Tag: Frank Langella

Sorkin Sorkin Sorkin Sorkin Sorkin!

WE HAVEN’T HAD A NEW SORKIN MOVIE SINCE 2017. And that was Molly’s Game, and was a little weird, because it was also directed by him. BUT THE LAST ONE JUST WRITTEN BY HIM WAS IN 2015. That was Steve Jobs, and if you don’t know about Steve Jobs, well, it was my favorite movie of the last decade, so I kind of love it. Hell, The Social Network, also written by him, also made the top ten list, and was a lot of people’s favorite of the decade.

I am a pretty big fan, I guess you can say.

So I have been waiting patiently for The Trial of Chicago 7. And it took a lot out of me to not rush to go see it in theaters, because honestly, I am not ready for that. Thankfully it was destined for Netflix and I was given the opportunity to check it out along with the rest of the world relatively soon after theaters. This one is his second directorial attempt, and I really hope it it takes the best parts of Molly’s Game and goes a bit further.

I am sure I can remain unbiased in my review.

Alright there are five people here. Are they most of the Chicago 7?

In 1968, there was a presidential election. Lyndon B. Johnson had dropped out, so a new person would sit at the head of our government, and for the Republicans it was looking like Richard Nixon. The democrats were likely to elect Hubert Humphrey, a boring choice really, and one who didn’t push enough values. A lot of people had problems with that, so a lot of people decided to go to Chicago during the Democratic National Convention and protest. A lot of groups, a lot of big ones, and small ones, and some shit went down.

Did the protestors star the riots? Did the police? A lot of evidence one way or another. But after Nixon won, his AG was sent to investigate and was charging several individuals with felonies to invite riots across state laws, and they were all being tried at the same time. So what kind of trial is this? Some sort of political trial? Is the right to protest on trial?

On trial we have Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp) were there as part of a national organization they made to help end the war in Vietnam. Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen) and Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong) were leaders from the Yippie organization, a youth group who did not like most of the things the US government stood for. There was David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch) was a conscientious objector during World War II and went as a protestor to encourage a lack of riots and peaceful demonstrations. Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) was a Black Panther leader and not from the Chicago area, but went there to make a speech and was there for only a little bit of the time.

And those are most of our key players, outside of judges, lawyers, other people on trial, friends, and etc.

Oh them? Here are the actors involved. Frank Langella, Danny Flaherty, Noah Robbins, Michael Keaton, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Caitlin FitzGerald, Mark Rylance, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ben Shenkman, and J.C. MacKenzie.

Here are two more. Let’s assume this is the complete set.

It is important to note I watched this film before writing the review. I mean, that is always true, sorry. I watched this film twice before writing this review. Because I didn’t see it in theaters (as I would have had this review a month ago), I waited until it was on Netflix like the plebian I was. And I will be honest, I liked it the first time, but I never got fully immersed because I kept having to stop it, or go back, due to things going on around me. You know, Netflix problems. So I declared a better time to watch it, so I could watch it again with fewer interruptions, maybe some breaks, but less overall noise around me.

And again, despite liking it the first time, the second time was even better. Normally it’d probably be frowned upon to do a second watch before reviews, because if something is nonsensical on the first watch, I’d want to be able to talk about it. And I will say the choice of a first calm scene in the DA’s office is very odd given the little we know at that point, and it takes maybe too long to pay off, but it still does feel nice by the end.

The film spends a lot of time with exposition of news at the start to get us on the right track, and then does a quick job of introducing the main players, while also taking a real long time to explain the “Chicago 7” vs 8 people on trial part. Which again, when it does in its time, is satisfying and suspenseful.

The acting and writing is clearly the place where this movie would shine the most. I don’t even have to talk about the writing really in a Sorkin movie, but I think he tried to be more subtle in parts when he normally would hammer it along. This is shown a lot in the conversations between Cohen and Redmayne.

Cohen, Abdul-Mateen, and Rylance are the most likely to give oscar nominated performances. Rylance has never been better (on the limited films I have seen). Abdul-Mateen has to give a physical and emotional performance with limited scene time available to him compared to the rest. And Cohen, jeez, it is likely his most normal sounding character role ever and it is just nailed out of the park.

I don’t think Sorkin has mastered the art of directing just yet. But this is a step up from his directing in Molly’s Game. Still some awkward moments and weird decisions here, especially when near the end some of the characters acted like background noise and cartoons during an impactful moment that took away a bit from that impact. Based on what we learned about the judge, he would have been a lot more furious.

