Billy Madison

            Adam Sandler, perhaps the most offensive and untalented actor in American Cinema that somehow still manages to feature himself in more and more movie. Even just this past week, while on set making his first, of what unfortunately could be more, Netflix movie, eight Native American actors working with him on that movie walked off set out of anger for the scripts intentional and unquestionable offensiveness towards women, Native Americans, and their elders.

            But this is now; this is where Adam Sandler has arrived in his esteemed and masterful career. It wasn’t always this way. Sandler picked up with movies like Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison before capturing his true unprofessional and insensitive self in, what I hesitantly call movies, like You Don’t Mess with the Zohan and I Know Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

            But I hadn’t seen Billy Madison so I thought I would give the old Adam Sandler another try. And I wish I hadn’t. Sandler’s character is the immature and insensitive son of his hard working, built from the ground up, millionaire father who, and these words actually come out of his own fathers mouth, “paid your toys, cars, vacations, clothes… you graduated because I paid your teachers to give you decent grades”. Prior to his return to school, his daily routine consisted of; making sure he had had five daiquiris, checking for nudie magazines, finding dog poop to put in bags and then burn on the porch of old men’s doors, and rampaging through his own lawns and gardens with a golf cart while the groundskeepers are diligently working on them, presumably trying to repair the devastation Billy has already caused. Not only that, but he nearly hits more than a few of those same groundskeepers drunk driving that same golf cart, which is very illegal by the way. Not to mention he also can be seen regularly chasing a giant penguin through the grounds as well, leading me to believe alcohol was not the only thing in his system.

            And after learning all this… Billy is the good guy? Our bad guy is the intelligent, big haired, and probably worked his whole life for this Eric Gordon who advises Briar Madison (Billy’s father) not to let his son take over the family business and he is cast as the bad guy. Although Eric is later driven insane, which I think is understandable for even having to compete against a man who still has yet to put in any reasonable effort. The entire movie I wondering to myself, “why should I be rooting for this guy?” This is not a hero I idolize, nor is this character deserving of any sort of redemption whatsoever, let alone run a fortune 500 company. Not to mention after a lifetime of being a terrible person all he has to do to make up for everything is kind of sort of but not really go back to school. And by that I mean spend two weeks in each grade.

            Billy shouldn’t of even had the chance to run his father’s company, and I don’t think you should give this movie a chance either. It would seem Happy Gilmore is just the lucky coincidence of a semi quality movie standing out from an otherwise undeservedly famous career.

1 out of 5

Django Unchained

When one thinks of a Western, they usually conjure up images of the American Southwest, with landscapes of grand canyons, gargantuan stone monuments or widespread desert.  However, Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained is also a Western... that mostly takes place in the American Southeast.  Despite this change of scene, Django incorporates several Western tropes and conventions to their fullest potential.  Ultimately, Django is a great movie with inspired action sequences, humorous asides, surprisingly deep meditations and comments on race in America, and perfectly tuned characters who develop as the film goes on, especially Django.

Django starts off rather morbidly, as we find our hero Django (Jamie Foxx) chained up with his fellow slaves and being forced to walk along a trail by a couple of rather awful slave drivers.  After a couple of scenes involving the horrors of such a walk, the audience is introduced to Dr. King Shultz (Christopher Waltz), an ex-dentist and, unbeknownst to the audience, current bounty hunter.  Shultz interrogates Django and believes that he is the one who could be helpful for his next assignment, but is threatened by the barrel of  a shotgun when the drivers realize what Shultz's real profession is.  Shultz immediately shoots them both, killing one and severely crippling the other, and frees Django.
This scene is quite dark yet also quite fun, setting up the film's tone for the rest of the running time.

The film then goes on to its main story, as Django and Schultz team up to take a pair of Django's old slave-owners/nemesis's.  After killing them in style (Django's blue attire may go down as one of the strangest outfits in cinematic history), the two decided to find Django's wife and find a means of freeing her.  Cut to a hilarious piece of dark-comedy on the origin of a certain robe-wearing, white-supremacist group followed by training montage in the surprisingly beautiful Wyoming wilderness.  After these wonderful scenes, Schultz and Django set off to tackle their most difficult challange: freeing Broomhilda Von Shaft (Kerry Washington) from the clutches of a cold-hearted yet memorable villian - Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) - and his truly villainous house-negro, Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson).

(Django meets Calvin Candie, who is the owner of his wife.)

Without giving too much away, Django is a bloody, explosive and hilarious exploration into the Western genre with a Southern setting.  Yet despite the setting Django is a Western through and through.  We are given a protagonist who is a great shot with an even greater sense of style.  There are stand-offs and shoot-outs, wanted criminals and outlaws, bounty-hunters and a damsel in distress.  The roles are almost all perfectly cast, with DiCaprio's surprisingly villainous exploits and Samuel L.'s incredibly formidable character being just two examples.  This  especially applies to the main characters, as Foxx and Waltz seem to both have an inherent understanding of who they are portraying, and simply do an excellent job.   The Tarantino-effect is in full control here, as well - not only is there gratuitous violence, but gratuitous violence that is enjoyable, well-executed and just plain fun.  While the film does have quite a long running time coming in at just under three hours, I would highly recommend this film for its explorations of humor, action, violence, race relations, trope subversions, plot, wonderfully crafted character and, ultimately, just being a bloody good time.  All in all, not just a great Tarantino movie, but perhaps one of the best of the decade thus far.

