Documentary Review Jim and Andy and the Great Beyond

Jim and Andy: The Great Beyond (2017) 

Directed by Chris Smith

Written by Chris Smith

Starring Jim Carrey, Andy Kaufman, Danny Devito 

Release Date November 17th, 2017

Man on the Moon was one of my favorite movies of 1999. I had no idea what went into making the movie at the time I saw it in 1999. Had I been more aware of the tabloid crazy story that was going on behind the scenes I likely would have loved the movie even more. Jim Carrey has now detailed the making of Man on the Moon in a new Netflix documentary that debuts November 17th and it is a remarkable and fascinating insight into the mind of an artist

On the surface, Man on the Moon was a straight-forward biopic of the always not so straight forward comedian Andy Kaufman. Directed by the legendary Milos Forman, Man on the Moon had the air of an Awards friendly true-life story of a man who had fascinated millions of people before and after his life came to an end. Even with it being the first of Jim Carrey’s attempts to become taken seriously, there was a prestige to the movie that was innate.

Then stories began to emerge about Jim Carrey’s behavior. In 1998 the film became fodder for the tabloids as Carrey’s shenanigans seemed to be overwhelming the film. In particular, Carrey had a very public run-in with co-star and real-life Kaufman antagonist, professional wrestler Jerry “The King” Lawler. Carrey was said to have gone off the deep end, requiring everyone to call him Andy or Andy’s bizarre, obnoxious character Tony Clifton. Rumors were spreading that Carrey’s behavior was sinking the film.

Now, with the release of the Netflix documentary Jim and Andy The Great Beyond, we have a notion of what things were like behind the scenes of Man on the Moon. Now we know that all the tabloid nuttiness that was reported nearly 20 years ago was pretty much true and helped to make Man on the Moon the remarkably authentic and fascinating film it became. Using Carrey’s own behind the scenes footage, shot by Andy Kaufman’s real life girlfriend Lynn Margulies, we get the whole story, and we know that sometimes madness is creativity at its most pure.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

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 

Classic Movie Review Deathwish 4 The Crackdown

Deathwish 4 The Crackdown

Directed by J. Lee Thompson

Written by Gail Morgan Hickman

Starring Charles Bronson, Kay Lenz, John P. Ryan 

Release Date November 6th, 1987 

How in the world did the Death Wish franchise last for four movies? How did anyone with a brain figure that the story of vigilante Paul Kersey could simply linger for over a decade? It’s a bafflement and yet, in the first weekend of November 1987, Cannon Films managed to release Death Wish 4: The Crackdown and it somehow wasn’t the last of this limping, moronic, gun crazy, alpha male fantasy franchise.

Death Wish 4: The Crackdown finds Paul Kersey living in Los Angeles and running his architectural firm. Paul is dating a journalist named Karen (Kay Lenz) who has a daughter named Erica (Dana Barron). One night Erica hits the town with her boyfriend and tries some cocaine and then dies from an overdose. The loss consumes both Karen and Paul as she sets about using her reporting to track down the bad guys while Paul does it his way, through vigilante justice.

After Paul murders the dealer, he believes is directly responsible for Erica’s death, he finds he’s being watched. A man claiming to be Nathan White, a wealthy industrialist, wants to help Paul reap bloody vengeance on Los Angeles organized crime. He offers to get Paul the guns and the information he needs to battle the two biggest drug dealing factions in Los Angeles. Why? White claims to have had a daughter who also died from a drug overdose.

With White’s assistance, Paul begins murdering drug dealers on both sides of the two biggest crime families. While we are told that this is part of a plan by Paul to turn the two gangs against each other, ending their current détente, all we see is Paul randomly choosing targets on both sides and killing his way out of whatever spot he gets himself into. Paul is clumsy and slow, but the movie makes up for it by making it seem as if he never misses, even as every drug dealer in Los Angeles couldn’t shoot water while standing on a dock.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review A Bad Mom's Christmas

A Bad Mom's Christmas (2017) 

Directed by Scott Moore

Written by Jon Lucas 

Starring Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Susan Sarandon, Christine Baranski 

Release Date November 1st, 2017 

A Bad Moms Christmas is quite funny. The gags delivered by these very funny ladies work most of the time to great effect. So why don’t I love the movie? As much as I laughed at A Bad Mom’s Christmas, I was rolling my eyes during scenes that weren’t centered on off-color gags. For all the uproarious laughs brought on by the brilliant Kathryn Hahn, the non-gag scenes, the ones centered on moving forward the supposed plot of A Bad Moms Christmas, simply don’t hold up.

