Tag: Nicole Beharie

Finally, a reboot of Breakin’. We haven’t had a break dancing themed film in awhile. Maybe one of the Step-Up films?

I wish I could begin the review like that honestly. I really would enjoy a film about break dancing, even though I know they won’t try to make it a good story.

Instead, Breaking is about a bank robbery. Or at least, someone who has a bomb in the bank, with a very specific set of demands, and he will not stop until he gets his way. Maybe unless he reaches his…Breaking Point?

And, it features this handsome fellow in one of his final roles. 

Brian Brown-Easley (John Boyega) has gone through some things. He is a former Marine soldier, but now he is just a regular guy, going through hard times. Including money troubles. We seem looking really beat up at the start of the movie. But over what?

We shall see…

The point of the matter is, that later he goes to the bank to do something really basic. No problems, all good. That is, until he asks for a paper, and writes a note to the teller that he has a bomb.

He allows people to call the cops, and most of them to evacuate. The teller (Selenis Leyvis) and manager (Nicole Beharie) are the only two staying behind. Brian is very apologetic and sorry. He says he won’t be hurting him if he has to let the bomb go. He just needs to make some demands.

What kind of demands? Well. He wants $832. That specific amount. And he doesn’t want it from the bank. He wants his money from the VA that he says was denied to him recently. It is the principle.

Also starring Connie Britton, Jeffrey Donovan, London Covington, Olivia Washington, and Michael Kenneth Williams.

Bringing a bomb to a bank is a good way to be alliterative. 

One thing you might want to know going into this movie is that it is based on a true story. And because of that, it is limited in really what it can tell in this movie, if it wants to be accurate. From the plot of this film, it looks like it was going for accuracy. I would not recommend looking up the actual events before hand, nor the article that became famous talking about the events. Obviously they are spoilers, but even the title of the article is a spoiler.

This film is dealing with a real, and serious issue. It is dealing with PTSD, and of course, police violence against black people, and their difference responses based on the color of ones skin most of the time. It is serious and worth being talked about.

But at the same time, I am a movie reviewer, and reviewing the movie itself. Once we get to the bank scene, which starts relatively early in the film, it feels like Boyega is giving a sort of impression of Denzel Washington in John Q. At least it made me elicit it. A guy holding up people for a good cause potentially. But there isn’t a lot that happens in this story. Just some talking, and escalations, until the whole thing ends. The true story is a powerful one sure, but the emotions weren’t with me along for the ride. And that was devastating.

Boyega wasn’t acting bad, nor the rest of the cast. Jeffrey Donovan’s character was a little weird in the grand scheme of things. But it didn’t seem to go far about the issues that the movie wanted to talk about. It all felt very surface level. It is really easy to make me cry when a movie has a father doing something “for his daughter” and there are emotional build ups, but this one couldn’t get to me in that level.

I think I would rather have a documentary about this subject, and the greater problems reflected in the film. Because this time keeping the story relatively accurate meant it didn’t have a lot to work with. And for one more note, I really wish it kept its original title, 892. That would have felt more unique.

1 out of 4.

First off, I am a bit disappointed. The movie 42 doesn’t get me any closer to figuring out the question of life, the universe, and everything.

Unless that question is baseball related. That’s right, 42 isn’t about The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, but instead baseball, go figure. Not just any baseball story, like the forgettable Trouble With The Curve. This is baseball history! The story of Jackie Robinson, the first black MLB player. Well, technically the first black MLB player in modern, post World War II baseball. After all, Moses Fleetwood Walker played in the MLB for a season in 1884. But after that, sixty years is a pretty long time, with “Negro Leagues” put in place, so Jackie Robinson still turned heads in his debut.

Despite the turned heads, he still didn’t help us answer that dang question… 42 doesn’t focus on Jackie Robinson’s (Chadwick Boseman) entire life, but instead about 2.5 years of it. But before we get to Jackie, we first get to learn about Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), GM of the Brooklyn Dodgers. If we listen to his reasoning at the beginning, he wants to try something crazy. That’s right, a black man on the Dodgers! Why not, that should increase ticket sales, and he will also do whatever he can to get his team a pennant.

So he picks Jackie from the pile, gets him on their minor league team, and hopes he can kick enough ass to make it on the MLB team, while holding back his anger enough to not let the rampant racism get to him.

