Double Jeopardy

 Double Jeopardy (1999)

Starring Ashley Judd, Tommy Lee Jones, and Bruce Greenwood

Directed by Bruce Beresford

Written by David Weisberg and Douglas Cook

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Kodachrome

Kodachrome (2018)

Starring Ed Harris, Jason Sudeikis, Elizabeth Olsen, Bruce Greenwood, Wendy Crewson, and Dennis Haysbert

Directed by Mark Raso

Written by Jonathan Tropper

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: B

Gerald's Game

Gerald's Game (2017)

Starring Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, Henry Thomas, and Chiara Aurelia

Directed by Mike Flanagan

Written by Jeff Howard and Mike Flanagan

***This film is currently streaming via Netflix***

Summary (in 500 words or less):  A sex game at a remote lakeside cabin turns troublesome when Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) dies of a heart attack after handcuffing his wife Jessie (Carla Gugino) to the bed.  Jessie needs to muster all she can in order to survive this scary ordeal.

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

The Post

The Post (2017)

Starring Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Carrie Coon, Jesse Plemons, Matthew Rhys, and Bruce Greenwood

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Written by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer

Summary (in 500 words or less): Washington Post owner Katherine Graham (Meryl Streep) -- the first female owner of a major newspaper -- and editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) are struggling to keep their paper afloat in the early 1970s.  The New York Times -- one of their major competitors -- breaks a huge story about multiple presidential administrations hiding information about the Vietnam War from the American public.  This classified info was admittedly stolen from the US government and the Nixon administration sues them to stop the release of any more info. Fortunately for the Washington Post, a secret informant drops that same information off to them and Graham and Bradlee are faced with the challenge of whether to publish the information or not.

• A true story, Spielberg's The Post feels a bit languid, slow, and plodding.  
• A good performance from Meryl Streep -- seriously, I keep wanting to not like her in things, but I can't -- balances out a less successful turn from Tom Hanks who, despite having some backstory given to his character, never really connected with me.
• Much like Hanks not connecting with me, the film itself didn't either.  Spielberg's direction felt a bit stiff and stolid, and while I liked the way the film looked and some camera angles here and there, it's just bland and unexciting.
• The script by Liz Hannah and John Singer thinks it cleverly is inserting subtle jabs at the current administration and praise of the #MeToo movement, but they're so blatantly displayed by Spielberg that it often proves to be laughable.  Particularly towards the end, the feminism angle is ridiculously displayed -- Streep's Graham leaves a Supreme Court hearing to find herself surrounded by cheering throngs of women as the music swells around her.  Ridiculous.  The film didn't need that -- we already saw what a strong and committed woman Graham was...we didn't need the silly visual.
• This may be a film that generationally simply doesn't work.  Perhaps the older crowd -- re: those around in the Vietnam War era -- may feel more connection and excitement with the unfolding story.  To me, however, I was left disappointed.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Truth

Truth (2015)

Starring Cate Blanchett, Robert Redford, Topher Grace, Dennis Quaid, Elisabeth Moss, Bruce Greenwood, Stacy Keach, John Benjamin Hickey, and Dermot Mulroney

Directed by James Vanderbilt

Despite a solid performance from Cate Blanchett (who, lets be honest, rarely disappoints), Truth feels as if it's not quite doing what its title implies.  Based on a true story, Blanchett is Mary Mapes, a producer for the venerable CBS news series 60 Minutes.  With the 2004 presidential election on the horizon, Mapes and segment host Dan Rather (Robert Redford) present a story that claims that then-current President George W. Bush received preferential treatment from Air National Guard officials in the 1970s.  Nearly immediately after the airing of the segment, a variety of sources begin to question the thirty-plus year-old documents that were the building blocks and particularly damning evidence of Mapes and Rather's report.  As Mapes attempts to quell the criticism, she finds herself at odds with her CBS bosses who keep questioning her journalistic ethics.

Taking politics out of the equation, the ultimate problem with Truth stems from the fact that it is based on Mapes's memoir and it makes out her CBS bosses and the litigation team investigating her journalistic ethics to be manically devilish in their attempts to take her down.  You can almost see Dermot Mulroney's lawyer character twirling his comedically villainous mustache as he tries to silence Mapes, and a lengthy and vindictive diatribe against the CBS honchos spoken by Topher Grace's ambitious reporter (and Mapes colleage) proves laughably farcical rather than substantive.  While there may be some truth behind the preferential treatment Bush received (and there may very well not be), the lack of well-roundedness in the side players of Truth and the need to make Mapes seem "right" hinders the film greatly.

