Tag: Maggie Gyllenhaal

When I first saw the pictures from the film Frank, it seemed eerily familiar and I didn’t know why. Most notably, in a fast moment in the film Filth, the main character was watching television and a scene showed a man wearing the iconic head. It freaked me out. Were the two films cross promoting? Was Frank a bigger movie than I could have ever known?

Well, no. Apparently Frank, although fictionalized in this movie, is based on a real person.

Frank Sidebottom was his name, and Chris Sievey was the man behind the mask. He was in some bands in Britain for a long time and Frank Sidebottom was his “Comic persona” and recognizable around the world. Which is probably why it looked familar. I didn’t know that I knew that it was a real thing. I must had just seen a person in the mask before, maybe haunting me in my youth. Who is to say.

It is inspired by several musicians, including Chris, but none of this on its own is a bio of these gentle rockers. No. This is its own entity.

And lo, his name is Frank.

Jon Burroughs (Domhnall Gleeson) would consider himself to be a sensitive man. He lives alone, works a job, has a twitter, and in general would consider himself a decent person. He tries to write music, can play guitar and keyboard, but it is all pretty shitty.

As luck would have it, he happens to be walking down the road when a naked man runs into the ocean trying to end himself. He is a keyboardist for a band. Their “manager” Don (Scoot McNairy) asks if he can play the keyboard, and since he can, he is totally in the band, The Soronprfbs, no practice needed.

He does okay on stage, but he is flabbergasted to find that their lead singer, Frank (Michael Fassbender) is wearing a giant head mask. What. Frank never takes it off. People don’t talk about it too. They just go with it.

Next thing Jon knows, he is in the band and they are on a retreat to a cabin to work on their next album and they won’t be leaving there until that thing is polished and done. He now has to live with the other band members (Maggie Gyllenhaal, Francois Civil, Carla Azar) and they are as eccentric as Frank, in different ways.

And you know. Frank has a fucking giant head on his head. That is important.

But then again, that bitch is wearing a cape.

At times, Frank was very realistic and charming. The cast seemed to have great chemistry with each other and everyone felt relatively unique. I laughed a few times and found parts very amusing.

But at the same time, I didn’t feel like I got enough out of it. The final third of the film felt very different from the first two thirds. That is because change starts to occur, but I just couldn’t get into it as much.

I will say I hated the music, but I think I was supposed too. (I have now used but 3 times in the last 4 sentences. Well, now 4 of the last 5) It was very experimental/indie/weird. Not pleasant sounds, but sounds nonetheless.

I think I just expected a lot more given someone like Fassbenders involvement. I wanted them to go harder on the psychological aspect of it all and hated when they ended up doing with the Jon character. However, I do like the head mask. I kind of want to have one. Is it too late to be Frank Sidebottom for Halloween?

Some people enjoy eating competitions, fireworks, and BBQs for their Fourth of July celebrations. Not me. As a heavy movie consumer, I tend to spend a lot of time watching patriotic movies. You know which ones I am talking about. The kind that cause you to get out of your chair and start chanting U-S-A at the top of your lungs, or maybe even run down your street with an American flag (usually reserved for the Olympics). I am talking about the big heavy hitters, like Top Gun, Rocky IV, The Mighty Ducks II, Red Dawn, and of course Independence Day.

Which is why I’m glad we have new movies coming out around the same time as the festivities, that only want to help us express that pride we have deep down inside ourselves. What is more patriotic than a movie involving an attack on the White House, by Americans, for Americans? My fellow Americans, I give you, White House Down (Trailer).

(PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA)
“I’M SORRY, I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER MY FREEDOM BULLETS!” – Tatum

The movie takes place in a time when America is dealing with a lot of conflict in the Middle East. AKA, modern day America. President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) wants to be a great man and known forever in history. He has decided to pull all of the troops out of the Middle East and also offer up a peace treaty for around twenty countries in that area. It is a pretty bold move that has a lot of people angry, including the vice president who will quit if it goes through.

