Movies I've Seen...
Ant-Man
Paul Rudd , Michael Douglas and Evangeline Lilly joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe with this foray into the backstory of Scott Lang, the titular “Ant-Man”.
Lang, a newly freed ex-con swears off the life of crime in order to gain the trust of his ex-wife (Judy Greer), her fiancé cop (Bobby Cannavale) and gain access to his daughter. Needing money to secure a future with his daughter, Scott is convinced to take on One Last Job by his best friend Luis (Michael Pena) and Luis’ friends Kurt (David Dastmalchian) and Dave (Tip “T.I” Harris).
This job brings him into the life of billionaire scientific engineer Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). Seeing traces of himself in Lang,
Pym recruits Lang to don his creation, a suit that shrinks you down to the size of an ant-in order to squash the devilish plans of Pym’s former mentor Darren Cross (Corey Stoll continuing his dominance in playing jerkwads).
Why can’t he continue playing hot guys??
Lang, already proven himself to Hank must gain the trust of Pym’s daughter Hope (Evangeline Lily) who wants to take on the task herself.
There was a lot of concern from fans when writer/director Edgar Wright (“Shaun of the Dead”, “Hot Fuzz”) departed the project after working independently on it for nine years and one year with Marvel. But the film still seamlessly strikes the tone of Wright and co-writer Joe Cornish (“Attack the Block”, “The Adventures of TinTin”); a tone that writers Adam McKay (“Anchorman”), Paul Rudd and director Peyton Reed (“Yes Man”)
just add to with their own brand of norm-core awkward moments type of humor. The film, however, could’ve gained from Wright’s dazzling directing style that he displayed so fittingly and wonderfully in “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”.
For the film itself, I appreciate the smaller scale of “Ant-Man” compared to the ever-expanding characters in Marvel’s films (“Captain America: Civil War” should be renamed “Captain America: Clown Car due to the large cast of characters that will be in what simply should’ve been a Captain America sequel to Winter Soldier). It’s nice to have a film that isn’t weighted down by ten different arcs that only serve as a pitch for later films. There is that element in “Ant-Man”, but it’s not at the sacrifice of its own characters and story. A fun film after the lumbering “Avengers: Age of Ultron”. Paul Rudd is very Paul Rudd-ian.
Despite the ripped physique
Michael Douglas makes one remember why he was a very successful actor. He has some great chops even if it’s elaborating on CGI ants.
The Stanford Prison Experiment
I’ve been waiting for this film for a long time and it didn’t disappoint. A quasi docu-drama about the 1971 experiment that took place at Stanford by the university psychologist Philip Zimbardo in which he and his team recruited 18 students to participate in an immersive 24-hour a day, two-week experiment that initially only served to see what would happen in the simulation, but eventually spotlighted how easily power corrupts.
Philip Zimbardo (Billy Crudup) and his team (Gaius Charles, Matt Bennett, James Wolk, “Zoo”)
recruit 18 young men of similar backgrounds designating some as prisoners and others as guards in his makeshift prison created in the hallway of the dormitory.
With the assistance of Zimbardo’s prison expert Jesse Fletcher (Nelsan Ellis, “True Blood”) Zimbardo’s team watch has the prison dynamics unfold. The “prisoners” are there strictly for the $18 a day pay, but when the “guards” realize that the prisoners have to submit to their authority they quickly abuse that authority.
The battle for dominance grows as the defacto prisoner leader Daniel (Ezra Miller) tries to convince his cellmates to stand up against the guards. This only serves to anger guards Chris (Michael Angarano) who gains the nickname John Wayne for his swaggering, tough dog ways and Karl (Nicholas Braun) who feels emboldened by Chris’ ways.
As the experiment devolves, Zimbardo’s team, including his girlfriend Christina (Oliva Thirlby) being to question if they should pull the plug as they witness the brutality of the guards, and Zimbardo’s own unrelenting pursuit to see the experiment through.
Ezra Miller is always fascinating to watch, but does venture into scenery chewing territory but it is Michael Angarano who is a steady presence in this film. Very far and away from his “The Knick” character Birdie, as Chris he’s a gleefully, menacing force, a demeanor I saw in that idiotic officer who tackled the teenager in the McKinney pool incident video. Twirling a baton and mimicking the behavior he’s seen in films, he metes out such casual indignity that’s is more psychological that physical.
