I watch movies every week and then write down my thoughts. Read my previous reviews!
My rating is simple, Watch It, It Depends, Skip it.
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| Mississippi Grind - They're are always winners and losers. |
Mississippi Grind (2015)
Watch Mississippi Grind
Written by: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
Directed by: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
Starring: Ben Mendelsohn, Ryan Reynolds, Yvonne Landry
Rated: R
Plot:
A compulsive gambler Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn) sets out on a trek down the Mississippi, hoping a new friend, Curtis (Ryan Reynolds) can change his luck.
Verdict:
It's a character study about a compulsive gamblers who can't quit. The questions raised by the movie aren't philosophical, but due to vagueness. Reynold's character feels out of place due to his incredible luck, and his point is never quite clear.
While it has a certain charm to it, you never quite know to what the movie is building and the ending feels off. We're given hope that Mendelsohn's character will turn it around but it feel disingenuous. There isn't a reason to be hopeful. He's going to keep gambling. The ending doesn't ruin it, but it just doesn't feel right.
It depends.
Review:
I hadn't seen Mendohson until the Netflix show Bloodline. He was a standout in that, and with Ryan Reynolds and poker, I decided to watch Mississippi Grind.
Reynolds always plays variations of the same jovial and slightly goofy character.
The first scene sets the stage. This isn't a glamorized, high stakes poker movie like Rounders (which I enjoyed). Gerry is addicted and can't quit. For whatever reason Curtis takes a liking to Gerry. Curtis doesn't care about gambling, he just likes meeting people. That's what he tells the incredulous Gerry.
Gerry is a shell of a person. The money he makes goes to gambling. Gerry sees Curtis as a good luck charm, a way to win back enough money to pay off all of his debts. Curtis does seem to have an almost supernatural knack at winning, and Curtis agrees to stake Gerry, for no other reason than to see what will happen.
We get a piece of a clue as to why Curtis is doing this. In St. Louis his girlfriend asks him where he found Gerry and what's in it for him. She references other people Curtis has picked up. Curtis replies it's all about the journey.
The movie shows us just how desperate Gerry is. He's willing to lie and steal for more money so he can keep gambling. Curtis even gets Gerry beaten up, retribution for losing big and lying about it.
When they're down to just two-hundred dollars, Curtis tells Gerry to buy a bus ticket and go home. Gerry wants to begin betting, so Curtis leaves.
Curtis almost feels like an angel or something supernatural at times. He's completely carefree and always seems to appear when Gerry needs him. His luck is so incredible it defies logic. His goal, it seems, is to help people and he focuses on degenerate gamblers.
The end of the movie teeters towards Gerry won big and is changed, but I don't buy that for a second. Gerry doesn't know when to quit. Maybe he goes back home, but he'll lose that money. The tone of the ending is the opposite to what we've seen. Even their winnings seemed too much.
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| The Gift - It's always that weird guy in the background. |
Watch The Gift
Written by: Joel Edgerton
Directed by: Joel Edgerton
Starring: Jason Bateman, Rebecca Hall, Joel Edgerton
Rated: R
Plot:
When Simon (Jason Bateman) and his wife Robyn (Rebecca Hall) run into Gordon (Joel Edgerton), a high school classmate of Simon's, Robyn suspects Simon is hiding something about his past with Gordon.
Verdict:
This is a neat concept, but it doesn't go far enough and it doesn't explore the concept deep enough. Combine that with a few leaps in logic the movie makes and it just doesn't work. It works more towards revealing a person's true character than revenge, and that is an issue because the character enacting the revenge feels irrelevant. The ending, which is critical, just doesn't work. This feels like a cheap knock-off version of the excellent Korean revenge movie Oldboy (2003). Don't confuse it with the sub-par American remake from 2013.
Skip it.
Review:
The Gift opens with a standard scenario. Simon (Jason Bateman) and his wife Robyn (Rebecca Hall) move to a new town and he sees an old classmate, Gordo (Joel Egerton). They agree to catch up, and Gordo quickly becomes creepy, showing up at the house unannounced and leaving many gifts.
The movie creates a mood where you're waiting for the other shoe to drop. Gordo has to be crazy. The movie portrays him as a liar, so what is his goal?
Regardless of how we feel about Gordo, Simon is a jerk, and not just because he belittles Gordo, telling him to get lost. When Simon's dog goes missing, we assume it's Gordo.
Gordo's lies unravel, but we still don't know why he's doing this. Robyn begins to suspect Simon has a history with Gordo. At this point, I just want the movie to do something. I don't care if Simon or Gordo is the bad guy. Robyn hallucinating this whole scenario is also acceptable. It would be better than what actually happens.
Simon was a bully to Gordo and Simon is still a jerk. It's an incredible leap of logic that somehow his wife has never noticed this and is surprised. I noticed it quickly. Simon does little to hide it.
