Movie Review - The Face of Love

The Face of Love (2014)

Starring Annette Bening, Ed Harris, Robin Williams, Jess Weixler, and Amy Brenneman

Directed by Arie Posin

While certainly pleasant enough and a nice showcase for some "older," more established actors, The Face of Love meanders a bit too repetitively for its own good, hitting the same emotional notes over and over again over its rather short running time.  When Nikki's (Annette Bening) husband dies on a trip to Mexico, she is devastated by the sudden loss.  Five years pass and she still thinks of him nearly every day and although she's gotten the strength to move on, her love for him still continues.  On the urging of her daughter Summer (Jess Weixler), Nikki begins to explore some of the California institutions that she loved visiting with her husband including the Los Angeles Art Museum.  One day, while visiting, she spots a man (Ed Harris) that looks nearly identical to her husband and her world is turned a bit upside down.

In another film, this discovery would lead to a conspiracy surrounding her husband's death, but here this is simply the story of a woman re-falling in love with a similar-looking man.  No mystery here.  While the premise is actually more solid than it sounds (because I admit it seems hokey), The Face of Love fails to really shift emotionally at any point in time during the film.  There's an undercurrent of grief throughout from the very initial scenes in which Nikki is just beginning to cope with the death through to the rather sorrowful feelings we in the audience conjure up as Nikki desperately clings to the new man because of his resemblance to her late husband.  This constant pity that we feel for Nikki admittedly gets a little monotonous and the film fails to create another emotion for us to latch onto.

The Face of Love isn't so much a disappointment as it is a bit of a letdown -- an interesting premise with solid acting that doesn't really go anywhere.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - The Angriest Man in Brooklyn

The Angriest Man in Brooklyn (2014)

Starring Robin Williams, Mila Kunis, Peter Dinklage, Melissa Leo, and Hamish Linklater

Directed by Phil Alden Robinson

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

I think The Angriest Man in Brooklyn is supposed to be a comedy and despite the fact that I didn't laugh once (or really even smirk in the slightest), I found one of Robin Williams' final films to be oddly endearing.  Admittedly, however, the reason for the emotion stems from the fact that Williams finds himself playing lawyer Henry Altmann, a man who discovers that a brain aneurysm has allotted him only ninety minutes left to live and he must determine whether he wants to continue on his current path of anger and resentment or reconcile his differences with his estranged wife and son (Melissa Leo and Hamish Linklater).  Had Williams not recently passed away, I doubt very much that the film would've had much impact.  However, true life seeps into the cinematic world a bit here, creating something a little more rousing than the film itself merits.

Williams is adequate as Henry, although I feel like we've seen him play this angry, somewhat crazed role before.  Yes, he dials things back a bit here, but not quite far enough if I'm being honest.  Mila Kunis plays his temporary doctor who has troubles of her own -- it should come as no surprise that her foibles will change for the better by crossing paths with Henry.  Together, Williams and Kunis play off each other surprisingly well, however many of their scenes together are so poorly written or so abysmally staged -- this film has one of the worst uses of green screen I've seen in a while -- that they end up falling flat.

The Angriest Man in Brooklyn is not a great film, but it is unfortunately made better simply because of the passing of Mr. Robin Williams whose real life struggles somewhat mirror the difficulties his character faces in this film.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Lee Daniels' The Butler

Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013)

Starring Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, David Oyelowo, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Lenny Kravitz, Terrence Howard, Robin Williams, John Cusack, James Marsden, Liev Schreiber, Alan Rickman, Jane Fonda, Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Redgrave, and Mariah Carey

Directed by Lee Daniels

Can someone please explain to me how Lee Daniels' The Butler was ever in the running for any category at the Oscars?  With an absolutely horrendous script by Danny Strong, pompously self-important direction by Lee Daniels, and overacting out the wazoo by nearly everyone involved, it's mind-boggling to me that people actually thought this movie was good in any way.  Incredibly heavy-handed in its way of trying to pigeonhole seemingly every important civil rights moment from the 1950s-80s into a two hour film, the film plays like a low-rent version of Forrest Gump as famous Hollywood celebrity after famous Hollywood celebrity pops up playing famous political figure after famous political figure.  And then, rather obnoxiously, the film ends with the triumphant crowning of Barack Obama as President signifying that "hope and change" have come and all is right in the world.  The final ten minutes of this movie had me so aggravated that they soured the entirety of the rest of the film (which, as stated, really wasn't that good to begin with).

Ugh.

