Movie Review Just Getting Started

Just Getting Started (2017) 

Directed by Ron Shelton 

Written by Ron Shelton 

Starring Morgan Freeman, Tommy Lee Jones, Rene Russo, Joe Pantoliano, Glenn Headly 

Release Date December 8th, 2017 

Why does the movie Just Getting Started exist? Having seen this ghastly comedy, I can’t for a moment divine why anyone involved thought making this movie was a good idea. The jokes are creaky and unfunny; the story is past its sell by date and the direction is clumsy, bordering on amateurish? What type of blackmail was required to draw Morgan Freeman and Tommy Lee Jones to appear in this film? What kind of blackmail was required to get movie theaters to make space for this movie in the same month in which Star Wars The Last Jedi is being released?

Just Getting Started stars Morgan Freeman as Duke, the manager of a high end retirement home in Palm Springs. Duke is living the high life with numerous elderly girlfriends, a loyal coterie of cronies and a seemingly endless pile of cash that he takes out of the company till. But that isn’t even Duke’s biggest secret. He’s also a former mob lawyer who was installed at the retirement home as a cover for his witness protection.

Duke’s idyllic lie is interrupted by the arrival of Leo (Tommy Lee Jones). Leo moves in to the retirement community and immediately takes the attention of Duke’s lady friends. Then, he takes all of Duke’s ill-gotten cash in Duke’s weekly underground poker game. Leo even takes Duke on the golf course, though to be fair, their showdown was cut short by a cobra hidden in Duke’s bag. It appears that Duke’s secret has been uncovered and someone is trying to kill him and make it look like an accident.

Now you might think from my straightforward description that Leo’s appearance in the retirement community would not be coincidental to Duke’s being found by the mob but you would be wrong. I know, it seems like the perfect set up to perhaps have Jones be the hitman and the two battling wits perhaps? Nope! Or maybe Leo would be an undercover agent sent to infiltrate the home and keep Duke from getting wacked, but nope!

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Classic Movie Review The Fugitive

The Fugitive (1993) 

Directed by Andrew Davis 

Written by Jeb Stuart, David Twohy 

Starring Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Julianne Moore, Selma Blair, Joe Pantoliano

Release Date August 6th, 2023

Published August 7th, 2023 

The story behind the movie The Fugitive is much crazier than I would have ever expected. The movie is so tight and so uniquely performed, I assumed that it must have been a terrifically assembled piece of work behind the scenes. Then, I read an incredible thread on Twitter from a user named @ATRightMovies. This person lays out a behind the scenes story that, on the surface, you would assume led to the creation of a complete disaster of a movie. Script problems, a star who was halfheartedly interested in making the movie, and assumptions on the set that everyone was making a bad movie, somehow led to the creation of a film that was nominated for 7 Oscars, with one Oscar win. 

The Fugitive is based on a popular 1960s television series starring David Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble, a man wrongly accused of murdering his wife. Harrison Ford takes on the role of Dr. Kimble in the movie which finds him returning to his well appointed home to find a one armed man had assaulted and murdered his wife (Sela Ward). Kimble fought the one armed man but he managed to mistake. When Police arrived, they found Dr. Kimble covered in his wife's blood, he'd tried to perform CPR and ended up clutching her dead body in his anguish over her death. 

The blood and Kimble's story about a one armed man are too much for the Chicago Police Investigators to buy. They arrest Kimble and charge him with murder. Found guilty, Richard is facing life in prison when fate intervenes. While being transported to a Federal Prison, other inmates on the transport initiate a plan for escape. They attack and stab a guard, the driver of the bus is shot and killed, and the bus crashes on train tracks. In a spectacular sequence, a train is headed toward the bus on the tracks. Kimble picks up the injured officer and saves his life. Then, in a moment that has been shared among the best action sequences of the past 30 years, Kimble leaps from the broken bus seconds before the train strikes it, leading to a train derailment. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2006) 

Directed by Tommy Lee Jones

Written by Guillermo Arriaga 

Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper, Julio Cedillo, Dwight Yoakam, January Jones 

Release Date February 3rd, 2006 

Published February 21st, 2006

There are places we won't believe exist anymore. Modernization and technology we would assume has phased these places out of existence. Places like the old west. Those lawless dust bowls filled with characters ready to drink, fight and kill if they feel like it.

However, watch the headlines and take a look to the south. The old west is still out there in small pockets of the border between America and Mexico. These are places where cowboys still ride horses and carry shotguns. Places where border patrol guards ride like old school texas rangers delivering swift justice to potential border crossers.

As all await Washington's decision to modernize the border crossing with modern fence technology, the old west attitude thrives in lawlessness and old school justice. The new video The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is a snapshot of this new 'old west' attitude. Directed by Tommy Lee Jones, Three Burials takes a cursory glance at border policy with a broader eye on how a modern society often doesn't evolve as a whole.

Melquiades Estrada (Juan Cedillo) was a kind soul simply out to make money for his family. Quiet, unassuming and hard working it is no surprise that he would earn the trust and friendship of a hard working roughneck rancher like Pete (Tommy Lee Jones). Bonding over heads of steer and women of ill repute, Mel and Pete became brothers.