The Trial of Chicago 7 is fucking fantastic.

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.

Anton Yelchin has passed away at 27 thanks to a freak accident at his home. This is terribly sad and tragic news. A young death is always hard to wrap your mind around and I don’t think I will really understand he is gone for a few years. He has five films on his IMDB, at the time of this writing, is five films, so he will still be gracing us with his presence for months to come.

I always try to quickly review a film of a recently deceased actor, if possible, as soon as I can as a sort of tribute to them. This review is actually up on the site just two days after the passing, my quickest turn around. Yelchin has been in a ton of films I haven’t seen so there was plenty to choose from. Thankfully, for the films I have seen, he has consistently given his best and never been part of a film I absolutely hated. From Star Trek, to Green Room, to Like Crazy, to Fright Night, to Charlie Bartlett, to fucking Odd Thomas, his range of characters is pretty great.

And it sucks that with his early passing the world has lost such a great acting potential. Who knows where he might have taken his acting? Would he have an Oscar? Does complaining about the loss of talent make me an asshole? Who knows.

But now I am reviewing a film, 5 to 7, recommended by another critic last year. And I will probably go back and watch a lot of recent films from him because I probably should have watched them before. But now I’m rambling, woo new movies!

I’m not crying, it’s just been raining…on my face.

Brian (Anton Yelchin) is a typical New Yorker. He is living as a writer, but nothing he writes is getting published. It is okay, because his parents (Glenn Close, Frank Langella) have money and he doesn’t have to rush to a job. They want him to go to Law School, but they will let him try writing for now.

Then Brian meets Arielle (Bérénice Marlohe). He sees her smoking a cigarette, so he walks across the street to join her. Suave as fuck. She finds him charming so she invites him back to smoke next week, and since he shows up, she invites him on a date later on from 5 to 7 that night. A very specific time because it has cultural meaning.

The 5 to 7 time in French culture at least is a more open time for couples, where they can be off doing anything and it not really be suspicious or weird. And it has grown to mean a time when you can hang out with your paramour. Brian didn’t know about this, so he was very surprised to find that Arielle had a husband (Lambert Wilson). But he is aware of Arielle dating Brian, and hell, he has a side woman as well (Olivia Thirlby). They are just an open couple who know they need companionship outside of their marriage and their family. Yep, kids too.

Brian is young, 24 or so, but he really likes Arielle and cannot stop thinking about her, so he gives it a shot. He has to realize that he is the side bitch and can only see her romantically a couple hours a day. No romantic weekend getaways. No late night parties. Just a little bit of intimacy. And that is a weird thing to get used to.

Shit, if I had them as parents, I would probably just write all day too.

I was a bit worried going into this movie. It felt like a romantic comedy. I knew it wouldn’t be typical, but I have seen a lot and it is hard to make something feel unique and different. Hell, when they introduced the dad’s mistress, I was worried this would turn into a What Maisie Knew situation. Without going into too many spoilers, it flirted with that specific scenario, but thankfully still surprised me.

The best part about 5 to 7 is that it felt real. Brian was a young and inexperienced kid and not the best flirter, so their first interaction was awkward. I almost judged Yelchin and thought it was just bad acting, until I realized it was supposed to look pathetic and made perfect sense. Brian wasn’t perfect, Arielle wasn’t perfect, everyone in this movie had flaws and felt realistic. Hell, the parents bickered and argued, but you could tell there was love there and understanding.

So thankfully 5 to 7 featured fantastic acting from all the major players involved. And the story is pretty unique despite dealing with a subject matter in films before.

If you want a realistic movie about extramarital affairs, that are parts of open relationships, and how it affects the lives of everyone involved, 5 to 7 is a pretty good choice. If you want to just see a well acted film, 5 to 7 is still a good choice. At times amusing, other times sad, 5 to 7 is probably the whole package for a film.

I first was going to give it a 4 out of 4, but I am sure that is just my emotions taking over. The reality is the film was sad, but I never was able to fully connect with it emotionally still. I didn’t cry and really, how great can it be if I don’t cry?!

By and large, the trailer for Draft Day is one of the worst I have ever seen. If you haven’t seen it, give it a watch. It is two and a half minutes. It is almost mythical the way they made that trailer. It is both a trailer that gives us the entire movie while also giving us absolutely nothing at all. It is truly marvelous to comprehend that achievement.

I guess that is a negative. A terrible vague yet overly detailed trailer. It also was advertised a lot, so I got to see the same identical thing over and over again. The concept became slightly infuriating. Basically, it had a huge uphill battle to prove itself an amazing movie in my mind.

