Tag: Sam Rockwell


Jojo Rabbit

January 30th, 2020 — 3:34am

****

Jojo Rabbit-rm

On one hand, this is an outlandish, fanciful story about Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) a 10-year old German boy who has an imaginary friend who happens to be Adolf Hitler (played by the director, Taika Waititi). It is also a story about a young girl (Thomasin McKenzie) who is being hidden in the attic by Jojo’s mother (Scarlett Johanson) because she is Jewish and is being sought out in order to be murdered by the Nazis. Sam Rockwell has a somewhat slapstick role as the German captain who is training our little hero.

On one hand, this film is a comedy, but it is hard to laugh when we are being reminded of Anne Frank and the horrendous story of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis during World War II.

The film is extremely creative and very well done. It will hold your interest and make you chuckle just as it will allow you to reflect on this time in history. It is clearly worth seeing this satire, which emphasizes the cruelty, stupidity and unmitigated arrogance of the Nazi cause. It is another reminder of how important it is that no one is allowed to forget this horrific time in the history of the world. (2020)

 

Comment » | 4 Stars, Comedy, Drama

Best of Enemies

April 8th, 2019 — 7:44pm

****

Best of Enemies-rm

This is ultimately a feel good movie, but it is hard to believe whether this is a true story that went down as it is depicted in the film. Truth is stranger than fiction and the movie is based on a  story, which was confirmed at the end of the film by showing us some clips of the real people.

The setting is Durham, North Carolina in the 1970s. The Ku Klux Klan is active and we meet the local Klan leader, C. P. Ellis (Sam Rockwell). We also meet a local black activist, Ann Atwater (Taraji P. Henson). Both of them are about to clash after a fire makes the black grade school uninhabitable. There is great conflict as the local city council has to decide what to do since the white folks do not seem to want to share their grade school with the black children who have lost their school.

We never heard the term “charrette” before. It refers to a meeting in which the various sides of a conflict get together to resolve the conflict and work out a solution. The local city council brings in a “charrette expert”, Bill Riddick (Babou Ceesay) who sets up a committee to discuss and vote a solution. The “coaches” of the committee were appointed to be the clan chief and the black activist. We get a glimpse of the back story of some of the characters especially the clan leader who has a hospitalized developmentally disabled child. We also meet a local white pharmacist who is the member of the committee and he himself has hired a black Vietnam war buddy to be his assistant manager in his pharmacy. We see that the local clan group likes to practice shooting guns and are prone to intimidate white people who are sympathetic to blacks.

You might say that the story line is somewhat predictable, but it still created a strong emotional impact on us, which was made even more powerful as we learned more about the real people upon whom these characters were based as we saw them speak during the credits.

Director, Robin Bissell certainly knew how to pull our emotional strings and Mr. Rockwell and Ms. Henson may get some award nods for their performances (2019).

 

Your comments are welcome in the Comment Section below

 

Comment » | 4 Stars, Drama, History

Vice

January 20th, 2019 — 9:59pm

***

VICE-rm

If you remember Dick Cheney, you will have to agree that Christian Bale is a dead ringer for President George W. Bush’s vice-president in appearance, speech and mannerisms despite the fact that in real life Bale looks nothing like him. This is a great tribute to the actor and the film makers.

Depending on your political point of view, you will probably decide if the depiction of Cheney is true to life. He certainly is shown to be a power-hungry, manipulative, opportunist. Sam Rockwell does an excellent impersonation of President GW Bush who is shown to be somewhat weak and under the spell of his vice-president. Steve Carell plays Donald Rumsfeld who was a person involved in Cheney’s career early on as well as in his later years but we could not forget that it was Carell and we were expecting him to breakout into some comedy lines.

The movie highlights the importance of the influence of Cheneys’s wife, Lynne (Amy Adams) in his life. Perhaps the most moving and sympathetic moment in the film in regard to Cheney, was how he was able to accept his daughter’s coming out as gay whereas his wife seemed not to be able to do so. Otherwise, there is not much sympathy for this character who was shown to have led the country into the Iraq War as well as many other questionable decisions including favoring Halliburton, the company for which he had previously worked.

As realistic as the depiction of the main character was in this film, there were some distractions with flashbacks and other cinematic effects. Although well-done, we thought they took away from the flow of the movie. Also, you may recall that there was an incident where Cheney accidentally shot someone with a rifle. This event was briefly shown but there was no explanation of how it came about or who was the victim.

