Movie Review LBJ

LBJ (2017) 

Directed by Rob Reiner 

Written by Joey Hartstone 

Starring Woody Harrelson, Richard Jenkins, Bill Pullman, Jeffrey Donovan, Jennifer Jason Leigh

Release Date November 3rd, 2017 

I don’t understand racism. It’s strange to write that down but it’s no less true, racism doesn’t make any sense. Why does skin color matter? What is it about skin color that bothers people? What could possibly cause a person to believe that their skin makes them superior? It baffles me. Life is hard enough, why carry such an unnecessary and bizarre hatred on top of that? I find that in my life I need as many friends as I can make. The world makes more sense when you connect with people. To rule out connecting with someone over something like the color of their skin is just not something I can make any sense of.

I’m not seeking to understand racists; I know that they are just wrong in their hatred, but I can’t understand the conviction that drives them. Is it some sort of misguided notion of maleness? Tribalism that has yet to be evolved out of the species. What drives people to hate someone for a reason such as skin color? Hatred of any kind is hard on the soul. I am certainly not without hate, I hate racists, I hate those who hate the LGBTQ Community, I hate those who would seek to oppress others. Carrying that hate is the biggest burden of my life but I do it because I can’t not do it. My hatred makes sense because I hate on behalf of others. The hatred that comes from the racist simply makes no sense.

This is a longwinded way of getting around to reviewing the new Rob Reiner movie LBJ which hinges on the debate over the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The brilliant actor Richard Jenkins portrays a Senator Russell from Georgia whose hatred of black people has lost him to history to the point where I cannot recall his first name and would not be aware of his existence without this movie. That’s fair, he doesn’t deserve to be remembered. Nor do any of the Senators who opposed civil rights. Remembering that they opposed something as fundamental as civil rights for all people is enough of an awful legacy for these men.

LBJ paints a complex portrait of President Lyndon Baines Johnson. It is a heroic portrait but one that doesn’t shy away from the less heroic aspects of Lyndon Johnson who, before he became Vice President had consistently opposed civil rights legislation. President Johnson's change of heart wasn’t him being ‘woke’ to use the modern parlance, it was born of pragmatism, at once coldly calculated and genuinely felt. President Johnson could see the direction the country was moving in and was determined to remain relevant and, he had become friendly with his cook, a black woman who could not travel safely and comfortably from Washington D.C to Texas despite working for the Vice President of the United States.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Battle of the Sexes

Battle of the Sexes (2017) 

Directed by Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton

Written by Simon Beaufoy 

Starring Steve Carell, Emma Stone, Andrea Riseborough, Sarah Silverman, Bill Pullman, Alan Cumming

Release Date September 22nd, 2017 

I’ve spent a few days wrestling with why I don’t love the new, true life drama Battle of the Sexes from two of my favorite directors, Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton. The directors of the wonderful Little Miss Sunshine and the sublime Ruby Sparks have delivered a solid effort in Battle of the Sexes, but there is just something lacking. It’s not the performances either, as both Emma Stone and Steve Carell deliver standout takes on real life counterparts Billy Jean King and Bobby Riggs. So just what’s wrong with Battle of the Sexes?

Battle of the Sexes tells the story of the 1972 tennis match-up that pitted women’s liberation, in the form of female tennis champion Billy Jean King, versus the self-proclaimed champion of male chauvinism, Bobby Riggs, himself a former tennis champion from some years earlier. King had recently left the American Lawn Tennis Association to help launch the new Women’s Tennis Association after a fallout over equal pay with ALTA’s leadership, headed up by Howard Kramer (Bill Pullman).

It was a huge moment for women’s tennis as King and her manager, Gladys Heldman (Sarah Silverman) risked everything to take the world’s top female tennis stars out onto their own tour with the goal of proving they could earn just as much money as male tennis champions. It was an even bigger moment for King as the new tour also found her in a new relationship, as she began to find her sexuality for the first time by falling in love with a hairdresser named Marylin Barnett (Andrea Riseborough). All the while she’s married to her devoted husband Larry (Austin Stowall) and could lose everything if people found out about her affair.

