Tag: Bruce Greenwood

The Post

It is very hard for me to feel unbiased when watching a movie about sexy journalism. Especially if that is a story about real life sexy journalism, not made up who gives a shit journalism (Fake News?). Spotlight was something that felt like a slow burn, but ended so strong, with the good guys (the journalists, always), winning and doing the right thing. All The President´s Men felt very real and told the story about how Watergate was discovered and put into the papers. Another fantastic story.

And now out of nowhere we have The Post. This is a film that didn´t receive hype all year before coming out. It felt like sort of a secret movie, and that is bizarre given that it was directed by Steven Spielberg. Spielberg loves his period pieces, three of his last four films were Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, and War Horse, all of which I have varying opinions on.

Needless to say, given how little I knew about this film (and despite my journalism love), I had very low expectations for this movie. Low yes, despite the people involved. In my eyes, they haven´t necessarily produced the best work over the last few years, and this could be a very mediocre movie overall. (Much like my thoughts of Bridge of Spies).

gROUP
Actual future footage of the cast waiting around to hear Oscar news.

Back in the 1960´s, the US was in a really shitty war in Vietnam. People were dying by alarming numbers, we were not winning the war, it was dreary, miserable, jungles, and what not. It made a lot of people sad and angry, including a point when people began to protest almost constantly the idea of that war.

One man, Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys), was sent over to record and write and determined that a lot of what was going on was lied about to the American public. Not just current administration, but for decades politicians said one thing and did another. He had access to a private report on the war, of which he slowly made copies of over time. And years later, he was starting to strike.

That is when the New York Times, with several months to comb over the report, began giving details from the report, about how the people were lied to, in their paper, causing quite a ruckus in the US. This in 1971, with Nixon still as president. It caused such a ruckus that Nixon decided to get the Attorney General to put a hold on their articles about these leaked documents, until legal matters could be settled, the first time in American history that the executive branch tried to control a press so overtly.

And that is a big deal.

Enter in the team from The Washington Post. Led by their owner/publisher, Kay Graham (Meryl Streep) who has lived her life in her father´s shadow, and husband´s shadow (who took over after her dad), who is never really sure if she is competent to lead a paper. Their main editor, Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) wants to turn their paper into a national paper, to be a leader not a follower of the times, and wants to use this legal battle to fuel their own paper and report on the same report despite what the president says. It is time to stop toeing the line and to start asking the hard questions. The American people deserve that. Can´t stop that first amendment!

Also starring this grand bunch of actors: Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, Zach Woods, David Cross, Jesse Plemons, and Pat Healy.

Action SHOT
Don´t worry, we still get sexy shots of people lounging in offices.

On one hand, given my status as a self proclaimed movie buff, I start to assume I k ow directors personally. Since this movie honestly felt like a secret, I assumed it would be a quick piece by Spielberg that doesn’t have a lot of heart around it. But I was pretty wrong.

Now sure, the beginning was a little bit slow, with some necessary Vietnam backstory and death. Spielberg loves his wars. And then we have to introduce the many players at the Post and their conditions at the time. I know I certainly didn’t know they were not a major player in the 1960’s. It is important but it isn’t sexy.

It gdfs sexy eventually, as we see them sort of luck into these documents with a few individuals with some gusto. But really the second half of the film is where the gold was at. As soon as they get the documents, most of the film takes place over the one day as they look for stories, deal with lawyers, have to convince the board and so on. It was incredibly thrilling! Edge of my seat despite knowing the outcome. The heart and soul were there.

On another note, I was originally really angry at Spielberg for having so many passive lame women characters in this movie. Paulson felt wasted! Afterwards, it was still a bit awkward, but it is clear it was done intentionally as a mini theme. In order for Streep’s personal fears to make more sense, Spielberg constructed these roles to really drive home what was still expected of women at this point in history. It is annoying, but on purpose.

Overall, The Post is a very solid film and less obvious piece of history. I cannot wait for them to start adding on to the Investigative Journalism Extended Universe.

3 out of 4.

Gold

This is a review of Gold, Jerry! Gold!

Gold is another film that sort of came out of nowhere for me. I might have heard about it once, but I never saw a trailer. The first real moment acknowledging its existence was when it went and got nominated for a Golden Globe award!

