Tag: Bryce Gheisar

I will admit, when I first saw that this movie was coming out, I knew it had to be one of the early favorites for worst movie of 2018. A movie about a real event, starring some of the real people? What could go wrong?!

The 15:17 To Paris looked like utter shit, and as you can already see, yes, it was utter shit.

At this point, I assume Clint Eastwood is only alive because of directing. He is known for doing things quickly and under budget, despite issues, and it is really showing. Look at recent movies: American Sniper, Trouble With The Curve, Sully, Jersey Boys. He has some real event movies, and they aren’t spectacular. He had a known amazing musical and he botched it. And The Trouble With the Curve? Well, you probably forgot it existed.

The only real worthy note about some of his recent movies has been the acting in it. But it is clear that it is probably more so the good actors continuing to act good, and not Eastwood bringing it out of them. So now we have him directing people who have NO training at acting and really watch it blow up in his face.

Maybe not the best choice of words in a movie about a terrorist attack.

In 2015, on a train from Amsterdam to Paris, a terrorist attack occurred. A guy came out of the bathroom with guns ready to fire, and tons of ammunition. Immediately, he struggled against people waiting to use the bathroom, but once shots were fired, people began to run and much panic ran throughout the train.

But three Americans in a cart over decided that running was not in their blood. Spencer Stone (Spencer Stone), Anthony Sadler (Anthony Sadler), and Alek Skarlatos (Alek Skarlatos) in various amounts fought back against the attacker, including rushing at him despite being fired against.

The three and another were able to get rid of his weapons and subdue him, and keep him down, until they stopped at the next station where authorities and doctors were able to take over. They were international heroes, helping prevent a much greater tragedy.

But how did they get to that point and why are they even friends? Lets have a movie about that.

Also starring Judy Greer, Jenna Fischer, and the young versions of our heroes played by William Jennings, Bryce Gheisar, and Paul-Mikél Williams.

Bullrush is not the feat it used to be.

Many years ago, Act of Valor came out and I completely hated it. It was a big PR stunt, with actual seals instead of actors. By bringing in authenticity to the craft, they lost having a competent movie. But at least with Act of Valor there was a story. At least there was an attempt to be entertaining and to fill some people with wonder. After all, if it is propaganda, there needs to be a hook.

For The 15:17 to Paris, it seems like it is actually not a movie, but an experiment, to see how much bullshit a person can take before they stop watching a movie. Unfortunately, I can take a huge bag of it, so I saw the whole thing, but I can’t imagine why. This 94 minute movie should have been about 14 minutes long.

We get to have plot of the young versions causing problems in school, becoming friends, and of course, their moms arguing against pills for ADD. Okay. Cool. Go strong with your anti-science doctrine in the first few minutes.

After that we have our characters played by themselves, but pretending to be high school students trying to figure out future careers. Then of course doing these jobs and goign through training and doing things in Afghanistan. Just a whole lot of pointlessness, until we get to the ending. You know, when they are finally ready to go backpacking and train riding throughout Europe!

And guess what. We now get to see the three pretend to relive these moments. You know, being in Italy, Germany, and other places, pretending to be tourists who have been there for the first time, just doing normal things. It is so incredibly uncomfortable and pointless.

None of these things matter at all for the actual train ride. There aren’t clever points where “Oh, we saw them talk to that Californian girl and get Gelato with her because she taught them to disarm a weapon!” Nope. Just because they did it in real life, I guess.

Good news. These guys are heroes. Bad news, everything and everyone about this movie. Goddamn it Clint Eastwood.

As a middle school teacher, Wonder is a book I have seen before existing that I have blatantly ignored. It had an interesting cover, sure, but a guy can’t just go and read everything that is hip and cool with the kiddos.

I was still excited for this one, as I knew a lot of librarians and English teachers and students who talked highly about the book. So sure, I would watch it and hope for the best, and not worry about comparing it to the book.

Oooh, I wonder wonder what’s in a wonder film.

Maybe that helmet is full of wonder balls.

August “Auggie” Pullman (Jacob Tremblay) is a boy who had a lot of problems right out of the womb. He has been in the ICU, and has had many surgeries. There were many problems, and basically, he now has a really different looking face when compared to other kids. Because of his issues, he has been homeschooled his entire life by his mother (Julia Roberts), who put a degree on hold. His dad (Owen Wilson) works and tries to keep the humor in the house, and his older sister, Via (Izabela Vidovic), just has to deal with most of her problems on her own.

His family thinks it is time for him to finally join the real world. It will be hard for him to go to a real school, but it will be harder the more they put it off. So he is signed up for an academy for middle school that starts in the fifth grade and does a lot of advanced science work. Auggie loves science, dreams of being an astronaut, and has been using a space helmet to hide his face when going out in public.

