Foxcatcher (2015)

Title: Foxcatcher (2015)

Director: Bennett Miller

Cast: Channing Tatum, Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, Sienna Miller

Steve Carell has gotten an Oscar Nomination for his performance as John Dupont, the mad man millionaire who shot Olympic wrestler Dave Shultz three times, point blank, for god knows what. It’s one of those crimes where we’ll never really know what happened, because those involved won’t say, so it’s probably some really dark secret thing that they don’t want anyone knowing about, which gets your imagination going as to what really happened. Some say it had something to do with exposing Dupont’s potential homosexuality, others attribute the murder to John Dupont’s schizophrenia and others say he was just high on drugs. Similar to The Wolf of Wall Street (2014), this is the story of a millionaire with enough money to be high all the time, on the drug of his choice. Apparently, one of them was cocaine.

So anyhow, the story is all about how John Dupont, one of the richest men in America, decides he is going to fund the American olympic wrestling team by creating a training compound called ‘Team Foxcatcher’. You see, Dupont was an Olympic wrestling aficionado, so he wanted to back the team up, go for the gold by sponsoring these young guns, he also wanted the glory of being called their ‘coach’, though in reality, he had very limited knowledge of the sport. Things go sour when John Dupont’s schizophrenia or his drug abuse begin to show their ugly face. Will Team Foxcatcher win the gold medal? Can the team hold together when its financial backer is a certified wacko millionaire?

So this is one of those movies that runs on the strength of one particular performance and that’s Steve Carell’s portrayal of John Dupont. Everyone else in the film is great, it’s refreshing to see Channing Tatum trying something serious, and the same goes for Mark Ruffallo who turns in a solid performance as Dave Schultz. The thing with Carell’s performance is that we’re used to seeing him play the goofball Manager of Dunder Mifflin, Scranton branch on The Office. But here he is playing a psycho and it’s a drastic change to be sure. It’s not surprising to see a comedian trying something new, comedians always try to branch out into more serious roles in order to stretch their acting abilities, to grow as an actor. We’ve seen a lot of comedians do this, Bill Murray is a good example, but I guess the biggest example would be Tom Hanks, a straight forward comedian who’s suddenly this serious Oscar Caliber actor who rarely makes a comedy anymore. Will we see Carell leave comedy forever after Foxcatcher? I hope not, to me Carell is such a hilarious actor he should keep making funny movies forever, but of course, an actor wants to expand and grow, so I wouldn't be surprised if he wants to explore the serious/dramatic route for a while.

That's Steve Carrell playing John Dupont on the left, and on the right, the real John Dupont, playing at being a coach for the Olympic Wrestling Team. 

Speaking of the Oscar race, Foxcatcher has been nominated for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. Mark Ruffalo gets the nom for Best Supporting Actor. I think he did a fine performance here playing Dave Schultz, Mark Schultz’s big brother, but he has some stiff competition. The same goes for every category that Foxcatcher is nominated in. If you ask me, Carell and his performance as John Dupont is the only chance Foxcatcher has at winning an Oscar. Even director Bennett Miller, who also directed Capote (2005) and Moneyball (2011) doesn’t have much of a chance against the contenders going up against him. For me, the best director Oscar will go either to Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for Birdman or Richard Linklater for Boyhood, simply because of the technical prowess displayed in both of these films and the phenomenal concepts behind both of them. Both Birdman and Boyhood are so much more complex in execution than Foxcatcher, that its pretty obvious either of those two will win. And therein lies Foxcatchers limited chances, its a pretty simple picture when compared to other Oscar contenders. Don’t get me wrong, Foxcatcher is a completely watchable film with many merits, it just didn’t say much to me, it felt like a lightweight thematically speaking, like empty calories. I mean, the sibling rivalry angle isn’t exploited much and neither is Dupont’s possible homosexuality. Things are sort of touched upon, but never really explored, ultimately, Foxcatcher left me wanting more, I wanted it to dig deeper, but I detected a bit of restraint on the filmmakers part.

Why wasn’t Dupont’s schizophrenia explored more in depth? I mean here’s a guy who reportedly spoke to rocks, thought spirits and spies where after him and thought that treadmills could send him back in time! It would have been interesting to see this angle explored a bit more. The film does go into Dupont wanting to garner others respect, mainly his mothers. Here's a man who's trying to do something great, but is unable to because he himself isn't a "great man", so what does he do? He hangs around the greats, to see if some of that greatness and talent rubs off on him, but that's not how it works. Greatness is achieved through talent and dedication. Dupont wanted to pretend. In regards to Dupont’s schizophrenia, the film reminded me a bit of Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind (2001) a film in which Russell Crowe plays a brilliant mathematician who also talks to imaginary people, yet is brilliant in his own field. The only difference is that A Beautiful Mind ends on a more positive vibe, while Foxcatcher goes down a darker path. So in conclusion my friends, Foxcatcher was a good movie, with a strange vibe which I enjoyed. You know something is off, but you’re not sure what it is.  And we get Steve Carell’s awesome performance, which is strong enough to get him an Oscar this year;  but the competition is tough, we’ll see.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Dave and Mark Schultz during their glory days

