17. I, Tonya (2017) Movie Review: We All Abuse People We Don't Think of As People

When Margot Robbie looks you dead in the eye three-quarters of the way through I, Tonya, when she looks right out and speaking as the white trash queen Tonya Harding she says we're all her attackers, she's damn right. We took a person, guilty or not, and judged and beat on her as a world. As a tribe. The audience, even by watching the movie, made Tonya Harding the spectacle and we loved it.

    Tonya Harding (Robbie) grew up abused and abandoned by her parents, her overbearing mother forcing her to be the best using the worst means necessary. Growing up, she finds in her husband Jeff (Stan) both a companion and abuser. The two go down in the history books, along with their dim witted "bodyguard," as the ones that brought violence to figure skating. Nancy Kerrigan will never forget, that's sure.

    Knowing winks are the center of this picture. Because the history of everyone involved is contradictory and full of holes, the filmmakers decided to place knowing asides and glances as well as "to-the-camera" style interviews. We are all in on the joke that everyone involved lied. And we are all in on the abuse Harding felt and still feels.

    When the subject of a story has to ask, to let the audience know, that she's a good mom… Well, that's a button right there.

16. I'll Push You (2017) Movie Review: Man, they really like each other

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In 2004, my best friend and I went to Key West for New Year's Eve. We drove the whole way, seventeen hours down Florida and seventeen hours up. Near the end we were just about done and still had to live together as roommates. I thought about that while watching I'll Push You.

    This documentary tells the story of two men, Patrick and Justin, and their hike on the Spanish pilgrimage trail of El Camino de Santiago. What makes this special is Justin, wheelchair bound and totally dependent on Patrick during the journey. We watch as the two cross the Spanish countryside with help from friends.

    That's the bulk of the story. One guy laying there, the other struggling to walk and push and pull and get his friend where he wants to go. We learn about Justin's degenerative condition. and Patrick's utter devotion to his lifelong friend. The story becomes one of hope for humanity, a call to go out and help others by giving the extra mile. To realize that humanity is one thing, not seven billion separate lives struggling.

    At the end, I revisited my friendship with my oldest buddy. We've known each other since I was four and he was five and I poked my head under a fence to see what all the noise was and who my neighbor was playing with. Over thirty-four years of knowing each other, facing tragedy and heartache, supporting one another. Would I push him across mountains and through mud and down slopes until I bled?

    Hell no. And he'd do the same for me. But we'd laugh about it.

15. The Way Back (2010) Movie Review: Whole Lot of Walking Going On

The human spirit forces itself on so many movies you have to wonder if that's the whole reason we make the damn things. Gruff, no nonsense men learning lessons about being brothers while overcoming uncertain odds. That's pretty much the whole story here.

    Our story starts in Siberia where men are kept like cattle by communist Russian forces. This prison camp holds any and all enemies of the state, from the idealistic and funny to the gruff and mean. Political and violent alike. Then a bunch of them escape and its those assholes we follow.

    The true star of this film is the direction and cinematography. There's some good acting, to be sure, but views of snowy forests, mountain lakes, vast empty deserts, and peaks of Eastern Asia fill the screen and demand to be seen. As the men walk to each new climate, you have to wonder how this new and beautiful piece of the world is going to kill another man.

    Make no mistake, this film is brutal as it is beautiful. When the prison camp is the most hospitable place in the story, be sure challenges continue to mount. No one gets off this planet alive, but it's amazing when there's good views.

14. Blackway (2015) Movie Review: Where did this come from?

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When movies get released, they often have some fan fair. Somebody, somewhere, spent money and they are going to damn sure let you know. Except in rare occasions a few big stars get a film and it just fades away.

    Blackway stars Julia Stiles as a waitress in the Pacific Northwest trying to blend in to her mother's hometown after inheriting the house. She's made an enemy of Blackway (Liotta) a former cop now drug kingpin who is stalking her. The police can't help her so she goes to logger Anthony Hopkins for help.

    Yeah, I wrote that description and I don't believe it. This movie forces you to suspend your disbelief that the only part that makes sense is Ray Liotta as a crazy violent nutbag. Julia Stiles still looks like she should be ordering Jason Bourne around rather than waitressing. Anthony Hopkins as a far from a revenge-bent Pacific Northwest logger than I can imagine. And the plot is so simple and straightforward that it becomes a slow, boring slog by the end.

    Should you watch this movie? Yeah, why not. Another lazy Sunday afternoon hangover movie, the only thing this movie has going for it is nobody has heard of it. Then when someone else sees it and says "did you see that movie where Anthony Hopkins plays a logger who revenge-kills Ray Liotta with Julia Stiles?" you can say, "Yeah. Kinda boring."