John Cale (Channing Tatum) might not think too highly of the new order either, after all, he served three tours in Iraq/Afghanistan himself. But now he is back to living in DC, working as a body guard for the Speaker of the House (Richard Jenkins). His dream is to work for the secret service, the highest honor in the land, especially since his daughter Emily (Joey King) is obsessed with politics, and he wants to get back on her good graces.

But while on a tour at the White house (lead by Nicolas Wright), a bomb explodes on the Capital building, putting most of DC on lock down. Too bad a group of mercenaries have all infiltrated the White House to take the president prisoner. Why you might ask? Plenty of reasons, just pick one. Surely it isn’t just for money though. Either way, it is time for John Cale to prove himself capable of being a member of the Presidential Guard, or else there might not be a country to save.

We also have Maggie Gylenhaal as a head secret service agent, James Woods as the Head of the Presidential Detail, Jimmi Simpson as a big bad hacker, and Jason Clarke as a mad mad mercenary.

Yep. Everyone in this picture will kill someone by the movies end. For America.

I am not allowed to review White House Down without mentioning Olympus Has Fallen, which I loved. It had great action, it was tense, but it still had its weak moments. Olympus Has Fallen was a much more serious film, whereas White House Down is going for Action/Comedy and is much closer to being a Die Hard variant. It isn’t rated  but even the smallest details seem to be throw backs to Die Hard. Just look at Tatum himself. His garb mimics Bruce Willis in the first film, with the white tank top and ruffled hair as seen here.

Roland Emmerich is used to bigger disaster films, so I am surprised he was able to contain the destruction to basically only two buildings. Despite the small scale, I found myself at the edge of my seat as Tatum and Foxx were running around the White House trying to be action stars. Foxx’s character wasn’t as much of a bad ass, as he is the President, but he has a few moments.

But here is what I didn’t like. The run time is over two hours, far too long for this kind of movie. I think the main problem lies in the pre-explosion intro, which dragged on and on, trying to set up everyone’s story. None of the twists are really too surprising, as it fits a very common formula. I didn’t see the last twist coming, only because a twist there felt nonsensical. The final twist was also a bit rushed and a bit anti-climatic.

Regardless, I am willing to state that both White House invasion films from 2013 are probably worthy of a watch, at least once. This one has a limo chase seen on the presidential lawn, while Olympus Has Fallen has a limo fall into an icy river of death. The difference in limo usage probably highlights the main differences in the films. I wouldn’t describe this as a “dumber” version of OHF like other critics, but it definitely takes itself less seriously.

I am looking forward to 2014 when I get to see two versions of Hercules. (Hint: You can already tell which one will be better).

Can’t stop, won’t stop. That is how I live my life. Every walk a strut. So why not a movie called Won’t Back Down? That shit appeals to me. Only time I will back down is when the ref tells me too cause I am too awesome in a fight. Alright that’s a lie. I wouldn’t back down then either.

Determination to finally get off the couch and you know, sit on a couch.

Jamie Fitzpatrick (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is not your ordinary mother. You know that, because she says so multiple times. Her daughter (Emily Alyn Lind) has dyslexia and now because they are so poor, she can not keep her in the private school even with aid and has to go public. Public schools give no fucks, because this is another random one that has a tenure policy. So they get that and well, do nothing else and barely try to teach. Leaving the daughter to be dyslexic and unable to read.

But she wants to change that. First by bugging everyone but no dice. But when she hears about a parent/teacher takeover for a school, that lets them get rid of unionization if half of the parents and teachers are for it, and develop new rules and principals and teaching methods, she gets all excited. But why would teachers give up their safety net? Well, because some of them care I guess. Nona Alberts (Viola Davis) feels bad about her son (and divorce with her husband, Lance Reddick) and just goes a long with it. Jamie even seduces a teacher who still cares to join their cause (Oscar Isaac) even though he likes unions and doesn’t like being put in that spot.

So despite the fact that they even say most schools that go through this begin to fail again after six months, will they somehow pull off the whole process and fix everything in two whole months?

Spoilers.

But wait. Does the movie end after they successfully win their resolution? Yes. But it only shows the school a few months after summer break and its fine. Not years later. Most start to fail after six months. They didn’t even show past that threshold!