Middle school is going to be a hard adjustment for Auggie. But he doesn’t realize is that many kids are finding it to be a hard adjustment. And that school itself is a hard adjustment, across its various levels. Auggie will realize the value of friendship, betrayal, and more, and that he also is not the center of his own universe.

Also starring Noah Jupe, Mandy Patinkin, Bryce Gheisar, Elle McKinnon, Daveed Diggs, Ty Consiglio, Kyle Breitkopf, Millie Davis, Ali Liebert, Danielle Rose Russell, Nadji Jeter, and Ben Ratner.

When they recreate frame by frame that scene from Deliverance? A bold choice from the director.

My first initial thought about Wonder: The movie only made me cry three times, what a shitshow. A good film needs five cries minimum.

But then I got over my not super salty cheeks and thought about the film and story as a whole. The film isn’t just about a dude with a messed up face learning to cope. It is about his whole family moving on with his condition. It is about his sister finding herself, i is about his friends realizing their own fuck ups. Shit, it is even about his sister’s friend realizing she is a fuck up.

It is a really easy conclusion to come to as well, because the film is formatted in a way to (quite obviously) show several different point of views. I have been told the book does it more frequently and better, but I did really appreciate it when it happened in the film. I got giddy with each iteration. If anything, one of the reasons the rating isn’t hire is because the film didn’t go deep enough in this method. Don’t introduce point of views and do it half-assed. Basically every time it did so, it did it only once, and then didn’t do it for enough characters. Let me see all of the other side characters who acted weird, go all in damn it.

I was able to connect with a lot of the characters, including Auggie, despite only having a minor facial deformity myself. Except the deformity I have made me really really attractive, so I guess people stared at me for other reasons.

Acting is swell, and honestly, a shout out to Wilson. He was more than a generic joking dad. He had some really sweet and tender moments as well, less than the mom character, but he did a lot with his lesser screen time.

Dog films are all the rage now. Just look at the last two reviews on my website. But in reality, despite this mini awkward dog theme, actual dog movies are NOT popular like they were in the 1990’s and 2000’s. They pop up every once in awhile and usually try to kill a dog by the end of it in order to get all pet owners to cry and feel nostalgic about past pets and current pets.

It is easy money. A Dog’s Purpose is based on a book that a lot of people liked and read, so it should have made money. Then it had a silly controversy a whole week before it came out, people decided not to see it, and here I am today, hoping it is terrible because it came out in January.

But really, I want to note that the idea behind the movie is brilliant. If dying pets makes people love the movie, buy it on DVD and give the movie money, then why not have the main dog more than once? Why not a whole handful of times?

There is tear jerking, and there is tear sucking out of you with an industrial vacuum.

I think an alternative title for this movie might have been Doghood.

The movie has dogs, people, and a lot of both. If you are the type of person who gets sad over the death of pets, you are goign to get really fucking sad in this movie.

Because our main dog (Josh Gad) who goes by many names, so I will just call him Dog, is going to die over and over again. This Dog is wondering what his purpose in life is. He likes to play and have fun he guesses, and there are humans that tell him to do things, but what is he here for?

So he hangs out with a kid who grows up into an adult. He hangs out with a lady in school. He is in an abusive home. He is a dog for a cop! He does so much more, but really, he just wants that stomach scratched.

Featuring a hot mess of people though, so here we go: Britt Robertson, Bryce Gheisar, Dennis Quaid, John Ortiz, Juliet Rylance, K.J. Apa, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Logan Miller, Luke Kirby, and Peggy Lipton.

I wonder how many humans die in this movie? More than dogs?

A Dog’s Purpose is a waste of time. For dog lovers, cat lovers, and human lovers alike. Now, I have never made a movie before, but I have to imagine that making the audience care about a pet has got to be pretty easy. I imagine it is one of the easiest tasks ever to make someone cry in a theater by having the pet go bye bye, second only to a relative.

And yet, after watching A Dog’s Purpose, which had at least five dogs, I think, I found myself unable to make a connection with most of them. In fact, some of them, the deaths came sort of out of nowhere. And not in a “Oh no, tragedy, death!” shocking sort of way. Just a “Oh, this is the end of this plot line I guess, let’s move on” sort of way. They just did a poor job of making me care.

Maybe a big element to get someone to care about the pet is time with the pet, but a common narrator sound just isn’t good enough. I wasn’t feeling the stories, I wasn’t feeling the other humans, I just didn’t care.

And a dog movie, where the dog dies so many ties, that fails to make me cry? Just feels a bit shallow and rushed. No emotional connection, means not a good drama film.