Serenity

Serenity (2019)

Starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Diane Lane, Jason Clarke, Jeremy Strong, and Djimon Hounsou

Directed by Steven Knight

Written by Steven Knight

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Molly's Game

Molly's Game (2017)

Starring Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, Michael Cera, Jeremy Strong, Chris O'Dowd, Bill Camp, and Brian D'arcy James

Directed by Aaron Sorkin

Written by Aaron Sorkin

Summary (in 500 words or less):  The true story of Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain) who runs an underground poker ring after a failed Olympic mogul skiing career.

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: B-

Movie Review - The Big Short

The Big Short (2015)

Starring Steve Carell, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, John Magaro, Finn Wittrock, Hamish Linklater, Rafe Spall, Jeremy Strong, Adepero Oduye, Marisa Tomei, Melissa Leo, and Brad Pitt

Directed by Adam McKay

I know that The Big Short is a well-made, well-written, and well-acted film.  The issue is that the film which delves into 2007-08 the financial meltdown in which the housing market went belly up causing catastrophic damage to regular folks and the crooked big banks simply didn't resonate with me likely because I had no personal attachment to the crisis.  Granted, I don't need to have a personal connection to a film in order to become invested in it, but the overarching theme kept me at a bit of a distance despite being cleverly directed by Adam McKay so that the hefty and complicated subject matter seems a bit more relatable (and understandable) to the average moviegoer.

Quite frankly, there's no reason to delve into the story aspects of The Big Short in any greater detail than has already been mentioned because the film is a bit too complex to really simplistically explain.  Needless to say, the flick focuses on three groups or individuals who attempt to bring attention to the impending meltdown and are greeted with blank stares and laughs by those in charge.  Christian Bale is hedge fund manager Michael Burry who discovers the unsteady housing market and tries to use this to his advantage.  (Burry, admittedly, isn't really trying to "solve" the meltdown problem, he's just the first person who realized he may be able to use it to his advantage.) Steve Carell plays hedge fund manager Mark Baum who is approached by trader Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) to do the same thing Burry is doing, although Baum (whose Wall Street trader brother met an unfortunate demise) tries to uncover how the government is allowing it to happen.  Finally, up-and-coming young investors Charlie Geller and Jamie Shipley (John Magaro and Finn Wittrock) uncover paperwork by Vennett that reveals his thoughts on the crisis and enlist the help of noted financial guru Ben Rickart (Brad Pitt) to make money on the housing collapse only to have a change of heart as they realize the chaos that the collapse will cause.

All of the aforementioned actors do an admirable job of making their sometimes convoluted plots seem understandable and there's not a weak link in the cast.  That said, as I mentioned before, there's a lack of connection for me here that I wasn't quite able to overcome.  While the film doesn't necessarily play like a college finance course, it sometimes doesn't quite succeed in altogether abandoning that mindset.  McKay (who co-wrote the film with Charles Randolph) does some clever cutaways with celebrities to try and make the intricacies of the convoluted housing trade at least comprehensible, but in the end, there's somehow a lack of dramatic tension and human connection here.  The Big Short is still a surprisingly enjoyable watch, but it just never quite hit home with me despite a valiant effort.

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 - The Judge

The Judge (2014)

Starring Robert Downey Jr., Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga, Billy Bob Thornton, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jeremy Strong, Dax Shepard, Leighton Meester, and Clint Howard 

Directed by David Dobkin

How anyone was expecting The Judge to be a prestige picture seeing as how the man behind the camera brought us flicks like Fred Claus, Shanghai Knights, The Change-Up, and Wedding Crashers is befuddling to me.  Pre-release Oscar buzz and snagging the opening film slot at the Toronto Film Festival upped The Judge's aire of importance.  Admittedly, if you walk into the flick with that mindset, disappointment may set in.  However, if you erase all that talk from your mind, The Judge is a decent paint-by-numbers tale about a family coming together at a difficult moment that surprisingly holds one's interest for (surprisingly brisk) nearly two-and-a-half hours.

When his mother passes away, hotshot Chicago defense attorney Hank Palmer (Robert Downey, Jr.) returns home to a podunk small town in Indiana to attend her funeral.  Estranged from his family having not visited home in years, Hank's return is greeted with disdain from his father Joseph (Robert Duvall) -- the two obviously having had issues in the past that pushed them apart.  After the funeral, Joseph -- the small town's respected judge -- goes out for a drive to clear his mind and the next morning Hank and his two brothers Glen and Dale (Vincent D'Onofrio and Jeremy Strong) discover that their father's car has been in some kind of accident -- a thought that is confirmed as the cops pull up to take Joseph in for questioning for the death of a cyclist who died in a hit and run the night before.  Later charged with murder, Joseph and Hank must attempt to work together to acquit Joseph of the crime, but their complicated past doesn't make things easy.

You know where The Judge is heading right off the bat and you know how it's going to get there.  Script- and dialog-wise, the screenwriters have crafted something that is so incredibly by-the-book, I feel like I could've written it.  Directorially-speaking, David Dobkin didn't do a single thing worth mentioning.  So, how in the world did I find myself maintaining interest in this work?

It all comes down to the very talented ensemble, all of whom elevate the lackluster elements above into something that is able to hold interest.  Admittedly, Robert Downey, Jr., isn't doing anything we haven't seen him do before -- make smart-ass Tony Stark a lawyer and you've essentially got Hank Palmer.  Somehow, though, Downey's charm and humor captivate.  (And there's actually quite a bit of gentle humor which is surprising and welcoming.)  Robert Duvall isn't necessarily reinventing the wheel either, but his character's humility and heart play a nice counterpoint to his son's brashness.  We all know where the story's going to end up, but with Downey, Jr., and Duvall playing off one another, it becomes worth watching.  Add in some nice performances from Vincent D'Onofrio, Billy Bob Thornton (as the prosecutor trying Joseph's case), and Vera Farmiga (as Hank's high school girlfriend) and you've got a cast worth watching.

I look back on The Judge and find many faults with it -- there are so many subplots that weigh down the script that it's almost laughable -- but I also remember it fondly.  There's a simplicity to the overarching story that we often don't see in films today and while some may find it clichéd or treacly, I found it a little bit ballsy in the midst of our crazed society.  It's the kind of movie Jimmy Stewart would've been starring in were Jimmy Stewart alive today -- and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-