The Miller Man Delivers

 

I apologize it has been so long folks. Things have changed these past couple of years and I found myself knee-deep in adventures that did not involve commenting on movies. One of the issues that plagued me over this time is binge-watching television shows. If the entertainment business would stop making high-quality shows like Orange is the New Black, Mad Men and yes Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, then I can get back to what makes me happy: Pornography. Oh and the art of the cinema with my delightful insight.
That be said, I’M BACK BITCHES! Sorry, that was a little aggressive, but I am super excited to start this engine up again and see how she purrs. A thank you goes out to those who have asked where the blog has been and I hope not to disappoint. So let’s get to it.
This past weekend I was able to experience something that had been missing for a while. A True Action Movie: devoid of ludicrous plots, over (or under) acting and poor attempts at super good-looking people falling in love. Mad Max – Fury Road is exactly what it set out to be and I praise George Miller for keeping it simple and eye-popping fun at the same time. George wrote and directed the previous Max installments and returned for a fourth time and gave me what I really wanted and that was a sequel to The Road Warrior.
Let’s break this down for those who have seen the earlier versions and those who have not. Mad Max (1979) is completely overrated with terrible acting and cinematography but a descent story line to get the ball rolling of an apocalyptic Australia and a cop out for revenge. The Road Warrior (1981) is perfectly executed post-apocalyptic adventure filled with a lot of action and very little dialogue to water it down. Even with the feather hairstyles and latent homoerotic undertones, this movie holds better than most made that year. That leads us to the abysmal Mad Max-Beyond Thunderdome (1985), that is as much as is wish to discuss.
Mad Max –Fury Road brings us back to the high desert wasteland of The Road Warrior without the actual roads. This movie is like a modern rollercoaster that uses hydraulics and magnets to propel you up a hill at an insane rate and will not let down until the end. Tom Hardy steps into the sand soaked boots, previously worn by Mel Gibson, and does a serviceable job of speaking as little as possible but when he does, it sounds like he still thinks he is Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. Thou this is a “Mad Max” movie, the screen time is split between Hardy and Charlize Theron as Furiosa. Furiosa is the real hero of this story as she is the one leading her way back to freedom.
I would give more plot details but who cares? This is a High-Octane Action Film and never lets you catch your breath. This is a 2 hour chase scene filled with explosions, violence and insanity worthy of its title. Like Guardians of the Galaxy, at times I was trying to get to the bottom of the plot but then I thought “Why Bother”, just enjoy the fireworks and move on.

On the Beer Scale I give Mad Max –Fury Road 4 Pints of Guinness Irish Stout. It’s not for everybody but you will get what you paid for.

Jake and the Latino Man

I like gritty cop movies! I like violent films about men and women caught between what is right and what needs to get done. Most police movies center around one or two officers who are usually detectives or undercover operatives. Basically, it’s plain-clothed good-looking people who are not just super smart and perceptive, but are experts in hand-to-hand combat and can shoot out a bird’s eye at 300 yards. In reality, police detectives are not very attractive, are not uber-intelligent and are usually responding to trouble after the fact as opposed to solving the case just seconds before it is committed.

My review this time around is for End of Watch. Though a little over-the-top, this cop movie is about uniformed Los Angeles police officers, feels a little more honest and aware of its surroundings and what life as a cop may be like. End of Watch stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena as South Central partners out to protect the street during the day and make it home alive at night. Brian Taylor (Gyllenhall) is an ex-marine turned policeman who is taking film classes on his off hours and is using his handheld camera to record the life of an officer. Mike Zavala (Pena) is Brian’s partner and best friend who is tough but grounded and more the moral center of the two.

Their daily grind on the streets runs them into a bit of luck by seizing drug and guns and uncovering a human trafficking ring. This not only gets them a lot of notoriety, but also puts a bull’s eye on the heads as the Mexican cartels that run these operations are out to kill these 2 average cops that are hurting their business. Directed by David Ayer, End of Watch feels very real and relevant and the acting of Jake and Michael is magnificent. Ayer is the writer of Training Day and the director of Street Kings, so he knows how to create the bloody streets of Los Angeles, and by the end, all these movies feel more like a documentary than a fictional tale of imagination.

