Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (2019)

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Timothy Olyphant, Julia Butters, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, Luke Perry, and Al Pacino

Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Written by Quentin Tarantino

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Chappaquiddick

Chappaquiddick (2018)

Starring Jason Clarke, Kate Mara, Ed Helms, Jim Gaffigan, Clancy Brown, Bruce Dern, and Olivia Thirlby

Directed by John Curran

Written by Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan

Summary (in 500 words or less): On Friday evening, July 18, 1969, Senator Ted Kennedy (Jason Clarke) was driving a car with Kennedy secretary Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara) as his passenger.  The car ran off a small bridge on the island of Chappaquiddick and overturned, slowly sinking into the water.  Kennedy escaped, but Kopechne did not, perishing in the car.  Kennedy's actions after the accident along with those close to him prove that politics is an ugly game -- it seemingly always has been and always will be.

• Solid, adult-centric drama detailing a scandal that shockingly didn't affect the political aspirations of Senator Ted Kennedy who managed to become a long-standing representative for his state.
• While the public will never know the inner workings of the Kennedy clan on that fateful weekend in July 1969 following Kopechne's death, Chappaquiddick details the likelihood of what went down.  We know that multiple stories were coming out of the Kennedy camp attempting to paint Ted in a better light -- many of them contradicting one another -- and the rapid-paced actions of a clan of lawyers set into motion the events that helped turn the public back into Ted's good graces.  
• At its heart, Chappaquiddick displays just how horrid, underhanded, and truly seedy the game of politics is and we can certainly draw comparisons to both candidates from our last Presidential election to see that nothing has really changed in nearly a half century.
• Jason Clarke delivers a captivating performance as Ted Kennedy, balancing the emotions of a man who knows he did something horribly wrong with a man who desperately wants to please his family and keep the Kennedy name shining in a positive manner.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - The Hateful Eight

The Hateful Eight (2015)

Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, and Channing Tatum

Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino movies piss me off...and I mean that in the nicest way possible.

As I sit and watch them (with the exception of Kill Bill which I admittedly haven't watched in a while), I often find myself cursing the writer-director for being so loquacious, adding scenes that seemingly do little to advance the plot except to showcase his (only sometimes) brilliant ear for dialog.  But by the time most of the conclusions to his films roll around, I end up giving him a pass on the preceding verboseness because he manages to tie things up on such a clever note.  Such is the case with The Hateful Eight - a nearly three-hour epic that features an awful lot of talking, very minimal sets, and a group of essentially eight actors who carry the film very adequately on their shoulders doing Tarantino's Western-Agatha Christie And Then There Were None mash-up justice.

In his eighth film as a director, The Hateful Eight unfolds across six chapters detailing how a group of people end up seeking refuge at Minnie's Haberdashery in Wyoming during a horrible blizzard in the time shortly after the Civil War concludes.  Arriving just before the snowstorm really hits is John Ruth (Kurt Russell), a bounty hunter, who has the elusive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) in tow ready to reap his reward upon delivering her to the authorities in Red Rock.  Ruth arrives at Minnie's with Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) - a Union major in the Civil War - and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins) - the newly appointed sheriff of Red Rock.  Pent up at Minnie's already are four men whom are immediately distrusted -- Bob (Demian Bichir), a Mexican who claims he's working for Minnie who has left to see her sister several miles away; Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), an Englishman who is also a hangman; Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), a cowboy just passing through; and Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern), a Confederate general.  With a large bounty on the head of Daisy, John Ruth questions his safety and perhaps he is justified.  As the night unfurls, secrets and motivations are revealed as one by one people begin to bite the dust.

There's no doubting that The Hateful Eight moves at a slow pace -- many of the reviews and personal comments I heard from people stated that "nothing happens" until the last hour.  While it's certainly true in that there's not much plot per se in the film's first half, there is a sense of character building that I must admit is Tarantino's forte.  We get a real sense of who these characters are by the dialog they speak and their interactions with others.  Yes, it's true that the characters present are racist misogynists (of which there was much hoopla upon the film's release), but that's Tarantino's modus operandi across his last three films (for better or worse).  And, admittedly, that's part of the reason for my first sentence of this review in that I can't help but think that Tarantino sticks too closely to what has worked for him in the past -- films broken up into chapters; films told out of order or with massive flashbacks; brash language; insanely rough violence; characters all cut from the same cloth in terms of personality -- rather than branching off in unexpected directions.  Kudos to him for finding a niche that works and sticking to it, but I do long for something new and fresh from the guy.  However, The Hateful Eight works so maybe I should just let him do what he does.

As far as the small cast, most successful at settling into their characters are Jennifer Jason Leigh (Oscar-nominated for her role) and Kurt Russell taking center stage in a film for the first time in a long time which this reviewer found to be a bit of a pleasure.  Leigh and Russell have a lot of interactions with one another and right off the bat the two click with Leigh portraying the tough as nails criminal and Russell playing the tough as nails bounty hunter, neither liking each other, but quite literally linked together by chains.  Samuel L. Jackson is certainly entertaining and a captivating entity, but he's the only one of the group that feels as if he was transplanted from a more modern time into the past.  He doesn't necessarily take us out of the era, but his character never quite clicks realistically.