Based on a true story (although changed DRASTICALLY in order to make things much more dramatic), The Butler centers around Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker), a man who escaped Southern slavery in the 1920s and became well known around Washington, D.C., as a fantastic server/butler in local bars and lounges around the big city.  After catching the eye of someone who worked in the White House, Gaines snags a job as a butler where he stays on to serve eight presidents.  The film attempts to balance Gaines' workplace with his family life, but the transitions between the two are always awkward and oftentimes incredibly heavyhanded.  For, you see, while his professional life is moving along swimmingly, his home life leaves much to be desired.  His wife Gloria (Oprah Winfrey) is tired of her husband putting his focus on his job and abandoning her and their two sons so she fills the void she feels with alcohol and another man (Terrence Howard).  Meanwhile, Gaines' older son (David Oyelowo) is heading to college where he finds himself becoming involved in Woolworth counter sit-ins, Freedom Bus Riders, Martin Luther King's assassination, the Black Panthers, and rallies to free Nelson Mandela.  All this stuff -- and this son never even existed.  That's right.  It's simply the screenwriter's ploy to hammer home what they believe to be significant moments in the Civil Rights Movement.  There's certainly no denying each of these events' importance.  However, none of these moments are ever given anything more than snippets of attention.  Giving each of these pivotal aspects of the movement such short shrift is a disservice.

On Oscar morning, everyone was shocked that Oprah didn't garner a nomination, but her attempt at halfway channeling Mo'Nique's intense performance from Precious was laughable.  Forest Whitaker is as flat as could be, exuding an overwhelming sense of blandness.  Each and every presidential figure plays more like a really good impressionist you'd see on the Vegas strip than a person.  Lee Daniels really failed to reel in a good performance from anyone with the exception of Lenny Kravitz as another butler in the White House and David Oyelowo who, despite the horribly written role as Gaines' older son, does try his best with his ridiculous part.

Lee Daniels' The Butler begins with Cecil Gaines as a young child working on a cotton plantation and the film's first ten minutes echo similar sentiments espoused in Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave.  However, there's simply no comparison and to have even placed The Butler in the same ballpark as 12 Years a Slave in the lead-up to awards season is an indignation that I'm trying to right with this review.

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Movie Review - Awakenings

Awakenings (1990)

Starring Robin Williams, Robert De Niro, Julie Kavner, Penelope Ann Miller, and John Heard

Directed by Penny Marshall

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

Awakenings is a pleasant enough film that I remember liking a little better the first time I watched it (probably fifteen years ago) than I did this time around.  Don't be mistaken...the true story of Dr. Malcolm Sayer's work with chronically ill patients is an interesting tale.  The problem lies in the fact that director Penny Marshall's film lacks a real momentum, taking a bit too long to get started and finding itself hampered by the fact Robin Williams's portrayal of Sayer is much too dry and bland to hold one's attention in the first third of the flick.

About forty-five minutes in, however, Awakenings takes a turn for the better as Dr. Sayer begins testing an experimental treatment on Leonard Lowe (Robert De Niro), a man whom as a youth became inflicted with encephalitis causing him to lose all bodily control leaving him in a nearly comatose state.  Sayer realizes that, like Lowe, the patients in the chronically ill ward still maintain their reflexes in their current state.  Despite being catatonic, their minds are "still present" despite the fact that, for the most part, they're unable to communicate.  Through this newfound special treatment, Leonard finds himself soon being able to function just like any normal human being and finds himself attempting to make up for the nearly thirty years he'd been unable to be "normal."

As I said, the biggest issue with the movie is that at its beginning, Robin Williams's Malcolm Sayer just wasn't a character worth crafting a film around.  He's nearly a "nervous nelly," uncomfortable in seemingly every social interaction he encounters, appearing almost wall-flowerish amongst a sea of more interesting characters.  Even the patients in the catatonic states were exhibiting more pizzazz than Williams.  Admittedly, I don't really think it's the fault of Williams.  The screenplay plays up his character as an unexciting homebody who likes to study plants in his spare time...not a whole lot to work with there.

However, once De Niro's Leonard comes into play, Williams's Sayer becomes much more comfortable in the role.  And that's partly due to the fact that De Niro is pretty great here and makes everyone around him even better.  As a grown man who hasn't really been alive for thirty years, when Leonard awakens for the first time, De Niro is forced to play a "grown up child," unaware of what happened in the three decades that have escaped him.  Perhaps it's just because I'm used to De Niro slumming it in his roles as of late, but it's nice to see that the guy actually has some acting ability to fall back on should his disastrous Focker roles dry up in the upcoming years.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - World's Greatest Dad (2009)

Starring Robin Williams, Daryl Sabara, Alexie Gilmore, Henry Simmons, and Geoffrey Pierson
Directed by Bobcat Goldthwait

There are two distinctly different tones in this movie here. Neither are bad, but the beginning outweighs the ending which brings the overall rating down a notch.