But they showed a whole lot more. Two hours of movie at that. First off, time was confusing. I was sure they were setting it in early 2000s, but had all these Penguin/Steeler references after 2008. It said inspired by true events, which is another bullshit term. Schools have gotten better through this is all. It is super one sided and makes fixing a school seem easy as crap.

But more importantly, it is based on a fucking incorrect Gandhi quote. He never said be the change you want to see in the world. Stop it people. Stop giving that to Gandhi. It is a lie! Every time a movie uses it, kittens die. That is all I am saying.

I wish I just watched Lean on Me again, would have been better use of my night!

So I started using Redbox. Why is that important? Because that is why I saw Hysteria. Despite having all my movies for last week, it kept giving me free rentals, the jerks. So hopefully I remember enough about this movie even though it was over 10 days ago when I saw it. But given the subject matter, I can tell you it will be awhile before I forget the main details.

Because there are some visuals you just can never forget.

Back at the end of the 19th century, there was an epidemic in the world, especially in Great Britain. Women were hysterical. In fact, it was called Hysteria. Easy name. Women were speaking their mind, having opinions, demanding shit. What in the fuck.

Well, enter Mortimer Granville (Hugh Darcy). He is a doctor, and he reads journals. Too bad other doctors don’t give a shit. Hell, they cant even believe he washes his hands all the time. Well he lashes out at his boss one day and loses his job. Its like an apprenticeship type thing, and he is fucked. No one is hiring. No one but Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce) who everyone thinks is a cook anyways.

You see, he is a doctor who specializes in women. Most notably curing their hysteria. How does he do that? Well, massaging their genitals basically. Woo, masturbation!

But he gets requested so much, his hand starts to tire. First world problems and such. Once his friend shows him an invention of an electric duster, he decides to modify it and test it for science on his patients. You know, inventing basically the vibrator.

Also featuring the two daughters of Dalrymple, one a nice obedient assistant (Felicity Jones), the other a feminist who tries to start a school for girls (Maggie Gyllenhaal).

Man, I totally wrote “massaging their genitals” earlier and it was on topic.

Movie about the invention of the vibrator? Of course I am game. I saw a preview for this once, awhile ago, but somehow forgot to actually go and check it out immediately. This came out around the same time as a play, In The NextRoom (or The Vibrator Play) which is actually about the same topic. But starts off after the invention and its antics, not a lot of lead up like this one with some extra love story.

I know I am not mad that there are two mediums addressing the same topic. Hell, I just want to see the play now. I am sure it is a riot.

Unfortunately for this movie, a period piece comedy, there isn’t too many laughs. It is just more a happy story type of comedy, with the obvious orgasm jokes that occur. Silly past people, how little did you know.

Definitely an interesting movie that you should probably watch with your parents.

Hooray! Review 450! That in no way is a real significant number, just that it is divisible by 50.

Normally this is where I do a big long review of a bad movie, spoil the shit out of it, and make you laugh. Twilight series and High School Musical stuff so far. But the next bad movie I want to review I am saving for 500. It is kind of a special one for this site.

So instead, I will do a “controversial” review for a widely liked and known movie. And use the fact that there is a lot of pictures to make nerdy/lame jokes.
How could a review of The Dark Knight be controversial? Because I am only giving it a 3/4, and I will try to explain why I didn’t love it to the max.

Because this movie featured not enough bat nipples.

Batman is running around batmanning in this movie, but so are fake batmans. He has to save a fake batman from trying to batman the return of Scarecrow, in the movie as just a cameo. Apparently Batman’s existence isn’t making crime go away, it is elevating it!

Which is why we get some assholes like The Joker.

He also looks like a midnight toker.

The Joker’s back story is very simple one. He doesn’t have one. He has no other known aliases that could be proven, and no one really knows why he acts the way he does. He is chaos incarnated, and follows a very loose definition of logic to acquire his goals. His goals being more or less the destruction/torment of the Batman, an equally crazy character in his eye. It is almost as if he won’t stop until the Batman stops.

Or if he is stopped? If Ledger didn’t die, this could totally be some nice foreshadowing.

