The Woman in the Window

 The Woman in the Window (2021)

Starring Amy Adams, Gary Oldman, Anthony Mackie, Fred Hechinger, Wyatt Russell, Brian Tyree Henry, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tracy Letts, and Julianne Moore

Directed by Joe Wright

Written by Tracy Letts

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Annihilation

Annihilation (2018)

Starring Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotny, and Oscar Isaac

Directed by Alex Garland

Written by Alex Garland

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

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Good Time

Good Time (2017)

Starring Robert Pattinson, Benny Safdie, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Buddy Duress, Peter Verby, Taliah Webster, and Barkhad Abdi

Directed by Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie

Written by Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie

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

Summary (in 500 words or less):  When a bank robbery lands his brother (Benny Safdie) in prison, criminal Connie (Robert Pattinson) does what he can in order to break him out of jail.

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: B

Movie Review - Anomalisa

Anomalisa (2015)

Featuring the vocal talents of David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Tom Noonan

Directed by Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman

Pretentiousness usually doesn't bode well for me when it comes to movies.  Flicks that wear their importance or deeply philosophical spoutings on their sleeve typically are a bit of a turn off...which is why it's all the more surprising that I enjoyed the Charlie Kaufman-penned and co-directed stop-motion animated film Anomalisa because it's ALL about pretentiously philosophical notions.  Somehow, though, the animation both lessens the heftiness yet strengthens the concepts in an admittedly oddly oxymoronic way.

On a business trip to Cincinnati, married customer service specialist Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis) finds himself in a bit of a rut.  He's bored with the cacophonous drone of life where everyday feels the same, everyone looks the same, and everyone talks the same.  After a meeting with an ex at the hotel bar goes sour, Michael slumps back to his room only to hear the unique voice of a woman named Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh) that sounds different than everyone else he's encountered thus far on the trip.  (You see, everyone other than Michael and Lisa is voiced by Tom Noonan in order to convey the drone of life.)  Lisa invigorates Michael as they spend an evening together getting to know one another with Michael beginning to see life in a completely different light.

Story-wise, I must admit that I was taken aback at first.  I was befuddled as the movie began as to why every character other than Michael looked and sounded the same.  However, as the film progressed, I began to understand and appreciate Charlie Kaufman's purpose and I found that it was conveyed shockingly well.  There's no way possible that Kaufman could've made this film in a live action format, but animation allows his intriguing premise about monotony and lack of individualization to really shine.

And as for the animation, it's gorgeous.  The figures of Michael and Lisa are so vividly and realistically designed that I found myself watching the dvd extras to see how they were created -- something I don't often do.  Their movement is fluid and their heavy emotions are beautifully depicted.  Thewlis and Leigh also do a nice job of conveying their characters' dour and ebullient emotions, respectively.  Technically, you couldn't really ask for a more thoughtfully animated stop-motion film.

Anomalisa falters just a bit in that its slow pace sometimes grows a bit tedious.  By the film's end, I was wanting its short ninety-minute runtime to be about fifteen minutes shorter.  The oppressive monotony that Michael feels is mirrored in the way the film is presented which may be purposeful, but unfortunately ends things on a bit of a down note.  That said, I was captivated for most of the film, and while I will readily admit that this one will not suit everyone's tastes (which is de rigueur for Charlie Kaufman anyway) animation fans should check this one out solely for the wonderful work done by the talented artists.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - The Hateful Eight

The Hateful Eight (2015)

Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, and Channing Tatum

Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino movies piss me off...and I mean that in the nicest way possible.

As I sit and watch them (with the exception of Kill Bill which I admittedly haven't watched in a while), I often find myself cursing the writer-director for being so loquacious, adding scenes that seemingly do little to advance the plot except to showcase his (only sometimes) brilliant ear for dialog.  But by the time most of the conclusions to his films roll around, I end up giving him a pass on the preceding verboseness because he manages to tie things up on such a clever note.  Such is the case with The Hateful Eight - a nearly three-hour epic that features an awful lot of talking, very minimal sets, and a group of essentially eight actors who carry the film very adequately on their shoulders doing Tarantino's Western-Agatha Christie And Then There Were None mash-up justice.

In his eighth film as a director, The Hateful Eight unfolds across six chapters detailing how a group of people end up seeking refuge at Minnie's Haberdashery in Wyoming during a horrible blizzard in the time shortly after the Civil War concludes.  Arriving just before the snowstorm really hits is John Ruth (Kurt Russell), a bounty hunter, who has the elusive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) in tow ready to reap his reward upon delivering her to the authorities in Red Rock.  Ruth arrives at Minnie's with Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) - a Union major in the Civil War - and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins) - the newly appointed sheriff of Red Rock.  Pent up at Minnie's already are four men whom are immediately distrusted -- Bob (Demian Bichir), a Mexican who claims he's working for Minnie who has left to see her sister several miles away; Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), an Englishman who is also a hangman; Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), a cowboy just passing through; and Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern), a Confederate general.  With a large bounty on the head of Daisy, John Ruth questions his safety and perhaps he is justified.  As the night unfurls, secrets and motivations are revealed as one by one people begin to bite the dust.