As mentioned, Blanchett is good as the strong-willed Mapes who faces a possible career-ending crisis with the actress allowing us to see the pain Mapes internally confronts, but the film steers her wrong at the end and the self-aggrandizing, boastful attitude of the film does Blanchett no favors.  The film is blatantly telling us how to feel about her character rather then letting the audience naturally come to that conclusion.  The rest of the typically solid cast isn't given much to do at all with Redford in particular inhabiting a role that feels underwritten and shockingly sidelined for much of the film.  Then again, this is Mary Mapes's story and despite its attempts at trying to balance both sides, the film, although adequately produced and lensed, just doesn't land in the way it hopes.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Devil's Knot

Devil's Knot (2014)

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Colin Firth, Alessandro Nivola, James Hamrick, Seth Meriwether, Kris Higgins, Dane DeHaan, Mireille Enos, Bruce Greenwood, and Amy Ryan

Directed by Atom Egoyan

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

On May 5, 1993, three young boys went missing in West Memphis, Arkansas, after riding their bikes one evening.  A few days later, their bodies were found naked and bound in a small river.  Nearly a month later, three teens were arrested for the crime after the police force and the town in general found the youths' love for heavy metal and penchant for learning the Wiccan religion to be red flags.  This is the true story behind Devil's Knot, a flick by Atom Egoyan that I found engaging, though a bit too "surface" to really have much of an impact.

Reese Witherspoon as the mother of one of the murdered boys is solid, bringing the requisite amount of emotion to her character (and actually probably faring a little better than even her Oscar-nominated work in Wild which I felt was a tad overrated).  As the heart of the movie, she pulls the viewer in, although her character's constant doubts concerning the guilt of the three teens plays much too obvious.  There is reason for doubt which I won't delve into here, but because of the time constraints of the movie, once the film shifts to the trial of the three teens, things feel rushed and forced.

This whole true saga has apparently been played out in three well-regarded documentaries which I can only assume allow for a little more thoroughness.  That said, Devil's Knot is better than the disappointing reviews it received and it certainly piqued my interest in this case as a whole which definitely isn't a bad thing.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - The Captive

The Captive (2014)

Starring Ryan Reynolds, Rosario Dawson, Scott Speedman, Mireille Enos, Kevin Durand, Alexia Fast, and Bruce Greenwood

Directed by Atom Egoyan

***This film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime***

The Captive is an odd movie.  From the opening scene, we know who the bad guy is since we see him keeping a teenage girl locked away in a room.  So the suspense of that aspect of Atom Egoyan's film is moot right from the get-go.  The question we find ourselves asking then is "Why has he kept this girl alive for eight years since kidnapping her?"

As Egoyan's film jumps around through time (to presumably keep things [unsuccessfully] suspenseful), we drift back to the day when young Cass was kidnapped out of her father's truck while he went in to buy a pie at a local Canadian diner.  Upon his return, Matthew (Ryan Reynolds) finds his daughter missing and his life turned upside down as his wife Tina (Mireille Enos) blames him for their daughter's disappearance and two cops (Rosario Dawson and Scott Speedman) think Matthew is hiding something from them.

Of course, we know that Matthew isn't the culprit.  Instead it's Mika (Kevin Durand), a put-together soft-spoken weirdo of a guy who keeps the now teenage Cass (Alexia Fast) locked up in a room, providing for her whatever she needs in terms of food, clothing, and other leisure items.  As part of this weirdly sick game Mika is playing (which doesn't seem to involve any sexual favors with the teen), he places cameras at her mother's place of work so Cass can still connect with her and promises Cass that he will allow her to see her father again for a few brief minutes.  Even when Mika's motive for keeping Cass alive is revealed, it seems odd -- just as odd as the twisted and completely far-fetched and unbelievable game he's playing with Cass and her family.

I can't say I hated The Captive.  I did find that it kept my interest mostly throughout, but that was partly because it was so strange.  It helps that Egoyan's eye behind the camera keeps the drab Canadian landscape seem like an ominous character in and of itself.  Also, Ryan Reynolds is quite good here as the beleaguered dad, proving he really can stretch his dramatic muscles successfully if he so desires.  Rosario Dawson also gives one of her better performances, but her character is unfortunately drafted into one of the more ludicrous aspects of the plot -- and the one that the film tries to "hide" from us as long as possible thanks to the time twisting.  Atom Egoyan unfortunately makes films that I find myself always thinking have potential, but never deliver and The Captive really isn't an exception.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - The Place Beyond the Pines

The Place Beyond the Pines (2013)

Starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Dane DeHaan, Emory Cohen, Rose Byrne, Mahershala Ali, Bruce Greenwood, Harris Yulin, Ben Mendelsohn, and Ray Liotta

Directed by Derek Cianfrance

There's a grandness to the scale of The Place Beyond the Pines that isn't often seen in cinema.  Director and co-writer Derek Cianfrance takes his time building his characters and their arcs.  Some might even say he spends a bit too much time as the three intertwining stories he weaves here slowly unfold in their layers of connection to one another.  While the film isn't perfect, to me The Place Beyond the Pines features storytelling that you typically only get from a great novel and it's a welcome change of pace.

