The French Dispatch

 The French Dispatch (2021)

Starring Bill Murray, Elizabeth Moss, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Benicio del Toro, Léa Seydoux, Tilda Swinton, Adrian Brody, Tony Revolori, Bob Balaban, Henry Winkler, Lois Smith, Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, Lyna Khoudri, Liev Schreiber, Jeffrey Wright, Willem Dafoe, Mathieu Amalric, Edward Norton, Winston Ait Hellal, and Saoirse Ronan

Directed by Wes Anderson

Written by Wes Anderson

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: D

Nomadland

 Nomadland (2020)

Starring Frances McDormand and David Strathairn

Directed by Chloe Zhou

Written by Chloe Zhou

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

Isle of Dogs

Isle of Dogs (2018)

Featuring the vocal talents of Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Edward Norton, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Liev Schreiber, Kunichi Nomura, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDorman, Scarlett Johansson, Harvey Keitel, F. Murray Abraham, Yoko Ono, Courtney B. Vance, and Tilda Swinton

Directed by Wes Anderson

Written by Wes Anderson

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

Starring Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Caleb Landry Jones, Lucas Hedges, Abbie Cornish, Zeljko Ivanek, Peter Dinklage, and John Hawkes

Directed by Martin McDonagh

Written by Martin McDonagh

Summary (in 500 words or less):  Following her daughter's unsolved rape and murder, Mildred (Frances McDormand) buys advertising space on three billboards questioning the effectiveness of the local police force headed by the sure-fototed Sheriff Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) and the off-the-hinges officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell). 

• Quite frankly, this is one of the worst movies I've seen in a while.  Very little of what happens in this film feels even remotely believable which, in a sci-fi film would be one thing, but in dramedy set in a realistic setting simply doesn't work.  
• I've seen a few plays and movies by Martin McDonagh and his blend of dark comedy and drama usually strikes a nice balance, but here the script's comedic moments feel ludicrous and its dramatic moments fail to resonate in the slightest.
• McDonagh throws the kitchen sink in to this one -- racist cops, foul-mouthed mothers, jokes about Catholic priests and midgets -- hoping something will stick, but nothing does.
• Frances McDormand is okay, but I feel like I've seen her do this before.  She could play this role in her sleep.  Sam Rockwell (who, like McDormand, seems poised to win an Oscar for this role) lacks nuance, with his character experiencing a change of heart that feels unwarranted.
• Characters do horrible things to others in this film with little repercussion which might've worked fine in In Bruges or Seven Psychopaths (other McDonagh films), but they weren't nearly as based in reality as this film is and when these characters fail to be punished for things, it irritated me immensely.
• In short form (as I'm writing all my "reviews" now), my reasons for my utter hatred of this movie aren't fully described, but rest assured this movie is completely undeserving of the praise bestowed upon it.

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Movie Review - The Good Dinosaur

The Good Dinosaur (2015)

Featuring the vocal talents of Jeffrey Wright, Frances McDormand, Raymond Ochoa, Steve Zahn, Anna Paquin, and Sam Elliott 

Directed by Peter Sohn

As much as I say Pixar is without faults, churning out one hit after another, that's perhaps being overly generous, overlooking the fact that films that some people love -- Finding Dory, Up -- just don't hit the mark with me.  Unfortunately, The Good Dinosaur joins that lukewarm bunch.  While the scenic animation is gorgeous and incredibly photo-realistic, the character design is the most basic we've seen from Pixar yet and the story feels like a retread of better animated films of the past.  All in all, The Good Dinosaur is one of Pixar's biggest disappointments.

The story has some strong similarities to The Lion King, although it obviously pales in comparison.  A young dinosaur named Arlo (voiced by Raymond Ochoa) is the runt of his family with a brother and sister bigger and more capable than he.  His father (Jeffrey Wright) decides to take Arlo on a journey to try and make him braver and more confident in himself.  However, on this journey, a horrible flood rushes down a riverbed and carries Arlo's father away.  Pushed to safety in his father's final courageous act, Arlo finds himself on a journey home where he meets several unique creatures including a dog-like four or five-year-old human he names Spot who he befriends on his trek.

Yes, humans and dinosaurs co-exist here and I just couldn't help but think that the potential for this premise could've been more fully realized.  While it's true that Spot is the most engaging character in The Good Dinosaur despite the character not speaking a word, the co-mingling of these two species is disappointingly developed.  Obviously, it doesn't help that the film's main character - Arlo - is bland, paling in comparison to the amusing Spot.  Sure, Simba in The Lion King may not have been the funniest or most unique character, but we cared about his plight.  Arlo's plight lacks a captivating thread for some reason.

