The Cloverfield Paradox

The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)

Starring Daniel Brühl, Elizabeth Debicki, Aksel Hennie, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Chris O'Dowd, John Ortiz, David Oyelowo, Zhang Ziyi, Roger Davies, and Clover Nee

Directed by Julius Onah

Written by Oren Uziel

***This film is currently streaming via Netflix***

Click here for a link to my Letterbxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - Five Nights in Maine

Five Nights in Maine (2016)

Starring David Oyelowo, Dianne Wiest, Hani Furstenberg, Rosie Perez, and Teyonah Parris

Directed by Maris Curran

***This film is currently streaming via Netflix***

Good performances can't save Five Nights in Maine, a movie that really fails to have a decent emotional arc for any of its characters as it traverses its depressing subject matter.  Sherman (David Oyelowo) has just lost his wife Fiona (Hani Furstenberg) in a horrible car accident.  Prior to her death, she had just talked about going to Maine to see her dying mother Lucinda (Dianne Wiest).  Fiona and Lucinda didn't get along well and Sherman has never cared for his mother-in-law because of this.  However, he feels the need to visit as it was something his wife wanted to do again before her mother passed away.  Over the course of five nights, Lucinda and Sherman discuss a variety of topics as they try to reconcile with one another while dealing with the death of their loved one.

The first half hour of Five Nights in Maine is some powerful stuff.  David Oyelowo is riveting as he is given the news of his wife's death and he's just as compelling in the aftermath where depression rears its ugly head.  The problem with writer-director Maris Curran's film lies when Sherman goes to meet Lucinda.  Lucinda is played by Dianne Wiest as a curmudgeonly stoic witch of a woman which is certainly one way people could react to the death of a loved one, but her complete lack of compassion towards Sherman at the outset seems a bit farfetched.  While Lucinda eventually slightly warms to Sherman, their interaction with one another grows repetitive as Sherman is forced to simply take the unwarranted criticism that Lucinda constantly doles out.  Once again, Oyelowo is very good here and Wiest has moments where she shines, but for the latter her character is so off-putting that it's tough to care about her loss.  Plus, as mentioned above, by the time the film's conclusion rolls around, I couldn't help but think that nothing had really changed between the two characters since their first meeting.  The characters are roughly in the same spot at the end as they were at the beginning and it leads to an unsatisfying eighty minutes.  In the end, it's a real shame because Oyelowo is at his best here, but the lack of an arc for his character brings what could have been a fantastic performance down a notch.  Nice supporting turns from Teyonah Parrris (who continues to shine in everything I've seen her in) and a subdued Rosie Perez also can't help save this one and end up making me even more upset that it doesn't really work in the end.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Queen of Katwe

Queen of Katwe (2016)

Starring Madina Nalwanga, David Oyelowo, and Lupita Nyong'o 

Directed by Mira Nair

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

Ten year-old Phiona (Madina Nalwanga) lives a difficult life in one of the poorer sections of Kampala, Uganda.  With her mother Nakku Harriet (Lupita Nyong'o) raising Phiona and her three siblings on her own, the wise-beyond-her-years Phiona often spends her days doing what she can to give her mother as much assistance as possible.  One afternoon, however, she stumbles upon a missionary program headed by Robert Katende (David Oyelowo) that teaches young Ugandan children how to play chess.  Feeling out of place and a bit guilty for slacking when it comes to helping her mother, Phiona finds it difficult to initially fit in, but Robert soon discovers that Phiona is incredibly talented when it comes to the strategic game of chess and he must struggle to help her realize her full potential.

Thus is the true story of Queen of Katwe -- a well-acted, well-directed, and modest little film that weaves a tale that feels familiar, yet foreign.  The foreignness stems from this taking place in Uganda, a place where admittedly us Westerners are innately unfamiliar.  Director Mira Nair uses the Ugandan landscape to help fully develop her characters in ways that aren't all that common in a PG-rated film about sports.  And yet it's that commonality of being a "sports film" that weighs down Queen of Katwe and doesn't allow it to really expand into something breathtaking or stunning.

