American Made

First Hit:  It’s a Tom Cruise film and therefore you will always get everything he can give; full tilt entertainment.

I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it. Tom Cruise will probably never be in a film and be someone other than Tom Cruise. This isn’t a bad thing because he gives everything to each film he’s in. The issue is that you always know and see ‘Tom Cruise’, not the character he’s playing.

Here he uses the role and true story of Barry Seal, a TWA pilot that ended up working for the CIA and even the White House, to give the audience his, boyish charm, intensity, and action. Seal was a bored airline pilot who, on occasion, would turn off the auto-pilot and make the plane turn and twist in the sky just to wake up his co-pilot and passengers.

One day he’s approached by Monty ‘Schafer’ (Domhnall Gleeson) a CIA operative to fly spy camera photo missions in Central America. For this he will get a cool plane to fly, have lots of excitement, and make a little money. Without telling his wife he quits TWA and takes this new mission on, full tilt. Soon afterward, he gets a deal to smuggle drugs from South America on his way back from taking spy photos. This becomes very lucrative for him and he begins making a lot of money.

However, the DEA finds out and wants to bust him in his Louisiana home. The CIA is willing to turn a blind eye to the drug smuggling because of his excellent spy photographs and therefore move him and his family to Mena, AK. Here they give him more than 2,000 acres of land, an airport, hanger, home and a new plane.

He does so well for the drug cartel and the CIA that he buys more planes and men to fly them. He’s got hundreds of millions of dollars in banks, all over town, in his house, in his hanger, and buried in the ground around his home.

All the while he gets into scrapes that he gets bailed out from. Finally, he has to turn witness against the drug cartel and when he does, he’s in trouble. His punishment for all the drug smuggling was 1,000 hours of community service with the Salvation Army, which he does. However, the cartel isn't so lenient.

As I said the film is fun, and the action scenes are good with Tom making it all good fun.

Cruise knows how to make a film fun with his personality and ability to make the audience feel good. Sarah Wright as his wife Lucy was good. I loved her line about having to go back to work at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Gleeson was good as the CIA agent who recruited Seal. Jayma Mays was strong as the AK State DA who wanted to prosecute Seal. Gary Spinelli wrote an event filled script. Doug Liman let Cruise be himself and bring engagement and excitement to the screen. Just don’t think you’re going to see a meaningful story about Barry Seal.

Overall:  It was an excellent vehicle for Cruise to be, well; Tom Cruise.

Battle of the Sexes

First Hit:  Thoroughly enjoyable, entertaining and educational.

What makes this film work really well are the actors and clear direction that added insight into one of the most outrageous and important moments in women’s sports history.

Being old enough to recall the original battle of the sexes tennis matches (both one and two), it was important to make it true to the story while adding depth of character. That is what this film did. Learning more about Billie Jean King (Emma Stone), her husband Larry (Austin Stowell), Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) and their paths was powerful, clearly defined and heartwarming.

King wanted equal money for the women who played in the same tournaments that men played in. Receiving less than 10% of what the men earned in winning the U.S. Open was degrading to women and women’s tennis everywhere. She wanted equal pay because they put people in the seats just as well as the men.

USLT (United States Lawn Tennis) leader, tennis great, Jack Kramer (Bill Pullman) told King that this wasn’t possible and that men were just better, stronger, and more interesting tennis players. Being rebuffed on her request, she and Gladys Heldman (Sarah Silverman), founder of World Tennis magazine decided to start their own tennis tour.

This tour got off to a rocky start but when Virginia Slims (cigarette maker) started sponsoring their events with real prize money, women’s tennis started to take hold and capture their supportive audiences.

Then there was incurable gambler Bobby Riggs who lived very well off of his wife’s money. Priscilla (Elisabeth Shue) loved her husband, his funny ways but struggled with his constant gambling. Fed up after he comes home with a Rolls Royce he won in a card game, she kicks him out of the house.

Nowhere to go, Bobby as a former Wimbledon singles, doubles and mix doubles tennis champion, he carries through with an idea one of his gambling buddies comes up with. Could a fifty-five-year-old former Wimbledon champ beat the best women’s tennis player? Capitalizing on this idea, he hounds Billie Jean to play him and offers her $35K. She refuses him and eventually Bobby calls on the new women’s #1 player, Margaret Court (Jessica McNamee) to take on the challenge. She does and gets publicly trounced by Bobby in two straight sets. As expected this hurts women's tennis and therefore Billie Jean decides to make this right.

All through this Billie slowly is discovering she is attracted to women, which in those days was not well accepted. The scene where Billie becomes gob-socked by her attraction to a woman was amazing. As she’s getting her hair done for photos just prior to their first Virginia Slims tournament, the hairdresser Marilyn Barnett (Andrea Riseborough), starts touching Billie’s hair and you can feel them both melt away. This was one of the best, most effective scenes in the film because of the acting and direction. I sat there and felt Billie Jean breaking down and opening up with barely any words spoken.

Of course, as we all know, after the Court fiasco, King plays Bobby and makes history.

