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Ryan Gosling is 'The Fall Guy' in this cheerfully nonsensical stuntman thriller
Justin Chang
Ryan Gosling is Colt Seavers in The Fall Guy. Universal Pictures hide caption
Ryan Gosling is Colt Seavers in The Fall Guy.
From the 1933 action film Lucky Devils to the 1980 comedy-thriller The Stunt Man to Quentin Tarantino 's Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood , filmmakers have long delighted in turning the camera on stunt performers, those professional daredevils who risk life and limb to make action scenes look convincing.
It's a hard, often thankless job, which is why for years people have lobbied the motion picture academy to present an Oscar for stunt work. And of course, it's a dangerous job: Just last month, while shooting the Eddie Murphy movie The Pickup , several crew members were injured during a stunt involving two rolling cars.
There's a lot of vehicular mayhem in the noisily diverting new action-comedy The Fall Guy , a feature-length reboot of the '80s TV series. Ryan Gosling stars as a highly skilled stunt performer named Colt Seavers, who, despite his cynical film-noir-style voiceover, genuinely loves his job.
Colt loves movies and moviemaking, loves hurling himself off balconies and strapping himself into soon-to-be-totaled automobiles. Most of all, he loves Jody Moreno, an up-and-coming assistant director played by Emily Blunt , and she loves him right back.
Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt star in The Fall Guy. Universal Pictures hide caption
Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt star in The Fall Guy.
Colt works mainly as a stunt double for Tom Ryder, a world-famous movie star played by a preening Aaron Taylor-Johnson. But when Colt suffers a life-threatening injury on the set, he quits the biz in despair and ghosts Jody for more than a year while he recovers. But then he learns that Jody is directing a big-budget sci-fi movie in Sydney and wants him to be Tom's stunt double again. Upon arriving Down Under, however, Colt finds out that Jody did not ask for him and has no idea why he's here.
The reason for Colt's appearance on the set is one mystery in a cheerfully nonsensical thriller plot devised by the screenwriter Drew Pearce. There's also a body in a bathtub, an incriminating cell phone and several amusing side characters, including a busybody producer played by Hannah Waddingham of Ted Lasso fame.
Author Interviews
Hollywood 'stuntman' reveals tricks of trade.
Another key player is Colt's best friend and stunt coordinator, Dan, played by the always excellent Winston Duke . In one endearing running gag, Colt and Dan keep quoting dialogue from classic films like The Last of the Mohicans , The Fugitive and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, all of which The Fall Guy giddily tries to outdo in its sheer volume of death-defying mayhem.
Before long, Colt isn't just performing stunts. He's forced to put his well-honed survival skills to good use off the set, whether he's beating up thugs in a nightclub, punching villains in a helicopter or getting tossed around in the back of a speeding garbage truck. That's one of several set-pieces that the director David Leitch opted to shoot using practical techniques, rather than CGI â a decision that gives this stunt-centric movie an undeniable integrity.
The Two-Way
How'd they do that jean-claude van damme's 'epic split'.
The Fall Guy is undoubtedly a passion project for Leitch, who once worked as a stunt double for actors including Brad Pitt and Jean-Claude Van Damme. (He nods to this by giving Colt a handy canine companion named Jean-Claude.) Leitch can direct action beautifully, as he did in the Charlize Theron smash-'em-up Atomic Blonde . But he can also go too flamboyantly over-the-top, as in sloppier recent efforts like Bullet Train and Hobbs & Shaw . The Fall Guy is better than those two, but it would have been better still with cleaner action, tighter editing and a running time south of two hours.
Movie Interviews
'atomic blonde' director brings stuntman skills to his 'punk rock spy thriller'.
Blunt is such a good comedian and action star that it's a shame she doesn't get more to do in either department; Jody may be in the director's chair, but as a character, she's mainly a second banana. The Fall Guy is Gosling's picture. Unlike the brooding, taciturn stuntmen the actor played in Drive and The Place Beyond the Pines , Colt is a wonderfully expressive goofball. There's a moment here, after a fiery boat chase around Sydney Harbour, when Colt emerges triumphant from the water, clothes dripping and muscles bulging, while a euphoric cover of Kiss' "I Was Made for Lovin' You" surges for the umpteenth time on the soundtrack. It's ridiculous and gloriously overwrought â and like the best-executed stunts, it comes perilously close to movie magic.
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New York Minute Reviews
New York Minute is, for the most part, a bottom-of-the-barrel star vehicle that doesn't entirely, at any point, justify its very existence.
Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Dec 11, 2021
I can't fathom that even the dirty old men will find much to like with this film.
