Pieces of a Woman

 Pieces of a Woman (2020)

Starring Vanessa Kirby, Shia LaBeouf, Molly Parker, Sarah Snook, Iliza Shlesinger, and Ellen Burstyn

Directed by Kornél Mundruczó

Written by Kata Wéber

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  A-

Honey Boy

Honey Boy (2019)

Starring Shia LaBoeuf, Lucas Hedges, Noah Jupe, and FKA Twigs

Directed by Alma Har'el

Written by Shia LaBoeuf

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: B

Movie Review - American Honey

American Honey (2016)

Starring Sasha Lane, Shia LaBeouf, and Riley Keough

Directed by Andrea Arnold

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

There is nothing about American Honey that even remotely validates its epic nearly three-hour runtime.  Its plot can be explained in a simple sentence:  Impoverished teenager Star (Sasha Lane) joins a ragtag group of kids headed by the harsh twentysomething "den mother" Krystal (Riley Keough) who travel across the country hoping to earn money by selling magazines whilst doing drugs, drinking alcohol, stealing trinkets, and sleeping with one another.  Conflict is slim to none throughout the film and there are tons of lengthy shots of these disheveled, dirty-looking teens singing rap songs for no apparent reason other than to show the mundaneness of everyday life for this group.  Yet, despite this myriad of issues, I found myself oddly captivated by American Honey.  Sure, it's a film I never want to watch again and I can't even say I'd want to subject anyone else to attempt a viewing, but the simplicity and naturalness of writer-director Andrea Arnold's film kept my intrigued more than I could ever have imagined.

I mean this in a complimentary fashion, but there's a dirtiness that permeates throughout American Honey.  This group of kids on display exudes a griminess and a grossness that's anchored in realism and while at least these teens are trying to make a living, they are kids with whom I'd never want to hang.  First-time actress Sasha Lane is at the center of this gang of miscreants and she certainly embodies the lower-class aesthetic that runs rampant through the flick.  Her blossoming relationship with Shia LaBeouf's Jake, a member of magazine-selling group, feels lived-in and naturally develops over the course of the film's runtime.

I really do find it incomprehensible that I sat through this entire film.  There was a moment about seventy minutes in -- which is just a third of the way, mind you -- that I was extremely tempted to stop because, as I mentioned, nothing really happens in this film.  Yet, thanks to the solid performances and the lived-in aesthetic created by Andrea Arnold and her cast, the lack of plot becomes a shockingly insignificant issue.  Now, don't mistake this positivity for all-out affection.  American Honey really could've afforded to have been shortened or, at the very least, had some story added to it.  And, as I've mentioned before, I never need to watch American Honey again nor can I in good conscience recommend it.  However, something surprisingly worked for me and I found this flick to be much better than I expected.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - Fury

Fury (2014)

Starring Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman, Shia LaBeouf, Michael Peña, and Jon Bernthal

Directed by David Ayer

April 1945 -- less than six months until the end of WWII.  The Allies are making one final push into Germany in order to bring an end to Hitler.  Throughout the war, it had become evident that German tanks were infinitely superior to the Allied machinery, but with nothing else in their arsenal, the Allies were still forced to fight using their inferior warcraft.  Fury follows the story of one tank crew detailing several small-scale (though intense and life-threatening) battles as they continue their mission to end the Nazi's reign.

Director and screenwriter David Ayer creates a tense atmosphere throughout which is a bit surprising seeing as how Fury feels as if it's 80% battle sequences -- a notion that could easily wear thin (and does for a tiny bit during its first act), but ends up being surprisingly effective.  The film's final lengthy stand-off is easily the best battle scene and while not entirely realistic, it does a fantastic job at conveying the horrors of close combat warfare so evident in WWII.

Unfortunately, Ayer doesn't quite succeed in creating well-rounded, non-stereotypical characters.  Pitt as Don "Wardaddy" Collier is the leader of the tank quintet that we find ourselves focusing on and while he does a perfectly adequate job, I felt very little attachment to him and that's the fault of the script moreso than anything else.  Similarly, Logan Lerman plays the young, new-to-battle Norman and all the typical characteristics are present for him -- always nervous, unwilling to kill, quiet, the requisite vomiting shot when he sees something disgusting.  It's all there.  The film attempts to create a bond between Collier and Norman and while it somewhat successfully does so thanks to a moving scene in which duo invade the apartment of two German women, the teacher/student relationship between these two didn't flourish the way I would've liked.  Shia LaBeouf, Michael Peña, and Jon Bernthal make up the rest of the crew and while all seemingly give realistic portrayals of war torn soldiers, I wasn't swept up by their plight.