When Melquiades is murdered Pete first seeks modern justice, an investigation by the local sheriff (Dwight Yoakam). However, unable to escape old west attitudes, it isn't long before Pete is ready for some old school biblical justice.

The man who killed Melquiades is a mystery to Pete but not those of us in the audience. He is Mike a newly arrived, wet behind the ears college dropout who has just accepted a job as a border patrol officer. Moving with his wife LouAnn (January Jones) to a nameless border is for both like a trip back in time some 100 years. Used to the creature comforts of the mall and cable television, the former High School sweethearts, voted most likely to succeed, find themselves failures even in this dust covered piece of nowhere.

Mike has grown quite bitter since his days as a king of high school. Spiritually defeated he takes occasion to let out his aggressions on border crossing mexicans. Warned more than once by his supervisor about his brutal assaults and arrests, it is no wonder that he is the in the killing of Melquiades.

The fates can be cruel. While you might believe that Mike in his typically brutish fashion murdered Melquiades  in cold blood, the facts are quite different. The facts however, matter not to Pete who simply and singleminded seeks justice and also seeks to keep a blood promise to Melquiades.

Pete must take Mel back to Mexico and bury him in his hometown and Pete plans to make certain Mike witnesses this funeral first hand.

Thus begins the true thrust of The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada. A death march across the barren desert as irony of ironies a pair gringos crosses the border into Mexico.

Written with hard bitten determination by Guillermo Arriaga, Three Burials has a soft spoken hypnotic pitch to it's dialogue. While Arriaga's words often ache to be screamed, the actors remain flat and emotionless. No one does stonefaced aggressiveness like Tommy Lee Jones and though his words ar never shouted, the harsh sadness and anger behind each is beyond resonant.

Barry Pepper as Mike is really the only character given to histrionics but like the rest of the cast, it's the croaky, whispered moments that make the most noise. As Mike makes his forced march across the desert at the barrel of Pete's old style six shooter the journey becomes as much Mike as Pete's or as the late Mel's. Is Mike redeemed by this forced journey? That is for you to discover by watching Barry Pepper's haunting, mesmerizing performance.

Though set in modern day America, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada evokes the old west of Peckinpah and Leoni in it's burnt out desert browns and oranges. Picturesque scenery covered in layers of blood and dirt that only old west milieus can convey. This is as beautiful looking a film as it is well acted and moving.

There is another aspect of this story that few people want to comment on. An undercurrent of homoeroticism that is actually quite common in supposedly macho movies bubbles beneath the surface of this manly tale of revenge. Though Pete indulges in an affair with a local married waitress well played by Melissa Leo, it becomes clear that Melquiades is his one and only love. Now neither man would even admit or act upon it, but the bond between the two men, especially expressed after Mel's death, is deeper than Pete can deal with out loud.

There are many layers to peel away while experiencing this intense revenge fantasy. Layers of pain, heartbreak, denial and redemption. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is a treasure trove of subtext and of visual artistry. A truly must see picture for anyone who loves movies.

Movie Review No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men (2007) 

Directed by The Coen Brothers

Written by The Coen Brothers, Cormac McCarthy

Starring Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson

Release Date November 9th, 2007

Published November 8th, 2007

The Big Lebowski is my favorite movie of all time. I have seen it dozens of times, traded lines with friends and strangers and marveled at the number of nuances I find in it everytime I watch it. Lebowski was the product of the fertile minds of the Coen Brothers who used the frame of classic noir detective stories to twist dialogue and convention into the highest form of comedy.

The Coen's new film, No Country For Old Men, could not be more different than The Big Lebowski. Faithfully adapting the dark, violent work of Cormac McCarthy, the Coen's depart with almost all of their past and work to bring McCarthy's vision to the screen. Everything down to the music, usually provided by Coen's guy Carter Burwell is jettisoned in order to bring McCarthy's earthy, Texas prose to the screen.

It sounds risky but it works. No Country For Old Men is arguably the best film of 2007.

A drug deal gone bad leads an average man, Llewellyn Wells (Josh Brolin)  to a stunning discovery, a dead man carrying a satchel holding over 2 and a half million dollars. While dollar signs flash in Lewellyn's mind, the man who's money has gone missing has already dispatched a man to recover it. That man is Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) , a psychotic, unrelenting killer who will not stop until the job is finished, no matter how many people he has to kill.

Observing things from a few steps behind is county sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones). The drug deal happened in his jurisdiction and Wells being one of his citizens makes this a case he is required to follow. As the bodies pile up and Chigurh comes closer to Wells, Bell becomes more and more disturbed by the decline of basic humanity in his corner of the world.

Directed and adapted by the Coen Brothers, from the novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy, No Country For Old Men is a meditative, hypnotic film experience. So sucked in by this unfolding drama and these extraordinary characters, this is the kind of film that haunts you on your way out of the theater. Try describing the feelings afterward and a tingle in your spine will no doubt accompany your recollection.

