American Woman

 American Woman (2019)

Starring Sienna Miller, Christina Hendricks, Aaron Paul, Will Sasso, and Amy Madigan

Directed by Jake Scott

Written by Brad Inglesbey

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Ratitng: B+

Movie Review - Eye in the Sky

Eye in the Sky (2016)

Starring Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Barkhad Abdi, Aisha Takow, and Alan Rickman

Directed by Gavin Hood

***This film is currently streaming via Amazon Prime***

In this day and age, the concept of war has shifted from the wide-scale, massive WWII-era attacks against an enemy's large army to a more intimate form of battle where individual terrorists may be targeted in a one-on-one-type tête-a-tête.  This smaller scale level of attack is being even further amplified by the usage of drones -- an eye in the sky that permits us to see things in a more secretive manner.  This new wartime assistant is the subject of director Gavin Hood's Eye in the Sky, a movie that despite being ninety percent talkative exposition somehow manages to create a surprising amount of tension.

British Army colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) has received the news that a British woman-turned-Islamic terrorist along with her husband are meeting several high ranking leaders of a terrorist group at a safehouse in Kenya.  Desperate to catch the traitor, Katherine and the British Army team up with the Americans to utilize drones in order to confirm the woman's presence so they can try and take her out.  However, morality comes into play when it's discovered that bombing the Kenyan safehouse would also harm innocent civilians including a young girl (Aisha Takow) who is selling bread outside the home.

The uniqueness of Eye in the Sky comes from the morality play that's depicted in the film.  Can we kill innocent civilians in order to take out known terrorists?  This conundrum plays out for almost the entirety of Eye in the Sky and the talkative pros and cons yield a surprisingly tense experience.  All of the characters -- Mirren as the Army colonel, Alan Rickman as a British Defense Ministry higher-up, Aaron Paul as a conflicted American soldier having difficulty coming to grips with the notion of possibly killing an innocent child, Barkhad Abdi as an undercover British operative who is onsite in Kenya -- never interact with one another onscreen at the same time.  They're all in different locations across the world and thus are only interacting via phone or video chat and yet, with much kudos to director Gavin Hood, their interactions feel believable and shockingly tense.

I must admit that I didn't expect a whole lot from Eye in the Sky, but I found that it more than delivered on creating an exciting environment, showing us an insider look at an aspect of modern-day warfare with which the public may be unfamiliar.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - The 9th Life of Louis Drax

The 9th Life of Louis Drax (2016)

Starring Jamie Dornan, Sarah Gadon, Aiden Longworth, Oliver Platt, Molly Parker, Barbara Hershey, and Aaron Paul

Directed by Alexandre Aja

An oddly captivating huge mess is how I'd describe The 9th Life of Louis Drax, a film that clearly doesn't know what it's trying to be in terms of tone and who it's trying to appeal to in terms of story.  When the film opens, nine year-old Louis Drax (Aiden Longworth) is detailing the eight times he's almost died in his short life -- electrocution, food poisoning, you name it and it's nearly caused Louis to bite the dust.  On his ninth birthday, Louis is taken by his mother Natalie (Sarah Gadon) and his father Peter (Aaron Paul) to a cliffside park where the young boy falls off the edge of a high cliff.  When he's recovered, Louis is in a coma and while at the hospital, Dr. Allan Pascal (Jamie Dornan) tries to do what he can to bring the young boy back to consciousness while also unraveling a mystery surrounding just how Louis fell off the cliff.  Did Peter push his son off the cliff as Natalie claims or is Natalie not as innocent as she seems?

That summary fails to include the sea creature that Louis communicates with while in his coma, the psychologist (Oliver Platt) whom Louis sees to try and make him "less weird" as he calls himself, the female cop (Molly Parker) investigating the possible crime who we know is tough because she's chewing gum in the morgue while her male partner tries to hold back from vomiting, the sex scene between Dr. Pascal and Natalie -- all of which add to an incongruous mashup of a movie that at any point feels like a live-action kids film from the 1980s, a poorly constructed murder mystery, or a horror-fantasy flick in the vein of Pan's Labyrinth.