13. Masterminds (2016) Movie Review: It'll steal you time because it's kind of a waste

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When people sit down to make movies, they don't say "Let's stink up the joint." It doesn't matter if they don't say it, though, because more often than that they crap the toaster. Masterminds aims for middling humor and falls short.

    The plan was simple: dumbass David Ghantt (Galifianakis) is to use his armoured car job to hijack millions of dollars. Then he runs to Mexico and hides out. Soon his lady love (Wiig) follows, and they live the big life after the man with the plan (Wilson) sends them their cut of the cash. Then it all goes to hell.

    When the Berlin school began developing Gestalt theories of psychology, they did not reckon on so many right pieces creating such a wrong whole. The acting is solid with Galifianakis and Wiig pulling off convincing dumbass yet lovestruck roles. Even Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis come off as menacing evil doers. The plot meanders but is pretty straight forward. Moments come that are hilarious, I remember laughing, but none of them come to mind now.

    In my capacity as a guy who watches movies and then pretends to give and honest opinion, I can't recommend you watch this. I can not say to log into Netflix, now $9.99, and find for "Masterminds" using their simplified search feature. Netflix, for when you want to watch something on your television through the internet.

Mississippi Burning Murderer Dies: A Children's Story

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This tale is about three men: Andrew Goodman, Michael "Mickey" Schwerner, and James Chaney. These three men, well, boys really, they were college age and down in Mississippi in the summer of 1964. Freedom Summer. They were there helping people of color register to vote.

    On June 21, 1964, a church was set ablaze by the Ku Klux Klan.  Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney went out to the church that night to see if everyone was okay. On the way back, they were pulled over and arrested. They were held by police until ten o'clock at night when they were freed. Their ride along Highway 19, followed by a police car, could only be one of creeping dread.

    Eventually they were stopped again by police. The officer told them to follow him back the way they came, toward Philadelphia, Mississippi. Other cars joined the caravan and they were lead out to a deserted road.

    Cheney, a black man, was beaten and shot while over half a dozen men looked on. Schwerner and Goodman were shot as well. The three were buried in an earthen damn and not discovered for forty-four days. It took the combined efforts of the FBI and other federal agencies to find the bodies. Seven men were convicted of federal court for civil rights violations because the state of Mississippi would not charge anyone with the state crime of murder. None served more than six years total for the crime.

    In 2005, Edgar Ray Killen was convicted of planning and organizing the killings. A recruiter and organizer for the Klan, Killen made his living as a saw mill operator and part-time preacher. On January 11, 2018 he died in prison. Reports say near the end he changed his ways, signing over his land and power of attorney to his black cellmate.

    Franklin Roosevelt said, "“I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.” Killen made enemies for himself of three college aged boys, boys who only came to help and who had their lives sprawling out before them. He and over half a dozen other men judged those boys and killed them. Cheney, Goodman, and Schwerner did not get the fifty-three years of life Killen got. I hope he used the years well. I hope he did his enemies proud in the end.

    So go out and tell your children that bad men exist. Tell them bad men can change. Evil can be defeated and all men die. Tell your children that sometimes, though, justice takes a long time after the heroes are dead and gone.

12. Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) Movie Review: Did that girl say she was possessed by a demon?

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Trilogies are hard to pull off. Just ask George Lucas and the cast of Big Momma's House. I've covered some sequels this year already, from the regrettable Insidious: The Last Key to Darkest Hours filling in the plot between King's Speech (2010) and Dunkirk (2017). Never have I been more confused, though, than watching Pitch Perfect 3.

    The Bellas are back and singing their asses off on a USO tour. Why? Who the fuck cares? Talented hot girls, y'all. What's against them this time? Ultimately, the character of Fat Amy appears to have been birthed from the evil loins of John Lithgow and he wants her money that she didn't know she had. Confused? Well, so was I through most of this mess, especially when one girl says she was possessed by a demon the whole time.

    Let me let you in on a secret: I've never seen the previous Pitch Perfects. They didn't seem to be anything I would touch with a ten foot pole on a Friday in a town with only warm melons for fun. According to my fiance, this is not a good entry place in the series.

     I concur.

    The best thing I can say about this is it was entertaining. When the jokes didn't land, they were at least delivered competently by people who seemed to be having a great time. That wins something in my book because, honestly, I don't like watching movies with assholes who hate each other having to fake emotions.

    Looking at you, Hallmark Christmas Movies.