No Country For Old Men is a very unique adventure for the Coen Brothers. Known for dialogue that twists and turns and bobs and weaves like non-sequitur poetry, the Coen's surrender much of their own writing to adapting, almost word for word, the straight forward, manly dialogue of Cormac McCarthy. Readers of No Country For Old Men will recognize whole passages of dialogue from the book in the movie.

The Coen changes to McCarthy's work are minimal. They have removed Ed Tom's narration, dropping some of the old sheriff's rambling observations about the rotting of humanity into the dialogue of the film. They've added a few scenes to flesh out areas of Ed Tom's narration but otherwise whole scenes are translated directly from McCarthy's text.

The Coen Brothers' work has always been open to philosophical observation. No Country For Old Men may be their most open to interpretation work yet. McCarthy's book is open to much speculation about its meaning  but it breaks down to a rather elementary discussion of McCarthy's feelings on the breakdown of society.

The Coen's are more philosophical. Yes, that discussion about where the world is heading is there but there is something more in the visual subtext of No Country For Old Men that is open to a wide amount of explanation. Take an especially close look at Anton Chigurh. Where McCarthy never bothered giving a physical description of Chigurh, the Coen's were quite specific with what they wanted.

Casting Javier Bardem, a Spaniard with a swarthy almost Mediterranean look, they left open too much speculation just who Chigurh might work for. Then there is the hair, a ludicrous late 70's throwback that I feel looks somewhat reminiscent of the top of the grim reapers robe. Wielding a shotgun instead of a sickle, Chigurh kills indiscriminately yet pauses on more than one occasion to offer his query a game of chance a la Bergman's interpretation of the reaper in The Seventh Seal.

No chess game but a more disturbing and fateful coin flip, the Coen's version of the character of Death is an equally terrifying character. As played by Javier Bardem, Chigurh is an unceasingly calm and terrifying figure. The performance is so brilliantly haunting that Chigurh comes home with you after the film in ways only classic horror film villains have in the past.

No Country For Old Men is, arguably, the best film of 2007. One of the finest works in the long, illustrious career of the Coen Brothers and easily their most unique. It's strange to see the Coen's interpret someone else's work. What's more extraordinary is how well they adapt someone else's work. The Coen's transfer Cormac McCarthy directly to the screen in ways that few writers could ever imagine.

Slavishly faithful to McCarthy's words, the Coen's must have writers like Stephen King falling all over themselves to get interpreted. It's a rare and exceptional thing for filmmakers to show a writer so much respect. That is just one of many extraordinary things about No Country For Old Men.

Movie Review: A Prairie Home Companion

A Prairie Home Companion (2006) 

Directed by Robert Altman 

Written by Garrison Keillor 

Starring Woody Harrelson, Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Garrison Keillor, Lindsay Lohan, John C. Reilly, Kevin Kline

Release Date June 9th, 2006 

Published June 8th, 2006 

Words like quaint and charming are anachronistic in this day and age. They are anathema to modern audiences bred on irony and detached perspective. Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion has always been of another time. A time when quaint and charming were far from insulting, they were the height of faint praise, as Keillor himself might say.

Now that A Prairie Home Companion has been brought to the big screen, under the direction of the legendary Robert Altman, you might fairly assume that it has been somehow updates, jazzed up somehow for modern audiences. That is thankfully not the case. A Prairie Home Companion is as old fashioned as has always been on Minnesota Public Radio and the throwback nature is one of the films many great pleasures.

In the era of irony a little earnest homespun humor is just the thing to warm your heart and give you a good tickle. It's the last night for the cast and crew of A Prairie Home Companion. For 30 some years the WLD radio variety show has emanated from the Fitzgerald theater in St Paul Minnesota. However, now that the longtime heritage station has been sold to a major corporate chain, the show's over.

This is distressing news to long time performers like the Johnson Sisters, Yolanda (Meryl Streep) and Rhonda (Lily Tomlin) who have performed on the show since it's inception. Yolanda's late husband was the inspiration for the show and Yolanda had hoped her daughter Lola (Lindsey Lohan) might one day perform there one day.

Also distressed at losing their regular gig are the singing cowboys Dusty (Woody Harrelson) and Lefty (John C. Reilly) whose ribald tunes about life on the plains are one of the shows humorous highlights, unless your the shows harried producer worried about FCC violations.

Seemingly unaffected by the sadness of the last broadcast is the shows longtime host G.K (Garrison Keillor) who is intent on making the very last show just like the first one. Refusing any attempt at evoking audience sympathies, G.K will not say thank you or goodbye in any kind of grand fashion. Why even when one of the shows older performers passes away in his dressing room mid-show G.K refuses an on air eulogy telling the cast that if he were to start eulogizing his friends at his age he wouldn't stop till he was dead himself.

Lurking in the background backstage is the shows head of security an oddball right out of a fifties private eye movie the aptly named Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) when he's not watching the door or providing a running commentary, Guy searches for a mysterious blonde in a trench coat only known as A Dangerous Woman (Virginia Madsen).

Saturday Night Live's Maya Rudolf and the real life band and singers of the radio show A Prairie Home Companion round out the cast of this deliciously simple showbiz comedy. Simple in terms of smart character driven humor and old school showbiz pizazz.

