Documentary Review Adrienne

Adrienne 

Directed by Andy Ostroy

Written by Documentary 

Starring Adrienne Shelly, Sara Bareilles, Robert John Burke, Nathan Fillion

Release Date December 1st, 2021

One of the darkest days of my career happened on November 1st, 2006 and I didn’t even know it at the time. That was the day that actress turned director Adrienne Shelly was murdered in her office in New York City. I was aware of Adrienne Shelly but I had not yet seen her masterpiece, Waitress. Once I saw Shelly’s extraordinary film, and named it among my favorite movies of 2007, I was both deeply moved and desperately distraught over her loss and the loss of the incredible works of art she undoubtedly would have created in the future. The new documentary, Adrienne, was a cathartic experience for me as an admirer of Adrienne Shelly the artist and the human being. 

Adrienne Shelly bubbled under mainstream success for several years from the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. She got her start with visionary weirdo Hal Hartley and eventually graduated to more mainstream roles in Hollywood features. But, Shelly's greatest successes came in independent film where her status as an It-Girl of the future helped her work get noticed while allowing Shelly to continue to flex her artistic muscles outside of the shackles of mainstream Hollywood feature films.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review Cocaine Bear

Cocaine Bear (2023) 

Directed by Elizabeth Banks 

Written by Jimmy Warden

Starring Keri Russell, Margo Martindale, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Brooklynn Prince, Ray Liotta, O'Shea Jackson, Alden Ehrenreich 

Release Date February 24th, 2023 

Published February 23rd, 2023 

Cocaine Bear makes a very big promise with its bizarre premise and I am happy to say that it mostly lives up to that promise. As directed by the very funny Elizabeth Banks, Cocaine Bear delivers a Black Bear that is, indeed, very high on Cocaine. Being high on cocaine, the Bear becomes highly aggressive, angry, and agitated. Thus, a bear that would normally prefer not to interact with humans becomes a violent, murderous beast, especially if you happen to have some more cocaine on you, this bear loves cocaine. 

The story of Cocaine Bear kicks off with a very funny scene. A man who is clearly high on cocaine is dancing around an airplane and tossing bags filled with cocaine off the plane and into a mountainous area of Georgia. The man plans on letting the plane crash to divert attention from the massive amounts of cocaine being dropped from it, but before he can leap out of the plane to accompany his cargo, the man manages to knock himself unconscious and fall out of the plane to his death. 

This death helps set to the tone for a violent, disturbing and quite funny dark comedy. Once we've established that there is cocaine in the forest and a bear has ingested a lot of it, we watch as disparate groups of people head into the forest, mostly unaware that cocaine has turned a mostly docile bear into a ravenous, cocaine addicted monster. Among our main cast are a pair of children played by Brooklynn Prince and Christian Convery, they're skipping school for an adventure. Hot on their trail is the girl's mother, played by Keri Russell. She's accompanied by Forest Cop played by Margo Martindale and her crush, an animal care advocate played by Jesse Tyler Ferguson. 

Then, there are the drug dealers, out to retrieve their drugs. O'Shea Jackson and Alden Erhenreich are flunkies for a drug dealer, played by Ray Liotta. They are to retrieve the drugs by any means necessary or possibly face the wrath of Columbian drug kingpins. They will be joined unwillingly by a police detective, played by Isaiah Whitlock. The detective has been looking for a way to bust Liotta's drug dealer and he sees getting these bags of cocaine as a chance to put Liotta behind bars. Naturally, they will all come face to face with a bear that is off its face on cocaine and each will be lucky if they manage to get out of the forest intact. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review: Extraordinary Measures

Extraordinary Measures (2010) 

Directed by Tom Vaughn

Written by Robert Nelson Jacobs

Starring Harrison Ford, Brendan Fraser, Keri Russell

Release Date January 15th, 2010

Published January 14th, 2010

Harrison Ford reminds me of a great athlete in the late portion of a career. Not as embarrassing or sad as Joe Naimath with the Rams or Willie Mays with the Mets, but Joe Montana with the Chiefs is a good comparison. Like Montana in that late stage, Ford has lost a step but there are flashes of the old mastery of the game.