Now, this may seem like a cop out (and it sort of is as I'm trying to get this review done quickly), but I'm not really going to divulge much of the plot here.  If you're not aware of what the film is attempting to do, it's better that you stay in the dark and let things unfold scene by scene.  This isn't to say that The Place Beyond the Pines is particularly surprising or holds twists and turns, but it is told in a unique fashion that may be best kept secret if you're unfamiliar with the director's overall concept.

I will, however, simply state that the film tells the tale of two men -- Luke (Ryan Gosling), a stunt motorcyclist who discovers that he has a young son with Romina (Eva Mendes), a girl he had a fling with over a year ago; and Avery (Bradley Cooper), a first-year cop who also has a young son the same age as Luke's.  Luke and Avery's lives will become interwoven as will the lives of their sons as they grow older (played by Dane DeHaan and Emory Cohen as teens).

I mentioned a "grand scale" in my opening sentence of this review and you shouldn't misinterpret that as being a multi-million dollar Ben Hur-esque special effects-driven type of scope.  Instead, the grandeur comes from the fact that we follow Luke, Avery, and their families over the course of two decades, seeing how their lives change, and how even a spur of the moment decision can affect those around them years down the line.  It's this concept of following multiple characters across generations -- a la Steinbeck's East of Eden -- that makes this movie unique and stand out from the crowd.

With a nice performance from Bradley Cooper anchoring the film [and kudos to Cooper for changing my opinion on him within this past year...he's becoming quite the actor], The Place Beyond the Pines is absolutely worth watching assuming you're ready for a slow-burning type of film.  Then again, Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine could've been described in a similar fashion.  While Pines can't hold a candle to the masterpiece that is Blue Valentine (my number one film of 2010...which is also streaming on Netflix, FYI, so watch it immediately), it's still a fine piece of cinema that admittedly sinks into a bit of hokeyness at times (to the detriment of the rawness it's trying to convey), but is still worthy of a watch.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Meek's Cutoff

Meek's Cutoff (2011)

Starring Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Will Patton, and Paul Dano

Directed by Kelly Reichardt

As a self-professed hater of westerns, no one is more surprised than me to be quite taken with Meek's Cutoff, a tale of a group of settlers traveling across Oregon in 1845.  On the surface, Kelly Reichardt's flick may appear to be one of the slowest paced films you'll ever watch, but if you dig deep, you'll find that you're witnessing a horror story realistically portraying the struggles facing American pioneers.  Ever growing in tension as the tale of our settlers' search for water grows increasingly more perilous, Meek's Cutoff turns into an edge-of-your-seat nailbiter unlike any film I've ever seen simply because it achieves this uneasiness by plunging the viewers into the utterly monotonous world of the settlers who begin to question whether their trek is a worthy one.  It's an odd flick, but one that is rather ingenious in the way it tells its tale.

Key to the film's success is a cast of only nine actors who, for the most part, prove to be quite adept at showcasing the desperation of American settlers.  The film's poster places the focus squarely on Michelle Williams and while it could certainly be said that she is the main character, her role as the headstrong (although never too "modern" in manner to seem out of place in the 1840s) Emily Tetherow never gives the film an overtly feminist tone that I thought I was going to see based on previews.  Emily is still a woman who "obeys" her new husband, Solomon (a solemn and subdued Will Patton), but isn't afraid to express her views on how to find a watering hole.

It is her views on that very subject that are the impetus behind the flick's overarching predicament.  Does the group of seven settlers follow their rugged and cocky guide Meek (a brilliantly offbeat Bruce Greenwood) who boasts about his abilities but has yet to really showcase his brilliance or the spiritual Native American (Ron Rondeaux) that they have captured whom they can't understand and may simply be leading them to their demise?  Emily has her own thoughts on which man to follow and, needless to say, the group doesn't entirely agree with her.

The film looks stunning (great work from cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt).  The first ten minutes are nearly dialog-free shots of our group of settlers living off of the land and traveling through the arid landscapes of the American Northwest.  However, at the beginning of the film, director Kelly Reichardt often sets her camera outside of group conversations so that unless we turn the volume up full tilt, we're really unable to hear what's going on.  After having seen the film, I now completely comprehend that in these scenes, we the viewers are supposed to be like the women traveling in the group, only able to hear bits and pieces of the conversations of the men...but it just irked me more than anything else.  As the film progresses and Emily becomes a bit more forceful in having her opinions be heard, the viewers begin to hear all the goings-on and these sound issues become much less frequent.

I know full well that many will watch Meek's Cutoff and think it is one of the most boring films they've ever seen (that's assuming they even make it through the first thirty minutes).  They may scream, "Nothing happens!" and, on the surface, I wouldn't be able to disagree with them.  [And I should readily admit that there were moments towards the very beginning where I was doubtful I would make it through this one.]  To me, though, I find it to be a great (and probably as realistic as you're going to get) glimpse at the life of a roving American settler in the mid 1800s.  It's in this reality that the tension mounts and, like life itself, things aren't always tied up in a neat little bow in the end.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+