There's no doubting that The Hateful Eight moves at a slow pace -- many of the reviews and personal comments I heard from people stated that "nothing happens" until the last hour.  While it's certainly true in that there's not much plot per se in the film's first half, there is a sense of character building that I must admit is Tarantino's forte.  We get a real sense of who these characters are by the dialog they speak and their interactions with others.  Yes, it's true that the characters present are racist misogynists (of which there was much hoopla upon the film's release), but that's Tarantino's modus operandi across his last three films (for better or worse).  And, admittedly, that's part of the reason for my first sentence of this review in that I can't help but think that Tarantino sticks too closely to what has worked for him in the past -- films broken up into chapters; films told out of order or with massive flashbacks; brash language; insanely rough violence; characters all cut from the same cloth in terms of personality -- rather than branching off in unexpected directions.  Kudos to him for finding a niche that works and sticking to it, but I do long for something new and fresh from the guy.  However, The Hateful Eight works so maybe I should just let him do what he does.

As far as the small cast, most successful at settling into their characters are Jennifer Jason Leigh (Oscar-nominated for her role) and Kurt Russell taking center stage in a film for the first time in a long time which this reviewer found to be a bit of a pleasure.  Leigh and Russell have a lot of interactions with one another and right off the bat the two click with Leigh portraying the tough as nails criminal and Russell playing the tough as nails bounty hunter, neither liking each other, but quite literally linked together by chains.  Samuel L. Jackson is certainly entertaining and a captivating entity, but he's the only one of the group that feels as if he was transplanted from a more modern time into the past.  He doesn't necessarily take us out of the era, but his character never quite clicks realistically.

The Hateful Eight will never be a film for everyone -- it's undoubtedly a Tarantino film and if they're not your cup of tea, this will not be for you either.  Yes, it's too long and that harms it, but it's definitely on par with the director's efforts as of late which have all been quality flicks that would all fare a little better if an editor tried to trim things a little more.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Welcome to Me

Welcome to Me (2015)

Starring Kristen Wiig, Wes Bentley, Linda Cardellini, Joan Cusack, Loretta Devine, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Thomas Mann, James Marsden, Tim Robbins, and Alan Tudyk

Directed by Shira Piven

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

While I must admit that I laughed quite a bit during Welcome to Me, after nearly every chuckle I found myself cringing that I was finding what I was watching humorous.  Sometimes it's a good thing when a movie makes you question your innate emotional reaction, but by the end of Welcome to Me, I ended up just feeling unpleasantly uncomfortable because the film disappoints in creating a well-rounded lead character.

The problem lies in the fact that star Kristen Wiig is playing Alice Klieg -- a woman with Borderline Personality Disorder who wins an $86 million dollar lottery and immediately abandons her meds -- as if she were a caricature from a Saturday Night Live skit rather than a well-rounded person.  That isn't to say that Wiig isn't funny.  As Alice, who obsesses over Oprah Winfrey's feel-good talk show and decides to spend millions to create her own lifestyle low-budget cable access show, Wiig has many moments that elicit laughs.  However the script and Wiig's portrayal full of jittery physical motions and dazed eyes are one-note, attempting to define a character only by a psychiatric disorder and the idiosyncrasies that accompany the disease as opposed to other aspects of life.

Oddly enough, however, despite this obviously major problem, I actually didn't dislike Welcome to Me altogether because the premise was certainly unique enough to warrant its existence.  With a supporting cast of many well-known names -- who really aren't given much to do -- the actors countering Wiig do a nice job of trying to keep the film based in reality.  As mentioned, I laughed during this one, but by the time the film ended, I found myself thinking back on it disappointed as opposed to pleased due to the fact that there was potential there for something only to be hindered by a script that fails to help its lead character.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - The Spectacular Now

The Spectacular Now (2013)

Starring Miles Teller, Shailene Woodley, Brie Larson, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Bob Odenkirk, Kaitlyn Dever, Masam Holden, Dayo Okeniyi, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Kyle Chandler

Directed by James Ponsoldt

In this day and age when teens flock to movies like the Twilight and Divergent series that supposedly tell stories to which they can relate, I can't help but think we're also in the midst of a great era for dramas focused on the regular everyday stories of American youths -- you know, without vampires, werewolves, and dystopian governments.  I may not have loved 2012's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but it was a film I could appreciate for what it brought to the table in its surprisingly dark and somewhat depressing look at teenage angst.  2013 ushered in The Way Way Back which proved to be another solid piece that gave new energy to a coming-of-age tale.  

Towering over both those films, though, is The Spectacular Now, a flick that earned significantly less dough at the box office than either of those aforementioned flicks, but is a gem that absolutely should be seen.  Led by two fantastic performances from Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley, The Spectacular Now is a touching look at young love and how early relationships can shape us into the person we grow up to be.  Teller is Sutter Keely, a hard-partying high school senior whose mixture of class clown-ish/cool guy demeanor masks the fact that he can't make it many hours throughout the day without sneaking a drink from his secret flask of alcohol stashed in his pocket.  His girlfriend Cassidy (Brie Larson) has just left him for Marcus (Dayo Okeniyi), the quarterback of the football team and the class president, in the hopes of finding a more serious relationship as she heads off to college.  While this upsets Sutter and certainly was a blow to his esteem, it doesn't stop him from partying even harder in an attempt to find a lady to latch on to even if it's just for a night.

