Tag: Tom Guiry

Roe v. Wade

In the 1970’s, the Supreme Court ruled in a 7-2 decision that a woman did have a right up to a decision without a lot of government restrictions. There were rules of course, following science, other things, not just abortions on demand throughout the entire pregnancy. And this seemed to make some people upset and they decided to continue to attack that ruling for the next, what, 50 years at this point? Almost 50 years?

There have been movies before about Roe v Wade, documentaries too. Getting information out there about the trial. It is unfortunately one of the more polarizing rulings, and used as a political rallying cry for some, where no other policy matters more than this one.

And hey, every few years, a new big attack comes against it, including a changing of Supreme Court justices and new Congress people trying to undo the decision. A lot of the attacks also come from a planned efforts across various state governments to continually make new and similar laws, limiting and stopping abortions along the way, begging that their case will one day making it to the Supreme Court as another attempt to get an update on a ruling.

Is this movie about Roe v Wade? Well…

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Don’t you hate it when an actor you appreciated turns out to be so clueless.

In 1973, the ruling happened that allowed abortions nationally. But what about the fight leading up to the ruling? Well, if you want more information on that… then you should probably stay away from this movie. Read a Wikipedia, it will give a more detailed and accurate account.

Yes, theoretically, that is what this movie is supposed to be about. The lawsuits, the rise up the courts, the retrials, and the major players, but it isn’t worth anyone’s time to watch. If you wanted to be lied to for almost two hours you could just go to your parent’s house.

But still, at least, let’s go through the actor list. I felt like including everyone. Everyone! We got…
Corbin Bernsen, Greer Grammer, James DuMont, Jamie Kennedy, Jarrett Ellis Beal, Joey Lawrence, John Schneider, Jon Voight, Justine Wachsberger, Lucy Davenport, Milo Yiannopoulos, Mindy Robinson, Nick Loeb, Richard Portnow, Robert Davi, Stacey Dash, Steve Guttenberg, Tom Guiry, Tomi Lahren, Wade Williams, and William Forsythe.

You know if Milo Yiannopoulos and Tomi Lahren make your movie acting list, you got clearly high standards.

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A representation of hopefully the amount of people who watch this movie.

What can I say about this film that isn’t obvious? Sure, technically, it is just a movie, and its relation to reality shouldn’t matter. There is no Batman. There is no Thor. But that only becomes a problem if they are taking a real event and presenting their movie as fact, when it is extremely biased with an agenda. The agenda that is to say that Roe v Wade should be overturned at all costs and abortions is bad.

Again, intent definitely matters. It is a bad movie in its own right, but the point of the film leads nothing to be desired. Although not technically a Christian film, it does a similar tactic. Christian films are usually low quality and poor, because they aren’t made to convert anyone, they are just made to reaffirm people already on their side. People not on this extreme right side would see this film as clunky and ridiculous, while those on that side would just add more points for their arguments later. After all, why else would we have a main character be a professor who just gets to argue with and own his liberal students all the time?

Characters on the abortion side are seen to be evil, or greedy, or both. We have an abortion doctor literally go into an empty Catholic church to yell at god and do a variation of the Epicurus quote in a moment of anger at his life. They claim women were all misled to think this has anything to do with women’s rights and are just sheep in the fight who can’t listen. More and more nonsense occurs, including saying that the chief justices were blackmailed into their saying.

One thing the film has right is that the pro-choice side had better advertising and more support on their side, and funds to help fight this battle. They talk about using shows to talk about abortion positively, sure. They said they wish their side have more. And I guess this is one of their attempts at having media on their side, releasing an extreme biased portrait of events and calling them fact. It isn’t the first film to do this from their side and won’t be the last. We just had Unplanned two years ago (my worst film of that year).

But worst of all, worse than any other part of this, was the annoying Sepia tone they had throughout it to help indicate that it was the past. It made it gross to look at. And this is a film that tried to throw in gross extreme scenes of abortions when trying to convince people their movie was fact.

Also fun fact, they filmed this movie in secrecy, and had crew members of all levels walk out and locations kick them out because of hiding the point of their movie. They had the director walk out in day 1 once he realized their actual goal, leading the writers (and one main star) to become the directors.

Turns out making really obvious propaganda films can be difficult to sign on unless you lie to them. Take that knowledge with you if you watch this film.

0 out of 4.

Brawl in Cell Block 99

Brawl in Cell Block 99 is a great title. It is descriptive, while also leaving enough mystery to make you wonder. It highlights a single fight, which means it is a fight that should stand out in a movie that probably has a lot of fights. And it just has good letters. Those B’s are powerful, not a lot of B’S in movies lately, let alone multiple Bs.

This is brought to us by S. Craig Zahler, who gave us Bone Tomahawk recently. It was well known and received for being a slow, well acted western, with also one really gross death scene that really rattled people.

And this one is about prison! I am sure it will be perfectly quaint, although, not your average action film. Its run time is over two hours, so it better have a lot of story to tell in between punches.

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This is not the titular brawl, just the Brawl in the Prison Yard.

