Game Night

Game Night (2018)

Starring Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, Jesse Plemons, Danny Huston, Michael C. Hall, and Kyle Chandler

Directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein

Written by Mark Perez

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: B+

First Man

First Man (2018)

Starring Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Pablo Schreiber, Christopher Abbott, Patrick Fugit, Lukas Haas, Shea Whigham, Olivia Hamilton, Brian d'Arcy James, and Ciarán Hinds

Directed by Damien Chazelle

Written by Josh Singer

Summary (in 500 words or less):  A look at Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) and the struggles he faced -- both familial and professionally -- to become the first man to walk on the moon.

 

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: A

Movie Review - Manchester by the Sea

Manchester by the Sea (2016)

Starring Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, Lucas Hedges, Gretchen Mol, C.J. Wilson, Tate Donovan, and Matthew Broderick

Directed by Kenneth Lonergan

Having high expectations doesn't always hinder one's cinematic experience (see La La Land as a case in point), but Manchester by the Sea is the unfortunate victim of this odious psychological conundrum.  It's not that writer-director Kenneth Lonergan's film is bad in any way, it's just that after months of talk about fantastic performances and gripping drama and depressingly tragic moments, I found myself the slightest bit let down by what I saw onscreen.  While a nice "slice of life"-style film (albeit with some severely sad scenes), Manchester by the Sea rarely grabbed me on an emotional level in the way that I feel it should have particularly given the subject matter.

Casey Affleck is the anchor here as Lee Chandler, a young thirtysomething janitor living in Boston.  His mundane life is interrupted one snowy afternoon when he receives a phone call that his older brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) has suffered a fatal heart attack.  Lee makes the two-hour journey to Manchester - his hometown - where he finds himself forced to relive his past and the reasons he left the town to begin with, all the while becoming the new father figure to his sixteen year-old teenage nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges) whose mother (Gretchen Mol) abandoned him and his father nearly a decade prior.

There is a heartbreaking backstory that oppresses Lee in his present life and it has weighed heavily on him for years.  Lee's past is revealed to us in spurts by Lonergan in a way that feels natural -- sometimes flashbacks can take away from the current tale, but Lonergan's spacing out of Lee's past adds to the sullen man's characterization.  Casey Affleck nicely balances Lee's past and present, creating two distinct personalities that evolve into one another believably.  His Lee is wrought with pain and desires nothing more than to essentially be punished for his sins, but he also realizes, upon his brother's death, that he is needed to step up to the plate and become a reliable figure in young Patrick's life.

Newcomer Lucas Hedges is a nice counter to the depressed Lee as his Patrick deals with his father's death in a different manner, deciding to act strong as if it doesn't affect him which ultimately leads to one of the better scenes in the film as the gravity of his situation begins to manifest itself.  Michelle Williams has a small, but critical role in the piece and she's given two heartbreaking scenes that give us not only an understanding of her character's plight, but also add a great deal of depth to the character of Lee as well.

Ultimately, though, I wanted to be moved more than I was with Manchester by the Sea.  Given the subject matter -- which you must understand I'm not fully detailing here -- I wanted to be grabbed by Lee's plight and I never quite got there.  Technically, Kenneth Lonergan delivers a somber, intimate film that looks pretty, but the film lingers too long -- at 137 minutes, it's got about forty minutes of lifelessness that could've been left on the editing room floor. While I can't say I was bored per se, the length of the film did affect its dramatic effectiveness.  Sure, Manchester by the Sea has a lot of things going for it -- it's well shot, well acted -- but in the end, it didn't get that guttural emotional response from me that I can't help but think it wanted.  At times, I was moderately moved, but I wanted more.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Carol

Carol (2015)

Starring Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy, and Kyle Chandler

Directed by Todd Haynes

While I can recognize (and appreciate) the rather gentle way Carol approaches the lesbian romance at its core, director Todd Haynes' film didn't connect with me in the slightest.  While the romance between the titular married-though-in-the-middle-of-divorce-proceedings character (played by Cate Blanchett) and a much younger shopgirl Therese (Rooney Mara) should've felt alive, Haynes has crafted a film where the hints of romance during its first two-thirds simply lead to incredible dullness -- at least for this viewer.

