Movies I've Seen...
Deepwater Horizon
I’ve not seen “Sully” yet but I’ve read that the film portrays the FAA as the “bad guys” due to their inquiry on whether or not Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger’s heroic act was in response to his own piloting error. I wish the script for “Deepwater Horizon”(penned by Michael Carnahan (“The Kingdom” and Matthew Sand (“Ninja Assassin)-based on an article about the event) took the same tack of strongly portraying BP as the villains instead of the simpering, merely looking a bit chastised men who miscalculated and not willfully and glibly fostered a lack of oversight as they kept their eyes on their bottom line.
The film takes on the fateful day of one the (if not the largest) ecological disasters in the US. Engineer Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg) and the one hundred and twenty-plus crew of the Deepwater Horizon including rig manager Jimmy “Mr. Jimmy” Harrell (Kurt Russell),
engineer Andrea Fleytas (Gina Rodriguez)
, floorhand Caleb Holloway (Dylan O’Brien)
,Senior toolpusher Jacob Anderson (Ethan Suplee) embark on their three-week shift of mining for oil. At their heels are BP representatives fronted by the outspoken company mouthpiece Donald Vidrine (John Malkovich at his finest)
who are on the vessel to watch over their shoulders and crack the whip at how behind schedule the crew is.
When a perfect storm created by broken equipment, lack of oversight and all around skirting of duties puts the crew of the Deepwater Horizon lives at jeopardy, the crew struggle to save themselves.
I think some people will go in thinking it’s an action film because it stars Marky Mark but, like “Lone Survivor”, it’s a film about everyday people who do extremely courageous things in the face of certain death. The film is like “Jaws” in a lot of way with a good hour and a half of foreboding as we’re privy to just how an event like this could happen; with the last half-hour focusing on the actions of the crew to stay alive as they could either face death by flames or by drowning.
I love Peter Berg, and he cares strongly about focusing on courageous people but I felt he should have wagged his finger harder, if not brought down the hammer on BP. The film tries to presents the facts: BP didn’t want to waste time with testing because it would cost them 125,000 dollars (this from a rig that pulled in MILLIONS for the company); they didn’t care to listen to the crew’s concern because they were overschedule with no allowance for the fact that mining for oil is a dodgy prospect as you can’t force the earth to give up its resources on a timeline. *The NY Times article the film is based on gives a full picture on everything that went into play for the disaster http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/us/26spill.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Everyone is commendable (with Kate Hudson relegated to playing worried wife). Seeing Kurt Russell with a fiery backdrop reminds me of “Backdraft” and ultimately it’s a good film and important film, but it doesn’t dig deep enough to hit home how greed cost the lives of the men on this vessel and how BP and another huge corporation can get away with creating widespread damage as a course of business.
Appropros of nothing: when Mark’s character first greets Dylan O’Brien’s character Mark calls him “Dylan”, not “Caleb”.
Actually that wasn’t appropros of nothing-it’s to segue into a production still from “American Assassin” which Dylan is starring along with Michael Douglas.
Fans suspected Dylan wouldn’t retain the role because after his on-set accident on “Maze Runner: The Death Cure”, O’Brien hadn’t been seen in public, leading to speculation that his injuries were worse than what was reported. Finally a fan posted a picture of O’Brien
He looks right as rain, albeit with a slightly wonky right eye
Looking good, Dyl.
Snowden
A solid film that is surprisingly not the typical heavy-handed Oliver Stone dirge.
“Snowden” starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the titular role focuses on what made Edward Snowden, child of government workers, failed Army reservist and military intelligence contractor turned whistleblower.
Using shifting timelines, the film picks up with Snowden already hiding out in Hong Kong (leaving behind his girlfriend Lindsay (Shailene Woodley)
and liaisoning with documentarian Laura Poitras (Melissa Leo) and journalist Glenn Greenwald (Zachary Quinto) and Guardian journalist Ewen MacAskill (Tom Wilkinson)
as he unfurls his tale of his brief time in the Army that led him to the intelligence field at the C.I.A where he meets cynical cryptologist professor Hank Forrester (Nicolas Cage) and studies under professor Corbin O’Brian (Rhys Ifans).
A proven genius at coding and research, Snowden’s path leads him to access to what the CIA surveillance really encompasses thanks to his meeting of analyst Gabriel Sol (Ben Schnetzer, “Pride”). When he realizes the full scope of what the government has access to and how they gained it, Snowden’s disillusionment turns to action.
People critique that Oliver Stone made a pro-Snowden film and it’s true. It definitely paints him as a patriotic sort who isn’t a nationalist-who believes in the greatness of this country so much that even though it would’ve given him brownie points he refuses to sign an anti-war petition at a rally Lindsay takes him to and even refuses to entertain anyone criticizing the country in front of him. Think of this film as a cinematic MoveOn.org petition that is trying to change the hearts and minds of the U.S politicians who want Snowden to rot in jail or even die due to him exposing their dirty secrets.
The Girl on the Train
Has all the aesthetic of the superior “Gone Girl” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” but lacks the substance and thrilling-nes.
Initially fixated on the block due to it being the neighborhood of her ex-husband Tom (Justin Theroux)
and his wife Anna (Rebecca Ferguson, “Florence Foster Jenkins”), Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt)
builds up a fantasy life for Tom’s neighbor, Megan Hipwell (Haley Bennett)
a woman Rachel only knows from watching her from the window of the train as it goes past Megan’s home. From her vantage point she catch glimpses of Megan’s life with her husband Scott (Luke Evans).