11. I Had a Bloody Good Time At House Harker (2016) Movie Review: Amazon Reviews Tricked M

Indie movies are fascinating to me. They can be god awful in every respect but if there's heart there, I give them a pass. If I hear they were a plucky youtube upstart, I'll watch with a lot more room on my plate than if they were studio backed. However, I often trust my fellow sheeple out there reviewing things to give me general consensus if movies are good or bad. The pack is often correct. This time not so much.

    Here's the plot: a bunch of guys used to making five minute sketches for the internet strung together a bunch of those sketches into barely feature film length. The Harker brothers, heir to the Dracula-killing Harker dynasty, are trying to raise money to keep their family's house or something. I stopped caring. At some point vampires show up and people die.

    The acting is vaudeville at best and Birdemic at worst. I say that because the only recognizable star is the lady from Birdemic whose name escapes me because she's the lady from Birdemic and I've got brain cancer. The slapstick starts in the front and continues to the end, each actor hamming it up louder than the previous. A straight man among the principle cast would have helped me figure out if these characters were wacky or if the world had melted around me into a looney goo of bloody fart jokes. They did get me a few times with surprise gags that jumped out like cats from dark corners.

    Overall, I feel that the Amazon rating system is flawed. When have the mass of people made such a horrible decision? And in the year 2016, no less?

    I'm referencing the 2016 presidential electoral election of 2016, by the way.

    I don't have brain cancer.

10. Molly's Game (2017) Movie Review: Holy Fuck This Movie Is Sexy Good Times

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Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba speaking Aaron Sorkin speeches. Fucking go to the theater right now.

    Molly Bloom was an Olympic skier hopeful who became one of the most sought after poker player set up game people in the nation. Kings and giants sat at her tables and lost fortunes. Not literal kings and giants. That's some fantasy shit and this is a true damn story from the mind that brought you Social Network and "I didn't think there would be that much drama in the White House."

    I don't have enough good words to say about this movie because I usually shit on movies. Not because I dislike most movies, but it's just more fun. Molly's Game delighted me with fast, good dialog spoken believably by accomplished actors at the top of their game. At one point, Elba did this long speech and when he ended I wanted to do that thing where you stand up and put up your hands. Like the motherfucker just punted a field goal.

    Rowsing. That's a good word for this movie.

    It won't win awards, I bet, because there's honestly been some really good flicks out this year. However, it deserves to be seen. Grab your fella or madam and go out to this one. You'll get laid.

9. The Vault (2017) Movie Review: A Mash'em Up Horror Crime Movie That Banks on Your Attention Shifting

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Taking old things and spinning them into new gold is pretty much what people have been doing for millions of years. Fire guy in the cave guy just played on what fire in the field guy was working with. Wheel guy leaped forward the tech of dragging stuff. Citizen Kane dared to ask the question: can we make film students more pretentious? Then there's movies like The Vault trying to bank on movies like From Dusk Til Dawn.

    It's bank robbing time. With only two recognizable cast members in James Franco and Clifton Collins, Jr (as well as that woman from that show Drive Nathan Fillion was in. You know her), the vault has believe that you will care if our bank robbers make it out alive. Because watch out, y'all, this bank got murder ghosts. Then the assholes get murdered and the hot girls live. Because horror movie.

    The mixing genre is not new, like I said. This movie wants to be From Dusk Til Dawn but has no one charismatic enough like George Clooney or good enough effects to pay off the B-movie premise. What we are left with is an unlikeable cast with shifting alliances that systematically get killed like every other horror/slasher movie.

    As a bank heist movie, it does work though. As an Elmore Leonard fan, I enjoy unlikeable assholes pulling off a crime and doing weird shit. As a horror movie, it also works in the same way House on Haunted Hill (1999) did in that I wanted everyone to die and the monster ghost thing to kill them. Mashed together, though, and the ideas fall apart because I'm not invested in either scenario enough.

    Also, I fell asleep and missed ten minutes in the middle and caught right back up. In a movie banked on twists, that's a bad sign. Also a bad sign, the ending cliche that's a mess of, "Oh, he was a ghost the whole time? So what?" being beaten out by me realizing while reading the credits just now that the lead was Clint Eastwood's daughter.

8. Insidious: The Last Key (2018): I Guess You Could Skip It If I Saw the Others

Horror movie sequels are hard to make. Do you rehash the original or do a new thing? Bring back the old characters or start with new people? Continue the story or just do whatever?

    I have no idea what this Insidious: The Last Key did. I never saw the other (three?) movies, so I can't say. But I can say that this one is B-grade horror at its best.

