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

Movie Review - Every Secret Thing

Every Secret Thing (2015)

Starring Diane Lane, Elizabeth Banks, Dakota Fanning, Danielle Macdonald, Nate Parker, and Common

Directed by Amy Berg

As soon as the opening credits began to roll for Every Secret Thing and the screenwriter popped up as Nicole Holofcener, I found myself getting excited.  Holofcener wrote and directed the fantastic Enough Said, and while Every Secret Thing was certainly a dramatic shift away from that romantic comedy, I still held out hope that I was in for something worthwhile.  Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

As young girls, Alice Manning and Ronnie Fuller were convicted of stealing and killing a baby and sent to a juvenile detention center for seven years.  Now eighteen and released, another toddler has gone missing and Alice and Ronnie (Danielle Macdonald and Dakota Fanning) are suspected of the crime being investigated by Detective Nancy Porter (Elizabeth Banks).  With Alice claiming that she was innocent of the first crime, she and her mother Helen (Diane Lane) try to cooperate with the police, but feel that they're being targeted simply because of Alice's past.  However, Ronnie claims Alice manipulated her seven years ago and was the true mastermind behind the earlier kidnapping and murder.  Is either girl responsible for the newest crime, are they both playing one another, or are they in cahoots again?

Every Secret Thing takes us back and forth in time, revealing little bits of the story not in a way that is inherently integral to the story, but in a way to manipulate the viewer which proves to be enervating rather than enlightening.  With stilted dialog and blatant direction of actors that makes their "secrets" seem obvious from the film's outset, first-time director Amy Berg and screenwriter Holofcener don't succeed at creating a story that feels anything other than contrived.  Elizabeth Banks is solid as the detective desperate to find the missing child, but Diane Lane and relative newcomer Daniele Macdonald inhabit characters so poorly designed that it probably wouldn't have been possible to come out of this looking good.

The RyMickey Rating: D+

Movie Review - The Last of Robin Hood

The Last of Robin Hood (2014)

Starring Kevin Kline, Susan Sarandon, and Dakota Fanning

Directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland

Produced by Lifetime Films, an unsurprising aire of cheapness hovers over everything in The Last of Robin Hood from the soft lighting to the corny, repetitive score.  Considering that co-directors/screenwriters Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland also brought Still Alice to the cinematic landscape in 2014, I am admittedly surprised that both films share the same helmers because they frankly couldn't be more different in terms of every aspect of cinematic quality.

Telling the true story of actor Errol Flynn's last years, The Last of Robin Hood brings us in to Flynn's romantic relationship with fifteen year-old Beverley Aadland (Dakota Fanning) whom he fell head over heels for in his final days.  Once Flynn (Kevin Kline) discovers his paramour's true age, he recognizes the need to sweet-talk Beverley's mother Florence (Susan Sarandon) who has been pushing her daughter's Hollywood dreams for more than a decade even going so far as to falsify her birth certificates.  This triangular relationship travels a rocky road with tensions always rumbling right below the surface.

With a solid cast of two Oscar winners and one well-respected young actress, I had hoped that the acting may shine, but that did not come to fruition.  Instead, Kline feels as if he's hamming it up for the camera, playing a caricaturish performance of an aging Hollywood lothario.  Not only does Sarandon give quite possibly the worst voiceover work I've ever heard as her character tells her tale to an Errol Flynn biographer, but she also brings absolutely no emotion to her scenes as the "stage mom" and her Florence feels incredibly flat and bland (a fault of the script, for sure).  Fanning fares best, but that's mainly because her character is at least the most nuanced.  That said, Fanning doesn't play anything subtle here which is incredibly unfortunate as there are times where her reactions or emotions often come off as laughable.

Frankly, I'm flabbergasted that this film was ever released in theaters.  As soon as it started, I could sense the "movie of the week" tone permeating through the cheapness of all aspects of the production and looked up online as to whether its "R-rating" was given only for its dvd release.  However, it does appear to have been a theatrical release which truly is dumbfounding.  Yes, it contains a trio of stars, but the directors and screenwriters have crafted a film that lacks any emotional connection with its characters and leaves its cast floundering in unbelievable dialog and settings (which is all the more horrible seeing as how this is based on a true story).

The RyMickey Rating:  F

Movie Review - The Runaways

The Runaways (2010)

Starring Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, and Michael Shannon

Directed by Floria Sigismondi

The Runaways...also known as "the movie that actually showed this blogger that Kristen Stewart can act." Coming off of all wooden performances in the Twilight movies that made her famous, Stewart proves that there may be some significant acting chops in her after all as she portrays teenage rocker Joan Jett, lead guitarist for the 70s short-lived chick rock band The Runaways.  With Dakota Fanning (as always) performing admirably by her side, Stewart and Fanning make this rock biopic better than it really deserves to be given its by-the-book method of storytelling.

Just like any other rock band that's had a movie made about them, The Runaways dealt with the same exact stuff -- sex, drugs, an overbearing and shady manager, egos, in-fighting.  The list could go on and on, but it's nothing new or surprising.  The only difference here is that it's a bunch of girls dealing with it rather than guys.  Even though director-screenwriter Floria Sigismondi isn't able to produce anything special with the screenplay, the film looks pretty darn good.  Apparently best known for her music videos, Sigismondi certainly brings a frenetic energy to the screen, but absolutely knows when to scale back the pizzazz for the more intimate moments.