Full Review | Original Score: 1.0/4.0 | Sep 18, 2020
Admittedly, in all this stupidity there are a couple of laugh out loud moments, but these do not make up for the fact that mediocrity is a poor replacement for talent and comic timing.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 18, 2019
But in the middle of all this straining for zaniness, there is an extended sequence that demonstrates just how bad, bad acting can be.
Full Review | Aug 24, 2017
Not great, but Olsen twin fans won't care.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 26, 2010
A basic rip-off of "Ferris Bueller"...
Full Review | Apr 29, 2009
Most viewers will likely be checking their watches, probably wishing this Minute were gone in 60 seconds.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 2, 2006
Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Dec 6, 2005
[The stars] never attempt to do anything outside their limited range; like, for example, act.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 4, 2004
Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Oct 7, 2004
Stanley Kubrick once said, 'If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.' Obviously, he had never seen the script for New York Minute.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Sep 2, 2004
Histrionically speaking, the Olsens couldn't be called twin peaks, but they're getting there.
Full Review | Aug 8, 2004
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 7, 2004
Separately the characters are annoying; together it's unnervingly like watching one actress playing twins.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 30, 2004
A hectic, overcooked sugar rush of a movie.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 20, 2004
Esta atrocidade poderia representar um embaraço para todos os envolvidos, caso estes tivessem algum senso de ridĂculo - o que, a julgar por este longa, nĂŁo parece ser o caso.
Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 19, 2004
It's as inhumane to the actresses as it is to the audience that's supposed to receive it as "family entertainment."
Full Review | Original Score: 0/5 | Jun 1, 2004
Who would have thunk the twins from The Shining should have their own movie?
Full Review | Original Score: 0/4 | May 28, 2004
Mayhem rules and this slapstick comedy offer a lot of action, sudden turns, and some wild and crazy stuff.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 25, 2004
...too much eye-liner and not enough talent...
Full Review | Original Score: 0/4 | May 20, 2004
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âThe Idea of Youâ Review: Surviving Celebrity
Anne Hathaway headlines a movie thatâs got a lot to say about the perils of fame.
- Share full article
By Alissa Wilkinson
Women of a certain age (that is, my age) feel like they grew up alongside Anne Hathaway, because, well, we did. We were awkward teens together when she made âThe Princess Diariesâ in 2001. We felt ourselves to be put-upon entry-level hirelings right when âThe Devil Wears Pradaâ came out in 2006. We understood her broken-down narcissistic addict in âRachel Getting Married,â because who couldnât? And we watched the Hathaway backlash, pegged to public perception that she was trying too hard, and worried that people saw us the same way.
Now weâre 40-ish. We know for sure that Gen Z considers millennials to be cringe, and, thankfully, we no longer feel the need to care. The greatest gift of reaching middle age is having settled into yourself, and that is apparently what Hathaway, age 41, has done . She has been through the celebrity wringer (and more ) and come out the other side looking radiant, with a long list of credits in movies that swing from standard commercial fare to auteurist masterpieces.
This is perhaps why itâs so satisfying to see her name come first â alone, before the title credit â in âThe Idea of You,â which is on its surface a relatively fluffy little film. Based on the sleeper hit novel by Robinne Lee, âThe Idea of Youâ is plainly fantasy, in the fan fiction mold, that poses the question: What if Harry Styles, the British megastar and former frontman of One Direction, fell madly in love with a hot 40-year-old mom? In this universe, the Styles character is Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), the British frontman of a five-member boy band called August Moon.
Hathaway plays Solène Marchand, an art gallery owner whose arrogantly useless ex-husband, Daniel (Reid Scott), buys v.i.p. meet-and-greet tickets for their 16-year-old daughter, Izzy (Ella Rubin), and her two best friends, all of whom were huge August Moon fans ⌠in the seventh grade.
The event is at Coachella, and Daniel is set to take the teenagers but backs out at the last second, citing a work emergency. Solène reluctantly agrees to take them, and while at the festival, mistakes Hayesâs trailer for the bathroom. They meet, itâs cute, and you can guess what happens next.
Or can you? It was clear about 10 minutes into the movie that what was required for enjoyment was to surrender to the daydreaming, and so, with very little internal protest, I did. How could I resist? Solène is smart, competent, kind and secure; she has great hair and a great wardrobe; and most important, she seems like a real person, even if the situation in which she finds herself greatly stretches the bonds of credibility.
More than once, I was struck by how authentically 40 Solène seemed to me â a woman capable of making her own decisions, even ones she thinks might be ill-advised â and how weirdly rare it is to see that kind of character in a movie. She has a kid, and friends, and a career. She reads books and looks at art, and she is flattered by this 24-year-old superstarâs attention but takes a long time to come around to the idea that it may not be a joke.