Lurking behind this behind the scenes comedy is a bizarre whimsy that is pure Robert Altman. In bringing to life Garrison Keillor's radio show, Altman has brought literal life to some of his fictional characters including the aforementioned Dusty and Lefty and most importantly Guy Noir who has long been Keillor's favored creation outside the denizens of the fictional town of Lake Woebegone.

Guy's whole persona and function in the film are a delightful mixture of detective movie parody and straight comedy and in the person of Kevin Kline these elements reach a near symphony level of comic timing and perfection. Kline is more than worthy of a supporting actor nomination as the standout of this brilliant ensemble.

Meryl Streep provides the emotional center of A Prairie Home Companion. Yolanda is more than just a performer on the show, in the films history her family is entwined in the history of the show. Her husband was G.K's partner before he passed on. Yolanda herself was for a time entwined with G.K and her daughter has been coming to the show with her since birth.

Her colorful history, only alluded to, colors the film and brings depth to the emotions that resonate from her especially while on stage with her voice breaking belting out the same old time gospel songs she and her sister have sang on the show for years.

Streep's performance is not perfect. She along with Harrelson and Reilly occasionally betray their performances by allowing Hollywood affectations to leak through their Midwestern patois. Overall though the performances are universally strong.

Maybe most surprising of all is Garrison Keillor. Playing himself is certainly the kind of comfort zone any actor can thrive in but Keillor does truly impress with his deft wit and comic timing. Anyone who listens to his real life show on a regular basis will likely recognize that this is typical Garrison Keillor but the uninitiated will likely be very impressed with the his sleight of hand phraseology and warm charismatic nature.

In his most recent directorial effort the ballet drama The Company Robert Altman directed as if the whole thing bored him. The director was constantly allowing the camera to wiggle around and wander away from the actors, when they weren't dancing. It was as if he were directing from a script he didn't much care for and simple set the camera and walked away when he wasn't enjoying the ballet performances.

A Prairie Home Companion is a return to form for the great director. Fully engaged and even modestly excited about this smart, homespun material, Altman seems to delight in every last detail from Keillor's wacky fake product commercials to the style of Kevin Kline's haircut meant match that of a bust of the great F. Scott Fitzgerald whose bust is prominently displayed in the theater that is named for him.

A Prairie Home Companion is a masters class in Altman's managed chaos style. The film floats backstage to look in on Guy Noir and the backstage happenings and then simply glides back on to the stage for another song and a story. The flow is hypnotic when it's not laugh out loud funny. This is one of Robert Altman's best efforts in a very long while.

Quaint and charming may be curse words in this day and age but not in relation to this wonderfully quaint charming comedy from a master director and a master storyteller. A Prairie Home Companion is one of the best films of the year.

Movie Review In the Valley of Elah

In the Valley of Elah (2007) 

Directed by Paul Haggis 

Written by Paul Haggis 

Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Jonathan Tucker, Frances Fisher, Susan Sarandon 

Release Date September 14th, 2007 

Published September 13th, 2007 

I'm going to come off ignorant or insensitive in this review. Of this I have no doubt. I can't begin to guess what is like for our soldiers in Iraq and thus to draw conclusions, especially from a movie, is going to bring out my ignorance to some readers and my insensitivity to others. Nevertheless, I can't dismiss In The Valley of Elah and the extraordinary pain and anger it evokes and where that anger comes from. Written and directed by Paul Haggis, In The Valley of Elah is a sometimes maddening, sometimes dawdling and always compelling drama of a father, a son, and a war that should not be fought.

Growing up in the home of Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones) a boy knew he was going into the military. Hank is the kind of patriotic American who gets up early to help properly raise the flag over the middle school. Mike Deerfield (Jonathan Tucker), whether he was ready or not, went to Iraq because he wanted to make his father proud.

When the call comes that Mike has gone AWOL from the Fort Rudd military base in New Mexico, Hank thinks his son couldn't possibly be missing in New Mexico, he's still in Iraq. Turns out that Mike's unit came home several days earlier and, for some reason, he didn't call home. Thinking his son is drunk and in the bed of some lovely young local; Hank drives through the night to Fort Rudd to help find his son.

What Hank eventually discovers is that his son is dead, butchered and burned in a vacant field on the edge of the base. Sensing that the military is set to sweep his son's death under the rug, Hank turns to the local cops and detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron) who resists the potential jurisdictional fight with the military until Hank shows her evidence that both the locals and the military investigators missed. Thus begins a murder mystery that uncovers truths about Michael that Hank may not have ever wanted to know. The son he sent to Iraq was not the man who returned from Iraq.

Paul Haggis directs In The Valley Of Elah with an eye toward meditative sadness. Mixing an almost subliminal anti-war message into a rather straight edge murder mystery, In The Valley of Elah can be quite maddening. The film distracts itself with murder mystery conventions while truly being about the horrors of war and the trauma of the young men forced to fight it.