Michael and Ezra
Ezra better be glad he’s not in prison. They’d never let him paint his toenails in there
My lovable, befuddled Flash to be
As the film goes on we get to see how the experience affects the prisoners, and although Miller is definitely the star of the film, Jack Kilmer (son of Joanne Whalley and Val) and Chris Sheffield give effective and quiet performances as easy going prisoners whose easy acceptance of the their treatment is as shocking and sad as the treatment they’re actually getting.
(forefront), Jack Kilmer, Ezra Miller, Tye Sheridan and Moises Arias
Billy Crudup, Ezra Miller, director Kyle Patrick Alvarez and Michael Angarano
With Olivia Thirlby and Johnny Simmons
The writer says in his script the film ended on a comedic note and I’m so glad that the director went another way. By ending on a joke the film then throws away all the introspection that should go into the film. When the credits rolled someone near me told their friend, “I wonder how I would act in this situation” and to me it’s curious that people must ask that question. I know you’re never supposed to say never, but I’m not afraid to say I would never degrade anyone if I had authoritative power.
The writer, Ezra Miller, a few people say, “We never know how you would be in any given situation” and I think that’s a cop-out. The situation shouldn’t influence you. I’m not a Pollyanna who thinks that cops shouldn’t use force in dangerous situations, but I don’t believe in excessive force or verbal degradation considering the power imbalance and those occurrences, where officers exert force at the drop of the hat is more commonplace.
My only complaint is not even one about the film, it’s the fact that there are 18 great young actors in this film (Johnny Simmons (“Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”), Thomas Mann (Me, Earl and the Dying Girl), Tye Sheridan (X-Men: Apocalypse, Mud), Ki Hong Lee (“The Maze Runner”),Kier Gilchrist (“It Follows”, “United States of Tara”)
-- all male, all who, although aren’t big names, have been acting for years and have been able to become character actors. Where are the female actors who will be given that opportunity? Female actors don’t have that same chance because they’re always hired as the object of affection and nothing more. I wish there will be a movie soon where 18 female actors can come together, hell I’ll even take six, who can come together and just be full rounded characters and not the girlfriend/dream girl.
I mean, look at Moises Arias who plays one of the guards. Face for radio and he can be on TV and in films
Moises with friend Willow Smith
I attended a Q&A with writer Tim Talbott.
Bits and Bobs
*He came to the project 10 years ago when it was with Maverick Studios, Madonna’s production company. They wanted Christopher McQuarrie to write it but he was too expensive for them so he referred them to Tim as they are friends. The script given to Tim was one that was supposed to be project for Leonardo DiCaprio but the writers invented a plot line where it was centered on two friends and one became a guard and the other was a prisoner and they would fight over a girl they were both in love with on the outside. Tim pitched that they ditch the invented stuff and just deal with the reality since. He says the dialogue is 45 percent right from the transcripts/audio of the real experiment.
*He says he was on set a few times and one of the actors, in character, was saying the most vile things (and as a staff writer for “South Park”, he says that says a lot). Shocked, Tim turned to the director and asked him if he was concerned about the rating, but it turns out he just had him ad-lib to get the reaction shots from the prisoners. The look of shame and horror in that scene was a genuine reaction.
Despite that he says the set was a good one. He thought that putting 18 young men together would be chaos, but practically all the actors knew each other.
*He consulted with the real Philip Zimbardo as he worked on the script. Zimbardo’s only concern would be how his then-girlfriend, now wife would appear in the film as he says she was the humanizing force of the experiment. Zimbardo went on to write a book about the experiment and give talks about abuse of power. He spoke as a defendant for the soldiers on trial for the Abu Ghraib abuse explaining his philosophy of “no bad apples, just bad barrels”; that abuse is systemic and if you can tear down that structure that creates that environment, than people will act with more humanity.
Picture from Zimbardo’s actual experiment
Vacation
For that one person somewhere in Mesa, Arizona who wondered “What became of Rusty Griswold?”, here comes the very unnecessary return to the “Vacation” franchise with a script written and directed by actor John Francis Daley (Sweets, “Bones”) and his writing partner Jonathan Goldstein in their continued fatwa against comedy.
The directors, crew and their star
Realizing that is family hate their annual trip to a cabin, Rusty (Ed Helms, “The Hangover”) decides to recreate the family trip that he holds dear: a road trip to Walley World. Along the way, Rusty and his family: wife Debbie (Christina Applegate), sensitive artistic son James (Skyler Gisondo, “A Night at the Museum: “) and hellion Kevin (Steele Stebbins, “A Haunted House 2”) navigate the pitfalls of a cross country trip.