On the Beer Scale, I give End of Watch 3 pints of Yuengling Black and Tan. It may look plain and familiar on the outside, but inside it is deep and thick and has a lot of thought poured into it.

On the Netflix Queue I watched John Dies at the End. What was billed as a cult horror/comedy was not very scary or funny. It was a little gory and weird at times, like a David Lynch film, but without any real bite to it. Other than a few scenes with Paul Giamatti and Clancy Brown there is nobody of note to tune in for and I was quite disappointed in its outcome. If you really wish to see a good horror/comedy check out Dale and Tucker vs. Evil or The Cabin in the Woods. These are both available on instant viewing and the best examples of doing this kind of film right.

Bloody and Fun, count me in any time.

Four Score and Seven Psychopaths Ago

Sometimes expectations can be the worst feelings to take into a movie viewing. Often times when expectations are high you end up disappointed and when expectations are low you are pleasantly surprised. I love it when a movie meets expectations and you feel you got your money’s worth. I remember just 2 weeks ago, I had very high expectations for Django Unchained and man- did I love that movie. This can work the other way as well, as when Adam Sandler puts out another flaming bag of crap; you won’t be too disappointed while scraping it off your shoes. This blog is devoted to 2 films that were entertaining, but were not as inspiring as I would have hoped.
The first film was Lincoln. Daniel Day Lewis is remarkable as our 16th president in Steven Spielberg’s look back at an important part of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency. This movie is in particular about the ratification of the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery during the final year of the Civil War. The story revolves mostly around the House of Representatives, who are split on whether to give slaves their freedom or keep them in chains. Lincoln himself is torn between fighting for this amendment no matter how many lives the war takes and dropping the amendment in return for a truce. Abe also struggles with his unstable wife, his want-to-be soldier son and the sadness of a son that was lost to disease.
Overall this movie was beautifully shot and well-acted, but I felt as if I was cheated out of a full biography of Abraham Lincoln’s life and instead given this one year in his life that was more like 12 Angry Men than the sweeping epic it was meant to be. Daniel Day Lewis was so good and deserved the Best Actor Oscar but there just wasn’t enough of him to really appreciate how great this performance is. The other performances are good but nothing spectacular and a few times I found myself board waiting for something amazing to happen, but it never did.
The other film that didn’t quite live up to snuff was Seven Psychopaths. I know what you are thinking, how could a move called Seven Psychopaths have high expectation to begin with? Well, the reason I really wanted to see this film is because it is written & directed by Martin McDonagh, who also wrote and directed In Bruges, starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes. In Bruges is one of the top ten movies I have seen in the past ten years and I had hoped this one would be just as good. Seven Psychopaths again stars Colin Farrell as Martin, a struggling screen-writer trying to work on a new script despite his writers’ block. His best friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) works with Hans (Christopher Walken) to kidnap dogs and return them later for the reward. We also have Woody Harrelson as a Mob Boss type who will kill any and everybody to get his own dog back.
Martin is caught in the middle of this crazy story with too many twists and turns to keep you interested until the end. Rockwell (as always is good) and Walken (who has become a caricature of himself) is decent. The rest of this movie is a little overdone on the story and by the end you are not sure who to root for and you don’t care. I thought this movie would be another hidden gem, like In Bruges, but it just ended up being another film with good potential but no real pop.
On the Beer Scale I give Lincoln and Seven Psychopaths 2 pints of Yuengling Lager. It has all the makings of a great beer, but overall is a little watered down and not as satisfying as you might hope.
On the Netflix queue I am currently 3 episodes into “Hemlock Grove” so I will let you know how that finishes out, but if you would like a recommendation, I would say The Hunting Party. This film starring Richard Gere, Terrence Howard and Jesse Eisenberg is about a journalist, a reporter and a cameraman who are out to find an infamous terrorist in Bosnia. I do not say this often, but Richard Gere is great and the movie moves along at a good pace and is interesting from start to finish.

