Written By: Josh Olson, John Brancato, and Halley Gross
Cinematography: Zoe White
Editor: Chris Tonick and Robert Grigsby Wilson
Cast: Jessica Alba, Mark Webber, Anthony Michael Hall, Jake Weary, Tone Bell, Alejandro De Hoyos, Gabriel Basso, Kaiwi Lyman, Nadia Molcho, Peter Monro
A devoted daughter is attempting to figure out the cause of her father’s passing.
I am guessing this was supposed to be Jessica Alba’s comeback film To the big screen after being out of the film world for a while and running her Honest brand.
This definitely was not the right project as it seems like a Netflix movie that even one of their bigger stars Jennifer Lopez would turn down that is how disappointing this movie is. I’m wondering if they had the script and tried to sell it to Alba as her return to movies but not tell her that probably Jennifer Lopez turned it down as well as another list of stars I mean Netflix as an action movie starring character actor Allison Janney. That is way more entertaining than this will ever be.
Jessica Alba, who is a great beauty even deserves better than this film. The audience doesn’t even deserve this film. The film is that poor.
In watching the film. I know it takes place in a small town so I know it can’t be too impressive when it comes to the action plotting or visuals but this should still definitely be better.
The action sequences are not that impressive or expressive action and are far short of what one would hope for.
The film is basically unoriginal and doesn’t seem to have any intentional humor. It also has no mystery. You pretty much know how it’s gonna go and offer no surprises in the way that it happens, except that you expect everyone in this film the characters to be a lot smarter.
Which unfortunately is the quality one has come to expect when it comes to Netflix’s star vehicles.
This is a film, where a character you can tell is gonna be a jerk as he has a stylish mullet. that is derivative and bland that this film is.
What is shocking is that the film is co-written by some noted screenwriters Josh Olson and John Brancato. As well as Halley Gross who has quite a few screenwriting elements under her belt. So I wonder if each tried to make it better by laying on their expertise and somehow it all got simplified.
It’s a good thing. This film didn’t go to the big screen. It would definitely be a disappointment even more than it is here. There is nothing in this film that feels worthy of being on the big screen.
Even while it was fighting for either a bad or worse. as you watch a film with a crap charisma villain, and the characters get to take down a terrorist for extra measure.
This also could’ve ended much quicker. It needs to be so long and also feel that way.
by the end, the only question I had was why do they use the name ghost always for terrorists or assassins? I know maybe it gives a certain visual or maybe informs the audience of their mysterious nature and how easily they can disappear but I think it’s time for Screenwriter to come up with a better name or alias for these types of characters. That was the most interesting aspect of this movie and it was still derivative.
Directed By: Bennett Miller Written By: E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman Cinematography By: Greg Fraser Editor: Jay Cassidy, Stuart Levy and Conor O’Neill
Cast: Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo, Sienna Miller, Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Michael Hall, Guy Boyd, Brett Rice
The greatest Olympic Wrestling Champion brother team joins Team Foxcatcher led by multimillionaire sponsor John E. du Pont as they train for the 1988 games in Seoul – a union that leads to unlikely circumstances.
The film sets a brooding tone from the beginning, Which feels like the air has been let out of the room throughout the film.
Seeing the humiliation and what life is like in his brothers’ shadow. it seems is already its own tragedy of sorts. The story is told stilted yet matter-of-factly. While it seems each gesture even in behavior is presented almost under a microscope as its own action, As far as detail. Proving that in this film everything means something no matter how minor or even if dealt with in an off-handed way. So that the film feels more like a clinical behavioral study with precision angles.
I give the director Bennett Miller accolades for sticking with his singular vision for the film. His style helps not only define the film but showcases his style as well. Which seems to be more clinical and observational.
In this film, it is the deepest we have seen Channing Tatum ever and not quite surprisingly as good as 21 JUMP STREET. Where he proved he could be intentionally funny in a star-making turn. Here he plays the type of character you would expect, but rather than a general type of character here the film gives him nuances and a certain depth. Not letting him fall and not letting him avoid and go into his bag of tricks as an actor. You feel him really being open and raw in this performance. Having to truly work more than ever before in this role.