Look at how fucking laid back they are about this movie. Clearly they don’t care what I think!

A lot is going on in Sonny Weaver Jr.’s (Kevin Costner) life right now. His dad died a few days ago, one of the more famous coaches of the Browns. Ali (Jennifer Garner) runs their salary cap number stuff, and it turns out she is now pregnant with his kid. It is also 12 hours til the NFL draft, and as the GM Sonny is told he has to make a big splash tonight at the draft or his job might be done. So sayeth the owner (Frank Langella).

Good. He has the 7th pick though. Right now his choice is between a running back that fits his teams system, Ray Jennings (Arian Foster), that is also the son of a former Browns player Earl Jennings (Terry Crews). So Browns royalty, the obvious pick. But Sonny really likes this defensive guy Vontae Mack (Chadwick Boseman), good at sacks, can stop many great players, just might have some emotional issues.

But thanks to all of the pressure he is facing, he ends up trading for the number one overall pick for his first round picks this year and the next two. Shit. Now he can get Bo Callahan (Josh Pence), a great looking franchise QB. Their current QB (Tom Welling) has bad knees and got injured early on their last season. This pisses off the coach (Denis Leary) who feels his job is on the line thanks to Sonny’s boneheaded decision.

Yeah, then a lot more drama happens. OH WHAT WILL SONNY DO? Ellen Burstyn plays the mother, Sean Combs plays Bo’s agent, and Griffin Newman plays an intern.

Didn’t you know there was constant arguing and drama right before a draft pick?

If you hadn’t noticed, there are no real NFL players or coaches or GMs talked about in this movie. All of the plot points related to the Browns are of course made up. Which is why seeing Crews/Foster there was a bit weird. Oh wait, 98% of this is made up. But they also mention Andrew Luck, and that is probably the only mistake they do I guess.

Garner’s character didn’t really seem to fit the normal stereotypes of a woman in her situation. She was really calm, which is generally not how I see her in most roles. It was strange.

What they ended up doing by the end was a bit clever, but not really too realistic either. Basically, there is no reason for a certain other GM to have done what he did and that is the only main issue with it.

So overall, it is an okay movie. I am surprised it came out in April, since it is clearly just a giant commercial for the NFL, romanticizing the whole thing. The NFL is next month, so I figured they’d make it basically the same day. Most of the teams mentioned were bad, maybe to drum up support, outside of the Seahawks. I also liked Boseman in this movie. Pretty crazy. I have seen him as a famous baseball player, now a made up football player, and later this year, a famous musician. Pretty exciting film roles for this guy is all I gotta say about that.

My quest to watch all the Ryan Gosling movies has lead me down interesting paths. It turns out he has been in multiple thriller / almost horror films, but none of them are any sort of standard slasher film. Stay ended up just being strange the entire time, with Gosling as a minor character. But with All Good Things, it is a mystery/thriller, with Gosling at the helm! And he maybe kills someone!

But no. It is still weird and different.

This is the best part of the movie. Gosling as an old man in lady clothes.

All Good Things is based on a true story, kind of. It is based on a guy named Robert Dunst. In fact, it is based on the most famous unsolved murder case in NYC history. But is it interesting?

David Marks (Gosling, aka Robert Dunst, but the name was changed?) is a real estate guy. Making dat money. He didn’t want to though. So he found Katie (Kirsten Dunst) and married all up in her. His dad (Frank Langella) didn’t approve of it.

Well, they move away to Vermont, open up a nice health food store, but still take in money from the family business to subsidize it all. Either way, times are tough, eventually he has to go back to NYC to join the job, make real money. He has to do some shady shit though, causing his mood to change, and become a lot more angry and bitter of a man.

But Katie stands by her man. And eventually dies. But was it David? WAS IT?

Hey, Kristen Wiig is running around. ALSO. There is a clean shaven Nick Offerman, but I can’t find good proof of it on the internet. But it is mindblowing. My second favorite part after the first picture.

Just, imagine him with even less stubble and even more humility.

Whew. What a story. Wait, no. I mean, what a bore-y. I am bored. It is all sorts of boring.

Another moment where acting is pretty darn fine and consistent, but no one cares. Shit, it was hard enough to keep up with the story, having different court room procedures interrupt the story, making it all feel out of order. But the only reason why I know how it ends is thanks to the words they threw at the ending, to tell me where the characters are today.

Whether they are still dead and not sure who killed it, or hiding in drag, or what.