Quentin Unchanged

Many years ago, some friends and I rented a movie from the local blockbuster that would change the way we looked at movies forever. We had heard about this crazy movie with a lot of violence and swearing ad we were all in. The name of that particular film was Reservoir Dogs. Some say Sex, Lies and Videotape changed the landscape of the independent film but I never saw that one. What I did see (in the early 90’s) was a movie which felt so raw and real that I was mesmerized to the point of exhaustion by the end. I had never seen a movie that had such a great story, biting dialogue and brilliant performances, and yet had been put together on such a low budget. I remember seeing Harvey Keitel in a couple of things and I did remember Chris Penn from At Close Range, but I had never heard of Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi, or Tim Roth and now I pine for everything they are in.

After viewing Reservoir Dogs another 8 times in a month I decided I would learn everything I could about this Quentin Tarantino and what else he had done. At that time, he had not done much except work at a local video store in Los Angeles and write the screenplay for True Romance. He then wrote the screenplay for Natural Born Killers, and, of course, by the mid 90’s we all knew who Quentin was after Pulp Fiction. But, Reservoir Dogs will always be the movie that made me appreciate movies and the art form that they can be when done right. Like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, Tarantino stripped out the glamour and the makeup and the popcorn and gave us all something that blew our minds on a real level without taking us for idiots who do not understand quality.

As you may have guessed by now, I had the distinct pleasure of watching Django Unchained last week and man, was I impressed! Based on a character in many western B movies, Django (Jamie Foxx) is a slave, pre-Civil War, who is freed and hired by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) to track down 3 brothers wanted by the government. Dr. Schultz is a former Dentist turned Bounty Hunter and he needs Django to point these men out to be arrested or killed. Dr. Schultz agrees to train Django in the ways of the Bounty Hunter and once the job is completed to help him find his slave wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washingon) and rescue her from her owner, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).

This movie plays like a western, but has the feel of a tense drama that keeps you on the edge of your seat, not knowing exactly what is going to happen next. Foxx was fine as Django, but it was Waltz and DiCaprio that really stood out in this film. Like Inglourious Bastards, Waltz jumps from funny to serious to whimsical to fascinating, making it all look easy and off the cuff. DiCaprio does a good job of not overdoing a young white plantation owner in Mississippi. I think most actors would have exaggerated the part to a cartoonish Colonel Sanders, but instead Leo makes us believe what it may have been like to have all that wealth and yet be surrounded by African-American people in an isolated area.

On the Beer Scale I give Django Unchained 4 pints of Saranac Pale Ale. This was the first micro-brew I can remember trying and from that point on I knew I wanted a beer that tasted better and was made on a smaller scale. Quentin and Saranac have gotten bigger and more popular, but have never lost sight of where they started, and I love them both for that.

On the Netflix queue I highly recommend you check out The Thieves. This movie is about a group of thieves (ala Ocean’s Eleven) who get together to pull off a Jewel heist from a Chinese casino. There is a group from China and a group from Korea who must work together to complete the job, but many of them have ulterior motives for taking this one particular jewel. The movie is fast-paced and exciting and beautifully filmed. If you can handle sub titles, then you too can enjoy this foreign action movie that keeps you rooting for different characters at different points throughout the film.

When the Pitt hits the Fan

One has to admit that Brad Pitt is a good actor. Not only can he perform a multitude of roles but he knows how to pick good scripts to perform in. Once aspect of his career I have always admired was that he has been able to stay away from formulaic romantic comedies and dumbed down macho man movies. Due to his good looks and physique he could always take a big pay day and forget substance, but he has always tried to stick with original stories and characters and is always willing to take a non-starring role if he believes in the project. There is a great scene in Fight Club, where Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden describes what he is to Edward Norton’s character and I believe that is what he is to most guys. Brad is the kind of man we all want to look like, act like and be like.