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

Title: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

Director: Stephen Summers

So the latest craze in Hollywood is taking a cartoon from the 80s and turning it into a big budget special effects filled movie. It happened with the Transformers, which Michael Bay and his trigger happy crew turned into a huge box office success. Not to mention that the film already spawned an equally successful sequel, which by the way was for me one of the worst films made this year, but that’s a whole other review. The latest of these 80’s cartoon adaptations is G.I. Joe, which was one of the most successful cartoon series to emerge out of the 80s. Whoever was a kid during those years has to remember the show. It lasted half an hour and basically served as a commercial to sell the Hasbro produced G.I. Joe toy line. Its basic premise was that of a top secret military operation which was trying to stop Cobra, a terrorist organization hell bent on conquering the world. Aside from that, the show itself also served as a propaganda machine for the U.S. Military. Now I see that, but when I was a kid I did not realize this at all, to me it was just a cool show. In reality, it was a show trying to infuse kids with a desire to serve the U.S. Military services with pride, get that patriotic pride going at an early age. I guess it was made in part to get kids to want to serve their country just like the characters did in the show. The main slogan of the show lets you know this: “G.I. Joe! A Real American Hero!” The premise of this new film has the Joe’s trying to stop Cobra from destroying the world with a new kind of technology. Basically, a bomb of nano machines (read: microscopic machines) that will eat through anything and continue eating through whatever comes along its path. The Joe’s have to stop Cobra from using this new weapon to bring the world to its knees.

Basically this movie was exactly what I was expecting. Not much invested in depth or a good story, but lots invested in special effects an action. The movie brings absolutely nothing new to the table in terms of storytelling, in fact, it feels tired and done. Many of the plot devices on this film can be traced down to other films we’ve already seen before. For example, when you see the final confrontation between G.I. Joe and the Cobras where the Joes infiltrate Cobras hidden underwater lair, you kind of feel like you are watching a remake of Return of the Jedi or something. Right down to having the Joe’s go into the underwater base as if they were infiltrating the Death Star and escaping mere moments before it blows up into smithereens, just like the death star blows up in the last moments of Return of the Jedi. There’s a confrontation between two ninjas in the film (named Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow) that feels and looks a heck of a lot like the final confrontation between Darth Maul and Quai Gon Jin in Star Wars Episode I. The suits that the Joe’s use in the film which augment their strength and agility are directly influenced by Paramount Pictures Iron Man (2008). Scenes like that just let me see that the director wasn’t trying to be original at all. He was just going down the easy path of doing what others have already done. For Christ sake, we even get a character who is evil but tries to turn good, just like Anakin.

That’s the main problem with films like this one. They are produced so fast, and so little time is taken to come up with a worthwhile story to tell that we just end up getting more of the same. But aside from that, did the film entertain? Let’s face it, while watching a film of this kind, I don’t going in expecting a masterpiece. I was just looking for a fun time, and I went to the theater simply out of nostalgia for this old cartoon show I use to watch when I was 12 years old. I went to see these characters Id seen in my childhood brought to cinematic life. And I have to be honest, that’s exactly what I got. We get some of the key characters from the show, and they looked exactly like what I would have expected them too. The premise of the film mimicked that of the show, which was always about trying to stop Cobra from trying to take over the world. There was nothing ever truly profound of life changing about the shows themes, it was just a poorly animated show made to sell toys. The movie took the cartoons basic premise and went with it.

Have to admit it, nostalgia got the best part of me. It was cool to see the Joe’s secret facilities with all these nifty vehicles and jets, it brought me back to when I was 12, watching the show . It was cool to see Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow kicking each others asses. It was cool to see Cobra becoming Cobra and Destro becoming Destro. And I’m sure this is a movie that many a little kid will find entertaining. Me, I was just a big kid in the theater remembering the Joes. And I had a good time in doing so, there’s lots of car explosions, lots of non stop action sequences, and lots of fx to keep you entertained for half an hour. After a while though, you might feel the CGI overdose light go off inside your head, cause let me tell you, there are times when I felt like the only real thing in the film where the actors and the other 90% of the film was made up of computer generated images. But whatever, that’s a whole new genre of films that’s emerging. That’s where Hollywood wants to go now. I guess it brings down costs some, its cheaper to build something in a computer then building it for real. Sadly, this is the state of big budget special effects films, 90% of what you see on screen exists only within the confines of a computer.

But most of director Stephen Summers movies have always been like this. One look at his resume and you will find CGI infested films like The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, Deep Rising and Van Helsing. Also one look at this films cast and you see that Summers has brought many of his old friends back, like Arnold Vosloo who played the mummy in The Mummy movies. Heck, even Brendan Frasier is here in a small role training some of the newer Joe’s.It was a fun movie for what it was. I recommend it to fans of the G.I. Joe cartoons. Those thirty something guys who grew up watching this show in their afternoons after school. I’m sure they will be happy to see their childhood heroes brought to life. Movie goers who dont know what the hell G.I. Joe is will find an empty yet entertaining special effects driven film, that’s derivative of other films and doesn’t try in the least to show us something new or meaningful. It simply wants to wow you with its gee whiz effects, never keep you bored for its entire duration, and have you leave the theater feeling like you just had a sugar rush, only thing is you'll probably forget the film five seconds after you leave the theater.

Rating: 2 1/2 out of 5