Mila Kunis is once again at the center of the Bad Moms universe as Amy, the put-upon single mom to two adorable teenagers. Amy is fretting about Christmas and the pressures that the holiday specifically puts on moms to make everything perfect. Amy’s perfect Christmas would be vegging out and watching Love Actually with her kids and her boyfriend Jesse (Jay Hernandez) and his daughter but that’s not going to happen.

Amy’s mom, Ruth (Christine Baransky), has decided to crash Christmas this year and she has big plans for her daughter’s Christmas. Ruth is Christmas crazy, and she immediately throws her daughter’s Christmas plans for a loop. In need of solace, Amy turns to her fellow Bad Moms, Kiki (Kristen Bell) and Carla (Kathryn Hahn) who agree to help her take back Christmas, Bad Moms-style. This leads to a hit and miss montage of the trio creating havoc at the mall, but the laughs outnumber the awkward moments, just barely.

Unfortunately for Kiki and Carla their own mothers have decided to visit. Kiki’s mom Sandy (Cheryl Hines) is a sweetheart, but she has severe boundary issues. A big gag has mom watching her daughter begin to have sex with her husband before revealing that she’s in the room. Carla’s mom, Isis (Susan Sarandon) meanwhile, doesn’t even realize it’s Christmas when she drops in. Isis needs some cash to fund her gambling habit and is seeking a loan from her only daughter.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal. 

TV Review The Lost Wife of Robert Durst

The Lost Wife of Robert Durst (2017) 

Directed by Yves Simoneaux

Written by Bettina Gilois, Matt Birkbeck

Starring Jesse Hutch, Katherine McPhee, Daniel Gillies

Release Date November 4th, 2017 

The Lifetime movie has become synonymous with low-budget, high-camp, gossipy trash. Though the network has worked to try and buy back some respectability with more ambitious, true-life stories and slightly bigger budgets, that gossipy, trashy style of storytelling remains the network’s bread and butter. I sound like I am complaining, and I probably should be, but the fact is, the gossipy, high-camp trash that is The Lost Wife of Robert Durst is insanely watchable; the definition of a pleasure to feel guilty about.

Katherine McPhee stars in The Lost Wife of Robert Durst as Kathie, the first wife of the scion of New York Real Estate moguls Robert Durst (Daniel Gillies – The Vampire Diaries and The Originals) of the New York City Dursts. Kathie met Robert, or Bobby, in 1971 when she took an apartment in a building Robert’s family owned and where he collected the monthly rent in person. The two literally bumped into each other in the hall and were soon inseparable.

What appealed to Kathie about Robert is anyone’s guess. Robert is twitchy, sweaty, and awkward in a way that isn’t charming. He has a square jaw, a full head of hair, and lots of money, but I won’t impugn the dead by saying the appeal was shallow. The film does nothing to make Robert Durst seem like a normal human being, so we really have no good answer to why someone as seemingly intelligent as Kathie is portrayed would be interested in such a weaselly dude.

The film cuts back and forth in time beginning with the fateful day in February of 1982 when an obviously distressed Durst reported his wife missing. We then cut back to Kathie moving into a nice apartment and getting settled before meeting Durst and seemingly hopping aboard the first available man; sorry to the memory of Kathie, but if the IRL Robert Durst is this off-putting, which, judging by The Jinx, he probably is, we have no Earthly idea what would cause Kathie to marry Robert.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal. 

Classic Movie Review Less Than Zero

Less Than Zero (1987) 

Directed by Marek Kanievska 

Written by Harley Peyton

Starring Andrew McCarthy, Jami Gertz, Robert Downey Jr. 

Release Date November 6th, 1987 

I am rather obsessed with the title Less than Zero. I can’t seem to figure out exactly what it signifies. I know that the title of the 1987 movie comes from the title of Elvis Costello’s debut single of the same title but neither the movie or the book by Bret Easton Ellis has anything to do with the song. The song isn’t even included in the movie or on its bestselling soundtrack record. Costello gives few contextual clues as to what he means when he says Less than Zero and thus the title remains mysterious and elusive. It exists in the realm of sounding ‘cool.’

Andrew McCarthy stars in Less than Zero as yet another of his young yuppie caricatures. Clay is a strait-laced Angelino who left the West Coast to get away from the meaninglessness of life in the pre-fab Cali suburbs. Clay is called back to Los Angeles, however, after his cheating girlfriend Blair (Jamie Gertz) leaves a frantic phone message for him regarding his best friend Julian (Robert Downey Jr.). Clay is wary of the call as Blair had cheated on him with Julian just weeks after he’d left for his Ivy League college.

