The Gray Man

The Gray Man (2022)

Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo

Screenplay by Joe Russo and Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely

Based on the book by Mark Greaney 

Stars: Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Regé-Jean Page, Jessica Henwick, Billy Bob Thornton, Julia Butters, Dhanush, and Alfre Woodard

Going into this movie, I heard that it was not well received. With that in mind, I thought that the action would keep it afloat. How can a movie that has plenty of action set pieces be incredibly boring?

"Six" (Gosling) is an assassin that works the top secret Sierra Six program of CIA. On an assignment in Hong Kong, he hesitates to kill a mark. The mark tells him that his boss, Carmichael (Page) wants the Sierra Six programs gone by killing all the agents. Knowing this, Six goes on the run and reckless former CIA agent, Lloyd Hansen (Evans) is on the hunt to eliminate Six.

This movie cost $200 million dollars to make. Where did the money go? Chyrons? Those "sweeping camera shots?" Billy Bob Thornton's wigs? It looked like The Russo Brothers wanted a lot of money on spectacle. I believe it was a distraction technique to keep your eyes away from the boring action sequences.

The biggest problem with the movie is way the screenwriters and the characters dealt with the female characters. They treated them like inconsequential people. This is prevalent with the Lloyd character. He seemed like the kind of douchebag that will mansplain everything through his gross mustache. 

There was no Gray Man in the film. The filmmakers wanted it to be Six, but his moral compass was on the side of good the whole time. Where was his dip to the dark side? There was none. That's when the movie failed. It seems they took parts of the book and translated it into a formulaic, cheesy 1990s movie that doesn't work.

Rating: 2/10

La La Land

La La Land (2016)

Written and directed by Damien Chazelle

Stars: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Rosemarie DeWitt, J.K. Simmons, Terry Walters, Callie Hernandez, Jessica Rothe, Sonoya Mizuno, and John Legend

I have avoided this movie like plague. Too soon for that saying? When a movie is an homage to better movies, I will look at it with a critical eye. This movie. Oh, boy. Be prepared. I am gonna rip this film to shreds.

The movie takes place around a year. Mia (Stone) is an aspiring actress that goes on countless auditions. Sebastian (Gosling) is a jazz pianist-- that's very important-- that wants to open up his own club. They met and have a relationship, blah, blah.

The movie starts with a musical number with people stuck in LA traffic singing about... (collective shrug). I didn't understand why everybody in the film is dressed like a Power Ranger. Monochromatic dresses. All kinds of no.

Chazelle was trying to make a Astaire/Rogers type of musical, but he failed on every level. What was up with the flashy cameras swoops? That shot in the pool that went in a circle faster and faster? Mia and Seb floating at the conservatory? How did this movie win six Oscars?

If you are going to make a musical, have people that could actually sing and dance?! A novel concept! The cringe look on my face when Emma and Ryan were "singing and dancing." Oof! No. Dub them. Holy shit.

The music was fine. By fine, I mean, boring. Side note: I enjoy jazz music. I would rather listen to actual jazz musicians than this. Jazz is not dying as Sebastian said. Jazz is Seb's personality. Seb's character is a pompous, mansplaining hipster jackass. I hated him. So much. Mia was just big eyes. Mia supposedly loves classic movies, but said she never watch "Rebels Without a Cause." Fuck off.

I did not get their "love story." Is it because the script told them to? They are like oil and water. The biggest beats of the movie didn't make sense. They don't have phones? Call each other. No? Oh, the script told them to.

This is like watching a car accident, a train derailment and a plane crash all into one. It was all a cacophony of nonsense sounds. My face was horrified.

Rating: 0/10

Only God Forgives

Only God Forgives (2013)

Written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

Stars: Ryan Gosling, Kirstin Scott Thomas, Vithaya Pansringarm, Gordon Brown, Yayaying Rhatha Phongam and Tom Burke

I am back one again with my monthly review. Trying something a little different, I rented Only God Forgives from Google Play. After I raved about Refn's last effort, Drive, I wanted to see his next feature. After this movie got a mixed reception at Cannes, I wanted to know if the movie is as bad as the critics say it is. The answer is yes.

In this neo-noir thriller, Ryan Gosling plays Julian, an underground drug dealer that runs his business from a Muay Thai area. Julian's older brother, Billy (Burke) who has a penchant of liking underage girls kills a child prostitute.