But fuck this crime shit. There is a new sheriff in town, Harvey Dent, the white knight gotham needs to legally bring the criminals to Justice. He is also now dating Rachel, Batman’s former gal, who apparently changed her look completely when breaking up with Bruce.

But that Joker is causing lots of damn problems. Not to mention huge outcries against the Batman for being a vigilante. Coupled with an attack on some high profile players and not-yet-commissioner Gordon, the Joker demand that Batman give himself up to save the city. Dent realizes that it would be bad if that happens and pretends to be Batman instead as a trap for the Joker.

He is such a fucking swell guy. High in morals too.

The trap is set, and the Joker is caught. Or did he allow himself to get caught?

He did. During it he arranged for the kidnapping of Dent and Rachel, and set it up so that only one could be saved by Batman, and the other dying in an explosion. In a very tense and lovely moment as they talk on the phone, we are teased horribly with Dent falling on the side and laying in the oil. But the Batman saves him, fuck! Oh well. Still gets his face all fucked up.

And AMC still wouldn’t let him join The Walking Dead.

More ultimatums issues by the joker. Have the town kill an innocent man, or else he will blow up a hospital. More chaos is caused, including people evacuating the city. The police get the bright idea of putting all the prisoners on a boat into the water, because they don’t want a repeat of what the Scarecrow did. The rich people also evacuate on a nice cruiser.

Haha! Another plot point expected by the Joker. Both vessels are armed with explosives, and the detonators for them are on each others boat. If one boat doesn’t detonate the other boat, they both will explode at midnight. Will the rich kill the prisoners, will the prisoners kill the rich?

“This is quite a dilemma, we, the prisoners, face.” – Big guy.

Through questionable motives, The Batman is able to find the Joker and tie him up once and for all! But too bad he has already convinced Harvey Dent (Two-Face) that life sucks, and he should kill people. Using the power of coin technology to determine life or death, he decides to go after all of those who set up Rachel’s death, thinking the Joker could not have been involved.

Through some tossing and turning, Batman stops him too at the cost of Two-Face’s life, making it the first time he has killed someone. Batman and Commissioner Gordon agree that Batman take the blame for what Dent did, so that Dent can die a hero and provide hope for Gotham, while Batman will go on the run, and be a “villain” for the city to unite together.

Morgan Freeman is also in here as Lucius Fox again, CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and really really hates unethical ways of stopping crime.

Alfred is still in this movie too, of course, because being a Butler is bananas.

Well part of my giving a movie a 4 out of 4 is the longing to watch it again sometime in the future and to make sure everyone sees it. Hellboy II, which came out to theaters a week before The Dark Knight, I gave a 4 out of 4. Counting the theater watch, I have seen that movie probably 7 times since. That is a lot, I really love that movie. How many times have I seen The Dark Knight?

Just two. Theaters, and last weekend on Blu-Ray. I definitely bought it the week it came out, just never watched it again until now.

But that doesn’t explain why I didn’t love it.

The film had a lot of hype thanks to the death of Heath Ledger. So much that he was being promised a best supporting actor Oscar before most people even saw the movie. Annoying fanboys is not a reason to hate a movie though. While Ledger was pretty damn awesome, I have never found the Joker character compelling or in general a great story line feature. I find him hard to grok, and that is part of the point. He is supposed to not make any sense and be complete chaos.

One of the most interesting stories throughout history though has always been the tragedy. Starting in Ancient Greece, the Tragedies always featured the same thing. No one cares if some random guy gets down on his luck, the fall isn’t great enough. People only care when someone on top of the world and is seemingly powerful loses everything and falls from the good grace. Like a King, or maybe a District Attorney who is living a fabulous life.

Despite his kind of weak origins, the comic storyline of Two-Face (ahh referencing the books the movie is based on! I am horrible! :/ ) is one of the best out there. A highly moral character who wanted to rid the streets of crime and did it all within the law to persecute criminals. But when the Justice system kept failing him, he began to crack. People need to be punished, and it isn’t working out. Then some other unfortunate things happen, like losing his loved ones (possibly at Batman’s fault) and the whole face scarring incident.