Returning to Los Angeles, Clay is immediately thrust back into the fake stares and fake friendships of Los Angeles drug culture. This is a place where everyone is your friend and no one is your friend depending on your proximity to the drug of choice, Cocaine. Clay is liked by everyone, but everyone is aware that his leaving for the East Coast was a good idea as his lack of a crippling drug dependency keeps him at a distance from his West Coast brethren.

When Clay finds Julian, he quickly uncovers that Julian, whose father had given him thousands of dollars to break into the record producer biz, blew all of his dad’s cash on his cocaine habit. Julian’s dealer, Rip (James Spader at his snake-y best), has extended Julian credit to buy drugs but is now looking at ways to collect his debt that go beyond the money Julian no longer has. As Clay gets sucked into Julian’s downward spiral, he is able to resist the drugs but not his empathy for his childhood friend, a weakness that proves nearly as destructive as the drugs.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Thor Ragnorak

Thor Ragnorak (2017) 

Directed by Taika Waititi 

Written by Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, Christopher L. Yost 

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban

Release Date November 3rd, 2017 

Thor: Ragnorak is a heck of a lot of fun. Director Taika Waititi is the first director to fully tap the potential of the Thor character and star Chris Hemsworth. Though we’re aware from The Avengers’ movies that Hemsworth is a real talent, he’s not had a solo, leading man effort that has lived up to the outings of Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man or Chris Evans as Captain America. Even Tom Holland had schooled Hemsworth by making his Spiderman: Homecoming this past summer one of the best reviewed and well-loved movies in the Marvel canon.

Thor: Ragnorak picks up with our hero having still not returned to Asgard, nursing a fear that his presence may be what leads to Ragnorak, the Asgardian apocalypse. The visions that plagued Thor in Avengers: Age of Ultron have kept him moving about the universe in search what may be the source of his paranoid visions of the end of his world. The opening scene, however, has left him still unsatisfied but with only one alternative, finally returning to Asgard.

We already know what is waiting for Thor on Asgard as we recall Loki (Tom Hiddleston) had usurped his father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), and taken on his likeness in order to rule Asgard. When Thor returns, Loki’s ruse is quickly uncovered and the search for Odin is on. What the brothers find however, is their father in the last moments of his life. Odin is dying and nothing can stop that. Worse yet, his death means the return of Hela (Cate Blanchett), The Goddess of Death.

Odin’s life force is all that has kept Hela at bay for centuries but without him she will return and Thor and Loki will not be able to stop her. There are a few major secrets that come to light with Hela but I won’t spoil them here, the secrets don’t matter all that much but they’re still secrets and this is intended as a spoiler-free review. Thor and Loki are quickly defeated in their first encounter with Hela leading them both to land on a strange scavenger planet where Loki charms the planet’s ruler, played by Jeff Goldblum, while Thor is turned into a gladiator and forced to battle an old friend who's been on the planet for some time and doesn’t immediately recognize his old friend.

Find my full lengh review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Shortwave

Shortwave (2017) 

Directed by Ryan Gregory Phillips 

Written by Ryan Gregory Phillips 

Starring Juanita Ringeling, Tina Feliciano, Nina Senicar, Kelly Fitzgerald 

Release Date October 16th, 2024 

Shortwave is at once exceptionally ambitious and completely insane. The film about a shortwave radio engineer and his wife dealing with the consequence of his having invented shortwave technology that can speak to lifeforms not of this Earth has remarkable ambition but lacks the budget and ability to meet that ambition. Part arty, pretentious nonsense and part low budget sci-fi exploitation, Shortwave is, at the very least unique.

The film begins with quite a good tracking shot as Isabel (Juanita Ringeling) leads her daughter into a bookstore and sits her down in a group of kids listening to a storyteller. Isabel then attends to the ladies’ room but when she comes out, all of the children, and the storyteller, are gone. Cut to some unspecified time later, a guilt-ridden Isabel barely registers emotions as she and her loving husband Josh (Cristobal Tapia Montt) move into a secluded new home.

Josh is an engineer working for a tech company that hopes to use shortwave radios to communicate with beings from another planet. The house belongs to the company and may or may not contain the secrets they’ve already discovered using Josh’s technology. As the couple settles slowly into their new home, Isabel begins to have strange visions related to the sounds on Josh’s radio, visions that she believes are clues to where she might find her daughter.

My description of the plot is much more direct than the film itself. Shortwave director Ryan Gregory Phillips wastes a great deal of screen time on arty pretentious nonsense. Shortwave is desperately padded by interminably long shots of Isabel posing in front of pretty outdoor backdrops. The blurry visuals at first seem like more arty pretentiousness until you see them in straight-ahead dialogue-based scenes and realize that the blurred edges may, in fact, be a shorthand to cover for the un-decorated portions of the set.

