Tag: Brett Cullen

Todd Phillips has directed a handful of movies in the past, including every Hangover movie, Old School, Road Trip, and Due Date. All comedies, not all of them necessarily good, but all comedies nonetheless.

So it makes sense on that level for him to direct a movie called Joker. After all, that title sounds like a comedy.

Oh wait, this is a serious drama piece, about the origins and rise of a super villain? A big acting movie that is probably going to be offered awards? Oh uhh…Todd? Are you sure you are ready for this?

Nothing screams out humor like a clown smoking on some stairs. Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is an adult, but why? Being an adult sucks. He has a disorder that causes him to laugh out spontaneously, and annoyingly, at weird times, so much that he has a card to warn people. He used to be in an asylum, but he is doing much better now. He works as a party clown, for kids, or whatever the occasion, even if it means standing on a corner with a sign.

More importantly he cares for his sick mother (Frances Conroy), who used to work for the Wayne family a long time ago. She still hopes they will respond to her letters, because they are good people. She is bed ridden now, and Arthur´s income isn´t a whole lot of money. But Arthur is kind to her and watches their favorite shows together and makes sure she is comfortable, even if he is having a bad time.

Like when he gets beaten up by some kids who steal his sign. Or his job threatens to fire him, or when they do actually fire him. A lot of bad is adding up, and he can´t take it. So when he kills some young rich adults in self defense, it starts a movement in the city. A city who is tired of the wealthy getting away with everything but murder, while the poor suffer.

This whole thing is a big misunderstanding, and a joke. But maybe it is just what Arthur needs to find his purpose in life.

Also starring Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Brett Cullen, Shea Whigham, and Bill Camp.

Phoenix playing someone with mental illnesses? You don´t say! 

Now that it has been out for over a month, most have you had already heard the praises of this movie and its record breaking $1 billion in the box office. It is by far the highest grossing R-rated movie of all time. All these records needed was just to put a superhero tag on the film and they were good to go.

Phoenix does an incredible job, but this type of role is something he has shown again and again in previous movies. It is very much in his wheelhouse, they are just usually more independent films that no one feels like watching (and honestly, a lot of them I have disliked). No other actor is really a standout here, although De Niro is at least interesting in his role.

This film offers a very unique look into the start of a movement, and the start of a supervillain. It does not say the Joker is right in his regards, but pointing out societal problems is good in the long run so that we can collectively all work on making the world a better place. There will always be problems between the classes, when one side suffers over the other. And a movie like Joker takes that to the logical conclusion. Eventually people get tired of being pushed around.

And yet, all of this is still an over simplification of what Joker is all about. The only really way to know, is to experience it and see where it takes us.

4 out of 4.

Road Trip movies are a tried and true comedy vehicle. By tried and true, I of course mean generally the same thing every time. After Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, you will mostly find copy cat films, and films who just try to out gross one another for shock laughs.”The Guilt Trip actually tries to use this same plot line, but instead feature a man with his mother.

Oh and they are Jewish. Because those jokes are easy too!

Andrew Brewster (Seth Rogen) is your average middle aged male, assuming average meant FDA biochemist who has spent the last five years designing a new cleaning product that is 100% safe in the household. Unfortunately, because he is a scientist, he is not a people person, so selling his product to big companies is turning out to be a hassle. But he has put all of his time and money in to it, so his drive across the US to the corporation headquarters is his last big hope on making a name for himself!

Before he goes, he starts off in New York, to visit his mother Joyce (Barbra Streisand). Well, she gets all emotional and talks about his lack of a love life, while also mentioning her first true love, before she met his father. Turns out that old lover is a big advertising man in San Fransisco. Maybe, just maybe, he can make it his last stop and reunite his mother with her old fling, while also getting his product out there?

Nah, a son wouldn’t potentially use his mother like that, would he? Would he?! The Guilt Trip also features smaller roles from Brett Cullen, Yvonne Strahovski, Colin Hanks, Adam Scott, and Ari Graynor.

Also, where are all these restaurants with giant steaks that you can get free if you eat them? I have never seen them, but oh boy would I like to.

While obviously starting out as a comedy, the film quickly transitions into a drama when they find themselves on the road. Both of our main characters have love issues, Andrew has a failing business that can’t even get off the ground, and they have many unresolved issues with each other that they never talk about. By the end, I can honestly say I was tearing up a little bit. Both characters were able to grow through the journey. However, it took a bit longer than I would have liked, even in film time.