Extraordinary Measures has moments when the Harrison Ford we love shines through. Sadly, Ford is shuffled off screen far too often in favor of a turgid family melodrama that would be more at home on the ABC Family Channel than on the big screen.

Brenden Fraser is the star of Extraordinary Measures as John Crowley a father of 3 kids, 2 of whom were born with a rare genetic disorder known as Pompe. The disease will take the kids lives very young which presents John with a very difficult choice. John can spend as much time with his kids, alongside his wife Aileen (Keri Russell), or he can search for a miracle.

The search will involve flying half way across the country to Nebraska where a scientist, Dr. Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford) has a theory that could be a cure. All that stands in there way is cash, a lot of cash, and Dr. Stonehill's cantankerous, off-putting nature. Can they raise the money, work together and cure the kids or has John made the wrong choice?

If you cannot answer that question then clearly you don't see many movies. This isn't a spoiler, the movie is based on a true story. Reporter Geeta Anand wrote the extraordinary non-fiction book The Cure about the real John and Aileen Crowley who did indeed risk everything to save their kids and the historic medical breakthroughs that risk lead to.

There was no Dr. Stonehill however; he is one of many dramatic contrivances made by director Scott Vaughan. Extraordinary Measures is a movie built on melodramatic contrivances from Dr. Stonehill being based on 2 or 3 different brilliant doctors to the odd choice to change the ages of John and Aileen Crowley's children from babies to precocious pre-tweens.

In reality John and Aileen Crowley's children were 5 months and 17 months old respectively. In the film the kids are 7 and 9 and Megan Crowley, played by Mereditch Droeger, is a precocious little plot device used with saccharine glee to push and manipulate audiences with her cuteness. 

The story as written by Geeta Anand in The Cure did not need such melodramatic embellishment. The Cure is told with a journalistic urgency that is a rush to read. It's dramatic because the story is inherently dramatic, heart-rending and moving. The movie goes for a sappy movie-ness that compromises the urgent drama in favor of faux uplift and the jerking of tears. 

Brenden Fraser is an actor I have liked a lot over the years but he is all wrong in Extraordinary Measures. With his big wet eyes and doughy physique, Fraser seems to mistake his physicality for dramatic acting. Keri Russell is capable of far more than she is given to work with here. Shuffled aside for the male bonding of Fraser and Ford, Russell cries on cue, comforts the children and is supportive and that is the extent of the role. 

Harrison Ford is not great at playing second fiddle. Though he has aged he remains compelling and charismatic, more so than the younger Mr. Fraser. The scenes they share, Ford is the more interesting actor with the more complex and interesting character and Fraser suffers in comparison.  

Returning to my earlier point about Ford compared to a great athlete, there was a night in Joe Montana's final year when he threw for over 300 yards and won a game in overtime on Monday Night Football. It was Montana's last great game. Harrison Ford, I believe has that one last great game in him but Extraordinary Measures is not it. 

There are flashes here of the roguish, grumpy charmer that we came to love all those years ago from Star Wars to Indiana Jones to Working Girl and Regarding Henry. His late career has become something of a caricature, Ford barking a line or two and going through the motions. Extraordinary Measures is one of those performances but the flashes give you hope. That one big game is still out there for Ford. Let's hope it arrives soon. 

Movie Review: August Rush

August Rush (2007) 

Directed by Kristen Sheridan 

Written by Nick Castle

Starring Freddie Highmore, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Terrence Howard, Robin Williams 

Release Date November 21st, 2007 

Published November 22nd, 2007

I have long had the idea that those who were able to make a living playing music weren't just punching a clock like the rest of us. Music can't be treated like just another job. There is a magical quality to music and the people who play it that comes from some inner place that not everyone has. The new family fantasy August Rush captures the heady rush of musical magic with great heart and love.