Find my full length review in the Futurism community on Vocal 

Movie Review Thank You For your Service

Thank You for Your Service (2017)

Directed by Jason Hall

Written by Jason Hall 

Starring Miles Teller, Haley Bennett, Joe Cole, Amy Schumer, Scott Haze 

Release Date October 15th, 2017 

Thank You for Your Service is a deeply respectful and respectable movie about veterans and PTSD. The film stars Miles Teller as Staff Sgt. Adam Schumann who is just returning from Iraq from a traumatic third tour of duty. Having been praised for his unique ability for locating roadside mines, Adam’s last experience in Iraq was seeing a friend shot in the head and him having dropped that friend as he carried him down the steps of a building under fire by terrorists

The guilt and shame are overwhelming and demonstrate one of the many ways that PTSD can manifest in a soldier. Adam’s two closest friends, Billy Waller (Joe Cole) and Tausolo ‘Solo’ Aieti (Beulah Koale) have their own kinds of PTSD. For Billy, the trauma is waiting back at home where his fiancée has cleared out their apartment and left without telling him. For Solo, he’s suffering from post-concussion syndrome, PTSD with a deep effect on his memory.

PTSD takes so many different forms that it is impossible to come up with one catchall treatment as we find out when Adam and Solo attempt to navigate the Veterans Affairs system and find themselves unable to find help that isn’t weeks or months away. The VA is swamped with PTSD patients whose traumas are manifested in numerous different ways. That there is no cure for PTSD. There’s barely even a proper diagnosis. It’s no wonder our vets are eager to go back to combat; it makes more sense than the bureaucracy waiting back at home.

Thank You For Service never shies away from portraying the hurt and trauma that comes from PTSD and the betrayal soldiers feel after making incredible sacrifices for their country only to spend weeks wrapped in red tape when they go for help. Suicidal ideation is one of many symptoms of PTSD and much of that may simply stem from the hopeless, helpless feeling engendered in waiting in endless VA lines only to buried in paperwork and delays in treatment.

Find my full length review in the Serve Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Suburbicon

Suburbicon (2017) 

Directed by George Clooney 

Written by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, George Clooney

Starring Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Noah Jupe, Oscar Isaac

Release Date October 27th, 2017 

Matt Damon stars in Suburbicon as Gardner, a man in debt to the mob and desiring to get rid of his wheelchair bound wife, Rose (Julianne Moore) so that he can be with Rose’s twin sister Margaret (Julianne Moore). Caught in the middle of Gardner’s scheme is his son, Nicky (Noah Jupe). When after Gardner’s wife is murdered, Nicky goes along to the police lineup, he spies his father intentionally failing to identify the killers. Here is where the façade of his father’s life comes tumbling down.

Meanwhile, in an entirely separate movie, a black family, the Mayer’s, has moved in next door to Gardner and his family. Suburbicon is set in the 1950s and so, naturally, the neighbors don’t take kindly to the sudden integration of their suburban enclave. While Gardner is plotting, and committing murders on one side of the fence, the rest of the neighborhood is busy trying to run the Mayers’ out of the neighborhood on the other side.

In some version of Suburbicon these two plots meet and make sense together. In this version of the movie however, the only connection between the plots is via editing them into what is only ostensibly the same movie. Somewhere, we can assume, these plots are meant to comment upon one another and make some deeper, metaphoric point but the whole final product that is Suburbicon is so muddled that it’s impossible to make out what that metaphoric meaning might be.

It's rare to watch a movie that has no tone or momentum. Suburbicon is a movie that just sort of happens in front of you. I watched the first hour of Suburbicon waiting for the movie to actually begin. I just assumed at some point that the movie would coalesce into some sort of identifiable narrative with identifiable characters and it just never happens. The film cuts between plots willy nilly and yet cannot find momentum even in chaotic dissonance.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill

Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill 

Directed by Jared Cohn

Written by Jared Cohn 

Starring Sara Malakul Lane, Richard Grieco, Dave Mustaine

Release Date October 27th, 2017 

How does a movie manage to be only 77 minutes long and still feel tedious? By ripping off the Saw franchise minus the wit and the skill? That’s certainly the case that is made by the new horror movie Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill which feels twice as long as it’s barely theatrical release run time. This dimwitted wannabe exploitation horror flick from former God-sploitation director Jared Cohn, director of the equally tedious God’s Club, wants to marry Saw to Herschel Gordon Lewis or Roger Corman but lacks even the skill to match those low budget heroes of the drive-in genre.

Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill is about an all-girl punk band called Kill Pussy Kill which is finishing one big gig and is headed to another down the road on Halloween night. Unfortunately, they catch the attention of a former Army Ranger (Dave Mustaine of Megadeth fame in voice only here) who decides that their days of smoking crack, sex in the back of the van debauchery is offensive to him and he’s going to teach them a lesson.

With the help of his buddy Dale (Richard Grieco), the Army Ranger, credited as The Mastermind, captures the band and locks them in a basement and proceeds to knock off as many clichés of the Saw franchise he can think of. The film employs Mustaine to provide gravel voiced warnings about ‘playing the game or else’ and lays out the nonsensical rules about how some of the band can escape if they are willing to kill other members of the band and blah blah blah; it’s like Saw if you only knew the premise of the franchise.

It’s funny, I can sense that the makers of the movie want me to give this movie a bad review. This is the kind of movie that wants to be able to tell you how much critics hate it. They want to offend a critic, that’s why they are making sure so many critics have access to the movie. The marketing campaign wants for critics to call the movie disgusting and talk about how exploitative it is so they can wear it like some unearned badge of honor. The title alone, Halloween Pussy Trap Kill Kill, tells you exactly what the filmmakers are after. 

Find my full length review in the Horror Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Same Kind of Different as Me

Same Kind of Different as Me (2017) 

Directed by Michael Carney 

Written by Ron Hall, Alexander Foard, Michael Carney 

Starring Renee Zellweger, Djimon Hounsou, Greg Kinnear, Jon Voight 

Release Date October 20th, 2017 

I have a genuine pity for the faith-based audience. Few audiences are as underserved as the faithful. And few audiences are as exploited as the faith based filmgoer. The people at Pure Flix have made their fortune exploiting this audience by serving them half-baked, poorly made movies that pander to their faith without serving it. Pure Flix has little interest in the quality of their work and exist solely to make a buck. Just look at the awful roster of Pure Flix movies and you will find it difficult to argue my point.

Same Kind of Different as Me is not much different than those other low quality offerings; it just had the decency to hire better actors. Renee Zellweger and Djimon Hounsou may be at the mercy of a low-quality script and production, but they are far too good at what they do to be dragged down by it. They are the reason that I can’t fully dislike Same Kind of Different as Me because when asked to deliver in big moments, their talent transcends the limitations of the Pure Flix machine.

Same Kind of Different as Me is told from the perspective of Ron Hall (Greg Kinnear), a Texas-based art dealer whose wife Deborah has recently passed away. Ron has arrived at a friend’s home to attempt to write a book about his wife but his voice-over in the film tells us he’s struggling. If, like me, you believe that voice-over is has become the bankrupt screenwriters worst crutch, get ready for a serious amount of torture in Same Kind of Different as Me which abuses this crutch.

As Ron tells the story, we flashback two years before Deborah passed away. Ron is being forced to come clean about being unfaithful and has been met by a challenge from Deborah. After she breaks off his relationship with his mistress, she forces Ron to pay penance by joining her at a mission where she serves food to the homeless. Here, Deborah is shocked to find Denver (Djimon Hounsou), a man she claims to have seen in a dream before having ever seen him in real-life.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review The Snowman

The Snowman (2017) 

Directed by Tomas Alfredson

Written by Peter Straughan, Hossein Amini 

Starring Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Val Kilmer, J.K Simmons 

Release Date October 20th, 2017 

Before I formally go into my review of The Snowman, let me preface this review stating my respect for director Tomas Alfredson. In press interviews for The Snowman he is not sugar-coating the film’s problems. He’s been up front about the abrupt production time in Norway, the lack of a finished script and the reshoots that nevertheless failed to find the missing pieces of what is one truly jacked up puzzle of a movie.

The Snowman stars Michael Fassbender as the horrifically named detective Harry Hole. Harry is a drunk who likes to pass out and wake up in strange places on the frozen streets of Norway. When he’s relatively sober, Harry is a famed detective whose cases are studied for his remarkable investigative success. His latest case following his latest bender comes when he spies a junior detective, Katrine Bratt (Rebecca Ferguson), sneaking away with confidential files.

Harry decides to take up the younger detective’s cause, investigating a series of bizarre missing person’s cases. Each of the cases focuses on blonde women with secrets of some sort that may or may not be related to sex or something; the film is comically unclear. The killer has a thing for snow which is also rather comical as the film is set in Oslo. When the younger detective mentions that snow is a trigger for the killer we are led to wonder just how big that body count might be considering the part of the world the killer inhabits.

