Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Ron Livingston

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5/14/2018

Tully (2018) - Theron delivers in Reitman/Cody's candid motherhood dramedy

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+ Most Undeserved Flop of the Year

Charlize Theron as the protagonist who's swamped by motherhood and here has it virtually plastering her face on this lovely poster for Jason Reitman's Tully

Marlo is already the mother of two, of which son Jonah is especially challenging, and is now about to give birth to her and her husband's third, an unplanned child. Somewhere along the way, Marlo has lost connection with herself, as a sprightly night-nanny appears to help her out.

Tully is written by Diablo Cody (Young Adult (2011)) and directed as the 7th feature by great Quebecker filmmaker Jason Reitman (Labor Day (2013)). Tully is the name of the somewhat mysterious, whimsical free-spirit night-nanny, who comes to the rescue for Marlo.
Charlize Theron (Prometheus (2012)) gives a simultaneously courageous, moving and frightening powerhouse performance as Marlo, one that makes it feel as if she really must know about the burdensome plights of motherhood personally, (she undoubtedly does, though not the biological aspect, as her own two children are adopted.) The degree to which Marlo has gotten out of whack mentally and personally sticks deeper than we may think initially, and Theron's wild performance hints at this several times, where red lamps ought to be blinking for the discerning viewer. - Although we constantly also want to give her the benefit of the doubt, as also seems to be the case with her nice but too passive husband, (finely played by Ron Livingston (The End of the Tour (2015)).) Theron touched on the same miserable state in The Burning Plain (2008), but in this case there is more depth and connection to her desperation. SPOILER Tully takes a surprising turn in its third act, which highlights the maternal depression as a phenomenon that needs to be taken really serious, and it makes Marlo's inner pain pungent and moving; becoming a parent isn't only a blessing, it is also a process in which you lose portions of what you thought you were, and Tully resides in this perplexing area with weight and integrity.
Mackenzie Davis (Plato's Reality Machine (2013)) is delightful as the ever-changing, pro-active, insightful Tully, and Asher Miles Fallica (Ozark (2017), TV-series) and Lia Frankland (Betting on the Bride (2017), TV movie) are both natural and lovely as the siblings.
Tully also has several funny moments. One of the best: A running scene, in which Theron, - who reportedly gained an impressive 50 pounds for the role, - overtakes a younger woman, only to collapse before the girl, who seems genuinely disturbed at the sight. Reitman is also a terrific, smart montage filmmaker, and Tully has a great montage of the doldrums of motherhood, and a later car sequence to several Cyndi Lauper tracks. - What a sweet delight that was, and what a great, debate-inspiring film Tully is. It may be especially meaningful for couples dealing with the throngs of parenthood together. Thank you, Reitman and Co.!

Related posts:

2018 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2018 in films - according to Film Excess

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown (but Reitman, Diablo and Theron's latest, and similarly scoped collaboration, Young Adult (2011), had a 12 mil. cost, so we can assume Tully's cost to be in that neighborhood)
Box office: 5.5 mil. $ and counting
= Too early to say - but has a long way to go to become profitable theatrically
[Tully premiered 23 January (Sundance Film Festival) and runs 96 minutes. Cody has stated that she wrote the script as a form of therapy after her third birth, unable to write the Barbie film she was supposed to be working on, and that Tully saved her life. Shooting took place in New York and Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada from September 2016 - ?. Theron has stated that it took her 1½ years to get rid of the 50 pounds again, during which she also experienced her first depression. The film opened #6 to a small 3.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it is playing right now. It will soon open in Sweden (18 May), Indonesia (23 May), Brazil and Thailand (24 May), Germany and Greece (31 May), Norway (1 June), Portugal (7 June), Finland (11 June), France (27 June), Italy (28 June), Belgium (11 July) and Russia (12 July). With a Fall release, Tully might have been an Oscar contender with a stronger domestic gross, but Reitman is scheduled to return later this year with The Front Runner (2018), which may be his big awards bid; it is a political biopic led by Hugh Jackman. Theron returned in Gringo (2018). Tully is certified fresh at 87 % with a 7.7 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Tully?