Evan (Freddie Highmore) has been waiting more than 11 years for his parents to come find him, he's kept track. Given up for adoption as a baby, Evan has been at a boys home all of his life. All the while he has been consumed with the music of the world. Though he's never played an instrument, Evan is convinced he can hear the music all around him and that it connects him to his parents.

Flashback, 11 years earlier. On a rooftop in New York City Lyla (Keri Russell) and Louis (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) meet and fall in love. They spend one glorious night together and then are torn apart. Lyla is a cellist with a bright future and a controlling father who rushes her away from her new love. Louis too is pulled away by his brother Marshall (Alex O'Laughlin) with whom he plays in a rock band with the potential to be big.

Louis never learns that Lyla got pregnant or that a car accident may have taken that childs life. That is what Lyla is told by her father. In reality, that boy, Evan, was put up for adoption and now travels to New York City in hope that he can reunite his family by playing music. Once in the city he meets Wizard (Robin Williams) who gives him a guitar and place to sleep and though Wizard isn't necessarily a good guy, he helps August on those first few steps in his journey.

Director Kirsten Sheridan is the daughter of famed director Jim Sheridan and co-wrote his most recent masterpiece In America. Based on her work in August Rush, Kirsten Sheridan will no doubt make a real masterpiece herself one day. August Rush is close. There is far more good than bad in this lovely tale of music and family.

Holding it back is a slight hint of treacle and a heavy dose of pushiness. The film doesn't allow the audience to settle in. Instead we are ushered from plot point to plot by an almost constant pushing from behind.

Freddie Highmore has one of those faces that radiates joy. That cherubic face and hopeful voice have made him a star in his very short career. He was a standout opposite Johnny Depp in Finding Neverland and even more magical working again with Depp in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Out on his own in August Rush, Highmore ushers us over the difficult parts of  with his big hopeful eyes and warm smile.

Keri Russell nails the role of Lyla a sheltered artist who finds escape in music and love. The brief romance between Lyla and Louis is written on her face and we believe every second of their longing because we believe her. Russell's pained expression at finding that her son is alive is heart rending and you can't help but long for the reunion that on the surface seems predictable but plays out in a most unique way.

Music is the beating heart of August Rush and Jonathan Rhys Meyers stuns with his soundtrack offering "This Time" a song that plays throughout August Rush and captures the story in a perfect pop music frame. Mournful, longing, but catchy in the way great pop songs are, This Time is just a really good song and Meyers is a surprisingly good singer.

The literary pedigree of August Rush comes from the numerous nods to Oliver Twist throughout the story and especially in the performance of Robin Williams as the Fagin-esque Wizard. The pseudo-guardian to dozens of musically gifted children, Wizard doesn't train pick pockets but street musicians and see's in August a chance to get off the street corners and into night clubs and music halls. Wizard's love of music is inspiring but he is soon revealed as something of a villain, as close to one as anyone in the film.

Despite a high level of predictability and some outlandish plot developments, August Rush succeeds because of a tremendous cast and solid first time direction. Freddie Highmore is a winning presence with his heart on his sleeve impishness and Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers strike a terrific romantic chemistry.

Kirsten Sheridan remains in the shadow of her Oscar nominated father but if August Rush is a true indication of her talent she will no doubt cut her own path one day. Music, love and family are warmly celebrated in August Rush.

Movie Review Mission Impossible 3

Mission Impossible 3 (2006) 

Directed by J.J Abrams 

Written by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci 

Starring Tom Cruise, Michelle Moynihan, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Maggie Q

Release Date May 5th, 2006 

Published May 4th, 2006 

If Mission Impossible 2 was the height of slick and shallow action fantasy, Mission Impossible 3 is the height of the series becoming something more than just slick fantasy. Mission Impossible 3 is completely awesome with more genuine suspense and thrills than either of the two previous Mission Impossible movies. Director J.J Abrams, before he manned the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises, grabbed the reins of the Mission Impossible franchise and transformed it from thinly plotted, style over substance action into a full fledged movie that also happens to be a great action movie.