The movie was directed by Adam McKay who is known for the Big Short, Anchorman I and II and more recently Holmes & Watson. The producer team included Brad Pitt as well as Will Ferrell and there was a whopping 40 million dollar budget for it. One more thing, don’t leave the theater whenever you begin to see the credits come on the screen. Each time there is more to come. (2019)

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Comment » | 3 Stars, Drama, History, Politics

Laggies

November 16th, 2015 — 7:44am

 

Screen Shot 2015-11-15 at 5.44.48 PM**

Laggies – nf

The term Laggies, according to Director Lynn Shelton comes from an informal term used by Orange County teenagers when referring to themselves as a group such as “Come on Laggies, let’s all go to the mall.” The screenplay by Andrea Seigel was originally written to take place in Orange County, California, but the setting was moved to Seattle, Washington. However, Shelton liked the way the term Laggies sounded and kept it as the title.

The meaning of the film to us is similarly vague and hard to figure out. Granted it is about a generation far from our own, but we thought that we usually get teens and 20’s even if we are quite removed from their time to bloom.

Megan (Keira Knightley) is a 28-year-old college graduate who has a Masters in Family Counseling but hasn’t really found herself. Her best friend, Allison (Elle Kemper) is getting married and all her good friends are attending the event. Megan’s long-term boyfriend (Mark Webber) is ready to propose to her and they plan to go for a quick small wedding ceremony in Las Vegas. However, Megan meets Annika, a 15-year-old teenager (Chloe Moretz), who she encounters when she’s asked by her to buy beer and alcohol for her and her teenage buddies. Megan can relate to Annika and is comfortable hanging around with her and her friends. She tells her boyfriend that she’s going to go to a conference for a week and then they will get married. In the meantime, Megan stays in Annika’s house where she meets Craig, Annika’s single dad (Sam Rockwell) who is an attorney. Anika and Sam seem to really like each other and have a one-night sexual encounter. Incidentally, we also have learned a little earlier that Megan’s father (Jeff Garlin) was discovered by Megan to be fooling around with the mother of the bride at the wedding of Megan’s best friend, which bummed out Megan. Megan is about to fly to Las Vegas to marry her long-term boyfriend or will she?

So we conclude that the movie is about growing up and deciding which relationships are really important. However, there is no real depth to the storyline. We don’t really understand why the characters do what they do, although they do seem to be the wiser for going through these experiences. The director, Ms. Shelton knows her way around Seattle having directed her previous movies in the city. The acting was very good. Ms. Knightly was very appealing as Megan, the young woman who has to find herself. In the DVD features accompanying the film, we see her talking in her native language (British English) and we appreciate how well she has mastered the American dialect in the film. This movie was a little fun to watch but we didn’t get much out of it. We conclude that we can’t recommend it, even to the teens and 20’s looking for a good movie to kick back on. (2014)

Comment » | 2 Stars, Drama

The Way, Way Back

July 28th, 2013 — 8:15am

The Way, Way Back***

The Way, Way Back- rm   It is not an easy feat to make a coming of age movie that gets grown adults to identify with a kid who is supposed to be 14 and barely looks that age. In our opinion Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (Oscar winning writers for the Descendants), the duo who wrote and directed this film (and also gave themselves small to medium acting roles in it ) successfully just did that with us. By the end we were rooting for the kid and had a tear in our eyes. Steve Carrell steps out of his comedic shoes and does a formidable job playing Trent, the intense but not quite true blue boyfriend of Pam (Toni Collette), who is taking  her son Duncan (Liam James) along with Trent’s  daughter to his summer New England beach house. Duncan is struggling with  his unhappiness with his divorced family and this summer excursion that he doesn’t want to be on. . They meet next door neighbor bubbly friendly Betty (Allison Janney) her son and daughter who become important characters in what unfolds. There are other summer people including a flirtatious housewife played by Amanda Peet. We begin to appreciate everybody’s situation and most of all how Duncan feels. The plot has a fairy tale quality but instead of a castle there is a big water ride and a bunch of grown ups who work at the water ride and befriend Duncan. The most improbable of this group is Owen  (Sam Rockwell). He is very funny, one of the supervisors of the water enterprise and immediately sensitive and insightful into the struggling Duncan. We would have to picture him as the big brother or ideal cool dad that we are sure Duncan  would have loved to have had . Owens’s girl friend is Caitlin (Maya Rudolph), a bit wiser than the others, but delightful. Two other workers in this water ride are blended into the story and are played as previously mentioned by the directors and writers of  the film. These director/writers should also get credit along with Mr. James who successfully inhabits Duncan for the sensitive depiction of the pain, suffering , determination and triumph that he projects on the screen  as he ultimately finds himself. (2013)