Solène also feels real shame and real resolve in the course of the winding fairy tale story, which predictably has to go south. But most of all, sheâs in a movie that doesnât try to shame her, or patronize her, or make her appear ridiculous for having desires and fantasies of her own. Sheâs just who she is, and itâs simple to understand her appeal to someone whose life has never been his own.
Directed by Michael Showalter, who wrote the adapted screenplay with Jennifer Westfeldt, âThe Idea of Youâ succeeds mostly because of Hathawayâs performance, though she and Galitzine spark and banter pleasurably (and he can dance and sing, too). It tweaks the novel in a number of ways â Hayes is older than the bookâs character, for one thing â and also seems to implicitly know itâs a movie, and that movies have a strange relationship with age-gap romances.
In fact, thatâs one of its strengths. Several times, characters remark on the double standard attached to peopleâs judgment of Solène and Hayesâs relationship, hypothesizing that in a gender-swapped situation, people would be high-fiving the older man who landed the hot younger star. Sixteen years looks like a lot on paper, but in the movies, at least, it is barely a blip.
That musing is interesting enough, if a familiar one. More fascinating in âThe Idea of Youâ is its treatment of the cage of celebrity. Hayes seems mature compared with his bandmates and the girls who follow them around, but heâs also clearly stuck in some kind of arrested development. And I do mean stuck: He is self-aware enough to tell Solène, plaintively, that he auditioned for the band when he was 14 and not much has changed beyond his level of fame. He wants a life beyond the spotlight, badly.
And thatâs just what he canât get. Neither can Solène, nor, eventually, anyone around her. The idea of living a quiet life might obviously be out of reach, but the added elements of tabloid news and rabid fans unafraid to treat Hayes as if they know him make things far worse. The film starts to feel a little like the tale of a monster, but the monster is parasociality, encouraged by the illusion of intimacy that the modern superstar machine relies on to keep selling tickets and merch and albums and whatever else keeps the star in the spotlight.
Itâs probably coincidental that âThe Idea of Youâ comes on the heels of Taylor Swiftâs latest album, âThe Tortured Poets Department,â on which she strongly implies that her carefully cultivated fandom has made her love life a nightmare. But spiritually, at least, theyâre of a piece â even if the origins of the filmâs plot seem as much borne of parasociality as a critique of it. And that makes Hathawayâs performance extra poignant. Sheâs been dragged into that buzz saw before. And somehow, sheâs figured out how to make a life on the other side of it.
The Idea of You Rated R for getting hot and heavy, plus some language. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. Watch on Prime Video .
Alissa Wilkinson is a Times movie critic. Sheâs been writing about movies since 2005. More about Alissa Wilkinson
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Fear and Longing in the Teenage TV Wasteland
Jane Schoenbrunâs psychological horror movie âI Saw the TV Glowâ mines â90s nostalgia to tell an eternal story of identity, isolation, and coming of age
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The television set has a proud place in horror history as a conduit to various twilight zones: think of Heather OâRourke silhouetted by static in Poltergeist , or James Woods being hungrily devoured by the screen in Videodrome , or the dripping, dark-haired wraith from The Ring , arms bent and splayed as she crawls inexorably into the third dimension. The title of Jane Schoenbrunâs new and haunting film I Saw the TV Glow evokes these and other keynote moments, as well as the uncanny sensationâfamiliar to anyone whoâs spent a significant part of their adolescence alone in the darkâthat the scariest movies and shows are the ones that somehow seem to be watching us; the ones that hold our gaze only to refract it back with a new intensity.
Is it more frightening to be seen or to be invisible? The characters in I Saw the TV Glow live in the shadows because they like it there, but on some level theyâre also afraid of being swallowed up in that same darkness. Or do they long to be ghosts within the machine? Queried about his sexual preferences, shy seventh-grader Owen (Ian Foreman) stammers, âI think that I like television shows.â Itâs an earnest answer that suggests a soul still coming into formation, one jagged, tentative piece at a time.
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The degree to which popular culture shapes identity is at the heart of I Saw the TV Glow , which takes place in one of those idyllic, suburban enclaves that exist in the collective unconscious: Spielbergian outposts where kids already dealing with the dangers of coming of age end up having close encounters with stranger things. The film is set in 1996, on the eve of Bill Clintonâs re-election, as Owen finds himself on the edges of both his schoolâs ecosystem and popular culture. Heâs infantilized by his parents, who wonât let him stay up on Friday nights to watch the long-running young adult serial The Pink Opaque . When he lobbies his father (Fred Durst) for viewing privileges, the old man sneers that itâs a show for girlsâa remark that ends the conversation while somehow opening up a chasm of shame and longing.