True Grit (Original)

Hello, movie lovers! Some of you may have read Andrew's recent post on the remake of a western classic, True Grit.  Also, Hopefully, some of you have had a chance to check out the remake because it's definitely worth a watch.  After I read Andrews post I decided to do a review on the original True Grit, starring John Wayne.  Let me just tell you in advanced that the original is just as good, if not better, than the remake.

True Grit, is the first movie I've seen starring John Wayne.  Honestly, I didn't even know what he looked like until, I searched his name on google, two minutes into the movie.  The plot of the story revolves around a young woman, Mattie Ross (Kim Darby), who is trying to find the man, Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey), that murders her father, and bring him back home so they can hang him.  For her first move she hires U.S Marshal Reuben "Rooster"J. Cogburn (John Wayne), referred to by many as a man with "true grit", to find and bring in Chaney.  Mattie and Rooster then later team up with a Texas Ranger named La Boeuf (Glen Campbell), who is also searching for Cheney, to help capture him.

I found Wayne's acting to be very intriguing.  Rooster is a one eyed, unwashed, fat old man whose dynamic persona is a mix between a man who is a ruthless alcoholic, and a man with good intentions. Somehow he blends this mixture into a character that appealed to me.  I also enjoyed how all of the actors in the original have an exaggerated and animated way of acting, especially Kim Darby's character.  This movie came towards the tail end of wayne acting career and showed he could still make a good movie late in his life.  He played the role of the hero again in the film, which is only appropriate.

Mattie Ross is a smart, funny, and determined young woman who drives the whole movie.  Her animated acting and pesky presence allows her to find a route around many of the problems she faces throughout the movie.  She strikes a deal with a horse owner to get a horse for the journey by outtalking him.  She is also the only character in the movie that Rooster seems to really care for.  I thought Darby was funny in most of her scenes.  She talked with energy and action, which is why her character draws much attention throughout the movie.

Campbell, the Texas Ranger, is probably the weakest actor of the three.  His role in the plot is necessary but the acting was a bit too much- over exaggerating his acting in every one of his scenes.  Also, throughout the movie there are these comic jabs thrown at the texan from Rooster and Mattie, which made me wonder why they hated the texan so much?

Director Henry Hathaway uses great camera in this movie.  He moves from these close shots of the actors, to widescreen shots capturing the environment.  However, there was one scene when Mattie and Rooster were camping that looked completely "Hollywood".  It looked like the background was a black cloth, and you could see the fire because the camera was in a close shot of the character's faces.    

I have to say that I was not disappointed watching True Grit, in fact I liked it enough to check out a couple of more of Wayne's films.   If you have never seen the original True grit, but have seen the new one, you should still check it out because the acting of both Wayne, and Darby will keep you entertained throughout.

4 out of 5 stars

True Grit

           

I’m often skeptical of Western Movies. I didn’t grow up with the manly man gentlemanly but still lone wolf don’t need no help gotta do whats right Clint Eastwood John Wayne people. I don’t feel the same nostalgia that my father and uncles seem to salivate over when they reminisce about John Wayne kicking ass and riding off, or when Clint whips out a really unnecessary and absolutely not standard issue weapons and proceeds to write his own laws in bullet holes. True Grit (2010) is my kind of Western, the good kind of Western.

           

            In short Mattie Ross (Hailee Stienfeld) is the young, but doesn’t act like it, tough and fiery girl that looks to hire an old, in every sense of the word, US Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track down and kill her father’s murderer, Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). And all of them play unique and authentic characters that grant weight and emotion to the film. Jeff Bridges is not a glorified Old West cowboy with that elegant sauve and Jame Bond swagger. He sports and old, dirty, patch beard and above it a worn out eye patch and you can tell just how he smells from the clothes he’s wearing. The one eyed former marshal is a stubborn drunk. Jeff Bridge’s character drags around like any man would if his life consisted of riding miles on horseback just to shoot some people, to get shot back at, to never have a real place that is home, to only own one set of clothes. It’s the real western enforcer, not the prettied super cowboy.  

            That dusty dirty drunken Cogburn is up against the straight, “just to watch it burn” kind of evil that I always compare to the Joker from Batman. The no respect, no loyalty, sometimes no motive, unadulterated evil that exits simply because it can. Josh Brolin’s character only earns any props from me just for how well he plays the role. And there is also Matt Damon’s character, LaBoeuf, the Texas Ranger after Chaney for other reasons but who teams up with Cogburn although not to either of their likings. The two battle each other on the road as we learn of the history of these two gunslingers animosity for each other.

            This story of the old souled and unshakable young girl alongside two unlikely and unfriendly heroes to take down a truly devilish man is a must watch. It’s a story of revenge, wit, growing and of course, grit.

4 out of 5