Now that I am done gushing over my man crush I am pleased again with Mr. Pitt for his decision to produce and star in Killing Them Softly. This is a gangster film but not in the normal way. This is the story of Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) and Frankie (Scoot McNairy) who hold up an underground gambling ring and make it look as though one of this particular group’s members, Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta), set the whole thing up. This mob-like syndicate is not run by just one big mobster, but a group of businessmen that like to hide in the shadows. They have one representative whom we get to meet (Richard Jenkins) and he hires Jackie (Brad Pitt) to figure out what really went down and then take care of those responsible. Jackie is a hitman, but he is also someone we can relate with and root for as he just wants to care of things quickly and quietly with as little trouble as possible.

Unfortunately for Jackie, when you work with high and low-end criminals, things never go quite as planned. The movie itself plays out as more art-house than action and the music and cinematography are fantastic. The best comparison I can make is to a Guy Ritchie film; the dialogue and music move the movie along more than the action. The acting is great, especially from James Gandolfini, who plays an out-of-town hitman named Mickey. Mickey is struggling with his marriage and it is affecting the work he needs to get done. As the title suggests, Brad plays Jackie very softly, but with a big gun that he is not afraid to use.

On the Beer Scale I give Killing Them Softly 4 pints of Sam Adams Boston Lager. It is well-made, thought out and executed the way all good movies (and beer, for that matter) should be.

On the Netflix queue, I put some time aside to check out Bachelorette starring Kirsten Dunst, Rebel Wilson, Lizzy Caplan, Isla Fisher, James Marsden and Adam Scott. In Bachelorette, Becky (Wilson) is getting married and it is the night of her big party. Her friends Regan (Dunst), Gena (Caplan) and Katie (Fisher) take her out for a night of fun, but when the party ends early the three friends get drunk and fool around and end up ripping the wedding dress. The rest of this movie follows these three bridesmaids around New York; they stink at love and friendships and we are supposed to find them very interesting. Surprise, they are not! I thought this was going to be a raunchier Bridesmaids, but it just ended up being less funny and more cheesy than I had hoped. The Hunger Games is now available on the Instant queue- watch that instead.

Kathryn Bigelow has not made a lot of movies in her 30 + year career but the ones she has are quite good.  This woman does seem to understand action movies as well as any man. It started with Near Dark (Bill Paxton) then Blue Steel (Jamie Lee Curtis) then to Point Break (Keanu Reeves) then to Strange Days (Ralph Fiennes) then to The Weight of Water (Sean Penn) to The Hurt Locker (Jeremy Renner) and finally Zero Dark Thirty (Jessica Chastain). I Left off Harrison Ford in K-19, The Widowmaker purposely because it is the only one of these movies I have not seen and I do not plan to, based on what I have heard.

 I may sound really sexist here, but I have always thought it takes a man to create hard-core action flicks, since it seems as if only guys think and care about such things. On the other hand, she seems like the perfect action director as she does not try to overdue the violence and keep it real in the context of the scene. There aren’t explosions for the hell of it, or unrealistic car chases, or bimbos used strictly for eye candy. Kathryn has the talent and eye to direct any kind of movie, but this must be what she is interested in and likes to do. Bless her for it and I hope she keeps it up. Especially after her last two masterpieces, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty.

Speaking of Zero Dark Thirty, I had a chance to watch it finally and I was quite impressed. Like her previous film, this is another post 9-11 war movie.  However, this time there is one specific target in sight. This is the true story of the finding and killing of Osama Bin Laden. Jessica Chastain plays Maya, a C.I.A operative who is on a mission to find that one man who is the face of all the evil in this world and kill him. Most of the film revolves around the lengthy and almost impossible task of locating a very tall Arab man sporting a ZZ Top beard and a nightgown. There is one point however, about an hour and a half in, where you wonder when this takedown will finally take place and give us all a sense of relief and accomplishment. Yes, it does drag a little.