To point out that our soldiers could be vulnerable to great sadness and pain after having experienced war is considered by some to be unpatriotic. That is the cover that pro-war politicians take in order to justify the continuation of a failed policy that has cost us all so much. A generation of young men dying, losing limbs and scarred forever emotionally, all for what? What are they fighting for?

In The Valley of Elah offers this sentiment under the guise of a murder mystery and maybe this is the way to get some people to listen. Drawn to the movie by the mystery plot people will be exposed to the pain, the sadness and the futility of this war. Even as we are told that the war is turning around we cannot forget the young men and women who died not knowing what it was they were fighting for.

The final image of In The Valley of Elah is the one straightforward moment of commentary in the film. It's a powerful symbol of a distressed nation dealing with losses it can hardly begin to understand. Lied into a war with the wrong country; with loved ones dying for a cause that seemed to change with the wind, In The Valley of Elah captures the heartache and devastation of the losses we should all feel for allowing this travesty to begin and continue today.

Movie Review The Company Men

The Company men (2011) 

Directed by John Wells 

Written by John Wells 

Starring Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper, Kevin Costner, Maria Bello, Craig T. Nelson

Release Date January 21st, 2011

Published January 20th, 2011 

John Wells made his nut as the Executive Producer and creator of the hit series ER. For all intents and purposes John Wells never has to work again. Yet, with multi, multi, multi millions of dollars in the bank John Wells is hanging himself out there as a director and making the movie “The Company Men,” a real American Dream movie about a self made man who decides to risk it all for an ideal that has too long ago passed away in the overwhelming light of modern corporate/Wall Street culture.

Tommy Lee Jones is Gene McClary CFO of a company that used to make ships, now they make corporate deals that have next to nothing to do with shipbuilding. In fact, with every new move the company he formed with his best friend (Craig T. Nelson) gets further and further away from their humble beginnings in the stockyards. The people that came up with them are dropping like flies as every move of the stock price is accompanied by more layoffs and firings.

Among those losing their job in the corporate carnage is up and comer Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck). As one of many heads of sales in the shipbuilding division; Bobby looked like a future CEO. Sadly, with shipping dying and his salary near the top he's out and he's not alone. Soon to join Bobby on the unemployment line is Phil Woodward (Chris Cooper) , a veteran salesman and one of Gene's oldest friends. Phil came up from building ships in the yard and now, just short of his retirement age he is out of a job.

Bobby's story comprises much of the runtime of “The Company Men” as he and his wife (Rosemarie Dewitt) cope with a big mortgage, two expensive cars and two frightened kids. Unwilling to swallow his pride Bobby scours the country for a job that will keep his family in their home. When he finally is forced to make a choice his only option is to take a temporary job working for his brother in law (Kevin Costner) working construction.

Phil's story is even darker and has a powerful and devastating conclusion that, though it is predictable, nevertheless impacts strongly. Chris Cooper is extraordinary as a man who fiercely clings to his pride to the point that it devastates him. Phil is the impetus for a hopeful and miraculous finish that I will leave you to discover by watching the wonderful fairy tale that is “The Company Men.”

The values at work in “The Company Men'' are deeply liberal but not in the stereotypical sense. “The Company Men '' exerts the true dream of liberalism, fair treatment for all. While the right accuses the left of simply wanting handouts, “The Company Men '' demonstrates a corporate titan and multi-millionaire who acts in the best interest of his employees and sets about using his money to create opportunities not handouts.

The notion is I am My Brother's Keeper. We are our brother’s keeper and that doesn't mean giving something away, it means that when you succeed you use your success to create an opportunity for others to succeed. I have always used a metaphor to demonstrate how I feel about people with money and people without and it goes like this: once you have climbed the wall to financial stability throw a rope back so that the next person can climb up there with you.

Too many of the rich in America are pulling the rope up behind them, taking their wealth and squirreling it away for reasons that only they understand. “The Company Men” gives life to my dream of a corporate culture where opportunities are created and success is decided by those who grab the opportunity given and make the most of it.

Tommy Lee Jones's Gene is fascinating because he does what so many with money will not do, he throws a rope back. It's not about him giving something away, he decides to create something, build something, innovate something and in the process he gives others the opportunity to create and innovate alongside him.

Thank you John Wells, “The Company Men” is a movie of relevance and necessity. This is the movie that so many other modern polemics wish they could be; a story of hope against the sorrow of our tough economic times. “The Company” Men is a guide post for how our country could get turned around if there were more men of means like Gene willing to take a risk and throw a rope back over the wall.

Movie Review Captain America: The First Avenger

Captain America The First Avenger (2011) 

Directed by Joe Johnston 

Written by Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely 

Starring Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Stanley Tucci, Dominic Cooper, Tommy Lee Jones, Hayley Atwell 

Release Date July 22nd, 2011 

Published July 21st, 2011 

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) was a 98 pound weakling with a heart twice the size of his tiny frame. In 1942 all Steve wanted was to defend his country in the 2nd World War. Steve didn't have bloodlust or a death wish, rather, he saw Hitler as just the kind of bully that he'd spent his young life fighting against and he was eager to strike a blow on behalf of those being harmed by Hitler's evil.