Not like, a really good one. Just Best Song, for a song named Gold in the movie Gold. And that on its own didn’t really matter, because everyone knew La La Land would crush that category, guaranteed.

But hey, I watched it anyways. Maybe it would secretly be great, since it is one of those 2016 films that decides to come out awkwardly in January 2017 for most of the American public.

Jungle Love
Must have been some time zone confusion, what with them in an Asian jungle and all.

Technically Gold is inspired by a true story. I say that, because it isn’t at all like the true story. It is the idea of the true story, some parts true, but basically everything changed with some extra story in order to create a bigger complete story. Or at least that is what they want you to believe.

The film is about Kenny Wells (Matthew McConaughey), a man who runs a business about buying up land for its potential of minerals and selling it once they can confirm the minerals are there. His dad (Craig T. Nelson) started it, but after he suddenly passed, the last seven years Kenny has been bringing it down. Heck, the workers now basically make calls and sales over the phone in a bar now. His wife (Bryce Dallas Howard) has been keeping them afloat with her own job, not leaving him despite the promises of an amazing life.

Kenny is down to his last dollars. And he wants to bet it all on a hunch. He wants to talk to Michael Acosta (Edgar Ramirez), a famed geologist who found an incredibly big copper find. But since then, people still have not trusted his different way of thinking. They want to work together, to go to Indonesia, where Acosta believes they could find the biggest gold mine ever.

And when the results eventually start coming in, thinks start to sky rocket. But can their sudden success and amazing luck really all just be good news?

Also staring Toby Kebbell, Rachael Taylor, Bruce Greenwood, Corey Stoll, Bill Camp, and Stacy Keach.

BDH
They took beauty and the beast to a whole new level here.

(Potential spoilers)

Gold has the potential of being a really great film. But what they needed to do was try to take away the big twist in the latter half and spread it out more throughout the film. Because for the most part, this just feels like a rags to riches story. It has some set backs, they overcome it, some set backs, they overcome. And some back and forth business stuff.

But when we finally learn the twist officially, the whole thing feels sort of awkward. We aren’t given enough time to process it, and seeing more of the fallout from said twist would be a lot more entertaining and important than some of the minute details they put into getting the land and making sure they could secure it for a mine. The subplots kill the film and take away focus. Because damn it, the twist and scam IS the focus.

We only get the smallest of bits that it might be a scam for those going in blind based on eventually an FBI agent talking to Kenny, and realizing that Kenny is telling the story of the film. If the goal of the film is to tell the true-ish story of a real life scam, it is just odd to hide the fact that there even is a scam throughout most of the film.

It is just pulled in too many directions, where not enough of the pull is in the correct direction. The acting is fine, McConaughey looks disgusting, and there is a lot more geology in this film than I would have expected. But that alone is not enough for me to like it.

2 out of 4.

Endless Love

Endless Love is another 1980s movie remake coming out this Valentine’s Day weekend. Unlike About Last Night and RoboCop however, I never saw the original.

This allowed me to come into this movie with a completely open mind! From the trailer, it looks like it is going to go super serious with it all. I actually liked the trailer, using a slower version of Addicted To Love. From the way it is set up, I am almost certain someone is going to die by the end of the movie. Someone has to, right?

Car Rides
My official guess was neither of the main characters too. I guessed The Butler!

The Butterfield family is the cream of the crop in this small town. Their fortune simply came from being in a long line of doctors. Unfortunately, the eldest child, Chris, died of cancer before he could go off to college and carry on the family legacy. Now it is up to Jade (Gabriella Wilde) to kick butt in high school and get into Brown! So she does that, but through the sadness of her brother’s death, and focusing on grades, she never really made any friends, or boyfriends, or lived life at all!

But then there is David (Alex Pettyfer), who has liked her for years but never talked to her, for some reason. Well, now that she is about to leave for an internship, it seems like a good time to talk to her?

After a few romantic gestures, she falls hard for him, maybe just because someone else is finally nice to her.

Unfortunately, he has no college aspirations, and isn’t rich, so the dad (Bruce Greenwood) hates him, despite her mother (Joely Richardson) and other brother (Rhys Wakefield) totally thinking he is awesome.

Blah blah, blah blah, forbidden love, fleeting lust, and maybe someone dies.

Robert Patrick plays David’s father, and Dayo Okeniyi plays his best friend.