Yet, somehow, I didn't stop watching.  Perhaps I kept hoping that Jamie Dornan and Sarah Gadon's acting would get better.  Perhaps I hoped that the sea monster would be real.  Perhaps I hoped that I wouldn't have guessed the mystery of how Louis fell off the cliff from the get-go.  None of those "perhaps's" became true, however, and instead The 9th Life of Louis Drax is a mess.  There is some interesting direction to be sure, but beyond that there's nothing else worth wasting your time with here.

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Movie Review - Central Intelligence

Central Intelligence (2016)

Starring Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Amy Ryan, Danielle Nicolet, Jason Bateman, and Aaron Paul

Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber

***This film is currently available via HBO Now/Go***

Central Intelligence is more enjoyable than it has any right to be thanks to the natural charm and comedic buddy repartee of its two stars Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart.  It's a shame that a better, less generic story couldn't have surrounded the two elevating their chemistry.  Still, they try to make the most of things with a script that has formerly popular high school student Calvin Joyner (Hart) meeting up with formerly unpopular Bob Stone (Johnson) the weekend before their twentieth high school reunion after not having seen each other in those two decades.  Although they weren't close friends, Calvin had helped Bob through a difficult and embarrassing moment and Bob always looked fondly on Calvin because of that.  Through social media, Bob reconnects with Calvin but Calvin soon discovers that the seemingly timid and meek Bob is actually an undercover CIA agent who needs a bit of Calvin's help in solving his latest crime.

Ultimately, the "comedy" aspect of Central Intelligence falls a bit short...and the action side doesn't really do much to buoy it either.  The film works best during its first act as it sets up the relationship between Calvin and Bob with Hart and Johnson playing well off one another in these opening scenes.  Unfortunately, the film doesn't really succeed in creating tension as it progresses so the "superspy" intrigue it tries to muster never really comes to fruition.  However, despite all this, the two stars make this surprisingly watchable and actually end up doing enough to boost this one to slightly above average in the RyMickey rankings.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Movie Review - Decoding Annie Parker

Decoding Annie Parker (2014)

Starring Samantha Morton, Helen Hunt, Aaron Paul, Alice Eve, Marley Shelton, Rashida Jones, Corey Stoll, Bradley Whitford, and Richard Schiff

Directed by Steven Bernstein

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

Anyone who knows me knows my teenage infatuation with Helen Hunt.  Quite possibly the only teenager to fall for the Mad About You actress, Ms. Hunt still holds a special place in my heart.  And she's probably the only reason I even thought about watching Decoding Annie Parker.  Debut screenwriter-director Steven Bernstein's first feature film details the true story of Annie Parker (played by Samantha Morton), a Canadian wife and mother who has had her share of tragedy in life with multiple members of her family succumbing to breast cancer.  When she is told that she also has breast cancer, Annie sets off on a mission to learn all she can about the disease, trying to fight the then-popular opinion in the 1970s that there was no genetic familial connection.  In her research, Annie uncovers works by researcher Mary-Claire King (the aforementioned Hunt), one of the few scientists attempting to link breast cancer to genetics.

Bernstein's film bounces back and forth between Annie and Mary-Claire's stories and also meanders to and fro in the realms of comedy and drama.  The opening line of the film is a quote from Annie -- "My life was a comedy.  I just had to learn how to laugh." -- and despite the subject matter, Bernstein attempts to lighten things up.  Unfortunately, he doesn't quite succeed in creating an adequate balance and his script never quite elevates to anything more than a tv movie.

