Nightmare Alley

 Nightmare Alley (2021)

Starring Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenbergen, David Strathairn, and Rooney Mara

Directed by Guillermo del Toro

Written by Guillermo del Toro and Kim Morgan

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: D

Hearts Beat Loud

 Hearts Beat Loud (2018)

Starring Nick Offerman, Kiersey Clemons, Ted Danson, Sasha Lane, Blythe Danner, and Toni Collette

Directed by Brett Haley

Written by Brett Haley and Mark Basch

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

Velvet Buzzsaw

Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Toni Collette, Zawe Ashton, Tom Sturridge, Natalia Dyer, Daveed Diggs, Billy Magnussen, and John Malkovich

Directed by Dan Gilroy

Written by Dan Gilroy

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: B-

Knives Out

Knives Out (2019)

Starring Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas, Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Lakeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell, and Christopher Plummer

Directed by Rian Johnson

Written by Rian Johnson

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Hereditary

Hereditary (2018)

Starring Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, and Gabriel Byrne
Directed by Ari Aster
Written by Ari Aster
***This film is currently streaming via Amazon Prime***

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Glassland

Glassland (2016)

Starring Toni Collette, Jack Reynor, and Will Poulter

Directed by Gerard Barrett

Two great performances...one boring movie.  That about sums of Glassland -- so much potential and yet disappointingly disengaging.  Writer-director Gerard Barrett has crafted a fantastically emotionally fraught thirty minutes...and then not much else after that.  However, what's good is really good and shows that Barrett has an eye for grippingly emotional heartache.

Jack Reynor is John, a Dublin taxi driver, whose mother Jean (Toni Collette) is drinking herself to her demise.  Living with his mother is a job in and of itself with John having to attempt to watch after her whenever he's not out in his cab.  Finally, after one particularly rough night when he finds his mother unconscious with vomit strewn across her bed, he decides that he has to try and help her kick her addiction, forcing her into a rehab facility.

Reynor is a newcomer to me and shows strength as the beleaguered Jack, creating emotional heft in his grim desperation.  His love for his mother shines amidst his dreary surroundings, but it doesn't come without heartbreak.  As good as Reynor is, Toni Collette is even better, embodying the harrowing downfall of an alcoholic with such painful earnestness that it was sometimes uncomfortable to see her unravel in front of our eyes.

The duo's interactions with one another made me wish that Glassland was a better film, but unfortunately there's not much story here.  Side plots about Jack's friend Shane (Will Poulter) attempting to reconnect with his young son and a human trafficking ring into which Jack is pulled are throwaway stories used only to pad the film's runtime which is already a short ninety minutes.  In the end, Glassland is a bit of a misfire, albeit one with some wonderful and humanistic portrayals.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Krampus

Krampus (2015)

Starring Adam Scott, Toni Collette, Emjay Anthony, David Koechner, Allison Tolman, Conchata Ferrell, Stefania LaVie Owen, and Krista Stadler

Directed by Michael Dougherty

The Christmas horror comedy Krampus has its moments of cleverness, but the flick never quite comes together in a way that cohesively meshes.  When young Max (Emjay Anthony) is taunted by his relatives over his Christmas list for Santa, the boy tears up his note and sends it off into the cold winter wind.  Little did he realize that this lack of belief causes the hideous Christmas demon Krampus to come to town and wreak havoc on Max's family.

With such a simple story, the film needs a little extra pizzazz to really lift it above the average and that never happens.  Told in a very Gremlins-esque manner -- meaning the horror is never played for blood and gore, rather for slight chills that are certainly appropriate for any twelve to fourteen year-old -- there are certain scenes involving Krampus's minions which include nasty gingerbread men, fang-bearing stuffed animals, a demonic tree-topping angel, and a snake-like jack-in-the-box that liven up the proceedings, but whenever they're not onscreen, the story feels limp.  Adam Scott and Toni Collette hold the proceedings together trying to make the most of the disappointing screenplay, but they're not really matched by the rest of the ensemble who, while decent, feel like they're part of a campier movie.  (That inherently begs the question as to whether Scott and Collette should've been campier as well since Krampus certainly qualifies as being campy.)

