I Care a Lot

 I Care a Lot (2021 -- Oscars 2020)

Starring Rosamund Pike, Peter Dinklage, Eiza González, Chris Messina, Macon Blair, Alicia Witt, and Dianne Weist

Directed by J Blakeson

Written by J Blakeson

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore

I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore (2017)

Starring Melanie Lynskey, Elijah Wood, Devon Graye, David Yow, Jane Levy, and Gary Anthony Williams

Directed by Macon Blair

Written by Macon Blair

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

Summary (in 500 words or less):  When the home of a woman (Melanie Lynsky) is robbed and the police won't investigate what they consider a minor crime, she hunts down the criminals with the help of her neighbor (Elijah Wood).

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - Green Room

Green Room (2016)

Starring Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, Callum Turner, Mark Webber, Eric Edelstein, Macon Blair, Kai Lennox, and Patrick Stewart

Directed by Jeremy Saulnier

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

Through a friend of a friend, a punk rock band gets a gig at a slummy Neo-Nazi bar in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific Northwest.  Following the show, Pat (Anton Yelchin) returns to the green room to get a phone left behind only to discover a stabbed dead body on the floor.  Privy to this murder, the leaders of the Neo-Nazi group refuse to let Pat and his bandmates (Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, Callum Turner) leave and the quartet is forced to figure out a way to try and save themselves before they end up with the same murdered fate.

Writer-director Jeremy Saulnier has crafted an incredibly tense and utterly frightening film in Green Room, a fantastic follow-up and improvement upon his successful prior film Blue Ruin.  In his two films I've seen thus far, Saulnier is admirably successful in creating a gritty atmosphere and then adding some less-than-kind characters to the mix.  Fully realized and feeling quite lived in, Green Room pulls the viewer into the claustrophobic atmosphere from which we beg to escape much like the trapped bandmates.

The cast -- including the late Anton Yelchin as a band member and a terrifyingly calm Patrick Stewart as the Neo-Nazi leader -- gamely accepts the roles of either the terrorizers or the terrorized, helping to strengthen the intensity of the horrific situation unfolding on the screen.  Green Room isn't an easy sit -- it's quite violent and things don't always turn out well for the protagonists.  However, auteur Jeremy Saulnier has proven once again that he is quite adept and capable of making a film that puts uneasiness and intensity on the front burner.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

Movie Review - Blue Ruin

Blue Ruin (2014)

Starring Macon Blair, Devin Ratray, Amy Hargreaves, Kevin Kolack, and Eve Plumb

Directed by Jeremy Saulnier

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

When we first encounter Dwight (Macon Blair), he's living out of his run-down car near a beach in Delaware.  Writer-director Jeremy Saulnier's film Blue Ruin makes us think that Dwight is trouble as he sneaks into folks' vacation homes in order to bathe, taking food and clothes to sustain himself.  Soon, however, we discover that Dwight is simply coping with the fact that his father and mother were heinously shot down several years prior.  When Dwight hears news that his parents' killer is being released from prison, he sets out on a mission to seek vengeance on the killer setting off a war between two families who have both dealt with their share of heartbreak.

This low budget revenge flick is surprisingly taut and well-acted by a cast of unknowns (although Jan Brady herself Eve Plumb makes a quick appearance in an important role).  Macon Blair's performance is certainly at the center as his meek and troubled Dwight is pressed with mustering up the courage to do what he feels is right.  While we understand his desire to enact revenge, Blue Ruin never paints Dwight as morally justified.  His vengeance may be what he desires, but it makes him a criminal nevertheless.  This moral dichotomy at the film's center makes Blue Ruin an interesting revenge picture that's worth a watch.

The RyMickey Rating:  B