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      • Golden Globes ~ 1/12/14
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      • Golden Globes – 1/7/2018
      • SAG Awards – 1/21/2018
      • Film Independent Spirit Awards – 3/3/2018
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      • Golden Globes – 1/6/2019
      • SAG Awards – 1/27/2019
      • Film Independent Spirit Awards – 2/23/2019
      • Academy Awards – 2/24/2019
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      • Golden Globes – 1/5/2020
      • SAG Awards – 1/19/2020
      • Film Independent Spirit Awards – 2/8/2020
      • Academy Awards – 2/9/2020
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      • Golden Globes – 2/28/21
      • SAG Awards – 4/4/2021
      • Film Independent Spirit Awards – 4/22/21
      • Academy Awards – 4/25/21
    • 2022
      • SAG Awards – 2/27/22
      • Film Independent Spirit Awards – 3/6/22
      • British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) – 3/13/22
      • Guild Awards – DGA / PGA / WGA
      • Academy Awards – 3/27/22
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    • 31 Days to Scare – October 2012
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Tag Archives: Film

September 12, 2012

Why Haven’t You Seen This Movie? ~ Follow Me, Boys

by Joe Movie Review, Why Haven't You Seen This Movie? • Tags: Boys!, Family, Film, Follow Me, Fred MacMurray, Lillian Gish, logo, Louis Pelletier, MacKinlay Kantor, Norman Tokar, Studio, Vera Miles, Walt Disney Studios

The Facts:

Synopsis: Lem Siddons is part of a traveling band who has a dream of becoming a lawyer. Deciding to settle down, he finds a job as a stockboy in the general store of a small town. Trying to fit in, he volunteers to become scoutmaster of the newly formed Troop 1. Becoming more and more involved with the scout troop, he finds his plans to become a lawyer being put on the back burner until he realizes that his life has been fulfilled helping the youth of the small town.

Stars: Fred MacMurray, Vera Miles, Kurt Russell, Lillian Gish

Director: Norman Tokar

Rated: NR

Running Length: 131 minutes

TMMM Score: (7/10)

Review:  In my review of the lackluster The Odd Life of Timothy Green I lamented the fact that they just don’t make Disney live-action films like they used to.  True, values were different in the 60’s and 70’s so the wholesome, apple-pie  variety of films went out the window once the MTV Generation (of which I’m kinda part of) came of age.  Back in the 60’s Walt Disney Studios owned the family film genre and they cranked them out to varying degrees of success.  Being glued to the Disney Channel and frequenting my local video store when I was young I saw a lot of the lesser known Disney films. 

Follow Me, Boys! was one film that slipped through my youthful grasp until recently and I’m glad it did.  Not because I didn’t enjoy it – I did.  No, it’s just that I think I can appreciate some of the themes more as an adult than I could have as a child not sure where life would take me.  Now that I have a reasonable idea of what track I’m on, I responded a lot to the story of a nomadic guy that up and decides to settle down in a quaint small town (did Disney ever feature anything different?).  A member of a traveling band, Lem (Disney favorite MacMurray), gets inspired to stick around the town to continue his law degree while at the same time wooing a bank employee (Miles six years after she met Norman Bates in Psycho) and becoming scout master to a pile of rag-tag boys.

It’s a classic Disney pitch that works in all the right places because of its veteran star, easy-going vibe, and its careful tug at your hearstrings.  Also interesting was how many modern films borrowed some elements of the movie to inspire their story…you can see a bit of Troop Beverly Hills here, a pinch of Red Dawn there, topped off with a dash of SpaceCamp. 

Along with MacMurray and Miles (who have a good rapport if little chemistry) there are a few notable supporting players like Gish as a dotty town grand dame and Russell in one of his first roles as the token troubled youth.  Even at this early age, you can see why Russell would become a long-standing Disney player and star in his own right.  The rest of the kids tend to blend together which isn’t entirely their fault…just a case of a lot going on.

The film has a strong opening and nice middle but unfortunately wears out its welcome around the ¾ mark.  At 131 minutes it’s about 20 minutes too long and an extraneous and segmented story about a new crop of boys finding themselves in a mock army setting feels like overkill.  Still, director Tokar gets control of the film and comes back strong to end on your typical Disney high note.