Comment » | 3 Stars, Drama

Conviction

October 8th, 2010 — 7:54am


*****

Conviction sp- This is  a true story of a man convicted of a bloody murder in a Boston suburb in the 1980s .  There are witnesses who say that he told him he did it and there is blood typing evidence (this is before DNA analysis) which strongly suggests it was him. The only thing going for him is his sister who is sure that he didn’t do it. You have seen this relatively simple plot play out many times on television on Dateline, 20/20 or on similar programs. The only difference here is that you have another magnificent performance by Hillary Swank playing Betty Anne Waters who is going to take the next 18 years of her life completing High School, going to college and then law school in order to see if there is way to get her brother his freedom. You also have Sam Rockwell, playing the  brother Kenny,  in a performance that should earn him an Academy Award nomination. The screen play by Pamela Gray and  the direction by Tony Goldwyn gives us pieces of their childhood which clarifies their great devotion to each other. The struggle of Betty Ann to become a lawyer and her determination to find the evidence that would be the key to saving her brother allows us to understand this person. Her interaction with Kenny similarly provides insight into his pain and bravado.  The difficult lives of the people in the community where this happened and the very questionable actions of the police and district attorney Martha Coakley (who subsequently was defeated in the recent  US Senate race in Massachusetts to replace Kennedy)  was brought out by a stunning performance of Juliette Lewis who played one of the witnesses who recounts what really happened to make her testify against Kenny. We had the good fortune to meet at our preview screening Swank, Rockwell, Lewis, the real life Betty Anne Waters and her good friend and fellow law student Abra Rice who was well played in the movie by Minnie Driver. They confirmed that truth is stranger and at times more unbelievable than fiction. I recall reading about the well known lawyer Barry Scheck, who was depicted in this movie, and wondering about his decision to devote his career to  the Innocence Project where the new science of DNA matching is applied to old crimes. It turns out that over 250 innocent people have been freed from prison due to his efforts. There is one particular line in this film stands out in this regard as Swank as Betty Ann remarks that if Massachusetts had the death penalty her brother would have been killed before she had chance to make a case for his innocence. Swank, speaking for herself at our screening told how making this movie allowed her to understand the unique life affirming experience that these people went through. Watching this film also gave the audience the opportunity to share this journey.(2010)

Comment » | 5 Stars, Crime, Drama, History

Everybody’s Fine

January 16th, 2010 — 2:46am

Everybody's Fine* * *
Everybody’s Fine
– rm – Robert Deniro is a retired middle class blue-collar widower who would like to see his four widely dispersed grown children all sitting around a family dinner table once again. When they can’t make it for a planned get together he sets out to visit them and perhaps to try to reign them in once again. Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale, and Sam Rockwell play the children. Kirk Jones directed this remake of a 1990 Italian movie ”Stanno tutti bene”. As the now lonely dad sets out from his small upstate New York home to try to find out what is really going on in the lives of his children, he finds out more about himself and how he was perceived as a father. His well meaning expectations which came out of his love for them has led them all to convey that everybody is fine in an attempt to shield him from the various true paths which their lives have taken. Deniro skillfully projects the tenderness of his character that wanted the best for his kids but must have left the real listening of them to his deceased wife. Perhaps he is a little too simple and the storyline a bit contrived but it will jerk some tears from you. It is a good movie for the holiday season, as it will ultimately make you think about your own family and what we convey to children as they are growing up as well as what we can say to them now. (2009)

Comment » | 3 Stars, Drama

Frost/Nixon

November 7th, 2009 — 1:10am

* * * *
Frost/Nixon
– rm – This is the story of the remarkable series of TV interviews that David Frost, a TV emcee type person had with the then deposed ex-President Richard Nixon. If you recall this historical time you will relive the unique situation our country was going through. The depiction of Nixon and Frost is quite good and the actual interviews are apparently true to the transcript of the programs. They do seem to have captured the fascinating personality of the flawed President. The writer and director did take some poetic license with some of the interactions which they purport to have taken place between Frost and Nixon which disappointed us when we learned this from other sources This made the movie less significant in our minds and takes away from our valuation of the movie although it is still immensely enjoyable. 2008

Comment » | 4 Stars, Drama

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