This is a true story, we all know he makes it to the team after a year in the minors, and the rest, really is history. We also see a little bit into his relationship with his wife (Nicole Beharie), and I do just mean a little bit. There are other members of his team who all embrace in him different ways, some with petitions (Ryan Merriman), some with open arms (Lucas Black). Some managers didn’t give a shit (Christopher Meloni), and some made it their mission to make his life a living hell (The Phillies) (Alan Tudyk). But that is to be expected from a Philadelphia based team I guess.

This also has the smaller, yet still important, story of Wendell Smith (Andre Holland). He was the the first black member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, but first had to travel with the teams for two years, writing articles about Jackie and his struggles. That means Jackie Robinson was influential on more than just the baseball level, he just chose to end racism through beating the other team’s pitchers and stealing bases.

Oh there is also a John C. McGinley cameo as the radio announcer, dropping classic line after classic line of old timey talk.

Jackie probably thinks I am talking far too much about white people in this review.Speaking of white people, I guess Branch Rickey was pretty dang important to this story, but no one really talks about him in popular culture. The filmmaker makes sure you know how much of this all falls on his shoulders, and how it would not have happened (so soon) without him. Yep, this just ends up being another civil rights movie where white people are the saviors. Just like The Help and The Secret Life Of Bees. This literally keeps happening in film, and it is kind of annoying.

Even though in this example it might be true, it is still frustrating to see that it is focused on so heavily just to sell more tickets.

I loved Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson. I am glad they went with a relatively unknown actor for the role, because that was one of my bigger problems with the movie Ali.

Overall, 42 is a feel good inspirational movie and it succeeds at that level. There is some intense emotion in here, but it still ends with everyone smiling by the end. It could have dealt with a lot more of his life, but hey, after his first year, he wasn’t the only guy able to make the switch. He was a great athlete, and this is an acceptable (if not entirely accurate) portrayal of his life. I personally still left the theater happy, despite any real issues.

 

3 out of 4.

My first NC-17 review! Oh man guys, oh man.

I obviously knew the rating before going in. Only reason I really heard of Shame was because of a lot of uproar over being ignored by the Academy for awards (because for some reason people seem to care about them). A lot of people say it is because the Academy is bunch of Prudes!

I can’t really speak to that. But I will let this gif explain one of my thoughts early on in the movie.

It’s even funnier in reverse.

Shame is about sex, and a guy who is addicted to sex. That guy being Michael Fassbender, or as you may remember him, Magneto from X-Men: First Class. On the surface, he just seems like a normal successful business man in New York City. But socially he just seems mysterious.

When he goes out to the club with his married boss (James Badge Dale), without even trying he successfully ends up with the woman his boss was chasing. Dude has “talent”. We find out later his longest relationship was four months long, because he had decided to give it a “shot”. When he returns to his apartment one day he finds that someone else is no only inside, but SHOWERING in his shower. He rushes in with a bat to find a very naked Carey Mulligan (main character in Never Let Me Go!), his sister, and remembers he did give her a key after all.

She is going to be in town for the next few days, much to his dismay. He seems to be upset with her for whatever reason, finding plenty of reasons to yell at her throughout the movie (but perhaps the most acceptable reason is her having sex with his boss on his bed).

Fassbender also goes on a date with one of his coworkers (Nicole Beharie) and miraculously, at the end of the night nothing happens. But when they attempt to hook up the next day, he finds himself lacking in that department for whatever reason. Right after (the SHAMEful encounter) he does get it on with a random prostitute though. Hmm.

The relationship between his sister and him get more violent, as his addiction gets more and more prevelant. Cam websites, gay night clubs, ménage à trois, and more. While his path to self destruction is more an implosion and self contained, at the same time, his much more emotional sister is more vocal about the problems that they face, and exploding at an even higher rate.

I think I made that movie sound a lot more epic with that last paragraph. Success!

How good was this movie? So good. It felt incredibly real, in the good way. The high rating is due to the plentiful amount of scenes, and the realistic way most of them were done. For a few reasons.

It was obviously an overly adult subject matter, but it also left a lot to be implied. I think it implies that in their youth, the main characters were probably in an abusive household, that only the two of them really can relate to, which explains why the sister continually insists that they have to keep in touch, and why they don’t talk to their family. I’d say there is also room to suggest that from the abuse, they might have been in an incestuous relationship at one point, but…that one is trickier.

I was very scared one scene where it seemed Fassbender almost came to blows with his sister (while naked!), thinking I was about to see “incest”. But don’t worry guys, not in this film at least.

Other fucked up shit happens instead.

Yes. The acting in the movie is great, and the plot, just not sure how often I’d want to see this movie. Definitely a once every few years type of film.

3 out of 4.