Tag: Drama

Before this week, I had never seen Mary Poppins. Classic movie sure, and I of course knew songs and scenes from it, but I never watched it in its entirety. Blame the parents. While watching the movie as an adult, I did find it very odd. The message was clear: money is evil, family is great, but why they chose to enforce that message in the 1960s was beyond me.

That was my main goal for watching Saving Mr. Banks: to figure out what the money and banks ever did to the Mary Poppins author. Oh, and to figure out why she was behaving like a huge bitch.

I didn’t think anyone could be mean to a face like that.

Saving Mr. Banks is supposed to tell the true-ish story of Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) acquiring the rights to a film version of Mary Poppins, from the author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson). Of course because it is a Disney movie about the creator of Disney, don’t expect that much actual truth in the movie.

The one thing that does appear to be truthful is that Travers was very very hard to work with. She was granted script rights, and she used the heck out of them. She didn’t want animation, didn’t want music, didn’t want Dick Van Dyke, didn’t want a lot of things. She was very peculiar over her character, and didn’t want Disney to mess it up.

Everything else that occurred in the film is whatever they wanted to say, presumably to rewrite history. For instance, Disney was a chronic smoker and he never hated it, despite it leading to his death. They made a few tiny references in the movie (a cough every once in awhile) but made sure they never showed him doing the deed. In fact, he had a line calling it a disgusting habit and one he was trying to quit. Riiiiight…

The movie is spliced with the tale of Travers’ early life, when she moved to the middle of no where with her family. She lived in a small house, but had a loving (yet alcoholic) father (Colin Farrell), and a quite annoyed mother (Ruth Wilson). Her stories were based on an actual nanny sent to clean up their home, after a few unfortunate events leaving it in disarray.

It should be obvious that most of her complaints with the original script, end up getting included in the final project. So something has to change by the end of the movie, but is it change that all parties actually agree on?

Also featuring Paul Giamatti as an optimistic driver (strange role for him), Bradley Whitford as the writer, and B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman as the song writers.

What? You didn’t want a farm story during a Mary Poppins movie movie? Too bad!

After watching the movie, I am unsure how much of it is true, and how much of it is just revisionist history. I mentioned a few discrepancies above, but I also don’t know if the back story on Travers’ early life is accurate. I loved the back story, loved it far more than the other part of the film. It was sweet and it was tragic. It made Mary Poppins make a heck of a lot more sense and give it a more powerful meaning. But given all the other changes, I can only doubt that the past problems are somewhat fabricated as well.

This film is also meant to be a pseudo-biopic for Walt Disney, but since it is such a small part of his wildly successful life, and full of inaccuracies, I wouldn’t be willing to label it as such.

My favorite actor from the movie is surprisingly Colin Farrell, playing the “real” Mr. Banks who needs saving. His performance was incredible, despite being a minor role. But hey, he has impressed me a lot over the last few years with a few of his role choices.

What this film taught me is that the real Travers was indeed really hard to work with, for potentially tragic yet inexcusable reasons. If our current pop culture network existed back then, there would have been tons of negative press thrown her way, with hardly any sympathizers.

Saving Mr. Banks itself will probably mostly just apeal to those who grew up with Mary Poppins in their lives and want to relive the magic in a completely different way.

Part of me was hoping at the end of the movie, when they did the premier of Mary Poppins, that they would show the entire film. You know, secretly turn it into a Double Feature. That would have been truly surprising. But Saving Mr. Banks on its own plays a relatively safe story: one that is very powerful, but also full of deceit.

Actor names can be hard to remember. In particular, Ellen Page is somehow a name that can constantly leave my memory. She is just Juno to me. Why would she dare have a different name than Juno?

I have talked before about watching a movie, thinking Ellen Page was in it, and then bam, its actually Juno Temple and I am not a smart man.

SO, when I saw Touchy Feely, really the only reason I decided to watch it as fast as I did was because Ellen Page was in it. A sort of redemption for my past dumb self. This may be one of the silliest intros I have done for a movie.

Don’t blame me, blame my very blurry hands.

As you may have guessed, this is a movie about touching. Kind of sexy, right?

