Movie Review Stronger

Stronger (2017) 

Directed by David Gordon Green 

Written by John Pollono 

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Tatiana Maslany, Miranda Richardson, Clancy Brown

Release Date September 22nd, 2017 

Published September 24th, 2017 

Stronger stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Jeff Bauman, a man who lost his legs to the bombing at the 2013 Boston Marathon. Before the marathon, Jeff was just an anonymous Costco employee who loved the Red Sox and wanted to reconcile with his girlfriend Erin (Tatiana Maslany) who dumped him because he rarely showed up when he was supposed to. On April 15, 2013, Jeff finally showed up at the Boston Marathon in the hope that his homemade sign cheering Erin on to the finish line might win her back.

Stronger was directed by David Gordon Green who directs the film with an aim for authenticity. The raw style of the early portion of Stronger is as powerful as the story itself as the look of the film captures a feeling of real life. Once the bombs go off and we know that Jeff has been badly injured the story turns to Erin who wasn’t sure that Jeff had come that day as he’d so often failed to show up. Her search to find out if he’d actually been there that day is incredibly affecting especially as she finds herself overrun by his brutish Boston family and friends who aren’t so kind to the girl who dumped their boy.

Maslany is a wonderful actress whose face communicates nearly as much as her words. She’s wearily beautiful, sad but strong. She feels guilt for having been the reason that Jeff was there that day but there is a limit to how bad she’s willing to feel about it. It’s a powerhouse performance and one that I hope will remain in people’s minds through the awards season. Maslany’s best scene is yet another break up between her and Jeff where she refuses to be his emotional punching bag and puts aside her pity for his loss in order to protect herself from his emotional abuse. The scene is raw and emotional and weighty, and Maslany is brilliant.

Naturally, however, Stronger lives and dies on the performance of Jake Gyllenhaal and it is yet another powerful and effective performance. Gyllenhaal crafts a wart and all performance as Jeff Bauman and the film is smart to embrace all sides of this complex man who refused to see himself as a hero who survived a terrorist attack but rather as just a victim. In his mind, all he did was get blown up, he doesn’t see that surviving was heroic in its own way and living beyond the loss and pain was inspiring.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Pathfinder

Pathfinder (2007)

Directed by Marcus Nispel 

Written by Laeta Kalogridis

Starring Karl Urban, Moon Bloodgood, Russell Means, Clancy Brown

Release Date April 13th, 2007

Published April 14th, 2007 

The movie Pathfinder exists as an example of director Marcus Nispel's love of ultra-violence. Nispel, who last directed 2003's Texas Chainsaw Massacre re-imagining, has an affinity for violence that is quite curious considering his career prior to making feature films. Nispel is a former music video director who did fine work for artists like George Michael, Janet Jackson, Amy Grant and Billy Joel.

From that resume one could deduce that Marcus was desperate for a shot of manly ultra-violence. Thus we get Pathfinder, an exceptionally well shot bit of blood and guts action that forgets that there is more to filmmaking than just how cool you can make a severed head look as it floats through the air or how red the arterial splash is coming from a victims jugular.

Karl Urban stars in Pathfinder as 'the ghost'. Born a Viking, he rejected his plundering parents and was later discovered by a kindly Indian woman who took him in and raised him as her own. Now a man, Ghost, as his people call him must defend his new family against his old family. The vikings have returned to the new world to finish what they started. They wish to conquer this land and kill anyone who gets in the way.

That is the set up for Pathfinder, the payoff is some serious, hardcore violence and cruelty weighed down by some seriously bad acting and boring exposition. Director Marcus Nispel, working from a script by Laeta Kalogridis, sets up boring characters as placeholders for good and evil. The Indians are a kind, happy, sharing community. The vikings are savage, destructive meanies. And never shall nuance be introduced.

The film threatens, only momentarily, a social commentary on how America was founded on the blood of Indians who were robbed of their land and killed mercilessly if they refused to give it up. However, director Nispel doesn't have the patience for subtext and instead crafts a series of dull expository scenes as buffers between the astonishing bits of violence.

I must say that as bad as most of Pathfinder is, the violence as directed by Nispel and captured by cinematographer Daniel C. Pearl is exceptional. Though I could do without the hamfisted slow-mo's and mind numbing score, the violence of the sword play, the ax cuts and arrow blasts is eye catching and in a better film could have been really amazing. As it is, it's only a technical marvel.

Where Nispel fails in Pathfinder is the same place he failed with his take on Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's a failure to realize that the most compelling violence comes when we care about the outcome. The cardboard cutouts of good and evil that Nispel delivers in Texas Chainsaw Massacre and now in Pathfinder are incapable of involving an audience emotionally in whether they live or die.