Complicating Billy Jean’s life further is Riggs, who challenged King early in 1972, just after the launch of the WTA and after she ignored his pleas, challenged fellow women’s champion Margaret Court just as Court was coming off a recent upset win over Billy Jean. Court would go on to lose to Riggs and force Billy Jean to be the one to challenge Riggs in order to save face for women’s tennis and their potential earning power.

As you can tell from that description, there is a pretty terrific and dramatic story in Battle of the Sexes. So why doesn’t it work? Much of the problem comes from Academy Award-winning screenwriter Simon Beaufoy’s script, which fails to parse the parody-level male chauvinism with the actual sexism that Billy Jean King was up against. Beaufoy’s script renders Bobby Riggs as a lovable conman who used chauvinism as a way of marketing and not the cruel dismissal of women tennis players it actually was.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Classic Movie Review Sleepless in Seattle

Sleepless in Seattle (2023) 

Directed by Nora Ephron 

Written by Nora Ephron, David S. Ward, Jeff Arch 

Starring Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Rita Wilson, Victor Garber, Rosie O'Donnell, Bill Pullman 

Release Date June 25th, 1993

Published June 26th, 2023 

Losing my mother in 2013 was the hardest thing that I have ever endured. My mom was awesome. She worked three retail jobs, 80 to 90 hours per week, when I was a kid, just to make sure that myself and my sister had food and a good home. All that time, she remained unsinkable in her spirit and love. She was a human teddy bear, soft and comforting. Her worst quality was that when someone she loved was suffering, she would make that suffering her own, as if she could take our pain away by making it her pain. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had a mom who was so loving and empathetic. 

My mom fostered my love of movies. I have a distinct memory from my childhood of my mother swooning over Cary Grant. I'd make fun of her for her reaction to Cary Grant movies and she would lean into it by talking about how handsome and charming he was in effusive terms. I can recall the first time I saw my mom cry was the day she was supposed to go see Cary Grant's one man show in Davenport, Iowa. That show never happened as Grant died the night before the show was to take place. My mom showed me that para-social relationships with celebrity weren't a bad thing, they were a human thing. 

The movie Sleepless in Seattle, which features prominent references to Cary Grant, became a favorite movie for my mom. She would watch it any chance she got. She didn't love Tom Hanks as she did Cary Grant, but her heart leapt seeing him fall for Meg Ryan at the last minute. She felt the same rush of emotion every time she watched the movie, even as she'd seen it a dozen times and was fully aware that the happy ending was coming. She always got teary when Meg Ryan took Tom Hanks' hand at the end of the movie. It showed me that being emotional about movies was not just okay, but something that just happens when you witness something beautiful. 

Sleepless in Seattle is a beautiful film. It's a celebration of magical romance and believing in something beyond yourself, the notion of fate. The characters of Sam Baldwin and Annie Reed were fated to be together. The universe conspires to unite them. Through the audacity and resolute stubbornness of Sam's son, Jonah, and the good luck that he has a best friend, played by Gaby Hoffman, whose parents are travel agents, Sam and Annie are brought dramatically together on the most romantic day of the year in one of the most romantic spots on the planet. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Horror in the 90s: Brain Dead

Brain Dead (1990) 

Directed by Adam Simon 

Written by Adam Simon, Charles Beaumont 

Starring Bill Pullman, Bill Paxton, George Kennedy, Bud Cort, Patricia Charbonneau 

Release Date January 19th, 1990 

Box Office Gross $1.6 million dollars 

One image. Brain Dead is remembered for one, singular image. The fact that this one image has nothing to do with the movie that contains it, does not matter. There is only one thing that anyone remembers about Brain Dead and it is just one memorable, awful, brutal image. You see it in all of the marketing materials about the movie when it was released. To those who've never seen Brain Dead, this image is the star of the film. It's a very compelling image, one worthy of building a bizarre cult movie marketing campaign around. 

In a college science lab there is an unnamed student toying with a human brain. The student shoves an electrode into the ooey gooey brain situated in a petri dish. The brain is connected to something, a metal apparatus. Upon this apparatus is a complete abomination. Stretched like horrifying silly putty across an empty expanse, connecting to a circular metal apparatus is a human face. This face has eyes, a nose, and a mouth. It seems to have facial muscles somehow, hidden behind a weathered expanse of skin. 