Although it's unable to escape the clichés inherent in its genre, there are some great performances that more than lift Queen of Katwe into something that's worth a look.  As the adults in the piece, David Oyelowo and Lupita Nyong'o provide solid anchors for the cast of completely unknown young actors to play off.  Front and center through it all is Madina Nalwanga as Phiona who more than captures the struggles facing poor Ugandan youth and the joy that triumphing against adversity can bring.  It's the performances here that make this film better than its average script allows.  Nair's film could've used a few more edits -- it slogs a bit in the middle with some repetitive moments that really don't add to the characters who were well-established in the first act -- but Queen of Katwe still works for the most part.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - A Most Violent Year

A Most Violent Year (2014)

Starring Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain, David Oyelowo, Elyes Gabel, and Albert Brooks 

Directed by J.C. Chandor

I must say off the bat that A Most Violent Year is a different movie than I was expecting.  For some reason, I had this notion that it was going to be about this corrupt guy and his attempts to get to the top of his game by any means necessary.  While it's certainly about a business owner striving to succeed, he's a man of character (though not without some major flaws) and his struggles are met with perseverance.

That isn't to say that A Most Violent Year is a film that's all sunshine and lollipops.  Far from it.  It's New York City.  1981.  Abel Morris (Oscar Isaac) is an immigrant who came to the US and found success in the home heating oil industry.  He married the boss's daughter Anna (Jessica Chastain) and eventually inherited the business where he's had moderate success.  Abel desires to expand and while in the midst of placing a down payment on a huge tract of land next to the ocean that will allow him easy access to oil rigs as well as tons of storage capacity, he finds himself under investigation by the authorities (led by David Oyelowo) for fraud.  On top of that, someone is terrorizing his oil truck drivers by hijacking the vehicles and stealing the oil inside of them.  Things are looking shaky for Abel who always felt he did the "right" thing and attempted to take the high ground.  Will he stoop lower in order to save his family business?  His lawyer (Albert Brooks) and his wife think he may have to, but Abel questions if that's the way he wants to earn a living.

I continue to make Abel sound a bit too perfect in that summary and it should be known that he's not an angel.  There's a grit and determination in his demeanor brought to realization by Oscar Isaac that is absolutely palpable.  He's matched onscreen by Jessica Chastain whose performance is surprisingly layered.  Seemingly the Lady Macbeth to Abel's moldable and impressionable "king," Anna definitely will do what is necessary in order for her family to survive, however, she also has limits to how far she's willing to stoop.  The question is can her biting demeanor cause enough tension amongst her enemies to make a difference.

J.C. Chandor's three directorial efforts have all shown much capability in directing actors and this film continues that trend.  While many praised 2013's All is Lost, I found it lacking a bit in terms of character development.  Granted, that film focused squarely on one person, but it still was a bit of a let down.  In A Most Violent Year, Chandor takes on the grander scale of a family and makes it feel soap operatic and intimate at the same time, while also placing the film squarely in the time period of the early 1980s -- a tricky tone to land, but one that is necessary for a film of this ilk which feels almost gangster-y and an ode to the Coppola and Friedkin films of the 1970s.  This is Chandor's best work yet on the page and on the screen and I look forward to his next venture in the years to come.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

Movie Review - Selma

Selma (2014)

Starring David Oyelowo, Carmen Ejogo, Tom Wilkinson, Tim Roth, Common, Renee Toussaint, Wendell Pierce, André Holland, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Colman Domingo, Omar J. Dorsey, Tessa Thompson, Giovanni Ribisi, Jeremy Strong, Henry G. Sanders, Keith Stanfield, Oprah Winfrey, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Martin Sheen

Directed by Ava DuVernay

For years, I've made note of how much I hate the film genre of the "biopic," but over the past few years, I've grown to appreciate what such flicks bring to the table in terms of opening my eyes to the intricacies of historical events that may have not necessarily flown under my radar, but perhaps been lower key in my mind than they probably should have been.  In 2014 alone, I've been treated to two very good stand-outs in the genre with The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything.  Selma joins that list.

