[Oscar Madness Monday] Straight Outta Compton (2015)

Director: F. Gary Gray

Cast: O’Shea Jackson Jr., Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Paul Giamatti

Screenplay: Jonathan Herman, Andrea Berloff

147 mins. Rated R for language throughout, strong sexuality/nudity, violence, and drug use.

Academy Award Nominee: Best Writing, Original Screenplay

Who would’ve thought that Straight Outta Compton would be an Oscar contender? 2015 was great.

Straight Outta Compton is the story of NWA, specifically Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell, Keanu, Broken City), Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson, Jr.), and Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins, Non-Stop, Romeo and Juliet), and the effect that they made on the music industry in the 1980s and 90s. It also tells of NWA’s involvement with Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti, Sideways, Ratchet & Clank), the manager of the group.

Straight Outta Compton seemingly came out of nowhere. I didn’t think it would be very good. I was wrong. This was more than just a fun movie. This was excellent film making. To be honest, my immediate dismissal of this film came from F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job, Law Abiding Citizen). I enjoyed The Italian Job somewhat, but I absolutely hated Law Abiding Citizen. So I wasn’t too keen. I was, as I said, wrong.

The best elements of the film, though, come from the leads. Jackson, Hawkins, and Mitchell were all amazing, and their performances were aided by Paul Giamatti and his pitch-perfect portrayal of Jerry Heller.

Straight Outta Compton chooses to cover every side of the beginnings and ends of NWA and everything in between. This movie is a lot of film. It runs a bit lengthy, so spend some time to watch this behemoth. It is worth it.

4/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

August 22, 2016 4

[Happy 20th Birthday!] Tales from the Crypt presents Demon Knight (1995)

Director: Ernest R. Dickerson

Cast: Billy Zane, William Sadler, Jada Pinkett Smith, Thomas Haden Church, CCH Pounder, John Kassir

Screenplay: Ethan Reiff, Cyrus Voris, Mark Bishop

92 mins. Rated R for gore, horror violence, sexuality and language.

Only a series like Tales from the Crypt can make a joke about going postal into a plot point. Seriously.

It’s been twenty years since the first in a planned (but cancelled) trilogy of Tales from the Crypt films was released in theaters. Demon Knight is the story of an age-old battle between good and evil, following Brayker (William Sadler, The Shawshank Redemption, Machete Kills), a man who has lived far past his years, as he is hunted throughout the forgotten roads of western civilization by a being known only as The Collector (Billy Zane, Titanic, The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption). Brayker is in possession of a mystical relic, a key, and The Collector will stop at nothing to retrieve it. As Brayker holds up in an old church turned into a motel, owner Irene (CCH Pounder, TV’s NCIS: New Orleans, Avatar) fears he is dangerous and accidentally brings The Collector right to their door. Now, Brayker, Irene, and the rest of the motel residents, including ex-con Jeryline (Jada Pinkett Smith, TV’s Gotham, Collateral) and Roach (Thomas Haden Church, Sideways, Heaven is for Real), a guy just looking for a good time, to stop The Collector from unleashing hell on Earth in this full-length tale told by the menacing Crypt Keeper (John Kassir, Pocahontas, The Smurfs 2).

It is tough to judge a film based on campiness when camp is the overall goal in mind. The movie is goofy, but has a solidly enjoyable screenplay, though it gets a little muddled at the end. Some of the rules created don’t exactly make sense (kind of like Gremlins, you don’t really need to care). The performances are all loopily over-the-top, sometimes too much so. This whole movie exists to service the fans, and half of them weren’t even serviced all in all. I happened to enjoy it, but I agree that it may have worked better as a longer episode rather than a feature. I will say, though, it’s still a pretty damn fun time.

3/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

January 13, 2015 4

31 Days of Horror: Day 10 – John Dies at the End (2012)

Director: Don Coscarelli

Cast: Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown, Glynn Turman, Doug Jones, Daniel Roebuck

Screenplay: Don Coscarelli

99 mins. Rated R for bloody violence and gore, nudity, language and drug content.

I didn’t watch anything of Don Coscarelli’s films at first release. He displays such vivid enthusiasm on the screen that his movies cannot be ignored forever. Thanks to Netflix, I found a copy of Phantasm to experience. Thanks to a fellow reviewer, I was able to view Bubba Ho-Tep. Thanks to the bargain bin, I have now been given access to John Dies at the End, a quirky and rather disappointing film based on the novel of the same name.

The story is extremely convoluted but it comes down to this: a new drug has the potential to take its users into other dimensions and across massive expanses of time, but not everyone who uses is entirely normal after the experience. The story follows John (Rob Mayes, Enough Said, A Golden Christmas 3) and Dave (Chase Williamson, Sparks, The Guest) as they attempt to discover the source as Dave recounts the tale in a restaurant with audience Arnie Blondestone (Paul Giamatti, Sideways, The Amazing Spider-Man 2) listening intently.