Enter Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), a striking introvert who haunts the halls of the high school. Sheâs a loner by choice, older and wiser than Owen in ways that only exacerbate her isolation. (When the girls in her class talk about alt-rock pinups, she cites Michael Stipe rather than Evan Dando.) Maddy is also so completely submerged in the lore of The Pink Opaque that sheâs like a walking episode guide, and she craves acolytes for her cause. One night, she invites Owen over to watch his first episode and then surreptitiously sleep over in her living roomâa solicitation that transcends high school flirtation and marks the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Whether itâs for a band or a basketball team or a YA TV series, everyone has memories that testify to the power and solidarity of shared fandom, and The Pink Opaque quickly becomes a love language between two characters who otherwise have trouble articulating themselves. The show itself has been visualized by Schoenbrun and their ace group of collaborators as an artifact somewhere between Goosebumps and Buffy the Vampire Slayer , centered on a pair of teenaged girls whose psychic bond offsets their geographical separation. The villain, meanwhile, is a literally moon-faced monster named Mr. Melancholy, whoâs modeled after the title character of George Meliesâs 1902 short A Trip to the Moon âor, more likely, the postmodern, Melies-inspired images in the Smashing Pumpkinsâ 1996 video for âTonight, Tonight.â Given the diminished status of Buffy creator Joss Whedon, itâd be easy to score points off the teen melodrama of The Pink Opaque , but Schoenbrun understands the power of nostalgia, and keeps the tone respectful while still allowing for the possibility that the show isnât that great. Its true value lies in keeping lost kids like Owen and Maddy tethered to something tangible.
At this point in their career, Schoenbrun is an adept cartographer of psychic slippageâa virtuoso chronicler of media junkies sliding headlong into the maw of their own obsessions. 2018âs A Self-Induced Hallucination remains one of the definitive YouTube films, juxtaposing various passionate testimonies about the creepypasta axiom Slender Man, whose elongated iconography has subsequently infiltrated Hollywood. 2021âs Weâre All Going to the Worldâs Fair draped a veil of fiction over similar themes of Extreme Online-ness, focusing its narrative on an impressionable preteen girl being led through the darkest corners of the internet by an unreliable guide. At their best, these films vibrate on a frequency of quiet, contemporary dread; they conjure the uncanny feeling of the world collapsing around your laptop.
I Saw the TV Glow maintains a similarly ominous tone but in a distinctly analog context: its story unfolds in a world of Moleskine journals, handmade mixtapes, and video-rental stores whose tape-slingers wear tucked-in, collared T-shirts. These and other period details are recreated in ways that feel less authentic than hyperreal; the film is a woozily color-coded fantasia whose various discontinuities speak to the distance inherent in memory. Schoenbrun isnât a meticulous formalist Ă la Ari Aster, but they have a recognizable style all the same, fascinated as they are by tableaus of mutation and manifestation. The quasi-supernatural hook of Weâre All Going to the Worldâs Fair was the idea of a website that prompts actual, physical transformation in its visitorsâthe question there was whether such changeability was ultimately in the eye (or the mind) of the beholder. I Saw the TV Glow takes this theme and deepens it until it arrives somewhere submerged and primalâa sunken place beyond the purview of most âelevated horror.â
While it would be a disservice to reduce a filmmaker as inventive and ambitious as Schoenbrun to a specific set of themesâor a sociological agendaâitâs obvious that on some level, I Saw the TV Glow represents an attempt to wrestle with questions of gender representation and identity, threaded through more universal anxieties. Owenâs identification with Maddy and the heroines of The Pink Opaque is liberating, but it also leaves him at a loss when both disappear. As Owen ages out of boyhood, Foreman is replaced by Justice Smith, who retains enough of his predecessorâs tender, gawky awkwardness that we never doubt the transformationâor the discomfort the character seems to feel in his newly strapping body. His happiness at finding Maddy after nearly a decade of separation is undermined by the latterâs increasingly strange behavior; she seems to believe that the world of The Pink Opaque exists, and that she and Owen have become trapped in it against their will by Mr. Melancholy himself. Her delusions come complete with an escape plan thatâs simultaneously outlandish and seductive, with built-in promises of revelation and catharsisâa pathway, once and for all, to a better life on the right side of the screen.