1/12/2014

Band of Brothers - TV mini-series (2001) - WWII-sacrifice and -comradeship portrayed with skill and integrity

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Neal McDonough on this poster for Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's Band of Brothers

QUICK REVIEW:

Most episodes in this HBO-miniseries begin with clips from interviews of real soldiers from the 101st Airborne Easy company that is the subject of the series. They tell their memories to the eternal vacuum of posterity, enveloped in black space, to an unmoving, observing camera and are often quite moving. It gives Brothers the right spirit and sets the appropriate mood for this great WWII-show. A mood of importance, of the vast wingspans of history and of great sacrifice.
Band of Brothers is a series about sacrifice and unity during terrible trials.
In spite of the men's differences and strives, they always have each others backs, and that is what is so fantastically uplifting about Band of Brothers.
We have to praise ourselves very lucky that two of the very few people on earth who could make such an incredibly ambitious and expensive project with the required skill and integrity here actually have: Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips (2013)) and Steven Spielberg (Shindler's List (1993)), who had previously collaborated on Saving Private Ryan (1998), along with a vast team of very talented writers and directors. Brothers was the most expensive mini-series ever made at the time.
Episode 1 is about the training in Currahee, Georgia, where the newly formed regiment are trained under the incompetent lieutenant Sobel (David Schwimmer (Friends (1994-2004)) does well), and after this, the group are thrown off to Normandy and D-day.
The episodes of Brothers distinguish themselves by being different from one another; they tell different stories and therefore do not drown in the same dreary pot of awful war.
Episode 3 concerns itself with private Blithe (perfectly played by Marc Warren (Shine (1996))), who suffers a frightening hysterical blindness.
The soldiers' experiences and traumas are taken seriously, and the horrors of war are portrayed with impressive precision.
We follow regiment-leader Winters and his colleague-friend Nixon throughout the series, played by Damian Lewis (Homeland (2011-13)) and Ron Livingston (The Conjuring (2013)), and they form a good core for Brothers. Midway through, the series loses a bit of pace, but it is soon picked up again in episode 6, Bastogne, where we see the atrocities of the icy-cold forest in the Ardennes. We are taken through the unbearable waiting days of war, experience Winters' brave decisions before episode 9, Why We Fight, an exceptionally moving, lump-in-your-throat look at the brothers' discovery of a concentration camp. The horrors are indescribable; the recreation admirable and one of the finest hours in the series.
In the last episode, Points, Easy company takes the Nazi headquarter known as the Eagle's Nest, and we glimpse into the futures of the men. Their reverence towards each other is both striking, gripping and beautiful.
All of this happens to the stunning music of Michael Kamen (Open Range (2003)) and powerful images and effects, making Band of Brothers a strong experience and a prized accompany to the catalog of shared human history recreated in the cinema annals.
Bravo.
The series was followed in 2010 by The Pacific, which focuses on the Marine Corp's operations in the Pacific in WWII.

Related reviews:

Tom Hanks: Philadelphia (1993) - AIDS and homosexuality acknowledged in great drama
Ron Livingston: The Conjuring (2013) - Best horror film in 7 years
Steven Spielberg: A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) - A robot fairy tale with both heart and mind
Twilight Zone The Movie (1983) - Fear takes many forms in tragedy-struck anthology
1941 (1979) - Spielberg's bizarre 'comedy spectacular' sinks like a rock

Watch the series' trailer here

Budget: 125 mil. $

How do you find Band of Brothers?
Is there any better war series in existence?

9/08/2013

The Conjuring (2013) - Wan and Co. triumph with spectacular horror

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+ Best Horror Movie of the Year

A noose from an old crooked tree and an eerie supernatural reflection in the foliage defines this effective poster for James Wan's The Conjuring

I started being a little interested in seeing The Conjuring, when the story of its MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) trial was reported: A PG-13 rating was denied the film, which prompted the creators, as is common, to ask what they could remove to get the sought after rating that allows the lucrative young teen crowds in to see it in cinemas. The answer they got was that there were no particular scenes that they could cut, because the film over-all was simply 'too scary.'
When the film came out to loud critical and audience thrills everywhere, I knew I had to see it.
And The Conjuring doesn't disappoint: It really is scary. The scariest horror to come out in years.

