Film Review - Ghostbusters (2016) "The Girls Have Got This, So Back Off"

(This is a review I wrote back in August after seeing the film for the first time.)

The Girls Have Got This, So Back Off

                                                                                                    (Sony Entertainment, 2016)

            With summer days growing longer, mostly due by the heat and exhausting humidity, there are not many things more enjoyable than an escape.  Finally, this summer has a decent escape in Ghostbusters.  Writers, Katie Dippold (The Heat, Parks & Recreation) and Paul Feig (Bridesmaids), who also directs, nail the right mix of nostalgia and innovation. 

            Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, and Kate McKinnon play scientists who speak the obligatory science jargon while still making the rather simple plot seem more than “there are ghosts that need busting, these chicks can handle it.”

            After meeting up with Leslie Jones playing a metro worker who also moonlights as an amateur NYC historian, the women run up against the expected haters, from the mayor to internet trolls who say, “No b*****s ain’t gonna bust no ghosts,” which seems to be a direct nod to the backlash at the gender-swapped remake.  These meta-moments are some of the best jokes in the movie. 

            The new team investigates several paranormal sightings, which eventually lead them to the comically inept villain, played by Neil Casey (also a SNL alum).  He desires to lead the ghost army, which apparently includes pilgrims and revolutionary war soldiers. 

            With Wiig and McCarthy firmly in the driver’s seat of the movie, McKinnon and Jones do their best to be seen from the back seat.  McKinnon, who will probably be crowned Queen of the Nerds, steals many a scene with her off-beat style that made her famous on SNL.  Jones, on the other hand, is not given nearly enough to do on screen to show off her talents and comedic rhythm.

            Feig does double duty as the film’s director.  He does not forget the central theme of the film, which is “the girls can do this, so back off!”  He treats the friendship between Wiig and McCarthy’s characters as any other “chick comedy,” with the difference being that there is not a typical handsome male lead wedged between the friends. 

Feig also does a remarkable job with not allowing the Ghostbusters’ male secretary, Kevin, played hilariously by Chris Helmsworth (Thor, The Avengers), to take over any scene.  Unfortunately, Kevin does keep making the same joke—“I’m so dumb, but thank goodness I’m hot”—which gets old after about 15 minutes.

Several moments of CGI became a little too cartoony at times, but overall the film’s look and feel knock it out the park and fit in with the classic Ghostbusters franchise.  A special shoutout to the puppet designer, Rick Lazzarini (Ghostbusters II), for making some of the characters who could have been extras in the original 1984 Ghostbusters.

            What this movie does expertly—besides opening minds to the possibility of ] a female comedy can be funny without stereotypical plots—is giving the audience a movie that they can watch, enjoy, and relax.  The theater’s air conditioner doesn’t hurt, but the female leads of the film are the real breath of fresh air of this film.

Title: Ghostbusters

Release date: July 19, 2016

Director: Paul Feig

Writers: Katie Dippold, Paul Feig

Stars: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones

Rating: PG – 13

Category: Action, Comedy, Fantasy

Run Time:1h 56min

Film Review - Loving (2016) "The Soft Voices of 'Loving' Are a Timely Reminder Of Change"

The Soft Voices of Loving Are a Timely Reminder Of Change

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            There is nothing at all exciting about Richard and Mildred Loving. They are a married Virginia couple who raise three children.  Richard (Joel Edgerton) works as a brick layer and fixes the family car, while Mildred (Ruth Negga) deftly cares for their home.  They eat with their extended family.  They laugh with friends.  They watch The Andy Griffith Show.

            If the Lovings were married today, a film of their lives would be tedious and dull, but they were not married in the times we live in.  They lived in 1960’s Virginia and Richard, a white man, broke a miscegenation law set in 1691 when he married Mildred, a black woman, who was pregnant with their first child. 

            The film written and directed by Jeff Nichols follows the first—and arguably the most important—9 years of the Lovings’ marriage.  Shortly after being married in Washington D.C., the sheriff and his deputies arrest the Lovings in the middle of the night (after what appears to be an illegal breaking and entering).  Their case is sent all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States; all the while the family is forced to live in fear of the law and their own neighbors.