The tennis was extremely well done. The director recreated many of the winning points just like they actually happened. Billie and women’s tennis did get invited back into the USLT tour for equal pay because of Billie Jean’s perseverance and skill.

Learning what drove Billie Jean as a little girl to excel in tennis, how her husband supported her throughout her personal discovery and how chauvinistic men thought of women was superbly covered.

Stone was amazing. The scene of her sitting in the hair salon meeting Marilyn for the first time was amazing. How she slowly evolved Billie’s character towards acceptance of both her tennis greatness and her attraction to women was sublime. Carell was perfect. He played Bobby just as we saw him on television. But what made this really work besides the physical likeness was giving his home life honest depth. Risenborough was wonderful as Billie’s first lover. Pullman was great as Kramer. Silverman was exquisite as the woman who put together the Virginia Slims tour together out of nothing. Natalie Morales as co-tennis player Rosie Casals was super. She reflected the persona of the real Rosie. Shue as Riggs wife was perfect. It was wonderful to see Shue again and her reflection of a wealthy woman of the era was spot-on. Stowell was good as Billie Jean’s understanding and supportive husband. McNamee was good as tennis rival Margaret Court. In real life Court’s current homophobic rants echo the subtle opinions her and her husband expressed in the film. Alan Cumming as Cuthbert ‘Ted’ Tinling tennis clothing designer for the women on the Virginia Slims tour was excellent. I liked his encouragement to King at the end of the film. Simon Beaufoy wrote an excellent script. He caught all the nuances of the time and I appreciated it. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris as co-directors were spot on in all ways. I loved how they integrated television clips of the time, 1973, (Howard Cosell and Chrissy Evert among them) into a film made in 2017. Their vision was sublime.

Overall:  For anyone interested in knowing how today’s women’s tennis stars got the equal money recognition they deserve, see this film.

Stronger

First Hit:  I was very surprised at how much I like this film, it had heart.

Jake Gyllenhaal is one of my favorite actors. I can tell he puts in a lot of work to each role to make it real for him and the audience. Here as Jeff Bauman, the young man who lost both legs in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, Jake does Jeff proud. He shows Jeff’s humanity and the cycle of up and downs that he had to go through after the event.

Jeff and his family are true blue collar Boston loving people. Jeff works at Costco (a shout out to them for their unending support of Jeff) and, as most Boston people do, loves his Red Sox. He spends a fair amount of his off time in bars with his buddies and family.

The one early scene when he tells his drunk mother, Patty (Miranda Richardson), to F#%& off in the bar is indicative of the family’s love and bickering with each other. His father Big Jeff (Clancy Brown) is a self-proclaimed know it all but doesn’t always know very much. His attempts to control situations was evident in the hospital waiting room.

The family dynamics are perfectly matched with Jeff’s inability to grow up. It is exemplified in his off and on relationship with his girlfriend, Erin Hurley (Tatianna Maslany), whom has just broken up with him again. He loves her and you can tell she loves him but she tires of his childish behavior and for not showing up to events with and for her. To convince her he needs another chance, he tells her he’s going to be at the finish line of the Boston Marathon with a sign he’s going to paint for her. And as we all know, that isn’t where you wanted to be that day.

This film then moves through Jeff’s struggle to deal with the event, losing his legs, and how is he going to be someone in the world. Erin commits to him, but Jeff does his usual flaking out and finally, after she tells him she’s pregnant with his child and he says he cannot be a part of this, she leaves for good.

Avoiding his internal bombing traumatic issues, he finally meets up with and talks with the man who saved him from death by putting tourniquets on above his knees to keep him from bleeding to death. After Carlos (Carlos Sanz) tells him his story, Jeff gets real and starts to take charge of his life.

It is a sweet, heartfelt story. The in-hospital scenes and staff were real. By using these hospital staff and a hospital, it felt solid and true to the story. The visuals of showing Gyllenhaal without legs was extremely well done. The film felt real through many of the scenes.

Gyllenhaal was amazing. When the doctor is taking off the bandages and dressings for the first time in the hospital, I felt his pain all the way to my seat in the theater. Excellent work. Maslany was amazing. Her ability to share so many feelings of love and doubts with her eyes and mouth were spot on. Great work. Richardson had me totally believing she was an alcoholic self-serving mess. She gave a very strong performance. Sanz was sublime. The way he told the story of his two sons to Jeff was ethereal. Brown was perfect as Jeff’s father. Proud, boisterous and overly confident of his ability to process and manage situations. John Pollono wrote a wonderfully expressive screenplay. David Gordon Green caught the magic of the story and brought it to life by guiding his great actors through the feeling vision.

Overall:  Far better film that I’d thought it would be. I love being surprised.

Birth of the Dragon

First Hit:  Although this is a poorly done film, I liked knowing more about what it took for Bruce Lee to create his empire.

The sad part of about this film is that it didn’t make the real story the main subject of the film. What came on to the screen was a love story between one of Lee’s students and women who was enslaved by the owner of a Chinese restaurant. However, there was enough in the film about how Lee learned there was more to Kung Fu than just the physicality, to make me sit through the rest of the drama.

