As John Lee Hancock’s (Saving Mr. Banks, The Blind Side) progressed, I couldn’t help compare his lead character Ray Kroc (played by Michael Keaton – Spotlight, Birdman) to, perhaps, the most iconic television figure in the last 25 years. But, of course, I’m talking about Walter White from the AMC series Breaking Bad. Now the founder of The McDonald’s Corporation certainly didn’t go to the extremes that Walter White did when he transferred himself from a quiet high school chemistry teacher to a ruthless, cutthroat drug Kingpin, intent on destroying everything in his path by any means necessary to get what he wants. Nevertheless, Hancock’s version of Kroc felt similar in the sense that when we meet him, he is a man of integrity, doing whatever he can within the confines of the law to make a living. But, by the end of the film, he is an entirely different man, caught up in his greed, power, and wealth. But, like White, he reaches a point where he feels that he is virtually invincible to those around him as well as to the laws of the land. And just like Breaking Bad, The Founder becomes a must-watch.
Continue reading The Founder (2016)
Category Archives: 2016
Elle (2016)
Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Total Recall) Elle opens with a scene that even the most jaded person would find difficult to watch. Whenever we see a rape scene on the big screen, we are mortified. Rape is a crime we abhor and, next to murder, the one we find most unacceptable in society. To start a movie with a brutal rape sets the immediate somber tone of the movie and, ironically, a tone that we often get away from. There are so many genres in this French subtitled film. It can be classified as a drama, romance, suspense, thriller, revenge, mystery, and even comedy. I’d be lying if I said I understood every component of this movie without having to do some research for it afterward. Apparently, the older gentleman didn’t have that problem as he began clapping as we rolled to credits. I saw this film because Isabelle Huppert (Things to Come, Amour) is a lock for a Best Actress Academy Award nomination after winning a Golden Globe. I think she has a solid chance to win. I think her only real competition is Natalie Portman (Jackie) and Emma Stone (La La Land). I’m uncertain, at the time of this writing, which way I would lean. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Jackie, but Natalie Portman did nail the role perfectly. It was dark and dreary, and I wasn’t sure the movie was needed. Elle was fresh and original, and while the content was dark, Huppert gives a career-defining performance as Michele, a woman who refuses to show any reactionary human emotion for the events she is put through. If someone forced me to make a pick today, I would say that my heart says Huppert, but my mind says Portman. It would not be unprecedented for an actress to win cinema’s top prize. In fact, there have been two winners in the past decade (Marion Cotillard – La Vie en Rose and Penelope Cruz – Vicky Cristina Barcelona) as well as a slew of other nominations, including two in the past four years. And Portman already has her Oscar for Lead Actress (2010’s Black Swan). While Huppert might be an unknown commodity in the western hemisphere, she has been one of the most revered actresses in Europe for the past 40 years. With no Oscar nominations to her name yet, the one she receives this year may come with the trophy itself.
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Live by Night (2016)
For the last three or four years, I’ve said that I think and hope that Ben Affleck can be our generation’s Clint Eastwood. Affleck has completely transformed himself into a Hollywood A-lister. With a career that really began with Kevin Smith movies like Mallrats and Chasing Amy, Affleck became a household name when he won an Academy Award (best original screenplay) for Good Will Hunting, a film in which he co-starred with Matt Damon. Affleck then stars in big-budget blockbusters such as Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, and The Sum of All Fears. But after he started dating Jennifer Lopez and co-starred with her in both the forgettable Jersey Girl and Gigli, a movie that many people have called one of the worst movies ever made, his perception as an actor began taking a turn for the worse. Forgettable money grabbers like Daredevil, Paycheck, and Surviving Christmas accompanied tabloid fodder and, seemingly, in the blink of an eye, Affleck became sort of a joke in the Hollywood circles. Meanwhile, best friend Matt Damon was striking gold with everything he touched. But in 2007, Affleck dabbled with directing for the first time and had one of the best directorial debuts of all-time with the quiet, understated, and much revered Gone Baby Gone. Knowing he needed a break from being in front of the camera, Affleck turned to his brother Casey Affleck as his leading man. Not only did it launch Casey’s career, but critics and fans alike wanted to know if Ben was a one-hit-wonder as a director or if this was a sign of things to come. Fortunately, this was just the start for Affleck, who has since directed The Town (my second favorite movie of all time), and Argo, the Academy Award Winner for Best Picture of 2012. Affleck also reemerged as a leading man with The Town, Argo, State of Play, and the amazing Gone Girl. In all honesty, Affleck was due for a dud. But, personally, I felt like I owed it to him to see whatever his fourth movie behind the camera would be. I was excited about Live by Night when I first heard about it, but I went in with lower expectations after seeing the critics’ score of 33% and the audience’s score of 57% on Rotten Tomatoes. While this easily was his worst movie as a director, it wasn’t bad, but rather because his other movies were so good. I didn’t love Live by Night, but I by no means disliked it. It was longer than it needed to be and had a couple of too many storylines. But Affleck created a well-crafted story with some memorable characters, and, honestly, I’ll probably watch this movie again when it comes to Netflix so I can better analyze it and catch all of the parts that I might have missed.
Passengers (2016)
Passengers is one of those movies that your interest would be better served if you looked at the audience score rather than the critics’ scores. A 30% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes would suggest that you skip this one. But a 70% audience score suggests something more. This was one of my most anticipated movies of the year. Plus, I try to see everything. But even I was skeptical when I saw how it was getting panned by so many different critics. Even my most respected site (Roger Ebert’s site) only gave the movie 1.5 stars. But I talked to a couple of different people who go to the movies a lot, and they said, despite some holes, that they recommended it. The only thing I knew about Passengers going in (I never saw a trailer) was that it starred Chris Pratt (Jurassic World, Guardians of the Galaxy) and Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook, Joy) and that they were lost in space. And while I suppose there were holes in this movie, they didn’t in any way deter my enjoyment of this film. The parts that I found more troublesome than anything else were the personal emotions and the relationship between the two leads, and, really didn’t even have a problem with that.
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Lion (2016)
Prepare yourself. I’m not sure if I’ve had a movie theater experience with a more constant steady stream of tears since 1997’s Titanic. I know there have been movies that have scenes that have affected me more, and there have been home viewings where I don’t feel the same pressure to hold it together as I would in the theater. So while I was having sort of a sentimental day before I engaged with this movie, for whatever reason, I was wiping away tears early and often in this movie. In some ways, it was eerily reminiscent of 2008’s Slumdog Millionaire. It starred Dev Patel (Chappie, HBO’s The Newsroom) and revolved around the story set, mostly in the present, with flashbacks to childhood memories in India. Much like the fantastic Slumdog Millionaire put Patel on the map for the first time, Lion will, for sure, launch him to leading man status for years to come. Though he didn’t appear on screen until the movie was about 40% over, he commanded every scene he was in from that point going forward to transformed this movie from great to must-see. In a year where the top lead actors have portrayed characters riddled with guilt, doubt, regret, and self-loathing, Patel holds his own with the more accomplished Denzel Washington (Fences), Ryan Gosling (La La Land), and frontrunner Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea).