Tag: William Mark McCullough

True Life Twofer – ‘American Made’ and ‘Battle of the Sexes’ – Nothing Special

Nothing really connects these two films other than the old “based on a true story” moniker, but they did go wide the same day, so here we are.  I wanted to like them; I tried, but…

American Made

Directed by Doug Liman
Written by Gary Spinelli
Cast: Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Jesse Plemons, Caleb Landry Jones, Lola Kirke, Jayma Mays, Alejandro Edda, Benito Martinez, E. Roger Mitchell, Jed Rees, Jayson Warner Smith, William Mark McCullough, Mickey Sumner
Soundtrack: Christophe Beck

The last time Tom Cruise and Doug Liman got together resulted in one of the best action movies of the new millennium, so I had reasonably high expectations going into this one.

Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed fairly quickly.

For one thing, somebody decided it would be a good idea to shoot American Made like a Duplass Brothers film (complete with annoying snap zooms), which, for the life of me, I cannot understand, anymore than I can understand all of the praise for Tom Cruise that I’ve been seeing.  I mean, I like Tom.  He still does great movies from time to time (mostly of the Mission: Impossible variety, but that’s fine), but boy oh boy can he not pull off even the slightest of accents.

Really though, these are just nitpicks compared to the bigger issues.

There are two fatal flaws with American Made.  One, despite the “based on a true story” label, the movie is severely lacking in verisimilitude, especially in the performances (and I mean across the board), and, two, we’ve seen this kind of story done better already, and in particular I mean Blow.  I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, I don’t mind if you play fast and loose with the truth, but the movie better be interesting and at least feel real within the world of the story, and American Made largely fails at both.

This is not to say it’s entirely bad.  There’s a fair amount of entertainment value from the flying scenes (which are sadly shrouded in deadly controversy), and a few moments of good humor, but other than that there’s not a whole lot to grab onto.

I wish I could rate it higher, but my heart tells me no.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

 

Battle of the Sexes

Directed by Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris
Written by Simon Beaufoy
Cast: Emma Stone, Steve Carell, Andrea Riseborough, Sarah Silverman, Bill Pullman, Alan Cumming, Elisabeth Shue, Natalie Morales, Eric Christian Olsen, Fred Armisen, Martha MacIsaac, Mickey Sumner, Jessica McNamee, Austin Stowell, Wallace Langham, Bridey Elliott, Lewis Pullman, James Mackay, Enuka Okuma, Mark Harelik, Jamey Sheridan, Chip Chinery, Chris Parnell, John C. McGinley
Soundtrack: Nicholas Britell

Speaking of lack of verisimilitude, let’s talk Battle of the Sexes.

To be fair, this one doesn’t play with the truth nearly as much as American Made, but outside of Emma Stone as Billie Jean King, Steve Carell as Bobby Riggs, and the fantastic period costuming, this one fell rather flat as well, not to mention obsolete.

I say obsolete because ever since ESPN debuted its 30 for 30 series in 2009, and showed the world the depths to which sports documentaries could now reach, the idea of the classic “based on a true story” sports movie has become rather outmoded.  Not to say that any genre can’t still be done well, but I’m not sure Battle of the Sexes did justice to the story it attempted to tell, nor, frankly, did it do justice to being an entertaining film.  I tell you what though, if ESPN ever does a 30 for 30 on it, I’m all in.

One of the big problems is the pacing, due largely to the fact that the movie spends an inordinate amount of its two hour runtime tightly focused on the affair between Billie Jean King and her lover, Marilyn Barnett.  Undoubtedly, it was a crucial part of King’s life, and I’m not arguing it should go without any mention, but it doesn’t add much to the film other than to set up a moment that was obviously made up for dramatic purposes.

Beyond that though, there’s just a lot about this movie, performances especially, that feels one-dimensional.  Maybe much of the dialogue was inspired or directly quoted from real conversations, I don’t know, but most of the characters in Battle of the Sexes feel more like caricatures than real people, which would be fine if it was more of the comedy it was advertised as, but not in a film attempting to deal with real life drama.

Again, Stone and Carell are great, but they’re not enough to push this one into recommendation territory, which is sad.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

P.S.
No stingers of any kind on either film.

Movie Review – ‘Logan Lucky’ – All The Fun of The Fair

Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Written by Rebecca Blunt
Cast: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Seth MacFarlane, Riley Keough, Katie Holmes, Katherine Waterston, Dwight Yoakam, Sebastian Stan, Brian Gleeson, Jack Quaid, Hilary Swank, Daniel Craig, David Denman, Jim O’Heir, Macon Blair, Farrah Mackenzie, Rebecca Koon, Charles Halford, Jon Eyez, William Mark McCullough
Soundtrack: David Holmes

Boy oh boy is it good to have Steven Soderbergh back.

Not that he’d left us entirely, but he hasn’t done a theatrical feature since 2013’s Side Effects (which is GREAT, by the way; I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before), and I don’t really have time for television (what with all the movies I see), so, as far as I was concerned, he was out of sight.  Logan Lucky is not only a welcome cinematic return for him, but, at the tail end of one of the best movie summers I can ever remember, it’s at least a contender for Top Movie of the Season.

Soderbergh’s obviously no stranger to the ol’ heist movie, nor is he a stranger to films with a comedic tone, but Logan Lucky is a special blend of the two that is so enjoyable and light-hearted (without being total fluff) that I would have happily spent more time in my seat just to hang out with the characters a little longer.

This is not to say it’s a perfect film.  The most glaring weakness is Seth MacFarlane.  I think I understand what his character is supposed to be, but it’s rather muddled, and his fake British accent is simply not good enough for a live-action movie (might work for a cartoon, but not here); unless, of course, it was supposed to be fake, but I never got any indication of that.  In a similar vein, I felt like we should have gotten a little more from Sebastian Stan’s character.  I don’t really have an issue with his performance, per se, and perhaps at some point there was a longer cut of the movie where he was featured more, but ultimately he just feels wasted.

But hey, why focus on the bad when there’s so much good?

First and foremost, Channing Tatum as Jimmy Logan is utterly charming.  You can’t help but root for him.  For an actor I didn’t really have an opinion on until the past few years, he has come on strong with roles in Foxcatcher, The Hateful Eight, and Hail, Cesar!, and this film is no exception (I think I might actually be looking forward to Gambit at this point).

On top of that, you’ve got a bunch of fantastic supporting performances, namely from Adam Driver and Riley Keough as the fellow Logan siblings, not to mention the James Bond-sized elephant in the room: Daniel Craig.

Prior to Logan Lucky, I don’t think I’d ever seen a Daniel Craig role that wasn’t dark and brooding in some way, so his performance here is a downright revelation (not to mention his reciprocal accent is head and shoulders above MacFarlane’s).  He’s an absolute scene-stealer.

Also, they don’t get a whole lot of screen time, but Katherine Waterston and Dwight Yoakum do very well with what little they’re given (insert seasoning/food metaphor here).

Quite simply, Logan Lucky is some slick Country-fried fun with likable characters and a classic heist plot in an interesting location.  It might not always be perfectly paced, but it made me laugh quite a bit (which is the end goal of any comedy), and at times it was even a little heartwarming.

And, with a PG-13 rating, it’s good for date nights and family nights alike (as long as your kids are old enough to appreciate it).

Rating: ★★★★½ (out of five)

P.S.
No stinger scene, but the credits are pretty short (relatively speaking), and there’s a funny disclaimer at the end.