At first, Steve Carell seems like a stunt casting in his role. He seems to be trying to break out of strictly comedic roles here. Unfortunately, he seems to become more of a slave to the prosthetics used on him. It could also be that they were so distracting it’s hard to pay particular attention to the complexities of his performance. Though as with many comedic actors he plays well in the confines of drama as serious, disturbed, and strange. Almost feels like a Real-Life Version of the strange comedic character Dan Ackroyd played in NOTHING BUT TROUBLE only not as loud.
Just as in DAN IN REAL LIFE and SEEKING A FRIEND AT THE END OF THE WORLD playing a vulnerable character suits him and he attacks the role with more relish. He tries harder. Taking it as a challenge and running with it. More than he does with comedy, which is his natural talent, and more in his training. Not seeking to be one thing or play one note. Showing his range.
Mark Ruffalo is good though his character is already set up as a saint and martyr and he might be playing the person as he actually was. Good-hearted and that is what makes what happens so heartbreaking. Here he gives the character shades and is obviously important to the story. He seems to be the only character who has sense and is a sobering presence to the lunacy of the other main characters dementia of sorts.
Before filming a particularly dark scene, Bennett Miller made Steve Carell write on a piece of paper the thing that he hates the most about himself and then put it in his pocket. Miller told Carell, “Just have it right there, and know that it’s in a place where, if I was a dick, I could just grab it.” According to Miller, the result is the favorite thing that he has put on film.
Because the project took so many years to get off the ground, many actors were considered for the lead roles. Heath Ledger, Ryan Gosling, and Bill Nighy were strongly considered for the lead roles in the early stages of production.
More is said in silence and behavior throughout the film. It’s like a tragic buddy film. As soon as the main character’s relationship is close but ambiguous and never quite fully explained but suggestions are made silently as to the lengths of it.
The film never seems to drop its air of impending doom and tragedy. Setting a chilly mood and tone that never lets up and leaves things implied rather than explained.
Both characters are in a struggle to define themselves and impress family and others by standing on their own and defining themselves separate from how others might see them. Most of all they seem desperate to prove to themselves that they are more than the roles they have been offered in life. Then living up to it. Though one brings it about himself and the person, he is trying to prove himself to is more himself than his brother who is already proud of him. The other seems lost in his own mind to define himself not by actual talent but by what he finds interest in. As he has been given mostly what he has ever wanted and seems not to be that successful at it. But he has a passion it seems to showcase actual work and/or talent.
Eventually, the film leads to strained relations that seem to revolve between the characters at different intervals that keep seeming to mount more and more that you can feel that it is going to surface and bubble over at some point.
When it does it does rather simply and more out of the blue rather than. A showcase or a spectacular scene. I guess it’s like the facts just random and ordinary.
According to Bennett Miller’s comments at screening, a rough cut of the film was more than four hours long.
Steve Carell claimed that according to director Bennett Miller’s wishes there was no joking between takes, and he did not socialize with the co-stars after work.
According to Steve Carell, the real John DuPont was known for even more outlandish behavior than what is shown in the film, but he and director Bennett Miller wanted his madness to be gradually revealed to the audience.
The third act of deep resentment festering until a final act that you know is coming. Though still feels surprising when it happens and is just as senseless in the act as in the reasons.
The film feels downtrodden. It is based on a true story and real events. Though it keeps the story singular. It also makes the film feel barren and an island in of itself.
Too much of the people who love the good life. Go to extremes to feel something new and different. That registers and that they grant in control of to feel accomplishment in themselves. Here no one gets what they set out for, and their grand plan seems to doom them all to places that might have been inevitable but none planned to end up that way.
It’s a tragedy that feels like a boom as it sets the mood. It seems to be more about what is written between the lines though tells you the story fully as it happens. Nothing feels hidden.
The film ultimately comes off as a bit disappointing as we wallow but are given hints yet no definitive answers. The film immerses us in the drama and relationships yet still keeps them in the shadows a bit.
Written & Directed by: John Hughes Cinematography: Matthew F. leonetti Editor: Chris Lebenzon, Scott Wallace & Mark Warner
Cast: Anthony Michael Hall, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, Kelly Lebrock, Bill Paxton, Robert Downey Jr. Robert Rusler, Suzanne Snyder, Judie Aronson, Vernon wells, Michael Berryman, Britt Leach, Wallace Langham
Two high school nerds use a computer program to literally create the perfect woman, but she turns their lives upside down.