Mystery Science Theater fans and lovers of bad movies everywhere will likely find much to enjoy about Pathfinder. With its Indian homilies and stereotypical noble savage portrayals the film is a vaguely racist hoot. Vaguely racist only because the Indians here are the good guys. Nevertheless, their onscreen portrayal in Pathfinder is only a politically correct step above the Wackowi tribe from TV's F-Troop.

Oh, if only the Indians in the movie were the only unintentional humor of Pathfinder. But no, wait till you see the first ever fight scene on sleds. Yes, sleds. Not real plastic and rope sleds like you had when you were a kid but rather a prehistoric sort of sled made from a Viking shield by our hero and used to blast down the side of a mountain like an X-Games athlete in a Mountain Dew commercial.

Then there is star Karl Urban who I swear is not this bad an actor. I know I have seen better, more compelling work from Mr. Urban, I just can't think of it right now. In Pathfinder Urban exists only to show off six pack abs and a tight backside covered only in a loincloth. Why would this be important to a movie that no woman in her right mind would ever watch intentionally? I have no idea, but there he is in all his oiled up glory.

Urban mumbles his every line of dialogue as if it were incidental to his performance. Who knows, maybe it was only incidental. There really isn't much for Urban or any of the characters to say in Pathfinder. As I said earlier, the film is merely a vehicle for director Marcus Nispel to display his love of spraying blood, flying heads and dismembered guts.

In that sense, Pathfinder is a modest success. The violence is extraordinary and eye popping, literally in the case of one ugly viking. It's the stuff in between the violence, the long, interminable interludes of Indian stereotypes and viking growling that makes a mess of the film.

For fans of hardcore violence and rock hard abs; Pathfinder is like a low grade 300. Not as compelling or well made as that Zak Snyder's blockbuster, but similar in its aims. The violence is extraordinary and honestly very well rendered by director Marcus Nispel. And star Karl Urban would be right at home on that Spartan battlefield with his shaved chest oiled up and ready for battle.

Pathfinder is a bad movie with great violence which leaves me at a loss. I can't recommend the film and yet I'm modestly impressed with some of it.

Movie Review The Guardian

The Guardian (2006) 

Directed by Andrew Davis 

Written by Ron L. Brinkerhoff

Starring Kevin Costner, Ashton Kutcher, Sela Ward, Melissa Sagemiller, Clancy Brown, Omari Hardwick

Release Date September 29th, 2006 

Published September 29th, 2006 

Kevin Costner is maturing quite well into his elder statesman role. He has turned in a series of strong older leading man performances in Open Range, The Upside of Anger and he was the only appealing element of the abysmal romantic comedy Rumor has It. Costner's latest picture may be his most obvious transitional work. As a coast guard trainer to upstart Ashton Kutcher's rescue swimmer trainee, Costner is seen in The Guardian as passing the torch to a new generation.

If that last line isn't indication enough of the cheeseball nature of The Guardian wait till you hear the Bryan Adams tune that closes this eye rolling action adventure.

Kevin Costner stars in The Guardian as Senior Chief Ben Randall, a coast guard rescue swimmer. It is Ben's job to jump from helicopters into the roiling waters of the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska and save lives. As a near 20 year veteran, no one has saved nearly as many lives. Sadly for Ben his latest mission led to a tragic accident that killed his entire crew, including his closest friend.

Washed out to the Coast Guard's elite training facility called A School, Ben is forced to give up rescue swimming in favor of training the next generation of swimmers. Amongst the new recruits is a brash former high school swimming champion named Jake Fischer. A hot head who lacks leadership and teamwork skills, Fischer clashes immediately with his new mentor.

No points for guessing that the adversarial relationship between Ben and Jake eventually comes to grudging respect to fatherly protectiveness before they are finally ready to save lives together. Yes, The Guardian as directed by Andrew Davis (The Fugitive); is as predictable as a road map. That said, the action on the high seas, the dangerous windswept life saving moments are more often than not very exciting.

Andrew Davis knows his way around great action from the train escape sequence in The Fugitive to the explosions of the otherwise awful Arnold Schwarzenneger flick Collateral Damage to the high seas action of The Guardian. It's the other aspects of direction, character, plot, tone, where Davis struggles as a director.

Working from a script by Ron Brinkerhoff, whose only other credit is the straight to video Sly Stallone pic D-Tox, Davis crafts a film that is part big action and part cheeseball kitsch. Every critic in the country has mentioned the obvious parallels between The Guardian and other military male bonding flicks like Top Gun, An Officer and A Gentleman and the oft forgotten De Niro flick Men Of Honor. The Guardian does nothing to separate itself from these films, heavily lifting from each with no regard for originality.

The Guardian had me rolling my eyes early on as we met Ben Randell's wife played by Sela Ward. If you guessed that Randall is one of those married to his job types and because of that his wife is leaving him; well, of course, you're right. This is such an obvious and obligatory scene, Ward's character moving her things out of their shared home, that it almost seems intentionally humorous. Almost.

