Movie Review - Men, Women & Children

Men, Women & Children (2014)

Starring Adam Sandler, Jennifer Garner, Rosemarie Dewitt, Judy Greer, Dean Norris, Kaitlyn Dever, Ansel Elgort, Timothée Chalamet, Olivia Crocicchia, Elena Kampouris, Dennis Haysbert, J.K. Simmons, and Emma Thompson

Directed by Jason Reitman

Are you aware that the internet can pose a dangerous threat to our youth?

Are you aware that the pressures of being a teen nowadays are amplified exponentially by the power of social media and texting?

Are you aware that some people get so lost in the internet worlds of role-playing games and pornography that they lose touch with their actual reality?

If you've been living under a rock for the past ten years, then writer-director Jason Reitman's Men, Women & Children is the movie for you!  However, if you're anything like me and pretty much everyone else, I'm sure that none of the above questions are altogether surprising.  Reitman seemingly thinks that these notions are somewhat new as he tries to present all of them to riveting, shocking, and dramatic effect.  Unfortunately, we've seen this story before in both movies and television -- and we've seen it done much better.

This is one of those movies where you simply try to guess at the beginning which teenager is going to commit suicide and which one is going to get pregnant because you know it's going to happen -- and, sure enough, Reitman doesn't do anything to reinvent the wheel because halfway through the flick someone gets knocked up and three-quarters of the way through we witness the suicide.  Neither of which surprise us in the slightest as we could see them telegraphed from the film's opening five minutes.  Reitman hasn't crafted characters here, he's simply created stereotypical avatars of what he must think sex-crazed teens (Olivia Crocicchia, Timothée Chalamet) or loner teens (Kaitlyn Dever) or jock teens (Ansel Elgort) or overprotective parents (Jennifer Garner) or cool parents (Judy Greer) or emotionally detached spouses (Adam Sandler, Rosemarie Dewitt) are really like.  He then tosses in a tongue-in-cheek British narrator (Emma Thompson) to spout pithy remarks about the goings-on which confused the heck out of me as I couldn't tell whether Reitman was trying to craft something serious or whether this whole film was just an awful attempt at satire.

Across the board, some typically solid actors are left wallowing.  Kaitlyn Dever (so good in Short Term 12) and Ansel Elgort (quite a charming surprise in The Fault in Our Stars) fare the best, but maybe it's simply because their roles felt the least cookie cutter.  Also, would it be too hard for Judy Greer to land some more gigs?  She makes the best of her part as a mom who posts risqué pictures of her daughter on the internet by imbuing a bit of heart and personality into the film -- something that Men, Women & Children is missing in spades.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - Labor Day

Labor Day (2013)

Starring Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin, Gattlin Griffith, Clark Gregg, and Tobey Maguire

Directed by Jason Reitman

To the credit of writer-director Jason Reitman, his Labor Day feels very much like a film that could've been made in 1950s Hollywood.  Rightly so or not, had it been made all those decades ago, the film would've at least carried with it a tone of nostalgia for a bygone era and its somewhat ludicrous premise could've at least been glossed over a tiny bit by chalking it up to being from "the good ole days."  Instead, Labor Day was made in 2013 and despite taking place in the mid-1980s, the film feels incredibly dated (quite honestly, were it not for certain conveniences, one could easily have been fooled into thinking the timestamp of the film's plot was 1955).  Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for sentimentality and I don't necessarily look harshly upon movies that try to tug at your heart.  Unfortunately, Labor Day labors a bit too much to pull the heartstrings and proves to be Mr. Reitman's most disappointing film to date.

Kate Winslet is Adele, a depressed single mom trying to raise her teenage son Henry (Gattlin Griffith) in a small rural town.  Recently divorced, Adele has grown more and more sheltered as years have passed, relying on her son to perform errands seeing as how she nearly panics stepping foot into something as mundane as a convenience store.  While braving the real world with Henry at a grocery store one afternoon, Henry is confronted by a mysterious man named Frank (Josh Brolin) who is bleeding from a wound in his side.  He asks Henry and Adele to take him home with them and when they initially resist, Frank gently forces them by proposing the notion that he could hurt them if they don't.  Upon arrival at their house, Frank tells them he is an escaped convict and that he only wants to hide out in their house for a night after which he'll leave.

