The Pledge (2001, directed by Sean Penn)

Posted on August 11, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Jerry Black (Jack Nicholson) is a detective who, on the verge of retirement, goes to one final crime scene. The victim is a child named Ginny Larsen and when Ginny’s mother (Patricia Clarkson) demands that Jerry not only promise to find the murderer but that he pledge of his immortal soul that he’ll do it, it’s a pledge that Jerry takes seriously. Jerry’s partner, Stan (Aaron Eckhart), manages to get a confession from a developmentally disabled man named Jay Wadenah (Benicio del Toro) but Jerry doesn’t believe that the confession is authentic. When Wadenah commits suicide in his cell, the police are ready to close the case but Jerry remembers his pledge. He remains determined to find the real killer.

Even though he’s retired, the case continues to obsess Jerry. He becomes convinced that Ginny was the latest victim of a serial killer and he even buys a gas station because it’s located in the center of where most of the murders were committed. Jerry befriend a local waitress named Lori (Robin Wright) and, when Lori tells him about her abusive ex, he invites Lori and her daughter to stay with him. Lori’s daughter, Chrissy (Pauline Roberts), is around Ginny’s age and when she tells Jerry about a “wizard” who gives her toys, Jerry becomes convinced that she’s being targeted by the same man who killed Ginny. Even as Jerry and Lori fall in love, the increasingly unhinged Jerry makes plans to use Chrissy as bait to bring the killer out of hiding.

The Pledge was Sean Penn’s third film as a director. As with all of Penn’s directorial efforts, with the notable exception of Into The Wild, The Pledge is relentlessly grim. Freed, by virtue of his celebrity, from worrying about whether or not anyone would actually want to sit through a depressing two-hour film about murdered children, Penn tells a story with no definite resolution and no real hope for the future. The Pledge is a cop film without action and a mystery without a real solution and a character study of a man whose mind you don’t want to enter. It’s well-made and it will keep you guess but it’s also slow-paced and not for the easily depressed.

The cast is made up of familiar character actors, most of whom probably took their roles as a favor to Penn. Harry Dean Stanton, Tom Noonan, Patricia Clarkson, Sam Shephard, Vanessa Redgrave, Helen Mirren, and Mickey Rourke have all got small roles and they all give good performances, even if it’s sometimes distracting to have even the smallest, most inconsequential of roles played by someone familiar. Most importantly, The Pledge actually gives Jack Nicholson a real role to play. Jerry Black is actually an interesting and complex human being and Nicholson dials back his usual shtick and instead actually makes the effort to explore what makes Jerry tick and what lays at the root of his obsession.

Though definitely not for everyone, The Pledge sticks with you and shows what Jack Nicholson, who now appears to be retired from acting, was capable of when given the right role.

Double Jeopardy (1992, directed by Lawrence Schiller)

Posted on March 7, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Salt Lake City is riveted by the sensational murder trial of mountain climber Lisa Burns Donnelly (Rachel Ward). Lisa killed her ex-boyfriend, Eddie. She says that she did it in self-defense after Eddie raped her. The prosecution claims that she murdered Eddie after he caught her cheating on him with another man. Lisa’s lawyer, Karen Hart (Sela Ward), is up for a judgeship. Her husband, Jack (Bruce Boxleitner) is Lisa’s ex-boyfriend. What Karen doesn’t know is that, other than Lisa, Jack is the only person who witnessed what happened the night of the murder because, just moments before, he and Lisa had been committing PG-13-rated adultery in her shower.

One of the interesting things — in fact, maybe the only interesting thing — about Double Jeopardy is that several online sellers claim that the film stars Aaron Eckhart. It is true that Eckhart is in the movie. It was shot in Salt Lake City while he was a student at BYU and it was his film debut. However, Eckhart has about a minute of screen time and about five lines. He plays a Marine named Dwayne who someone meets in an airport. His big line is, “Semper Fi, babe!”