Despite the predictability, despite the cheeseball way that director Andrew Davis rips off other similar films, I still found myself wrapped up in The Guardian. The action on the high seas is edge of your seat stuff with some terrifically well integrated CGI effects and a pair of game if waterlogged stars. Costner and Kutcher play well off of each other in the action scenes, really playing up the father-son dynamic of their relationship.

The film also has a credible, if not exactly smoking hot, romance for Kutcher's Jake Fischer. Melissa Sagemiller plays Emily; a school teacher who falls for Jake despite knowing that he will be shipped far away from where they meet, at the training school. The scenes between Kutcher and Sagemiller  begin with yet another of those predictable, been there done that moments, one where the cocky cadet bets his pals he can pick up the hottest girl in the bar in under a minute. It's a cheesy, eye rolling start, but these likable actors manage to make the romance work because they have pretty good chemistry.

Movie Review The Spongebob Movie Sponge Out of Water

The Spongebob Movie Sponge Out of Water (2015) 

Directed by Stephen Hillenburg

Written by Stephen Hillenburg 

Starring Tom Kenny, Clancy Brown, Matt Berry, Antonio Banderas, Bill Fagerbakke, Rodger Bumpass

Release Date February 6th, 2015 

Published February 5th, 2015

How does a film so shamelessly appeal to the tastes of tots and stoners alike and not wind up doomed to be assailed by the culture warriors? By becoming a capitalist commodity first and an anarchic, tripped out, cartoon second. That is the journey of “Spongebob Squarepants” which innocently invaded popular kids culture in the early 2000’s and became an unassailable pop titan.

The freedom of success has allowed this Nickelodeon product to evolve in ways that no one likely imagined. From what was a minor distraction for kiddies a strange cult classic of stoner nostalgia has emerged. Over time the tots who loved Spongebob’s seemingly innocent shenanigans were joined in front of the television by their cereal slurping, red-eyed older brother who laughed at the jokes that the little ones just missed.

Sure, the creators of the series maintain the innocence at the show’s heart but their claims to innocence are certainly challenged by a product that has grown increasingly weird in most recent and slightly controversial incarnations. It’s a strange evolution that today culminates in the ultimate evidence of the show’s sneaky stoner appeal, “The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.”

Sure, on the surface this is merely an attempt to return Spongebob Squarepants to the pop ether and make gobs of money while doing it. But, watch the film and the Dali-esque, dizzying, imagery comes roaring out at the audience in ways only those on psychotropic stimulants can truly understand. As someone who’s never experienced a drug induced freak out, I can only imagine it is something akin to the time travel trip taken in “Sponge Out of Water” by our hero Spongebob and his unlikely pal and former enemy Plankton.

If you thought Peter Fonda’s swirling, twisting vortex freak out in 1969’s “The Trip” was trip inducing, wait till you get a load of the wall of sight and sound that takes Spongebob and Plankton through time and space. Only a true stoner, wacked out on the best Maui-Wowie and grooving to Kubrick’s “2001” could truly appreciate the sites created herein. I’m not kidding, these scenes are really messed up.

Things really get tripped out when Spongebob and Plankton, on the run through time and space to escape having been accused of stealing the secret recipe for Crabby Patties, find themselves in a future world run by a talking Dolphin named Bubbles. Bubbles is voiced by the brilliant British comic Matt Berry in full Douglas Reynholm bluster. Throwing Berry into a mix that also includes Antonio Banderas as a pirate named Burger Beard, is really the last piece of evidence needed to prove that the makers of Spongebob are indeed attempting to bridge the gap between Nickelodeon comedy and Cheech and Chong.

Looking back I realize I am making this sound like a bad thing. In reality, it’s more innocuous than anything. Despite the bleating of many conservatives, there isn’t anything truly dangerous about stoners. The fact that they can be as entertained as little children by the same form of entertainment is only subversive in the eyes of those who see smoking marijuana as some sort of societal ill.

There are many more damning things that people could be doing aside from getting baked and watching “The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.” Things like Sub-Prime Mortgages or murder for hire schemes against their employers or ironically attending WNBA Games are certainly less worthy efforts than getting stoned and laughing hysterically as a talking sponge battles Antonio Banderas as pirate named Burger Beard.

I guess my main point is that we should just be honest about the appeal of “The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water” and stop acting like it’s just a kids movie. The fact is, Spongebob has a foot firmly planted in two separate but equal satirical worlds that appeal equally and differently to two very specific sets of audiences and there is nothing wrong with that.

Let’s let Spongebob’s freak flag fly free and not be so uptight and silly as to believe that just because stoners enjoy a kids show that kids will automatically grow up to be stoners. This isn’t a nature or nurture argument over the future of our children, it’s just a silly cartoon that happens to be tripping balls and delighting children all at once.