Overall Follow Me, Boys! is one of those films that you may let pass you by but should eventually check out if given the chance.  Maybe not as classic as Disney features like Old Yeller, Pollyanna, Mary Poppins, or The Parent Trap, it still retains the zealous Disney charm that was injected into so many films of that era.

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June 29, 2012

The Silver Bullet ~ “Total Recall” – Trailer #2

by Joe Silver Bullet - Trailer Park • Tags: Beckinsale, Colin, columbia, Farrell, Film, logo, Original, Recall, Rekall, sony, Studio, Total, Trailer, Wiseman

Synopsis: As the nation states Euromerica and New Shanghai vie for supremacy, a factory worker begins to suspect that he’s a spy, though he is unaware which side of the fight he’s on

Release Date:  August 3, 2012

Thoughts: A remake to the 1990 Schwarzenegger/Verhoeven sci-fi classic seemed blasphemous at first.  The original was a crowd-pleasing box office hit and I just didn’t feel like there was room for another Recall pic to exist.  The teaser trailer hit and I was intrigued, now the second trailer has arrived and I’m impressed.  Boasting some nice visuals and familiar (but not unwelcome) sequences, the remade Total Recall just moved up a few notches in my “Looking Forward” to summer movie checklist.  Colin Farrell scored last August with the Fright Night remake and if all goes as planned he’ll start of August 2012 on top again.

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May 11, 2012

Down From the Shelf ~ Color of Night

by Joe Down from the Shelf, Movie Review • Tags: Blades, Bruce, Color, Film, Hollywood, jane, Lesley, logo, March, Night, Of, Pictures, RichardR, Rush, Studio, Willis

The Facts:

Synopsis: A color-blind psychiatrist Bill Capa is stalked by an unknown killer after taking over his murdered friend’s therapy group, all of whom have a connection to a mysterious young woman that Capa begins having intense sexual encounters with.

Stars: Bruce Willis, Jane March, Lesley Ann Warren, Rubén Blades, Lance Henriksen, Scott Bakula

Director: Richard Rush

Rated: R (or Unrated)

Running Length: 139 minutes

TMMM Score: (2/10)

Review:  A stunningly awful film, Color of Night is the much ballyhooed 1994 erotic thriller that ended several careers and put the kibosh on the psycho-sexual thrillers that Basic Instinct spawned.  It’s a film I’ve seen maybe a half dozen times and it only gets worse with each viewing.  Now with that being said, any true film aficionado should try this one on for size…while it hasn’t achieved cult/camp status it really does deserve it because there are some howling amazing performances and even funnier bits of dialogue. 

Willis was on the A-list when this came about and while he walked away relatively unscathed Color of Night was an important turning point for the actor: he never dropped his trou for an erotic thriller after.  I don’t think Willis is a bad actor, just a specific one.  As bad as this material is, he takes the completely wrong angle to come at it from and winds up looking fairly idiotic in the process. 

I have to admit I don’t know quite how to summarize the movie for you…it’s so convoluted I can’t even get at the true inadequacy of the proceedings.  However, I’ll give it a go. 

After a patient of his commits suicide during one of their sessions, Willis’ Bill Cappa suddenly becomes color blind to red and quits his practice.  To get away from things he goes and visits his friend (Bakula) in California only to be tossed into a murder-mystery before the end of day 2.  Bakula pretty much picks up Cappa from the airport and brings him to the therapy group he leads…and the group is filled with every cliché in the book.  The nympho, the gruff ex police officer, the OCD yuppie, the immature artist, and the one with the gender problem.  Oh yeah…one of them also is a killer as Bakula soon finds out.

The movie is awkward up until Bakula meets the end of a blade and after that it just becomes bizarre.  Somehow information about the death doesn’t reach the patients so Willis (encouraged by the police to continue as the leader of the group) has to break it to them in one painfully bad/funny scene.  Also…while the film continues on for several weeks there is no mention of a funeral or how Willis can legally continue to live in Bakula’s expansive mansion or drive his car!  The filmmakers just assume that we will accept all these conveniences but we know better.