That being said, however, thanks to a nice performance by Hunt and an even better performance by Morton, Decoding Annie Parker manages to be a little better than the sum of its parts.  Helping as well is the true story of Dr. Mary-Claire King, an undersung hero in the field of genetic research whose contributions to the medical profession are nicely documented here.  It's still nice to know that movies have the ability to open our eyes to certain aspects of our history that we know nothing about.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - A Long Way Down

A Long Way Down (2014)

Starring Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Aaron Paul, Imogen Poots, Rosamund Pike, Tuppence Middleton, and Sam Neill

Directed by Pascal Chaumeil

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

Lacking any type of balance, A Long Way Down is a drama/comedy mash-up that's a big ole mess.  Four strangers meet each other on the roof of a high rise building in London on New Years' Eve.  All had the intention of jumping to their deaths because of how horrible their lives were, but none of them go through with it, instead making a pact with one another to keep themselves alive until Valentine's Day at which point they can reassess their standing in life.

This odd premise doesn't crystallize into a proper story at any point in time throughout director Pascal Chaumeil's film.  There are attempts by Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Aaron Paul, and Imogen Poots to round out their characters into more fully realized souls, but they aren't given much with which to work.  Collette fares the best as the struggling mother of a twentysomething son with cerebral palsy, but her counterparts aren't so lucky.  Brosnan as a slimy news reporter, Paul as an introverted musician, and Poots as a politician's rambunctious daughter are all simply caricatures.  Granted, Collette's character's struggle is nothing more than a stereotype as well, but her character's intentions post-suicide attempt are the most believable which is much more than I can say for the rest of the film's depressed quartet.

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Ramblings on Breaking Bad

The Netflix era has certainly created a "binge" era of television viewing in that many of us will now find ourselves plopping down on the sofa and watching three, four, five, or six episodes of a series at a time via their streaming service.  I'd heard great things about Breaking Bad, but about two years ago I watched the first episode of the AMC series, wasn't interested in the slightest, and I subsequently dropped it from my queue.  In the build-up to the final episode of the series at the end of September, there was a huge amount of buzz, but by the time I thought about trying to give the show another try, I was never going to finish in time to watch the finale live.  Still, with the critics and, more importantly, people I know personally waxing poetically about how the show was going out on an artistic high, I succumbed to the pressure and decided to give it another go.

Boy, am I glad I did.

If only for the performance of Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad should be must-see television.  Cranston completely inhabits the role of Walter White -- reserved chemistry teacher who, upon receiving a diagnosis of seemingly terminal cancer, turns to creating crystal meth for a quick money grab in order to provide for the long-term care of his family following his death.  As Walter gets deeper and deeper into the drug world, however, he finds it much more difficult to get out...not that he actually wants to leave once he realizes how amazing he is at creating the most pure addictive drug in the country.  With addicts and their dealers clamoring to get a hold on Walter's superior product, his personality shifts from that of a shy, reserved guy into one of the most maliciously evil men portrayed on tv.  And, as a mentioned, Cranston grabs hold of this role and creates one of the best acting performances I've ever seen.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

He's certainly aided by a writing staff (presumably headed by series creator Vince Gilligan) who have crafted a sixty-two episode series that takes place over the course of only two years (and, for the most part, only over the span of one year) which allows the audience to become invested greatly in every character that comes along because their stories are given time to be fleshed out.  Whether it be drug kingpin Gus Fring's (Giancarlo Esposito) years-long revenge plot against some Mexican drug cartel members or even something as idiotic as Walt's sister-in-law Marie's (Betsy Brandt) shoplifting (a plot which admittedly could've been excised), the characters surrounding Walt were given ample opportunity to breathe for themselves.

Although I tried to steer clear of all spoilers, I was well aware of some negative buzz surrounding Anna Gunn's character of Walt's wife Skyler and I have no clue from where the anger and resentment towards her character stems.  To me, Skyler's actions and reactions upon learning of her husband's deviant behavior are justified and perfectly natural.  Yes, Walt was a character the public was able to latch onto despite his journey to the dark side, but Skyler anchored the audience back into reality and it's her reactions that made the show have great depth to this viewer.