Kissing
Fuck. This film should have just been named Endless Kiss, amirite?

Hmm. Endless Love might have had the chance to be a good story. It could have been kind of great. But it never really elevated out of poorly acted drama, and never in anyway felt believable.

It is a travesty that love is even in the film title, when this is one of the most obvious cases of lust getting out of hand that I have ever seen. Arguably, that could be the point of the movie. The teens feel like it is a great love, when really, they have known each for like, a week. But that “moral” was never really explored at all by the end, so I would have a hard time arguing for it. No, we just got two teenagers overreacting, and then overreacting even more. Like an exponential function.

The melodrama was high with this movie. Maybe even over 9000 units of melodrama.

I might have rated it higher, if the ending wasn’t so cheesy and bad. I felt like nothing was really gained or learned by the characters, outside of the normal “teehee, love!” bullcrap that romance novels try to portray. I’d like to say I am romantic person and generally will rate romance or RomComs pretty high, but this one could never stick.

Just so we are clear, I am saying something like About Time, a romance movie about time travel, is more realistic than Endless Love in basically every aspect. That is how fake everything felt to me.

1 out of 4.

Star Trek Into Darkness

For whatever reason, just like my previous review of Star Trek, I am finding the right words to describe Star Trek Into Darkness.

I feel like a fake, a liar. I am a nerd who knows not a lot about the Star Trek series and never really cared to find out. So as to whether or not this movie fits the Star Trek world, I can’t comment on. But I tell you what I can do. Ignore the source material and just tell you if the movie is awesome or not. Basically what I do for every movie anyways!

Group
I honestly don’t know if this is from the first or second Star Trek.
The movie takes place right where we left off. Kirk (Chris Pine) is still captain of the Starship Enterprise, with the exact same crew. Spock (Zachary Quinto) is the first officer, Sulu (John Cho) the pilot, Bones (Karl Urban) the doctor, Scotty (Simon Pegg) the engineer, and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Chekov (Anton Yelchin) as whatever they do on the ship.

Well, things quickly hit the fan when a bombing occurs in one of Star Fleet’s libraries, plotted by John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), a former Star Fleet officer. That’s right, someone turning against his own former employers! Must have received a very poor severance package. After a few other attacks, he escapes to Kronos, home planet of the Klingons, the warrior race who wouldn’t mind having a reason to conquer Earth.

Well, crap, I guess they are screwed. Unless…

Clearly the best plan of action is to use long range Plasma Missiles to take him out (no trial needed), while hopefully not starting an intergalactic war. I trust Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) personally, so I am sure the strategy will work.  Bruce Greenwood also returns as Admiral Pike, and Alice Eve is brought in as mysterious science/weapons expert Carol.

No Shame
Nope. No Shame at all here at Gorgon Reviews.
I saw the sequel in 3D and I am almost certain it didn’t warrant the higher price. The film was made for IMAX and later changed to include 3D, so it was a sort of afterthought. In terms of “rounding” out the picture, it didn’t really work for me, and felt wasted. But hey, some sticks fly at your face in the beginning, and I might have actually tried to dodge them.

I loved Star Trek Into Darkness. It was exciting, it was action packed, and it refilled my lens flare quota for the rest of the year. It is of course beyond perfect. I left out a lot of plot details, but I disliked that problems introduced early in the film were fixed only a few minutes later. It made me wonder why even write those problems in the first place and made me feel like they were rehashing the first movie.

I also hate that they introduced regenerative blood into the series. Regeneration itself is a very tricky subject, as it becomes a deus ex machina. Unfortunately it also appeared in Iron Man 3 and was one of the worst plot fixers in both movies.

I’d stil suggest watching the movie and avoid IMDB/Wikipedia, there are spoilers everywhere.

Despite not being a Trekkie, I am deep enough in this Pop Culture game to understand a lot of the throwbacks and homages to the original series/films. In fact, I liked this film enough that I almost want to try and watch the older Star Trek films, out of curiosity. Almost.

3 out of 4.

Flight

At this point, if you mention Robert Zemeckis around movie people you will probably see a strong positive reaction. After all, he brought directed Back To The Future, Forrest Gump, and Cast Away.

So when news came out of his new movie, Flight, one of his first R rated picture which he claims will be his darkest movie ever, it obviously had a lot of hype.