Bradley Thomas (Vince Vaughn) is an honest working man, a bit of a tall muscular freak, but hard working. He is a tow driver, which makes below average pay. But he has been fired from that. And at home, he found out his wife, Lauren (Jennifer Carpenter), was cheating on him. He deals with his anger the only way he knows, and not on her. They agree to work through it, to go for a baby, and Bradley will go back to being a drug dealer (not a user), where his size and strength can come in handy.

And now, a year and a half later, everything is fine! They have a bigger house, a baby girl on the way, life is looking up!

Until Bradley gets a job he does not want to do. The thugs involved with the deal look like users. They look like no good people who will try and kill and steal and put him in the line of fire. He agrees reluctantly only because if he does that he will get three months off paid once his baby is born. See, even if the drug business has better parental leave than the USA!

Bradley takes the deal, things go south, and sure, Bradley is in prison. He is blamed for the deal going south of course, so he is told that unless he kills another prisoner, they will get someone to perform a very late term abortion on his wife, and his not yet born baby girl will, well, stay that way. The only issue is, this guy is in a much more extreme prison, so he has to “earn” his way there by going against his own morals and code and hurting people to save the ones he loves.

Also starring Dan Amboyer, Don Johnson, Geno Segers, Marc Blucas, Tom Guiry, and Udo Keir.

Prison
This is not the titular brawl, this isn’t a brawl at all!

While watching Brawl in Cell Block 99, I had two main thoughts: One, when are we getting to this brawl that they needed to emphasize in the title? and two, Vaughn is really carrying this power and weight in this role. I was intimidated by him and awed by him. They made his character smart, strong, and oddly moral. When you expected domestic violence, you got instead a calm rational human, who didn’t even yell. It was odd and satisfying.

Anyways, there are a handful of action scenes pre-brawl to entertain those who ned punching. Of course some of that is just people straight up beating up one person, some of it is Vaughn seeming like a super hero.

Okay okay, at this point I am stalling. Once the brawl started to happen, it got really tense as it first had to involve a breakout attempt. Watching our moral character beat up guards at a level of realizing he is doing wrong, trying not to hurt them too bad, while also doing it for his wife and unborn girl. And then the actual part that matters, well I HAD TO STOP WATCHING ONCE IT STARTED. IT GOT REALLY INTENSE, REALLY QUICKLY AND I COULD ONLY GAG AND COUGH AND SHRIEK TO MYSELF. After that, it wasn’t that bad BUT IT STILL GOT REALLY INTENSE.

I had to type in caps there to properly show just how freaked out this movie got very quickly. It ramped up several notches, and frankly I wasn’t ready for it. The high rating isn’t just for those scenes, but for the whole build up, for seemingly telling a unique story in a familiar location, and just how strong Vaughn was in it.

I should have known what I was getting into with the director, and next time I won’t be caught unawares. After all, the next film is called Dragged Across Concrete, which is extremely descriptive and I am already gagging in anticipation.

4 out of 4.

Black Irish

Black Irish is one of those random DVDs I bought when the local Blockbuster went under. Why? I saw an actor I knew on the cover, huzzah!

Shit, it was 99 cents.

Either way, apparently Black Irish is a famous term that means something else. What is that something else? Well, it is…

Black Irish
Yep. Literally a black irish person. Moving on.

The McKays are a normal Irish-Catholic Boston family, accents and all. Desmond (Brendan Gleeson), the dad, is drowning himself with alcohol and pity, while keeping deep guarded secrets. The oldest brother, Terry (Tom Guiry), is turning to a life of crime and drugs. Kathleen (Emily VanCamp) got pregnant, but not married, and kicked out of her house. Cole (Michael Angarano) got Catholic schooling and is a great pitcher, but no real love and his parents are hitting low times, so he wants to transfer to a regular public school and get a job.

Margaret (Melissa Leo), is just standing back watching it all crumble beneath her.

But mostly, this is a story of Cole, trying to get his family to like him more by giving up the privileges that were given to him. Go to the same school as his brother. Get a girlfriend maybe. Get a job at an Italian restaurant with Joey (Michael Rispoli). But when you return to the streets, the streets sometimes doesn’t want you back. No matter how hard you (base)ball.

Also, check it, Francis Capra is a thug in here, just like he was in Veronica Mars.

Family
Theory: They are using the term black in a negative term. Like bad Irish. Because that family is white.

My metaphorical hat for this movie would be tipped toward Mr. Gleeson. An actual Irishman, he had to speak the same accent with a more Boston drag, and did it well. His character gave the most feels for me.

Angarano was good too, sure, especially in the “shoe shining” scene. Great emotion. Not as good as other movies I have raved about in other reviews on this website though.

Unfortunately not all of the plot lines are good. The sister one? I was kind of confused by how little time they devoted to telling the story. Melissa Leo is nice, but I think she was completely underused. This was mostly the two brothers and the dad story.

Overall, it is an okay story. It could have been a lot better, if the plot was a bit better and more polished. After all, the main actors were good. Just. Needed. A Better. Story.

2 out of 4.