Itâs a tricky thing to manage a truly reality-warping narrative at any scale, and Schoenbrun is smart enough to lean into visual and narrative abstraction rather than piling on exposition. Having established their characters as highly suggestible (and vulnerable), the filmmaker emphasizes the possibility that theyâand weâare simply at the mercy of a series of self-induced hallucinations. In terms of out-and-out scares, the film doesnât push as hard as one might expect, although it gets good mileage out of the idea that our childhood recollections of certain images or archetypes are considerably freakier than the real thing. (A run-in with Mr. Melancholy looks and sounds like authentic Gen Y nightmare fuel.) For all of its carefully wrought alienation effects, I Saw the TV Glow is also very much an inventory of things its creator loves: an ode to fandom that refuses to pass judgment on its charactersâ obsessions. The most affectionate touches are musical: In a welcome nod to Twin Peaks â Roadhouse, the film pauses for musical numbers that serve as a sort of Greek chorus, delivered by singers (including Phoebe Bridgers and Caroline Polachek) who strategically collapse the distance between Nickelodeon and SoundCloud.
The apotheosis of Schoenbrunâs everything-old-is-new-again project is Singaporean singer Yeuleâs cover of âAnthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girlâ by Canadian indie-rock superstars Broken Social Sceneâa crystalline evocation of adolescent innocence and self-absorption whose harmonies are like a time machine for anyone who came of age on either side of the millennium. Yeuleâs fragile, open-hearted vocals are like the voice in the movieâs headâa beautiful conceit that takes on tragic dimensions when you realize the difference between singing out loud and whispering to oneself.
Itâs difficult to honor the tragic power of I Saw the TV Glow without at least touching on its final scenes, which emphasize the literally suffocating terror of burying oneself in a lifeâand a personaâthat they know to be a fiction. Thereâs a lot of Charlie Kaufman in these scenes, and some of the fatalism that made Ari Asterâs Beau Is Afraid so tough to swallow. Although, unlike those filmmakers, Schoenbrun isnât an ironistâthey refuse to make their characters into a punchline. Itâs worth debating whether the sheer, abject sadness of Schoenbrunâs vision is a matter of calculated bleakness or uncompromising honesty; for some viewers, the directness of the codaâs address may be too much. At the end of I Saw the TV Glow , weâre shown that, for Owenâand, itâs implied, for many othersâthere is a light that never goes out. Whether itâs a source of warmth or a beacon of distress, it burns bright all the same.
Adam Nayman is a film critic, teacher, and author based in Toronto; his book The Coen Brothers: This Book Really Ties the Films Together is available now from Abrams.
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New York Minute Parent Guide
Reigning queens of small screen entertainment, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have built a formidable entertainment empire with TV shows and direct-to-video happy tales. Now the twins try to take Manhattan in New York Minute.
Release date May 6, 2004
Why is New York Minute rated PG? The MPAA rated New York Minute PG for mild sensuality and thematic elements.
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The guide to our grades, parent movie review by rod gustafson.
Reigning queens of small screen entertainment, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have built a formidable entertainment empire with TV shows and direct-to-video happy tales about going off to grandmother’s house and having kiddie parties. Now Dualstar Productions (the twins’ appropriately named company) is reaching out to claim seats in a theater near you.
One thing these girls have learned from experience is “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” That means you shouldn’t come to New York Minute expecting to see anything much different than the other twenty-odd ?MK&A? videos they’ve made. In Olsen-land, happy endings aren’t just expected, they’re part of the product guarantee.
When Dad goes off to work, Jane gets on the train and Roxy follows, intending to meet up with her favorite punk band, Simple Plan, and drop them a demo tape. Ironically, the group’s name proves to be a sarcastic foreshadowing of what should have been a straightforward day in NYC. With an overzealous truant officer (Eugene Levy) following Roxy’s every move, and a strange man named Bennie (Andy Richter) tracking them in connection to a mysterious microchip, there’s only one thing we know for sure: each of these girls will find a cool dude to hold hands with before the day is through.
Not surprisingly, this movie targets the family market, with the female “tweens” crowd as their bull’s-eye. Thankfully, parents have little to be concerned about in the typical content areas. A couple of religious exclamations and some slapstick violence are all that clutter the usual message of family harmony. And although these girls are always on the look for “cute guys,” there is nothing to suggest off-screen sexual relations.
However, as in some past Olsen outings, the script provides ample opportunity to display the twins in skimpy attire. This time the girls are shown running through Manhattan—one in a towel and the other in a bathrobe. Even more of an issue is another common feature of many of their films: a complete oversight of any natural consequences. Hunky young men earn far more respect than parents, and Roxy’s disinterest in getting an education is never addressed. Unfortunately, while appearing wholesome on the outside, those messages will be the ones that come through loud and clear within this New York Minute.
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Rod Gustafson
New york minute parents' guide.
The Olsen twins have proven to be a powerful force in the lives of many young girls. Their clothing, cosmetics, and other licensed consumer goods are very popular and well accepted. What kind of effect do you think this pre-selling of Mary-Kate and Ashleys image may have on those same young people who see their movies?