I got this
“Uhh, we seem to be turning. Yep. Gravity is a bitch.”

The hype doesn’t die with the trailer, which makes it seem pretty amazing and dramatic. A pilot, Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) is able to use his instincts to crash land a plane with very few casualties. Not only that, but the same conditions were run with different pilots in simulators, and each and every one of them crashed and burned. Whip Whitaker is a hero! However, he had some alcohol in his system, so he might be facing legal trouble. The trailer makes it seem like this is a story about a hero who is being used as a scapegoat by a big corporation, despite saving almost a hundred lives!

Turns out the trailer is very misleading. The movie earns its R rating right away by giving not only full frontal female nudity, but also cocaine use. Whip Whitaker is not only an alcoholic, but an illegal drug user and cigarette smoker to boot. He was very unfit to fly, but it was still not the cause of the eventual accident.

Instead of a false manhunt, this movie is more about doing whatever possible to protect the pilot from getting reprimanded, despite the serious problems in his life. After the crash he decides to quit drinking, bu that only lasts about a day. He feels sorry for himself and pushes away the ones he loves. This movie also features John Goodman as his dealer/best friend, Don Cheadle as his criminal attorney, Bruce Greenwood as his union representative, Nadine Velazquez as a flight attendant, and Kelly Reilly as a heroin addict he meets in the hospital.

Court Room
Band aids are the classiest facial accessory you can bring to a hearing.

Outside of the misleading trailer, the rest of the movie was a big “meh” fest. There was a lot of religious talk in the film, because that is usually what happens after a large disaster. However, the entire focus of the movie is on Whip and his drinking problem. That is literally the only thing people care about (and only because of the legal trouble he faces). Once again, drinking becomes the worst thing to ever a person can do, while completely ignoring his smoking and cocaine use. A similar point was driven home with Seven Psychopaths, but at least then it was in a hilarious way.

Personally, I don’t drink at all, never have, never really plan to. Just never had an interest. I get annoyed when it seems the majority of my friends prefer to drink in every possible social setting, but hey, it’s their choice and I will fight for their right to. The movie is actually a giant walking ad for AA, which I also feel is one of the worst transgressors of Separation of Church and State in America. The 12 step programs all feature acknowledging one’s own weaknesses and putting your life in a higher power.

The film also had a problem in that the ending was entirely predictable as soon as they first went to an AA meeting halfway through the movie. I knew how the hearing would play out, and no longer cared about the him as he continued to dig himself into a hole. Denzel Washington did however act amazingly in this movie, it just wasn’t enough to justify the over two hour propaganda fest that I had to sit through.

2 out of 4.

Star Trek

I claim to be pretty nerdy on this site, yet almost every time it seems something nerdy comes up, I claim to not be that type of nerd.

This is another example of one of those times. Star Trek? Never really watched any of it. The amount I know about it is the amount I am supposed to know as a pop culture fanatic. I know some of the quoted famous lines, who a couple captains were played by, and that is about it. So hey, this film just has to appeal to those characteristics and be entertaining to watch for me to enjoy it.

Flareee
Ah, Lens Flare. Makes me think of outer space. I doubt they used enough.

Movie begins not with the crew we love. Its other people. Who totally get attacked my Romulans, when they thought it was just a lightning storm. Turns out they are from the future, and want to kill some Spock dude. Whoops. Too early in time. Nero (Eric Bana), their leader doesn’t care. They continue to attack, killing the captain, leaving George Kirk (Chris Hemsworth) in charge, who orders the fleet to evacuate while he steers the ship on his own into the Romulans. His pregnant wife, Winona (Jennifer Morrison) gives birth to her son in the escape pod, James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine), while her husband, you know dies. Totally was a captain for a whole 10 minutes, but at least he saved lives.

Many years later, Kirk is a troublesome son. Smart, but doesn’t make something of his life. He could easily join the starfleet, be an officer in four years, and Captain a ship in eight. But he is lazy. Pike (Bruce Greenwood), a captain convinces him to try otherwise, and he enters star fleet. Definitely not just for a girl, Uhura (Zoe Saldana), an alien language expert.

Three years later, he is doing the Officer test. So soon! He ends up “cheating” some how to pass the test, which is supposed to be unwinnable, made by Spock (Zachary Quinto) himself. Half Vulcan, half Human, who joined Star Fleet instead of a science academy because he didn’t like the discrimination and perceived weaknesses. Eventually a distress signal is found near Vulcan, sending the academy into a panic and sending their entire fleet. Kirk is able to sneak aboard the Enterprise, thanks to the help of his doctor friend Bones (Karl Urban).

Hey look, a lot of other famous characters I have heard referenced before. Like Chekov (Anton Yelchin), a navigator and weird guy, and Sulu (John Cho), playing as George Takei. Scotty (Simon Pegg) gets there eventually.

So yeah, Romulans. They are mad. They set up a trap for the whole fleet! Can the Enterprise survive the attack, save the Vulcans, figure out what time travel shenanigans are going on, and save the day? Sure. But also, Leonard Nimoy.

Thorrr
In Star Trek for 5 minutes. Lands Thor part because of it.

Hey look, this film gave me pretty much everything I wanted in a Star Trek movie, as a non Trekkie, that’s great! My biggest complaint would just be weird technical aspects that tended to take me out of the setting.

Yes, lens flare indeed was an excessive problem. But then just little things that bugged me. Like little Kirk, driving the car and running away from the cops. He turns on the radio, and Sabotage from Beastie Boys comes on. So okay, car is playing music. I’m fine with that. But then car goes over cliff, he jumps out, car super far away, music still loud as ever, now it is just background music? Can’t do that shit to me. That bugs the crap out of me.

I think they did do a pretty good job dealing with a time traveling/parallel universe time line, and used it as a good way to explain why this is different than the TV show.

3 out of 4.

Mao’s Last Dancer

Hell yeah, this movie has either a vague metaphor title, or a very specific title.

Mao’s Last Dancer, is it really about the last dancer for Mao in China? Or is it about the fall of communism, with art? Who knows! It can go either way. I already feel like I know a lot about the movie before it starts, on title alone. So exciting.

Chorus Line
“All together now kids, one, two, three, ‘Fuck your metaphors!'”

Li Cunxin (Chi Cao) is just a young boy living in a rural part of China. But when officials from Beijing come to visit the school, they are only told they are looking for a few special students, but not told why. After some pleading, the teacher gets Li picked, and he passed some cultural tests and performance tests. His parents, Dia (Shuangbao Wang) and Niang (Joan Chen) are super proud, having seven kids, that at least one of them will potentially go on to do great things. Hooray cultural revolutions.

And where do they go? To a ballet school. Whaaaa. Li ends up being the least skilled of the dancers, and gets called names more so because of his mess ups. He does training at night to get better, when he should be sleeping. Shame on him. Eventually he kicks the most ass, and becomes a stand out performance, even in the weird mix of ballet that exists in China, between normal Russian stuff to weird revolutionary imagery. Ben Stevenson (Bruce Greenwood) is the owner of an academy in Houston and requests Li to come to America as a foreign exchange student for three months.

While there, at first reluctant of Western Culture (from his years of training and learning how backwards the Capitalist system was), he eventually grows to love it, and also begins to have interest in another dancer Liz (Amanda Schull), whom he is a far better dancer than, but hey whatever, she’s cute.

Obviously time eventually passes, and he has to go back to China. But what if he doesn’t want to now? There has to be a way to stay in America, with out full on defecting and potentially harming his family. Afterall, he still likes China, and would like to return, but wants to go back and forth. And maybe eventually move to Australia. Because fuck everything.

Asian and white girl
Living the American dream. Come to the country, and fall in love with a white woman.

This is obviously a biographical movie, of this dude who came to America from China and kicked some ass at some ballet. So if you like ballet, there is a lot of good ballet in this movie, for you to enjoy. Like Step Up, but not really.

Definitely an interesting story, and interesting that they spliced his childhood and American travels back and forth. So we knew where they were going with the movie, and explain things in a good pace. The latter parts of his life seem to have been a bit swept under the rug (with the and then later!…title cards), like moving to Australia, after divorcing Liz, and finding an Australian girl. But hey, at least he eventually got to go back to China and perform for his village. Just had to wait for Mao to keel over first.

Interesting story, good dancing, potentially some propaganda, and a decent family movie, if you want to show a bit of history (but not much).

2 out of 4.