Unfortunately, it really wasn’t that funny when it was came time for laughs, which is also how the movie was advertised. Sure, some of the scenes were maybe amusing, put a small smile on the face, but it was pretty average overall. Some of the funnier moments in the trailer were actually not in the movie, but in the extra scenes during the credits. Gotta love it when they advertise things not found in the actual movie!

Overall, most people will find The Guilt Trip to be a pretty poor comedy, which I could agree with. But if you are a sucker for parent/child relationships in the older ages, then you will probably enjoy this film a lot more for its dramatic moments and heartwarming story.

2 out of 4.

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Nothing I love more than patriotism, except maybe blind patriotism. So give me a war movie involving America, and I will probably love it. Red Dawn is of course a remake of the 1980s movie of the same name. The original film was not really a work that most people would describe as great, but maybe entertaining. In that film it was the end of the Cold War, and the USSR along with Cuba invaded the US. Clearly, the enemy has to be updated as well.

Let’s face it, the invading country is fucked when Thor is on our side.

In this distant future, the USA has become involved with more conflicts than they can handle. They have troops all over the world, and some would say that leaves their coast lines defenseless. But who would attack the US? Well, apparently North Korea would! That will teach us to over extend ourselves. Set in Spokane, Washington, Jed Eckert (Chris Hemsworth) has returned home for a visit while being an active duty marine. Jed left home after their mother died six years ago and hasn’t kept in touch. His father (Brett Cullen), a police chief, and brother Matt (Josh Peck), a high school quarterback are reluctant to have him back without a warning.

Then, you know, North Koreans start falling out of the sky in parachutes, and corralling up people in the streets! Hell no. Jed and his brother run away to their father’s cabin, picking up some other high school friends along the way (nerds, played by Josh Hutchenson and Connor Cruise, the latter being the mayor’s son!). Toni (Adrianne Palicki), a female friend is able to find them, but not Erica (Isabel Lucas), Matt’s girlfriend! She is captured! Oh no!

You know the rest of the story, the band of misfits begin to train in the woods and try to slowly take back their town. The Wolverines gain more recruits, more guns, and are quickly able to put a dent in their takeovers side, Captain Cho (Will Yun Lee) doesn’t like being messed with and is determined to fight back. They also find themselves joined by three marines (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kenneth Choi, Matt Gerard), looking to join up with the local guerrilla force to acquire the communication device of the enemy. That way, they can hear their transmissions and hopefully start taking out larger groups around the country.

You know. Or die trying.

The fate of the future of America may be in these men’s hands.

In the original Red Dawn, the threat of invasion probably felt a bit more real than it does today. However, I also felt that the previous movie was a bit campy in its actions, kind of making it a action/comedy by today’s standards. Just watch this famous scene again, and try not to laugh.

The remake does a much better job of creating a more serious film, even going so far as to kill off a lot of the characters you might expect to make it to the end. After all, it is a mini war and people die in wars. The audience has come to expect it now.

I think it is interesting how they ended it, leaving it open for potential sequels, and reminding us that there would be no easy fix to having another army invade our borders. But I can also see how it would piss people off. I think they did the right thing, giving us their training in a speech montage, instead of wasting more time before their counter attacks. I actually liked most of the action sequences too, which in turn made me feel pretty patriotic.

This film could have focused more on a lot of the pressing issues of our time, how different citizens react, and how one man can make all the difference, but really they instead went more for the fun action flick. Which is fine, I don’t mind action if its entertaining. Just remember the film seems to be focused more on entertainment, instead of a film focused on changing our attitudes towards war and society.

3 out of 4.

Oh snap, Beneath The Darkness, that sounds scary right? Seems like something that would fill me with fear, because there might be something else afoot, outside of the normal murder shit going on. Like ghosts? Double fear. Who doesn’t want that?

But there is no double fear. Just normal fear, that of which is not too scary. Damn it!

(And by damn it, I mean woo. I hate being scared).

Unless of course you don’t like the idea of digging your own grave and being buried alive.

Here is the basic premise. Dennis Quaid is a mortician, and thus has a creep factor going on. But when his wife dies (not in movie) he begins to stay at home more and more, yet still a respected member of the community. The actual first scene shows him going on a run and meeting a neighbor. He then takes said neighbor to a graveyard (with his gun), makes him dig up that grave, open the coffin, and hey look, it is empty. He pushes him in, locks the lid, and buries him. Okay, so yeah, Dennis Quaid is the bad guy!