Steve wasn't likely to get a chance until he met a German scientist, Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci) who managed to escape Hitler's Germany with some of his extraordinary research intact. After meeting Steve Rogers, Dr. Erskine was quickly convinced that he was just the kind of good man who would be a perfect candidate for his super-soldier program.

A Hero Born

Indeed, Steve was the perfect candidate and after undergoing the remarkable procedure Steve develops the type of body to match his guts, heart and determination. Soon, Steve Rogers is transformed into the symbolic hero Captain America before gets the chance to become a real hero on the frontline in Europe battling Hitler's rogue defense minister Johan Schmidt aka The Red Skull (Hugo Weaving).

Captain America: The Last Avenger was directed by Joe Johnston, a director very familiar with high end special effects having directed Lost World: Jurassic Park 3 and Jumanji. Johnston's effects work in Captain America exceeds even those two exceptional special effects adventures.

Chris Evans 98 Pound Weakling

Most eye-catching is the remarkably seamless transformation of star Chris Evan from the scrawny Steve Rogers to the muscled up Captain. Early on Johnston attempted to merely paste star Chris Evans's face digitally onto that of another actor but it just didn't look right. Then, employing techniques like those used to help Brad Pitt age backwards in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Johnston and his special effects team shrank the real Chris Evans down to size.

The effect is exceptional as are the action effects that show Captain America and his team heroically battling Red Skull and his robotic super soldiers. Yes, comic book fans, Captain America does whip that awesome shield at many bad guys and in many unique ways as well. Just as cool is Cap's James Bond-esque motorcycle; built by none other than Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper); future daddy to Iron Man himself, Tony Stark.

Here Come the Avengers

Chris Evans is a real surprise as Captain America. There was never any doubt that Evans had the physicality to play Captain America but based on his past performances I was shocked at Evans's ability to deliver Steve Rogers as a compelling, sensitive and well rounded character; it really is a terrific performance. Evans is aided greatly by Stanly Tucci and Tommy Lee Jones in support and Hayley Atwell sparks tremendous chemistry with Evans as Captain America's plucky English tomboy love interest Peggy.

Captain America: The Last Avenger's most lasting effect is as the perfect set up for the summer 2012 blockbuster The Avengers. Walking out of Captain America I was excited by the notion of watching Evans's square jawed, classically heroic Cap work opposite Robert Downey Jr's anti-hero Iron Man. If that were Captain America's only virtue, it would be enough. That Captain America happens to be nearly as good a movie as Iron Man and a better movie than Thor or either of the Incredible Hulk films (other members of The Avengers team) is a fantastic bonus.

Movie Review: Ad Astra

Ad Astra (2019)

Directed by James Grey

Written by James Grey, Ethan Gross

Starring Brad Pitt, Donald Sutherland, Ruth Negga, Tommy Lee Jones, Liv Tyler 

Release Date September 20th, 2019 

Published September 19th, 2019

Ad Astra stars Brad Pitt as astronaut Roy McBride. We meet Roy as he is working on what appears to be the International Space Station or some approximation of such. The station is just above the atmosphere of the Earth, something that becomes urgently important when the station is struck by some sort of energy surge. As the station begins to explode, Roy is sent hurtling back to the Earth. 

By some miracle, Roy survives and upon his rather brief recuperation, he is brought into a secretive meeting of military brass. The men in this meeting inform Roy about a secret mission involving Roy’s father, Dr Clifford McBride, that sent him to what was believed to be his death on a space station near Neptune, the farthest that man has ever travelled in space. Roy was told that his father had died but here, he is told that his father may be alive and his survival is related to these energy surges that now endanger all of mankind. 

The military men want Roy to leave everything behind and travel to Mars where he will, via an American-Martian outpost, be able to send his father a message that they hope will help to stop these energy surges. It’s a lengthy journey and there are many things about his father and his mission that Roy is not yet aware of. One man who does know is Col Thomas Pruitt (Donald Sutherland). Despite his advanced age, Pruitt is to escort Roy on his mission and carry with him a secretive agenda. 

To say much more about the plot of Ad Astra would be to give away too much of this exceptional story. Directed and co-written by James Gray, the underrated auteur behind the brilliant Lost City of Z and The Immigrant, Ad Astra continues a remarkable hot streak for the director. Gray is a director who chooses challenging subjects and attacks them from unique angles. It’s been a hallmark of his work and it continues with the unusual journey of Ad Astra. 

Ad Astra carries influences as varied and fascinating as Apocalypse Now and 2001 A Space Odyssey. Ad Astra lacks the bold un-commerciality of 2001, but for being more straight-forward than 2001, it retains some of the artistic touches of Kubrick’s legendary adventure including a colorful visual palette, a deliberate pace, and a deep respect for space travel. I know that making such a comparison is big but aside from being a good deal more mainstream in ambition, the 2001 comparison is reasonable in terms of the remarkable artistry and care on display. 

The Apocalypse Now comparison is far more typical as Marlon Brando delivered the definitive crazed man of authority in that Francis Ford Coppola masterwork. Tommy Lee Jones in Ad Astra however, earns that comparison. Jones is electric in the role of Brad Pitt’s father, a driven and desperate man on a mission. Jones has been great in any number of roles but I dare say this role exceeds even his greatest work in No Country for Old Men and his Academy Award winning performance in The Fugitive. 