This film has some obvious stereotypes. Why are crooks often portrayed as foreigners? What type of person is the truant officer?
Could Roxy still pursue her music aspirations without being dishonest with her father? Have you ever wanted to do something you didnt think your parents would approve of? Have they ever surprised you when youve asked them for their opinion?
The most recent home video release of New York Minute movie is August 16, 2004. Here are some details…
Related home video titles:.
It Takes Two is one of Mary-Kate and Ashleys earlier forays in front of the camera. Conspiring twins provide double the trouble in The Parent Trap .
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â77 Minutesâ is a gritty immersion into grim criminal territory
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The 1984 massacre at a McDonaldâs in San Ysidro, Calif., in which a gunman killed 21 people and wounded 19 others, is revisited in the tough and emotional, if slightly overlong, documentary â77 Minutes.â
Although this horrific event, then the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, may seem a bit like yesterdayâs news, thereâs a chilling timeliness to the shooterâs purported anti-immigrant sentiments that, some think, may have fueled his attack. (San Ysidro sits just north of the U.S.-Mexico border.)
But director Charlie Minn purposely avoids much talk of the gunman or his motives, unwilling to even mention him by name (it was James Oliver Huberty). He focuses instead on the shootingâs victims, survivors and attendant law enforcers, using a mix of wrenching recent interviews, archival news footage and actual crime scene video.
That the carnage lasted 77 minutes until the gunman was killed by a SWAT team member rankled the victimsâ families as well as, it seems, Minn, who comes off more as blunt investigative reporter than strict documentarian as he grills former SWAT commander Jerry Sanders (later San Diegoâs chief of police and two-time mayor) about mistakes that may have prolonged the rampage.
Like the prolific Minnâs other disturbing docs, â8 Murders a Dayâ and âA Nightmare in Las Cruces,â this is a gritty, no frills, at times sensationalistic immersion into grim criminal territory.
â77 Minutesâ
MPAA Rating: Not rated.
In English and Spanish with English subtitles.
Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.
Playing: Dec. 6: Laemmle Playhouse 7, Pasadena; Dec. 7: Laemmle NoHo 7, North Hollywood; Dec, 8: Laemmle Monica Film Center, Santa Monica; Dec. 9-15: Harkins Cerritos 16, Cerritos.
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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, 4 minute mile.
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â4 Minute Mileâ at least has the decency to acknowledge that itâs aware of its underdog sports-movie clichĂŠs, especially the ones that made âThe Karate Kidâ such an â80s classic.
Kelly Blatz , as a troubled but talented high school runner named Drew, doesnât understand why the aging, alcoholic coach Coleman (Richard Jenkins) makes him perform all kinds of manual labor when he should be training him for the regional track meet. Among the grueling work that Drew is forced to endure: Sanding the coachâs dilapidated boat while coach himself sits back and enjoys yet another cigarette. âWax on, wax off,â Coleman says with a wry smile.
Director Charles-Olivier Michaud and writers Josh Campbell and Jeff Van Wie use this rare moment of humor to say what weâre all thinking as viewers. Yet the filmmakers remain unrelenting in running through a checklist of genre conventions. Thereâs the good-hearted kid from the wrong side of the tracks, the mentor seeking his own redemption, the trash-talking competitor, the mom struggling to keep her family together and the sweetly supportive girlfriend. And the montagesâoh, so many montages. âEven 'Rockyâ had a montage,â to quote a song from the great âTeam America: World Police.â
Still, â4 Minute Mileâ is efficient in its storytellingâwhich is fitting, given that itâs about a sprinterâand Jenkins and Blatz have solid chemistry with each other. To the surprise of absolutely no one, Jenkins enlivens this well-worn material through his sheer presence, his intelligent choices and the emotional truth he brings to even the most obvious scenes.
Heâs got his work cut out for him, though, given the hammy lines heâs saddled with as his character steadily spouts inspirational nuggets. âRunning is not just physical. Itâs in your head,â Coleman says when he first agrees to train Drew. And in a repeated theme involving running through your inner demons: âIf you do face that fear, itâll change your life.â
Drew already has faced a lot of hardship at a young age. His father died when he was a child; 10 years later, he and his brother (a muscled-and-tatted Cam Gigandet ) and mother (a blowsy, barely-there Kim Basinger) are struggling to pay the mortgage on their working-class Seattle home. Older brother Wes, whoâs on parole, ropes Drew into dropping off cash payments to a seedy local drug dealer. Clearly, this arrangement wonât end well.