Once we meet the seal team and they head to the Middle East things really heat up, and the last half hour of this movie is extremely tense and feels about as real as it could be sitting in my family room. All the actors did a great job of not overdoing any part and keeping the story as the main focus. Like Argo, Zero Dark Thirty finds a distinct way of portraying a dark, sensitive and true story and turning it into an enjoyable piece of cinematic art.

On the beer scale I give Zero Dark Thirty 3 pints of Guinness Extra Dark. Very smooth and delicious and gets better and better the further down the glass you go.

I have since seen two movies on the Netflix queue since we last spoke and I am recommending both, which does not happen very often. First up is Morituri, a World War II movie starring Marlon Brando and Yul Brynner. This movie was released in 1965, and has Brando speaking in a convincing German accent as a defected Nazi officer spying for the British. He is blackmailed into posing as an SS officer aboard a German vessel transporting rubber back to the mother land. The ship is captained by Yul Brynner who is struggling with the moral value of this war and his part in it. I found the performances well done and the story moved at a good pace. I think this movie would have done a little better in color instead of black and white, but overall worth the 2 hours.

The second movie was a ghost story/thriller called The Awakening (2011). This film takes place in England, 1921, right after World War I. This is the story of Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) who is an expert at debunking stories of the undead. She travels to an all-boys boarding school in order to prove that there is no real murderous figure haunting the hallways of this country institution. With the help of Maud (Imelda Staunton) and Robert (Dominick West) Florence thinks she has everything figured out, but something is still not right and her downward spiral into madness is thrilling to watch. I found this movie to be well acted, short and paced and would recommend this to anyone with some time to kill. (Pardon the Pun.)

Pay No Attention to the Man behind the Curtain Part II

As I mentioned in my last blog I have been pleasantly surprised by Ben Affleck’s directing efforts and that was the good. The bad came in a rare movie house visit with the family to see Oz the Great and Powerful.  Sam Raimi, one of America’s most diverse directors, takes a shot at a prequel to The Wizard of Oz , and unfortunately comes up short on many fronts. I understand Sam was a little hamstrung by the movie studio as to what content from the original story he could or could not use, but there was almost no trace of the magic and wonderment of the 1939 classic.

Let’s start this review out on a positive note. The Good is that the story line is quite interesting. We go back to a younger womanizing, grifting and traveling circus man named Oz (James Franco). Escaping an angry muscle man, Oz hijacks a hot-air balloon and flies into a tornado which, as in the original, drops him off in the strange, colorful land that is not of this earth. There he meets Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Glinda (Michelle Williams), all who believe that this mysterious Oz has come to banish evil and bring peace to the residents of this unknown world. With the help of a friendly flying monkey named Finley (Zach Braff) and a porcelain doll named May (Abigail Spencer), Oz must choose who to trust and what direction his moral compass will take him along the way.

The Bad is the one thing I expected to be good; the special effects were overdone to the point of exhaustion. The scenery is almost 100% CGI and it takes away from any of the story itself. Strange to say, but the visuals from the 1939 movie completely out-perform the visuals from the 2013 movie. The Wizard of Oz feels like it came from the imagination of a human being (L. Frank Baum), while Oz the Great and Powerful feels as if it was created by a computer devoid of human emotion. CGI can make beautiful images come to life, or when overdone can suck the life right out of them and that is what happened here.

The Ugly is the acting from top to bottom. First and foremost James Franco was boring, uninspired and annoying. You would think a traveling magic man in the early part of the century would have a lot more engaging personality, or at the very least be somewhat likeable. Franco is completely out of his element in this film and my wife and I spent half the film trying to figure out who would have been a better Oz, and the list was endless (My first choice would have been Kelsey Grammer). Mila Kunis and Rachel Wiesz overacted their way throughout the film. Michelle Williams underacted, which after the previous performances I mentioned was kind of refreshing.

Lastly, the real disappointment goes at the direction of Sam Raimi. I have spent the better part of two decades enjoying his vision and films, from Darkman to Army of Darkness, from The Quick and the Dead to A Simple Plan, and from The Gift to Drag Me to Hell. Oz the Great and Powerful felt more like Oz the Mediocre and was not Raimi’s best work- I hope this is just a blip on the vast radar of talent I know this man has.