The facial muscles are implied in the film by the way the face twitches in pain when the brain in the pan is electrocuted back to life. Depending on where the student stabs his electrode into this brain in a pan, the face twitches its eyes, wrinkles its nose, or turns the mouth in a pained expression, a wince. From the manner in which the student playfully stabs away at this brain, this is a normal day in the lab. We don't know how long the student and the face have been in this dynamic, but it is not the first time this student has engaged in this twisted game. 

You would be forgiven if you thought that this detached face were that of a main character, that of Bill Pullman, or Bill Paxton, or Bud Cort. It's not. In fact, we have no idea where this face came from or how this face ended up attached to a brain in a pan being painfully stimulated by electrodes. We get only a vague sense of why this is even being done. It's being done to prove that the human brain is capable of being stimulated after death. 

That's part of the crazed, doomed experiments being conducted by Bill Pullman's monstrous, genius brain scientist. Dr. Rex Martin believes he can cure all manner of neurological disorders by using the brains of the dead as guinea pigs. Dr. Martin's particular specialty is paranoia and he is convinced he can cure paranoia via brain surgery. This brings his research in line with the awful, amoral aims of Bill Paxton's corporate shark. Paxton wants Pullman to cure the paranoia of a genius mathematician, Bud Cort, so that said genius will reveal an equation that could be worth billions. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Scary Movie 4

Scary Movie 4 (2006) 

Directed by David Zucker

Written by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Craig Mazin, Pat Proft 

Starring Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Craig Bierko, Bill Pullman, Anthony Anderson, Kevin Hart, Charlie Sheen

Release Date April 14th, 2006 

Published April 16th, 2006 

Comedy is harder than it looks. Just look at how often Hollywood fails to make audiences laugh in films designated as "Comedies". It's subjective and often intractable and what is funny to one person is not funny to someone else. Comedy in and of itself is an act of bravery.

With that said, Scary Movie 4 is funny. It's not however as consistently funny as spoof predecessors like Airplane, Hot Shots or Naked Gun. The targets are safe, the laughs are extremely broad and the potshots miss as often as they hit. At the very least it is a vast improvement over the terribly unfunny Scary Movie 3.

Anna Faris returns for a 4th time as ditzy, dimbulb heroine Cindy Campbell who has, thus far in the series, seen more humiliating moments than every Ben Stiller character combined. This time around Cindy is dealing with the loss of her husband George (Simon Rex) in a tragic stool accident, a spotty Million Dollar Baby parody involving Mike Tyson in drag.

Cindy has just accepted a job as an in-home nurse in the home of a comatose woman (poor Cloris Leachman) who's being haunted by the creepy little asian kid from The Grudge.

Next door to the coma patient's house is Tom Ryan (Craig Bierko) , a construction worker and weekend dad to two kids. Ryan is straight out of War of The Worlds and he soon discovers aliens on the attack inside of a giant Ipod. Just as Tom and Cindy's relationship is beginning they are split up, he into an ongoing WOTW parody and Cindy along with returning best pal Brenda (Regina Hall) into an ill fated parody of The Village.

This is far more plot than was contained in the last Scary Movie and while plot may be superfluous to this franchise it helps root the parodies in something and makes the jokes funnier.

Another new element to the Scary Movie franchise is a dash of social satire in the person of Leslie Neilsen as the attled President of the United States. In a somewhat darkly humorous take off of President Bush's my pet duck moment on 9/11, Neilsen's Mr. President refuses to react to the alien Ipod attack until he hears what happened to the duck in a story told by small children. And naturally where Leslie Neilsen goes so goes broad physical humor, turn your head so you miss a brief shot of Mr. Neilsen's naked ass.

The films parodied well in Scary Movie 3 include War Of The Worlds and The Grudge and a surprisingly inoffensive and humorous take on Brokeback Mountain. Not so strong however are taxes on Million Dollar Baby and The Village. The problem with The Village is that M. Night Shyamalan's first major screw up is not all that well remembered. The film never really had its cultural moment and most audiences have forgotten the fake village and its olde timey denizens. When the biggest laughs are garnered by Carmen Electra on the toilet it's a clear sign that there wasn't much to work with in a Village parody.