The way that Blanchett and Mara play their characters, the way Haynes films them, and the way Phyllis Nagy pens her script showcase an obvious infatuation between Carol and Therese -- the former whose husband (Kyle Chandler) has known of his wife's dalliances with other women and the latter who herself didn't know her attraction to women, let alone her boyfriend (Jake Lacy) being aware of her predilections.  While the film isn't completely about Carol and Therese "doing the deed" and consummating their relationship, the knowing glances (by the cast), the subtle flirtations (surely in the script), and blatant lensing of the director keep building up to this inevitable moment which, by the time it finally rolls around, feels hokey as opposed to passionate.  The way this piece is structured, crafted, and acted, there needed to be a payoff and that simply doesn't happen here.

Part of the reason behind that is due to the fact that the lead actresses -- both nominated for Oscars -- are frankly overpraised and underwhelming.  There is certainly a time for scenery chewing and Blanchett can chew with the best of them -- just look at Cinderella for an example where she can showcase this talent with aplomb.  Here, her Carol feels like a caricature -- the way she talks, the way she moves, the way she emotes -- none of it feels based in any form of reality.  Mara, on the other hand, is a blank slate, rarely showing emotion, forcing me to ask myself the question of why Carol ever became infatuated with her in the first place.  Granted, I give Mara a bit of credit, however, in that her Therese is just coming in touch with her true self in this relationship with Carol so her moments of blankness or seeming cluelessness are grounded at least in the roots of her character.

Personally, I think the film looks disappointing as well.  As I watched, I couldn't help but feel that is was distractingly grainy.  I legitimately thought it was an issue with the projection system, but upon researching things when I came home, the film was shot on 16mm film and while I'm all for different film aspects (see Steve Jobs as a brilliant example of how to properly use them), this style was off-putting here.

I didn't go into Carol expecting a sexualized lesbian drama so there's no disappointment in that department.  Instead, I wanted a story between two characters that took us on their journey to either happiness, sadness, or something in between.  Unfortunately, this is a journey that isn't well crafted.  While Carol certainly touches on the trials, travails, and struggles facing women like Carol and Therese in the early 1950s (and the best moments in the film deal with Carol's husbands attempts to take full custody of their daughter), the lifelessness of everything onscreen failed to draw me in and really capture my attention.

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 Wolf of Wall Street

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler, Rob Reiner, Jean Dujardin, Joanna Lumley, Cristin Milioti, and P.J. Byrne 

Directed by Martin Scorsese

Much has already been said about the language, vulgarity, and loooong running time of The Wolf of Wall Street and I'll readily admit that it's full of f-bombs, various sexual proclivities, and rampant drug use throughout its 179-minute length.  However, I enjoyed the heck out of this one, finding myself constantly smiling at the sheer absurdity of the whole affair and almost being upset that my humdrum life couldn't hold a candle to the chaotic mayhem of Jordan Belfort's.  Granted, Belfort is a womanizing, scheming crook who contains nary a moralistic bone in his body and he's a horrific sleaze of a guy so my notion of trying to vicariously live like him faded really quickly, but thanks to a glorious performance by Leonardo DiCaprio and some vivacious direction from Martin Scorsese, this movie paints a vivid picture of the true story of the infamous stockbroker who duped thousands of people into losing boatloads of money.

While the overarching theme of the film is about the stock market and that aforementioned duping of the public by Belfort, Scorsese and screenwriter Terrence Winter wisely push that aside instead focusing on the wildly outrageous shenanigans of the rich Belfort (played by DiCaprio) and his cohorts as they spend their (well-earned or illegally earned?) dough on quaaludes, cocaine, prostitutes, yachts, extravagant homes, jewelry, flying dwarfs...I could go on and on.  Seeing the world of excess is admittedly at first a little exciting, but we all know that it's too good to be true.  This fantastical world is ripe for a breakdown and that certainly is the case here with Belfort's fall just as engrossing as his rise up the corporate ladder.

Front and center in nearly every scene of the movie is Leonardo DiCaprio, a guy who I've certainly come to appreciate in recent years for his acting prowess.  However, I've never seen him take on a role with such gusto and joie de vivre as he does here with Jordan Belfort.  With the perfect amount of sly charm, self absorption, self-confidence, financial smarts, and sex appeal, DiCaprio gives a performance that is loose, funny, and captivating.

