Drama

Jerry Maguire

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Jerry Maguire
  • IMDb: link

Jerry Maguire Blu-ray reviewWriter/director Cameron Crowe‘s quotable film is re-released on a 20th Edition Blu-ray set. Tom Cruise stars as sports agent Jerry Maguire whose late night epiphany about working better for fewer clients (and less money) costs him his job, his fiance (Kelly Preston), and all but a single client. Leaving his firm and striking out on his own, Jerry builds a new life supporting the difficult wide receiver (Cuba Gooding Jr., who took home and Oscar for his role as Rod Tidwell) and falling for the one woman (Renée Zellweger) and her son (Jonathan Lipnicki) who follow him to his new enterprise.

20 years later the film proves to still be highly entertaining. Cruise and Gooding are terrific, her role would make the fresh-faced Zellweger a star, and young Jonathan Lipnicki is ridiculously cute. Schmaltzy at times but with a big heart, the film is worth seeking out if you haven’t seen it in awhile. It may not be Cruise’s best, but it’s certainly one of his most watchable films.

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Bambi

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

Bambi Blu-ray reviewReleased 75 years ago, Walt Disney’s Bambi offers the coming of age story of a white-tailed deer named Bambi and friends Thumper and Flower. Because of the age of the characters varies ove the course of the story, multiple actors were brought in to do the voice work of Bambi and his friends. Although an older Bambi has a on-screen rival for the affections of his lady love, Disney goes a bit darker here with the looming threat of Man being the true villain of the film responsible for both the death of Bambi’s mother and later the fire which threatens the entire forest at the end of the film.

Even with a focus on making the animals more realistic, Disney still lost money on the feature in its initial release. However, it made it’s money back (and then some) with several additional theatrical releases over the years. Because of its darker themes the film was met with a mixed reception initially, but has earned it’s spot over the years as one of the best animated films ever made.

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A Four-Course Meal of Pretentious White Privilege

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Dinner
  • IMDb: link

The Dinner movie review

Writer/director Oren Moverman‘s film, based on the novel by Herman Koch, is a claustrophobic acting exercise that would seem to be more at home on stage than in a movie theater. The film centers around four unlikable people brought together at a ridiculously posh restaurant discussing, or rather talking around and avoiding discussing, events of recent days concerning a horrible act committed by the two couples’ teenage sons. The more time we spend with the two couples and their sons the less likely we are to care what happens to anyone involved.

Our cast includes Congressman Stan Lohman (Richard Gere) and his second wife Katelyn (Rebecca Hall), the politician’s brother Paul (Steve Coogan), a former teacher suffering from some form of early-onset dementia, and his wife Claire (Laura Linney). Other characters come and go including various wait staff (Michael Chernus, among others), Stan’s ex-wife (Chloë Sevigny), and the politician’s aides (most notably Adepero Oduye), but everyone aside from these four core characters (including the flashbacks to the boys themselves) prove to be superfluous to the plot.

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Donald Cried

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Donald Cried
  • IMDb: link

Donald Cried movie reviewCreating an small independent movie centered around two generally unlikable characters presents some problems. In Donald Cried, Peter Latang (Jesse Wakeman) returns to his the home town he’s avoided like the plague for more than two decades to deal with the the recent death of his grandmother. With no other family in sight, and having lost his wallet somewhere along the journey, Peter is forced to enlist the help of his old friend Donald (Kris Avedisian). Hoping to squeeze some cash and a ride to the funeral home from Donald, Peter is quickly guilted into spending the entire day with the odd man.

A glimpse into Donald’s sad life only exacerbates the situation and makes it harder for Peter to extricate himself from the clingy Donald, even after leaning that for the past few years Donald had been masquerading as Peter at his grandmother’s retirement home.

The strength of Avedisian’s film, who wrote, directed, and saved the choicest part for himself, is we can see all these situations playing out in real life. Donald is a quirky loner, but knows how to use that to his advantage.

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Logan

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

Logan movie reviewFinally learning that bigger isn’t always better (see X-Men: Apocalypse and X-Men: The Last Stand), 20th Century Fox has moved away from the super-sized team film. With both Logan and Legion (FX’s new series based around the X-Men character of the same name), the X-Men universe is taking some interesting turns with a darker tone and smaller character-driven stories. Logan may not be as entertaining as Deadpool, but it definitely ranks as one of the better X-Men films (and easily the best of the Wolverine standalone movies).

Set more than a decade in the future, Logan gives us a Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) we haven’t seen before. Inspired by Old Man Logan, the Logan we see has aged considerably since the events of Days of Future Past and his healing factor has begun to fail him. In a world where mutants are all but extinct, Logan works as a limousine driver making ends meet and keeping himself, Caliban (Stephen Merchant), and Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) out of the limelight. Of course that changes when a young girl (Dafne Keen) with very similar abilities to his own shows up on his doorstep hunted by those who want her dead.

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