Now on top of all this enters the femme fatale in the form of March as a kitten-ish beauty that spells bad news for Cappa.  March was hailed by director Rush as the “eighth wonder of the world” and unless he was referring to the fact that she never wears underwear or has eight extra teeth in her head, I can’t see why.  Her acting is horrible and she seems only to exist to wear clothes that come off easily.  She’s even more ridiculous as the film reveals more about her and expands her role in a few twists I shan’t give away.

The sex scenes between Willis and March were cause for much buzz because they earned the film an NC-17 at first…then trimmed to receive its eventual R.  None of these scenes is erotic in the least though one gives credit to both actors for baring all in such a laugh riot as this.  The film is available on DVD only in a director’s cut that clocks in at an astounding 139 minutes.  The film could have and should have been 90 minutes including credits. 

Supporting players should be as embarrassed as Willis and March.  Warren probably fares the best as the nympho of the group…though it almost seems like an extension of her character from Clue.  She’s the only one that seems to be trying to give the proceedings their due but eventually she’s forgotten as are the rest of the group members.  Worst performance is a close call between March and Blades as an un-PC and nearly unwatchable cop.  I can’t imagine Blades looking back fondly on what he did on this film – it’s a pretty embarrassing role.

Director Rush directed the cult favorite The Stunt Man and his attempts to make this film with style falls flat because he’s missing the essential element for most films – taste.  The taste factor of this one is incredibly low and he never seems to understand that.  Camera angles that make no sense are used and filming techniques that maybe looked good in dailies look patently absurd here.  Add to that the dreadful score that sounds like a church mouse on a circus organ and there’s just no way to escape this movie without hitting the eject button.

So yes…this is bad but yes…if you have the time and fortitude to check this one out it’s nearly worth it because it is so uniquely awful.  A year later Showgirls would arrive on the scene and demonstrate how to make a bad movie that’s totally watchable.  Scaling Color of Night is a feat…but there are much worse mountains to climb.

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May 3, 2012

The Silver Bullet ~ “That’s My Boy” Trailer

by Joe Silver Bullet - Trailer Park • Tags: Adam, Andy, Boy, columbia, Film, logo, My, Samberg, Sandler, sony, Studio, That's

Synopsis: While still in his teens, Donny fathered a son and raised him as a single parent up until Todd’s 18th birthday. Now, after not seeing each other for years, Todd’s world comes crashing down.

Release Date:  June 15, 2012

Thoughts:  Maybe if enough people watch this trailer the movie will get better…like a dying Tinkerbell if we just clap there might be a chance that the movie gods will wave their wand and create a decent comedy.  As that will never happen…expect this one to make a lot of money and get horrible reviews (like nearly ever Adam Sandler movie).  It’s at this point where someone needs to step up and say “Enough is enough…no more movies for Sandler.”  Samberg is a close second for most annoying presence in a film…I sure hope Sandler passes the torch to Samberg and that the torch is soon snuffed.  What a waste of film…and of blog space!

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April 26, 2012

Movie Review ~ The Raven

1
by Joe Movie Review • Tags: Alice, Allan, Cusack, Edgar, Evans, Eve, Film, Gleeson, Holmes, logo, Luke, McTeigue, Media, Poe, Raven, Relativity, Seven, Sherlock, Studio

The Facts:

Synopsis: When a madman begins committing horrific murders inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s works, a young Baltimore detective joins forces with Poe to stop him from making his stories a reality.

Stars: John Cusack, Alice Eve, Luke Evans, Brendan Gleeson

Director: James McTeigue

Rated: R

Running Length: 111 minutes

Random Crew Highlight: Line Producer: Serbia ~ Andjelija Vlaisavljevic

TMMM Score: (2.5/10)

Review:  They say that the smartest writers know when to stop.  In the case of The Raven, they should have never started.  Taking one of the most famous literary voices of horror and wedging him into a Sherlock Holmes meets Seven style mystery sounds like an interesting concept but the end result is a fever dream of a broken movie.  Muddy editing, dreary acting, and uninspired direction coincide with the flat script to give the audience much less than their money’s worth.

