The Good Lie

So I saw The Good Lie and I was pleasantly surprised by what it wasn’t. The movie is about a group of kids from Sudan, who make the thousand mile walk from their home to a refugee center, and eventually arrive in America, where they face new and unusual challenges. I was worried that the movie would be based around either The Gods Must Be Crazy style culture-clashes or that it would turn into some kind of Blind Side knock-off based around the three brothers’ (Arnold Oceng, Ger Duany, Emmanuel Jal) relationship with Carrie (Reese Witherspoon) who works for an employment agency finding them jobs.

Instead I was surprised to find that the movie mostly focused on the lives of the three men and their sister and their trek from Sudan to Ethiopia, and how they worked to actually build lives for themselves once they arrived in the United States. The African scenes were really affecting for me, they gave a sense of the both the beauty of the African landscape and the danger that seems to lurk around every corner. The kids starve and get dehydrated, they have to avoid both wild animals and soldiers that will either kill them or force them to fight on their side. In America they have to find work despite not having much education and being faced with a culture and environment that is totally alien. I think the movie did a pretty good job making the audience step back a bit and look at ourselves with an outsiders eye.

In all this is a decent movie, and could be an entrance to learning about the Lost Boys of Sudan in a way that’s based a bit more around hope and less around misery. It’s not a great movie, but I think it does what it sets out to do.

Nightcrawler

So I saw Nightcrawler and let me tell you, no one does crazy eyes like Jake Gyllenhaal. The movie is the story of Louis Bloom (Gyllenhaal) a down on his luck hustler who decides to get into the news business by filming grisly accident and crime scenes and selling the tape to local news. Eventually he teams up with Rick (Riz Ahmed), another guy down on his luck, and makes living selling tape to a local news producer Nina (Rene Russo). But the real focus of the movie is Gyllenhaal’s Lou. Besides just having extremely crazy eyes (his gaze makes both the audience and the other characters in the movie very uncomfortable) Lou is extremely hyper-verbal. Everything he says sounds like comes from a management or self-esteem textbook, full of buzzwords and jargon, the way he interacts with the world is incredibly unique and engrossing.

Because Lou is such an unstoppable force in the world of the movie, it’s really interesting seeing how all the other characters react to him. Rick and Nina seem to take opposite paths, Nina trying to block Lou’s endless ambition while for the most part Rick goes along for the ride. The interplay between the characters and their chemistry (or lack thereof) is really great.

I think the big thing that threw me with this movie is that it really feels like a period movie, but is set in the present day. I just might not be watching enough local news, but in my head the golden age of the kind of videos that this movie is based around is in the 1990s, not today. So when things happen that are clearly modern (a cellphone with GPS, Lou saving video in 4k fidelity, etc.) it seemed a little jarring to me. The other thing is that a HUGE amount of the movie’s plot is in the trailer. I was really surprised that parts of the penultimate scenes were prominently featured. It meant that I spent the whole movie waiting for certain things to happen, instead of letting the movie unfold normally.

I also want to point out that Bill Paxton has a part in this movie, and it’s like the third time this year that he’s been really great in a small role (the other were in the Agents of Shield TV show and Edge of Tomorrow). More bit parts for Bill Paxton please!

Anyhow, Nightcrawler is a good movie around a great performance, and I recommend it wholeheartedly. Check it out!

Before I Go To Sleep

So I saw Before I Go To Sleep, and it was basically 50 First Dates as a horror movie. Every morning Christine (Nicole Kidman wakes up with no memory, her husband-who she doesn't remember-gives her the rundown of her condition and what’s going on with everything. Actually it’s a lot like the end of 50 First Dates, but instead of romantic or something, it’s sort of grim and depressing. You feel bad for her husband (Colin Firth) until we learn about the mysterious doctor (Mark Strong) trying to help her condition, and we gets the sense that neither are telling the whole truth, and nothing is as it seems.

Amnesia seems like a cool device for a thriller, it guarantees that the audience knows things that the character doesn't, and has the potential to be totally mind-bending and fun. While there are some twists and turns in the plot, for the most part things just kind of go normally. Besides occasionally showing her waking up and not knowing exactly what's going on, for the most part Christine just keeps on adding to her memories and understanding at a steady pace. 

I was surprised more by what the movie DIDN'T do. For a movie about a character who's memory resets whenever they fall asleep, there wasn't really a scene where Christine stays up late trying desperately to stay awake to do something important. Similarly there were a couple places where the movie could have taken a very dark turn and didn't seemingly because the film makers didn't want to go for a true twilight zone style ending. For me these kinds of missed opportunities really keep the movie from being great.

One last thing. Everyone, if you find yourself in a thriller movie type situation: A strange house, pursued by a bad guy, definitely in trouble. If you have a working phone, please call 911 (or your local equivalent), most emergency services can trace your phone and have someone on their way to you right away! Don't get caught by the bad guy because you're trying to find a piece of mail or looking out the window for a street sign to figure out where you are! Also, like I said in the No Good Deed review, it's OK to hit your attacker with the same improvised weapon more than once. My motto: If you're going to stab them one time, you might as well stab them like a dozen times.