Still, throughout the whole series I was waiting for the moment when Hank (Dean Norris), Walt's DEA brother-in-law, discovered Walt's secret life and the entirety of Season Five gave me satisfaction when it came to this, particularly the series' final eight episodes.  Despite all the dealings with drug kingpins and crack addicts, it was Walt's duplicity of hiding things from his family that really drew me in...and that moment when Hank and Marie stare at a tv screen hearing Walt's "confession" is probably my favorite moment in the show encapsulating everything I loved about it.

And I've yet to mention Aaron Paul's Jesse, a character whom I hated, then grew to like, then hated, and then grew to like again multiple times throughout the series.  Who would've thought that this low-life drug addict would end up being Breaking Bad's moral center?  Certainly not me, yet Paul gives Jesse a real intelligence that I never expected.

With all this great acting and great storytelling, I'd be remiss not to discuss the fact that the show is directed in a top-notch fashion as well.  There are shots here that rival anything you'd see in a movie and the helmers of the episodes are to be commended for that.  Also, rather randomly, I'd like to mention how much I loved the opening scenes of all the episodes that either hinted at (oftentimes horrific) things to come or were just completely odd (the montage of crack addict/prostitute Wendy selling oral pleasures to men while The Association's "Windy" played in the background is another classic moment).

Admittedly, I'm not sure I'll become invested in the upcoming/proposed "prequel" series surrounding Saul Goodman as he was actually one of my least favorite parts of the series.  Yes, his levity gave a nice counterpoint to the heaviness that surrounded him, but he's not a character I can find myself latching onto in the same way I became fascinated with Walter White.

I was talking to someone the other day about Breaking Bad and he mentioned that, like me, he watched one episode and then gave up thinking that it wasn't for him at all.  To those of you who did this same thing, you're missing out on some good tv here and it's time to give this one another chance.

Movie Review - Smashed

Smashed (2012)

Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aaron Paul, Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman, and Octavia Spencer

Directed by James Ponsoldt

I didn't dislike Smashed, but as I watched, I couldn't help but think that the potential for so much more was possible with this story.  The writers let down their lead actress, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who was certainly game for expanding the acting chops we'd previously seen on display from her.  Winstead is Kate, a first-grade school teacher who can't make it through the day without alcohol.  Things seemed bad enough to me when she woke up in the morning and couldn't get through a shower without sipping on a beer, but after a night at a bar, she gives a ride to a drunken young woman who shares some cocaine with Kate.  When Kate wakes up the next morning on the city streets next to some homeless folks, she gets the feeling that she may have taken things a step too far.  With the help of a colleague from work, Kate begins going to AA meetings despite the fact that her husband Charlie (Aaron Paul) -- who also happens to imbibe way too much -- frowns upon the idea.

There were moments throughout Smashed that were so close to reaching real emotional levels, but unfortunately director and co-writer James Ponsoldt never allows things to get to that gut-wrenching level that a story like this needs every now and then.  As an example, when Kate attends her first AA meeting, she stands up and gives a speech in which she finally comes to the realization that she might have a problem.  Had the scene gone on for maybe two minutes longer giving Kate a little more to say, it would have been emotionally perfect.  However, as it stands now, Ponsoldt snipped the scene a bit too short therein losing the powerful resonance it could have had.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead does a nice job and she captures the necessary emotions a role like this requires, but the script just does her a bit of a disservice.  Nick Offerman and Octavia Spencer as Kate's AA sponsors provide the nice, gentle voices the struggling Kate needs at this difficult time in her life but they, along with Aaron Paul's Charlie, felt like characters that could have all been developed a little more.

Those who frequent the blog know that I'm not a fan of movies that simply extend their run time for no valid reason, but Smashed (which clocks in at under ninety minutes) is a movie that should've been longer -- and I'm not sure I've ever said that on this blog.  It needed a bit more time to flesh out the characters in order to have a greater emotional impact for the audience.  Smashed isn't a bad movie, but it had the potential to be much better.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+