            This film is unapologetically sparse on dialogue.  In fact the most the audience hears out of Mr. Edgerton is a few hushed sentences at a time.  Mr. Nichols creates a world that looks like your grandparent’s old photographs—full of familiar, yet other worldly charm.  While other characters are loud and at times physically aggressive, the Lovings hold a quiet reserve that draws the audience to them.  Not a punch is thrown—even when Richard’s black friend confronts him about how Richard knows what it feels like “to be black now.” Every significant moment of this film is accomplished with a shy stare, yet it is completely without timidity.  Mr. Edgerton and Ms. Negga are so telling in their looks toward their ridiculers, toward their lawyers, and even toward each other, that the audience is never without understanding of what Richard and Mildred are thinking.

            Very rarely does an audience see a timelier and more far reaching film.  The Lovings’ story goes beyond 1960s Virginia and far beyond the past’s controversy with interracial marriage.  In a divisive time such as now, with the threat of returning to times that some feel were great and others feel were oppressive, Mr. Nichols bring Richard and Mildred’s story to us to say that we should not be looking back towards the past as a golden memory, arguing that not all laws that are on the books were devised by men who wanted equality. Loving shows us that the only way to make progress is to look forward and, yes, the irony of using a film about a couple from over 70 years ago to illustrate the need to look to the future is not lost on this writer.

            Many people will turn away from this movie because there are no great speeches—no declarations of outrage. But in a world that is full of deafening voices being raised for a cause, Loving’s poised softness—the Loving’s tender and graceful quiet—may be the strongest message for equality of our time.

Title: Loving

Release date: 4 November 2016

Director: Jeff Nichols

Writers: Jeff Nichols

Stars: Richard Edgerton, Ruth Negga

Rating: PG – 13

Category: Drama, Romance

Run Time: 2 hours 3 minutes




P.S.  
            This is not included in my review, but during the film, there is a scene when Time Magazine photographer Grey Villet (played by Man of Steel's Michael Shannon) comes to take pictures of the couple.  

            Here is the link to see the real pictures from the real Grey Villet: Grey Villet Photos for Time Magazine

Film Review - Passengers (2016) "Passengers Take the Wheel of a Ship with No Destination"

Passengers Take the Wheel of a Ship with No Destination

                                                                                                        (Sony Pictures Entertainment)

There is nothing more thrilling to a young teenager than the first time they have the entire house to themselves for the weekend. Mom and dad away for a trip.  Siblings off with friends. Nothing but you, the TV, and all the junk food you can fit into your gob. You feel excitement of all the possibilities. For the first day. By the middle of Saturday, you are wandering the house. By the time your family arrives late Sunday night, you are desperate for human contact.  But what if that human contact never came? You were stuck in this house for the rest of your natural life.  No one to talk to.  No one new to meet.

             Just you. 

                        All. 

                                     Alone.

Passengers raises these questions when a pair of space travelers, Jim (Chris Pratt) and Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence), are woken up from cryogenic sleep 90 years before they reach the destination of a new planet.  Like teens home alone, Jim and Aurora do not think of the consequences and soon after loving the freedom, they struggle to look at the ship and even each other.

Mr. Pratt and Ms. Lawrence do a remarkable job keeping the audience engaged in a a script by Jon Spaihts (collaborator on Doctor Strange andPrometheus) that does not seem to know where it wants to go.  At times it leans towards a stalker thriller as Mr. Pratt lurks over Ms. Lawrence’s shoulder believing that he is the only man she could love.  And he is…literally.  He’s the only man available.  At other times the film tries to take on a more rom-com approach as Ms. Lawrence attempts to write a new memoir about her journey through the stars with her new beau.  

At no time does the director Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game) give a clear indication whether we should like or dislike Jim and his manipulation of Aurora’s life.  Nor are we given a clue to whether Aurora is anything more than a plot devise for Mr. Pratt to play off of.  Ms. Lawrence is (pardon the pun) stellar, but the two-dimensional writing does not give her much to work with.

The high point is the ship itself, the Avalon, which seems to be designed after the most luxurious cruise ship in the world.  But even the ritziest of cruise ships can feel like Alcatraz after a while.  The sleek hallways and concourses run the length of the 1000-meter ship and create a sense of the grand design of the R.M.S. Titanicjuxtaposed with the sleek modern efficiency of the U.S.S. Enterprise's brig.