Smartly detailing only a small segment of his life, Selma focuses on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s attempted 1965 fifty-four mile march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in order to raise awareness of that state government's refusal to give black Americans the right to vote.  Rather than introduce us to Mr. King via childhood anecdotes or college shenanigans, director Ava DuVernay and screenwriter Paul Webb sink us right into the action with King (played strongly and confidently by David Oyelowo) trying to persuade President Lyndon Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) to pass a Voter's Rights Act that would allow all Americans to be allowed to register to vote without harassment from government officials.  When Johnson denies that request, King decides that he must continue on his mission of peaceful, nonviolent protest in order to get his point to the American people since his government was not assisting in providing this basic human right.

The film very shrewdly shows that King was cunningly media-savvy, knowing that in order for him to succeed, he needed to have cameras and reporters present.  While he respected the work that some lesser black community organizations were doing to push voting bills into place, King knew that they would fail simply because they were "too small."  This sly intelligence and insight into this brilliant man's mind was interesting to see unfold.  Credit must also be given to the fact that the film doesn't present King as a saint as his well-known infidelities are touched upon more than once.

David Oyelowo takes on the unenviable task of embodying Mr. King -- a man whose recorded and televised speeches are some of the most well-known in American history.  Oyelowo is hugely successful at bringing the civil rights' leader's diction, mannerisms, strength, humility, and intelligence to the screen.  Oyelowo is moving in the film's quiet moments, yet powerfully rousing as the rather ingenious orator that King was.  Oyelowo is buoyed by a strong supporting cast that weave in and out of the tale, including a nice turn from Carmen Ejogo as King's put-upon wife Coretta.  Tom Wilkinson as a headstrong (less-than-eloquent) president provides a nice counterpoint to King's/Oyelowo's passionate fervor.  (Also interesting to note -- Democrats weren't exactly kosher with the African American community getting the right to vote -- yet us Republicans are constantly paraded around as the more "racist" party.)  Particularly moving is an incredibly strong small role by Henry G. Sanders as the grandfather of a young man killed in cold blood by an Alabama police officer.  Sanders has very few scenes, but I found him riveting and emotionally powerful whenever he was onscreen.

On the downside, the film felt a little longer than its two hour running time and I found myself checking the watch a few times.  However, I certainly was never bored.  Perhaps more than any other film I've seen this year, I came away from the theater thinking about how our society needs someone powerful like Martin Luther King, Jr., today.  The Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons of the world are only out for themselves despite what they may have you believe.  While I mentioned King's utilization of the media above, Sharpton and Jackson manipulate the media for their own time in the spotlight.  King used the press for the betterment of the people.  

The film certainly comes along at a pivotal time in our culture what with the Ferguson fiasco.  No matter where your opinion may fall on that spectrum, what this film showed me was that our society now doesn't have the voice that Martin Luther King, Jr., provided in the 1960s.  (I always thought Bill Cosby could maybe have been that voice -- but we all know where that ended up now.)  In that way, Selma made me quite sad for our current state of affairs.  King didn't pit society in a black-against-white type way, whereas nowadays that's the way everything is presented whenever "race" is involved.  King knew that a "race war" wouldn't solve any problems -- unity was needed, not race baiting.

Kudos to the relatively new-to-the-scene Ava DuVernay who has crafted a pic that resonates.  She doesn't necessarily pull out any tricks (and when she does, they sometimes fall flat -- like a slow-motion fight scene involving police officers and actress Oprah Winfrey), but she creates a impact showcasing the courage of not only Dr. King, but the many black and white Americans who quite literally joined hands with him to create change.  There's power in these images DuVernay brings to the screen -- the opening shot of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing starts things off with such an impact that I was taken aback (in a good way) by the way Ms. Duvernay decides to present things -- and there's absolutely something to be said for being able to create something that can carry such weight.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