Robin Williams plays Lance Clayton, an English teacher, struggling writer, and single father to Kyle (played by Spy Kids alum Daryl Sabara). Kyle isn't exactly the nicest teenager. All that's on his mind is sex and, honestly, he's probably the nastiest, rudest kid that I've seen in a movie this year. There's much more to this black comedy, but I don't really want to discuss it as it's best left for you to witness it as it unfolds onscreen.

Williams is really quite good in this. His character takes an emotional journey in this movie and I believed every second of it. Also, I was amazed at how impressed I was with Daryl Sabara. I remember liking this kid in Spy Kids, but he took what could've been (and was) an outrageous character and made him watchable (and this character could've so easily veered into the "too overboard" category). Unfortunately, the film falters a bit with Lance's love interest -- Alexie Gilmore's Claire is too cutesy and the dialogue between her and Williams at times felt a tad forced.

Writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait hasn't crafted a perfect film here (I have problems with the second half as my fellow moviegoer is aware...oh, the argument that ensued in the movie theater...), but it's surprisingly moving and funny. For the first 45 minutes, I laughed (oftentimes uncomfortably) a whole lot, and the last 45, while I'm not fawning over it, wasn't at all bad.

This one's worth checking out if black comedy is your thing...it's certainly not for everyone, but it was a fun watch for me.

The RyMickey Rating: B

Movie Review - Shrink (2009)

Starring Kevin Spacey, Dallas Roberts, Keke Palmer, Mark Webber, Saffron Burrows, Pell James, Jesse Plemons, Robert Loggia, and Robin Williams
Written by Thomas Moffett
Directed by Jonas Pate

Moderate spoilers ahead...although these plot points are discussed within the first 20 minutes of the film...

Right off the bat, let me say that I have a few problems with this movie, most important being that one of the most pivotal plot points felt incredibly forced. However, this little flick that I had heard next to nothing about won me over because of some winning performances and a great combination of humor and pathos.

Kevin Spacey is Henry Carter, a shrink who has written a book about how to be happy in life. Guess what? He's not really happy. His wife has recently committed suicide and he has turned to marijuana to quell his emotional pains. The flick is one of those multiple-character arc movies (like Crash but on a much lesser scale) where several patients come into Henry's office and then end up interacting with each other. In some movies, these interactions feel forced, but here, for the most part, they work. Patrick (Dallas Roberts) is a Hollywood talent agent/producer who is afraid of everything. Jemma (Keke Palmer) is a high school student obsessed with movies and unable to emotionally come to grips with her mother's suicide. Kate (Saffron Burrows) is an aging Hollywood actress (if being in your 30s is aging...I'm in trouble in a year...) who is having trouble in her marriage to a rock star. As I said above, eventually, several of these folks will find their story arcs combining by the film's end.

My biggest problem with the film is that I never felt the connection that I felt I should between Henry and Jemma, two people who lost those they loved to suicide. The movie is definitely pushing this as the emotional peak, but I never really got there with it. It doesn't help that the film gets to that high point via a weird interaction between Jemma and Henry's godson, Jeremy (Marc Webber), a struggling screenwriter who finds inspiration in the young troubled girl.

You would think that if I had issues with a major plot point, I wouldn't particularly care for the film, however, the flick still worked for me for some odd reason. In part, it's due to some winning performances. Spacey, whom I haven't seen since 2007's Fred Claus (and let's not go there...I'm not counting his pretty darn good voiceover work in Moon), is impressive as the struggling doc. His opening scene had me doubting the role, but he won me over within minutes. Jesse Plemons as Henry's pot supplier provided quite a bit of laughter, as did an extended cameo from Robin Williams (he was still kind of doing is off-the-wall schtick, but it worked for me). However, the star of the show was Dallas Roberts. His neurotic Patrick was a hoot and this (to me anyway) unknown actor stole the show from the talented Spacey.

Obviously, the film isn't perfect, but I liked it. It was a nice mix of comedy and drama, and it certainly kept my attention throughout thanks to those performances mentioned.

The RyMickey Rating: B

Movie Review - Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009)

Starring Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson, Hank Azaria, and Robin Williams
Written by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon
Directed by Shawn Levy

I fell asleep during the first Night at the Museum movie. For a movie that's supposed to be somewhat exciting (in a kid movie kind of way), it lacked any oomph.

The sequel proves to be the same thing.

I'm not going to go into any detail except to say that there's really nothing redeeming about it. The acting is okay, the special effects are lacklaster, and the story is extraordinarily corny. When you can make the adorable Amy Adams look bad, your script sucks.

Nothing else to say here...why waste my time...

The RyMickey Rating: D