As for the film, since it’s set in Salt Lake City, there’s a lot of talk about how Lisa is being unfairly judged for her unconventional (read: non-Mormon) life style and there’s a heavy-handed subplot about Jack trying to put on a production of The Crucible but it doesn’t add up too much. It would probably have been easier for the movie to make a point about religious and moral persecution if Lisa wasn’t actually guilty of murdering Eddie. Instead, the movie leaves you thinking, “Maybe those Mormons have a point.”

Double Jeopardy tries hard to be something more than your standard legal thriller but it’s pretty forgettable. Rachel Ward was always a great femme fatale and Sally Kirkland gives a good performance as the cop who sees through both Lisa and Jack. The film was produced for Showtime at a time when cable was still trying to prove that it could provide original content worth paying for so there’s some cursing and sideboob tossed in, as if to say, “See? You don’t get this on NBC!” Otherwise, this is a by-the-numbers made-for-TV movie.

Any Given Sunday (1999, directed by Oliver Stone)

Posted on February 1, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

With Any Given Sunday, Oliver Stone set out to make the ultimate football movie and he succeeded.

Any Given Sunday is not just the story of aging coach Tony D’Amato (Al Pacino). It’s also the story of how third-string quarterback Willie Beamon (Jamie Foxx) allows celebrity to go to his head while the injured starter, Cap Rooney (Dennis Quaid), deals with his own mortality and how, at 38, he is now over-the-hill. It’s also about how the team doctors (represented by James Woods and Matthew Modine) are complicit in pushing the players beyond their limits and how the owners (Cameron Diaz) view those players as a commodity to be traded and toyed with. It’s about how the Sharks represent their home city of Miami and how cynical columnists (John C. McGinley plays a character that is obviously meant to be Jim Rome) deliberately set out to inflame the anger of the team’s fans. It’s about how politicians (Clifton Davis plays Miami’s mayor and asks everyone to “give me some love”) use professional sports to further their own corrupt careers while the often immature men who play the game are elevated into role models by the press. It’s a film that compares football players to ancient gladiators while also showing how the game has become big business. In typical Oliver Stone fashion, it tries to take on every aspect of football while also saying something about America as well.

In the role on Tony D, Pacino famously describes football as being “a game of inches” but you wouldn’t always know it from the way that Oliver Stone directs Any Given Sunday. As a director, Stone has never been one to only gain an inch when he could instead grab an entire mile. (Stone is probably the type of Madden player who attempts to have his quarterback go back and throw a hail mary on every single play.) Tony tells his players to be methodical but Stone directs in a fashion that is sloppy, self-indulgent, and always entertaining to watch. One minute, Al Pacino and Jim Brown are talking about how much the game has changed and the next minute, LL Cool J is doing cocaine off of a groupie’s breast while images of turn-of-the-century football players flash on the screen. No sooner has Jamie Foxx delivered an impassioned speech about the lack of black coaches in the league then he’s suddenly starring in his own music video and singing about how “Steamin’ Willie Beamon” leaves all the ladies “creamin’.” (It rhymes, that’s the important thing.) When Tony invites Willie over to his house, scenes of Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur are on TV. Later in the movie, Heston shows up as the Commissioner and says, about Cameron Diaz, “she would eat her young.”

Any Given Sunday is Oliver Stone at both his best and his worst. The script is overwritten and overstuffed with every possible sports cliché but the football scenes are some of the most exciting that have ever been filmed. Only Oliver Stone could get away with both opening the film with a quote from Vince Lombardi and then having a player literally lose an eye during the big game. Stone himself appears in the commentator’s both, saying, “I think he may have hurt his eye,” while the doctor’s in the end zone scoop up the the torn out eyeball and put it into a plastic bag. Only Stone could get away with Jamie Foxx vomiting on the field during every game and then making amazing plays while a combination of rap, heavy metal, and techno roars in the background. Stone regulars like James Woods and John C. McGinely make valuable appearances and while Woods may be playing a villain, he’s the only person in the film willing to call out the coaches, the players, the owners, and the fans at home as being a bunch of hypocrites. Stone’s direction is as hyper-kinetic as always but he still has no fear of stopping the action so that Foxx can see sepia-toned images of football’s past staring at him from the stands. Stone directs like defensive lineman on steroids, barreling his way through every obstacle to take down his target. No matter what, the game goes on.