When Megan goes missing, Rachel inserts herself into the investigation drawing suspicion of her involvement from the detective (Allison Janney) working the case.
An unreliable narrator, Rachel and the audience have to figure what is the truth of Megan’s disappearance.
Blunt is sensational. That is a given. She acts with magnitude and she’s incredible whether opposite a scene partner or alone. But the other characters are one-note and too amorphous until the last act when there’s a flurry of new motivations that only serve to end the story. It just seems wildly slapshod. However I’m not mad at any movie that gives me Luke Evans’ butt so…
The film also stars sexass Edgar Ramirez and is co-produced by Steven Spielberg
Some of the cast at the London premiere
*Author Paula Hawkins, director Tate Taylor, Blunt, Ferguson, Evans and Bennett
I love Emily’s dress
Let this be an example to Bel Powley on what she should be aiming for
Speaking of Mr. Evans his fans have gone all Jessica Fletcher and put together that he and his ex-boyfriend model Jon Kortajarena have gotten back together.
Bye Mika
Yes, Miley Cyrus and the inferior Hemsworth aren’t the only two crazy kids making it a go again.
Their evidence?
Jon has left Spain and moved to East London…the same part of London a certain Welsh actor lives
*I’m not talking about Taron Egerton. He only lives in London when he’s working.
Their other clues that aren’t really clues just obvious signs
More like “The Perfectly Adequate Seven”. I was expecting a modern take on the western or maybe an injection of a lot of humor due to the casting of Chris Pratt by no, this is a straight forward western, though not gritty like “Unforgiven” .It’s more like “Young Guns” but not even as good as “Young Guns” (what can I say, I loved “Young Guns”).
When Emma Cullen’s (Haley Bennett, “The Equalizer”) husband is gunned down by the ruthless landgrabber Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard in all of his sweaty, twitchy glory),
she and fellow townsfolk Teddy (Luke Grimes, “Fifty Shades of Gray”)
Seek out help to stop Bogue in the form of bounty hunter Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington)
Knowing how deadly Bogue is, Sam recruits his own group of men to take him on: feckless gambler Josh Faraday (Chris Pratt), hermit/tracker Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio)
, an outlaw he was tracking Vasquez (Maauel Garcia-Rulfo, “From Dusk ‘Til Dawn: The Series”), a Native American warrior Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier, “Salem”) and legendary sharpshooter Goodnight Robicheaux and his buddy/ ringer Billy Rocks (Ethan Hawke and Byung-hun Lee)
Together the men must prepare the townsfolk for a fight to the possible death with Bogue for their town.
I’m a sucker for ensemble and for me the best moments when the 7 were interacting as a group, especially the scenes with Washington and Hawke. When they first great each other onscreen its evident that the pair have a long history together and in the quiet moments away from the group, the men walls come down.
It’s been a long time since “Training Day”, let me tell you
Though I loved seeing Denzel being a badass this time on horseback and I REALLY loved looking Martin Sensmeier
My favorite actor/character in the film is Hawke’s Robicheaux whose confidence has been undermined by the trauma he has seen as a Confederate soldier. A man who is on the knife’s edge of fallen apart, he only has booze and the friendship of Billy to keep him together.
*When famed composer James Horner passed away in a plane crash, director Antoine Fuqua thought he would have to find a new composer but Horner’s longtime collaborator Simon Franglen provided Fuqua with the demos that Horner had already begun based on the script alone. Mostly done, Franglen and other of Horner’s friends completed the score. There are strains of Elmer Bernstein’s original score in one of the tracks.
Also, the end credits a shot like this fan made poster, but all in red.
It’s a homage to this original poster
The cast
Kubo and the Two Strings
My coworker relentlessly urged me to see this film and I fought him for the longest time because I don’t really tend to see animated films in theaters and I’m a fan of stop motion. But I’m glad I listened to him. Not only did I get to see the touching, wrenching, awesome trailers for “When A Monster Calls” and “Queen of Katwe”, but in “Kubo and the Two Strings” I got a wonderfully affirming story about the transcendence of love.
Armed with the gift of storytelling by his mother Sariatu (Charlize Theron), Kubo (Art Parkinson) utilizes his skill with spinning yarns, origami making and shamisen playing
to make money in his village to help support himself and the semi-catatonic Sariatu.
After years of being warned about staying out past dark, by his mother, a warning he chalks up to the paranoia she gained after baby Kubo’s eye was taken from him by his grandfather-Kubo misses his curfew which signals his whereabouts to his grandfather Raiden (Ralph Fiennes) and his aunts The Sisters (Kate Mara).
Needing to protect her son, Sariatu spirits Kubo away with an enchanted monkey totem, Monkey. Together Kubo, Monkey and half-man/half-beetle Beetle (Matthew McConaughey) seek out the armor that will turn Kubo into a warrior in order to defeat Raiden and The Sisters and finally let him live a life of peace.
Like many kids films (practically any Disney film), the film tackles a loss of a parent. But what is unique in this is that there’s a peace in its depiction. The film is less about loss and more about retaining the memories of the departed; that as they pass they are never too far from us. I think that’s an insightful and special message to send on to kids.
Our cast