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - The Boxtrolls

The Boxtrolls (2014)

Featuring the vocal talents of Ben Kingsley, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Elle Fanning, Dee Bradley Baker, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, Tracy Morgan, Jared Harris, Toni Collette, and Simon Pegg

Directed by Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi

The one thing The Boxtrolls has going for it is that the stop-motion animation from Laika Studios (who brought us Coraline and Paranorman) is stunning.  Not only are the characters they create richly detailed and incredibly fluid in their motion (a little too fluid thanks to some computer animation techniques), but their production design from the costumes to the sets is astonishingly rich and creative.  (And, to the studio's credit, they've improved in these hands-on areas with each subsequent film they've released.)  Unfortunately, something with the story of The Boxtrolls doesn't measure up to what the animators and designers bring to the table.

Many years ago, a young boy was taken away by some underground creatures who come to the surface at night to collect trash which they turn into treasures in their dwelling.  Believed to be kidnapped, the community of Cheesebridge has since felt that these creatures whom they've named the Boxtrolls (because they wear disposed boxes as their clothing) are to be captured and killed for what they did.  The town puts their trust in Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley), a slimy sleazeball of a guy who seems to be ridding Cheesebridge of the Boxtrolls, but really has a much more nefarious scheme in mind.

The Boxtrolls themselves aren't the least bit evil despite what the townsfolk may think.  Eggs (Isaac Hempstead Wright), the young boy they "took" nearly a decade ago, has grown up with the creatures as his good friends and family.  One evening when he ventures up to the surface for the first time, he comes across Winnie (Elle Fanning) -- his first encounter with a "human" -- who after years of being told by her father (Jared Harris) that the Boxtrolls are nasty, discovers that the creatures may be friendlier than anyone could have ever imagined.  Together, Eggs and Winnie attempt to change the town's mindset towards the Boxtrolls and take down Archibald Snatcher in the process.

There's a promising story here, but the flow of things doesn't quite click perhaps because there's too much fighting for attention.  While the Boxtrolls are cute and oddly cuddly, the relationship between Eggs and Winnie leads to quite a bit of humor, and Archibald is amusingly evil (in small doses), I can't help but think some story editing would've helped things out.  Rather than move along swiftly, more often than not the film feels like it's meandering without any real direction and its conclusion feels oddly unsatisfying.

Still, despite it's somewhat major problems, I always found myself glued to the screen because of the aforementioned stellar visuals.  Laika always brings a sense of quirkiness to all of their films and I sometimes think that strive for uniqueness feels as if they're trying a bit too hard.  They've got what it takes to make a great film (see Paranorman as an example), but they just need to spend a little more time in the story department.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - Tammy

Tammy (2014)

Starring Melissa McCarthy, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, Allison Janney, Dan Aykroyd, Mark Duplass, Gary Cole, Nat Faxon, Toni Collette, Sandra Oh, and Ben Falcone

Directed by Ben Falcone

What an unfunny mess Tammy is.  Melissa McCarthy stars as the title character, a foul-mouthed, bellowing, and brash woman who comes home after being fired from her job at a fast food joint only to find her husband (Nat Faxon) canoodling with the next door neighbor (Toni Collette).  Obviously upset, Tammy leaves and heads two doors down to her mom's house where she demands to take her mom's car and drive far away.  While her mother (Allison Janney) understands her pain, she dismisses Tammy's dreams of starting anew, but her grandmother Pearl (Susan Sarandon) also wants to get out of Dodge and agrees to let Tammy take her car as long as she can tag along.  Tammy agrees and the two set out on a cross-country journey of discovery.