In typical fashion, to make itself “funnier” Daley and Goldstein trades in jokes for easy laughs with vulgarity, mostly by way of the foul-mouthed, pint-sized youngest son Kevin who bullying of James is the “joke” the film always leans on because I guess little kids swearing is hysterical to many. Helms doesn’t tread any new waters, his Rusty is much like his character in “The Hangover”, down-trodden, easily torpedoed. Applegate hasn’t had to contend with such lazy laughs since her series “Jessie”. Leslie Mann is miscast, underused and just unnecessary as Audrey, now married to a rich, TV meteorologist (Chris Hemsworth and his ridiculous torso. Oh my damn. His wife is so lucky to use his body as recreation.)
But there are laughs to be had, mostly by the actors providing cameos like Charlie Day (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and Michael Pena “Ant-Man”.
There’s a meta moment shown in commercials where Rusty argues that “this vacation stands on its own”, it does, but it’s standing on the shoulders of giants called “Vacation” and “European Vacation”.
The Old and the New
Surprisingly, the soundtrack is pretty great. It features the Sleigh Bells, Julian Casablancas,Mark Ronson ft. Mystical, Harry Nilsen, Seal and of course a few versions of Lindsay Buckingham’s “Holiday Road”.
It was the premiere.
And while I was very tepid on the film the audience ate it up. It played incredibly well in the room and while I personally hated the character of the youngest son he and a particular Chris Hemsworth film got the best reactions.
Almost as soon as I entered the theater I saw Alan Thicke and Cedric Yarborough (Reno 911). After the movie I saw Samm Levine, John Francis Daley’s “Freaks and Geeks” costar (he also had a cameo in the film that was cut out), John Francis Daley
Hiya, Sweets
And Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo!
With his lovely wife who he pulled into the picture and she demurred before we convinced her to get in it
The Hemsworth Bros were the bane and salvation to security. The bane because ugmo Liam was standing at the concession stand holding court so it was a mob scene as people filled the landing leading to the second floor and around the bathroom to see him. Then Chris and their even plain-er brother came out of the mens’ room so everyone began following them like they were the sliding scale of attractiveness Pied Pipers out of the theater and that cleared space considerably.
Southpaw
Jake Gyllenhaal has been doing this dance as of late where he takes his lemur faced self and transforms into a tattooed, haunted detective (“Prisoners”), a wild-eyed, stringy haired video-journalist wallowing in the seedy underbelly of L.A (“Nightcrawler”) and now “Southpaw”, as a tattooed, haunted, shorn-haired lemur faced boxer fighting for his daughter.
In training
Taking cues from “The Champ”, is “Southpaw”. Written by Kurt Sutter (“Sons of Anarchy”) and directed by Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day”, “King Arthur”), “Southpaw” is an almost meditative about finding strength and solidarity in your darkest moments. To me it’s a film that every athlete and musician needs to see as it serves as a cautionary tale about how fame is fleeting and how it’s necessary to surround yourself with people who have your best interests at heart
Gyllenhaal stars as Billy Hope a boxing champ who lives in the lap of luxury and rolls in the excess that comes with being a champion. What keeps him grounded is his wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) and their daughter Leila (Oona Laurence). Seeing how it’s taking Billy longer and longer to rebound from fights Maureen begs him to quit despite the desires of his manager Jordan (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) who wants Billy to continue as his cash cow.
But there’s someone coming for Billy’s crown, Miguel Escobar (Miguel Gomez, “The Strain”).
Each time he showed up on screen I made sounds like I was being punched. OWW, DAMN!
When the two have a showdown outside of the ring, it leads to Maureen being killed. Her death leaves Billy down for the count. With no other family between them, and the realization that he is broke Billy spirals out of control and his daughter is taken into Child Protective Services.
To get her back, Billy takes a job working for inner-city trainer Titus (Forrest Whitaker), the trainer of the only boxer who has ever beaten Billy. With his daughter’s custody at stake, Billy works to rebuild his life and keep from sliding back to those who abandoned him in his darkest hour.
Originally written for Eminem as a somewhat sequel to “8 Mile” (he provides the song “Kings Never Die” for the soundtrack), “Southpaw” really only works because of the acting.
Gyllenhaal, Eminem, 50 Cent, Miguel Gomez, Oona Laurence, Rachel McAdams and Naomie Harris
There is no performer in this film that doesn’t give less than 110%. Where it suffers is from Kurt Sutter’s writing. He is tapping into the tone and tenure of athletes and especially athletes of a certain socio-economic echelon, but it’s very uninspired and hackneyed. Also there seems to be much missing. When Billy’s redemption comes (and that’s no spoiler, we all know he’s going to come out on top), it’s very lackluster because it feels rushed. This is a rare film that needs to be longer. I don’t know what they could have cut out since this film is as lean as Gyllenhaal’s body, but it just
Gyllenhaal slips into this role as easily as Billy. With a chip on his shoulder as big as Madison Square Garden he’s animalistic and full of swagger one moment, open-hearted and vulnerable the next.
