.

I also thought this movie was a documentary, but uhh, clearly I was wrong. Even worse it is a TV movie. Even worse is that it is a Hallmark made for TV movie. Even worse, I thought until like, 4 minutes into the movie that it was still a documentary. That was an embarrassingly long time before realizing it was something else. Either way, I will write it like a documentary review either way given its status and give you just one picture. With that, Mr Hockey: The Gordie Howe Story is not a complete life bio, but instead takes place after his first retirement from the Red Wings.

Now Howe (Michael Shanks) is working a desk job as a VP for the Wings and kind of bored. He thinks he can still play, but he has been retired a couple of years. Also, the NHL is in huge disputes with the WHA, another league who is offering higher salaries to steal the better players, despite not being a storied league. They also can draft players younger than the NHL.

So when the Houston Aeros decide to pick Howe’s sons, (Dylan Playfair, Andrew Herr) with their first and later round picks, unexpectantly, the Howe’s move from Detroit to Houston, and Gordie wants to play on a team with his sons. Give it another shot, despite the implications and turning away from the NHL.

And now the fucking Aeros are the Iowa Wild. So Sad.

At this point, Howe was 44, so it was already impressive. Especially since he played for another six years or so, until he was 50, and until the WHA and NHL ended up merging, allowing him to play in an All-Star Game in Detroit before finally hanging up the laces. Also with Kathleen Robertson as Mrs. Hockey and they did a good job of showcasing how important she was. Also Lochlyn Munro as Bobby Hull, which makes me laugh a lot.

As it is a Hallmark movie, yes, this is basically a cheesy inspirational story. And given the number of random ass baseball, football, and basketball players who get better quality films, it is a bit disappointing that a top 5 all time famous Hockey player gets this treatment, but it is still better than nothing.

It did a nice job of explaining his decision and showcasing his relationship with his family. I did love a scene where Mrs. Hockey was explaining the rules to neighbors in their backyard to get more people to go to the games, because honestly, the 1970s in Texas was certainly like that.

But as it is a Hallmark movie, it doesn’t go into any great detail or showcase the game in an exciting way. So as a sports movie, you won’t get your jollies off by watching.

All I really know is Gordie Howe kicks ass, played hockey forever, and will be missed when he is gone. Maybe we have to wait til after his death to get a better movie in his honor. Until then, this one is just okay.

I don’t often use the democratic process when working on my website, but I like to keep things interesting. Because I only go to 1 pre-screening a week now, I have to sometimes make difficult decisions on what I want to watch now and watch later. I had FOUR choices this weeks of screenings, and since none of them were Foxcatcher, I took to Facebook and Twitter to let the people decide.

And overwhelmingly, the people decided on Rosewater.

Like most people, the only thing I knew about Rosewater is that it was directed by Jon Stewart. And that is it. Current events be damned, sometimes I don’t keep up with all of the happenings all around the world.

Don’t look too shocked, I am just super America-centric.

Rosewater is the true story of journalist Maziar Bahari (Gael García Bernal), a guy who worked for Newsweek in London. Mazier was born in Tehran, Iran, but he left it to go to Canada to get the college education and has mostly stayed away since then. Now, in London, he has a pregnant wife (Claire Foy) and things are looking good. They are sending him to Iran to cover a new election. It is a big one, because a dude who has been there forever and very religious might actually lose the election. The people are clamoring and demanding change, so they are going to maybe elect a professor who wants to help his country grow.

Very exciting times.

But while there, he ends up hanging out with some activists who are really anti the current Iranian government. Thanks to them, he can see Iran as it really is, with the protests and the underground movements. And when the conservative guy wins again? Iran blows up. Figuratively. Protests, anger, rah rah rah. Now Maziar is there a lot longer than he expected. Oh well. As long as he doesn’t do anything illegal, he should be good.

Well, he gets locked up anyways. Just for filming and showing it on the news. And he gets called a spy. And he has to stay in solitary confinement, with blindfolds, for almost 120 days, while they mentally torture him believing him to be an American spy. Weeee~

Also featuring Kim Bodnia, Dimitri Leonidas, Haluk Bilginer, Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Golshifteh Farahani.

He probably got a lot of sleep with that thing too.

In case you didn’t know, the reason why Jon Stewart felt compelled to tell this story in movie form is because The Daily Show had ties to Maziar. Maziar was interviewed by The Daily Show when he was in Iran for this election in which he was jokingly called a spy along with other terrorist jokes. The Iranian government used that interview as part of their proof that he was in fact a spy, despite the nature of the show. Yeah, Jon probably felt pretty bad. But they go over that in the movie.

In case you didn’t know where the title came from, Rosewater is a scent and the main interrogator for Maziar had that type of cologne or whatever smell on him. However, awkwardly enough, the movie didn’t really explain or say that, from what I can tell. Just a small snippet about it at the beginning and then never really brought it up again. Seems to be an important point.