Mission Impossible 3 picks up the story of Impossible Mission Force Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) five years after the action of MI2. Now, Hunt is in semi-retirement, busily training the next generation of IMF Agents. Hunt is also soon to be married to Jules (Michelle Monaghan), who has no idea what Ethan did or currently does for a living. Her appeal to him is that she is completely outside the espionage sphere.

That’s unfortunately about to change as Ethan is drawn back into the field and his new bride is soon to be drawn in as well. Ethan is brought out of retirement by a friend and agent named Musgrave (Billy Crudup) who wants Ethan to go to Germany and rescue one of the agents he trained. Agent Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell) had been tracking an arms dealer named Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) when she was captured.

The rescue sequence, featuring Hunt’s latest Impossible Mission team, Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames, in his third Mission appearance), Declan Gormley (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), and Zhen Lei (Maggie Q), is an incredibly tense, fast paced and exceptionally well shot sequence. It’s a nail-biting series of scenes with Keri Russell getting a moment to shine next to Cruise and show the chops that would take her to Emmy leading lady status as another kind of spy on The Americans.

Here, Russell was not long from the fluffy television series Felicity but the gun battle here put any questions about her range as an action hero and actress to rest for good. Russell is every bit the badass Cruise is in this scene and J.J Abrams captures the scene brilliantly with remarkable camera work, editing and scene setting. The tension in this scene is almost unbearable as the perfectly timed events play out., I can’t praise this scene enough, and I haven’t even mentioned the gut-punch payoff to this sequence.

From there we move the plot on to Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s big bad, Owen Davian. The Academy Award nominated Hoffman is not playing around with the role of action movie bad guy, he’s deeply invested in this dangerous character. Davian is maniacal but it’s Hoffman’s measured tones and invective that make him scary and not the kind of blustering we get from so many other action movie bad guys.

A sequence in which Cruise and his team invade The Vatican to capture Davian is another stand out series of scenes filled with the kinds of things we’ve come to love about the series, the speculative technology, the expert timing and the thrilling last minute saves. Director Abrams could teach a master class in action movie suspense and just show people this sequence with its expert timing and clever twists and turns.

After the disappointment of the first Mission Impossible and the shallow but exceptionally fun Mission Impossible 2, I was once again surprised by the Mission Impossible franchise with Mission Impossible 3. Instead of adopting the shallow, thrill a minute style of the modern action movie, J.J Abrams set out and made an action movie with a brain, a careful thriller that uses strong cinematic technique to build suspense in a plot that is the perfect mix of action movie thrills and genuine, edge of your seat suspense.

With all of the negativity aimed at Tom Cruise these days I wonder if I am the last Cruise fan left. For me, Tom is one of the golden gods of movie stardom. The man can do no wrong... on the big screen. His charisma, magnetism and that pulsing vein in the middle of his forehead simply hold me at rapt attention.

Call it a heterosexual man crush if you wish, I prefer to think of it in the classic Hollywood star parlance. The classic Hollywood idiom about great stars, Women want to be with him and men, like me, want to be him.

It is that quality that drives his blockbuster flicks to stratospheric heights at the box office and it is that quality that often rescues some questionable films from flopping like a dead fish. His latest film, the third in the mindlessly entertaining Mission Impossible series M.I:3, succeeds solely because of Cruise's star magnetism.

M.I:3 returns Tom Cruise to the role of IMF agent Ethan Hunt, newly retired and soon to be married to the lovely Julia (Michelle Monaghan). She knows nothing of his past or of his current job as a part time trainer of new IMF agents, he told her works for the D.O.T on traffic patterns, a job just boring enough that no one asks for details.

Ethan is pulled back into the IMF fold when one of his trainees, his star student Lindsey (Keri Russell), is captured in Berlin while on the trail of an arms dealer named Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman).To get her back Ethan hooks up with his old pal Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and a new crew of IMF'ers including Declan (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and Zhen (Maggie Q) and a new pair of bosses Brassell (Laurence Fishburne) and Musgrave (Billy Crudup).