I think I mention this in every review of her films, but my introduction to Melissa McCarthy occurred when I watched the first few seasons of Gilmore Girls on tv.  I'm rewatching the show via Netflix and it makes me appreciate the sweet and charming persona that McCarthy can inhabit should she so choose.  So why does she choose motion picture vehicles in which she plays completely reprehensible, vile, vulgar, unappealing characters?  If she's trying to recapture the Bridesmaids magic that earned her a deserved Academy Award nomination, she's failing miserably.  There's nothing about the character of Tammy that makes you want to watch her.  She's slovenly sloppy, obnoxiously dimwitted, and ignorant to nearly everyone that crosses her path.  Spending ninety minutes with this woman is eighty-nine minutes too much.

McCarthy needs to seriously take a look at her choices and shake things up a bit.  She attempted that with an admirable turn in 2014's St. Vincent, but Tammy is an utter failure.  Written by McCarthy and her husband Ben Falcone, Tammy is one to avoid at all costs.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-

Movie Review - A Long Way Down

A Long Way Down (2014)

Starring Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Aaron Paul, Imogen Poots, Rosamund Pike, Tuppence Middleton, and Sam Neill

Directed by Pascal Chaumeil

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

Lacking any type of balance, A Long Way Down is a drama/comedy mash-up that's a big ole mess.  Four strangers meet each other on the roof of a high rise building in London on New Years' Eve.  All had the intention of jumping to their deaths because of how horrible their lives were, but none of them go through with it, instead making a pact with one another to keep themselves alive until Valentine's Day at which point they can reassess their standing in life.

This odd premise doesn't crystallize into a proper story at any point in time throughout director Pascal Chaumeil's film.  There are attempts by Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Aaron Paul, and Imogen Poots to round out their characters into more fully realized souls, but they aren't given much with which to work.  Collette fares the best as the struggling mother of a twentysomething son with cerebral palsy, but her counterparts aren't so lucky.  Brosnan as a slimy news reporter, Paul as an introverted musician, and Poots as a politician's rambunctious daughter are all simply caricatures.  Granted, Collette's character's struggle is nothing more than a stereotype as well, but her character's intentions post-suicide attempt are the most believable which is much more than I can say for the rest of the film's depressed quartet.

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Movie Review - The Way Way Back

The Way Way Back (2013)

Starring Liam James, Sam Rockwell, Toni Collette, Steve Carell, AnnaSophia Robb, Allison Janney, Maya Rudolph, Rob Corddry, Amanda Peet, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash

Directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash

Fourteen year-old Duncan (Liam James) isn't too happy to be spending his summer at the New York state beach house of his mom's boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell).  First off, Trent's a bit of a dick who says and does whatever he can to try and motivate the sullen and mopey Duncan to better himself.  Second, Duncan would rather just spend time with his dad than with his mom Pam (Toni Collette).  Nevertheless, his summer plans are set and he's forced to pal around with Trent's buddies Kip and Joan (Rob Corddry and Amanda Peet) and Trent's next door neighbor Betty (Allison Janney), all of whom look to alcohol and pot as a means to relive their youth on a seemingly daily basis.  Betty, however, has a daughter named Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb) who just so happens to be Duncan's age, but the shy Duncan can't seem to fathom why any girl would care to communicate with him.

So, with his summer home life a wreck, Duncan bikes around the beach town and comes across the Water Wizz water park which he sneaks into one day before being caught by the park's owner Owen (Sam Rockwell).  Owen recognizes that Duncan seems to be a bit down on his luck and offers him a job at the water park which ends up being a life-changing, personality-enhancing experience for the teen.

The Way Way Back is a movie that, in retrospect, seems a little unrealistic in terms of its characters.  Everyone's a little too quirky or a little too humorous to be rooted in reality.  However, writer-directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (in their directing debuts) balance the oddness of comedic characters like Owen and Betty with the genuineness of Duncan, Trent, and Pam, creating a film that had me laughing when I was supposed to be laughing and feeling sympathy when I was supposed to be feeling sympathy.  That may seem like it should be a given, but weighing both sides of that coin isn't always an  easy task for directors -- especially first-timers.