Any Given Sunday is the ultimate football movie and more fun than the last ten super bowls combined.

Here’s The Trailer For Midway

Posted on September 12, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Earlier today, the first trailer for Midway was released. Based on the famous World War II battle, Midway will be in theaters on November 8th. Judging from the trailer, it would appear that this adaptation has more in common with Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor than Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk.

Of course, we shouldn’t be too surprised by that. Midway is the latest film from Roland Emmerich and that’ll probably mean a lot of action, not a lot of character development, and maybe a half-assed debate about whether or not Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. (I have to admit that I have never forgiven Emmerich for Anonymous, a film that not only promoted a silly conspiracy theory but which also accused Shakespeare of murdering Christopher Marlowe.) Of course, Midway could still be a good film, even if it is a typical Emmerich production. Sometimes, you just want to spend a few hours watching stuff blow up.

Midway does have a big cast: Ed Skrein, Patrick Wilson, Luke Evans, Aaron Eckhart, Nick Jonas, Mandy Moore, Dennis Quaid, Darren Criss and Woody Harrelson. I don’t know if I’d say that was an intriguing cast, if just because Woody Harrelson and Dennis Quaid appear to be legally required to appear in ensemble war films like this. Still, it’ll be interesting to see if Midway can do for Nick Jonas what Dunkirk did for Harry Styles.

Here’s the trailer:

Film Review: Sully (dir by Clint Eastwood)

Posted on September 10, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The new film Sully is about several different things.

Most obviously, it’s about what has come to be known as the Miracle on the Hudson. On January 15th, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 had just departed from New York’s LaGuardia Airport when it was struck by a flock of geese. (They say that it was specifically hit by Canadian Geese but I refuse to believe that Canada had anything to do with it.) With both of the engines taken out and believing that he wouldn’t be able to get the plane back to either LaGuardia or an airport in New Jersey, the flight’s plot, Chelsey “Sully” Sullenberger (played by Tom Hanks) landed his plane on the Hudson River. Not only did Sullenberger manage to execute a perfect water landing but he also did so without losing a single passenger.

I’m sure that we can all remember that image of that plane sitting on the river with passengers lined up on the wings. We can also remember what a celebrity Sully became in the days following the landing. At a time of national insecurity and cynicism, Sully reminded us that people are still capable of doing great things. It also helped that Sully turned out to be a rather humble and self-effacing man. He didn’t use his new-found fame to host a reality TV show or run for Congress, as many suggested he should. Instead, he wrote a book, raised money for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, and appeared in two commercials for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Wisely, Sully opens after the Miracle on the Hudson, with Sully still struggling to come to terms with suddenly being a celebrity. (That said, we do get to see the landing in flashbacks. In fact, we get to see it twice and it’s harrowing. The “Brace! Brace!” chant is pure nightmare fuel.) Tom Hanks plays up Sully’s modesty and his discomfort with suddenly being a hero. Even while the rest of the world celebrates his accomplishment, Sully struggles with self-doubt. Did he make the right decision landing the plane on the Hudson or did he mistakenly endanger the lives of all the passengers and crew members?

A lot of people would probably say, “What does it matter? As long as he succeeded, who cares if he actually had to do it?” Well, it matters to Sully. Some of it is a matter of professional pride. And a lot of it is because the soulless bureaucrats at the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating Sully’s landing. If it’s determined that he could have made it back to airport and that he unnecessarily endangered the lives of everyone on the plane, he could lose his job and his pension. As we see in a few scenes with Sully’s wife (Laura Linney, who is somewhat underused), the Sullenbergers really need that pension.

That brings us to another thing that Sully is about. It’s a celebration of not only individual heroism but individuality itself. The NTSB claims that they have computer-generated recreations that prove Sully had enough time and fuel to return to an airport but, as Sully himself points out, the NTSB has ignored the human element in their recreations. As a result of their obsession with regulation and procedure, the bureaucrats have forgotten that planes are not flown by computers but individuals who have to make split-second decisions.

