Molly's Game (2017) - Chastain is luminous in Sorkin's great true-crime debut

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Star Jessica Chastain in an extreme close-up in B/W and shades looks cool AF on the poster for Aaron Sorkin's Molly's Game

 

Molly Bloom's career as an Olympic skier collapses with an accident, and a few years later she gets arrested by a small army of FBI agents, now as the leader the country's highest stakes illegal poker game.

Molly's Game is written and directed by debuting great New-Yorker filmmaker Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men (1992, writer)), adapting the same-titled 2014 memoir by the real-life Molly Bloom.

Jessica Chastain (The Color of Time (2012)) is out of this world in the complex, riveting part as the extremely driven and intelligent Bloom, SPOILER who eventually finds herself in over her head in pursuit of a goal that begins to fade in the horizon. She is radiant here as the tough survivor. Idris Elba (Thor (2011)) is good as the sexy attorney who takes her case despite its legally dubious elements.

Sorkin relates the story with dense dialog and a high pace. Molly's Game is grand in width, comparable to a down-played style-wise recent film in the Martin Scorsese tradition, though with a female protagonist, which Sorkin's great script and Chastain's flawless performance never makes a sensational point in and of itself.

There is fun (Chris O'Dowd! (The Program (2015))), dramatically satisfying moments, - Kevin Costner (Dragonfly (2002)) is good as Bloom's psychologist father, - excellent lighting, editing and more. Molly's Game is a splendid piece of work that is more than it may appear.

Related posts:

Aaron Sorkin: The day after the day after ... the 2018 Oscars

Oscars 2018: Predictions and Film Excess' favorites

Moneyball (2011) - Miller makes compelling baseball movie history (co-writer) 

The Social Network (2010) - Fincher's a-hole biopic leaves me cold (and more anti-Facebook than ever) (writer)

A Few Good Men (1992) or, You Can't Handle the Truth! (writer)

 Watch a trailer for the film here 

 

Cost: 30 mil.$

Box office: 59.2 mil. $

= Big flop (returned 1.97 times its cost)

[Molly's Game premiered 8 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 141 minutes. Bloom approached Sorkin with her book on her own, as he was her favorite writer. Shooting took place in Ontario, including Toronto, and in New York from November 2016 - January 2017. The film opened #19 to a 1.1 mil. $ first weekend in 271 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #7 and in 1,708 theaters (different weeks) and grossed 28.7 mil. $ (48.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 5.8 mil. $ (9.8 %) and France with 4.3 mil. $ (7.3 %). The film was nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, lost to James Ivory for Call Me By Your Name. It was also nominated for 2 Golden Globes, a BAFTA, and several other honors. Sorkin returned with The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020, VOD). Chastain returned in Woman Walks Ahead (2017); Elba in The Mountain Between Us (2017); Costner in The Highwaymen (2019). Molly's Game is certified fresh at 82 % with a 7.10/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Molly's Game?

A Few Good Men (1992) or, You Can't Handle the Truth!

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Swept in the red, white and blue, this star-lining poster for Rob Reiner's A Few Good Men effectively showcases the film's impressive pedigree

A suspicious murder of a Marine in the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba is attempted buried with a superficial, young military lawyer, until his female superior insists that he probes this potential rotten apple further.

A Few Good Men is written by Aaron Sorkin (The American President (1995)), based on his own 1989 Broadway script, with contributions by William Goldman (All the President's Men (1976)), and directed by New-Yorker master filmmaker Rob Reiner (Stand By Me (1986)), whose 7th film it is. The fine script keeps focus on the ball, - the sneaking romance between the two young leads thankfully never gestates, - and Tom Cruise (Risky Business (1983)) and Jack Nicholson (Man Trouble (1992)) are both fantastic here, raising the film to greatness.
A Few Good Men's handsome cast also includes Demi Moore (Passion of Mind (2000)), Kevin Pollak (Three Christs (2017)), J.T. Walsh (Hidden Agenda (1999)), Cuba Gooding Jr. (Zoolander (2001)) and Kevin Bacon (My Dog Skip (2000)). A Few Good Men treads right on the edge of what seems realistically credible with some of the lines that get spouted by the energetic cast, but it stays good, and in closing this is a remarkably effective and entertaining high-stakes drama.

Related posts:

Rob Reiner: The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) - A helluva movie! (actor) 
The Bucket List (2007) or, We All Deserve Better
Misery (1990) - Bates ignites an iconic villain in Reiner's rock-solid King adaptation 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 33 mil. - 40 mil. $ (different reports)
Box office: 243.2 mil. $
= Huge hit (returned at least 6.08 times its cost)
[A Few Good Men premiered 2 December (New York) and runs 138 minutes. Sorkin reportedly gathered ideas and notes for the film on cocktail napkins while working as a New York bartender, eventually selling the script for "well into six figures". Nicholson was paid 5 mil. $ for his performance, and has stated; "It was one of the few times when it was money well spent." Shooting took place in California, including Los Angeles, and in Washington DC from October 1991 - January 1992. The film opened #1 to a 15.5 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent the next 2 weeks atop as well, following with 6 more weeks in the top 5 (#2-#1-#2-#2-#4-#5), grossing 141.3 mil. $ (58.1 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert gave the film a 2.5/4 star review, translating to two notches lower than this one. The film was nominated for 4 Oscars, winning none: It lost Best Supporting Actor (Nicholson) to Gene Hackman in Unforgiven, Editing to Unforgiven, Picture to Unforgiven and Sound to The Last of the Mohicans. It was also nominated for 5 Golden Globes, won a National Board of Review award and other honors. Reiner returned with North (1994). Moore returned in Indecent Proposal (1993), Cruise in The Firm (1993), Nicholson in Hoffa (1992). A Few Good Men is certified fresh at 82 % with a 7/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of A Few Good Men?