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 - Jack Reacher

Jack Reacher (2012)

Starring Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, David Oyelowo, Richard Jenkins, Joseph Sikora, Jai Courtney, Werner Herzog, and Robert Duvall 

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

***This film is crrently streaming on Netflix***

Super Quick Review #1 of Today

Tom Cruise is the title character in Jack Reacher, a former military man who now finds himself investigating crimes back in the States.  The crime featured in what is now apparently the first of a series of Jack Reacher films involves a sniper who shot and killed five innocent people in Pittsburgh.  The shooter - a former military sniper - has no recollection of the crime and Reacher believes that he's likely innocent.

Cruise is solid and the film was enjoyable enough to watch, but the plot was rather convoluted.  The film's overarching "conspiracy" failed to resonate and I found myself not caring about the resolution all that much.  Still, Jack Reacher was decent...I'm just not sure I'd really care to see a sequel.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - The Paperboy

The Paperboy (2012)

Starring Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey, David Oyelowo, John Cusack, and Nicole Kidman

Directed by Lee Daniels

I think it's extremely important that you know what you're getting into should you decide to watch The Paperboy, the latest film from Precious director Lee Daniels.  This flick is pure trash...and it knows it.  Reveling in the grainy look and feel of a 1970s low-budget Roger Corman flick, Daniels seems to be intending to make pure pulp and while he succeeds, the problem is that nobody really likes those types of movies for anything longer than about sixty minutes.  At that point, the cheesy music and the over-the-top (or just plain awful) acting wear thin and you find yourself wondering when the hell this piece of crap is going to be over.  That's kind of the case here, too.  I dug the retro vibe (complete with cuts made to replicate missing frames of film), but the story peters out.

The year is 1969 and we find ourselves in the steamy city of Lately, Florida, where a man named Hillary Van Wetter (John Cusack) is on Death Row for killing a local sheriff.  Newspaper reporter Ward Jansen (Matthew McConaughey) grew up in Lately and finds himself returning to his hometown to investigate what could have been a wrongful conviction for Van Wetter.  While at home, Ward and his younger brother Jack (Zac Efron) meet up with the beautiful, though incredibly trashy, Charlotte Bless (Nicole Kidman) who has been communicating with Van Wetter via mail for several months and now finds herself engaged to the man without ever having seen him in person.  Charlotte is sex (or sleaze) personified, but the young Jack instantly falls for her "womanly" charms, finding it difficult to go through days without seeing her despite the fact that the feeling is never reciprocated in his direction from Charlotte.

I will admit that I give Nicole Kidman some credit here for slumming it and she really comes across as the most believable and even honest character of anyone.  She embraces the slutty sleaziness and creates a character that is quite memorable.  As for the others in the cast, they don't fare nearly as well.  Efron's actually fine, but I thought maybe we'd see some dramatic stretching for him in this role and his character is unfortunately a bit one-note.  McConaughey really isn't doing anything we haven't seen from him before and the journey his character undergoes is ludicrously ridiculous.  And the less said about John Cusack the better.  He's definitely in the running for Worst Performance of the Year.

At its heart, The Paperboy is a young man's coming of age story...because once you get peed on by a chick, you're simply not a kid anymore.  You're officially a grown up.  Yep, in perhaps the film's most talked about moment, Kidman's Charlotte pees on Efron's Jack after the young guy gets ravaged by a swarm of jellyfish.  And that, folks, is the kind of movie you're getting with The Paperboy.  It's weird, off-the-wall, and at times enjoyable.  But then things go over-the-edge (as in the aforementioned scene) and you just shake your head in disbelief at what's unfolding.  Sleaze and trashiness are fine but in mild doses, and this one lingers a bit too long (with a final act that just doesn't really work).