While I'd typically find this lack of connection a somewhat major problem, the other elements of the film create enough of a positive effect that I'm able to overlook these character flaws a bit.  Fury provides an engaging look at an aspect of war that isn't typically filmed and for that it deserves a bit of credit despite its shortcomings.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - Nymphomaniac: Vol I and Vol 2

Nymphomaniac: Vol 1 (2014)

Starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBoeuf, Christian Slater, Uma Thurman, Sophie Kennedy Clark, and Connie Nielsen

Directed by Lars von Trier

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

Nymphomaniac: Vol 2 (2014)

Starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Shia LaBoeuf, Jamie Bell, Mia Goth, Stacy Martin, and Willem Dafoe

Directed by Lars von Trier

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

Well, that was four hours of my life that I can't get back...then again, maybe it was worth my time after all.  That's the problem with Lars von Trier -- I despise and appreciate his work at the same time.

Oh, Lars von Trier.  I experienced five of your films now (six if you count Nymphomaniac as two films) and you're a weird son of a gun.  Nymphomaniac is the third and final film in von Trier's "Depression Trilogy" following Antichrist and Melancholia, and, much like those films, it's all pretension and very little substance.

Nymphomaniac follows Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) who is found in an alley by a man named Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård) after she is beaten up.  Seligman takes Joe to his house to recover and Joe begins to tell Seligman her life story through her sexual experiences.  Why does she do this?  I don't know.  Shock effect? Her nymphomatic tendencies?  Because screenwriter Lars von Trier is a weird guy who likes to think he's pushing the envelope whenever possible?  Probably the latter as von Trier takes the approach here of being as graphic as possible including scenes of unsimulated sex in order to be risky and adventurous (but never stimulating or titillating).

Oddly enough, however, despite the heavy-handed nature of the piece and von Trier's incessant need to be provocative, the acting of everyone elevates this to something that at least makes the four hours not a boring sexual epic.  The best of the bunch is Stacy Martin in her first role as the young teenage/twentysomething Joe.  This is an extremely tricky role -- addicted to sex, yet emotionless when undertaking these sexual activities, Martin's Joe is a girl of few words, yet I found myself riveted with her story.  Martin certainly is the focus of Volume 1 with Charlotte Gainsbourg taking more of the reins in Volume 2 and the second film suffers for it.  Gainsbourg is fine, but the film becomes a bit too depressing and melancholic to be all that riveting.  Shia LaBoeuf and Uma Thurman also put in some nice turns, but neither are in either film for an extended period of time.

I appreciate Lars von Trier artistically as a director and I like what he visually brings to the screen.  As a writer, von Trier leaves quite a bit to be desired and that's where my constant see-sawing of "Did I like this or did I hate this?" comes in whenever I watch one of his films.  His pieces never work as a whole and Nymphomaniac is no exception.

The RyMickey Rating:  C (Volume 1)

The RyMickey Rating: C- (Volume 2)

Movie Review - The Company You Keep

The Company You Keep (2013)

Starring Robert Redford, Shia LaBeouf, Julie Christie, Susan Sarandon, Nick Nolte, Chris Cooper, Terrence Howard, Stanley Tucci, Richard Jenkins, Anna Kendrick, Brendan Gleeson, Brit Marling, Sam Elliott, Stephen Root, and Jackie Evancho 

Directed by Robert Redford

Just take a look at that talent listed above -- that's a helluva lot of names, most of whom are known for giving good performances.  Robert Redford's film The Company You Keep (culled from a script by Lem Dobbs) plays like a novel, introducing each of these actors for a chapter and then having them disappear.  This episodic nature proves very tedious about halfway through once we realize what's going on.  It fails to allow us to connect to anyone...then again, I'm not sure we really want to connect with any of these people.

The film opens with a brief flashback in newsreel/news footage form about a series of protests in the 1960/70s by a homegrown American "terrorist" group known as the Weather Underground -- a real-life "activist" group that bombed government buildings and banks as public demonstrations to gain notoriety in an attempt to overthrow the US government for what they perceived as wrongdoings during the Vietnam era.  The last blip of the flashback tells us about a 1980 bank robbery in which a civilian was killed and how the three people responsible are still at large.