It’s a shame that Weinstein Company has seemingly lost faith in this film. If they waged an Oscar campaign for it, hopefully the Academy will give it to Gyllenhaal as recognition for missing out on him in “Nightcrawler”.
Self/Less
The more Ryan Reynolds films I see the more and more I believe that the only good movie Ryan Reynolds has been involved in was “Smoking Aces”.
Could the studio have done more to promote “Self/Less”? Sure. Would it have made a difference? No, because people can catch the whiff of a bad Ryan Reynolds film a mile away. It’s taken “Pixels” for America to finally catch Adam Sandler’s odor.
“Self/Less” isn’t a terrible film, but Ryan Reynolds does it a disservice by not fully committing to it and instead comes off with all the onscreen presence of watered down oatmeal. It’s a shame, really, because you could see he was a star in the making on ABC’s “Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place”.
We’ve seen the plot in both “The Twilight Zone” and “Tales from the Crypt” and executed better in both places,
in this turn “Self/Less” stars Sir Ben Kingsley as dying billionaire Damian Hayes who decides not to go quietly into the good night and instead utilize the services of scientist Professor Albright (Matthew “Damn Goode-Looking” Goode)
who transfers people’s consciousness into an artificially created body. Damian undergoes the procedure, sheds his old life and leaves town to becomes Edward Hale (Ryan Reynolds). Soon Damian begins to see flashes of another life, which leads him to find out the truth about the body he’s inhabiting.
Kingsley was fantastic. Great characterization and role and the damning thing of the movie is that Reynolds didn’t continue in Kingsley’s vein. It made no sense that his consciousness was transferred yet Reynold’s as Hale did not carry Hayes personality or even Yonkers dialect with him. Such a wasted opportunity for him to wholly embrace a character, not to speak of a real lack of continuity.
That aside, it’s a perfectly serviceable sci-fi/fantasy film that has enough action to not make it a complete bore, it’s just that everyone could’ve been so much better from Reynolds to director Tarsem Singh who is usually a visionary (“The Cell”, “Mirror/Mirror”).
The film also stars Victor Garber as Damian’s best friend,
Michelle Dockery as Damian’s estranged daughter, Derek Luke as the man Edward befriends in his new life and Natalie Martinez as Maddie, a woman who is in Edward’s flashes.
Tarsem Singh, Natalie Martinez and Ryan Reynolds
Mr. Holmes
Based on the book A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin, “Mr. Holmes” is a unambitious, yet quaint bit of time filler. Sir Ian McKellan stars as the aged Sherlock Holmes who now senile and at the end of his life is attempting to write a story about his final case---a case that sent him into retirement. But with senility taken over and book and film that was adapted from John Watson’s take on the case, Holmes can’t separate fact from fiction or to recall most details.
Helping Holmes in this endeavor is Roger (Milo Parker), the son of his housekeeper Ms. Munroe (Laura Linney)
and whose boundless fascination of Holmes causes unease in his mother.
The film weaves between the past and the present, from London to Japan
as Holmes traces his steps and faces the regret he harbors about on how he alienated those who cared about him.
McKellen does an incredible job at modulating his performances as 90-plus year old Holmes versus the slightly younger 70-ish Holmes. With the makeup and his tentative movements you truly believe that Sir Ian is on his last legs.
Milo Parker is kid with a great acting career ahead of him. He gives a performance equal to his costars and isn’t hammy and inauthentic as most child actors. I mean he must have a great career before him because he’s a boy version of Ruth Wilson!
You know it’s true, Milo
You also look like l’il Thomas Brodie-Sangster
McKellan, Hiroyuki Sanada, director Bill Condon, Laura Linney and Milo Parker
There is a nice little wink in the film. Holmes watches a movie based on one of Watson’s books and the actor playing in-movie Holmes is Nicholas Rowe who starred as Sherlock Holmes in the 1985 film “Young Sherlock Holmes”.
Then
Displays at various movie theaters I’ve been to
*The Minions attacked the Dome
Charlie Brown and Snoopy had a laugh at The Grove
The Man from U.N.C.L.E stylishly adorned The Grove
The Thing crashed the Arclight
Small Ant-Man made a huge leap at the Arclight