A decent enough premise, for sure.  However, Adele hasn't had a man around the house for some time and, thanks to some laughable foreshadowing via a golden-hued flashback, she's longing for a man's touch.  Following a pie-making session -- complete with slow motion edits of hands criss-crossing each other and that ever-reliable golden hue -- we know where this story is headed.

Ultimately, I could almost have bought into this immediate connection between Adele and Frank.  However, Reitman hits us over the head so many times with how good a man Frank is -- he teaches Henry how to throw a baseball, he's kind to kids with cerebral palsy (yep...don't ask how that factors in), he fixes things around the house, he cooks -- that it all just becomes eye-roll-inducing after a while.  We are treated to flashbacks of Frank's former life, too, that prove maybe he isn't as bad a guy as he was made out to be.  The whole thing just becomes too treacly and heavy-handed for its own good.

Josh Brolin gives a nice performance here bringing a gentleness that you don't often see from him and young Gattlin Griffith is also quite good.  Kate Winslet's Adele, however, feels a bit too overwrought.  I couldn't help but think I was watching her act rather than seeing her fully embody her character.

Jason Reitman has proven himself worthy in the past.  Unfortunately, Labor Day is a disappointment.  You're better off watching his last flick Young Adult -- criminally under-seen and under-appreciated.  It's streamed on Netlfix in the past, so it may very well pop up there again.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Young Adult

Young Adult (2011)

Starring Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt, Patrick Wilson, and Elizabeth Reaser 

Directed by Jason Reitman

Mavis Gary is a bitch.  There's really no need to bite my tongue when saying that because it's true...and in her heart, she knows that's the case.  She was the popular one in her high school in Mercury, Minnesota, a small town outside of Minneapolis, and nearly two decades removed from those days of making out with boys in the forest behind the school during lunch, Mavis, the now popular young adult novelist with a fondness for any kind of liquor (played brilliantly by Charlize Theron) is still as self-centered as ever living the big city life in Minneapolis.   After receiving an e-mail announcing the birth of their baby from the wife of her former high school beau Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson), Mavis gets the crazy idea to head back to Mercury and attempt to rekindle her relationship with Buddy.  Yes, that's right...Buddy just had a kid and Mavis is trying to steal him away from his wife.

That's the kind of abhorrent character Charlize Theron is given here to portray in a screenplay from Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody.  Mavis is unlikeable at the start of the film and she's no more appealing at the film's end which may explain why this flick has ultimately failed at the box office.  We in the audience don't see a character arc from bad to good.  Instead, thanks to a powerful scene at the film's end in which Mavis is actually encouraged to continue her uncouth ways, Mavis ends the film perhaps even worse than at the film's start.  That isn't to say that Mavis doesn't have revelatory moments in which she realizes some of her faults, but she doesn't necessarily feel the need to change her actions...a ballsy move in which Up in the Air director Jason Reitman fully succeeds.

Mavis's brief moments of revelation often come courtesy of Mercury resident Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt).  Although Matt and Mavis had lockers next to each other in high school, they barely spoke a word to one another.  Matt has had his own share of troubles as the victim of a hate crime back in high school when a group of jocks mistook him for being gay and severely beat him.  After that incident, he isn't afraid to tell Mavis his true thoughts as he finds her plan to reunite with her married ex-boyfriend a horrible idea.  Oswalt, best known for his role in King of Queens, is allowed to be the voice of reason here as the conduit that makes a movie with a character as unlikeable as Mavis more watchable and relatable to the viewer.  

The key to the film's success, however, is Charlize Theron.  Even though a thirtysomething Mavis is childish in her actions, Theron's Mavis is always thinking and it shows courtesy of the slightest of eye movements or brow furrowing -- granted, her pondering may not necessarily be "correct" or "appropriate," but Mavis's mind is always whirring with ways to make things better for herself.  It takes talent to make a reprehensible character desirable to spend 110 minutes with (those Hangover guys fail miserably in this department) and the beautiful Theron is fun to watch.  As mentioned above, much credit also needs to be given to Diablo Cody who dropped the pop culture heaviness and catchphrases that proliferated her earlier films like Juno and Jennifer's Body and graduates to a much more adult theme here.

Cody has crafted a character most actresses would be too afraid to sink their teeth into -- one who hardly ever finds herself in the good graces of the viewing audience.  Thankfully, Charlize Theron was more than willing to tackle the tricky Mavis Gary and has given one of the best performances of the year.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

Movie Review - Up in the Air (2009)

Just watched this flick again and it held up surprisingly well. After I wrote this original review, I began to think Anna Kendrick was overrated by most -- there's simply not a lot there character-wise in order to garner such praise. Well, I still think that's the case, but it's not really a detriment to the flick as the movie still works as a whole thanks in large part to Clooney and Farmiga's performances.

Original Post: 1/20/10

Up in the Air

Starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, and Anna Kendrick
Directed by Jason Reitman

This late in the Oscar season with the Golden Globes already given out and the Screen Actors Guild Awards in three days it's impossible to avoid "the buzz." The raves for certain films just keep coming and Up in the Air is one of those flicks. I'll be honest -- in this film's first ten minutes or so, I was firmly in the camp that this was going to be the overrated critics' darling of the year. However, after the slow start, I was won over by three spectacular performances, a witty script, and one of the most poignantly contemplative films of the decade. [I don't even know if "poignantly contemplative" makes sense...but it sounds important.]

Movie star George Clooney is Ryan Bingham, a man who is hired by major companies across the country in order to fire their employees. He loves his job and takes great pride in his work, but it leaves him without any emotional attachments to anyone. That is until he meets Alex (Vera Farmiga) who, like him, is a bigwig corporate type who also happens to travel cross country. They meet in a hotel bar one evening and, after a night of fooling around, decide to meet each other at their various layovers in cities.

At the same time, Ryan is dealing with being saddled with showing a newbie the ins and outs of his job. Twenty-three year-old Natalie (Twilight's Anna Kendrick) has crafted a new system of firing employees via a computer screen which would save the company hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on travel expenses. Ryan, however, thinks Natalie's idea is too impersonal -- they're performing a task that causes severe life changes in people and digitalizing the job seems wrong to him. Much to his surprise, Ryan begins to bond with the young woman who provides quite a bit of insight into what Ryan is truly missing and longing for in his life.

I wasn't expecting nearly as much humor as there was in this movie. There were many "laugh out loud" moments which were balanced by some truly touching and insightful thoughts on life. While it could've screamed "SELF HELP" (which I imagine it may to some), there were some shockingly astute revelations doled out by screenwriters Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner.

George Clooney is a good actor and I rarely dislike him in things. However, he tends to always just be "George Clooney" to me...I never really get a sense of character from a lot of his roles. Well, the same thing could be said here. Still, he crafts an effortless heartfelt performance that is a joy to watch onscreen. True, I may not ever be able to not see "George Clooney" on the big screen, but, in the end, is it really his fault he's such a big star?

Vera Farmiga is probably my favorite actress working today. After her stellar turns in this year's Orphan, last year's Nothing But the Truth (seriously...rent this one!), and 2006's The Departed, she exudes an intelligence and authenticity that isn't typically present in actresses. Her Alex is sexy and funny, and it's obvious why Clooney's Ryan would fall for her. Young Anna Kendrick actually has the most polarizing role in that she essentially starts the movie as an icy bitch, but manages to win Ryan and the audience over by the film's conclusion. Kendrick was, by far, the best part of The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and hopefully this role opens some doors for her beyond the tween market.

So, as much as I'd not like to jump on the bandwagon, Up in the Air is an impressive film, that, while not the absolute best of season, deserves a chunk of the recognition that's been bestowed upon it.

The RyMickey Rating: B+