I nearly forgot to mention a surprisingly funny parody of Saw starring the oddball pair of Shaquille O'Neal and Dr. Phil. While jokes about Shaq's free throw shooting are about as timely as Jay Leno's monologue circa 2002, Dr. Phil's highly self-effacing performance draws some big laughs and more than a few uncomfortable truths about the doctor's methods. Both Shaq and Dr. Phil are such genial sports that the scenes get a nice jolt from their positive energy.

Avoid reading any interviews with Director David Zucker who spoils some of the fun of Scary Movie 4 with a bitter streak that becomes clearer in the film upon reflection. Zucker has nothing nice to say about any of the movies parodied in Scary Movie 4 including the multiple Oscar winning Brokeback Mountain.

His comments give a nasty edge to the parodies that do not come through in the sweetness and light performances of Anna Faris, Craig Bierko and Anthony Anderson who returns from Scary Movie 3 and enlivens the Brokeback scenes. Faris needs to branch out beyond comedy soon to break her current type casting but she continues to be the one real draw of this aging franchise. As for Bierko, simply turn a camera on this guy and he's funny. Effortlessly humorous and energetic, he actually made me, an ardent fan of Tom Cruise, laugh hard through an extended parody of Cruise's couch jumping antics on Oprah.

Hit and miss at times but a great improvement over the last outing, I am recommending Scary Movie 4 for fans of spoofs and of this franchise. Fans of Brokeback Mountain, maybe you want to save your seven bucks.

Movie Review The Equalizer 2

The Equalizer 2 (2018) 

Directed by Antoine Fuqua 

Written by Richard Wenk 

Starring Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo

Release Date July 20th, 2018

Published July 18th, 2018

The Equalizer 2 stars Denzel Washington, once again in the role of McCaul, a former CIA Agent turned good guy vigilante. When we meet McCaul in this sequel he is on a train in Turkey with a fake beard. McCaul is attempting to retrieve the daughter of a woman he knows that has been illegally taken by her ex-husband and scuttled out of the country. The scene is a re-introduction to the unique set of skills McCaul has; which includes timing the way he beats up bad guys. 

This scene has nothing to do with the plot of The Equalizer 2 other than as a way of contextualizing the character for those who may not have seen the first film in this budding franchise. Then again, the plot of The Equalizer 2 is so loose and threadbare it’s hard to say which scenes are necessary and which are indulgent, unnecessary scenes intended only to show what a god-like, benevolent being McCaul is.

The plot, such as it is, kicks in when McCaul’s friend, Susan (Melissa Leo) is murdered while investigating a murder in Belgium. McCaul immediately smells a rat and decides to come out of hiding in order to investigate. His first visit is to his former partner, Dave (Pedro Pascal). Dave was with Susan in Belgium when she was murdered, helping her investigate. Is Dave a friend or a suspect? You will have to see the movie to find out but if you’ve seen a movie, you likely already know.

Antoine Fuqua hasn’t made a movie this lazy and loosely structured since King Arthur, which is the last time it felt like he was making something even he didn’t care for. The Equalizer 2 ranges from boring action to boring scenes of unneeded exposition to equally boring establishing scenes of a character who is on hand only to be device later in the movie. I’m afraid that if I even begin to describe this character it might be a spoiler as the device is so nakedly predictable.

Denzel Washington has been on auto-pilot since his 2012’s Flight. That’s the last time I can recall seeing Denzel fully invested in fleshing out and living within a character. That may sound funny for those who point to his Academy Award nominated work in Fences and Roman J. Esquire and think I am crazy, but I am not a fan of either of those performances. Both of those movies are showy, over the top, capital P: Performances, not great acting.

In Fences, Washington is performing for the stage and not the screen. His bombastic performance is ill-suited for the movie screen. Roman J. Israel meanwhile, is a different kind of over the top, a performance that is all tics and mannerisms. These performances are, at least, not boring, they have a vitality that The Equalizer 2 does not have. Despite how much he shapes this character and seems to care about it, he comes off as rather bored.