Admittedly, the directors get better performances from their actors that fall onto the comedic side of the tale, especially a scene-stealing one from Allison Janney who had me laughing at (I think) every single line she delivered as Betty, the kooky neighbor who rarely is seen without a drink in her hand.  Sam Rockwell is also slick, smooth, and sarcastically dry humored as Owen, a character who ends up bridging both the comedic and dramatic sides of the story quite well.  This isn't to say that Liam James, Steve Carell, and Toni Collette disappoint in any way, but the film's funnier moments worked a bit better than its dramatic ones.

Overall, The Way Way Back isn't revolutionary or particularly inventive, but it's a rather sweet, funny coming-of-age tale that's enjoyable for the whole family to watch together.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Enough Said

Enough Said (2013)

Starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, James Gandolfini, Catherine Keener, Toni Collette, Ben Falcone, Tracey Faraway, and Tavi Gevinson

Directed by Nicole Holofcener

Movies like Enough Said don't get made nearly enough nowadays.  I mean, honestly, when's the last time you've seen a romantic comedy focusing on normal folks in their late forties/early fifties falling in love?  It doesn't happen and maybe it should.  Writer-director Nicole Holofcener gives us two characters who are wholly relatable with whom, after a short ninety minutes, we long to spend more time.  What more can you ask for from a movie like this?  The characters make or break a movie like this and in Enough Said I wanted to continue alongside their charming journey to see where it will take them.

Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a masseuse who enjoys her job and loves her teenage daughter Ellen (Tracey Faraway), but finds herself missing that special someone after her divorce a few years prior.  Still, she's come to terms with the fact that love probably isn't in the cards for her.  When she accompanies her good friends (Toni Collette and Ben Falcone) to a party, she meets Albert (James Gandolfini), but doesn't find him attractive in the slightest, even telling him that to his face.  However, she decides to agree to a first date with Albert simply because she hasn't been on a date in quite some time.  While things don't go swimmingly between Albert and Eva, there's something there...that little indescribable spark.  They have much in common and, with both their daughters heading off to college in a few short months, they're in need of some companionship.

One of the biggest reasons Enough Said succeeds is because there's an awkwardness between Eva and Albert that Holofcener isn't afraid to dwell upon.  Things aren't precociously perfect or devastatingly awful between the couple as we often get in movies and choosing the middle ground and not one of the two extremes is a nice change of pace.  Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and the late James Gandolfini are huge keys to the film's success, utterly charming whether they're alone or together onscreen.  Gandolfini is the complete opposite of Tony Soprano here, abandoning any sense of that "tough guy" persona for which he's so well known and fully embodying the softy that is Albert.  Louis-Dreyfruss, heretofore known for her somewhat abrasively comedic roles on tv, takes on her first leading film role and has no problem whatsoever getting the audience to embrace her.  She's not a perfect mom and doesn't claim to be, but that makes her character all the more relatable.  Louis-Dreyfuss carries the movie without a problem and I'd love to see this down-home persona in more movies down the line.

There are moments in Enough Said that feel a little bit sitcommy -- particularly in scenes involving Eva's client Marianne (Catherine Keener) who just so happens to be Albert's ex-wife unbeknown to Eva who constantly has to hear Marianne spout off everything that was wrong with her former spouse -- but they're still funny and work overall in the grand scheme of things.  Kudos to director and writer Nicole Holofcener (who also directed Please Give which I enjoyed a few years ago) who has crafted a movie that both you and your parents and your grandparents can enjoy without being too cutesy for you or too raunchy for your grandma.

Lovely.  Charming.  Go see it.  Enough said.