    An old lady who can see ghosts gets a job to go back to her old home so she can confront some ghosts of her own. See what we, the movie and I, did there? Because her dad was abusive so she has trauma and that can be seen as metaphorical ghosts and there's real ghosts. It's supes cogent.

    The jump scares are few, the jokes are peppered, and nothing really does great. Like, no great was had. Some fine happened. Some okay squeaked in there. They got me on one twist, double downed and kinda wasted it. Then threw in another and I stopped caring.

    In this movie, humans are the real monsters. Except when a demon is tricking or manipulating them? The whole thing is just a mess that plods along. I wish I could say it is at least fun, but I checked my phone during this one which is a sin in my world that gets you banned to hell where you watch this movie.

    Still, if you can't find anything on streaming one hungover day, yeah, there's better movies.

7. Darkest Hour (2017) Movie Review: One Actor Verses the World

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Gary Oldman for years has been the guy you look at and think "Hey that guy's really damn good," and then just forget about him until the next time. He's been a Harry Potter, a punk rocker, a drug kingpin, a space guy, and everything in between. Now he's in a fat suit and we're supposed to be impressed. Spoiler alert, I was impressed.

    In case he comes out as some kind of evil bastard with sex problems or is an armoured car robber, I must say I know next to nothing of him as a man. You know what, more actors should become awesome thieves. Not like when people shoplift and claim it's an acting thing, but more like that Kevin Bacon commercial when nobody can believe it's him. If Ray Liotta came in with a gun to the library and said, "Gimme the cash drawer," I'd be telling the cops "Some guy looking like Ray Liotta robbed me" instead of "Ray Liotta robbed me."

    Just saying.

    If you want a movie in between King's Speech and Dunkirk that has some heart, see this flick. It's more about the acting than the story. I'm not sure how accurate it is, but everything goes for broke and does well. Worth a matinee for some of the good shots or a rental if people keep talking about it for awards.

6. All the Money in the World (2017) Movie Review: Worth the Controversy and Mark Wahlberg

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What do you get the man who has everything? Not a grandson, that's for sure. 

Michelle Williams stars as a lady who existed and married into the Getty family. Christopher Plummer plays JP Getty, the world's first billionaire and total asshole (not Kevin Spacey). Mark Wahlberg is there, too, kids. They all come together when Williams's son, Plummer's grandson, and Wahlberg's... person of interest gets kidnapped in this biopic about events that proved rich people suck hard and that's why they're rich.

Look, this is Michelle Williams's movie. She's amazing and at no point did I think "man, I wonder what Dawson's up to on the creek?" Not so with the other actors. Every time I see Wahlberg I hear "feel it, feel it" and can't take him seriously. Plummer at this point is simply the embodiment of Scrooge and while he's damn good at it there's nothing new here.

Overall, the story is fascinating. I mean, what kind of asshole is so tight fisted with his money he won't pay his grandson's ransom? It's not even a crazy amount for him. $17 million when you're worth billions is like not dropping change into the tip jar on a $50 coffee order.

Despite the crazy reshoots with Plummer after Kevin Spacey became an asshole and Wahlberg being the only person on the shoot paid for those reshoots (yeah, Michelle Williams was paid around $1,000 to his $1.5 million).

A definite rental that will make you want to read a biography of this monster.

5. The Great Gilly Hopkins (2015) Movie Review: They did the book and it works

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I won't plug the podcast too much, but our book for next week is The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson. 

I won't plug it anymore, anyway. 

As for the movie, it's pretty much nailing the book. Spoiler alert for our episode on Notebook for Patreon subscribers. 

Ha, got another plug past you. WAIT, sorry, I'll talk about the movie.

GGH is the story of Gilly, a foster kid moving into a new house. She's a bit of a brat, so for a while she tortures her new foster brother and mother and the blind guy next door.  Through the events of the narrative, however, her heart is melted and she saves Christmas.

Should you see this movie? It's not necessary. If you want something for the family that's got a good hear, sure. Kathy Bates and Octavia Spencer nail the fairly standard role of matriarches and the lead Sophie Nelisse is charming as she is bratty.

A solid streaming flick when you and the kids can't agree. 

4. The Paperboy (2012) Movie Review: Sweaty, Pulpy, and Just This Side of Wrong

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Netflix likes to recommend stuff for me to watch based on my previous watching. I watch a lot of crazy stuff, so I get recommended a lot of crazy stuff. This is the culmination of my love for John Cusack and Matthew McConaughey as well as that time my girlfriend watched Zac Efron movies on my profile.

     What the hell is this movie and where the hell has it been? This is the wildest trainwreck I've ever watched and not had to listen to on podcasts. I've been trying to sum up the plot in my head all day and all I can come up with is: people sweat and are gross and Nicole Kidman has enough money to do whatever the fuck she wants.