While the serial killer story is the A-Plot, the B-Plot about Harry’s former home life is far more fleshed out and given more development. This is bizarre for a number of reasons but mostly because the stuff about Harry, his ex-girlfriend Rakel (Charlotte Gainsbourg), the son who doesn’t know Harry is his real father (Michael Yates) and Rakel’s suspiciously nice new boyfriend Matthias (Jonas Karlsson) is stunningly dull. Each time the film pauses for the B-Plot to take center stage the film comes to an abrupt, jarring halt.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Boo 2: A Madea Halloween

Boo 2: A Madea Halloween

Directed by Tyler Perry 

Written by Tyler Perry 

Starring Tyler Perry, Cassi Davis, Patrice Lovely, Tito Ortiz 

Release Date October 20th, 2017 

What is there to be said about Tyler Perry's Boo 2! A Madea Halloween? You already know it’s not any good. We all know that Tyler Perry doesn’t give a damn about the quality of his work. It’s completely critic-proof. I am epically wasting my time writing a review of this, or really any of Perry’s work. And yet, I am somehow here to write a review of Tyler Perry's Boo 2! A Madea Halloween. It really makes me begin to question my profession. Not completely, lord knows I wouldn’t want to get a real job.

Here is where I will make a vain attempt to describe a plot, of which there is little. Brian (Perry, in one of his three roles) continues to struggle as a parent to his daughter, Tiffany (Diamond White). Yes, despite Brian’s parenting success being the only arc of the first film, he still sucks as a parent and has to learn or teach(?) a new lesson to his horror of a daughter who, frankly, seems like a lost cause. Given her decision making, based on these two movies, it’s a wonder she’s still alive, let alone ready to donate her virginity to a doofus frat-guy.

It's a testament to Perry’s opinion of women that they range from whores to idiots to shrews. Whereas early in his career Perry seemed to have a modicum of respect for his female characters, that’s long gone. I would call Perry a misogynist, but I can’t be sure that the hateful way in which he portrays women in his two Halloween features is genuine disdain for women or his overall incompetence as a director and storyteller.

In case you think I am just lobbing P.C bombs, let’s profile Perry’s female characters in Boo 2! A Madea Halloween, shall we? First there is Tiffany, who is portrayed as a danger to herself and others after she is given a car by her mother despite having done little to warrant such a gift. She only gets the car because Perry portrays the mother as the kind of awful parent who buys her daughter’s affections with gifts and makes out with other men in front her ex-husband– in other words, she’s a castrating shrew.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Documentary Review Faces Places

Faces Places (2017) 

Directed by Agnes Varda, JR 

Written by Agnes Varda

Starring Agnes Varda, JR 

Release Date June 28th 2017 

The grand lady of the French Cinema, Agnes Varda, may have made her final film. In interview with Indiewire.com, Varda told writer Eric Kohn that her new film, Faces Places, made with innovative French artist JR, would be a fitting final film. In the interview, Varda compares herself at 89 years old to a boxer potentially staying for one fight too many. She’s not "going to bed," as she puts it, she still has art installations to work on, but indeed the curtain may have come down on Agnes Varda at the Cinema.

If that is the case, Faces Places isn’t merely appropriate, it rings beautifully true as a summation of her filmic spirit and her lifelong dedication to the visages of the French lower middle class. Faces Places finds Varda working with JR, a French artist who has made his name with large scale installations in unusual places. JR travels France in a truck that looks like a giant camera. Indeed, it is a camera, inside, average people load in and get their picture taken and the photo emerges in large scale from the side of the truck like a Polaroid.

JR and Agnes’ sensibilities are the same as their ages are so very different. While they are feisty towards each other at times over their shared vision, Faces Places captures their warmth and obvious care for each other even as they entered the project as near strangers. Varda in many ways seems to be bestowing some of her legacy upon the young artist who is making the move into the cinema for the very first time with Faces Places, though whether he intends to stay in the film world is not mentioned in the film.

Throughout Faces Places this wonderful pair of artists roam the French countryside looking for unique faces and places to install large scale photography that is pasted to the sides of any structure people will allow them. In one of my favorite moments in any film in 2017, JR and Varda happen upon a rusty, rundown coal town that is preparing to tear down the last of a set of row-houses that once housed hundreds of coal miners and their families.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal

Movie Review Only the Brave

Only the Brave (2017) 

Directed by Joseph Kosinski 

Written by Ken Nolan, Eric Warren Singer

Starring Josh Brolin, Miles Teller, Jeff Bridges, James Badge Dale, Taylor Kitsch, Jennifer Connelly 

Release Date October 8th, 2017 

Only The Brave is based on a harrowing true story. In 2013 the Granite Mountain Hotshots wildfire fighting team was sent to Yarnell Hill in Arizona to battle a wildfire. When the weather turned and the wind kicked up the flames in a new direction, 19 members of the Hot Shots team was caught behind the fire line. All 19 were killed despite their use of flame retardant covers which proved ineffective for this raging blaze.

