I'd only heard of this film recently, and I have to say that it was a really deeply intensive look at teen suicide. The two leads, Gabriel Sunday and Brooke Nevin, were particularly impressive in their roles. This film really pulled no punches, nor did it offer false hope or non-existent solutions to a problem that plagues many societies. It simply looked at the effects of suicidality in a particular teen population w/out even necessarily delving too deep into the causes, since they are so variant. This film was well-made, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in viewing this problem from the outside-in.
I've just finished watching this season, and the problem I'm having w/ it is the problem I w/ all shows of this type: Whenever time-travel or magic is involved, anything can and will happen over the course of a season, but it can all be undone in 30 seconds by traveling back in time or using magic to sidestep the consequences. It makes the entire show hardly worth watching, as there's no real drama or suspense, b/c everything can be reverted back to the way it was or, at least, to a version prior to cataclysmic events having taken place. It just comes across as a really lazy way to write a show.
I can't believe that a movie was made about this absolute and utter failure of a human being. He worshipped at the altar of a murderer and human trafficker, then tried following in his footsteps. What a complete jackass. The world's an exponentially better place w/out him.
Warning: Spoilers ahead
This was a movie that didn't need to be made. It's designed to be a film about overcoming the odds and accomplishing something that everyone thought was nearly impossible. The problem is, there's no one to feel good for. Both the protagonists are more antagonistic and not in an anti-hero sort of way. They're just both incredibly unlikeable.
First, you have Sam Rockwell's character, who was wrongly convicted of having convicted a murder he didn't commit. The problem is, he's violent and wildly unpredictable. While witnesses against him may have lied about him having confessed to committing the crime at the behest of the district attorney and cops, it was evident that he was, at the very least, a domestic abuser. The movie also showed him assaulting a man in a bar. In other words, it was quite clear how he got caught up in all of this due to his previous interactions w/ the cops and his reputation around town. While that doesn't make what happened to him right, it also doesn't make him a decent human being worthy of having his story told.
The main character of the film is Hilary Swank's character, the sister of Sam Rockwell's character. She goes to law school specifically to be able to work on her brother's case. The problem here is that she is so single-minded, she essentially sacrifices her life and that of her family in order to see this through. And, anyone who offers a differing opinion than hers is met w/ an anger uncalled for given the precipitating factor. She operates on threats and intimidation, and while her end-goal might be admirable, her methodology leaves a lot to be desired.
There was one last thing that really struck me as odd and gave me an indication that even the filmmakers knew that they'd made a mistake in choosing this material. At the very end of the film, there's an epilogue that crawls the screen explaining a bit about the aftermath of the story. However, a glaring omission in this epilogue is the fact that the focus of this story, Sam Rockwell's character, died six months after being exonerated. By intentionally omitting this pertinent information, it leaves behind a feeling of disingenuousness. I have a feeling that had chosen to include it, viewers might have felt that the entire effort of Hilary Swank's character was all for naught, b/c he died so soon after being released from prison.
While the acting is really top-notch, it doesn't help the story in any meaningful way. There are a great number of real-life stories of wrongful incarceration that deserve attention more so than this particular story.
The casting for this was bad enough, but add in the mouth-breathing dialogue, and it's astonishing that it took five so-called screenwriters to put this garbage on a waste of good paper. The premise alone made this venture pointless; Middle-Eastern terrorists show up at a beachside vacation spot, and begin indiscriminately shooting people? This may be the single dumbest premise I've ever seen in a major motion picture. This was made-for-broadcast-television bad. Actually, in fact, it was worse than that.
I'm 20 minutes in, and for the past 10 minutes, I've been thinking, "Who wrote this weak script? Is this really the best idea that the studio could come up w/ to kickstart a movie monster franchise?" The melodrama from Annabelle Wallis is difficult to stomach, especially when they find the crypt. I can't imagine getting through two hours of this dreck.
It wasn't the most memorable finale ever, but it also didn't need to be. When you have an ensemble cast this size, it's difficult to incorporate all 11 main players in a heartfelt goodbye that encapsulates everyone's feelings of family, togetherness, and finality. After having watched this, I read an interview w/ co-creators Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd, where they explained that they were both fans of finales, where the characters were saying goodbye, b/c that's what the audience was doing, as well, and I agree w/ this premise.
The last montage was of the camera panning over framed pictures of all the characters taken from the past 11 years, finally settling on a family portrait taken in the season one finale w/ their white outfits splattered w/ mud. This was the only keepsake Christopher Lloyd took from the set, fittingly saying of it, "I thought that if we had to land on one image, that's a good one because it is sort of metaphorical: Families are messy, but beautiful at the same time."
This is absolutely horrific. It's amazing that Craig Robinson was able to escape this dreck that drowned the careers of everyone else involved. I couldn't even make it through 90 seconds of this movie, before I started fast forwarding. t's just unwatchable.
This was a really fine film. Two of the best American actors of their generations, Robert Duvall and Robert Downey, Jr., working off one another's talents throughout the film, along w/ a tremendous supporting cast, made this a compelling journey about family, learning that sometimes the best way to win the battle is not to fight, and realizing that, sometimes, we can go home.
This is literally one of the worst films I've ever had the displeasure to watch. In fact, it was practically unwatchable. The cinematography and direction were awful, the script appears to have been written by someone who doesn't speak English, b/c no one in the world speaks the way these characters spoke in this film, the acting was downright terrible (Kyle MacLachlan is not a good actor, and Dennis Hopper is about as menacing as a declawed kitten), the story is ungodly boring, and the special effects, such that they were, look like a fourth grader's attempt at becoming involved in filmmaking. If I live to be 1000-years-old, I will never understand people's affection for David Lynch.
I would never purposely watch a movie directed by that talentless hack, Michael Bay. And, I had no idea that he'd directed this monstrosity. A few minutes in, I thought to myself, "These jump-cuts are like a goddamn music video. This director sucks!" Of course, I then proceeded to look it up, and sure enough, it's that absolute turd of a director, Michael Bay. I waited another 10 minutes or so, and this neverending car chase was still going on, and I finally turned it off at the 16-minute mark.
Bay's claim to fame was that MTV recognized his work as a music video director. M-fucking-TV. M-16 and Pregnant-TV. Being assigned praise from MTV is a sure sign that you are fucking terrible at what you do. My only question is, what is Ryan Reynolds doing slumming in this cesspool?
The only bright spot in this film was Jamila Velazquez in her portrayal of Berta.