But thereâs hope for Drew. Heâs fast. He gets kicked off the high school track team for being mouthy but maintains a flirty friendship with fellow runner Lisa ( Analeigh Tipton , who has an off-kilter likability but is stuck serving as a cheerleader). Coleman sees something special in Drew and offers to teach him everything he knowsâgranted that he changes his event from the 440 to the mile, and that he strives to run that distance in a punishing four minutes. And as it just so happens, just as Drew is in need of a father figure, Coleman is in need of a son. His own boyâwho was a talented runner himselfâwas killed in a car accident. Itâs all extremely formulaic and convenient.
Like Mr. Miyagi, Coleman is sad, lonely and alone and he drinks heavily to numb the pain. Thereâs a mystical quality to his self-imposed isolation. Do you think itâs possible that by working with this surly kid, it will improve both of their lives?
First, though, Drew has to agree to Colemanâs unorthodox training methods, which include running 15-second sprints through ankle-deep water, dragging a giant tire from one side of a swimming pool to the other and doing quarter-mile laps around the docks instead of at the slick and shiny track. In one artfully lighted montage after another, Drew runs around his neighborhood, at sunset, through the city streets, across parking lots and in slow motion.
Despite its overly familiar trajectory, though, â4 Minute Mileâ is nicely understated, and surprisingly not as mawkish as the material might suggest. Michaud depicts the blue-collar Washington settings vividly. And while Blatz is a bit of a handsome, blank slate aside from his characterâs sullenness, heâs believable in his physicalityâwhich is crucial given that heâs running, or talking about running, or planning to run nearly the entire time.
If only his destination were more of a mystery.
Christy Lemire
Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .
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4 Minute Mile (2014)
Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material involving violence, drinking and drugs, and for smoking and some language
Kelly Blatz as Drew Jacobs
Richard Jenkins as Coleman
Cam Gigandet as Wes Jacobs
Kim Basinger as Claire Jacobs
Analeigh Tipton as Lisa
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MaĂŻwenn and Johnny Depp Deliver Decadent Sexual Excess In ‘Jeanne du Barry’
Best of all, johnny depp honors the fact that this is not a film about him..
When I first heard about Jeanne du Barry, the sumptuous and extravagant French epic about the infamous, powerful but rarely mentioned final mistress of King Louis XV, with author-actress-writer-producer MaĂŻwenn as the director andâhold on to something for balanceâ Johnny Depp as the kingâŚthe temptation to laugh out loud stretched from here to deadline. But truthfully, to my surprise, he does nothing wrong as the unconventional monarch, and there are even scenes when he emerges subtly poised, understated and dramatically triumphant. Best of all, he honors the fact that this is not a film about him, but about the love and devotion of an impoverished woman with no breeding and no social identity who, for a time, became the most powerful female figure in 18th-century Europe.Â
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Madame du Barry has appeared as a character in other films about the French Revolution and was even the subject of a Cole Porter musical at MGM starring Lucille Ball . But what do we really know about her? MaĂŻwenn has spent years hell-bent on unveiling her at last, distilling the obscured facts of her fascinating rise and fall into a lavish period piece in the style of Forever Amber, brimming with sex, romance, political intrigue and historical scandals framed by enough glamorous decors, sumptuous costumes, regal hairstyles and gold-leaf ceilings to take your breath away. Thereâs so much to look at and think about that it is sometimes difficult to concentrate on the story, but a plot does emerge in the capable hands of MaĂŻwenn, who keeps the facts straight while keeping one of the most shocking chapters in French history alive and kicking.
Born Jeanne Vaubernier, the illegitimate daughter of a monk and a maid, a common low-class nobody in a brutally class-conscious country, she had no education, but learned about ambition early and spent her life determined to climb the 18 th -century social ladder and escape her pathetic, underprivileged life the only way she knew howâon her back, in the beds of as many wealthy men possible. Raised by her motherâs lover, Mr. Dumousseaux, who sent her to a convent where she was grilled to avoid the debauchery that is the inevitable fate of disenfranchised girls, she failed the tests of innocence and purity and was expelled. After she left, without any kind of promising future, her mother took her to Paris, where she was hired by a widow with two sons to read aloud from works of great literature, a position that gave her an education in how to use her body and charm to seduce a wealthier, more worldly class of clients, including Count du Barry, whose influence brought her to the attention of Louis XV, a randy monarch with lusty tastes in women.