     A sheriff is murdered so McConaughey comes home with his newspaper partner to investigate the crime. His family runs the local paper with the titular paperboy (Efron) and Scott "Somebody at Netflix missed me" Glenn. They meet up with Kidman who's been romancing a prisoner (Cusak) who might know something about the crime. I think. Shit went off the rails pretty quick and I needed a whiskey.

     This movie feels like the bastard cousin of A Time to Kill, the cousin you bring up from the basement on holidays and hope he doesn't hump grandma's leg. It's sweaty and weird and I kinda liked it when it didn't feel like it was winking at me, giving me an elbow like a drunk uncle saying "check that shit out, huh?"

The drunk uncle also happens to be the guy who got nominated for Precious and lauded for The Butler. Weird movie.

3. Ingrid Goes West (2017) Movie Review: Crazy People Are Not People, Too

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At which point did everyone think they can make a character break bad and we'd just buy it? Not every movie can be American Psycho (as American Psycho 2: It's a Girl can attest) or Talented Mr. Ripley, which this movie wants to be. Look, I like Aubrey Plaza but I'm not gonna empathise with her stalking anyone other than me.

    Ingrid (Plaza) has a problem in that she's a crazy stalker. We meet her as she's macing her previous victim bride at the woman's wedding. Then she's out of the hospital and after Elizabeth Olsen, a victim she found on Instagram. We follow her efforts to find a friend through manipulation.

    At one point watching this, my partner said "well, they're all kind of bad people." Sure, valid to a point. Olsen plays a shallow person pretending to be fashion lady and her boyfriend just wants to drink and make bad art. There's a brother character that serves as a foil to Ingrid who is insufferable, yet I would argue for all their faults this people do not deserve the lies and violence Ingrid brings.

    She's a bad person, start to finish, and does little to redeem herself throughout the narrative. I might have even liked this more if it leaned into it and caused some mayhem and crazy violence or twisted and showed Plaza as some government project, a la The Guest*. What we get are vacant ideas of a displaced youth that I could care less about.

*That's me linking crazy Aubrey Plaza and crazy Dan Stevens. Watch Legion.

2. Bright (2017) Movie Review: A waste of charm and time

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It's popular by being infamous, both because the writer is a jerk, the main star is charming and laughably unable to pick a good movie, and just racism. We sat and watched Bright and wow that was a waste of time.

    Will Smith stars as Denzel Washington in Training Day in this buddy cop drama with a twist. The whole world is upside down in this wacky story. Imagine if Lord of the Rings kept going and evolved into our world. Humans are pretty much like our world, elves are rich and rule everything, and orcs are treated like assholes. Smith and his partner, the first orc police man, find a young girl and a magic wand and must keepkkdkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

    I fell asleep on my keyboard.

    First Matt Damon in Downsizing and now Will Smith. To be fair, Smith is not sleeping through this role. Dude has all the charisma and life that you can get in a person and this role is just… nothing. I mean, wow. Dump Trucks of cash must have been involved in this production to get Smith and David Ayer on this. Probably the same trucks from Suicide Squad.

    And will everyone stop telling me Ayer deserves credit for Training Day. Sure, he did a really good thing in writing. His most recent efforts are just not worthy. Not even the "racism commentary" in this movie is interesting or enough to keep the story going as it feels like a side effect thrown in when Landis realized his story was dated and old hat.

1. Downsizing (2017) Movie Review: Honey, What the Hell Happened to Matt Damon?

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I'm back and trying to get 365 movies in 365 days for the year of 2018. Hell, I might even try to throw in a book review or two that I'm not reading for the podcasts. We shall see.

    This year started with a total dud, last year's shrinking people movie Downsizing by the normally reliable Alexander Payne, the guy who brought us Election and other things. Matt Damon is in it, you could say, and the plot asks questions. Lots of questions.

    The year is future and people have developed organic shrinking technology in order to battle overpopulation. Sure. Matt Main Character convinces his wife to shrink down, but she fucks off back to her family and friends instead of spending her life with this loser. What follows is the rest of the movie, a standard "white guy finding purpose through poor disenfranchised people" plot. Even the end with a random twist could not save this flick from just being dull.

    Could it have hurt them to do anything with the shrinking idea? Anything at all? We have random consequences of this tech from warlords shrinking enemies, but they live on the side. Besides Hong Chau's manic performance, everyone slept through this except for me because I was waiting for something to happen.

Here Elizabeth and I talk about it at 2am in the airport over on Curious Chats.