Movie Review - God's Pocket

God's Pocket (2014)

Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Richard Jenkins, Christina Hendricks, John Turturro, Eddie Marsan, and Caleb Landry Jones

Directed by John Slattery

Talk about a snooze fest.  One of Philip Seymour Hoffman's last films, God's Pocket tells the tale of a working class Philadelphia neighborhood known as Devil's Pocket wherein tough guys and broads abound.  Leon (Caleb Landry Jones) is a live wire -- a twentysomething factory worker whose racist remarks and poor work ethic don't sit well with his co-workers.  One day, after a spouting a particularly cruel diatribe against an older black man, the elderly gentleman whacks him on the side of the head with a pipe and Leon dies.  The manager of the factory and the crew decide to cover up the death, saying that it was an accident...and one would think that the movie would be about setting up whether these crew members would be discovered for their crime.

But no...after the murder in the film's opening ten minutes, we don't really revisit the investigation in the slightest.  Sure, Leon's death looms over the rest of the film's proceedings, but the film instead focuses on Leon's mother and stepfather Jeannine and Mickey (Christina Hendricks and Hoffman) and Jeannine's newfound affair with a reporter (Richard Jenkins) investigating Leon's death.  Taking place over the course of three days, God's Pocket goes nowhere with all of its characters wallowing around in dank, dark places not talking about anything of much importance except how hard life is in The Pocket.

This is actor John Slattery's first film as a director and there are sparks of interesting moments, but nothing ever truly lights up.  The acting is all so dreadfully sullen and dull that there's never a moment of respite from the dreariness.

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Movie Review - Fading Gigolo

Fading Gigolo (2014)

Starring John Turturro, Woody Allen, Vanessa Paradis, Liev Schrieber, Sharon Stone, and Sofía Vergara

Directed by John Turturro

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

Fading Gigolo works best when Woody Allen and John Turturro play off each other with Allen's typical neuroses and Turturro's serious tone juxtaposing surprisingly amusingly.  Whenever their two characters are separated, however, screenwriter-director Turturro's film lags with a romance that never really blossoms to anything captivating.

Woody Allen is Woody Allen -- oh no, wait...he's Murray (who is really just Woody Allen), an aging guy whose used book store is being forced to shut down.  Desperate for money, Murray -- after visiting his dermatologist Dr. Parker (Sharon Stone) -- spitballs the idea of his single buddy Fioravante (Turturro) sleeping with his skin doctor who mentioned that she and her single friend Selina (Sofía Vergara) were interested in having a threesome.  Fiorvante balks at the notion, but then acquiesces, although Dr. Parker wants to "try him for herself" first.  Fioravante discovers that he doesn't mind sleeping with women for money and Murray enjoys the commission he's receiving for setting Fioravante up with the ladies.

In and of itself, the storyline above is at least amusing.  However, Fading Gigolo tries for heart and attempts to achieve that when Murray takes one of his girlfriend's lice-stricken kids to see Avigal (Vanessa Paradis), the widow of an Hassidic rabbi, for treatment.  Avigal is in pain (both physical and emotional) and Murray convinces her to come and see Fioravante whom Murray says is a massage therapist.  Fioravante almost immediately has a connection with Avigal and the two begin a relationship that doesn't exactly go over well with Avigal's Jewish neighbors.

Unfortunately, the whole Avigal story -- which is really the bulk of the movie -- falls flat.  Avigal as a character is emotionally stilted and quite blasé.  While that's no fault of Vanessa Paradis' portrayal, the lack of vigor in her character brings the film to a halt whenever she's onscreen.  I never really believed the connection between Avigal and Fioravante either which I think is important to latch onto in order to care about the proceedings.  The Murray-Fioravante teaming was amusing, but the rest of Fading Gigolo lacks oomph.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

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 - O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

Starring George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman, and Holly Hunter
Directed by Joel Coen (and an uncredited Ethan Coen)

If only films could be based solely on looks/cinematography, movies like O Brother, Where Art Thou? would take a place in my favorite movies of all time. Unfortunately, they don't, and this Coen Brothers effort falls a tad short for me.

Loosely based on Homer's The Odyssey (which I know I've read at some point in time), the flick follows three hickish guys who have just escaped from a chain gang and are on a mission to find a secret treasure (sounds corny, but it's not as bad as that one sentence makes it sound). My biggest issue with the film, though, is that the story is essentially a series of small set pieces with quirky side characters simply connected by these three escapees coming across them. Parts of the film are great -- the scene with Michael Badalucco's Baby Face Nelson, the Ku Klux Klan scene -- but they don't add up to a super whole for me.

George Clooney as the "ringleader" of the on-the-lam criminals always throws me for a loop. Try as I might, I often have a very difficult time differentiating him from his real-life movie star persona and the characters he plays in his films -- I feel like I'm watching Clooney rather than a character (same goes for Julia Roberts and John Travolta most of the time). It's not that Clooney disappoints here (or really disappoints in any film), but I still never get the feeling that I'm watching a character. Turturro and Blake Nelson are each fine, but didn't wow me. I was actually pretty impressed with Holly Hunter's minimal role (and was equally unimpressed by an over-the-top John Goodman).