Yes, you can infer that issues of fathers and sons permeate the story of Ad Astra. The issues of loyalty, duty, love and resentment are sewn into this story. These issues underline the action throughout and bring depth and a compelling emotionality to a movie that from time to time can feel as remote as the space wherein it exists. Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones have a tremendous chemistry but it’s the ways in which writer-director James Gray weaves them together when they aren’t on screen together that make Ad Astra so remarkably compelling. 

Ad Astra is one of my favorite movies of 2019. The film ranks next to another ingenious and brilliantly artistic Brad Pitt movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as one of the best in an underrated 2019 at the movies. Brad Pitt went away for a little while, if you follow the tabloids you know he had some issues to overcome, and the time away from the spotlight has sharpened his gifts and helped to hone his eye for movies with great moments. 

Ad Astra is filled with incredible moments that culminate in a final act that is one of my favorites of the year. The final act of Ad Astra is exciting, unexpected and filled with dramatic energy. It’s a perfect ending for a strange often off-kilter movie with a very unique energy and suspense. I adore the third act of Ad Astra and would put it up against the third act of any movie of the last decade or indeed the movies I have compared it to already in this review. 

I am perhaps heaping too much praise on Ad Astra. I am risking hyping the movie to a degree that it may not be able to achieve for you, those who’ve not yet seen it. So be it, I think Ad Astra is deserving of my over-praise. The movie is exceptional and a must-see.

Movie Review Men in Black 2

Men in Black 2 (2002) 

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld 

Written by Robert Gordon, Barry Fanaro 

Starring Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Rosario Dawson, Lara Flynn Boyle, Johnny Knoxville 

Release Date July 3rd, 2002 

Published July 2nd, 2002 

The original Men In Black was a fresh and funny surprise. The film came out of nowhere and based on its charm and its appealing stars, the film scored 600+ million dollars at the box office. Charm, however, can carry a film only so far and it is no match for the disease known as sequelitis. If you think about it I bet you could count the number of good sequels on one hand. Sequelitis is why almost all sequels suck. Even the great Will Smith seems no match for it.

MIB2 has Smith and Tommy Lee Jones back in their black suits and Ray Bans. Of course if you recall the original, Jones' agent K was neuralized and returned to a normal life. Smith as Agent J is investigating the murder of an alien by another alien who has taken the form of Lara Flynn Boyle. Only K knows the secret to stopping this new alien threat. 

So J and his new partner Frank the Dog go to a small Massachusetts town where K is now a postal worker, a situation ripe for comedy but not taken advantage of in this film. Once K is returned to headquarters he is to be de-neuralized, but once he gets his memory back he still can't remember what happened to the object that the bad guys are looking for. K's memory block is the film’s only clever subplot as the duo search the clues K left for himself in case of such an emergency.

Where the original MIB had a bouncy pace with a new surprise around every corner MIB 2 has just the opposite; dull, lifeless transitional scenes that lead nowhere. There are no surprises in the alien creatures created by the effects team and the legendary Rick Baker. It's probably George Lucas's fault, his aliens are so visually interesting that most everything else pales in comparison. Lucas's Star Wars creatures make MIB 2's aliens look like the work of amateurs.

The biggest disappointment about MIB 2 is director Barry Sonnenfeld who directs the film with a dull cynicism. The film is constructed of dull transitory scenes broken up every 5 or 10 minutes by a special effect, probably to keep the audience from falling asleep. The film plays like a commercial for itself. The few laughs of the film are easy to cut out and put into a commercial or a trailer, with no need for context or much of a setup.

The film is well crafted but not memorable. MIB 2 is the kind of film that five years from now will be airing on TBS Superstation; you’ll stop for a moment then change the channel when a commercial comes on and maybe flick back later to see if it's still on.

Movie Review: The Hunted

The Hunted (2003) 

Directed by William Friedkin 

Written by David Griffiths, Peter Griffiths, Art Monterastelli 

Starring Benicio Del Toro, Tommy Lee Jones, Connie Nielsen 

Release Date March 14th, 2003 

Published March 13th, 2003 

Director William Friedkin, the action director best known for the Oscar winner The French Connection is back with yet another great chase movie. In The Hunted, Friedkin teams fellow Oscar winners Benicio Del Toro and Tommy Lee Jones in a one on one, mano e mano, chase movie that is remarkable for its economy of characters and lack of special effects. Hand to hand combat in movies usually involves some form of martial arts. In The Hunted, a hand to hand knife fight is the central scene and the combat feels raw and exciting. 

In The Hunted Del Toro plays Aron Hallem, a Special Forces soldier that we are introduced to as he and his unit infiltrate a Serbian incursion in Albania. Incursion is merely a kinder term for genocidal slaughtering as Aron is witness to horrible atrocities including children being forced to watch their parents killed then be killed themselves. Despite the atrocities, Aron sticks to his mission, which is to kill the commander of the Serbian forces, which he does as coldly and efficiently as one might gut a fish. Back in the States, Aron is awarded the Medal of Honor for combat bravery. However, in his quiet moments, Aron is tormented by the atrocities that he could not prevent.