That’s one of the things that I loved about Sully. In this time when we’re constantly being told that our very future is dependent upon always trusting the bureaucrats and following their rules and regulations, Sully reminds us that the government is only as good as the people who work for it. And, far too often, the people are smug and complacent morons.

(For the record, Sullenberger has said that the real-life hearings were not as confrontational as the ones depicted in the film. However, even taking into account the dramatic license, the overall message still rings true.)

And finally, Sully is a film about what America has become in the wake of 9-11. Just as in real-life, the film’s Sully suffers from PTSD in the days immediately following the Miracle on the Hudson. Even while the rest of the world celebrates him, Sully has nightmares about what could have happened if he hadn’t made the landing. When we watch as Sully’s plane collides with a New York skyscraper, it’s impossible not to be reminded of the horrible images of September 11th. Not only does it drive home what was at stake when Sully made that landing but it also reminds us that, regardless of what some would want us to beg, there are still heroes in the world. Not every story has to end in tragedy. People are still capable of doing great things. Heroism is not dead. With tomorrow being the 15-year anniversary of the day when 3,000 people were murdered in New York, Pennsylvania, and D.C., it’s important to be reminded of that.

Sully is a powerful and crowd-pleasing film. (The normally cynical audience at the Alamo Drafthouse broke into applause at the end of the movie.) Director Clint Eastwood tells this story in a quick, no-nonsense style. During this time of bloated running times, Sully clocks in at 97 minutes and it’s still a million times better than that 150-minute blockbuster you wasted your money on last week. Toss in Tom Hanks at his best and you’ve got one of the best films of the year so far.

Here’s The Trailer For Incarnate!

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Can someone please write another great role for Aaron Eckhart? He’s such a good actor but it seems like whenever he actually gets to star in a movie, he ends up in stuff like I, Frankenstein.

Just judging from the trailer below, Incarnate might actually be worse than I, Frankenstein. Time will tell!

(Then again, Incarnate is coming out in September so who knows? Maybe it’s going to be an Oscar contender…)

(No, it’s not.)

(But it could be…)

(But it won’t.)

London Has Fallen Official Trailer

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Arleigh

The White House under siege film Olympus Has Fallen from 2013 was a surprise hit and pretty much took the prize in the match-up between it and the bigger-budgeted White House Down starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx. What the latter didn’t have was the presence of Morgan Freeman, the steadfastness of Aaron Eckhart and the utter badass that is Gerard Butler. Olympus Has Fallen had all three and thus was the better of the two films.

It didn’t take long for the studio who made Olympus Has Fallen to start on a sequel with the three core figures from the first film (Freeman, Eckhart and Butler) back to fight the evil of terrorism on all freedom-loving citizens. I think the studios just thought the audience who saw the first film loved just how much Gerard Butler’s character kept stabbing people in the face.

Here’s to hoping London Has Fallen didn’t try to fix what wasn’t broken…and more Gerard Butler stabbing people in the face.

Shattered Politics #77: Thank You For Smoking (dir by Jason Reitman)

Posted on February 7, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have always hated those Truth.com commercials. Truth.com is an organization that claims to be dedicated to eradicating smoking. Their smug commercials are essentially the height of hipster douchebaggery, a bunch of self-consciously cool people wandering around and harassing random people about whether or not they smoke. And then, of course, there was the commercial where they all gathered outside a tobacco company and pretended to be dead. Of course, the truth about Truth.com is that they are essentially the same people who, in high school, would get offended whenever anyone wore a short skirt. I really can not stand people like that. (And don’t even get me started on those assholes who appear in the Above The Influence commercials.) Myself, I don’t smoke because I have asthma. But, seriously, whenever I see a Truth.com commercial, I’m tempted to run down to 711 and start.

And so maybe that’s why I like the 2005 comedy Thank You For Smoking.