Viewing The Raven is quite a frustrating experience that I liken to a trip to Cold Stone Creamery (may they rest in MN peace).  I don’t know about you but I always ended up behind the person that had absolutely no clue what they wanted and desired to sample everything first.  It’s ice cream…it’s not that hard!  Same goes with The Raven.  We know what kind of movie we want to see but seemingly no one involved could agree on what movie they were making.  I don’t remember a movie in recent memory where the majority of actors are working in totally different films. 

Cusack’s movie seems to be an indie surrealistic take on Poe in which he time travels from present day to the late 1800’s.  His mannerisms and delivery are modern but his clothing and environment are not.  I know the F-bomb has been on the tongues of people for centuries but its one use here by Cusack is totally jarring and out of place.  Cusack remains an actor who makes interesting choices but taking on Poe (at least in this movie) was a mistake.

Evans fares better as the Watson-esque foil to Cusack’s Sherlock-y Poe.  If anything, he takes the movie too seriously so the end result comes off as overacting.  Still, he cuts a believable figure as the detective working with Poe to solve some heinous murders based on Poe’s works. 

Eve’s Emily is drearier than Baltimore fog as Poe’s love interest and focus of the masked killer’s agenda.  How Emily and Poe are in such deep love I’ll never know because the actors have zero chemistry with absolutely no spark.  Eve’s line delivery is straight from the January Jones School of No Inflection.  Her lines are so flatlined that you never know whether she’s asking a question or telling you about her day.  It’s especially laughable when she talks to the killer in a breathy baby voice…I dare you not to snicker.

The rest of the cast is a mostly forgettable lot that are hidden behind poor wigs/beards and, in one scene, costumes that looked like they came from the 4th National Tour of The Phantom of the Opera’s “Masquerade” sequence.  For you Downton Abbey fans, Mr. Bates makes an all too brief appearance – don’t make the same mistake I did and hold your breath for his return later in the movie.  Set in Baltimore but filmed in Serbia (which, I swear, is the new Toronto for cheap moviemaking) the movie is filled with UK actors barely doing American accents.  Some of them are so bad at it they appear to have some sort of speech impediment.   

We haven’t even touched on the plot yet which grows sillier with each twist and turn.  I do feel that the story itself was interesting in an old-school way but it’s the dialogue that sinks this ship from the get-go.  Written by one first time writer and one television scribe, it really feels like a yin/yang fight for dominance.  There are some decidedly modern sounding phrases (I’m pretty sure in 1880’s Baltimore the phrase “Shut it or I’ll shut it for you” wouldn’t be commonplace) and then phrases delivered in Olde English.  It’s a schizophrenic mish-mash of contrivances that simply don’t add up. 

Director McTeigue helmed V for Vendetta and served as first assistant director on The Matrix films but unfortunately brings none of that style to the screen save for a few good shots of bullets flying through the air.  He does get the John Woo Dove award for including lots (LOTS) of ravens…we get it…the movie is called The Raven…Poe’s poem is “The Raven”…message received McTeigue.  The totally stylistically different final credit sequence is the capper on a quite confused movie. 

What should have been an interesting outing with dark tones ends up being a true mess of a film that is about 30 minutes longer than it should be.  Poe wrote nicely compact chillers that said a lot but saying little.  Had The Raven have followed that formula there may have been a movie to recommend here…sadly…’twas not to be.

 

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April 18, 2012

The Silver Bullet ~ “Looper” Teaser

by Joe Silver Bullet - Trailer Park • Tags: Blunt, District, Film, FilmDistrict, Gordon, Joseph, Levitt, logo, Looper, Rian, Studio, Willis

Synopsis: In the year 2042, a mob hitman assassinates targets that arrive from the future of 2072. For him it’s just a job… till he receives a new target: himself from the future.

Release Date: September 28, 2012

Thoughts:  Now here’s the proper way to make a trailer.  Give the audience some quality visuals, tease us with a bit of the plot, and then let ‘er rip with a great montage of the action sequences to come.  This movie was not on my radar at all but it’s absolutely moved to the top of my list when it is released in the fall.  I love the futuristic look (don’t the faces look digitally altered?) and I do guiltily enjoy a good big screen butt-kickin’ courtesy of Willis.  The premise sounds original, the stars are quality, and the timing is right for this to be a big hit.  Check it out and keep your eyes out for this one!

