As I’m not the biggest fan of director Alexander Payne (About Schmidt, Election, and even less of one of Paul Giamatti (Saving Mr. Banks, Straight Outta Compton), I was lukewarm, at best, about seeing The Holders, a reunion of the director/actor duo that combined for 2004’s Sideways, a beloved critic and audience favorite, but a film I suffered through for 20 minutes before deciding that it was not for me. Sideways was a movie I was sure I would not enjoy, but I attempted it anyway because of the hype. I was miserable. After watching the trailer for The Holdovers, I anticipated a similar type of dread. However, I was willing to give this one a chance after hearing from critics and audiences that this film, while heartfelt and poignant, still maintained some edge.
Category Archives: Paul Giamatti
San Andreas (2015)
Not being a guy who is really into the disaster film genre anymore (I turned off movies like The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 before I was even a third of the way in), I was more than tentative to give San Andreas a chance. It’s a genre that once held great interest to me in my younger days. I enjoyed movies like Independence Day, Deep Impact, Cloverfield while absolutely loving Titanic (my favorite movie of 1997), The Impossible (my favorite movie of 1992), World War Z (my second favorite movie of 2013), I Am Legend (my second favorite movie of 2007), War of the Worlds, The Perfect Storm and, shamefully, Armageddon. But for every success like Deep Impact or Poseidon, there seem to be films like Twister or The Core that set the disaster genre back. So, honestly, when I see a preview for a new disaster movie, my first instinct is to believe that it will be absolutely terrible. If it’s got somewhat of a science-fiction element (like World War Z) or if it is based on a true story (The Impossible) AND it does well with the critics, it gets more of a benefit of the doubt. If it has neither of those things, it most likely will not. I thought of the latter when I saw the first series of trailers for director Brad Peyton (Journey 2: The Mysterious Island) San Andreas.
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Man on the Moon (1999)
Though we primarily know him for his slapstick comedy (The Cable Guy, The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, Ace Venture: Pet Detective), Jim Carrey has proved on numerous occasions that he can do very well what many other people in his genre cannot…he can give riveting and believable performances in both light-hearted and heavy dramas. He’s done it with The Truman Show (where he was spectacular and deserving of an Oscar nomination) as well as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And he does it with 1999’s Man on the Man that, with respect to The Truman Show, is his finest performance as an actor in any genre. Carrey’s biopic of Andy Kaufman is a movie that I’ve had on my list to see for years, but one that I never felt “in the mood” for. It’s not that I expected to be disappointed by it (with just a 63% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I knew this movie would be hit or miss for me). Instead, I just knew that it would be a different kind of movie and that, like many Jim Carrey movies, I’d have to be prepared for anything. I liked The Truman Show a lot and appreciated Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. But I’m not a Jim Carrey fan by any means. I don’t think he’s that funny at all. If he retired tomorrow and never acted again, I would be perfectly okay with that. With that said, I did enjoy Man on the Moon, and Carrey was the perfect person to portray Andy Kaufman. This was the role that Carrey was born to play. Regardless if you are a fan of his or not, I think this is a movie that everyone should see because you’ll learn so much about Kaufman. And if you’re like me, you probably have heard his name a lot but know very little about him.
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Love & Mercy (2015)
Love & Mercy, the Brian Wilson biopic that shows two time periods of The Beach Boys’ life’s most recognizable face, is one of the most underrated movies of 2015. Forgot whatever you know or think you know about Brian Wilson. For me, that was absolutely nothing. I knew he was a member of The Beach Boys, but that was about it. I’m not really a fan of The Beach Boys, but I have a new appreciation for the band and especially for Brian Wilson after seeing this movie. While the band is known for its carefree car tunes like Surfin USA, I Get Around, and California Girls, not all was as peachy as I thought it to be. I’ve always considered The Beach Boys one of those bands that didn’t have a lot of substance in their songs. Not being a Mr. Happy Go Lucky type guy myself and having been to the beaches of California only a couple of times in my life, I couldn’t relate to their music like I could a Tom Petty or a Bruce Springsteen. Their songs, to me, were just that. Peachy. While I will not go out and buy their entire anthology, I will give some of their songs a listen, whereas I might not have in the past. Originally I had no intention of seeing this movie. I thought it was a documentary at first. But I’m glad I decided to see it. I think every fan of the band and everyone who enjoys a good biopic should go out and see this movie.
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Straight Outta Compton (2015)
Straight outta Compton and straight into the Oscar buzz. It’s early, and I guess this movie is forgotten about come Halloween time (just like most of the great films released in the first eight or nine months of each year are). Still, for right now, this movie is hot with audiences (over $100 million grossed after eight days) and critics (89% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) as just about any other movie of the year. As I will explain in my review below, Straight Outta Compton didn’t do anything (besides the music itself) that was amazing on its own, but it did do just about everything well. I wouldn’t call it the surprise hit of the year as many other movies flew much further under the radar (Ex Machina and The Gift are the two that come to mind for me). Still, it was perhaps a movie that had the potential to be very good or very bad depending on the acting, which part of the story would be told, and, most importantly, the movie’s direction. I’ll talk more about F. Gary Gray (The Negotiator, The Italian Job) later in the review, but, long story short, he nailed it. Straight Outta Compton was his most challenging work to date and his most impressive and, while I think it’s an extreme long shot based on the history of the Academy and its voting, his name could still be swirling around as a dark horse for Best Director come December.
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