Abby (Rosemarie DeWitt) is a successful massage therapist, so she touches people a lot. She believes in all that energy stuff to go with it, taught to her by her friend mentor Bronwyn (Allison Janney). She is a free, fun loving spirit.

Her brother, Paul (Josh Pais, who voiced Raphael in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…what?!), is a dentist at a failing clinic. His daughter, Jenny (Page) is his main assistant. But he is uptight and super serious.

The good news for Paul, is after Jenny brings a friend over for a free cleaning, somehow Paul is able to heal a condition he has. Just with a regular cleaning. Word gets out about Paul and his magical touch, and suddenly business is booming, despite no guarantees that he will fix anyone.

The bad news for Abby, is that somehow she has gained an aversion to bodily contact. It suddenly sickens her for any skin on skin contact. Not only is that extremely bad for her business, but also puts a strain on her relationships with friends and lovers.

Also starring Ron Livingston and Scoot McNairy.

I am now betting they did all these hands scenes on purpose. I see you, film maker.

Touchy Feely has a decent story, but its extreme “indie-ness” kind of ruins the story for me. Indie meaning independent or low budget release, which stereotypically means the movie will move a lot slower and let the fantastic acting carry it through. This movie is incredibly slow, with a lot of silent and thought provoking scenes. Or at least, they are meant to be thought provoking.

I really like the idea of the switch of luck for these two, and the dentist part I find even more bizarre than the massage therapist part. But the rest of the movie is just blah to me.

If only I could talk more about it, but I already ran out of things to say. This movie moves far too slow, with not enough substance, for me to really care. Oh well. Another day, another movie.

Patton Oswalt isn’t given a lot of movie roles, and really, that makes sense. He is a weird guy. A decent stand up comedian, but just in general a weird guy.

So when I see that he is actually the star of a movie, and not just a best friend/side character, I jumped at the opportunity to see what the heck Big Fan would be about.

Sports! I like sports!

I also like camaraderie! Yay sports and people! Yay!

Paul Aufiero (Oswalt) is a big fan (title drop) of the New York Giants. Like, really big fan. He goes to all of their home games. Never goes into the stadium, tickets cost too much, but he watches the game in a tv in his car with his bud Sal (Kevin Corrigan). He can’t afford tickets because he has a job as a parking attendant, just sitting in a booth, taking money. He listens to a New York radio sports show, and calls in every night to give his opinion, and trash talk another caller Philadelphia Phil (Michael Rapaport). He just spends most of his shift writing down what he is going to say, so he can impress his friends.

His favorite player is the QB, Quantrell Bishop (Jonathan Hamm) (Not an actual existing player), and basically he worships him as a hero that will get them to The Super Bowl. So when he and Sal see Quantrell hanging with his crew, they get all giddy and decide to follow him so they can meet him. And they follow him for awhile, accidentally. Like, many miles. And go to a club. And then a strip club. But finally they introduce themselves! Yay, they are drunk and happy, so they don’t care how white and awkward these fans are.

Until they mention where they first saw him. Then it got weird. Then Quantrell, on a drugged up outburst, knocks out Paul and beats him up pretty hardcore.

Huh. Three days later in the hospital, Paul wakes up, his hero betrayed him, and very much so injured. His favorite and best player also suspended indefinitely for the actions he helped cause.

But maybe there is a chance? Maybe he doesn’t have to press charges, and Paul can save the season still for the Giants…

Marcia Jean Kurtz plays his mom, who he lives with, and Gino Cafarelli plays his ambulance chasing brother.

Patton picked the shirt that would offend some people, but gain him the most respect.

Big Fan was listed as a comedy, but was definitely far far far more heavy on the drama, and should be considered a dark comedy, more than anything. While watching it, part of me was getting pissed off at the plot, watching it unfold, trying to figure out why the character would be that dumb. Why he would make those decisions. Why he would be so blindsinding by fan loyalty to do the actions he did.

Then it hit me. All of the feelings I was feeling were exactly the feelings the movie wanted me to feel. Repetition in that sentence yo.