On one positive note, my kids enjoyed this film. When it comes to childhood entertainment you could do worse and this movie does have its moments of excitement.

On the beer scale I give Oz the Great and Powerful 1 pint of Sam Adam’s Noble Pilsner. My expectations are high and you failed to come through. However, 1 mistake here and there is acceptable just don’t let it happen again.

On the Netflix queue I viewed 3 movies all on different levels of the horror genre. I will say that you should probably avoid 100 Ghost Street (another Ghost Hunters goes wrong mess) and House Hunting (trying to explain it is makes my head hurt). The one I did enjoy is a German movie called Antibodies. This is a Silence of the Lambs type flick in which a small town police officer is called to the city to interview a serial child molester and killer to see if he killed a young girl from that same small town. The acting is fantastic and the story moves along at a thrilling pace and keeps you guessing until the end. I highly recommend Antibodies if you don’t mind subtitles.

Pay No Attention to the Man behind the Curtain Part I

It has been a while between blogs, and I apologize to the few of you who actually read this thing. Between catching up on Game of Thrones, Archer, Weeds and Girls, I have not had much time to watch movies. I have now been able to view two in two days and I am excited to share my findings on both. I must say that sometimes I think I know everything about the business of movies and can predict any outcome before it happens, i.e. Michael Bay movies are bad and Christopher Nolan movies are good. Also, Julia Roberts is completely overrated and Gary Oldman is completely underrated. The first film in a horror series is well-thought out, and then every reboot that follows gets worse and worse with each subsequent installment. But then sometimes I am completely shocked and blown away that certain people in the industry can completely adjust my opinion of them in good ways and bad.

Let’s start with the good. I had the enormous pleasure of viewing Argo the other day and this did not disappoint. I thought I had Ben Affleck pegged a long time ago. I have never thought he was a good actor and he has been riding on the coattails of Matt Damon ever since Good Will Hunting made them stars. From Armageddon to Pearl Harbor to The Sum of all Fears, I have always felt Ben was one of the worst actors on the planet who made Keanu Reeves look like Sir Lawrence Olivier. My theory, (that rarely was proven wrong) was that if Ben is in it in any kind of starring role then it is a waste of time and money. Then he turned to directing and I had my doubts until I watched Gone Baby Gone and thought, not bad, however, Ben did not make an appearance in it so I was not convinced just yet. Then I viewed The Town, and once again I was very impressed with his directing skills and he even starred in it. However, I was still hesitant to give him full props, because he had yet to make a movie outside the boundaries of his hometown of Boston. Now Argo comes along and I have done a complete 180 on this guy.

Most of Argo takes place in Iran during the early 1980’s and revolves around the true story of the storming of the American embassy in 1979 where many people were held hostage for over a year, but 6 people managed to escape the takeover and were found hiding in the head of the Canadian Embassy’s home. The CIA and the Secretary of State are on a mission to get these people out before the Iranians know they are missing and they look to Tony Mendez (Affleck) to get them home. Pretending to be a Canadian movie producer scouting locations for a science-fiction movie called Argo, Tony works with a real producer and make-up artist out of Hollywood to create a smoke screen that will hopefully result in a quiet, successful recon mission.

Argo is suspenseful, dramatic and one of the best movies I have seen in the last couple of years. The directing by Affleck is magnificent and his acting was not too bad either. I think he understands that as long as he keeps his overacting to a minimum the movie itself can shine as the true star. There were also wonderful performances from Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin and John Goodman. Like Nolan, like Fincher, like Tarantino and the Coen Brothers, I will now make a point to see every movie Affleck puts out, because he has earned it with his 3 films so far. If he is just acting, then all bets are off.

On the Beer Scale, I give Argo 4 Pints of Saranac Amber Ale. When you can take years of below average production (Matts and Utica Club) and then put out a high quality, delicious beverage you deserve my undying devotion. Cheers to you Ben- keep putting out the goods.