Director Joseph Kosinski, a fine director of such solid efforts as Tron Legacy and Oblivion, brings the story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots to life beautifully and painfully in Only the Brave. Taking the tale from the perspective of a new member of the squad, and ultimately the only man on the crew to survive the Yarnell Hill Fire, he was away from his team working as a scout, the film boils down the experience to a very human and relatable level that packs an emotional wallop.

Though it departs from the true story a tad, Only the Brave follows Brandon McDonough, a jobless, seemingly hopeless addict, who cleans up and looks for work as a firefighter. He arrives at the headquarters of the Hotshots in his hometown of Prescott, Arizona, with little experience, aside from EMT training course and looks to be a laughingstock to the members of the Hotshots crew. However, Supervisor and Hotshots boss, Eric Marsh (Josh Brolin) recognizes something in McDonough and hires him on the spot.

In reality, McDonough was a three-year hotshot's vet when the Yarnell Hill fire occurred, but the film character is meant as an amalgamation, as well as an audience surrogate. McDonough, who takes on the nickname Donut because his new friends don’t like his name, is made a rookie so the film can use him to explain terminology and give us more insights into what a Hotshot does. It’s a good choice, if one that defies the true story.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review The Foreigner

The Foreigner (2017) 

Directed by Martin Campbell

Written by David Marconi 

Starring Jackie Chan, Pierce Brosnan, Dermot Mulroney 

Release Date October 13th, 2017 

It seems that I am not a big fan of the work of actor Pierce Brosnan. It’s not that I have an active dislike for the man, but rather, in looking at my cumulative opinion of his work over his 35-plus year career, I have only given Brosnan two positive reviews. Grant you, I have only been a critic for 20 years, but Brosnan was on TV for most of the time before I came into my profession. He had arguably his biggest successes in the James Bond franchise during my time as a critic. Then again, I don’t have a particularly high opinion of that franchise, either.

Thankfully, with the release of the terrorism-centered action movie, The Foreigner, I can legitimately say that I liked a movie starring Pierce Brosnan and not have to qualify it. Brosnan is genuinely thrilling in the role of a duplicitous Irish politician and former member of the Irish Republican Army. Brosnan is magnetic, and I loved the tiny shifts of his manner when he switched from practiced politician to trained terrorist and back again.

The Foreigner co-stars Jackie Chan as a man who has just lost his daughter to an IRA bomb. Well, that is to say that a supposed new faction of the IRA has claimed the bombing while people like Brosnan’s politician do their damnedest to distance themselves. It's part of Brosnan's charm that he can switch easily between the worlds of modern politician and former terrorist. In real life, in fact, more than a few IRA members labeled as terrorists years ago now hold powerful government positions in Ireland.

Chan’s Mr. Quan isn’t interested in how politicians want to frame the attacks; he believes Brosnan knows who the bombers are and he intends to use his skills as a former army ranger in Vietnam to force Brosnan to reveal who killed his daughter. Chan, like Brosnan, is quite riveting in this rare, dramatic role. Toning down his usual physicality, due to age as well as the needs of the plot, Chan’s Quan is a precision killer who takes pains only to kill the people who deserve it.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Professor Marston and the Wonder Women

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017) 

Directed by Angela Robinson 

Written by Angela Robison 

Starring Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall, Bella Heathcote Oliver Platt, Connie Britton 

Release Date October 13th, 2017 

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women stars Luke Evans as Professor William Moulton Marston, the man who created the Wonder Woman comic book. Marston was an academic who studied and taught psychology before he somehow found himself creating a comic book as a way to sneak his psychological theories into mainstream thought. The character of Wonder Woman was created, according to the movie, as a composite of the two women in Marston’s life, his wife Elizabeth (Rebecca Hall) and Olive (Bella Heathcote) their lover.

In 1928 Professor William Marston and his wife Elizabeth were working on creating the lie detector when they brought on a student helper named Olive. The attraction between Marston and Olive was immediately evident but what came forward, in something of a surprise, was Elizabeth’s equal desire for Olive and Olive’s similar feelings for Elizabeth. When the relationship is consummated, it's not long before word spreads around campus and all three are shunned.