When I thought even more about it, I was almost a bit excited at what the movie was hinting at, ever so slightly the entire time, and it made sense. The actions that followed the beat up made perfect sense. I was in the wrong, not the movie.

But it was done in a subtle, yet crazy way for it all to work.

The ending was a bit shocking at first too, as the conditions kind of built up to the final show down, and once that too was revealed, I found myself laughing at the absurdity and darkness of it all. The movie accomplished everything it wanted, with its small budget and mostly unknown actors. Well done, Big Fan. Well done.

Do I want to see a movie with Casey Affleck in it? Hell yes I want to see a movie with Casey Affleck in it.

Sure, I am one of the biggest Ben fanboys there are. But his brother has some acting chops. Did you see him in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford? If you didn’t, you are missing out on a long, but really well damn acted movie.

Either way, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is apparently a modern western of sorts. Set in the 1970s and Texas. So I will go in, expecting the best.

The best being, I dunno, a lot of gun shooting I guess. And crying.

Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) is a trouble makin’, no good, so-and-so. He’s an outlaw, quick on the draw. But his lady, too, is outlawish. Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara). But she is pregnant, and wants them to get out of the job. Alright fine.

BUT NOT BEFORE A SHOOTOUT. In a house, bullets flying, and Ruth ends up killing a police officer. That is no good. So Bob claims the entire responsibility for the crime. Killing a cop isn’t an easy fix, so Bob is given a strict and long sentence, so he could protect his lady and soon to be child.

Well, many years later, Bob is sick of prison. He has tried to escape at least five times before, but at least the sixth time is finally successful. The rest of the people involved in the escape get caught quickly, but not Bob. He is on a mission. He wants to see his child for the first time, a girl, still a child, but has grown a lot over the last few years.

But he can’t just go straight home. No, that is where the cops expect him to be. Not to mention he made a lot of enemies in his outlawin’, so others are surely out to kill him. The only reason he escaped was to see his woman and child, so really, nothing is going to stand in his way. Also starring Ben Foster and Keith Carradine.

At this point, I think it is illegal for me to not mention/show great mustaches in reviews.

Well, if I came for just acting, this film didn’t disappoint. I was more amazed how much I liked Rooney Mara in this role, more than anything. I haven’t seen her ever try to play such a passive, wait around, old timey role before. Just a loving mother trying to survive. So that was cool.

Casey Affleck, like always, felt really genuine.

But man. The story. A nice idea. But seemed filled with a lot of silly nonsense after he escaped from jail. Just go to the house already! Develop some sort of ruse! Just do it!

That’s what I was yelling at the screen. I don’t dislike it for the character choices, I dislike it for the director making those characters make those choices.

It could not keep my interest after the first 30 minutes or so, and didn’t really seem worth it when I got to the end. Sad times on this end, oh well.

Very Wrong.

How Wrong?

This much Wrong.

Wrong is a film brought to us by Quentin Dupieux, who is famous for the movie Rubber. Rubber is famous for being completely absurd, and a strange movie, but I ended up liking it. Knowing that, you should know that he is going for a very similar style to Rubber. So if you hated Rubber, just don’t even try this one.

Same thing happens to me when I listen to Michael Bolton at work.

Poor old Dolph Springer (Jack Plotnick). Sure, he has a bitchin’ mustache. But he woke up to a very not good day. His dog ran away! Or was kidnapped. Either way, his dog is no longer there, and the world he lives in appears to be quite bizarre. Like his neighbor, Mike (Regan Burns), who goes on daily morning jogs, now refusing to admit to it. He hates running, why would he ever do that?

That isn’t the only thing. Police officers are unnecessarily rude, which might be a normal real world thing. His work office has a downpour going on in the inside, but that is apparently normal too. He might not even work there.

But his dog is missing. That is what is important. Not his conversations with a lady working a new pizza place (Alexis Dziena), or his gardener (Eric Judor). It turns out that the dog may have been taken by a group who randomly steal peoples pets, to make them truly love them. Strange. Yes. But Master Chang (William Fichtner) insists that it makes peoples lives better in the end. Unfortunately, mid kidnapping, the driver got into an accident, and died, and the dog escaped. So the stolen dog is lost.

