Tag: Timothy Hutton

All The Money In The World

I am mostly certain I wouldn’t have seen All The Money in The World as soon as I did, if it wasn’t for the controversy.

At this point, telling me that Ridley Scott was the director doesn’t’ do anything for me. He has put out a lot of shit. Like The Counselor.

But Kevin Spacey was in the movie. His role was important, it was in trailers and on posters. He was basically the central villain. When it came out he was a central villain to people in real life though, his stock dropped significantly, and Scott decided to kick him out of the film. A month before it was being released. Without moving back the release date.

Instead, Christopher Plummer was brought in for the role. Everything was re-shot within a week, editing occurred, and we got the same release date. It also gained controversy over pay disparity from these reshoots, which is even more free PR.

Remember, there is no such thing as bad PR. Because the movie got award nominations – and we will never know if it is for the film itself, or the speed and craft of getting so much of the film done in just a week. Or maybe to give Spacey the finger.

Replica
I’m not fully convinced that he isn’t CGI’d into some of these scenes.

The story is a little bit about John Paul Getty (Plummer), who at the time was the richest person in the world. He was very meticulous with his money. He didn’t spend more than he had to, he always looked for deals, he got his fortune from oil in the middle east, and he was shrewd.

Gail Harris (Michelle Williams) was his daughter-in-law. She married her son and had a few kids, but the son became a drunk and a bad husband so they divorced. She divorced out of the family, taking none of the money, just full custody, wanting to distance themselves. But her son, John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer) was still growing up with the richness of the world around him. He had access to money, he got to travel the world, and one day, in France, he was kidnapped.

The kidnappers knew who they had, they were basically celebrities! So they knew they could ask for a lot of money to get Getty to have his grandson back. But Getty was careful with his money. He said no, and that was it.

All The Money in The World tells the story of Harris, trying to get her son back, trying to convince her father in law to help, while her son’s life was seemingly on the line.

Also starring Mark Wahlberg, Romain Duris, Timothy Hutton, Andrew Buchan, Marco Leonardi, and Giuseppe Bonifati.

Press
Oh. And the Paparazzi. They are all over this movie like…paparazzi.

Is this real story worth a film? Yeah, sure. It has drama, it has suspense, it has real dicks and real buttholes.

But this movie never really captivated me or drew me in to care about the characters involved. It never really felt real, but instead felt like a fast paced movie without a lot of thought behind it.

The movie starts off, time jumping back and forth across decades. We get some history of Getty, of the marriage, of the kids being younger kids. The time jumping goes too quickly and doesn’t really feel as helpful as they probably imagined. And of course, it was awkward that Plummer looked identical across 30 or so years. That’s an issue with the movie, and one you can’t just ignore by saying they did it in a week. Yeah. It shows at times.

Once the plot finally gets going, it relies heavily on Williams, Plummer, and sure, Wahlberg, to carry the story. I really enjoyed Williams as the mother. She was a strong character, constantly seeming like she was on her last wits end, but somehow keeping it all together. Wahlberg felt like a generic number two “Get it done” man, while Plummer just felt like a cranky old dude who gave no fucks. I don’t know if it is realistic, it is just true that his character didn’t have a lot going for him across the dimensions.

I knew close to nothing about the story, but it was quite clear what parts must have been embellished and what actually occurred. I don’t go to movies to see 100% factual events, but I do usually get annoyed when the truth is far more interesting than the film parts. I was notably annoyed at the end, when the rescue attempts were almost done. They kept switching back to Getty, and I had to role my eyes knowing that the timing of those events was just so stupid. And yeah, they existed just to make the movie seem more frantic.

This is a good story, with at least one great performance, that just feels rushed and overly dramatized. We can handle drama without the forced thriller parts. Just make sure everyone on board is giving it their all. I don’t know how much I dislike that can be blamed on the change of cast, but I do know I wouldn’t have given it any awards.

2 out of 4.

Lymelife

I can say that I honestly only watched Lymelife because I saw Alec Baldwin on the cover. Of course he was wearing a suit too.

Because that is all Alec Baldwin has to do nowadays.

Suit
Well its a suit of clothing at least, right?

This movie is more about a little rich~ kid named Scott (Rory Culkin). They used to live in Queens, but have moved out to Long Island, and are kind of big on real estate. Also this is the 70s.

