Category: Home Video

Seven Psychopaths is a 2012 film written and directed by Martin McDonagh (In Bruges).  Much like In Bruges,  Seven Psychopaths is about violent men, but this movie is much more self aware and strange, and even now I am not sure whether I loved it or hated it, but I do know it made me think.

The film fallows Marty Faranan (Colin Farrell), who is trying to write a new screen play for a movie called Seven Psychopaths.  He is having writers block, so his friend Billy Bickle (Sam Rockwell) is trying to help him by pointing to real life killers through either the news or an add in the news paper asking the psychopaths to come to him.  Billy has a side business with Hans Kieslowski (Christopher Walken) where he steals dogs and Hans plays the good old man that found the dog for reward money.  Business is good until they steal a dog from Charlie Costello (Woody Harrelson) a local mob boss and psychopath, and now all their lives are in danger.

This is one of the more bizarre movies I have seen in awhile.  It feels like you are watching the movie being written right in front of you, and Martin McDonagh has a lot to say.  He knows you are watching the movie for a funny violent buddy comedy, and he does give that to you partially, but he also uses Marty to rag on the current state of film scripts, with their dumb over top action sequences, or poorly written women that are only there to die or be eye candy.  Giving the film a very meta feel.  It is almost like he doesn’t like the genre of film he made.

The violence in this film is strange as well.  It alternates between the dumb over the top kind, but then during the psychopath interviews it gets very real and graphic, and at times horrifying.  McDonagh is subverting what you started to watch this movie for, and instead showing you what this would really look like, and it is not something you are in general really wanting to see.

The actors are all great in this film.  If you know me, then you know that you know that anything with Christopher Walken gets bonus points, and this part was obviously meant for him.  His character is strange, but still totally relatable.  Sam Rockwell’s character almost represents the dumb movie this could have been by just being off the wall crazy, but since he is such a good actor he pulls it off.  Colin Farrell’s character is in the movie mostly to observe the madness, so his role is not as dynamic, but he plays it well.

If you are looking for a movie that is a change from the norm than Seven Psychopaths might be it.  Like I wrote before, I am not sure how I totally feel about this movie, mostly due to its graphic nature, but after I watched the movie it left me thinking, and that is a good thing.

 

Gangster Squad is an early 2013 movie and fictional account of the ‘Gangster Squad’ that went after Mickey Cohen in the late 40s and early 50s.  It was directed by Ruben Fleischer.  It is probably most famous for being delayed and reedited after the Aurora Colorado shooting.  It is a good action movie, but people expecting more than that will be disappointed.

The movie starts with John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) busting up a forced prostitution ring, but since it is Cohen’s (Sean Penn) turf he gets a slap on the wrist instead of a slap on the back.  Chief Bill Parker (Nick Nolte) finds out about it and decides that he is just the man he needs to build a squad of men to start a war with Mickey.  The men he picks out are: Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) as the playboy, Coleman Harris (Anthony Mackie) as the knife expert, Conwell Keeler (Giovanni Ribisi) as the smart one, Max Kennard (Robert Patrick) as the old gunslinger, and Navidad Ramirez (Michael Peña) as the kid that tags along with Kennard.  So they leave their badges at home and go to war with the mob.

There is nothing more to this movie than that it is simply and war/gangster movie staring a bunch of good looking guys shooting at each other in a beautifully stylized 1950s LA.  The characters never really grow past their introduction.  The movie is simply that Mickey Cohen is bad, so we are going to bust up his operation and kill a bunch of gangsters in the process, but it does that really well.

Considering all the Oscar level talent in this movie some may have been expecting more out of this movie, like an examination of a post war violent LA, or to go deeper in to whether all the violence was worth it, but that does not happen.  Fleischer just shows us a bunch of really well choreographed gunfights, and they are stunning.

The actors all seem to be having fun in their sharp tailored suits, and shooting each other with tommy guns while playing out their war movie caricatures, and they play their parts well.  Sean Penn especially got in to Mickey Cohen as the excessively evil sociopath, and Emma Stone does her best glamorous damsel in distress as Grace Faraday.

Gangster Squad was a fun movie, but I know a lot of people didn’t like it because instead of a smart deconstruction of the gang violence of the 50s it was just a glorification and exploitation of it, but if you go in wanting a stylish action movie you will be happy because that is exactly what you get.

Wonder Woman is a 2009 direct to video cartoon made by the people at DC Universe and directed by Lauren Montgomery.  While it never made it to the big screen, it does show that someone at DC/Warner knows how to make a Wonder Woman movie.

The movie starts off with the Amazons at war with an army of men and mythical creatures, and the army is being led by Ares (Alfred Molina) to fuel his need for war and violence.  Queen Hippolyta (Virginia Madsen) is able to defeat Ares, but the gods do not allow her to kill him, but instead she gets to imprison him.  For all of the Amazons’ suffering they get a hidden island paradise Themyscira, and to live in peace for all eternity.  The Queen also gets a child Dianna (Keri Russell).  Their peace and tranquility is disrupted when a pilot Steve Trevor (Nathan Fillion) crash lands on the island, and Dianna starts her journey to become Wonder Woman.

While I am getting a little tired of origin stories at least Wonder Woman’s is a little different.  She is a play off Greek culture, and she is truly a super human in all respects, and I love how this movie explains everything without beating you over the head with it.  They even explain the stupid invisible jet, and use it in a cool way.

What I like is that they let Wonder Woman be Wonder Woman.  They didn’t make her some scrappy ninja type spinning and jumping around, no she gets in there and brawls with the bad guys and deals and takes a ton of punishment.  It is a credit to Lauren Montgomery to let this character be herself.

The voice actors all do a pretty good job, Nathan Filion and Alfred Molina really got in to it, and Keri Russell was good for the most part, but could be stilted at times.  The rest of the actors are hit and miss, but they do not have a ton of screen time anyway.

I liked this movie quite a bit, and it seems sad to me that Warner Bros has people in their company that understand the character, but they can’t seem to hire them to make the big screen movie they keep promising, and it is a real shame since a good female super hero would be a nice change from the pretty much all male crew we have now.

The Rocketeer was released in 1991, and it was directed by Joe Johnston.  It is based off of a comic book character of the same name that came out in 1982, and it also one of my friends’ favorite movies, and it is easy to see why.

The story starts with some FBI agents following a couple mafia members that have some sort of package.  During the chase they shoot down a pilot Cliff Secord (Billy Campbell), and at the end of the chase one of the mafia guys stores the package in Secord’s hanger in his mechanic Peabody’s (Alan Arkin) old World War I duffle bag.  The feds catch the mobster, but miss the package.  Secord of course finds it and it turns out to be a rocket pack created by Howard Hughes, and Secord uses it to become the Rocketeer, and defeat the Nazis.

The plot is simple and fun, and it is easy to tell Johnston was trying to relive the simple fun of the old serial shorts like Flash Gordon.  The good guys are good, and the bad guys are bad, and everyone is super patriotic.

The actors look like they are having fun especially Timothy Dalton playing the villainous actor Neville Sinclair, he channels Errol Flynn quite well.  The film also features Jennifer Connelly as Secord’s actor girlfriend Jenny Blake, and any movie she is in is a plus for me (sorry Lindsey).

The special effects were great for 1991, and even thought they show a little age now, they mostly hold up and do not distract from the campy fun of the film, and Joe Johnston’s steady hand as a director keeps this film focused, light hearted and fun which a lot of comic book movies of today have forgotten.

I loved this film growing up, because it filled me with a sense of awe and wonder, and it is easy to see why my friends adore it.  If you are looking for a little good hearted fun and action look no further then The Rocketeer!