On the Netflix queue I took some time to watch Deadfall. A thriller set in the hard Michigan winter near the border of Canada and starring Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde. Addison and Liza (Bana & Wilde) are siblings who have robbed a casino and are on their way out of the country when a car accident leaves them with little option but to separate and each find their own way to get to Canada while avoiding the local police. Addison works his way through the snowy woods, while Liza finds a good-guy ex-con (Charlie Hunnam) to fall for her good looks and take her back to his parent’s house. Kris Kristofferson plays dad and Sissy Spacek plays mom. Anyway, as far as thrillers go, this one is pretty good. The suspense, story and acting are all solid and for streaming there are worse ways to spend your time.

If I have one complain about Deadfall is that Charlie Hunnam, (who plays Jackson on Sons of Anarchy) can’t seem to break character from the television show for a different part in a movie. I was hoping he would show a little more range on the big screen.

As I mentioned in the first paragraph there are good suprises and bad, and Argo was good. Keep an eye out for the bad in part 2 of the blog title, which will be coming shortly.

Denzel in Distress

Let me start off by saying that I am not a big fan of flying. Airplanes have always been a mystery to me (on a Physics level) and I find myself very nervous while on one. I hate to call it a phobia, since I do travel on planes from time to time, but I do prefer a pharmaceutical and a beer before boarding. It’s not perishing in a fiery explosion during take-off or landing gear not opening on landing and sliding into a swamp that freaks me out. It’s the falling from 35,000 feet in an oversized metal coffin that scares the pants off of me (keep it together ladies). Actually, after that description it does sound like a phobia. When traveling at over 500 mph, halfway to outer space, you would like to see what is in front of you, but since they will not let me in the cockpit (and I have asked) it feels too far out of my control to enjoy.

It is for this reason that I waited until after a business trip to NYC to partake in a viewing of Flight. This is the latest Robert Zemeckis vehicle (excuse the pun) about an in-air accident that should have killed everyone on the plane, but only killed 6 due to the heroic actions of the plane’s pilot, Whip Whitaker (Washington). The first third of this film is engrossing and dramatic, as we see a professional pilot wake up from a drunken stupor, snort cocaine and head out to the runway as the captain of a commercial airliner. The acting and the visuals suck you in as Whip makes quick, calm, un-heard of decisions to straighten this plane out and bring it in with as safe a landing as possible. The irony of course is that Whip is such a professional drunk he is able to concentrate even under the most strenuous of circumstances.

The problem is no one knows he is a drunk and if the public and the airline found out he could go to jail for the rest of his life and never fly again. This is where the movie went off-course for me. We are quickly transitioned from a roller coaster of emotions to a teeter-totter drama about a guy who cannot come to a decision whether his is a drunk who needs help or if the denial is enough to get him through this incident. Denzel was magnificent for the first 35 minutes of this film, but way overdone for the rest.  

I do not profess to be an expert on alcoholism but Whip was way too out of his mind drunk to have hidden this vice from almost everybody for so long. I think there could have been a more toned-down way for Whip to come to grips with his problem. I also feel it would have been more enjoyable if the movie emphasized his love for flying and the family lineage that got him to be the pilot he is. It felt like two separate stories mashed into one movie and once it is over you feel as if the potential for greatness was there but never came through.

On the beer scale I give Flight 2 pints of an Irish Black and Tan (Half Guinness/Half Harp). The top half of Guinness is thick and delicious, but when you hit the Harp it feels light and watered down compared to what came before it.

On the Netflix queue I was convinced by the recommendations to try Grave Encounters I and II. This is another in a long line of found footage films where a television show like Ghost Hunters travels to haunted venues to find proof of existential beings. The first movie is this show itself being filmed in an abandoned asylum where, hold on to your hat, torturous things happened and the dead haunt the dark hallways in search of new victims for experimentation. Like The Blair Witch Project, we are left with dire decisions and unresolved questions;  Grave Encounters II, about a film student who is on a mission, along with his friends, to find the truth of the first film and comes face to face with the same treatment. This film is not much on originality, but if you like a creepy thriller you could do worse. The scares are pretty good when they happen but the B-level acting is atrocious. 