I guess part of the problem with doing a movie about an unsolved case, is not actually knowing what happened. Like the rest of the world. So it is a bunch of bullshit anyways.

Apparently Robert Durst liked the movie? That’s fine. Don’t care. Sucks to be him if he didn’t do it and everyone assumes he did though. Just. Just no.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is the sequel to the critically acclaimed movie, Wall Street, just set and made about 23 years later. I mean, why not, clearly that is a long enough time to wait for a sequel. No one likes them rushed. It might appeal to a completely new crowd, but as long as they don’t do stupid things with the characters, then it should be good right?

It should be noted that I watched Wall Street for the first time a day before watching the sequel, and loved the original. Charlie Sheen and his dad did a great job, as did Michael Douglas.

Why Martin keeps playing the dad character to his actual sons roles, I will never know.
Must have gained a lot of false memories while parenting.

The movie begins with Michael Douglas’ character getting out of jail. What? Wall Street didn’t end with him getting jailed. I guess that happened in the 20 some year break.

The main character of this movie is actually Shia LaBeouf, which makes total sense, why not. He is dating Carey Mulligan, the daughter of Douglas, and isn’t in to the ridiculous wealth thing, like her dad. Greed is bad she says! He is also a young stock broker, for a dying company lead by Frank Langella. The economic crash has already occurred, from 2008 or whatever, so they are hoping for a bailout and it isn’t looking likely.

Pseudo-threats, lead by Josh Brolin, lead Frank to kill himself, leaving his company and Shia’s future in question! So he lied to some people and hurt Brolin where it matters, his wallet. This made Brolin like his balls, and hire him. At the same time, Shia is looking to his soon to be father in law, for help, advice, as he likes him (unlike his fiance).

Eventually people screw over other people. Brolin also was the man responsible for imprisoning Douglas, apparently. Then the new bad guy gets what is coming for him, and Douglas’ character turns over a new leaf and everyone has a happy ending.

Note the smiles.

I hated this sequel. First off, it was kind of boring. Second off, it played off of post crash wall street, instead of during crash wall street, a much more exciting time. When I tried to get people to watch Margin Call, I was told it reminded them of this movie, but they are “nothing alike”. In terms of what they are overall about and how good they are.

Thirdly, they killed Michael Douglas’ character. Not like a death, but what he was, and how he was most of the movie, they decided to ignore all of his life and have him change last moment, and do something unlike anything he has done before. That shit was stupid. I am all for redeeming characters, that is a big problem I have with Toy Story 3, but the way they did it was out of no where, unbelievable, and just gross to look at. My eyes and ears hurt when I saw it.

Charlie Sheen’s character was in the movie briefly, but it didn’t seem like his character either.

Finally, this movie was more confusing than the first one. They did a poor job of explaining everything that was happening, and it took forever to catch up. From all the people who became stock market folks cause of the first movie, this one might cause less people to choose the field. Huh, maybe that is a positive then?

I could say a lot about this movie, but it is one of the more simpler movies to understand.

Sure some history might help, but Frost/Nixon is about two people. David Frost, and Richard Nixon.

The entire movie is just their floating heads, talking.

But seriously. Frank Langella plays Richard Nixon, who just had the Watergate scandal and has since resigned from being president. Michael Sheen plays David Frost, a British TV reporter who likes to interview people. At the time of the movie I don’t think he was as famous as he is right now. A lot of the fame came from his interview with Nixon, as he was the first reporter to really get a crack at it after the resignation.

Do you want your movie reviews to be a history lesson? Didn’t think so. That is what watching the movie is for.

Eventually the interview happens over a few parts. After the first part, Nixon is walking all over Frost. He is a big time guy, carries a lot of power behind his voice, and can steer the topics his way. But it is up to Frost to man up, so to speak, take control of the interview, and get Nixon to talk about the scandals!

Sam Rockwell and Kevin Bacon are also in this movie, but you shouldn’t be watching it for them.

Here is a picture of the real interviews. Everyone is uglier in real life.

“But Gorgon Reviews, why would I want to watch a movie about two people just talkin’? Not only just that, but two people talkin’ about stuff almost 40 years ago. Fuck the past!”

Well, foul-mouthed reader, they talk pretty good like.

I mean, that might be my whole argument. I was captivated some how by all of it. The sense of history being made (or at least the possibility) and the mental chess match between Frost and Nixon for the debate. Had a lot more than those two, producers, agents, bodyguards, PR people, etc getting in the way too. And money. But just watching the conversations was good enough for me.