The outstanding Michael Sheen, as an android with a human upper half and mechanical lower half, seems to be both inn keeper and prison warden.  He provides drinks and free advice to his only two customers, but always keeps a weathered eye on his two captives.

Yet while the film raises the questions about loneliness and the desire to make human contact, it fails to answer them fully or rather, at all.  After its dramatic twist about halfway through, the film leaves the audience feeling uneasy with the romance that has blossomed betweenm and Aurora. Even with a blessing from a briefly cameo-ed Laurence Fishburn, this relationship never seems to redeem itself.  At what point does this story stop being one of a lonely guy who is persistent until he gets the girl and start becoming one of a relationship based upon lies and deceit?

I suppose the answer given by this film is never.  The plot is creepy and self-serving, never dealing with the morality of Jim's choices.  And why should they?  90 years spent in a relationship with the man who doomed you to die in space seems to be an excellent moral fairy tale every child dreams of.  An unsettling conclusion to a film that had potential to explore to full depths the despair of isolation and the dark possibilities of loneliness. But like a teenager with no adult to govern them, the filmmakers made poor choices and the only despair at the end of the film is felt by the audience wanting human contact as the leave the theater.

 

 

Title: Passengers
Release date: 21 December 2016
Director: Morten Tyldum
Writers: Jon Spaihts
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt
Rating: PG – 13
Category: Adventure, Drama, Romance
Run Time: 1 hour 56 min

 

An Introduction

Preface

"Hello.  My name is Forrest Gump.  You want a chocolate?"

                                - Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) in Forrest Gump (1994)

My name is not Forrest.  I cannot offer you chocolates.  

            My name is Patrick and I can only offer you this.

            I write stuff. Sometimes. There are periods where I write a lot.  There are periods where I feel that I have nothing to say and I write nothing and I despair.

Section 1

“What came first, the music or the misery?"

                         - Rob Gordon (John Cusack) in High Fidelity (2000)

            The despair primarily comes from the fact that when I am the most creative is also when I am going through a manic episode—wait, I missed something.  I need to tell you that I have Bipolar Depression.

…I have Bipolar Depression.  There. I told you.  Great. You’re caught up.

One thing that is trade mark of my BD manic episodes is that I start a thousand creative projects and before I can finish any of them, my mania crashes and I am stuck with a depression and the feeling like a failure.  It’s great.  You should totally try it!  On second thought, it might be a better idea to stick bamboo under your finger nails or have a friend help you reenact that scene in Casino Royale (2014) where James Bond gets his balls smashed to hell.  It’s probably more fun than that feeling.

            I say all of this because I am terrified that I only can be creative or writer-y when I am manic.

 

Section 2

“That was refreshing. I'm refreshed. I'm refreshing."

                         - Dave Spritz (Nicolas Cage) in The Weather Man (2005)

            So this little blog is not something that will have a set schedule like my friends blogs.  It is a place where I will post, but what is nice about not doing these creative things while I am manic is that I am free to say, “Fuck it,” and not feel like a failure.  No pressure.  No failure.  I do not make any promises and I hold myself to no standards.

Why do I call this project “Stuff That Falls Out?” Because since I am trying to be creative while not manically trying to become the next great thing the world has ever seen, I will post the creative things that fall out of my brain.  If I write it, draw it, build it, I will post it here.

Section 3

“People trust me with their secrets. But who do I trust with mine? You, only you."

                         - Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) in Notes on a Scandal (2006)

-OR-

“And it's a story that might bore you, but you don't have to listen, because I always knew it was going to be like that."

                         - Lauren (Shannyn Sossoman) in Rules of Attraction (2002)

I expect no one to read this.  I really don’t.  If you do and you like it, that’s great.  If you do and you don’t like it, that’s great, too, just don’t tell me. And If you don’t see it…well, I guess you won’t tell me that either.

But since you’re here (are you here?), I trust you with this.  I mean, no one is cruel just to be cruel on the internet, right?  I hope this project lasts.  If it does, maybe I’ll set some sort of schedule.  If it fails, and let’s face it, I am probably entering a manic episode and don’t even realize it yet, so of course it will fail, I’ll just let this blog die among the countless others that hoped to be the next Julie & Julia. Well, maybe I’ll be like that guy that wrote a blog about how he watched Julie & Julia 365 days in a row.

“How far it will go, no one can say.” (Julie & Julia, 2009)