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April 12, 2012

Movie Review ~ Lockout

1
by Joe Movie Review • Tags: District, Film, Gilgun, Grace, Lennie, Lockout, logo, Mather, Movie, Open, Pearce, Road, St. Leger, Stormare, Studio

The Facts:

Synopsis: A man wrongly convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage against the U.S. is offered his freedom if he can rescue the president’s daughter from an outer space prison taken over by violent inmates.

Stars: Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Peter Stormare, Lennie James, Joseph Gilgun

Director: James Mather, Stephen St. Leger

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 95 minutes

Random Crew Highlight:  Nuke trainer ~ Matt Leonard

TMMM Score: (3/10)

 

Review:   If ever there existed a movie that needed Ritalin then Lockout is it.  At certain points during this dreary piece of Eurotrash cinema one feels inclined to stand up and just fling a jar of Adderal at the screen in hopes that it will calm down and focus itself.  What looked to be a fun and pulpy sci-fi actioner is really just the grandly dumb product of hyperactive directors, a jagged edged editor, and a hollow script.

Released internationally as MS One: Maximum Security, the film has been renamed Lockout for US audiences in head-scratching fashion.  Who exactly is being lockedout is the least of your worries…because after 20 minutes it’s clear you are the one locked in to another 70 minutes of bad acting and depressingly bad special effects.  Filmed in Belgrade, Serbia on sets that looked to be left over from the original Star Trek series, the first thirty seconds shows promise.  Then people start talking and, y’know, moving around and that’s all she wrote.

One thing you can’t say about this movie is that it lacks forward momentum.  In fact, it’s in a perpetual state of motion moving so fast that it actually gets ahead of itself at several points.  Woe be the audience member that looks down at their Sour Patch Kids to search for an orange one because you may just miss an entire storyline crammed into several seconds of film.  Nothing in the movie lasts long…ideas, plans, disguises, alliances, trust…it’s all fleeting and based solely on the whim of directors Mather and St. Leger.

Frenchman Luc Besson had some good success in the 80’s and 90’s with several key films that I do enjoy:  The Big Blue is an underappreciated epic (seek out the moody Director’s Cut), The Professional is a delight, La Femme Nikita’s style endures, and The Fifth Element is so off the wall weird that I consider it a classic.  Lately, he’s been producing low-budget action fare that makes a killing in international markets and sometimes scores big in the US.  He contributed to this script from his original idea and on paper you can see where the appeal of the film is.  It’s not hard to imagine this going the big studio route and snagging some big talent to board ship.

Unfortunately, Besson has good ideas that don’t translate well in the script department.  Dialogue seems to have been translated from French using the Alta Vista Babel Fish translator I relied on so much to get through Spanish in college.  How some of these actors could say these lines with a straight face is beyond me…but I have a feeling many of these supporting characters didn’t speak much English to begin with and were just happy to be on screen.

Speaking of these supporting characters, I’m wondering if there wasn’t some Win a Line in a Movie lottery held while casting.  You’ve never heard line readings quite as bizarre as you will should you choose of your own free will to see it.  Try hard not to stifle a laugh anytime the actor playing the President has a line.  Double that suppressed laughter when Stormare garbles out his dialogue in his still broken English (dude…even Penelope Cruz has mastered our language…get with the program). 

At the center of all things is Pearce looking alternately bored and asleep.  Pearce is better than this material and he knows it…so why would he have agreed to star in this stinker?  Was he desperate to see the foothills of Belgrade or taste the fabulous blood sausage of Serbia?  It’s a mystery…though not as big of a mystery as to why the producers went with Grace as his leading lady.  Grace has a bad case of the January Joneses in that she can’t act her way out of a Ziploc bag…but maybe it’s not all her fault as she is asked to deliver some heinous dialogue in an equally heinous wig. 

