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

The Missing Link

The Missing Link (2019)

Featuring the vocal talents of Hugh Jackman, Zach Galifianakis, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Fry, Timothy Olyphant, and Emma Thompson

Directed by Chris Butler

Written by Chris Butler

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: B

Movie Review - Snowden

Snowden (2016)

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Rhys Ifans, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson, Scott Eastwood, Timothy Olyphant, Lakeith Stanfield, Joely Richardson, and Nicolas Cage

Directed by Oliver Stone

I think it's admittedly a little difficult to come to the Oliver Stone-directed Snowden without having some outside feelings towards the title character.  Was Edward Snowden an American traitor or a hero?  This film undoubtedly takes the latter stance with Snowden being treated in an almost saint-like manner at times.  The lack of a balanced look at the polarizing figure is slightly disappointing, but looking beyond that, Snowden is a surprisingly engaging and well-made film that kept my attention throughout and provides a good glimpse (albeit a surface one) at one of America's biggest political events of the new century.

Told within a framing device of his interview with documentarian Laura Poitrus (Melissa Leo) whose film Citizenfour brought his story to even more masses, the film opens in 2013 with Edward Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) taking a huge leap and deciding to release private information he possesses that states that the United States government is spying on all Americans via their cell phones and computers.  The release of this information will undoubtedly cause him to be called a traitor, but after nearly ten years working in various government agencies including the NSA and CIA, Snowden feels that his findings should be made public.  The film then flashes back to the decade-younger Snowden as he gets his first job in Washington, D.C., and he meets his significant other Lindsay (Shailene Woodley).  Praised everywhere for his expertise in computers and coding, Snowden goes from job to job within the government, learning bits and pieces about how post-9/11 it was decided that -- for the safety and well-being of the country -- certain privacy laws would be lessened at certain times.

Frankly, no one is more surprised than me that this nearly two-and-a-half hour movie based on politics kept my attention, but kudos to Oliver Stone (who also co-wrote the film) for keeping the film moving at a solid pace and to Joseph Gordon-Levitt for his solid portrayal of the title character.  While Snowden himself is treated with kid gloves and saint-like (there's a particular moment towards the film's conclusion where a resolute and determined Snowden walks out of a dark bunker with a halo of glorious light surrounding him as soaring music swells in the background), I give props to Stone for depicting both the Bush and Obama administration with equal amounts of distrust.  Somehow, though, even though I liked the film, I can't find myself overly praising a whole lot about it and that's due in large part to the depiction of Snowden as too much of a do-gooder.  It doesn't help that during the film's conclusion, Stone has the real Edward Snowden literally "take the place" of Gordon-Levitt, putting the real figure into the spotlight in a way that detracts from the film in a distracting manner.  The politically-driven Stone had every right to create the film he wanted to create, but the lack of a critical eye towards the title character hurts the film a bit in the end and makes it difficult to praise its more-than-adequate cinematic craftwork.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - This Is Where I Leave You

This Is Where I Leave You (2014)

Starring Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Adam Driver, Rose Byrne, Corey Stall, Kathryn Hahn, Connie Britton, Timothy Olyphant, Dax Shepard, Debra Monk, Abigail Spencer, and Jane Fonda

Directed by Shawn Levy

When their father dies, the Altman family -- siblings Judd, Wendy, Paul, and Philip and their mother Hillary (Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Corey Stall, Adam Driver, and Jane Fonda -- gather together at their childhood home to sit shiva (a seven day Jewish period of mourning) in honor of their dad.  Old sibling rivalries and current spousal struggles rear their ugly heads as the Altmans learn to cope with their patriarch's death.

A completely believable familial banter isn't as easy to come by in films as one would think and the repartee that Bateman, Fey, Stall, and Driver have with one another in This Is Where I Leave You feels genuine.  While Fonda's role is a little over the top, I appreciated that her eccentricities appeared to have at least influenced her grown children's emotional states, helping to further craft authentic characters.  Solid performances by Rose Byrne, Kathryn Hahn, Connie Britton, and Abigail Spencer add to the great cast.

While I would've liked to have had a bit more heart imbued into the flick, I still found myself engaged and interested in each sibling's highs and lows.  This Is Where I Leave You admittedly treads similar paths of typical familial dramedies, but with a stellar cast, director Shawn Levy's flick proves to be a nicely paced, pleasant sleeper that surprisingly balances its myriad of story lines with ease -- some prove a little more successful than others (and a particularly out-of-left-field "surprise" at the film's conclusion seems simply added for shock effect), but the overall result is quite successful.  

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - I Am Number Four

I Am Number Four (2011)

Starring Alex Pettyfer, Timothy Olyphant, Dianna Agron, and Teresa Palmer

Directed by D.J. Caruso

Unlike the Stars both Trek and War, the aliens in I Am Number Four are more reminiscent of supermodels than freakish-looking creatures.  Of course, this allows for a much easier ability to fall in love with Earthlings than if one were a long-eared Spock lookalike.  And, in this movie, it's the frivolous love story that takes center stage.