Dent’s fall from the top turns him into Two-Face, a man who believes there is no right or wrong left in the world, that Karma is a farce and everything that ever happens is always a random chance. Why not determine life or death with a simple coin flip? This way he can try to get back at those who has wronged him (other criminals, people in the justice system, and Crime) and do it the only “fair” way that must be left.

But his story was overshadowed by The Joker’s and mostly swept under the rug until the end. Having him die, while symbolic, was definitely a weird way to take the Batman franchise in. I really think I would have loved it a bit more if they dug a little bit deeper into Two-Faces actions at the end. It seemed kind of weak how the Joker convinced him to go after the people that he did, but I guess we have to believe it as a man who has given up all hope and purpose for life.

But despite all this, seriously, who isn’t excited for some Dark Knight Rises?

Despite the PG-13 rating, I think there is still a 90% chance of seeing a naked Anne Hathaway.

Again, a movie with a thousand tags. But I will explain it very simply for you so that is all makes sense. The plot of Away We Go it turns out is pretty damn simple to understand. More time for analysis (if I choose). Hooray!

It’s about love. And finding your love’s vagina.

John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph are an unmarried couple, but guess what, they are having a baby. She doesn’t want to get married, but still truly believes they will be together forever. They had moved to be closer to John’s parents (Jeff Daniels and Catherine O’Hara) to have some sort of relative in the babies life, since her parents are dead.

But when she is 6 months in, they find out they are moving to Belgium. For two years. Making their living arrangements kind of pointless. Afraid that their lives are fucked up and bad, they agree to go on a mini vacation to different parts of the country to visit their other family memmbers and friends, to see if they would be good places to live.

First to Arizona, to see Maya’s old boss and her husband / family (Allison Janney and Jim Gaffigan) who seem to be drunk a lot, and not too happy with life, and her sister. Then to Madison, for a job interview, where they also meet John’s cousin and husband (Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton), who are way too extreme on the hippy side.

Then to Montreal, to visit their mutual friends (Melanie Lynskey and Chris Messina), who have adopted many children, due to the unfortunate nature of Melanie’s ability to have a child (multiple miscarriages). Finally, a trip to Miami, to visit John’s brother (Paul Schneider) and help him out of a bad situation.

The whole time they are traveling they are dealing with their own problems, and wondering about their own inadequacies. And by both of them, I mean Maya. Because John is way too swell of a person, and optimistic, he is constantly making things better, all while looking like a hipster.

Exhibit A.

Their final destination choice I will let remain a mystery. Because fuck you, that’s why.

I thought the movie was pretty enjoyable. I laughed a lot more than I expected, thinking it would be a lot more heavily drama-nated. But man, there was many great scenes, and it all felt incredibly real. Hopefully their love in this fictional universe of the movie carries on after the birth and throughout their whole life. You are given a nice feeling that they have found true peace and happiness with their decisions, and everything will work out for the best.

Also, a lot of vagina talk.

Man, the cover for Crazy Heart is pretty epic, in my opinion.

Maybe that guitar turns into a gun? Yeah!

Jeff Bridges is the lead, and he is an old, alcoholic, former country star. He used to be big shit, but you know, isn’t anymore. Making ends meat by traveling in the south, playing smaller shows, and getting more beer! Well, eventually he meets Maggie Gyllenhaal, who is a journalist looking for a good story. She is divorced with a son, and they kind of hit it off, in a creepy way.

So he is like, “Hey! I wanna get my life on track!” So he goes to Colin Farrell, a past “student” of his who is big now, and gets to open up for him. Despite thinking he shouldn’t have to, because he used to be better. He wants to do an album with him to get on track better, but Colin has to do a few more solo albums. So he enlists Jeff to write some songs, because he is apparently good at that shit too. Well. He relapses, has relationships problem, drinks, gets hurt, and you know, crazy shit.

Crazy Heart shit. He also has an old friend who helps him through his problems in Robert Duvall, playing helpful bartender. (Or at least the most helpful a Bartender can be to an alcoholic.)

But that is the movie in a nutshell.

There are literally no better pictures of this movie on the internet.

Although it had pretty good acting, I thought it was…too long drawn out. I lost interest. Well done everyone, but just, the story wasn’t interesting enough for me. So I wouldn’t want to see it again.