While DiCaprio's Belfort certainly takes center stage, he isn't alone in shining onscreen.  Jonah Hill is quite good as a Long Island nobody whom Belfort grooms into his right hand man.  The jaw-droppingly gorgeous Margot Robbie plays Belfort's second wife and she's a stunning newcomer I can't wait to see more of in the future.  Additionally, Matthew McConaughey makes the most out of a mere ten minute scene as Belfort's first teacher in the stock trade.  He steals the show right off the bat (which DiCaprio then steals back from him) and sets the movie on a great path right from the outset.

All this praise I'm heaping on the film makes it seem as if this one's ripe for an "A" rating.  Well, that's not going to happen and the reason harkens back to that aforementioned running time.  This thing moves along at a fast clip for its first hour and its last hour takes us on a bit of a different journey with Belfort's world beginning to crumble, but that middle hour leaves a bit to be desired.  We've already borne witness to the hedonistic tendencies of Belfort and his crew and this middle act teeters on actually becoming a bit boring -- there's only so much coke snorting you can take.  Perhaps Scorsese was mirroring the excessive nature of Belfort with the excessive running time, but a trimming of maybe thirty minutes would've put this one right in the running for a top three spot of the year for me.  As it stands now, it's a very good film that could've been near perfect, buoyed by the best performance I've seen in 2013 in Mr. DiCaprio.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

Movie Review - Broken City

Broken City (2013)

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Barry Pepper, Jeffrey Wright, and Kyle Chandler  

Directed by Allen Hughes

Broken City is one of those films that makes you ponder how in the world the producers snagged such big names to attach themselves to it.  It's not that it's mind-numbingly bad (although it certainly isn't any good), but it's so utterly generic that it becomes painful to sit through.  There's a corrupt [Republican] New York mayor up for reelection (Russell Crowe), his possibly philandering wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones), the good cop who's forced into doing bad things (Mark Wahlberg), the police chief who may not be running things by the book (Jeffrey Wright), and the upstart [Democratic] opponent who wants nothing more than to bring down his competition (Barry Pepper).  We've seen all these characters' stories before scripted, acted, and directed better, so without Broken City doing a thing to differentiate itself from its predecessors, there's little to recommend about it.

And with that, I'm pretty much done with this one.  However, I will add that as I was watching this, I came to the realization that Catherine Zeta-Jones probably should retire from acting.  I'm not sure she was ever all that good, but her Academy Award win at least gave her some respect from the public and from this blogger.  Perhaps that respect was ill-informed, however, as with last year's Rock of Ages (which garnered her a Worst Performance of the Year award) and this year's Broken City (and even Side Effects, a film that I truly liked, but found her performance lacking), she's more than proven that it may be time to snuggle up with her Oscar, spend some time with Michael Douglas, and bid the acting world adieu.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Starring Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Jennifer Ehle, Reda Kateb, Mark Strong, Joel Edgerton, Chris Pratt, and James Gandolfini

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

It is an inevitability that people are going to compare director Kathryn Bigelow's Afghanistan and Pakistan-based Zero Dark Thirty with her fantastic Best Picture-winning Iraq-centric The Hurt Locker.  Whether that is a fair comparison or not, I'm not going to say, but Ms. Bigelow (and her reunited screenwriter Mark Boal) doesn't stretch much from her comfort zone of Middle Eastern-set war movies.  With such a powerful first glance at this landscape a few years ago, hopes were set high for Zero Dark Thirty and unfortunately it's simply not as good as her previous effort.

In my Hurt Locker review, I stated that the film contained "edge-of-your-seat excitement" and I know many would scoff at that remark thinking that the film actually moved at a rather slow pace.  Somehow, though, Bigelow managed to achieve great amounts of tension for me despite deliberately pacing the film.  In Zero Dark Thirty, the pacing is still slowly deliberate, but the tension simply isn't there.  Is it because we already know the result in that Osama bin Laden is killed?  I think that's part of the issue, but not the sole problem.