They hire a private detective (Steve Little, aka Stevie Janowski) to get on the case, and Dolph just has to keep on living.

The hardest thing to believe in this movie is that he would write a novel, on a type writer, by water.

At this point, I am not sure if absurdity is really a film genre, or if I like it. Anyone could come up with an “absurd” movie, and call it art, even if it makes no sense, with weak plot or acting, and just bizarre antics. I am not saying that is a good description of Wrong, but close. I would say Napoleon Dynamite was an absurd movie, and one I dislike for its lack of real plot.

I definitely think I got less out of this movie than with Rubber. Rubber draws you in with the strange sounded plot, and I believe, delivers an even stranger movie. The plot description for Wrong just sounds pointless, and probably the only thing drawing people to this movie is knowing he made Rubber. It definitely has its extreme moments of weirdness, but not enough for me to love the movie. There were some great scenes. I loved the scenes with the Private Investigator. The gardener had an interesting arc, but the ending of it felt a bit weak to me too.

For all I know, the entire movie was just made to troll people. It might be a test to see what people can draw from it, calling it a highly intelligent movie, so that Mr. Dupieux can come out in two years and go “hah, just kidding.” That would be fun.

Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas is only my second ever Tyler Perry movie, the first one being Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Witness Protection.

Well, second if you don’t include movies he has acted in (Alex Cross), movies he made without Madea (Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor), or movies he just presented (Peeples).

I do know that most of his Madea movies are released as a stage play version first and this play version came out a few years ago. At the time I worked at a Blockbuster and I was surprised to find it constantly checked out by customers. “Unfortunately” I missed out on the opportunity to see the play version first, so I will just have to go into this one blind.

Clearly I was missing out.

For the general Madea (Tyler Perry) movie plot, I think it is assumed she has a lot of relatives and close friends, so every new movie will be a story about one of her friends/family. The only constant between them is Madea’s existence, and allows for a fresh new cast each and every time.

This time, it is Madea’s friend Eileen (Anna Maria Horsford) who requests her help. She is worried about her daughter, Lacey (Tika Sumpter), who has moved to a small area in Georgia and isn’t coming home for Christmas! Oh the horror. Lacey is a teacher at the elementary school. The small town is undergoing a crisis, because they have lost a lot of their water supply to a dam upstream, and they don’t have enough money to have their Christmas Jubilee party. Oh no! Even more horror!

Lacey also ended up marrying her college sweet heart, Conner (Eric Lively), a seed scientist, which is why they moved back to his old home in Georgia. He is a white man. That is the real kicker here. And that she never told her mother about Conner’s existence. Apparently she hates white people. Conner’s parents (Larry the Cable Guy, Kathy Najimy) already knew about the marriage and are fine with it.

So the main plot deals with Marie battling her very strange case of racism. Strange in that it is all based on one tiny event a long time ago. There are other side plots, like Lacey potentially losing her job, love interests, and adult and kid bullies. It also stars JR Lemon, Alicia Witt, Chad Michael Murray, and Noah Urrea.

Larry and Perry? Maybe a match made in heaven.

This Madea movie definitely went a different direction than I was expecting. It is about a very racist black woman, who was also one of the rudest characters I’ve seen in film. She was deplorable, nothing she did seemed to make any sense. I am almost certain that she never got over her racism by the end, either. The ending also came out of no where. It included a car explosion and then the Christmas Jubilee. At the Jubilee, a small speech happened, that doesn’t change anything in the film, but they use it as a conclusion nonetheless.

The more enjoyable parts of the movie come from Madea rambling, but Larry the Cable Guy held his own against her, with their conversations being the highlight of the film. Shout out to Kathy Najimy, who has lost a lot of weight and almost looks like a completely different person.

If I had to split it up, the comedy parts of the film are decent, but the drama parts are horrible. Unfortunately, all of the conflict comes from the dramatic parts, so the main plot lines just feel boring. The movie tried to argue the true meaning of the holidays, but did such a poor job that it felt like a convoluted mess.

Oh well, maybe next year the next Madea movie will be better.