The movie has some tense moments, but the underlying message is lacking. Sure when you spread lies, facts don't matter. It's all about perception, and bullies are bad. That's not a revelation.
Gordo's revenge is a permutation of what Simon did to him, in that he got Simon to believe something. The torture part is Simon wondering if it's true.
Simon splits with his wife and loses his job at the end, but Gordo wasn't necessary to bring Simon to justice, he just sped up the process. Without the character Gordo in this movie, Simon still would have lost his job and potentially his wife because of what he did to a work colleague.
It doesn't help that the characters are slightly unbelievable in how they behave and react. I wanted something more. The ending feels incomplete. This is it? Was Gordo just hoping one day he'd run into Simon and could enact his half baked plan?.
Maybe Gordo truly wanted to forgive Simon and tested him by killing him with kindness. Simon should feel incredibly guilty at what he did to Simon, but obviously isn't. I guess Gordo then planned out what he could do in the next thirty minutes.
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| Me and Earl and the Dying Girl - Quirky and engaging. |
Watch Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Written by: Jesse Andrews (novel, screenplay)
Directed by: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Starring: Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler, Olivia Cooke
Rated: PG-13
Plot:
Greg (Thomas Mann) strives to remain invisible while making short films with his friend Earl (RJ Cyler). That changes when his mom forces him to hang out with a classmate who has cancer (Olivia Cooke).
Verdict:
It's a quirky movie, full of charm. The dialog is quick and fairly sharp, too sharp to actually be high school, but the sentiment of this movie propels it forward. It tries, and succeeds, to subvert the romance that seems inevitable. Greg tries to be invisible without tying himself to any one high school clique, but his life changes when his forces him to hang out with a classmate diagnosed with cancer. He allows somebody to see him, and he realizes what's he's been missing by shutting everyone out. It's not without pain, but that's part of living.
Watch it.
Review:
It's quirky from the start with Greg breaking the fourth wall and introducing the story he's presenting. His intro includes a claymation sequence that reappears throughout the film.
Greg is afraid that people won't like him. By avoiding everyone they won't get a chance to discover that. He interacts with all the cliques just enough to be on friendly terms.
Despite his protests, his mom makes him do something nice and hang out with Rachel who has been diagnosed with leukemia. He awkwardly jokes with her and they become friends, though tension remains high due to Rachel's cancer which leads to arguments that Greg only befriended her because his mom forced him.
Greg's best friend is Earl. While Earl is a flat character, the actor's deadpan delivery and manner makes the character much more than what's on paper. Greg and Earl make parodies of classic movies. Their films include My Dinner with Andre the Giant and Senior Citizen Kane.
Greg shows Rachel the movies he and Earl have made, and then they make a movie for Rachel. Despite the months spent on it, he can't get it right.
Rachel pushed him to apply for college despite his objections that it would be similar to high school, but his concern for her and work on her movie puts his acceptance in jeopardy.
The movie pulls a trick at the end, and while it's a cheat, the movie implements it well. It leads me to question whether this is a story told after the fact or in real time. I initially assumed it was a recounting.
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| My Big Fat Greek Wedding - A good premise makes for a good rom-com. |
Watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Written by: Nia Vardalos
Directed by: Joel Zwick
Starring: Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Michael Constantine
Rated: PG
Plot:
Toula (Nia Vardalos) contends with her large Greek family as she figures out what to do with her life. She wants to go to college and get a job, they want her to find a Greek man and have children. When she gets engaged to a non-Greek Ian (John Corbett), they have to reconcile cultural differences as they plan their wedding with a little help.
Verdict:
It's a pretty standard rom-com story, but it's executed really well. Setting it in the Greek culture adds a lot of depth as Toula has to deal with her wishes and the wishes of her enormous family for her. Once she is engaged, her family wants to plan the wedding for her. The story is her ascension to being an adult, albeit late. She has stop going along with what her family wants for her and decide what really is best for her.
It depends.
Review:
With My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 coming out this month there is no better time to revisit the original.
Toula feels trapped working at her family's restaurant, Dancing Zorba's. Her family's Greek heritage is important to them, but Toula doesn't want to follow the tradition of getting married to a Greek man and becoming a baby factory.
She decides to take a few college classes while simultaneously ditching her glasses and dressing better. Her mom and aunt trick her dad into letting her work at her aunt's travel agency, her mom telling her that men need to think everything is there own idea.
She meets Ian and they start dating, but since he's not Greek she hides her relationship from her family, telling them she's taking pottery lessons despite how dressed up she is.
With such a large family, someone sees them and the news spreads.
While her family is upset at first, they learn to accept him after he's baptized into the church. He has to accept such a large family who all want to plan the wedding for Toula. T
he drama in the film is Toula contending with her large family. They all want to best for her, but differ on their definition of best. The movie delves into big families and Greek cultures, both being foreign to Ian her fiancee. The movie never makes the romance overtly sappy, though the character of Ian lacks depth. He's just a support character for Toula.
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