After a night he can't remember, Sutter finds himself sprawled out on some unknown yard, discovered by Aimee (Shailene Woodley), a mousy, smart, yet certainly attractive senior at Sutter's school as she performs her morning paper route.  While the two had maybe seen each other in passing, they definitely belonged to different social cliques.  However, with Sutter woman-less, he sees an opportunity to perhaps make his ex feel a little jealous that he's moved on from her.  Although their relationship begins thanks to a somewhat deviously selfish notion on Sutter's part, he begins to find himself falling for Aimee's simplicity and mild-mannered nature -- the complete opposite of his lifestyle.

Director James Ponsoldt previously directed 2012's Smashed and my complaint about that film was that Ponsoldt didn't allow his camera to linger long enough in certain scenes in order to gain the full emotional impact that the story inherently had going for it.  Ponsoldt has certainly learned his lesson as The Spectacular Now is rather beautiful in its usage of simplistic long takes, taking its time to allow the story to unfold.  There's a naturalness to the dialog that almost languidly and off-the-cuff transpires between leads Teller and Woodley that gives you a sense of improvisation, never feeling forced and creating an incredibly believable world these two characters inhabit.

While I knew Shailene Woodley from her role in The Descendants, Miles Teller was a new face to me -- although I'd apparently seen him before in a film called Rabbit Hole.  What a breath of fresh air Mr. Teller is.  First, it should be mentioned that nearly all of the main actors playing teens here are in their mid-to-early twenties, yet they all believably jumped back into the roles of high schoolers.  That's what took me by surprise first as I found myself checking Teller's age while watching the film to see rather selfishly if I could place him on my Best Younger Actor/Actress list at the 2013 RyMickey Awards.  Second, Teller lands on a perfect mix of smarminess, cockiness, and angst-i-ness for his character of Sutter.  Sutter outwardly seems to have it all, but his constant drinking obviously hides an inner disappointment in himself and Teller captures that wonderfully.  When he finally is able to open up to Aimee, the more mellow side of Sutter rings just as true as the "bad boy" side.

Admittedly, upon her introduction, I was slightly disappointed by the obvious way the filmmakers decided to portray Shailene Woodley's Aimee.  She was given more homely clothes, wore significantly less make-up, and had more tussled hair than Sutter's ex-girlfriend Cassidy.  It just seemed like too obvious a set-up for the audience -- "See!  Aimee is the nice girl!"  However, as the film progressed, I appreciated the fact that Aimee as a character didn't change.  She stayed the down-home, sweet, and calming presence that we first witness from her.  Yes, Sutter opened her eyes to love, but she was strong enough to recognize that she didn't need to change for him.  For some reason, this felt rather refreshing and Woodley's performance was subtle and gentle, lacking a showiness that we so often see.

The script isn't quite flawless -- there's a subplot involving Sutter's estranged father that plays out a little too melodramatically to work with the rest of the film, as an example -- but the relationship between Sutter and Aimee and the camaraderie between the two actors that play those characters more than makes up for it.  The Spectacular Now is one of those under-the-radar films that you may not have heard of, but is absolutely worth seeking out.

The RyMickey Rating:  A-

Movie Review - The Machinist

The Machinist (2004)

Starring Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and John Sharian

Directed by Brad Anderson

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

This one's been in the ole Netflix rental queue for a long time, but I just never got around to renting it.  I'm actually quite happy I did because this odd little film was an interesting character piece that was well worth the watch.

This is the movie that Christian Bale famously lost a ton of weight for.  He looks like an anorexic teenager at a mere 120 pounds.  You can tell he's not healthy and it certainly made is character Trevor Reznik infinitely more believable.  Trevor's problem is that he hasn't slept in over a year.  365 days without sleep can make you a little nutty and not quite at the top of your game.  I don't really want to spoil a lot because I knew nothing except the above going into this film and I think it worked in my favor.  Needless to say, the lack of sleep begins causing some problems in Trevor's life and it slowly begins to spiral out of control.

Christian Bale is pretty great here.  I know there was some talk in 2004 about him getting an Oscar nomination for this role and looking back over the nominees that year, I can't say he would have been a bad choice.  There's more on display than just his frail-looking body.  There's a real character study going on here and Bale is quite adept at letting the audience really feel what's going on in his sleep-deprived mind.  

And despite the fact that Bale got most of the acclaim for the movie, both the director Brad Anderson and screenwriter Scott Kosar provide excellent work in their respective crafts.  Even though there are some fairly obvious plot points, I must say that I found the ending to be moderately surprising and shockingly emotional, and in the case of this movie, I commend both the director and writer for that.

The Machinist is a good little flick.  Nothing groundbreaking or incredible, but a solid mystery-drama with a pretty great performance from one of the better actors of my generation.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+