Rosewater really is just an average movie. I liked the cinematography, but the aspects of it as a complete film are probably Jon Stewart’s faults. It felt like a movie 10 years ago showing the few “social activism” scenes, like trending hashtags and news reports about his situation. They stood out way too much and seemed like a way to escape the film and the horrible conditions Maziar was in. Because of the frequent interruptions and weird way to present his imprisonment, I rarely could connect with him. It just didn’t feel serious enough.

I also couldn’t really figure out the purpose of this is, outside of maybe letting more people know that Iran government is kind of corrupt. It was a shitty situation, but one that also kind of got resolved pretty easily and the whole thing just felt…weird. I heard there was a documentary on the same subject, it is probably a better source of information and maybe even more entertaining.

The Theory Of Everything. Quite a bold title for such a short movie. Alright, it is about two hours, but I figured it would take a lot longer than 2 hours to fully discuss and show The Theory Of Everything.

What? What’s that? It isn’t actually going to answer this question? Fuckers. No. The Theory Of Everything is actually a biographical romance film about Stephen Hawking. Yes, the Stephen Hawking. That makes sense that he would have a biographical movie I guess. He is a really smart and well known individual and given his conditions it would allow for some sexy sexy acting to occur. But I always feel weird watching a biographical film when the person in question is still alive. What if he still does something super fucking awesome, like, maybe finding an actual Theory of Everything? This film will feel like such a waste at that point. They’d have to do another one to include that monumental occasion.

What? What’s that? This movie isn’t entirely about Stephen Hawking?

Shit, let’s just get the plot details out then so I can stop making assumptions.

Although, with that grin, I am pretty sure I know who farted.

This film starts us off in the roaring 1960s at Cambridge. That is in the UK, for those non worldly readers out there. Stephen (Eddie Redmayne) is just a physics PhD student who doesn’t know what he wants to study! He is definitely smarter than the rest of his colleagues, everyone knows it. Especially Professor Sciama (David Thewlis), the most important person who needs to know that information, and he encourages Stephen to see a few exciting talks and labs that they have to offer for research projects.

But Stephen finds himself interested in something else. Namely, the body, voice, and brain of one Jane (Felicity Jones), a literature student who hopes to one day maybe get a PhD herself. For whatever reason, she sees something in his goofy face and is pretty sure she loves him back.

And then, a motor neuron disease starts to take hold. His legs and hands stop working as well as they used to be. Walking is hard. Writing is hard. Living is hard. He is becoming slowly paralyzed, his entire body, with about 2 years left to live. Jane doesn’t care. She wants to work through it with him. So in his last 2 years, he gets his PhD, gets married, and has a child! But then he is still alive.

And well, obviously, alive to this day.

Also featuring Charlie Cox and Emily Watson as two different caretakers for Mr. Hawking and are in his life way more than you’d might expect, and for different reasons.

Paralyzed yet still made 3 kids? Yeah, not everything turns off down there.

Alright, first thing you may have thought about when hearing this movie was My Left Foot. Or at least that is what I did. Daniel Day-Lewis, the master actor that he is, gave an incredibly performance of a crippled individual and won many praises for it. Eddie Redmayne will win very very similar praises.

Whether it is strong enough on its own to win overall? I doubt it, although it is still incredibly impressive. Also impressive? Felicity Jones. She had a lot to do with this film as well, and nothing felt forced or fake from her. It was also a great performance.

My biggest issue with this story is that it is based on a memoir from Jane Hawking, and thus most of the focus is on them and not Stephen Hawking. That’s right, this is technically more of a Jane Hawking bio movie, not Stephen. Bet you didn’t see that coming. And due to that reason, we have a huge lack of science and talk about his work in this movie. They touch on some light basics, but everything feels like it is super dumbed down and only headline creating topics hit. It felt awkward to rush through all of his academic successes and really made me feel like I was missing something.

Also, the one thing that was definitely missing was some sort of timeline to show us when things occurred. I can’t tell if he was able to finish his PhD and have the baby in the two years he was supposed to live or not. Obviously he lasted longer, but when did the milestones occur? They should have really forced the accomplishments on us and let us know how truly wonderful it was.

Studio Ghibli has made a lot of movies and most people would consider them to be a big deal. More importantly, their main director Hayao Miyazaki has created some of the best, most financially successful and well known anime movies to come out of Japan!

I have only seen a handful of their movies and only reviewed one before (The Secret World of Arrietty), so I am not an expert on the subject. But since it is the internet, expertness is just a click away.

Either way, The Wind Rises is now most known for being Miyazaki’s final film, finally ready to retire. This was released barely last year in 2013 for like a week to make the Academy Awards and then released for real barely in February. Needless to say, this is another one that took forever to see. But I guess they have no rush since it totally didn’t win Best Animated Picture. Sucks to not go out on a high note, Miyazaki.

Which is probably why he made a movie about objects that go so high.