Who would have thought that the little girl from The Nanny would become the most famous person on a movie cover?

Of course, Madeline Zima is no longer famous for that reason. It is for her bare all performance on the incredibly slow Californication. Regardless of why she is famous, she is now the reason I picked up Breaking The Girls to review today.

Also, the term “breaking” in the title has my imagination running wild.

Poor little old Sara (Agnes Brucker). She is a nice girl, she is. But because she pissed off the wrong classmate, Brooke (Shanna Collins), she is potentially getting expelled from class for doing something she didn’t do. But she has met Alex (Zima), and although she never fancied herself a lesbian, she apparently fell for her charm.

Next thing you know, they are living together. That sure did move fast. Alex is mad at her dad (John Stockwell), who is totally rich, but not letting her live her life the way she wants to. So drunkenly they decide to kill each other’s nemesis! They will both have alibis, and there is no way people could put them working together, if they live together! (Dumb).

Next thing you know, Alex actually goes through with the plan, much to the surprise of Sara. Alex also made it possible to blame Sara with the deed if she didn’t end up keeping her half of the bargain. Yep, you done messed with the wrong lady.

Also starring Shawn Ashmore…somehow, and Davenia McFadden as the main police person.

Oh, he is in the movie as guy who helps drunk ladies! That’s nice.

I was actually excited to watch this movie, and accept it as a thriller. I was ready for the twists and the turns. But the twists near the end didn’t make a whole lot of sense (When you compare them to actions earlier in the film), and the ending was pretty lame because of it.

The acting through out it was pretty poor, and really, I don’t why I keep talking. This part of the review is basically filler, because I have jack shit to say that’s really good about this movie. I guess it sort of had a Wild Things vibe going with it, so I am surprised it just isn’t another of its many bad sequels.

But by the time the movie is about to finish, they throw another twist your way. Unfortunately by that time, I stopped caring.

A movie called Flatline can honestly only go a few different ways. One is a horror route, pretty obvious, some sort of deranged killer.

The only other way is some sort of medical drama. This goes the latter way, thankfully, because medical dramas can really have some powerful stories and usually a great crying scene or two.

Not that I like watching people cry or anything like that.

Get it? Get it? It is a flat line.

Marc (Drew Russell Robinson) really likes his dad, William (Mark Nutter). So after they leave dinner for the dad’s birthday, and they get into a car accident, Marc is very very upset.

So when they get to the hospital (finally) he really can’t believe that his dad has flatlined and died. He gets so upset, that he steals the security guard’s gun (Ryan Hayden) and threatens the doctors on duty (Howard Flaherty, Farah White) to save his dad or else. At first, the description seems like some sort of a reverse John Q, where the son is trying to save the father. But there is one big difference in there.

In John Q, the son is only dying. In Flatline, the dad is already dead.

Yeah, Marc gets really crazy, starts yelling a lot, and threatening to shoot people, and that is most of the movie. I can tell you for sure, the movie does not end in his favor.

But that is also because the end of the movie doesn’t really make much sense. Out of no where, it turns into this very messy and somewhat vague trick, about what was going on the entire time. I think I understood it, but I really really don’t accept it.

None of these names are really big in the acting field, and Drew Russell Robinson is a rookie at movies. He wasn’t terrible, to be fair. Just the overall movie was terrible. The twist, the plot, the flashbacks, and the point.

I derived no entertainment out of this at all. This movie came out in 2010, but it has one of the barest IMDB pages I have ever seen. I could only find one picture from the actual movie, but its quality was too shitty to actually use, so that is why I am stuck with just the heart monitor picture. I could have added another picture in here, to make the review look better, but in all honesty, the film didn’t even deserve that much.

Much waste.

Out of the Furnace has the honor of being the only movie coming out this week, in a month that is typically packed to the brim with movies to take advantage of those holiday sales.

It also has the honor of making me think of the Meatloaf song, “Out of the Frying Pan,” so much that whenever I hear the film’s title, I can’t help but sing “And into the fire!” in my head.

This is an actual scene of the film, lollipop and all.