The Hateful Eight will never be a film for everyone -- it's undoubtedly a Tarantino film and if they're not your cup of tea, this will not be for you either.  Yes, it's too long and that harms it, but it's definitely on par with the director's efforts as of late which have all been quality flicks that would all fare a little better if an editor tried to trim things a little more.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Nebraska

Nebraska (2013)

Starring Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Stacy Keach, and Bob Odenkirk

Directed by Alexander Payne

Nebraska is a beautifully sweet film.

I'd leave the review at that and just let you discover for yourself the simplicity of Alexander Payne's gem (charmingly written by Bob Nelson in his screenwriting debut), but I do feel like I need to give this flick a bit more of its very deserving due.

On the surface, Nebraska is the simplest of stories.  An older man receives one of those junk mailings that says he's won a million dollars (which he obviously hasn't) and, despite his family telling him otherwise, sets off to trek from Missouri to Nebraska to claim his prize.  With a stubborn father hellbent on picking up his winnings, his son decides to drive his dad to Nebraska, along the way discovering things about his father that he never knew.

A road trip of discovery.  You'd think, considering that we've seen this tale told dozens of times before, that Nebraska wouldn't resonate at all, but it absolutely works.  Bruce Dern plays the cantankerous father Woody, a guy who likes to imbibe quite often and, on the surface, seems as if he's headed down that Alzheimers-esque road of quiet forgetfulness.  Yet despite the slow-paced gait and the mumbled words, Woody's certainly "all there" -- yes, he may not be thinking quite as clearly as in his youth, but Dern shows us Woody hasn't forgotten the pain of his past and the hope for his future (however false that hope may be).

Countering Woody's millionaire aspirations is his son David's attempts to bring his father back to reality.  Thanks to Will Forte, best known for his work on Saturday Night Live, the audience gets to see Woody through his son's eyes -- a son that respects his father, but also ponders what made the man into the hard-drinking, perhaps rough-around-the-edges, guy that raised him.  Forte's role here is understated, yet important.  It's obvious he finds the whole premise a bit ridiculous, but he recognizes that his worn-down and beleaguered father feels that he needs to accomplish this task in order to provide for his family.

(June Squibb plays the hilarious wife who can't understand why her son David is kowtowing to his crazy father's whims and she's certainly a hoot whenever she's onscreen.  Kudos also to Bob Odenkirk who has a nice role as David's older (and more successful) brother.)

The problem with this review of Nebraska is that I'm really not getting across anything I want to get across about this movie.  I've moderately praised Bruce Dern's great performance.  I've placed my comments about the marvelous June Squibb's performance in parentheses (parentheses!?!?) seemingly indicating that I didn't enjoy her role nearly as much as I did.  I've thrown one positive sentence the screenwriter's way.  I haven't even touched on director Alexander Payne's ability to capture small town Americana in a way that feels both entirely respectful and the tiniest bit mocking at the same time (in beautiful black-and-white cinematography no less).  I've got so much I'd like to say about Nebraska, but I can't find the words to say it.  In fact, I've been sitting on this review for OVER TWO WEEKS now, not being able to formulate the words as to why I truly enjoyed this film as much as I did.

Perhaps the reason is because the beauty of Nebraska lies in its authentic simplicity and sometimes  authentic simplicity is incredibly tough to describe simply because it feels so goshdarn real.  It's a film that never once feels forced, yet instead feels like a slice of life.

So instead, I'll stop this review here and reiterate my first sentence of this review:  Nebraska is a beautifully sweet film that, despite this incredibly lukewarm and disappointing critique, is positively worth seeing.

The RyMickey Rating:  A-

Movie Review - The Hole

The Hole (2012)

Starring Chris Massoglia, Haley Bennett, Nathan Gamble, Bruce Dern, and Teri Polo

Directed by Joe Dante

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***
(There are currently two movies with this title streaming on Netflix.  Just be aware.)

While The Hole admittedly looks like something you'd see on ABC Family during it's 13 Days of Halloween festival (and it likely didn't have a whole lot bigger budget than those made-for-tv flicks), it's actually a rather enjoyable horror tale for the pre-teen set.  We're not dealing with blood and guts nor are we given substantial special effects to cause the scares.  Instead, we're dealing with noises and eerie music, but overall the film by Gremlins director Joe Dante succeeds at its goal of being an eerie film for the tween set.

When Dane (Chris Massoglia), his younger brother Lucas (Nathan Gamble), and their mom (Teri Polo) move to a rural town from NYC, the family hopes for a slower pace and a respite from big city life.  However, as Dane and Lucas explore their new home, they discover a giant hole in their basement locked up beneath a trap door.  With the help of their neighbor Julie (Haley Bennett), the three soon discover that by opening the hole, they've unleashed some type of evil and they must do whatever it takes to stop it from overtaking their lives.

Listen, The Hole isn't a movie that is going to be loved by everyone...and, in fact, it's not loved by me.  But I get that there is a very niche market of about ten to thirteen year-olds being its target and what is presented here is perfect for that age bracket.  Yes, I may have rolled my eyes at some of the dialog and I may have wished that Chris Massoglia was a better actor and I may have wished that the ending wasn't so hokey, but for this movie's target audience, I think it's ideal and that age group deserves to have a "horror" movie like this made for them.  Granted, it's just a slightly scarier version of an R.L. Stine Goosebumps tale, but it doesn't set out to be anything more than that.  If you're hanging out with a tween, this may be a more entertaining movie than the rating below implies.

The RyMickey Rating:  C