Now, I like a lot of the supporting work here. Giamatti gives us a more captivated audience to connect to, but ultimately is unused, as is Clancy Brown (The Shawshank Redemption, The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water) as Dr. Albert Marconi, a paranormal power-player whom John and Dave look up to.

I had to spend a lot of time calculating exactly what turned me off of this film, and I came to the conclusion that it suffers for the very reasons that Coscarelli’s other work, Phantasm and Bubba Ho-Tep, work so well. That strangeness, that quality of oddity turned me away from this. It didn’t start like that, I happened to find the film’s opening, involving an exorcism, a doorknob that transforms into a penis, and a demon made up entirely of frozen meats, quite entertaining. The plot just sort of unravels as it is trying to build.

That’s a lot of what makes up John Dies at the End: trying. I can see that it is trying to be strange and yet appealing. I can see that it is trying to be comedic. I can see that it is trying to shock. It is, and yet none of that matters between a weak script and lead performers that can’t carry the film.

Chase Williamson and Rob Mayes are unknowns, and are likely to stay that way, neither one of them seems to be able to handle a scene and truly hold an audience in the way that Dave tries to hold Blondestone.

Coscarelli was quoted that John Dies at the End was one of the greatest titles in motion picture history, and that can be kind of true, although SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT allowing John’s character to live makes it come off as less inspired. Making the decision to kill off the character you promised to kill off would allow you some more creative freedom to embrace the strange, because it allows the audience to be less focused on the ending and more on the journey, which is oftentimes a tough sell. END SPOILERS.

In the end, I can openly appreciate the attempt that this film is making. I can, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that I was checking my watch less than fifteen minutes in, and that doesn’t make for a wonderful last eighty minutes or so. Don’t rate Coscarelli on this bummer.

2/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

For more 31 Days of Horror, click here.

October 10, 2014 0

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

Director: Marc Webb

Cast: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidtz, Colm Feore, Paul Giamatti, Sally Field

Screenplay: Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner

142 mins. Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action/violence.

After the okay-ish 2012 release of The Amazing Spider-Man, I was uncertain if the franchise had the staying power after essentially remaking the original Spider-Man. Now, with this year’s sequel, is The Amazing Spider-Man 2 further proof? Find out now.

And, I should point out, Spoilers be warned for any and all plot points of previous films. I won’t ruin this one though, so feel free to read on.

Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield, The Social Network, Never Let Me Go), still suffering from his failure to save Captain Stacy, is forced to juggle his role as Peter with his role as Spider-Man when new villain Electro (Jamie Foxx, Django Unchained, Annie) rises to power, literally. Peter’s problems only get greater as old friends and new enemies appear, all seemingly linked to the death of Peter’s parents (Campbell Scott and Embeth Davidtz) and his father’s connection to Oscorp. His relationship with the captain’s daughter Gwen (Emma Stone, The Help, Birdman) has progressed to a point where he must constantly fear for her safety. Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan, Chronicle, Life After Beth), an childhood friend of Peter’s shows up, wanting to cure a disease, but to do that, he needs too much from Spider-Man. Peter is further tested when his relationship with Aunt May (Sally Field, Forrest Gump, Lincoln) is strained by his hunt for the truth in his lineage.

This film dramatically improves on many of the faults and worries I had from the previous picture, while still having issues with pacing and tone. From a visual perspective, after 5 theatrical Spider-Man films, this one has a lot of nice work going on for us to watch. The camera knows when it has to focus and when it has to move. The effects are, in a word, stunning. I love the costumes here as well. For the fact that there are a lot of villains in this movie, each one, from the new to the recognizable, is an awesome costume which breathes life (or new life, in the case of one) into the characters. Garfield’s performance has improved as well. He isn’t as confused about where his character needs to be, emotionally, in each scene. Fresh faces Jamie Foxx and Paul Giamatti (Sideways, River of Fundament) as Alexsei Sytsevich, a russian gangster, provide something fun to play with. Foxx’s performance only kicks in as he becomes Electro, but when it does, he takes off.

I have to say this, the real win of this film is the mystery surrounding the deaths of Peter’s parents. This is something that we didn’t really have in the previous series, so it is a point that we as viewers didn’t feel like we had to compare.

The music choices surrounding Electro were interesting. Webb cast a musical group specifically for Foxx’s character, called the Magnificent Six. This works at times and fails as others. See what I meant by tone issues.

The ending is where this tonal confusion really gets notable. I won’t play with any reveals for you, but strictly speaking, things get much more serious than they have the entire film previously. So many important plot points jammed in there, and it just didn’t work.

Now, the open-ended set up for sequels worked fine, setting us up for a little Spider-Man Cinematic Universe feeling, and that excites me.

I need to day that this film definitely isn’t the Spider-Man 2 we have seen before, and it isn’t as good as we deserved, but it is a ton of fun and a big step up from its immediate predecessor. Remember that, and enjoy yourself.

3.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

So what did you think of The Amazing Spider-Man 2? Did you feel the electricity or was this a short circuit? Let me know!

For my review of The Amazing Spider-Man, click here.

September 15, 2014 5