Russell Baze (Christian Bale) is your average factory worker living in Pennsylvania. He is a man who works for a living, a guy who will never be rich, but overall, a very caring and loving man. He has a lady (Zoe Saldana), a younger dumber brother Rodney (Casey Affleck) in the army, and his father is getting sick. But after a night of trying to do good and a few mistakes, Russell finds himself behind bars after a drunk driving accident.

Now, years later, his life has changed drastically. His father: dead. His woman: left him for a cop (Forest Whitaker). His brother: suffering from extreme PTSD after four tours in Iraq. Rodney is also deep in gambling debt and starting to take up illegal bare knuckle boxing to pay his debts. But when he gets involved with the Appalachian hill folk and their leader, Harlan DeGroat (Woody Harrelson), his life is going to make a change for the worse.

It is up to Russell, a good man who hasn’t done a lot wrong in his life, to potentially give up his moral convictions, his good nature, and his innocence, in order to avenge or save his brother… You know, depends on what they do to his brother first.

Willem Dafoe is also in here as a small town loan shark, and Sam Shepard plays a family friend.

Here’s a hint. That gun is not for hunting. Okay, normally yes for hunting, but right now it isn’t. Shut up.

Out Of The Furnace might feature some of the better acting performances of the year. There is a scene with Bale and Saldana on a bridge and it absolutely tore my heart up. It was very unexpected and it felt incredibly real. This is the best performance for Affleck since The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. If it wasn’t for Harrelson’s goofy looking head, I wouldn’t have recognized him speech wise as the incredibly corrupt hill folk.

Unfortunately, the great acting is the only real thing I like from this movie.

It is definitely a slower moving film, as it wants to build up the fact that Russel is a great human and just trying to live his life. A lot of intense scenes involving others are spliced with Russel hunting and working, just to show how un-extreme his life is. In fact, the movie goes to incredibly lengths to make that point during the ending, which seems to drag on forever. On top of that, the ending almost feels a bit dreamlike, including an ambiguous final scene that I am unsure of its purpose.

I believe this film has a lot of symbolism incorporated within it, but potentially too much symbolism, and not enough entertainment.

Fantastic acting, a good idea for a story, but just a dull way to deliver that story.

Ah, Paul Walker. A man who died too soon.

Sure, generally, people only know him from The Fast and the Furious films. But he has been in other action things. Like Running Scared! He also had a small role in Pleasantville. But really, not a lot more of extreme note.

So I guess I was excited to see Vehicle 19, because it came out this year and puts him a role that we are used to seeing.

Well, normally the wheel is on the other side, but close enough.

Michael Woods (Paul Walker), is an ex convict, but he is now in Germany! Yay! And he has rented a car. Yay cars! In fact, he has vehicle number 19 from the lot. There you go. Yes, leaving the US is breaking his parole. But he has a reason.

He wants to visit his ex-wife, who he hasn’t seen in five years. Not in a creepy way, but he misses her and wants to surprise her. Okay, still sounds creepy.

Either way, mix up at the terminal, but he gets his vehicle, and while driving, boom, a phone rings. Not his phone. Strange. He checks the glove compartment, and there is a gun! What? He eventually answers the phone, and someone wants to know if the deed has been done. Oh no, some mistake! Turns out the car was meant for an undercover policeman, and they will give him the right vehicle at a meet up. Great. Whatever.

Until he also finds out that there is a living, breathing woman in the trunk (Naima McLean).

Uh oh. She was going to testify against corrupt cops. Looks like we got some sort of shenanigans going on. Whatsa Paul Walker gonna do!?

Apparently turn his casual drive into something more.

Not to change the topic of this review, but Vehicle 19 reminds me of The Transporter. Or at least, it has a guy driving, and discovering a girl in his trunk. At least in The Transporter, he was a skilled person, in this movie, it is just a normal guy. So basically, it is like taking all of the boring parts from The Transporter. Nothing like the high octane thrills of Fast and Furious. Like, no chases really, not a lot of shooting. Mostly drama and decision making talking.

Very, very, quite boring.

That is really all I can say about it. I am glad that it was only 80 minutes or so long, because I was definitely falling asleep by the end.

Definitely a skippable film, with a lackluster ending.