Without getting into the silly names of both alien races involved in I Am Number Four (which make the made-up words in Harry Potter flicks seem normal), the basic story boils down to this -- an alien race was all but obliterated by another.  Nine kids from the massacred race landed on Earth and the "evil" aliens are after them.  So far, they've killed three of the nine and now they're after Number Four, a blond-haired kid who goes by the clever alias of John Smith (Alex Pettyfer).  With the help of his protector (Timothy Olyphant) and alien teen Number Six (Teresa Palmer), John fights the scary aliens all the while going through the typical trails and tribulations of a typical high schooler, including falling in love with the cute girl (Dianna Agron).

As is obvious by the summary above, there's nothing remotely fresh in I Am Number Four.  There's much too much focus on the high school melodrama and unfortunately the alien action stuff doesn't work in the slightest either.  In the end, there's simply nothing in this film that works.

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Movie Review - Scream 2

Scream 2 (1997)

Starring Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, Liev Schreiber, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jerry O'Connell, Elise Neal, Timothy Olyphant, Laurie Metcalf, Omar Epps, and Jada Pinkett Smith

Directed by Wes Craven

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

I always thought that Scream was a solid horror film and, watching it years later, that fortunately still held true upon a recent revisit.  In that review, I mentioned that I didn't remember the next two films in the series with any fondness and I wondered if there was a reason for that.

Well, I'm pleasantly surprised to say that Scream 2 is also a pretty decent horror flick.  Yes, it's essentially the first film rehashed (but that's the point of the story in that a copycat killer is still enacting hell on Sidney Prescott's [Neve Campbell] life after she moved on to college), but it's a solid thriller.  Granted, there aren't as many nifty death scenes, but what keeps the flick afloat is the very game cast.  The return of Courtney Cox's Gale Weathers, David Arquette's Dewey Riley, and Jamie Kennedy's Randy all jump right back into things, expanding upon their characters and actually proving to be more enjoyable in some cases than in the first film.  The addition of Elise Neal as Sidney's best friend, Jerry O'Connell as Sid's boyfriend, and Laurie Metcalf as a podunk local newspaper reporter fascinated by the well-known Gale Weathers are all nice new faces.

Granted, the big reveal at the end is silly and the series loses some of its charm since it somewhat abandons the "poking fun at other horror films" premise, but it was still an enjoyable two hours, so I'll take that.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - The Crazies (2010)

The Crazies (2010)

Starring Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell

Directed by Breck Eisner

I'm not really going to dwell on this review except to say that the best way to describe this horror film about a virus that causes a town to go crazy was "conventional."  It's not that The Crazies is a bad film -- it's just that there's not a single thing new brought to the screen.  It's well made, well shot, moderately well acted (Timothy Olyphant seems to ham it up a bit every now and then), and contains a few moments of genuine edge-of-your-seat tension, but in the end, it walks a much-too-familiar line.

You could fare much worse in terms of a horror flick, but don't go into this one expecting to see anything other than the ordinary.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Movie Review - A Perfect Getaway (2009)

Starring Timothy Olyphant, Kiele Sanchez, Milla Jovovich, and Steve Zahn
Written and Directed by David Twohy

This is one of those movies where they advertise a twist ending in the commercials and you can guess it before the movie even begins (Note to my brother...ding! ding! we have a winner! [sort of..]). Through some silly (or clever) writing (you be the judge if you see it), writer-director David Twohy (who also wrote The Fugitive...one of the best flicks of the last twenty years) managed to get me to doubt my initial thoughts, but I was right nonetheless. Regardless of the bitterness I hold for doubting my thoughts (and I'm a bitter, bitter man), the movie's failure lies in the fact that for a suspense flick, there's very little suspense to be had. A severe lack of tension is the flick's downfall.

Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich are a honeymooning couple in Hawaii...Zahn's the nebbish worrywart and Jovovich is the slightly more adventurous one (we know this because she talks about oral sex in front of other people...such great writing on display here). They plan to trek along some trail through the forests. They meet another couple played by Timothy Olyphant and Kiele Sanchez. He's the kooky war veteran, she's the daft Southern belle. When Zahn and Jovovich hear of a honeymooning couple being murdered on another Hawaiian island, they begin to wonder whether this new couple that they're hanging out with is the culprit.

It's tough to talk about this flick without spoiling anything (and the mere fact of me saying that there's a twist will probably ruin the flick for anyone that plans to see it, but hey, it's in the advertisements). Acting-wise, everyone seemed to be acting -- everyone felt like a character. Sure, there were a few good one-liners and Olyphant was the stand-out of the quartet, but even he felt like a caricature of a real person. Writing-wise, like I said above, Twohy tries to hide the twist, but in the end, his trickery just seems rather silly. I felt like nothing happened in this movie for the whole first 70 minutes (and nothing did happen). The final 20 is somewhat interesting, but even then I never felt like I was on the edge-of-my-seat.

The suspense genre is my favorite, so I often wonder whether I'm too harsh on these kinds of flicks, but when you don't have any sense of anxiety or dread in a movie like this, there's a problem. It wasn't awful, but, in the end, it was pointless.

The RyMickey Rating: D+