For the next several years the trio lived together, raised children and explored the depths of their sexuality, an exploration that led Marston to discover bondage and S&M, an area that appealed to his libido and his intellect. In bondage Marston found an area of human psychology that matched his theory regarding Dominance, Inducement, Submission, and Compliance or DISC Theory. Marston believed that DISC theory was the ultimate way to understand human interaction, even stating that it could stop wars.

Marston also believed that DISC theory proved that women were better for world leadership than men. Women are more caring and thoughtful than men and thus are better suited to keep from going to war. The theory reflected in Marston’s own life where he was essentially married to two women who defined his life, whom he submitted to and who submitted to him equally. Luke Evans effortlessly communicates the intellect of Marston and his willingness to explore his own theories inside himself.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Classic Movie Review Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day (1993) 

Directed by Harold Ramis 

Written by Danny Rubin, Harold Ramis

Starring Bill Murray, Andie McDowell, Chris Elliott, Michael Shannon

Release Date February 12th, 1993 

Something keeps nagging at me about Groundhog Day, this week’s classic on the Everyone is a Critic Movie Podcast. I like the movie but something about Groundhog Day seems to bring out my inner pedant. Whether it’s the questionable timeline, the questionable motivation for those many timelines or something in the manner of Bill Murray’s slightly awkward performance, I can’t seem to embrace the film as fully as so many others have.

Groundhog Day stars Bill Murray as Phil Connors, a narcissistic Pittsburgh weather man who is tasked with traveling to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania for that yearly tradition of Groundhog Day. Punxsutawney has become famous for its Groundhog Festival at which the titular rodent, known around town as Phil, is pulled from his fake abode to announce whether he sees his shadow. The notion is that if the groundhog can see his shadow there will be six more weeks of winter.

Phil Connors can’t stand this assignment. He hates small towns nearly as much as he secretly hates himself. Phil is, to say the least, not a people person. He’s been to Punxsutawney for years for this assignment but has made no connections in town and barely stays long enough for the groundhog to finish his proclamation before hitting the road back to the big city. This year, however, will be different, very, very different.

For reasons that are never specified, Phil finds himself unable to leave Punxsutawney due to a snowstorm that he had predicted would not hit. Forced to spend another night, Phil finds himself waking up to find that it’s Groundhog Day all over again. Everything Phil experienced the day before is happening again in the exact same way. Phil is naturally quite disturbed but eventually settles on a nightmare that will end with another good night’s sleep. When the day repeats a third time, Phil is forced to accept that he’s stuck and how to deal with such bizarre circumstances.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review The Meyerowitz Stories

The Meyerowitz Stories (2017) 

Directed by Noah Baumbach 

Written by Noah Baumbach 

Starring Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Elizabeth Marvel

Release Date October 14th, 2017 

My friends and fellow podcasters on the "Everyone is a Critic" podcast like to joke about my disdain for Adam Sandler. They seem to believe that I harbor some personal grudge against the man. It’s not true but it makes for a funny running gag. In reality, I have a professional grudge against Adam Sandler, nothing personal. I am professionally irritated by Adam Sandler because he continually works so far below his talent.

That’s right, I believe Adam Sandler is talented. In fact, I believe Adam Sandler is remarkably talented. Unfortunately, he chooses to abandon his gifts in favor of a steady, high dollar paycheck and the chance to goof off with his friends. It’s irritating to me as a critic to watch a man I know can act pretending that he can’t. Make no mistake, Adam Sandler can act. When he works with a real director, one with vision and the ability to bend Sandler to his or her will, Sandler can deliver a genuine powerhouse performance. His new film, under the direction of Noah Baumbach, The Meyerowitz Stories, reinforces my point.

In The Meyerowitz Stories, Adam Sandler plays Danny, a single father to a college-bound daughter, Eliza (Grace Van Patten), and the son a respected sculptor and professor, Harold Meyerowitz (Dustin Hoffman). Danny has a wonderful relationship with his daughter and a terribly fraught relationship with his father. Unfortunately for him, Eliza is leaving for college and having recently broken up with Eliza’s mother, Danny is going to stay with his dad and dad’s flighty gal-pal Maureen (Emma Thompson).

Danny has a sister named Jean (Elizabeth Marvel) and a half-brother, Matthew (Ben Stiller), whom his father adores and can’t resist mentioning in front of Danny. Where Danny has never had a job, he was essentially a house husband and father after abandoning his musical aspirations, Matthew has moved to Los Angeles and become a successful financial advisor to celebrities. That Matthew left to escape their father, is something Harold ignores, and Danny is unaware of.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal