Tag: Tim Blake Nelson

Big Miracle? Some whale movie?

Originally I wasn’t going to watch Big Miracle, but then I remembered I watch everything. “Oh yeah! Might as well watch it asap then,” I thinks to myself.2

This is the best intro I have wrote for a movie.

Bitches love whales?

Based off of actual events in the 80s (and thus I don’t know about it), this takes place in a very Northern Alaskan village. Yes, that means Eskimos. For whatever reason, Adam Carlson (John Krasinski) is a reporter in their town reporting on random shit, for the main Alaskan news. People love him there, overall nice guy. He finds one extra report before leaving though, thinking people will love it. Turns out three California Gray Whales are trapped under the ice! The vast water froze quicker this winter, and three whales are sharing a small hole, miles away from the ocean to breath from. Damn, that is sad.

This story gets LOTS of attention. Wildfire amounts. The director of Greenpeace Rachel Kramer (Drew Barrymore) is already around protesting the selling of territory for oil, and of course the guy who bought the land for Oil (Ted Danson). Also tons of media shows up, including Jill Jerard (Kristen Bell) who is willing to take any story to get a leg up. The head reporter at their department (John Michael Higgins) thinks it is silly though.

Fuck, even the government gets involved! Cold War is still looming, and the government gets a Russian ship nearby, made for cracking ice to help. Because they have no idea how to help these things. Initial tries are failing. Even bring in some boys from Minnesota with ice melting technology meant for rinks to try and speed up the process. Eventually they get the only idea that might work. To constantly make holes in the ice a few meters apart, big enough for the whales to come up for breath, and lead them to the ocean, hoping that they follow said holes.

Sounds crazy? Well because it is. All the locals and news reporters end up helping, including Tim Blake Nelson playing some guy from Alaska! The main kid in the movie is played by Ahmaogak Sweeney, as they had a lot of real locals play the appropriate parts. But will the Whales follow? Will the Russians save the day? Will anyone die along the way!?

Hopefully none of them decide to jump on the ice. That would suck.

So, in terms of Family movies involving saving animals, this one is actually quite refreshing. True stories can be annoying like in Dolphin Tale, where the just poop on everything that matters and give a random inspirational tale nothing like the real events. But this stuff seems to be a bit more spot on.

First off, the main kid in the movie isn’t even the main character? Everyone seems to play an important role, and it isn’t from a kids point of view, like most “family movies”. That is cool.

Secondly, the oil people arent the bad guys. Literally everyone helps out in this movie. And people don’t even need convincing, all sides actively work together and want to save the whales. Sure, some also enjoy the positive PR, but damn it, there is no one stopping them and reluctantly letting it happen. No, it just happens.

I will note I found it weird that everyone seemed to be against letting the locals kill the whales for meat. Kind of rude. Their logic was sound, and would supply them food for quite awhile. Oh well, we love guilting other cultures into living like us.

But yeah, this touching story actually was a good watch, with mostly believable characters. Had some normal family jokes you would have guessed, but overall was pretty decent.

BONUS TEXT!

I wrote this review in June, 2012, the summer before I moved to Iowa. I lived in North Carolina at the time, and Blockbuster I worked at was already closed. So I had even more free time for films, and watched anything I could.

In Iowa, I met my now wife in the summer of 2013. Days after I met her she had to fly out to Alaska to go to the funeral for her uncle, Randy Roosdett. Why is any of this relevant? Well, he apparently was an extra in this film as an oil man. And that is kind of neat.

I

am surprised it took me this long to review Leaves Of Grass. I generally have a stand against downloading movies on the internet, but I took exception for both this movie and The Joneses. Why? Because they took forever to go from being made and out, to being actually out on DVD. I wanted to buy both and watch them, but just could not. Since then, I have bought both movies at least. Woo guilt!

It also features one of my favorite movie tropes. One guy playing twins.

Yep. Movie starts off with Bill (Edward Norton), a professor at Brown teaching Latin. After a student tries to seduce him (which he definitely puts an end to), and a meeting with the board about Harvard/tenure, in walks Bolger (Tim Blake Nelson) with the news that his brother is dead!

But not really. His brother, Brady (Edward Norton. Twins I tell ya. But he has long hair, no worry) is actually having some trouble with the law. He grows all natural marijuana! But he isn’t trying to get rich from it, just does a small farm, small sales, no reason to expand his market. Even if he owes money to Richard Dreyfuss. Bill of course goes back to Tulsa to visit the funeral, but en route to his home, he is mistaken for his twin and beaten up. He awakes to find, well damn it, Brady isn’t dead.

But he is getting married (to Keri Russell) and is having a baby, so Bill is guilted into staying. Especially since he too really finds the soon to be wife attractive. But Brady convinces Bill to pretend to be Brady and take care of things at the home (and his wife!) while he goes to deal with Richard Dreyfuss. And thus, alibis can be falsely made. Hooray!

After that, things go from mild comedy to real dark comedy. Shit goes down. Excessive violence, death, and extremely unlikely scenarios. None of which involve Susan Sarandon, who plays the mom, but might involve Josh Pais, a failed orthodontist.

Way too much swag for two guys from Tulsa.

Tim Blake Nelson is more well known as Delmar from O Brother, Where Art Thou? and playing “dumb characters” but he actually graduated from both Brown and Julliard. Why do I mention this? Because he was also the director of the movie, and whenever you are a character in a movie you are directing, your character is generally pretty awesome. And it is true. That characters amazingness made me enjoy the movie that much more.

I was shocked by the end how violent it actually got, not expecting it with a Edward Norton twin comedy. Shit happens, and that shit sucks. My vague descriptions might be enough to convince you to watch it, but I figure just saying Edward Norton is in it is enough for the rest of you.

Two groups of bank robbers. One sticky situation.

This is the small tagline I saw for the movie Flypaper, and I thought hey! That could be swell. Especially with a pun like that.

Especially if apparently everyone has guns.

The movie begins with Patrick Dempsey walking all up in the bank, looking for change for a $100. He is a weird guy, that Dempsey. Asking for it in very specific amounts of dimes, nickles, and quarters. Ashley Judd, the bank attendant that he is attracted to, is discouraged, but gives him change anyways. He seems suspicious! But right as he is about to leave, he notices weird shit, and OH NO, BANK ROBBERY ABOUT TO HAPPEN!

One very professional group of bank robbers (featuring John Ventimiglia). One made up of two hillbillies (featuring Tim Blake Nelson). Also, among the hostages are security consultant Curtis Armstrong (or Booger, if you prefer) and Jeffrey Tambor.

But when things start to go wrong? Its up to Dempsey and his lack of pills to try and get himself out of this crazy situation.

Now that’s what I call a “sticky situation!”

I laughed a whole bunch in this movie. People were eccentric enough to be funny, but not too crazy to be annoying or completely unbelievable. Dempsey got a little bit crazy in the movie too, with his unknown social conditions making it hard for him to not think about everything going on. One great scene had him on the ground yelling, thanks to other peoples weird actions. The ending might have been a little bit rushed, but I was fine with it. Bunch of people die too, BUT WHO? AND WHY?

It reminded me of, in a weird way, the movie Clue. This one only has one ending, however.