The RyMickey Rating:  A-

Movie Review - Hitchcock

Hitchcock (2012)

Starring Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Danny Huston, Toni Collette, Michael Stuhlbarg, Michael Wincott, Jessica Biel, and James D'Arcy 

Directed by Sacha Gervasi

On the outset, it appeared that Hitchcock was a movie made for a guy like me.  Psycho, plain and simple, is the best movie ever made and director Sacha Gervasi has crafted a movie detailing the making of that film.  Sign me up for this one!  Oh, wait.  It's really just a movie about Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) doubting his wife Alma's (Helen Mirren) love for him?  And it's a movie about Alma questioning Hitch's affections for her?  So it's a romance?  Well, then...maybe I'm just better off reading the book this film is based on that's been sitting on the Kindle for nearly a year now.

Despite some good performances from Hopkins and Mirren and a nice supporting turn from Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, Hitchcock plays like a cutesy almost-Hallmark-esque glimpse at The Master of Suspense.  It took a lot for Hitch to get Psycho made, but this movie feels like it shoves the "movie-making" aspect of the story to the side in favor of the "psychology" of Hitchcock and how his fascination with blondes (including his favorite Grace Kelly) gradually led to a schism in his marriage.  In order to get into his mind, the screenwriters and directors decide to have their Hitch imagine that he's viewing the inspiration for Norman Bates -- Ed Gein (played by Michael Wincott) -- as the criminal performs his murderous acts.  As Hitch talks with Ed, the famous director's inner thoughts are brought to the forefront.  To me, it felt gimmicky and it didn't work in the slightest.

Hitchcock isn't awful by any means.  It's got touches of humor (which were always prevalent in Hitch's films themselves) and there are some nice macabre moments that would make Alfred proud.  However, anytime the film shifts towards the romance between the director and his wife, I wanted it to get back to the movie set.  And that's not to say that Hopkins and Mirren are doing anything wrong.  In fact, as is always the case with the two actors (especially Mirren as of late), they find ways to elevate the rather mundane work that is placed in front of them.  I simply just didn't really care about their characters' marital troubles.  The set of Psycho was where the real interesting stuff was taking place...and this film just doesn't linger in those moments long enough for this Hitchcock buff to find a need for this movie to have been made.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Fright Night

Fright Night (2011)

Starring Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, Toni Collette, Imogen Poots, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse

Directed by Craig Gillespie

Fright Night (a remake of a 1985 vampire film I've never seen) starts off much too self-referential and "hip" for its own good.  Eventually, the film takes a very positive turn down an exciting and genuinely tense road, but even then it has a few pacing problems here and there.  Still, in the end, it's a decent horror movie that's certainly better than a lot of stuff out there.

Perhaps the biggest problem with Fright Night is that the opening forty-five minutes feels like a rehash of a variety of other vampire flicks that have come before it.  Adding to that sense of tedium is a horrible turn from Christopher Mintz-Plasse as an obnoxious vampire-obsessed geek who makes the flick almost unbearable to watch.  Fortunately, his character falls to the wayside for a bit allowing the main story -- concerning a teen named Charley (Anton Yelchin) who believes his next door neighbor Jerry (Colin Farrell) is a vampire -- to come to the forefront.

Once the film sidelines the pop culture-y references and focuses squarely on Charley, his mom (Toni Collette), his girlfriend (Imogen Poots), and his growing obsession over Jerry's apparent vampiric tendencies, the flick kicks into high gear.  There are several pulse-pounding scenes and I found the ending to be rather clever and somewhat fresh in the overarching subgenre of vampire flicks (of course, I'm not an expert in the genre, so maybe it's just a rehashing of something else that I haven't seen yet).

With the exception of Superbad's Christopher Mintz-Plasse whom casting agents can feel free to never hire again, Fright Night contains acting that's well above what is usually expected in a genre pic such as this.  Granted, their characters aren't given a whole lot to do, but everyone gives it their all despite the limitations of such a flick.

There are certainly problems to be had with Fright Night -- it was nearly so awful in the first twenty minutes that I was going to stop watching it -- but it definitely ends up being a flick that's worth watching if it ends up popping up on Netflix Instant or one of your pay cable stations.

The RyMickey Rating:  C