“Wait a minute,” you might be stating quite boringly. “Does that tag on the bottom of the page after the review is over say Biography? This is an animated movie!” Why yes, person who reads the tags before the review. This is a pseudo biography of Jiro Horikoshi (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an airplane engineer for Japan who designed some sweet planes before World War II. Yes, the war where Japan used planes to fuck up parts of America.

It starts with tiny Jiro who wants to one day be a fighter pilot. But with his poor vision, he realizes he would never be allowed to fly one. That is when he does research on plane manufacturers and begins to dream about Giovanni Battista Caproni (Stanley Tucci), an world renowned plane designer who tells him that making the planes is far more exciting than flying them. That planes should be beautiful creations and not war machines. He tells him that and oh so much more.

Well, with hard work and perseverance, Jiro becomes kind of awesome at planes and engineering. He gets accepted into a top program in the field and meets his sarcastic and always joyful friend Honjo (John Krasinski). He eventually gets a job with Mitsubishi where is boss Kurokawa (Martin Short) is a strict tiny man, but one who knows Jiro has what it takes.

Oh, Jiro was also involved in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. That is where he meets young Nahoko (Emily Blunt) who, wouldn’t you guess it, has some effect on him later in life too?

Other famous people are Mae Whitman who voices his younger sister, and William H. Macy, who is surely someone important because it is William H. Macy voicing them.

“Less pew pew pew and more zoom zoom zoom!” – Paraphrased movie quote

Given the majority of Miyazaki’s work dealing with fantasy and the bizarre, it is quite odd to find a movie that is set so firmly in reality. I mean, a biography? Set in Japan? The only strange things that really happen in the movie are when Jiro is dreaming, where anything goes anyways. I can’t tell you how factual the film is, but it seems to paint a realistic picture of society and of Jiro. Even the smaller details I appreciated, such as Jiro and Honjo smoking. A lot. Many smokes were had in designing and school, and they didn’t ignore that just because kids might watch it like Disney did with Saving Mr. Banks. He didn’t whitewash history despite Japan’s tendencies to do that (especially from that time period).

As always, the animation is also absolutely beautiful and showcases how great these types of films can be without CGI. Fucking talent right here.

It tells a story about love and reaching your goals, but I do feel like parts of the film tend to drag. I also decided as an experiment to watch it dubbed with the same English subtitles, because sometimes there are big differences. For the most part it kept with the same theme, but there was one scene where it mentioned someone had a kid in the subtitles and completely ignored it in the English dub version. There might have been more stark differences that I missed, but holy crap, did they get rid of a kid in the dubbed version? That’s like animation murder.

It is a fine movie on its own right, but The Wind Rises was clearly not the best animated movie of last year. It is a fine send off for an established director and I tip my fedora in his honor.

Cesar Chavez is one of those indie movies that kind of just never came out near where I lived, so I never really got a chance to watch it. It came out on DVD a few weeks ago (or if I delay this review by a few weeks, a month or more ago!) so at that point it just came down to finding a time to throw it up on my website. Only doing five reviews a week has its perks and its disadvantages. It is good that all of my free time isn’t looking for movies or writing reviews, yes. But those two reviews a week less than I am used to means a lot of indie or weird movies that my website is none for is pushed to the side if a week has a lot of big titles coming out.

Oh well. Cesar Chavez. A biographical movie with some subtitles and a comedic actor playing a serious role. My body is ready.

And I am sure they will do everything in their power to make sure they don’t make him look like Hitler.

Cesar Chavez (Michael Pena) is already a polarizing figure in the US. A farm worker in California, during the 1950s to the 1970s he became political, organizing the farm workers of California into labor groups to fight for better rates and conditions.

At this point, most of the farm workers were braceros, temporary workers from Mexico permitted to live in the US to work on these farms. Should they ever stop, they’d be forced back to Mexico. But the conditions were terrible and wages low, so it felt like a form of slavery.

With the help of others, Cesar organized boycotts, marches, and created a labor union, while also encouraging Mexican Americans to register and vote on elections to help swing results towards their side.

And uh, you know, I guess that is all the movie is really about? America Ferrera plays Mrs. Chavez, and Rosario Dawson and Yancey Arias are also on their side. In terms of white people to get in the way / help, we have John Malkovich, Michael Cudlitz, Wes Bentley, and Gabriel Mann.

You can tell he is an activist based on the number of scarves he is wearing.

After watching this pseudo-biopic, I don’t think I have a lot to say about Cesar or the film itself. From what I remember, he went in a hunger strike that lasted a long time, did some marching, and did a nice boycott.

And well, that was it? The movie was kind of short for bio standards, only dealt with a few events and didn’t seem to show many sides to the character. I am sure Cesar was a complicated individual, since everyone is complicated. I just didn’t get any sense of that.

Besides the potential bias issue, I found the movie kind of…boring. I could never really get into it, despite any parallels that may exist in our own time. It lacked an entertainment quality that I would hope to see in a film about an activist. There were a few tense moments only in dealings with anti-protesters.

On top of that? Acting was only okay. Nothing great. One cool scene sticks out from America Ferrera, and the rest is forgettable.