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

Starring James Franco, Frieda Pinto, Brian Cox, Tom Felton, David Oyelowo, John Lithgow, and Andy Serkis

Directed by Rupert Wyatt

I mean there's no sense in keeping anyone in suspense here -- it feels great to finally see a 2011 movie that is really worth seeing.  Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a near perfect summer action flick that actually manages to transcend the genre to a degree by providing heart-tugging moments that never seem forced or fake -- which is all the more surprising when one realizes that there was not a single real monkey or ape used in the production of this movie.  Computer-generated effects have come a long way -- despite the thought in the film's initial moments that these were fake apes, I never once thought of it again as the movie progressed which is a testament to both the effects wizards and everything and everyone else that surrounded their creations.

I'm certainly familiar with the Planet of the Apes flicks, but I've only ever actually seen the 2001 Burton remake (and the less said the better about that one).  This 2011 version is apparently a prequel of sorts to the original 60s-70s series of flicks and, as the title would suggest, it showcases the rise of the apes and how they, perhaps, may take over the planet.  We're introduced to genetic engineer Will Rodman (James Franco) and his quest to create a drug to cure the effects of Alzheimer's, a disease that hits close to home as his father (John Lithgow) finds his quality of life to be seriously deteriorating thanks to the illness.  Testing his new drug on a group of chimps, Will finds the simians to grow highly intelligent.  However, when one of the chimps goes on a rampage, Steven Jacobs (David Oyelowo), the head of the company sponsoring Will's research, slashes the program and orders all the apes to be put down.

It's discovered, however, that the reason for the chimp's rage was that she had secretly given birth and was simply being protective of her offspring which also happens to have inherited his mother's human-like intelligence.  Finding himself unable to kill the newborn chimp, Will takes him home, names him Caesar, and, to a degree, raises him as his own son.  Still, chimps are wild animals and, despite all the sign language in the world that Will can teach him, Caesar really just wants to be out in the real world.  Growing pains abound and Caesar (Andy Serkis) eventually commits an act that forces him to be removed from Will's home and placed into a primate compound where he finds himself awkwardly interacting with other apes.  It shouldn't be difficult to realize that things take a turn for the worse and somehow or another, the title of the film begins to come to fruition.  

Rise of the Planet of the Apes works for two big reasons.  Reason One is that director Rupert Wyatt manages his time well.  There's never really a dull moment here.  He sticks with scenes and characters just long enough for you to get to know their motivations and then he moves onto something else.  That being said, don't infer that there is a frenetic atmosphere on display here.  Quick cuts do not abound in this movie and that's seemingly a rarity in the summer movie season.  There really is a flow to this flick that's quite impressive.  Scenes that start out rather calm can find themselves effortlessly raising to palpable tension, but they never overstay their welcome.

Reason Two for the success is the surprising amount of heart on display.  Goshdarnit, I felt kinda moved when Will had to give Caesar away.  Sure, that's in part due to a solid performance from James Franco (who manages to redeem himself from his Oscar-hosting fiasco here).  But a huge reason is because Caesar seems so freakin' real.  I don't know what exactly Andy Serkis did here and what was crafted by the motion capture special effects wizards, but however they combined their powers was rather genius.  I'll take these apes over the Na'vi of Avatar any day.

Still, it's not quite without a flaw or two.  The film drags the tiniest bit when Caesar is first introduced to his fellow apes in the compound, but it's quite minor in the grand scheme of things.  On the other hand, the film's biggest drawback is Tom Felton of Harry Potter fame who repeats his fondness for playing villains in this flick as well...and unlike the real-looking apes, Felton's character (a worker at the primate compound) is one of the most cardboard evildoers I've seen in a while.  It's no fault of his own -- the screenwriters made his character obviously one-note -- but it's a real shame because he's the only thing in this movie that me cognizant of the fact that I was watching a "story" unfold as opposed to something that could (in some weird way) actually happen.

Seeing a good movie simply makes you want to delve into another and immerse yourself in the world that's on the screen.  It's nice that 2011 has handed me the first flick that fits that description.  I've missed you, you mistress that is Film.  I've seemingly abandoned you this year, but perhaps you've drawn me back under your spell with a film that I never believed could have done that.  So, kudos to you, Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

The RyMickey Rating:  A-