Cut to present time and Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon) is arrested when buying gas at a convenience store in New York.  Solarz was one a Weather Underground member and one of the three people responsible for that ill-fated bank robbery that resulted in a death.  She had lived her life -- got married, had kids -- but the guilt of that day always stayed with her and Solarz, a Vermont resident, specifically crossed the New York state border to buy gas in order to get arrested and turn herself in.  This sets the FBI on a hunt for Solarz's colleagues in the crime, while also piquing the interest of Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf), a young reporter at the local Albany newspaper.  Shepard ends up discovering more than the FBI (which doesn't sit too well with the FBI chief played by Terrence Howard) when he uncovers the fact that a local lawyer named Jim Grant (Robert Redford) is actually Nick Sloan, a presumed dead Weather Underground member suspected of taking part in the murder at the bank in 1980.  When Shepard confronts Grant about this, Grant immediately grows suspicious that the FBI will soon be on his tail and he sets off across the country trying to evade the FBI, while also trying to clear his name.

While the premise above is actually interesting that all takes place in the film's opening thirty minutes after which things quickly fall apart, digressing into scenes in which Redford's character meets up an old, hardened former Weather Underground member who then gets tracked down by the FBI just as Grant manages to make an escape.  This seriously happens four or five times and maybe it could've worked if any of these scenes ended up being anything other than two old people reminiscing about how shitty the government's treatment of the less fortunate is.  (Of course, the majority of these old fogies are now living in expensive houses, sailing yachts, or working at prestigious universities...so their sympathetic allegiance with the poor feels disingenuous...then again, that's the good old liberal mindset, ain't it?)

There are a couple of decent performances here -- LaBeouf is strong as the go-getting reporter, Sarandon makes the most of her small role with a particularly good scene in which she explains her actions -- but the typically strong cast isn't given much to work with and Redford doesn't really pull great performances from their small parts.  For someone who was a supposed sex symbol and movie star back in the day, Redford himself is uncharismatic and particularly bland here which is a disappointment considering he and LaBeouf are the only two actors who we see throughout the entire film.  The Company You Keep may very well have the most prestigious cast assembled for a 2013 film, but despite the high quality of actors, Robert Redford's film just meanders along for two hours failing to be anything more exciting than a game of "Which Celebrity Will Appear Next?"

The RyMickey Rating:  C- 

Movie Review - Lawless

Lawless (2012)

Starring Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Dane DeHaan, and Guy Pearce

Directed by John Hillcoat

Although based on the true story of the three Bondurant brothers who, in the midst of early 1930s Prohibition, ran a very profitable moonshine business in a small Virginia county, Lawless is one of those films that you watch and simply ponder why it was brought to the big screen.  Why was this tale deemed exciting enough to be told?  And if it was worth retelling, what went wrong in its adaptation to the cinematic form?  Because, unfortunately, not much went right in this bland and boring flick directed by John Hillcoat (who also brought us the lukewarm The Road, a film which in retrospect I feel I overrated back in 2009).

Jack, Forrest, and Howard Bondurant (Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, and Jason Clarke, respectively) are known throughout Franklin County, Virginia, for creating some of the best moonshine around.  Selling to the local cops, they seemingly have it made until a bigwig Special Agent from Chicago, Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce, overacting to the point of laughable ridiculousness), comes to the county and demands a share of their profits in order to allow them to continue their illegal shenanigans.  Well, the Bondurants don't want anything to do with that and their refusal leads to some violent outbursts from folks on both sides of the law.

When Lawless gets violent, there's actually some life in the story, but whenever there isn't a gun firing or a fist making the most out of hitting someone's face this is one of the most boring films released in 2012.  John Hillcoat is tasked with directing a misguided screenplay by Nick Cave that meanders all over the place.  Neither the director nor the screenwriter are able to reel in the story and give us the necessary dramatic ebb and flow to create a decent film.

Although I think Shia LaBeouf is obnoxious offscreen, I must admit that he's the best part of Lawless by far.  His scenes are the only ones worth watching and the only ones that have any modicum of life breathed into them.  Even the ridiculous romantic subplot he's shouldered with involving his character's fascination with an über-religious young gal (Mia Wasikowska) is better than it deserves to be because of his presence.  Unfortunately, when the film isn't in LaBeouf's hands, yawns are induced. Tom Hardy follows up his Dark Knight Rises mumblings with an even more incoherent performance here.  Seriously, open up your frickin' mouth when you talk, dude!  I liked you in Warrior and Bronson, but this marble-mouthed inarticulation is getting old.  And poor Jessica Chastain is just wasted here with nary a single character trait or meaningful plot point applied to her role as a former stripper with a heart of gold.