Lieutenant Chang (Pansringarm) allows the girl's father to kill Billy, but cuts off his arm, because he let his daughter go into the sex trade. Julian's mother, Crystal (Scott Thomas) flies in from America to bury her eldest son. She knows about the dirty business the brothers were in. She wants Julian to kill the man that killed his brother. When Julian is about to exact his revenge he hears the story about about why Billy was killed and ha a change of heart. This leads to a dark descent into chaos.

The reviews of this movies have been scathing. People said it was style over substance. That is true. The visuals of the film were something to behold. The story was stale. I have seen this story is multiple configurations through my movie watching experience. There are no likable to grasp here. Who wants to hear about kiddie fuckers, comparing the size of your sons' dicks, calling a girl a "cum dumpster or the endless karaoke numbers, for fuck's sake.

The movie was boring to watch. I didn't give two shits about what happens to the characters. I want my money and time back.

My Rating

The Place Beyond the Pines

The Place Beyond the Pines (2013)

Directed by Derek Cianfrance

Screenplay by Derek Cianfrance, Ben Coccio and Darius Marder

Stars: Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes, Bradley Cooper, Ray Liotta, Mahershala Ali, Bruce Greenwood, Ben Mendelsohn, Rose Byrne, Harris Yulin, Robert Clohessy, Emory Cohen and Dane DeHaan

It has been awhile since I have reviewed a movie. I'm recovering from being snubbed by the LAMMY committee for the fourth year in a row. Apart from being the Susan Lucci on the blogging world, I wanted to see a good movie to lighten my mood. Raving about his previous directorial effort, Blue Valentine, Derek Cianfrance follows it up with The Place Beyond the Pines. I hate the title and mostly everything about this film.

Ryan Gosling re-teams with Cianfrace playing "Awesome" Luke, a motocross rider that works for a traveling caravel. The job takes him to his old stomping grounds of Schenectady, New York where he bumps into his ex-fling, Romina (Mendes) that kept a secret from him. A son named Jason. Luke wants to get back into his son's life but there are major hurdles in his way; one is her boyfriend, Kofi (Ali) and not having money to support them. A brilliant idea has been concocted when Robin (Mendelsohn) tells Luke to become a bank robber. Seeing that he was good with it, Luke becomes cocky and alerts the attention of the police, particularly rookie cop, Avery Cross (Cooper).

The movie seems like three movies into one. You have the first act that is trying to be like the infamous Best Picture winner, Crash, where characters have to bump into each other to get any kind of interaction. The second act of the movie is like any stereotypical cop movie where the good cop tries to play with the bad ones and gets in too deep. The third act of the film is trying to say that no matter where you go, life comes back around in a bad way.

There is something about this movie that rubbed me the wrong way. It was like I have seen this type of movie before. The plot felt very contrived and recycle. It was nothing fresh or new about it that could set it apart from any other movie. The motivations of some characters in the final act left me puzzled.

They only thing I liked about the movie with the Bradley Cooper performance. It was a solid performance of a rookie cop that tries to do the right thing in a wrong world.

The expectation of the movie was raised to an impossible level for me to enjoy the film that much. Maybe a few years down the line, my opinion would change.

My Rating

Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)

Directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa

Screenplay by Dan Fogelman

Stars: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Jonah Bobo, Analeigh Tipton, John Carol Lynch, Beth Littleford, Marisa Tomei and Kevin Bacon

I was feeling down in the dumps. Getting out of the funk I wanted to see, a romantic comedy. Any romantic comedy will do. Something to pick up my spirits, I decided to watch this movie OnDemand. I'm glad I did. It's like Prozac for cinephiles.

Basic premise of the movie is a series of interconnecting stories of people falling in and out of love. We are introduced to Cal and Emily Weaver (Carell, Moore) that are coming home from a boring dinner where Emily reveals that she wants a divorce and admits to having an affair with her co-worker David Lindhagen (Bacon). Drowning in his watered down vodka cranberries, a handsome womanizer named Barney Stintson -- I mean, Jacob Palmer (Gosling) teaches Cal his ways of picking up women and boning them.  Jacob doesn't tell Cal is that he is constantly thinking about a woman that rebuffed his advances, Hanna (Stone). There is also a subplot about Cal's 13-year-old, Robbie (Bobo) is becoming stalkerish with his love for the 17-year-old babysitter, Jessica (Tipton) who is also in love with Cal. Hilarity ensues.