Together they infiltrate one of those classic action movie mileu's, the factory that produces sparks and steam, and fight through several hundred nameless henchman.The raid is successful or seemed to be but unfortunately the bad guys inserted a timebomb in Lindsey's brain which detonates killing only her. These scenes sound as cheeseball as they truly are, and yet, through sheer hardcore adrenalin, they work.

Indeed the entire movie, as directed by TV genius J.J Abrams, is a series of over the top action scenes that dangle Cruise precariously from varying heights, fires gazillions of bullets, destroys millions of dollars worth of property and never stops entertaining.

The remaining plot involves Ethan and his team catching Davian, being double crossed in classic Mission Impossible fashion and, of course, along the way poor Julia will be kidnapped and have a near death experience with the big bad Davian.

I will freely admit that M.I:3 is a brainless action flick. Utterly mindless, with a plot that falls apart with too much scrutiny. However if you can forget the plot for awhile and just get into the spectacle and bathe in the star powered charisma you will be entertained thoroughly by M.I:3.

This film is just pure adrenalized joy. J.J Abrams and Tom Cruise revel in upping the ante on the action spectacle with every passing scene. They turn the experience into something akin to the X-Games crossed with James Bond and a little David Blaine magic, awe inspiring at times and cheesy as all get out.

I absolutely loved Mission Impossible 3 and I recommend it completely as a must see for people who love the classic Hollywood blockbuster. If you want your mind expanded I recommend Akeelah and The Bee. If you want your pulse to race and heart to pound then see M:I3 and leave your brain in the car.

Movie Review: We Were Soldiers

We Were Soldiers (2002) 

Directed by Randall Wallace

Written by Randall Wallace

Starring Mel Gibson, Madeline Stowe, Sam Elliott, Greg Kinnear, Keri Russell, Barry Pepper

Release Date March 1st, 2002 

Published February 27th, 2002

I have been complaining that I'm tired of war movies, there are just too many of them. Their themes and characters are becoming clichés, and there doesn't seem to be anymore stories to tell. Well, I was wrong and We Were Soldiers showed me I was very wrong.

Mel Gibson stars as an army colonel who leads the first soldiers into Vietnam in 1965. Gibson is also a family man with 5 children and a wife played by Madeline Stow. The opening of the film is surprisingly strong introducing the characters and scenes which we've seen a thousand times; the soldier who tries to be funny, the soldier with the attitude problem, and of course the teary good-byes between husband and wives. We Were Soldiers avoids any more cliches by remaining focused on Gibson and his family, and merely introducing supporting players Chris Klein and his wife played by Felicity's Keri Russell.

The beginning is strong but the film really takes off once the soldiers arrive in Vietnam and are almost immediately dropped into a hot zone where French soldiers had been massacred by the North Vietnamese months before. These scenes are as violent and bloody as anything we've seen before and maybe louder the film's soundtrack. It was at times so loud that my seat shook as if it were rigged to do so. Once in the jungle, Gibson matches wits with a North Vietnamese colonel, but unlike your typical action movie it's not painted as a one-on-one match, but a strategic match between equally matched opponents.

Not many films have had the courage to show America's enemies as human beings but We Were Soldiers does show us North Vietnamese soldiers who aren't monsters but rather just like our guys. They were defending their country and they did so by any means necessary.

The film's supporting cast is strong, especially Barry Pepper. No stranger to great war movies, Pepper stars as the first journalist on the ground who quickly finds more action than he bargained for. Pepper's war photographer is not some cowboy out to break a big story, but a normal person in an extraordinary situation.

We Were Soldiers is not a unique film. We've seen some of this stuff before, scenes that appear in every war movie as if they were required by law. But Gibson, Pepper, Chris Klein and writer director Randall Wallace make even those seemingly clichéd moments ring true and make We Were Soldiers the first great film of 2002.