As far as a recommendation goes, Archer season 3 is available to view. It is relatively unknown to many people, and yet, in my opinion, is one of the funniest shows on television.

I Want My Two Dollars!

Many years ago I discovered a movie that would change my life. Not in a meaningful, important way but in a strange and romantic way. If you understand where the title of this post comes from, then you already know the movie in question is Better Off Dead. I believe this was John Cusack’s first starring role as a High School Senior struggling with the fact that his girlfriend Beth is no longer interested in him, but in the captain of the ski team, Roy. In his comedic funk, Lane Meyer (Cusack) keeps coming up with ways to kill himself, and like trying to win back his girlfriend, is failing miserably.

Lane tries jumping from a bridge, hanging himself in the garage and grabbing turpentine to blow himself up, all while dealing with a genius brother, an angry paperboy, a whipped-cream-snorting best friend and a heavy-set neighbor trying to hook up with the French foreign exchange student by pretending she doesn’t speak English.  As I type out the words, it has become clear to me that this is a comedy about suicide and thank God it was made in the 80’s, because there is no way this premise would get the green light in today’s uber-sensitive environment. I cannot speak for everyone, but this is the one movie that made me anxious to go to high school and have a girl dump me. My thought was that there is nothing more endearing than a man bummed out, and I felt I could be Lane Meyer and pick up a cute exchange student and out-ski the class jock.

As I got older that dream was not as true, but allow me to give a lifetime pass to John Cusack for starring in this movie alone. John has made some great films including: The Ice Harvest, High Fidelity, Being John Malkovich, Gross Point Blank, The Grifters and Say Anything. He has also put out some stinkers: 2012, 1408, Serendipity, Con Air and One Crazy Summer (I struggle with this one as I enjoyed it in my youth but it does not age well).

My latest trip down John Cusack road was unfortunately full of potholes and old mattresses on the curb. The Raven has John starring as Edgar Allen Poe in the last weeks of his life, foiling a serial killer. The apparent irony is that the found victims have been murdered in the same methods Poe has written about.  From the “Cask of Amontillado” to “The Pit and the Pendulum” to “The Raven”, the police are working with Poe to catch a killer and kidnapper of his fiancé. Poe is portrayed as an alcoholic genius who is like a mad scientist of literature, an American version of Sherlock Holmes looking for Jack the Ripper. That may not make a lot of sense, but neither did this movie.

The Raven is all style and no substance. The visuals are stunning. However, the story is boring, pointless and probably the last thing you would care about with this character. I would have loved to see a tale of Poe’s life from childhood to death and see what really inspired his writing and his place in American culture. What we do get is a fictional action/thriller that does not allow you to invest in any character appearing on the screen. Even Cusack himself overacts this part to the point of annoyance. He is obnoxious, egotistical and pompous. At no point did I feel I knew anything about Edgar Allen Poe or the environment he lived in.

Going back to my earlier point, I will give John a break on this one since he earned it 28 years ago with one of the most enjoyable movies of my formative years. But be careful, any more movies like this and may be forced to the point of saying Never More!

On the beer scale, I give The Raven 1 pint of St. Pauli Girl Ale. The label on the bottle is magnificent, but the contents inside are underwhelming.

I played this blog out in a different way this time. The Raven was actually on the Netflix instant queue and I believe I gave you plenty of reasons not to watch. One I will recommend you watch if you have the wherewithal to do so is Kill List. Taking place in England, a couple of hitmen are assigned a job to kill 3 people on a list. They do not know who they are contracted to take out, but as each murder comes about, things unravel and head in a wild direction of violence and cultism. This film is not for everybody, but if you are into something completely different and original, have at it and let me know what you think.

One last thought if you do have access to the instant queue, House of Cards with Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright is a fantastic show with an interesting storyline and top-notch acting.