At first, âHis Majestyâ Johnny Depp is like a rock star costumed for a Halloween party, replete with high heel shoes, a powdered wig and bright red lipstick. But by the time the king takes a fancy to her and summons her to the royal bed in the palace at Versailles, itâs the courtesan who has grown downright homely in the persona of the director, MaĂŻwenn. She is raw as biscuit dough, replete with an alarming set of distracting buck teeth, but how does a director inform a star she is wrong for the role of an enchanting whore because sheâs not as beautiful as the furniture, when the director and the star are the same person? Â
Iâm pleased to report that despite her physical drawbacks, MaĂŻwenn grows on you. Forced into a cash settlement to marry the notorious Count DuBarry, who has become little more than her pimp, the title of âCountessâ provides Jeanne at last with enough respectability to move into the palace as the kingâs favorite mistress. After the Queen dies, leaving her four daughters to mourn alone while Louis sates himself sexually, one princess leaves home and becomes a nun. In the resulting scandal, Jeanne is despised by the entire court, but there is a limit to how openly his disapproving advisors can admonish a king with a talent for beheading his detractors. So that is how a common harlot became a major player in the French monarchy, carefully coached to carry out the official rules and traditions of the country, learning how to dress like a lady, walking and curtsying like a queen, but slowly scandalizing society by openly riding horses with the king, caressing him publicly, refusing to exit the same room backward in his presence, and accompanying him everywhere arm in arm, wearing pants like a man. She was full of energy and defiance, and Louis, blind to reason, was so charmed and intrigued by her spirited arrogance that he decorated her with diamonds, deeded her a private estate of her own near the castle, and even rewarded her with a servant boy with whom she further scandalized the court by adopting him as her own surrogate son for the rest of her life.
Jeanneâs ultimate defeat occurred when the king died of smallpox, depicted in one the screenâs longest death scenes of all time, replete with Johnny Depp kissing his lover while covered with sores, opening doors for all of her enemies to end their insincere politeness and chase her out of Versailles for good. But the saga didnât end there. Her decades of excess were judged important factors in the eventual French Revolution. After years in peaceful exile, She was finally befriended by Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI, but went to the guillotine in 1793 with both of them. The details of palace intrigue and political chicanery that led to the Revolution are sketchy, because MaĂŻwennâs script dwells more on the decadent sexual excesses of period scandal than the underlying historical forces that changed the world. But in a gorgeous period piece that is never boring, you canât deny the entertainment value of Madame du Barry, one of the most captivating women since Madame Bovary, and all the more fascinating because she was real.
- SEE ALSO : âUnder the Bridgeâ Review: A Miniseries That Interrogates the True Crime Genre
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Mambar Pierrette review â subtle and big-hearted parable of womenâs resilience in Cameroon
Pierrette is beset with troubles, from a robbery to a house flood and more, but the neorealist drama comes with solidarity and surprising humour
T he simple image of pushing a seam through a sewing machine becomes a profound life statement in Rosine Mbakamâs debut feature, which is focused on talented clothier Pierrette (played by the directorâs cousin Pierrette Aboheu Njeuthat) in the Cameroonian city Douala. Itâs emblematic of the need to keep moving forward in daily life â and to come out the other side smiling, with stoicism and resilience. As one customer puts it: âIâm getting by. Thatâs life. When you fall down, you get up again.â
Pierrette is having, it has to be said, an especially rough day. A single mother also caring for an elderly parent (Marguerite Mbakop), she is already scraping for cash. Regularly bartered into submission by her clientele, she always holds her gaze bashfully downwards â either out of anger, or embarrassment at having to assert herself. When she takes a motorcycle taxi after work, robbers relieve her of all her savings, disastrously just as the new school year is beginning. Meanwhile her home is flooded, endangering the clothes she is preparing and leaving her wondering how she will escape this soggy calvary.
Shot mostly in medium closeup documentary-style segments, acted with flawless naturalism by a non-professional cast, Mambar Pierrette is neorealist down to its bones. But with the seamstress and her circle of acquaintances coming together to trade their frustrations â a trip to Guinea that almost ends in sex work, a disappointing fling â it also draws on the gossipy domestic drama of neighbouring Nollywood. Older storytelling traditions are layered in there too: Pierretteâs forlorn mother tells her grandson Duval (Duval Franklin Nwodu Chinedu) a disturbing juju-type tale of once having her heart switched out for a little boyâs.
Such attitudes show the generational gap operating in central Africa , between the likes of Pierretteâs mother â who insists her daughter shouldnât report her feckless husband to the authorities â and a new, more proactive cohort. Pierrette and friends are the ones pooling savings in tontines, refusing to acquiesce with how things were. But Mbakam always incorporates these state-of-the-nation diagnostics with subtlety, and a level of humour that suggests none of these strivers is a prisoner of their circumstances.
Near the end, a passing entertainer disparages the white mannequin outside the workshop that has been surveying everyoneâs tribulations. Mbakamâs feminist parable has a winning integrity and grace.
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