Although there are certain aspects of the film that are stellar - a great score by Jeff and Mychael Danna and some beautiful environmental imagery, the story (by a slew of people) and the design of the dinosaurs feel pre-schoolish which doesn't allow for anyone older than the age of ten to really connect with the proceedings.  The Good Dinosaur is a big disappointment and quite possibly my least favorite Pixar film to date.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Moonrise Kingdom

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Starring Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Bob Balaban, Harvey Keitel, and Jason Schwartzman

Directed by Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson is a director whose films often feature style trumping substance.  When he succeeds at finding a perfect balance, the result is one of the best movies of the new century.  When he disappoints, at least he always lets us down in an interesting way with a wonderful visual flair.  Moonrise Kingdom falls a bit in the middle of those two spectrums.  His trademark quirkiness is omnipresent in his typical storybook world he has created here, in this case the island town of New Penzance in New England circa 1965.  With beautiful color blocking and visually impressive camera work, Moonrise Kingdom never fails to be a lovely film to gaze upon.  Storywise, however, there's just not a whole lot upon which to heap praises.  It's all a bit too simplistic, feeling even a bit more unnecessarily padded than its short 96-minute runtime would have you believe.

When the film opens, twelve year-old Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) has run away from his Khaki Scout summer camp.  As Scout Master Randy Ward (Edward Norton) frantically rallies his troop members into a search party, across the island young Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) has also run away from home, leaving her parents (Frances McDormand and Bill Murray) worried about her whereabouts.  It turns out that the two tweens have met up with one another to rekindle a budding puppy love romance that began a short time ago.  They plan on running away together and spending a lifetime with one another letting no one in town stop them from their entwined destinies.

That's Moonrise Kingdom in a nutshell and, quite honestly, not much else of importance happens.  There are some quirky side stories that fail to add much to the overarching tale and, as mentioned previously, the main story just doesn't have enough to sustain itself.  Sure, the whole thing is cute as could be, but that doesn't necessarily always cut it.  Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward are nice together as the young couple, but (and this always sounds harsh when critiquing younger actors) it took me quite a while to be won over by their mannered and wooden performances.  Ultimately, I think their director wanted their roles to be exactly as they have played them, but they aren't exactly emotionally riveting, falling instead on the side of bland as opposed to interesting.  The rest of the cast is fine, but with the exception of Mr. Norton's whimsical Scoutmaster, they really aren't given a whole lot to do.  None of the characters have a bit of depth (or at least any depth that proves meaningful) and that is a bit of a disappointment.

Ultimately, Moonrise Kingdom is an enjoyable diversion, but beyond the visuals (which, once again, I find beautiful and make the film certainly worth watching), this proves to be a film that I likely never need to see again sheerly because of the throwaway nature of the whole thing.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

(I realize that the above review sounds overly harsh for a 'B-' rating, but the visual style of the flick carried a lot of weight here.  And the plain and simple truth is that the story just didn't have enough oomph to warrant a higher rating.)

Movie Review - Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

Starring Shia LaBoeuf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, and Patrick Dempsey

Directed by Michael Bay

I felt this incredible sense of promise during the first ten minutes of Transformers: Dark of the Moon.  The year is 1969 and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin having just landed on the moon are given a top secret mission to explore some unknown object that had landed there eight years prior.  They uncover some weird humongous spacecraft that ends up belonging to the Autobot "race" of Transformers.  

And then the movie jumps to modern times...and the movie falls apart and turns into just as awful a piece of junk as the second movie in this heinously bad series.  You don't need to know anything other than the fact that the good Autobots are trying to save the Earth from the bad Decepticons.  Nothing else matters because nothing happens.  And it still clocks in at over two-and-a-half hours.

The second flick of the series got the rather dubious honor of being one of the worst movies I saw in 2009 and I would venture to guess that Dark of the Moon will fall into that same category.  There's just nothing good here.  Subpar acting, ridiculously inane battle sequences, and a visual color palette that is nothing but metallic gray.  

God...I could go on and on, but I despise this series and I think that in the future, I won't subject myself to any more of them.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-

Movie Review - Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008)

Starring Frances McDormand, Amy Adams, Lee Pace, and Ciarán Hinds
Written by David Magee and Simon Beaufoy
Directed by Bharat Nalluri

At this point, I think I would see Amy Adams in nearly anything. Even if the films she's in aren't perfect, she always seems to give an incredibly winning performance. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is no exception.

After getting fired from her job as a nanny, down-on-her-luck Miss Pettigrew (McDormand) fortuitously stumbles upon another job opportunity as the "confidante" of the Marilyn Monroe-esque aspiring actress Delysia (Adams). The unlikely pair form a friendship as each help the other better their lives over the course of a single day (hence the title).

An amusing movie for sure, with great performances from the two leads and the supporting cast. It's slightly unfortunate that the movie's really about nothing...in the grand scheme of things, it's an adult version of Mary Poppins. The screenwriters (including Slumdog Millionaire's scripter Simon Beaufoy) try to throw in a subplot about World War II to ill effect to seemingly just add some unnecessary weight to the generally lightweight affair.

A cute movie...now if only Amy Adams could find a script that matches her talent, I'd be a happy camper.

The RyMickey Rating: B-