The hero of Thank You For Smoking is Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), a lobbyist for the tobacco industry, who is first seen appearing on a talk show and winning over a hostile audience by announcing that the tobacco industry is going to be investing millions in researching way to keep young people from smoking and shaking the hand of a teenage honor student who is dying from lung cancer. Over the course of the film, Nick shows us how he does business, everything from defending tobacco companies on talk shows to convincing a former Marlboro Man-turned-cancer-patient to drop his law suit. When Nick isn’t working, he’s hanging out with his best friends (who are lobbyists for both the liquor and the gun industries), trying to bond with his son (Cameron Bright), or having sex with a reporter (Katie Holmes).

Now, in most movies, Nick Naylor would be the villain. However, in Thank You For Smoking, Nick becomes a hero by default, if just because everyone who disagrees with him is even worse than he is. Add to that, Nick has the benefit of being played by Aaron Eckhart while all of his opponents are played by balding actors with ugly beards.

Another reason that I liked Thank You For Smoking was because the main villain was a senator from Vermont and it’s about time somebody stood up to the tyranny of Vermont. Ortolan Finistirre (William H. Macy) has built a career out of campaigning against the tobacco industries and why shouldn’t he? Who, other than Nick Naylor, is willing to defend them? Finistirre’s latest plan is to change the law so that every pack of cigarettes has to be branded with a skull and crossbones warning.

When Nick and Finistirre finally face off, it’s a battle between those who believe in allowing people the freedom to make their own choices and those who hide their totalitarian impulse behind claims that they’re working for the greater good.

Thank You For Smoking was Jason Reitman’s first film. And while it may be a bit too episodic and it frequently struggles to maintain a consistent tone, it’s still a lot better than both Labor Day and Men, Women, & Children.

For Your Consideration #4: I, Frankenstein (dir by Stuart Beattie)

Posted on December 14, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the tonight’s final entry in For Your Consideration, I’m going to suggest that everyone take the time to consider a film that came out way back in January — I, Frankenstein.

“WHAT!?” someone out there is saying. “It was bad enough when you tried to convince us that The Purge: Anarchy deserved an Oscar nomination…”

Okay, okay — hold on a minute. You get upset so easily, it can’t be good for your blood pressure. Anyway, have you calmed down now? Good.

Here’s the thing — I said that I was going to suggest some films that I thought were worthy of award consideration. The Oscars aren’t the only awards around. There’s also the Razzie Awards. The Razzies claim that their mission is to honor the worst movies and performers of each year. To be honest, looking over some of their past nominations, it looks like they’re more interested in picking on easy targets like Lindsay Lohan and … well, I was going to say Adam Sandler but there’s a reason why most of his films are such easy targets.

Now, as far as this year is concerned, I’m sure that the people behind the Razzie awards are already busy coming up with snarky things to say about that Kirk Cameron Christmas movie. And good for them! However, I’m simply suggesting that instead of just settling for nominated Kirk Cameron a gazillion times, the Razzies might want to give some consideration to another potentially deserving film that came out this year.

Personally, I really wanted to like I, Frankenstein. It was produced by the people behind the Underworld films, all of which are definitely guilty pleasures of mine. And it starred Aaron Eckhart, who is such a good actor even if he rarely seems to get the lead roles that he deserves. That said, even before I saw the film, I had my doubts about whether an actor with the almost satirically all-American facial features of Aaron Eckhart would be believable as a reanimated corpse and sad to say, he was not. You could definitely imagine Eckhart playing a legendary big game hunter who has decided that he’s going to add Frankenstein’s monster to his wall of trophies. But as the monster — well, not so much.

In I, Frankenstein, Frankenstein’s Monster survives through the centuries and eventually ends up fighting a bunch of demons for some reason. Or something like that. I have to admit that I was never quite sure what was going on in I, Frankenstein. Some of that was because I was bored with the movie and a lot of it was because the movie felt less like an actual film and more like a collection of highlights. This is one of those films where off-screen narration was necessary to describe a huge chunk of the movie’s plot.

