Kyle Terry is DrChocolate and my good friend from college who I asked to help me out with my movie reviews. My budget limits the amount of movies I can see and the good Dr, while having similar taste in movies as me, often has differing viewpoints that I think will be valuable to the site.
It all seems so familiar. At a young age, South Boston friends mix into the local Irish mob. Drama, grit, bleakness, and crime all conflict with friendship and family. Boston and Boston crime seem to be bravura filmmaking central these days. Yet this one is different, different because it’s true. Different because the story is deeper. Different because it’s about becoming a man. Becoming a man not by exerting confrontational machismo, but by recognizing responsibility and buckling down and doing it for yourself and for those you love.
This is the directorial debut and first screenplay for Brian Goodman. And Lets hope he does more. It’s closely based on his life and experiences growing up in Southie. A haunted, spectacular Mark Ruffalo (why is he not one of the biggest actors in Hollywood?) portrays Brian on film and Ethan Hawke is his rangy, more volatile best friend/street brother Paulie. Tiring of pulling small jobs for a local mobster (Goodman himself, with a menacing pitbull’s presence) the pair starts pulling jobs for themselves, eventually saddling Brian with a fierce drug addiction and the both of them with a prison term. Brian, meanwhile, has two boys and a devoted, but not delusional, wife played by a surprisingly terrific Amanda Peet. Fiscal uncertainty, a damaged marriage, and a distant, guarded son all weigh on Brian, made so vivid by Ruffalo, as faces his options and the true definition of manhood.
Goodman’s direction is assured and calm and balances the gritty plot lines. Having the director be the subject of story clearly goes a long way towards making the drama feel so exposed and authentic. It’s Brian’s (character and director) exploration of manhood, fatherhood, and the bonds of marriage that make this film. Highly recommended. After watching, the making of doc on the DVD is also recommended as you get to hear from Goodman himself concerning the film, his life, and who the two melded together. First-class, overlooked film.
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This week, I decided to tribute the great Michael Jackson in a way that only YouTube can. Oh, the things grown men will do when left alone in their mother’s basement…
This Week: A Tribute to a Legend
Try to ignore the pop-ups, they aren’t mine and I couldn’t find the original.
I don’t know what’s sadder, the fact that he chose “Man in the Mirror,” or the fact that he took the time to make props.
No tribute would be complete without the great Baby James!
Kyle Terry is DrChocolate and my good friend from college who I asked to help me out with my movie reviews. My budget limits the amount of movies I can see and the good Dr, while having similar taste in movies as me, often has differing viewpoints that I think will be valuable to the site. This is one of those cases and has inspired me to write my own review, which will hopefully be posted shortly.
In an effort of full disclosure I’ll start with this opinion: I think Sam Mendes is vastly overrated. As a matter of fact I think he borders on being a hack. He strikes me as drama’s version of Michael Bay; drama for dramas sake, drama for those who don’t know any better. He knows all the paint by numbers for a drama, and every now and then he show flashes of brilliance (Road to Perdition), but for the most part, it all seems counterfeit and overly calculated. With that intro, onto his latest film Revolutionary Road. This impeccably acted drama asks a lot of the viewer. For one, it has no routing interest – both Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio are nasty, brutish, ugly people. When first watching this movie I honestly looked down at the time counter thinking I had skipped a scene or three. But no, the movie literally drops you, quite heavily, into the bitter, raging disappointment of a dissolving marriage. The film has that Mendes sterility and distance, like you’re watching everything unfold in a fishbowl where you’re never able to truly connect. I also am constantly irritated by Hollywood’s insistence on using the middle class and the suburbs as metaphors for wasted life and unfulfilled dreams. You do realize that the same people you’re asking to indulge your piousness with their hard earned middle class dollars are those that you are criticizing, right? (Yes, I know this film is based on a book from the 1960’s but my irritation still holds). See that steaming hot mess of overrated self-importance American Beauty for another example.
That’s not to say this movie isn’t without its positives. Winslet and DiCaprio have probably never been better. DiCaprio’s man-boy looks have never served him better than here as an emotionally stunted man-child fearful of his corporate future who struggles with the definition of what it means to be a “man.” The furor with which the two fight and steam and reconcile and fight again is monumental and engulfing. Their fights are cringe-inducing in their veiled, reprehensible brutality. That the actors are able to convey that nastiness with a level of care for each other is rather extraordinary. Michael Shannon as a mentally unbalanced neighbor is frightening and exhilarating as the only individual in the movie that sees the truth in their lives and isn’t afraid to speak his mind. He’s a revelation. The art direction, the submersion into the time, is immaculate as well. However, it still carries the Mendes sheen, where you’re never able to care about two people when it’s vital to do so. That sheen and veneer eventually muddles the performances and the message of the film. I felt like I was watching actors acting the hell out of individual scenes rather than an actual story arc. It’s definitely an affecting piece of cinema but it stays there instead of becoming something significant and powerful, something it could have been. Overall it’s a typical Mendes film, flashes of brilliance, flashes of hack, and some fantastic performances. I marginally recommend it, but again, with reservations. If you like Mendes other films you’ll probably like this.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs – The third movie in a trilogy whose only real redeeming quality is the prehistoric squirrel. But who am I to judge, if you liked the first two, you’ll probably like this one. Also available in 3D.
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Public Enemies – Michael Mann (Heat, Collateral) directs Johnny Depp as the infamous gangster, John Dillinger. Also stars Christian Bale and Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), but in a surprise move, the soundtrack contains not a single track from Audioslave. I’m always up for a Michael Mann movie.
~ Save to Netflix Queue
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