This film is a nostalgic favorite for me. That still fills me with joy as I watch it. Even if as I get older I realize how thin the premise is.
I would have to say out of the John Hughes canon this film seems to be his lightest weighted film. As this film just seems more of an escape for him and maybe his audience a film that you could just enjoy and not put any great thought into.
Though just as any coming of age tale. This one still has a lesson to teach about confidence and being yourself. Even if it takes wishes from a beautiful woman as a genie to do it.
This film is total wish fulfillment for teenage boys. As the heroes get all they ever wanted really. They work to a degree to get it but in the most fanciful way. So this film doesn’t come close to any of the realities of Hughes’s previous teen films. As it is more science fiction influenced. As part of the fantasy
One thing that stays constant is the humor. The scenes feel like little skits of their own under the banner of a plot. With teen fantasies thrown in. In a movie where the plot could easily be made into a porn parody
Early groundbreaking performance from bill Paxton as the older brother from hell. Though shows how distinguished a career he has had and as many iconic films and characters he has played. That this his debut is the most remembered and strongest.
The lust and desire the characters and audience has for Kelly lebrock are what also help the film. As the friendly yet ultimately unattainable object and character of desire.
Amazingly the film has nudity but not from her she stays clothed though scantily clad in only a few scenes. As their genie of sorts. Though then again as a fantasy. It makes her more desirable if she stays a mystery.
It’s a shame she never really followed up with a film or role quite as memorable. Which for that generation and generations after who are fans of this fits her defining role. I am Sure also an early model for quite a few a dream girl.
This film seems written for Anthony Michael hall as most of the film allows for his comedic facial expressions, double tales, and comedic bits. Especially in his scenes where he plays drunken. where he seems to be attempting his own version of the classic Richard Pryor Mudbone character.
This showcases that some of the film’s humor is racy by today’s standards and would be viewed as non-politically correct in quite a few scenes.
Mostly Due to language and what seems like a hallmark of John Hughes films of inclusion of minorities by having a scene where the character goes to the more urban side of town. That seems stereotypical but not as insulting as it could be. Except for a scene in National Lampoon’s Vacation, Which as a minor defense was only written by him.
Learned the difference between a nerd and a dork. The Dork fast-talking thinks he is smoother and cooler than he actually is, Nerd is just smart and has trouble following social cues and finds interest in things that aren’t popular and more interested in science and other things to an obsessive degree. Where he feels he must dismantle it to understand it or at least examine to learn all they can.
At the time I Looked up to Anthony Michael hall he was in all my favorite movies at the time. (Usually John Hughes ones) not to mention was more a movie star who was near my age.
It seems like this film is almost like Anthony Michael hall’s audition for Saturday night love along with Robert Downey jr. Who were both cast members for one season. As he is given more to do comedically over the top here.
This film was one of my favorites from the 1980’s teen genre. As it was all more Commercial. As it has some themes of teenage life but is far less emotional and leans more towards fantasy
At the time I was envious and Jealous of the fashion and cars in the film. It made me want to have them in the ’80s and looked forward to when I got older owning them. Especially a Ferrari. Still have a fascination with those cars.
This film is a total of 80’s fantasy wish fulfillment. That works Escapist entertainment. It’s definitely Dated
The story is Frankenstein mixed with a teen fantasy or more like a bride of Frankenstein. Almost like a long-form music video brought to life.
Bill Paxton co-stars in one of his breakout Roles and is truly a comedic highlight.
It has a moralistic lesson of bee icing in yourself as you had what you needed in you all along. As well as getting everything they want in the end.
Reminds you of the excess of the 1980s But still really enjoyable. One of my favorite films of the day watching it now see it’s a weakness but is more harmed by them in my deep-seated nostalgia.
Directed By: Bennett Miller Written By: E. Max Frye & Dan Futterman Cinematography By: Greg Fraser Editor: Jay Cassidy, Stuart Levy and Conor O’Neill
Cast: Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo, Sienna Miller, Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Michael Hall, Guy Boyd, Brett Rice The greatest Olympic Wrestling Champion brother team joins Team Foxcatcher led by multimillionaire sponsor John E. du Pont as they train for the 1988 games in Seoul – a union that leads to unlikely circumstances.
Cut To The Chase 