Even her unnecessary nudity couldn't save this one.

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Movie Review - Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

Starring Shia LaBoeuf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, and Patrick Dempsey

Directed by Michael Bay

I felt this incredible sense of promise during the first ten minutes of Transformers: Dark of the Moon.  The year is 1969 and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin having just landed on the moon are given a top secret mission to explore some unknown object that had landed there eight years prior.  They uncover some weird humongous spacecraft that ends up belonging to the Autobot "race" of Transformers.  

And then the movie jumps to modern times...and the movie falls apart and turns into just as awful a piece of junk as the second movie in this heinously bad series.  You don't need to know anything other than the fact that the good Autobots are trying to save the Earth from the bad Decepticons.  Nothing else matters because nothing happens.  And it still clocks in at over two-and-a-half hours.

The second flick of the series got the rather dubious honor of being one of the worst movies I saw in 2009 and I would venture to guess that Dark of the Moon will fall into that same category.  There's just nothing good here.  Subpar acting, ridiculously inane battle sequences, and a visual color palette that is nothing but metallic gray.  

God...I could go on and on, but I despise this series and I think that in the future, I won't subject myself to any more of them.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-

Movie Review - New York, I Love You (2009)

Starring Jacinda Barrett, Rachel Bilson, Orlando Bloom, Hayden Christensen, Julie Christie, Bradley Cooper, Chris Cooper, Drea de Matteo, Andy Garcia, Ethan Hawke, Shia LaBeouf, Cloris Leachman, Robin Wright Penn, Natalie Portman, Christina Ricci, Qi Shu, Eli Wallach, and Anton Yelchin
Directed by 11 Directors of Varying Talent

I certainly haven't seen many short film collections, but it seems a difficult, unenviable task to assemble an anthology such as this. There's bound to be some works that are better than others and, when placed next to these intriguing shorts, all the other shorts pale in comparison. That's the case in New York, I Love You where you'll find three really good short films, but the other seven or so fall flat (or, at the very best, are simply adequate) and bog the film down.

Let's start with the good:

• My favorite segment was by director Allen Hughes starring Bradley Cooper and Drea de Matteo as two lovers who are contemplating the ramifications of their one-night stand. The short jumps back and forth between the two actors as the story is told through a voiceover depicting their thoughts and flashbacks to their sensual night before.
• Another winner was a segment starring Ethan Hawke and Qi Shu, directed by Yvan Attel. Hawke spends five minutes trying to bed married gal Shu whom he meets smoking on an NYC sidewalk. Little does he know that she's able to one-up him in the end. Later in the film, there's a segment starring Robin Wright Penn and Chris Cooper that appears to be very much the same story with the woman, Wright Penn, taking over Hawke's role. As I was watching it, I couldn't help but notice the similarity and I wondered to myself, why would they allow two shorts in this film to have such a similar storyline? Little did I know that they were directed by the same guy.
• The only other segment that I really enjoyed was directed by Joshua Marston and stars Cloris Leachman and Eli Wallach as an elderly couple celebrating their anniversary by returning to a memorable NYC landmark for them. Quite funny and beautifully acted by the two folks.

Unfortunately, after that, everything starts to go downhill. The segment Natalie Portman directed about a young girl and her father was alright (and starred one of my first crushes, Jacinda Barrett -- "Real World"er turned actress), but it wasn't anything special. And the segment that Portman starred in about some odd relationship between a Yiddish woman and an Indian man was awful.

In fact, the first three segments of this movie (of which Portman's starring role occurred in the middle) were awful. Starting the movie with the reteaming of Jumper stars Hayden Christensen and Rachel Bilson was a huge mistake. Bilson's a beauty to look at, but she can't act and Christensen was horrendous. And short #3 about Orlando Bloom as a composer was not good, either.

I haven't even discussed the obnoxiously pretentious segment about remembering one's youth starring Julie Christie and Shia LaBouef. The way it was filmed, it felt like I was watching some really expensive perfume commercial. Ugh.