Still, there are laughs to be had here. And, like I said above, the film really looks spectacular. The sepia-colored tones tempered with strong use of yellows provided a palette that was certainly visually appealing and one that I imagine would look great on the big screen. I just wish there was a little more cohesiveness to the story, rather than just a series of segments strung together.

The RyMickey Rating: C

Movie Review - The Big Lebowski (1998)

Starring Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and John Turturro
Directed by Joel Coen (and an uncredited Ethan Coen)

I'm not really gonna go into a summary here as nearly everyone I know has seen it already. There's a lot of depth here for a comedy, both in story and in dialogue. There's an intelligence in the verbiage used here that shines through despite the fact that we're dealing with some dumb (or at the very least lazy) folks...and it shockingly didn't feel out of place. Characters (even the most minor ones) are well defined and each really has their own unique voice and manner of speaking.

It's the characters and the actors that play them who make this movie the comedic gem that it is. Jeff Bridges is genius as The Dude, taking the slacker routine that has been seen so many times on film to a new level. And just when you think you're seeing something great in Bridges, along come John Goodman who has one of the best supporting roles I've seen onscreen in ages. His volatile bitterness and shifts from happiness to anger were ridiculously hilarious. Goodman's role is certainly the stand-out here, but Julianne Moore and Steve Buscemi also are pretty damn good in their smaller roles, making a sizable impression despite less screen time.

Obviously, these actors have the Coen brothers to thank. At this point, this is by far my favorite Coen brothers movie I've seen to date (although I know I've got much more in their oeuvre to go...and I'm not gonna hear the end of it until I see them all). The wit and intelligence they bring to the screen is refreshing. Bring on the rest of their stuff...

The RyMickey Rating: B+

Movie Review - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - The IMAX Experience (2009)

Starring Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, and John Turturro

Written by Morons

Directed by An Even Bigger Moron

My major complaint with the first Transformers movie was that the action scenes were so poorly directed that I couldn't understand what was going on. So, dumb that I am, I subjected myself to seeing the sequel on a giant IMAX screen where I couldn't even take in everything that was going on.

Then again, there wasn't much to take in story-wise. The large screen didn't prevent me from realizing that Michael Bay can't direct at all...Weird transitions, horribly shot action scenes, no sense of comedic timing, and a complete fetishistic way of filming women onscreen (If Megan Fox wasn't seen wearing next to nothing, she was seen running with her mouth wide open or pursing her lips).

Jumping off of that Megan Fox thing, the actors here are completely unnecessary. They add nothing to the plot. There's a Latino guy that's a main character in this movie that literally does nothing. He doesn't help anybody at any time, he doesn't hinder anybody at any time...he's seemingly there because the producers polled people after the first movie and the Latino crowd felt left out. That's the only logical explanation. Even Sam Witwicky (the main character) wouldn't really be necessary in this movie.

There's really nothing to say here except that I hated it...immensely. I don't really feel like writing anymore about it. Why do people think this is good? X-Men: Wolverine was like Shakespeare compared to this.

The RyMickey Rating: F

Movie Review - Barton Fink (1991)

***Available on DVD***
Starring John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis, John Mahoney, and Tony Shalhoub
Directed by Joel Coen (and an uncredited Ethan Coen)
Written by Joel and Ethan Coen

Barton Fink (Turturro) is a New York playwright who moves out to Hollywood when presented with an opportunity to write for "the pictures." Unfortunately, writer's block comes into play and Barton is unable to write a thing. He befriends a salesman living next door to him (Goodman), he stares at peeling wallpaper, and he meets up with a washed-out alcoholic writer (Mahoney) and his lover (Davis) in hopes of gaining some inspiration.

Full of some hilarious bit roles taken right out of cheesy 1940s B-movies (the detectives who question Fink in the 2nd half of the film, the film studio chief), it's a shame that the main character is such a nobody. I can't even really put a finger on it, but I hated the way Turturro portrayed Fink. He certainly wasn't helped by the Coen Bros. who give him nothing to do in the film's first hour except act incredibly frustrated at his inability to write.

The film certainly comes alive in the second hour, and I felt like I was watching a far superior movie (despite the zaniness that is present)...a far different movie than the first hour. In the grand scheme of things, the two disparate acts make sense (sort of), but they really didn't connect for me cohesively. But, I guess that could be the point, really.

While I didn't love the movie, I'm absolutely interested in discussing this with the friend who recommended it to me (especially considering it's one of his favorite movies of all time). It's a movie rife with symbolism that a single viewing wouldn't allow me to catch everything (or even half of everything).

Perhaps in three months, I'll give this movie another chance...knowing where it's going might help me better appreciate the initial hour.

The RyMickey Rating: C+
(for now...although upon a 2nd viewing, I could see myself finding this film more and more intriguing)