Then we switch the movie to the group of teens and its stays there for awhile. The main character, Tony Oller, believes in ghosts. His sister died like, 10 years earlier, and he thought he saw a ghost over her bed. He also is the gardener for Quaid, so he and the others get the idea to go into his house at night, just to try and find ghosts.

But what they don’t find is ghosts. No, they find out that Quaid might actually be some crazy killer, and he is all like “Ahh!”. He ends up killing one of them, because they “accidentally fall down the stairs” and he is free to go, because hey. Respectable member of the community, and the others were breaking and entering!

Now Tony and his not girlfriend but maybe, Aimee Teegarden, and another friend want to try to prove that he is a murderer, and it wasn’t an accident. But the detective, Brett Cullen, can’t believe that without evidence. So yeah. Rest of the movie is trying to prove it, breaking and entering in more than one occasion, and a lot more funeral/buried alive talk.

Inappropriate picture, or a joke I haven’t made yet?

Obviously the movie doesn’t sound scary at all, just kind of suspenseful. Sure some people might die, like the nerd in the first scene, but not much. Really what it is, is a movie trying to figure out why he is doing the things. They give a reason, it is just bad. More or less, he is crazy. They try to compare it to some literature too, like the Tell-Tale Heart, but that doesn’t work too well either.

I think the only reason I am giving this a passable grade is because of Dennis Quaid. He hammed that role up, and it made it enjoyable, if not silly. Yes, I showed a pig picture, because I wanted to say “Hammed”. So damn hammy. The final scene the fourth wall is even broke, and unnecessarily.

Its an okay teen scary movie, but one that will also be forgettable in a few years.

2 out of 4.

Puncture, title alone, sounds everything like a horror movie. This helped lead me to the assumption that only damn horrors were coming out this week. Do not worry though! It is not a horror! But it is based on a true story (and dedicated to the main character).

It also is about Chris Evans being super serious guys.

Chris Evans is, I guess, tired of playing in super hero movies, so he is instead just playing a regular every day hero. He plays Mike Weiss, a ambulance chaser in Texas with his partner, played by Mark Kassen. They are good at getting their clients payments, even if it involves some shady tactics. Evans also loves the drugs and partying. Getting that coke, sex, and what not, while his partner his happily married and more in control of his life.

Eventually they take a case, from Vinessa Shaw, a nurse who was pricked by a needle at work and received aids. So they have to try and go against a hospital, not their easiest target! Along with this, they also take on the case from a crazy man played by Marshall Bell. He invented the “Safety Point”, a one use needle that is impossible for others to get pricked on after the fact. Apparently 800,000 accidental needle sticks happen a year to nurses alone in the US at that time. Obviously something they want a lot, and something they don’t have. The safety point guy claims that the main needle company is having a monopoly on the business, including bribing doctors for business, regardless of how unsafe it is for their workers.

But yeah, fuck all that, this movie is about Chris Evans, trying to do something good and actually noble once in his life, but you know, also being on drugs. It requires a lot to overcome, especially when he tries to get off said drugs. Hard enough that he has to go against smooth talking Brett Cullen who runs the team of lawyers against him. And that no one else wants to even try to help.

So fucking smooth.

So, despite this being a trueish story from the early 2000s, I think a lot was exaggerated. Including the struggle, and the end result. As an indy film made in the guys honor, it was also used to soapbox a lot of needle issues, and aids. One scene with a guy who might have been a conspiracy nut was pretty pointless, but in there just to point out a different issue that they werent actually fighting for.

But besides that, some pretty good acting, and an okay story. Chris Evans does do a good job, but he just had to be a slacker who wanted to do better, so probably easily doable.

2 out of 4.

Oooh. A movie set in the 70s or 80s and about skating? Cool. I hope it is like Roll Bounce. I love Roll Bounce!

So does Wayne Brady.

Now I knew by reading the cover it wouldn’t be like Roll Bounce. It is some coming of age story, also involving a skating rink (named Skateland). Alright. Gotcha.

But oh man was this movie boring. Outside of Brett Cullen, no other really known people are in it.

Not much happened in this movie. Unfortunately, it took a long for time to what happened to happen. Scenes were slow, the plot was slow, and the conversations were never exciting. The actors showed little emotion, and it kind of reminded me of an actual 70s movie in that regard. Just camera and scenes. The only thing I really noticed is that a lot of scenes were single camera shot. It meant no cuts and that the people actually had to remember their lines and not screw up. Good job guys. You should do theater.

0 out of 4.