Bruce Lee (Philip Ng) was a self-promoting wizard who wanted his Kung Fu school to grow and do well. He is driven by money and fame and will try anything to achieve this, even trying to create a homemade film. Because he teaches both white and Asian students, his school and method are frowned upon by the traditional Chinese martial arts based community.

One school that frowns upon his technique is the Chinese Shaolin Temple and order of priests who use Kung Fu. Wong Jack Man (Yu Xia) is a priest from this Shaolin Temple. He comes to America because he’s serving penance for almost killing someone during a demonstration match. He decides to do this by working in a restaurant as a dishwasher.

One of Lee’s students, a white man named Steve McKee (Billy Magnussen), wants to meet Man and heads to the dock to meet him as he arrives in the US by boat. Lee learns of this and leverages this connection to send a message to Man. He tells McKee to tell Man that Lee wants to challenge him to a fight. Lee knows that if he wins this sort of challenge, it'l raise his popularity and create more fame and money. Man refuses to fight him.

Here is where the film fails to be true to the real story, McKee asks Man to fight Lee to free a woman, Xiulan Quan (Jingjing Qu), from the clutches Janet Wei (Lillian Lim) owner of a famous Chinese restaurant and the person for whom McKee has fallen in love with. That Man fights Lee for this reason, denigrates the story, but supposedly makes it palatable to a wider audience.

In the end Lee does learn something about fighting from his heart. Man learns that Kung Fu can be spread beyond China. McKee gets the girl.

The choreography of the major fight scene was splendid at times and other times seemed a bit forced.

Ng was OK, outside of a few Bruce Lee type squeals while fighting, I didn’t get a "Bruce Lee" from his performance. I got someone who wanted to imitate Lee. Xia was strong and I liked what he brought to the part. McKee was a OK for a character that wasn’t really part of the real story being portrayed here. Qu was sweet in her role as enslaved love interest. Lim was good as the woman in-charge of the restaurant and the Tong she commanded. Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson wrote a very altered screenplay from the real story. George Nolfi did a good job directing most of the fight scenes, but the story and screenplay, lacked a level of authenticity that took away from the real story.

Overall:  I liked the film conceptually more than its reality.

The Glass Castle

First Hit:  I cannot conceive of having a life like the one described in this film.

This is the story of how Jeannette Walls (Brie Larson, Ella Anderson, and Chandler Head) survived her upbringing by Rex (Woody Harrelson), an alcoholic father, and Rose Mary (Naomi Watts), an unconventional artist mother, to find her own truth and path through life.

Jeannette, her two sisters Lori (Sarah Snook, Sadie Sink, and Olivia Kate Rice), Maureen (Brigette Lundy-Paine, Shree Crooks, and Eden Grace Redfield), and brother Brian (Josh Caras, Charlie Shotwell, and Iain Armitage), never had much of a home as their father and mother spent all their time running from place to place. This dysfunctional family headed by two non-conformists had great dreams and never could put any of them into place.

“Glass Castle” refers to the all glass home Rex designed and never built. This one of thousands of ideas he had for his family. During non-drunk and lucid moments Rex could be an amazing father and mentor. I especially loved how he gave each of the kids the belief that they could pick a star as their own exclusive birthday present.

However when he was drunk or in a bipolar raging state, he was awful to everyone. Rose Mary did her best to temper his expressive raging, however she was an enabler of both the violent and homeless behavior.

After a failed attempt by Rex to get clean and hold a job, the children decided to raise themselves while staying clear of their parents' behavioral issues. This bond between the children was amazing and in the last scene of the film, a Thanksgiving dinner, it was clearly expressed.

I liked the way the scenes shifted from present day back to when the kids were growing up. The actors they chose to play the younger versions of the children were great.

Because the film rarely answered how and when did the family get food and clothing, I kept wondering about these primary subjects throughout the movie.

Harrelson is excellent as the bi-polar father who is an alcoholic, smart, and loved his "goat" Jeanette. His fits of rage as well as his lucid kind moments were well done. Watts is interesting as the mother. I struggled to buy her performance as being solid. At times she seemed disengaged from both the character and from the film. However, it could have been meant this way as well. Larson is very good as the grown daughter with a huge resistance to fully embrace her past. When she finally embraces her past, the shift in her character was perfectly done. Ella Anderson and Chandler Head were great as the younger Jeannette. Sarah Snook, Sadie Sink and Olivia Kate Rice, as Jeannette's older sister Lori, were wonderful. Brigette Lundy-Paine, Shree Crooks and Eden Grace Redfield as Maureen, Jeannettes' younger sister, were perfect. Finally, brother Brian as played by Josh Caras, Charlie Shotwell, and Iain Armitage; all were excellent and very engaging. Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Lanham wrote a strong script from Jeannette Wall’s own book and story. Cretton's direction did a good job of taking us through Jeanette’s story.

Overall:  This was an amazing story of persevering through a chaotic childhood.