Bored is probably an unfair, even inaccurate way of describing Denzel’s performance. I’m sure his intent is to be inscrutable or unflappable, but it comes off unaffected and uninvested. Part of that is Denzel’s fault but a bigger part is the fault of Fuqua who fails to give the movie around Denzel’s performance much life. The film aims for moody but arrives at tired, it aims for gritty and ends mildly irritated.

Even the action, which had been the best part of the original The Equalizer, is lifeless in comparison and that film wasn’t exactly lively. The first The Equalizer appeared invested in its action, if not in creating memorable characters or a believable story worth investing in. Denzel’s physicality is fully present in that performance and is less so here. I’m not going to speculate about Denzel aging, because he could easily take me in a fight, despite having 20 years on me age wise, but regardless he appears slowed.

Denzel being a little slower might have worked in the film’s favor if the movie had used it but instead, the movie appears slowed down so Denzel can keep up. Denzel is at all times quicker and smarter than everyone else in the movie, even people younger than him who he apparently taught and influenced when he was a member of the CIA. I’m nitpicking here but shouldn’t this character, at very least, feel a little bit of angst about this fight?

I won’t go into spoilers but the ending of The Equalizer is nonsense. It’s filmed in the midst of a

hurricane on an empty Martha’s Vineyard or some such town and it’s a shame to say, it’s not nearly as fun or exciting as a similar scene in Hurricane Heist earlier this year. Hurricane Heist is basically a parody of an actual movie. That movie, at the very least, knew how to have fun. The Equalizer 2 has the audacity to be dour on top of being predictable, lazy and sloppy.

Movie Review Igby Goes Down

Igby Goes Down

Directed by Burr Steers 

Written by Burr Steers

Starring Kieran Culkin, Claire Danes, Bill Pullman, Susan Sarandon, Ryan Phillippe, Jeff Goldblum

Release Date September 13th, 2002 

Published October 23rd, 2002

The meteoric rise and fall of Macauley Culkin is one of those cautionary tales of Hollywood that makes the E! True Hollywood Story so popular. The domineering father, the loving mother, the multi-millions of dollars flowing in and out of the home and the hints of abusiveness. There is a movie all its own in the Culkin family. Thankfully the fate suffered by Macauley provided a what-not-to-do roadmap for younger brother Kieran who is building a strong resume. A resume that should include an Oscar nomination for his title role in Igby Goes Down, if there is any justice in the world.

As Igby, Culkin is the son of a shrewish controlling Susan Surandon and a middle-aged and crazy Bill Pullman. Ryan Phillipe is Igby’s perfectionist brother Oliver and Jeff Goldblum plays his rich Godfather. Igby has a habit of being kicked out of every school he goes to, until finally he escapes on his own to New York where his knowledge of an affair between his Godfather and an artist played by Amanda Peet leads to his staying in a gorgeous New York loft, rent free. 

While on a weekend trip to his Godfather’s home in the Hamptons, Igby meets Sookie Sapperstein (Claire Danes), a college student moonlighting as a caterer's assistant. After Igby moves to New York, he and Sookie form a tentative romance that is the soul of the film. Their intelligent, funny and very well written exchanges are the highlights of this magnificent film.

Culkin and Danes are both sensational, their conversations foreshadowing their uncertain future. Like any good romance the roadblocks of this relationship are obvious but not acknowledged. Writer/Director Burr Steers never settles for typical romantic situations, he uses every opportunity to tease the audience with a happy ending without ever having to provide it. It is a very delicate balancing act of great acting, writing and direction.

Culkin is the film's centerpiece and it is his acerbic honesty and humor that makes Igby Goes Down such a great film. Danes and Phillippe are also excellent with Phillippe once again showing his amazing versatility, falling into his preppy clothes and manner the same way he embraced his down and dirty thief in The Way Of the Gun and his nerdy computer guy in Antitrust, a pair of guilty pleasure classics.

Indeed, the entire cast of Igby Goes Down is very good. The only issue I had with the film was not enough Bill Pullman. As Igby’s schizophrenic father Pullman has a very limited role but makes an amazing impression in his short screen time. Igby Goes Down is an incredible film with one of the best casts of the year headed up by Culkin in a performance guaranteed to be criminally overlooked by Oscar voters.