Biopic

Battle of the Sexes

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Battle of the Sexes
  • IMDb: link

Battle of the Sexes Blu-ray reviewBattle of the Sexes works as a kind of CliffsNotes version of events leading up to the inter-gender 1973 tennis match between women’s champion Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and aging men’s star Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell). The script by Simon Beaufoy offers glimpses at both players’ home lives, marital and emotional issues, and eventually the match itself. While Battle of the Sexes touches on the creation of the WTA and the rivalry with the men’s tour, I’d have preferred more insight here and overall better framing of the historical importance of the match.

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The Most Overrated Movie of 2016

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Jackie
  • IMDb: link

Jackie movie reviewThe goal of a biopic is to offer insight into its subject, to explore the life of an individual and share something new or interesting about its central character. By that definition Jackie is a complete failure. The only takeaway from director Pablo Larraín‘s film is that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was upset by the assassination of her husband. That’s hardly worth the price of admission (let alone the film’s $9,000,000 budget). Natalie Portman may shine in the role, but to what purpose?

Oscar-bait, the film is notable only for its recreation of the time period and for Portman’s peformance. The problem with the former is the glamour is wasted as window dressing on a film without a reason to exist (other than grab Portman some statuettes). The problem with the later is Portman’s performance is undercut by both a questionable accent and Noah Oppenheim‘s script which is never sure who Jackie was, as it jumps from portraying a vapid creature out of touch with reality (as seen in the flashbacks) to a woman of cunning and guile completely controlling an interview with a journalist (Billy Crudup) looking to find the real Mrs. Kennedy.

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Bleed for This

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Bleed for This
  • IMDb: link

Bleed for This

It would be easy to look at Bleed for This and dismiss it as nothing more than another inspirational sports movie adapting a real-life athlete’s adversity into a feature film. However, that would be a mistake. Bleed for This is better than I expected as the tale of world-champion boxer Vinny Pazienza‘s (Miles Teller) rise, fall, and struggle to reclaim his dream turns out to be worth all the sports cliches you find in such films.

Offering 40 minutes of Vinny’s life before the accident which nearly paralyzed him, writer/director Ben Younger gives the audience plenty of time to learn about Vinny and the unwavering determination which will play a crucial role over the rest of the film.

While some supporting characters outside the boxing ring get the short shaft (Vinny’s girlfriends appear and disappear without ever letting us learn more than a name – if that), the movie hangs on Teller’s performance, and he pulls it off with aplomb. Younger also makes several interesting decisions throughout the film in how he shoots boxing sequences (getting us into the action without shaky cam) and even in one memorable moment dropping all sound completely except for the sound of each punch landing.

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Legend

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Legend
  • IMDb: link

LegendBased on the lives of English gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray (both played here by Tom Hardy), director Brian Helgeland’s film is as unengaging a crime drama as I can remember. I gave the film multiple chances but other than offer Hardy the chance to play dual roles the movie has nothing going for it. In terms of nuts and bolts, Legend is competently made but lacks the heart to make us care about either of the Kray brothers or those whose lives were effected by their choices.

Helgeland wastes a solid supporting cast (Emily Browning, David Thewlis, Christopher Eccleston, and Chazz Palminteri) on a story that doesn’t have much to say about gangsters we haven’t seen before. Legend isn’t an awful film, just a lifeless one (which in someways is actually worse than a truly awful film which can, on occasion, be entertaining for all the wrong reasons).

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