Parallel to Aron's story is that of his mentor, a survivalist named L.T. Bonham (Tommy Lee Jones). Though Bonham is not a military man, he was contracted years ago to teach special forces officers how to kill in cold blood. Working off his debt of conscience in British Columbia, Bonham rebuilds his karma protecting wildlife from trappers. Meanwhile Aron, back in the States, is also into wildlife but to more of an extreme as we watch him slice up a pair of goofy looking, orange vest and camouflage wearing hunters. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review: The Missing

The Missing (2003) 

Directed by Ron Howard 

Written by Ken Kaufman

Starring Cate Blanchett, Tommy Lee Jones, Evan Rachel Wood, Jenna Boyd, Aaron Eckhardt 

Release Date November 26th, 2003

Published November 24th, 2003

I have never been a big fan of westerns and yet, this year, I have seen a pair of terrific films from that genre: Kevin Costner's elegant cattle rustling drama Open Range and an unknown indie western called Dust starring Josef Fiennes; a western that toys with the traditions of the genre in ways that bring it new life and vitality. Now comes Ron Howard's take on the western, The Missing. Like Open Range, it has some of the traditional archetypes and structure of classic western, but like the innovative Dust, it has a  lot of artistry and flair that the genre has always lacked.

Cate Blanchett stars in The Missing as Maggie, a healer in a backwoods New Mexico homestead. Maggie lives and works the land with her two daughters, oldest Lilly (Evan Rachel Wood) and youngest Dot (Jenna Boyd), as well as a field hand named Brake (Aaron Eckhart) with whom Maggie is close. Their lives are mundane and, you might even say, dull, until Maggie's estranged father Samuel (Tommy Lee Jones) comes to their home in need of medical attention.

Father and daughter haven't spoken in years, not since Samuel ran off to live with Apache Indians, leaving Maggie behind with her sick mother who died soon after he left. Maggie grew up hard and fast and was only recently coming to terms with herself when Samuel shows up. It's not surprising when she angrily sends her father on his way. 

Unfortunately, Samuel will re-enter his daughter’s life again soon after when Indians kidnap Lilly and head for the Mexican border to sell her into slavery. Only Samuel has the means to track the Indians and get the girl back. The military, represented by Val Kilmer in a quick cameo, are hot on the wrong trail and are headed the wrong direction despite Maggie's pleading.

The Indian kidnappers are lead by a mystical man called Chidin, who Samuel is convinced is a witch. Chidin does indeed seem to have some sort of powers, though his motives are clearly just motivated by greed. Chidin is played by Eric Schweig who made a wonderful impression in 2002's Skins. Here, he is hardly recognizable under aging makeup and war paint, and he is more frightening than most horror movie villains.

Director Ron Howard had said he never wanted to make a western, but something about the unconventional elements of The Missing appealed to him. Howard liked that this western had a strong woman as its lead character. He liked that there were no card games or noontime shootouts at ten paces. The mystical elements of The Missing offered the opportunity to break many of the traditional western cliches. For the most part, Howard makes it work.

The success of The Missing starts with the casting of Cate Blanchett, a terrifically believable actress. Blanchett is a chameleon on par with Meryl Streep, Blanchett can play any role. Here, she plays what are essentially two roles. When we first meet Maggie, she is a hard bitten woman who is both mother and father to her two daughters. Maggie chops wood and cooks dinner. However, after her daughter is kidnapped, she is forced to become vulnerable and, as father and daughter slowly reconcile, she softens Maggie's edges in a way that is believable. Maggie never melts into a typical victim role that the character might have become in the hands of a lesser actress.

What can you say about Tommy Lee Jones? The man is toughness personified. In The Missing, even as he wears the ugliest, least convincing pony tail in film history, Jones still exudes toughness and wisdom. There is something about those deep lines in Jones's face; those lines communicate strength, intelligence, surprising humor, a most effectively wisdom. Jones' wizened visage carries gravitas, it has weight as much as age, intensity and experience. 

Credit cinematographer Salvatore Tatino with helping The Missing break with many of the western genres' most conventional elements. Using different cameras, film stock, and lighting Tatino and Howard paint a wonderfully unique looking western setting. The only significant problem with The Missing, is its length, which stretches too far past the two hour mark. 

There are a number of times the film could have ended but didn't and the final half hour is desperately padded with unnecessary scenes. It's as if screenwriter Ken Kaufmann, adapting a book by Thomas Eidsen, couldn't decide on an ending and kept circling back to wrap up forgotten and unnecessary plot points that could have been left for the audience to wonder about. Instead those plot points are resolved with pretentious, overlong bits of dialogue that threaten to sink the film near the end.

Thankfully Ron Howard pulls out of this bad run of scenes before the film completely faltered and, for most of its run time, The Missing is an enthralling western thriller that shows there is plenty more you can do with a western setting than mere gunfights and saloon brawls.