The film is slowly building for nearly two hours to the invasion of bin Laden's hideaway in Pakistan and while there are moments along the way that create tension, Bigelow isn't able to create a steady escalation which, in retrospect, almost makes the bin Laden raid (which is shown rather interestingly in an almost first person-"you are one of the soldiers" style of filmmaking) a bit of a letdown.  For the entirety of the movie, we watch as CIA agent Maya (Jessica Chastain) fights her superiors on almost every step of the way in the hunt for the terrorist leader.  The movie is much more about the character of Maya and her struggles, and, to be quite honest, I never found myself caring about her.  It doesn't help that the script gives Chastain nothing to work with.  She's told to be averse to torture at first, but then slowly come around to embracing it.  She's told to look steadfast and resolute at all times.  She's told to be strong and not break down.  She's told to never waver in her desire to catch bin Laden and her belief that she is right in terms of his location.  Don't get me wrong -- I'm thrilled that this woman existed in real life (although I've read that "Maya" isn't based on any one specific person, but is an amalgamation of several), but I'm not quite sure this is a character to build a movie around.  The character is such a one-note figure only doing what the film's plot requires of her rather than actually having her own journey and I feel that this is another key reason why the film isn't quite a success.

Zero Dark Thirty isn't a bad film.  The story certainly kept me interested and despite my issues with the film, Bigelow is still a better director than most out there (and Mark Boal's screenplay is still a smart adult drama albeit with some problems).  Perhaps it's unfair to compare a film like this to Bigelow and Boal's earlier work, but as I said above, I think it's inevitable, and Zero Dark Thirty just comes out significantly below their fantastic collaboration in The Hurt Locker.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - Super 8

Super 8 (2011)

Starring Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Kyle Chandler, Ron Eldard, Riley Griffiths, and Ryan Lee

Directed by J.J. Abrams

Somehow or another -- whether it be by the cinematographic framing or the simple fact that the film was set in the 80s (well 1979, so the cusp of the 80s) -- director-writer J.J. Abrams does succeed in creating the Steven Spielberg-esque tone that he was certainly going for with his new science-fiction film Super 8.   Surprisingly, however, this flick about an alien on Earth is no E.T.  I'm not sure why I was expecting some nice "ET, phone home" type moments, but that certainly didn't happen here...and it was a rather pleasant treat that the film took on more of a homage to horror classics in addition to being somewhat of loving tribute to the "tone" that Spielberg set in his quintessential early and mid-career classics.  However, in the end, Super 8 never really marries its horror/adventure side with its heart side (a staple of Spielberg's oeuvre) and because of that lack of cohesion, it's a film that finds itself a tad disappointing when all is said and done.

Certainly, Abrams got great work out of his group of young actors.  Young Joel Courtney (in his first ever acting gig) and Elle Fanning have a nice go at the puppy love that is going on amongst their characters Joe and Alice.  The two are both excellent with Fanning once again proving that she's a force to watch (of course, I already knew that seeing as how I placed her in my Top Five younger actors last year).  As the duo and their group of friends (all great, by the way, including Riley Griffiths in his first role) film a horror movie utilizing their super 8 camera, the scenes involving these young'uns make up the Spielberg-ian heart.  Unfortunately, the film aims at trying to create a coming of age tale, but drops that by the wayside in favor of the invasion of an alien.

That invasion of the alien is also successful (much like the youth-centric "heart" side of the film) for a time, but never quite succeeds in the end.  The backstory of this alien that has, in fact, been on Earth for a few decades is actually quite interesting and should have been successful in setting up a great ending.  However, Abrams, who I usually like, is sometimes prone to great set-ups with lackluster conclusions and the ending of Super 8 feels like such a letdown.  It's not that the alien isn't cool-looking, it's just that the meeting of the two worlds -- the kids and the alien -- is so ludicrous and just plain silly.  Where Spielberg successfully marries both worlds (most of the time), Abrams can't manage to do the same.

Still, despite the major problems that Super 8's story has, it's a film that admirable in what it's attempting. It is absolutely successful in its goal of being an homage to films of my youth.  It's filled with great performances from a cast of (mostly) young unknowns.  It's a film that looks great and creates a cool lore for an alien invasion.  All of which make it all the more unfortunate that Abrams can't bring everything together in the end.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-