Paranormal investigators marrieds Ed and Lorraine Warren come to the Perron family's new home on Rhode Island in 1971, when several supernatural disturbances indicate that the house is haunted.

The film is a haunted house story as most of us have seen more than a few times before, but ghosts and demons never grow old, just as love or sex, and the packaging here is so tempting and well-made that most will find themselves inescapably falling into old traps, getting goose bumps and tightened muscles, and probably even jumping out of their seats a few times.
Great Malaysian-born Australian director James Wan (Stygian (2000)) already has an ardent horror following due to his preceding great horror Saw (2004) and frightening haunted house horror Insidious (2010), both spectacular and cheaply produced awe-inspiring, exceptional money-makers. The Conjuring is written by twin brothers Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes (Jumping Ship (2001, TV movie, both)).
The Conjuring relies on old gimmicks such as banging doors, winds, darkness etc. to a great degree, but it also mixes in other great horror devices such as the possessed doll, the witch, Satan, a demon, animals dying etc. And this in a story that actually works. This is not least due to great actors: Vera Farmiga (Mind the Gap (2004)), Patrick Wilson (Aquaman (2018)), Lili Taylor (Factotum (2005)) and Ron Livingston (Standoff (2006-07)). Taylor I had never thought I would see in a role or a film like this, but she does great, and they all elevate the film with their sound performances. The child actors, - the family have 5 daughters, - are good but do 'squeak' towards the less than natural once of twice. Nothing glaring but assessing The Conjuring comes to looking for very minor issues, because it is so greeat.
The camera work (cinematographer John R. Leonetti (The Scorpion King (2002))) is often intricate, elegant in a classical sense and impressively achieved, mostly following characters' movements soaring-like through the house. The sound department makes use of sudden, very loud noises and complete silence at other times. - All effectively. And the house, tree and the doll are also all designed with enjoyable special care and thought behind them. - They are all very scary. And The Conjuring's true-story claims naturally don't diminish its effect. (Farmiga and Wilson worked with the actual Lorraine Warren as preparation for the film, (Ed Warren had passed away.))
The Conjuring is a wicked good time.

If you trust my review, you really don't have to see the trailer, which just might spoil some great moments in the film for you, but here it is

Cost: 20 mil. $
Box office: 319.4 mil. $
= Mega-hit (returned 15.97 times its cost)
[The Conjuring premiered 8 June (Nocturna, Madrid International Fantastic Film Festival, Spain) and runs 112 minutes. The Warrens experiences was also the foundation of The Amityville Horror (1977, novel) and the resulting film franchise (21 films 1979-2018). Filming took 38 days from February - April 2012 in North Carolina. It was done chronologically, and Lorraine Warren visited the set. The film opened #1 to a 41.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weeks in the top 5 (#2-#4) and grossed 137.4 mil. $ (43 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Mexico with 18.9 mil. $ (5.9 %) and the UK with 16.2 mil. $ (5 %). Lawsuits concerning the house that is the basis of the film's current owners concerning satanic vandalism and invasions stemming from the film as well as a copyrights lawsuit has been quieted down by Warner Bros.. The film was ignored for all major awards. It has so far spurred one good sequel The Conjuring 2 (2016), with returning Wan, Wilson and Farmiga, as well as successful spin-offs Annabelle (2014), Annabelle: Creation (2017) and The Nun (2018). Wan returned with Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013). Farmiga returned in Closer to the Moon (2014), Wilson in Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013), Taylor in 4 TV-series before theatrically in Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015), and Livingston in The Sidekick (2013, short) and theatrically in Parkland (2013). The Conjuring is certified fresh at 86 % with a 7.2/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Conjuring?

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this month ... (6-25)