The acting was all over the place -- some good performances (both Coopers, Hawke, Leachman, and Wallach) and some awful ones (Christensen, Bilson, Andy Garcia, Anton Yelchin) -- as was the direction.

Despite the fact that there were some good segments here, it just didn't work for me. And it certainly didn't seem to showcase New York City to me at all. In fact, the city came off as kind of drab.

The RyMickey Rating: D+

Movie Review - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - The IMAX Experience (2009)

Starring Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, and John Turturro

Written by Morons

Directed by An Even Bigger Moron

My major complaint with the first Transformers movie was that the action scenes were so poorly directed that I couldn't understand what was going on. So, dumb that I am, I subjected myself to seeing the sequel on a giant IMAX screen where I couldn't even take in everything that was going on.

Then again, there wasn't much to take in story-wise. The large screen didn't prevent me from realizing that Michael Bay can't direct at all...Weird transitions, horribly shot action scenes, no sense of comedic timing, and a complete fetishistic way of filming women onscreen (If Megan Fox wasn't seen wearing next to nothing, she was seen running with her mouth wide open or pursing her lips).

Jumping off of that Megan Fox thing, the actors here are completely unnecessary. They add nothing to the plot. There's a Latino guy that's a main character in this movie that literally does nothing. He doesn't help anybody at any time, he doesn't hinder anybody at any time...he's seemingly there because the producers polled people after the first movie and the Latino crowd felt left out. That's the only logical explanation. Even Sam Witwicky (the main character) wouldn't really be necessary in this movie.

There's really nothing to say here except that I hated it...immensely. I don't really feel like writing anymore about it. Why do people think this is good? X-Men: Wolverine was like Shakespeare compared to this.

The RyMickey Rating: F

DVD Round-Up

A quick round-up of movies available on dvd that I've watched in the past few weeks. I won't do full reviews for these (unless I really, really like them, at which point it'll be in a separate post) -- just trying to convey whether they're worth a rental or not. Here they are, in order from best to worst.

Ghost Town (2008)

A charming comedy. It felt very old-school to me, like it could've been made in the 40s or 50s. Ricky Gervais is a man who dies for six minutes during a colonoscopy and when he awakes, he can see dead people. Greg Kinnear co-stars as one of the ghosts and Téa Leoni is a possible love interest. The flick also features a hilarious "cameo" from Kristin Wiig, one of Saturday Night Live's only bright spots nowadays. What I liked about this one was that it didn't utilize all the same-old, typical romantic comedy clichés. Even the ending was pleasantly different than what one expects from the genre.

The RyMickey Rating: B

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Traitor (2008)

A nice little thriller starring Don Cheadle as a man who is either working for the FBI undercover or working for a Muslim terrorist organization. Action sequences in this one were subdued, but still very tense. My problem with this one is only that it seemed very preachy about trying to get across the point that "not all Muslims are terrorists." I feel like they even said those exact words once. While entirely true, I don't need that pounded into my brain multiple times during a movie's 110 minute running time. Still, worth a rental for sure.

The RyMickey Rating: B

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Eagle Eye (2008)

What started out as a great little thriller royally blew it in the final act. Shia LaBeouf stars as a man on the run from some unknown entity that has seemingly framed him for some crime he didn't commit (very North by Northwest, for you Hitchcock fans). The lovely (but rather empty and vacant) Michelle Monaghan is Shia's co-star who is in the same boat as him. Like I said, the final act was a bust...incredibly disappointing and preposterous, ruining any type of recommendation for a rental here.

The RyMickey Rating: C-

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Mamma Mia (2008)

Seriously, the worst movie of 2008 that I saw. Awful, awful stuff. It's not easy to direct a musical, but even I know that you can't be jumping up and down and dancing in slow-motion while singing at a normal pace. The ABBA songs were just thrown in willy-nilly and the singing, for the most part, was adequate at best. The sets looked awful and the story was really just disgusting. "Hey, my mom was a slut when she was younger and I don't know who my dad is! Yippee! Let me get married and invite the three possible dads to the wedding, thus allowing my mom to reminisce with her two equally slutty girlfriends about their slutty escapades in their slutty youth!" Really, just vomit-inducing. The only saving grace was relative newcomer Amanda Seyfried (as the daughter) who tried her very best to rise above all the dreck. But even she can't save this one from the rating I'm about to give it.

The RyMickey Rating: F