Big Hero 6

So I saw Big Hero 6 and I liked it, but was kind of let down when it turned out to be just another superhero origin story. The movie initially focuses on Hiro Hamada, a young super-genius in the city of San Fransokyo, a futuristic mash up of San Francisco and Tokyo. After his brother dies Hiro teams up with Baymax, health- care robot that’s more parade balloon than Terminator, and tries to unravel the mystery. Eventually when a bad guy is discovered Hiro enlists several of his super-genius buddies to form the titular super team (because there are six of them, get it?).

As a San Francisco resident I really loved seeing my city transformed into a futuristic wonderland. The animation is amazing throughout, basically what we've come to expect from this animation team. I enjoyed the interactions between Hiro and his family as well as Baymax, and even the other team members, a crew of multicultural geniuses, had interesting foibles and characterizations. To me it’s sort of a shame that all these fun characters and interesting settings are jammed into the cookie-cutter superhero origin story plot mold.

I watch a lot of superhero movies so at this point in history I’m kind of over origin stories, because they all have the exactly same beats: Power discovery montage, disastrous first mission, training montage, showdown with the bad guy where everything comes together for the team, everyone poses somewhere cool and gives a Tom Joad-esque speech (Wherever there’s trouble, I’ll be there). I've seen it like a thousand times. It's especially rough for a movie like this, clearly aimed at kids, at the end I almost felt like I’d just seen an hour long first episode of a new Saturday morning cartoon show, instead of a self-contained movie.

It’s frustrating because there is a lot to like about this movie that isn't just the same old stuff. I definitely want to  to say that on the familiar trappings of the origin story the filmmakers have managed to make a fun and charming movie that has some truly exhilarating and touching moments, it's just a sore spot for me. Plus this movie does have that family stuff that I like so much. Not a perfect movie, but absolutely worth checking out on the big screen if you can.

Horns

So I saw Horns, and it was basically the first third of Gone Girl + Liar, Liar with a little Stand By Me mixed in. It starts Daniel Radcliffe (who most people probably know as Harry Potter) as a slacker guy who’s girlfriend (Juno Temple)  is found raped and murdered and he’s the prime suspect. So far so normal (relatively), but then he wakes up one morning to find horns growing out of his forehead! Weirdly no one really notices the horns, and he soon realizes that they actually give him special powers. People now always tell him the truth, and often either do what he says or ask him permission to do something terrible. My favorite example was when he tells a group of local news teams that they have to fight each other and he’ll give an interview to the winners, which immediately leads to a full-on Anchorman style brawl. Anyhow, as time goes on his horns grow larger and larger and he slowly unravels the mystery of who killed his girlfriend. There are also extended flashbacks to when the characters were kids, showing how their relationships developed and stuff.

The thing about this movie is that it’s trying really hard to be edgy. While some of the reactions to the horns are funny or touching (at one point Radcliffe goes home and has a series of conversations with his family that are pretty gut-wrenching) but for the most part it’s pretty basic like “Oh man these cops turned out to be gay!” or “Woo! That dude pulled his junk out!” I wish they had done more with it. Also there are extended sequences that just seem to be about showing the dude who played Harry Potter doing drugs and having sex just for its own sake, which personally wasn't that titillating to me, but your mileage may vary.

There are some funny and interesting parts of this movie, but I wouldn't recommend rushing out to find it. It does have an important lesson to teach about not turning your back on crazy murderers though. Make sure they’re tied up and stuff before you start thinking you've won, honestly!

John Wick

So I saw John Wick, and it was pretty much one of the best action movies I’ve ever seen! The story is pretty basic: After his wife dies, retired hit man John Wick (Keanu Reeves) finds solace in the world’s cutest puppy that his departed wife gave him as a gift. This is spoiled when the son of a Russian mob boss (Alfie Allen, who you might know as Theon from Game of Thrones, and playing a similarly hateable guy) steals John’s car and kills the dog. Naturally revenge is required. This revenge takes John back into the hidden world of organized crime in New York and results in like a thousand dudes getting shot in the face. While that’s all pretty basic, there are two things that really make this movie great.

The first is the action. The gunplay in this movie is brutal and stylish and incredibly fun, certainly matching up to any other action movie I can think of, be Equilibrium, Heat, or one of John Woo’s magnum opuses.  Keanu Reeves really gives a master class in one guy shooting the hell out of a bunch of other guys, while bullets are flying everywhere. Several times he even does one of my favorite moves, where you grab one bad guy that close by, shoot a few other bad guys that are further away, then finish off the guy you shot earlier. He always double taps, and everyone gets shot in the face. It’s pretty awesome.

The second thing is the world-building. The filmmakers effectively create a whole criminal underworld that is as intriguing and mysterious as anything I’ve seen since the Matrix. It’s a world of secret clubs and backrooms, all powered by gold coins unspoken codes. One of the best parts of the movie is early on Theon tries to sell John Wick’s car to a chop shop and the owner (John Lequizamo) says no. Later, when the Mob boss calls him to see why he disrespected his son, he just says “because he stole John Wick’s car” and the mob boss just says “Oh.” It’s an intriguing setting I would love to see more of.

I really enjoyed the movie and heartily suggest it if you like a violent action movie. Everyone should check it out! I want John Wick sequels! I want John Wick PREQUELS!