Apparently Lyme disease may have just started recently, or it doesn’t have a real cure or something. Can mess you up for years. One of their neighbors (Timothy Hutton) got a deer tick while hunting two years ago, and has never been the same. Kind of sick a lot. His wife (Cynthia Nixon) has to bring home the bacon on her own, and makes it all kind of weird on their daughter (Emma Roberts).

Scott kind of has a thing for her too, but she is way more popular than him. Speaking of having a thing for people, Scott’s dad (Baldwin) is having an affair with her mom. Yay! The mom doesn’t enjoy being married to a sick guy. Scott’s mom (Jill Hennessy) knows something is up, but she just seems crazy to Scott. It isn’t until Scott’s brother returns temporarily from the army (Kieran Culkin. Yes real life younger brothers to Macaulay) for her birthday does Scott realize the truth about his father.

This causes a lot of family strife amongst both groups. Even more bad things happen when they find out Mr. “I am diseased” father hasn’t been going to his job interviews, mostly enjoying the whole “stay at home and do nothing aspect” of his life. Doesn’t mean he takes kindly to cheating. Factoring in all of the parents issues makes Scotts little crush seem insignificant. Doesn’t mean he was going to stop crushing, just puts it in perspective for him.

The end of the movie is full of betrayal, families rekindling and others splitting, new love, and maybe a gunshot or two.

Deer tick
See them bundled? It’s because they don’t want ticks. And its cold. And they might have just had sex.

I should have told the plot in a more straightforward way. My bad. But this movie was pretty intense.

The last five minutes I was scared. A lot of comparisons are made in regards to this movie and American Beauty, but they are pretty different. I guess they kind of both talk about the American Dream and sex with a neighbor (kind of neighbor). But one is a mid life crisis, and the other is a teenage boy. Who’s dad may be going through a midlife crisis. Either way, affairs are bad, and having people with guns mad at you is bad. So in those last five minutes when I was scared, it still wasn’t that predictable.

And most importantly, I wasn’t left without an answer. The plot lines were all finished. I wouldn’t say in a nice neat little package, because of some of the implications afterwards, but definitely felt like a full movie which was good.

I thought a lot of the acting was great, especially from Hutton, Baldwin, and Nixon. Rory would later want to bang Emma in Scream 4, because all of those people are in the same movies for some reason.

3 out of 4.

Serious Moonlight

When I saw the cover of Serious Moonlight I thought it looked like a dumb Romantic Comedy. I mean, it really had nothing going for it. I clearly didn’t look too closely, or else I would have noticed something very amiss.

Regardless, the reason I originally picked this movie to watch is because I liked the secondary actors more than the main ones. Dont worry, if they werent in the movie, I would have probably still watched this movie, but more likely months from now instead of right now. I get to have some control over what I watch!

Tape
You readers are smart. You can probably figure out the amiss part. I totally missed it.

Timothy Hutton is the main guy and he in his house, with tons of flowers and leading a path of rose petals to the bedroom. His wife, Meg Ryan, will be there tomorrow from a business trip, and he wants to surprise her. With a note. Telling her that he is leaving her, to go to Paris, and to feed his fish. Damn. But in the middle of the note, she returns home early, and he is like…shit.

She quickly becomes sad at the news, and demands that he stay put so they can talk about this and work it out, but he refuses. He doesn’t care. So she gets mad and throws one of the vases at him knocking him out. Whoops. He then wakes up and he is duct tapped, very solidly, to a chair, with Meg Ryan vowing to win him back and will convince him to stay home.

Holy shit Meg Ryan is crazy in this movie. But you already figured that out. Turns out he was seeing someone else, a much younger woman, Kristen Bell. (Good choice, sir). Well. Eventually more shenanigans happen, and he is transferred to being duct taped to the toilet (this way he can pee. Problem solved). But when Justin Long eventually comes to the house to mow the lawn, seeing the vulnerable position they are in, he decides he is going to rob the place. Knocks out Meg Ryan, and ties her up too, while making the house his own.

Oh man!

moonlight toiler
Really, the toilet thing is just a smart idea.

So, the best people in the movie ended up being the main two stars. I knew Kristen Bell and Justin Long’s roles wouldn’t be as big, but man, Meg and Timothy really took the cake. They felt so believable as a couple that was on its last ropes, their conversations with each other felt so real.

The movie has problems though. I figured I knew how it would end about halfway through, taking away some suspense. And if they get back together, I can’t help but think it won’t last long. After all, the guy really hated their marriage, and it seemed like unfixable problems at that point, so I feel like they will just pop back up again later, making him miserable. Or at least more sneaky if he decides to leave again.

3 out of 4.