As I mentioned above, the film is carried by Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning.  Stewart brings a raw, macho edge to Joan Jett that I haven't seen in anything else from the actress.  She was surprisingly winning even in some fairly dramatic scenes.  Fanning, once again, proves why she's one of the best younger actresses ever to appear on screen.  This girl is only sixteen (possibly younger when she made this) and her role as the drug-addicted lead singer Cherie Currie is 100% believable.  With the looks of an angel and the attitude of a punk, Fanning undeniably disappears completely into this role, providing me with some very uncomfortable, but tremendously effective, moments (re: the lesbian kissing, snorting cocaine, etc...this is Dakota Fanning...not Lindsay Lohan!).  Michael Shannon also is quite good as The Runaways' manager, Kim Fowley, who knew that in order to be successful, he needed to turn the band into the bad girls that every guy wanted to screw.  (Yes, that sounds harsh, but just wait until you hear some of the lines he spouts...most of them were ridiculous, but oh so true from a music biz standpoint.)

The RyMickey Rating: B

Movie Review - Push (2009)

Starring Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning, Camilla Belle, and Djimon Hounsou
Written by David Bourla
Directed by Paul McGuigan

I think I've reached that point now of getting tired of watching everything at Movie #71. It's not that Push is an awful flick (Lord knows, I've seen three worse movies that were released in theaters this past weekend), but you just reach a point of getting tired of (slightly below) average films.

In fact, I'm honestly too lazy to write a summary, so, here's the wikipedia run down: The plot centers on a group of people born with various powers who band together to attempt to take down a government agency that is using a dangerous drug to enhance their powers in hopes of creating an army of super soldiers. While that is what the movie's about, that idea of "super soldiers" makes the plot sound even dumber than it is already.

The flick felt very much like NBC's Heroes, a show I watched for a season-and-a-half and then never went back to again because of its sheer ridiculosity (yes, I'm coining that as a new word). Similarly here, if I could've stopped watching here, I might have. Once again, though, it's not that it was all that bad, it's just that I didn't care at all about the plot or the characters.

That being said, I thought the flick actually looked moderately cool. Apparently, it was shot on location in Hong Kong and director Paul McGuigan uses the area to great effect. Sure, he doesn't really bring anything new to the table, but there's an edginess to his direction that fit the story and didn't seem forced.

Once again, it's not like the flick was awful, but I was bored out of my mind during it.

The RyMickey Rating: D+

Movie Review -- Coraline 3D (2009)

featuring the voice talent of Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher

directed and screenplay by Henry Selick

Odd. Simply odd. I don't know if that's a good thing, or a bad thing here. Coraline is just odd.

From the talent behind The Nightmare Before Christmas (which I loved when I was younger and I think is as dull as can be now), this film is just about as un-kid-friendly a kid pic can get. There's nothing objectionable here, but there's nothing that will grab a young kid's interest either.

Coraline is a young girl who is completely unsatisfied at home -- her parents don't pay her any attention and a recent move to a new home has left her with no friends but the annoying weirdo kid next door. One night, she goes through a small door she finds in her home and is taken to a seemingly "mirror" world of her current life -- her parents are incredibly (and overly) kind and loving and the boy next door can't annoy her because he is unable to talk -- for you see, Coraline's "other mother" in the new world not only has buttons for eyes, but has sewn the neighbor's mouth shut simply because Coraline was annoyed by him...you see, this new "other mother" wants Coraline to be as happy as can be and if that means sewing a boy's mouth shut then so be it. Like any kid flick, Coraline realizes that things may not be hunky-dory in this seemingly ideal world and she soon understands that she wants her "old" life back, however imperfect it might be.

First off, the movie is too long. It could have been much better as a 80-minute film than a 105-minute film. There's not much story here and cutting characters and subplots could've helped immensely.

My second problem with the flick certainly branches off of that first problem -- there's too many extra characters that were simply thrown in for their sheer eccentricity. Add to that another subplot dealing with dead ghost kids and, while I wasn't confused per se, I was perplexed as to why this was the least bit important.

Animation-wise, it definitely looked new (they were going for a computerized stop-motion look), but as the characters moved around, I couldn't help but think of the old-school Rankin/Bass "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" of the 1960s. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but things weren't always fluid all the time which I found a little odd.

Maybe I'm spoiled by Disney World 3D movies, but the 3D effects were once again not all that special. There were scenes that looked cool, but I don't think it would've been any different in 2D.

I realize I'm kind of complaining about the movie, but I didn't hate it. I appreciated the fact that the animators kind of said, "Screw the audience...we're gonna make the kind of movie that we want and we don't care if parents have to deal with kids that get nightmares," but at the same time, the story really lacked oomph.

I don't know what I think about this one at this point. I certainly wouldn't rush out to see it, but I think I'm making it sound worse than it was. That being said, it certainly wasn't anything great, but it was acceptable (yeah, I know, a rousing recommendation there).

But hey, if you want to see the biggest animated breasts that you've ever seen, this is the movie for you! (shudder...shudder...)

The RyMickey Rating: C+