You want logic?  Look somewhere else.  I could have filled this entire review with plot holes and problems with consistency.  For example…at the beginning the film takes place in space and on earth.  The year is 2079 so let’s give the filmmakers a break and say that space travel has greatly improved in that amount of time.  How, though, could Pearce be having a conversation on earth while Grace is up in space when suddenly she is taken hostage and he is in space prepped to help her within 10 minutes.  There’s more to it than that but trust me when I say that how people get where they need to be defies the space-time continuum and it happens multiple times throughout the film.

I love a good space epic and/or futuristic movie because that’s when filmmakers can let their creativity run wild.  In Lockout there is unfortunately nothing that indicates our future has any innovation to it at all.  Where are the big ideas or shoot-for-the-moon inventions?  Aside from the central idea of a prison in space there is zilch in terms of progress.

The special effects are straight out of a Sega Genesis game…the one that your grandma gave you and you never played.  Low-budget or not there is simply no excuse for effects this bad (look at the excellent Moon for how far a micro-budget can be stretched).  I swear there were a few shots were they simply forgot to digitally add the actors faces in…so it looks like space suits have no one in them.  It’s just another nail in Lockout’s flimsy space suit that eventually depressurizes the entire affair.

Bad dialogue, atrocious acting, goofy effects, and a terrible musical score make Lockout a real labor to get through.  Ninety minutes will no doubt feel like a space age eternity…it’s the kind of movie that you’d see in Redbox and debate whether to use your free code on.  Please do trust me when I tell you to see anything else available instead of selecting this as an option.

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March 29, 2012

Movie Review ~ Being Flynn

by Joe Movie Review • Tags: Dano, DeNiro, Film, Flynn, Focus, Julianne, logo, Olivia, Thirlby, Weitz

The Facts:

Synopsis: Working in a Boston homeless shelter, Nick Flynn re-encounters his father, a con man and self-proclaimed poet. Sensing trouble in his own life, Nick wrestles with the notion of reaching out yet again to his dad.

Stars: Paul Dano, Robert De Niro, Julianne Moore, Olivia Thirlby, Wes Studi

Director: Paul Weitz

Rated: R

Running Length: 102 minutes

Random Crew Highlight:  Key Stand-In – Finise Avery

TMMM Score: (6/10)

Review: One of the most difficult challenges an actor faces is making an unlikable character likable…or at least relatable.  In the case of Being Flynn, we have two actors that need to climb that mountain and even if they don’t totally succeed they at least give it their best college try. 

It’s easy to see what attracted DeNiro to this project.  Jonathan Flynn is a complex role that allows the respected actor room to play…and play he does…sometimes to the detriment of the overall character arc.  Once DeNiro ventures into the crazier corners of Jonathan’s psyche he lost me a bit as the performance veers awfully close to parody.  It’s in Jonathan’s quieter and introspective moments where DeNiro really shines, showing the audience where his obsession originates.  I would have liked a little more backstory on how Jonathan came to be but as that’s not really the central focus of the story I can understand the absence.

The crux of the plot is seen through the eyes of Jonathan’s equally troubled son and he is brought to nuanced life by Dano.  Dano has historically been forgettable to me but here he strikes out with an assured performance showing a maturity and depth absent from previous films.  In previous films he has been featured with actors that dwarf him in stature and talent (prime example: his co-star Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood) but in Being Flynn he is surrounded with actors that give him room to breathe and explore. 

At this point in film history, Moore must be classified as The Actors Friend.  No matter what role she plays in a film she has the innate ability to make everyone look good just by being present.  With her limited amount of screen time she makes a giant impression as the ex-wife/mother of our central Flynns.  Seen only in flashback, you may find yourself wishing that another movie was made that focused on her. 

Director Weitz is comfortable with this father-son material and here he takes it to a darker side.  The movie is undeniably hard-edged and gritty…quite cold actually.  The Flynns fractured relationship is explored with aplomb with no painful stone left unturned.  There’s not a lot of lightness in the film so one should enter a viewing of Being Flynn with caution.  It’s a film that’s worth your time but not one that you need to rush out to see.  Make it a rental and I think you’ll find the value in it.

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The MN Movie Man – Pick a Date

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