The Social Network (2010) - Fincher's a-hole biopic leaves me cold (and more anti-Facebook than ever)

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Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg behind the huge tagline for David Fincher's The Social Network

 

The Social Network tells the story of how a group of assholes created the platform that made the rest of the world a bit more socially distanced, unsympathetic, frat-boy-like assholes like themselves: Facebook.

The film is written by Aaron Sorkin (Moneyball (2011)), based on (but apparently more accurately; written around the same time as) Ben Mezrich's (Reaper (1998)) The Accidental Billionaires (2009), and directed by Coloradoan master filmmaker David Fincher (Se7en (1995)). Like many of Fincher's films, The Social Network is deeply competently made and phallocentric. He brandishes a peanut-sized heart here with a film that doesn't really awaken any emotions, despite dislike for several of its characters. It races towards the finish line and in doing so feels pretty shallow, not unlike the invention it portrays.

The actors do fine jobs, although it is sad to watch Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and the Whale (2005)) as alienated and humanly blunted as we get him here. Armie Hammer (J. Edgar (2011)) plays a pair of twins, which are the film's most sympathetic and funniest characters.

The Social Network is without a doubt among the most overrated films of the year.

 

Related reviews:

 

David Fincher: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) - Fincher's Nordic noir is technically astute but overlong and redundant

Alien 3 (1992) or, The Monsters Go to Jail!

Watch a teaser trailer for the film here

Cost: 40 mil. $

Box office: 224.9 mil. $

= Huge hit

[The Social Network premiered September 24 (New York Film Festival) and runs 120 minutes. Sorkin began writing and researching based on a 14-page book proposal, while Mezrin was also writing his book. Filming took place in Massachusetts, Maryland, California and England, beginning in October 2009. The film opened #1 to a 22.4 mil. $ first weekend, staying atop for another week and spending a total of four weeks in the top 5 in North America, where it grossed 96.9 mil. $ (43.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan with 16.9 mil. $ (7.5 %) and the UK with 16.8 mil. $ (7.5 %). Several people portrayed in the film, including Zuckerberg, found that it was historically inaccurate, especially in upping the drama of the lives of the main characters. The film got nominated for 8 Oscars: It won for Best Adapted Screenplay, Score and Editing. It lost Best Picture to The King's Speech, Actor (Eisenberg) to King's Speech (Colin Firth), Directing to King's Speech (Tom Hooper), Cinematography to Inception and Sound Mixing also to Inception. It was also nominated for 6 Golden Globes, winning 4, and for 6 BAFTAs, winning 3. It was on at least 78 critics' top 10 list of the year, topping 22 (including Roger Ebert's), reportedly the most for any film of the year. In its first week out on DVD and Blu-ray, it made an additional 13.4 mil. $ on that. The Social Network is certified fresh at 96 % with a 9 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Social Network?

Moneyball (2011) - Miller makes compelling baseball movie history

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+ Best Sports Movie of the Year

Brad Pitt portrays Oakland Athletics' general manager Billy Beane in Bennett Miller's Moneyball

Billy Beane is the man tasked with getting the free-falling Oakland Athetics baseball team back in winning shape without more money in a sport that has acquired ballooned monster budgets. Together with an economist, Beane finds a new way to play - and win - ball.

Even if you don't understand baseball, (which I can't profess that I do), Moneyball works. Steve Zaillian (Schindler's List (1993)) and Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing (1999-06)) wrote the Oscar-nominated script, based on Michael Lewis' (The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game (2006)) non-fiction book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (2003), and great New York-director Bennett Miller (Capote (2005)) has made a great film out of it.
Beane's struggle and his gamble is staged with high stakes, and, of course, the core story of getting a team of outcasts to start winning, against all odds, is gripping material. Solid work marks Moneyball's production, led by a perfectly cast, Oscar-nominated Brad Pitt (Troy (2004)). The cast also includes fine turns from Oscar-nominated Jonah Hill (The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)), Chris Pratt (Jurassic World (2015)) as an unsure player, Spike Jonze (Three Kings (1999)), and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt (2008)), who is good as usual, as the team's dissatisfied coach.

Related posts:

Bennett Miller: 2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Capote (2005) - The writing of one of the 20th century's finest non-fiction crime novels comes to life

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 50 mil. $
Box office: 110.2 mil. $
= Flop
[Columbia Pictures bought the rights to Lewis' book in 2004. Pitt committed to the film in 2007, and Steven Soderbergh was about to direct the film in 2009, when, days before shooting was scheduled to start, Sony put production on hold and got Miller in instead of Soderbergh for a summer 2010 shoot. Moneyball premiered at Toronto and was warmly reviewed, making many especially American Top 10 lists of the year and 6 Oscar nominations: For Best Picture, Actor, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing and Sound Mixing. - It won none. The film followed its 19.5 mil. $ domestic opening weekend to a 75.6 mil. $ gross (68.6 % of the total gross.) Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan (11.4 mil. $/10.3 %) and Australia (5.3 mil. $/4.8 %). Moneyball is certified fresh at 94 % with an 8 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Moneyball?