And, finally, I just couldn’t buy Aaron Eckhart as a monster. He’s too handsome in his own clean-cut, middle American way. There’s a reason why Aaron Eckhart was convincing as the symbol of good government decency in The Dark Knight and that’s the same reason why he’s not very convincing playing a creature who has been built out of random body parts.

So, to the people behind the Razzies, I would encourage them to continue to try to come up with the perfect Kirk Cameron joke. But don’t forget about I, Frankenstein.

It’s worthy of your consideration.

And speaking of consideration, For Your Consideration will continue tomorrow with 6 more films that are worthy of your awards consideration!

Quickie Review: Olympus Has Fallen (dir. by Antoine Fuqua)

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Arleigh

“The most protected building on Earth has fallen.”

Die Hard has become it’s very own subgenre of action films since it was first released in 1988. It was a simple enough story that combined the “one against many” type of story with the “siege tale”. It was a perfect combination that has since been copied, imitated, but truly never duplicated to the highest level of success the original film had upon release. There’s been a few films that added their own unique take on this action film template. There was “Die Hard on a boat” with the underappreciated Under Siege. Then we have Air Force One which was “Die Hard on a plane”. The latest action film to try and put a new spin on the Willias-McTiernan classic is Antoine Fuqua’s latest film, Olympus Has Fallen.

The film pretty much takes what worked with the three films before it that’s been mentioned above and combines them to make a film. We have a lone, highly skilled operative in the form of Secret Service Agent Mike Banning in the role that made Bruce Willis famous and, for a time, resuscitated Steven Seagal’s career. Then we have the Presidential angle but instead of Air Force One it’s the White House this time around. The plot of the film is simple enough that even a person not well-versed in film could follow it. A group of dedicated and highly-trained North Korean terrorists do a surprise attack on the White House as the President of the United States and his South Korean counterpart try to find a way to defuse a situation that’s been growing in the DMZ between the two Koreas. It’s now up to Agent Banning, on his own, to try and stop whatever plans the terrorists have brewing with the President as hostage while also dealing with an inept group of higher-ups trying to deal with it far from the action.

Olympus Has Fallen doesn’t break new ground with the way it’s story unfolds and it’s characters develop. The film was pretty much beat-for-beat and scene for scene lifted from the three other films mentioned above. The characters may be different and the circumstances they find themselves in somewhat different, but the screenwriters played everything safe except the action sequences part of the film. It’s these action scenes which brings Olympus Has Fallen to a new level of violent artistry that the previously mentioned films never reached.

To say that this film was violent would be an understatement. Where other films of this type a certain cartoonish tone to it’s violence this time around Fuqua goes for a much more serious and, at times, disturbingly difficult to watch level of violence to make the film stand out from the rest of it’s kind. The assault on the White House itself and the surrounding area has less a look of a fun action film and more of a war film. People die in droves and it doesn’t matter whether they’re Secret Service, police, terrorists or innocent civilians. All were fair game in this film.

Even the action once we get to Banning playing the Willis role looked more brutal than what Willis and even Seagal ever got to do. Gerard Butler may not have had the charisma and wit of Willis in the same role, but he convincingly played his role as more Jack Bauer than Officer McClane. Butler as Banning was all business and efficiency while Willis as McClane was more the witty, smartass who just keeps finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Olympus Has Fallen won’t be hailed as one of the best films of 2013. It won’t even be talked about as one of the top action films this year, but despite the story being a derivative of every Die Hard and it’s clones before it the film does succeed in being a very enjoyable piece of popcorn flick. It was full of tension and big action setpieces (though the CG effects looked very cheap at times) that Fuqua has gradually become known for. The characters in the film were just a step above being one-dimensional and the story itself becomes less eye-rolling and more worrisome considering the real tensions coming out of the Korean Peninsula at this very moment.

One thing I’m sure of is that of the two “Die Hard-in-the-White-House” films this year (there’s the bigger-budgeted White House Down later this summer from Roland Emmerich) I have a feeling that Olympus Has Fallen might be the more fun. It’s probably going to be the more violent of the two and that’s an assumption I’m willing to make without even seeing how Emmerich’s film turns out.