I wanted to be entertained with a movie that would pick my spirits up and it did. I was surprised at how much heart the movie had. Sure the movie had the obvious tropes that a romantic comedy has to go through, but I liked that they made of the clichés as they were happening. The movie was very meta that way. I thought that the movie was fine then, I paused it and I still had forty minutes to go. I thought it was wrapping up. I'm glad that I kept watching. The ending of the movie was unexpected, heartfelt and a bit silly. I wanted that.

Ryan Gosling was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance. I thought he was very good with his scenes with Emma Stone. The other performances were fine for the most part. I thought the son's storyline was a bit bothersome to me. It was very creepy in his attempts to win his soul mate over. I have to give a special shout out to Marisa Tomei who plays Kate. She was hilarious in the limited time that she had on screen.

My Rating

Drive

Drive (2011)

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

Written by Hossein Amini

Based on the book by James Sallis

Stars: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman, James Biberi, Kaden Leos, Oscar Isaac and Christina Hendricks

To rinse the taste of Spider-Man out of my mouth, I wanted to see an actual good movie. Here is a prime example of a good movie that had some bad marketing and came out between the summer blockbuster season and the award show season. It was lost in the mix. It's a shame. I heard great things about this movie. It was on a lot of top ten lists. I have to say that it is a good movie that didn't get a chance.

This is not just a revenge movie. This is a movie about Driver (Gosling), a part time movie stunt driver who also moonlights as a getaway driver for the highest bidder. He only gives five minutes of his time. A second over that the client is on their own. Awesome. Things get complicated when Driver integrated with the lives of his next door neighbor, Irene (Mulligan) and her son, Benicio (Leos). A wrench gets thrown in when Irene's husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac) comes back early from jail. Standard has dealings with bad people that Driver has to get in the mix.

Gosling's Driver character reminded me of classic Eastwood character, The Man with No Name with Driver chews on a toothpick having that fucking kick ass satin scorpion jacket. Driver barely utters a page worth of dialogue in the movie and he could convey lots with his eyes, his mannerisms. I think the biggest stars of the movie is the sound and the score by Cliff Martinez. The ticking of the wrist watch getting louder, the haunting music sucks you in. This movie demonstrated the right amount of tension, suspense with beautiful visuals that hearkens back movies of the late 70s, early 80s.The movie can go from being romantic and sweet with the scenes with Irene and Benicio to horribly violent with a hitman's face caving in or an interesting use of a curtain rod. I'm glad a movie like this exists.

Albert Brooks was getting a lot of Oscar buzz for his role as mobster Bernie Rose in this film. I thought he was very good in the film. The way that he delivered the lines oozed seediness and hate. Brooks won an Omie Award for not being included in the nominees. The rest of the cast was solid with Ron Perlman as Bernie's partner, Nino and Bryan Cranston as the Driver's boss.

My Rating

Blue Valentine

Blue Valentine (2010)

Directed by Derek Cianfrance

Written by Derek Cianfrance and Joey Curtis & Cami Delavigne

Stars: Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, Mike Vogel, Ben Shenkman, Faith Wladyka and John Doman

I really wanted to watch Blue Valentine for a long time, but I did not get the chance to watch it in the theaters. When I saw that the movie was on VOD, I jumped at the chance to see it. I am glad that I did.

The movie shows the beginning and the ending of the relationship between Dean (Gosling) and Cindy (Williams). The action takes place in flashbacks when the two met and fall in love with each other. On the other hand, it shows in t he present when Cindy is done with Dean who is very lazy and has no ambitions in his life. Her revelation occurs during a seemingly harmless romantic getaway to a space themed motel room.

The movie reminds me of Closer where it dealt with the beginning and ending of the relationships of the people involved, but I think this movie dealt with it in a raw level. Closer dealt with it on the surface.

I think that Gosling should have gotten an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Dean-- he got an Omie Award instead-- for playing a guy that has no clear path to life when he meets Cindy. Everything seemed clear that he wanted to be with this woman forever. The love doesn't last when when you are growing older. Sometimes, the things that you love about that person would get on your nerves.

Williams deserved her nomination for playing a woman that is very driven woman that is sideswiped by the charming Dean, but when she believed that Dean would have some ambition in his life instead of being drunk and painting houses for a living.

Together Cindy and Dean gave every emotion known to man. They were not afraid to look vulnerable onscreen. Their story was life affirming, heartbreaking and gut wrenching. Now, I understand the title after watching the movie. What would you do when the love is gone?

My Rating: