Tag: Woody Harrelson

SOLO (2018) movie review

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Han’s the Robin Hood renegade rescuer in a dark side double-cross in this delightfully high speed, Star Wars-style action story staring the lovely Alden Ehrenreich. There’s only one problem, he’s not Solo.No lack of star power, this film, rescued by all-star director Ron Howard plays like a sci-fi western Mission Impossible Bourne Identity Star Wars mash-up staring favorite faces from film and TV hits like Avengers, Hunger Games, Westworld, Atlanta (& Community), even Game of Thrones. Paul Bettany, Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, Donald Glover, and Emilia Clarke make Solo characters instantly recognizable and likable. The only distraction, which was also a major issue in Rogue One, is the Robot with too many lines bent on comic relief. Making her an advocate for Robot rights and a love interest for Lando still did not pay off or play as a necessary point in this Solo plot. Disney bankrolled this SW origin story hoping to draw millions of fans with these famous names.What’s in a name? Well, Harrison Ford IS Han Solo. His brusque, carefree swagger fresh off a construction set and into the believable bad boy cockpit of the Millenium Falcon has been winning the hearts of OG Star Wars fans since ‘77. He’s the heart-of-gold smuggler who always claims to be in it for just that: the gold. He’s the Cool Hand on the run who shoots first, sass talks the evil Jabbas of the space underworld, and gets frozen in carbonite.But now, the “I have a bad feeling about this” guy is all smiles and jeers, hope and helpfulness.
Sadly, this backstory romp escaping a tramp planet and into WWI conditions does not bring clarity to the Solo story despite run-ins with Glover’s suave Lando.New Han is all good guy, sweet smiles, protecting the girl, saving the people. Here the cowboy wanders war-torn planets of mud and ice and sand as lovesick slave turns good guy smuggler. Classic and entertaining, just not Solo.

 

WAR for THE PLANET of THE APES (2017) movie review

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Mercy, empathy, loyalty, grief. These themes transcend their opposites: hatred, misunderstanding, cruelty, apathy. In this film, two opposing sides fight for the same plot of land. Yes, it’s an Avatar and a Dances with Wolves all over again. But just as history is destined for repetition without intervention, so this film shows one side succumbing to evil claiming survival of the fittest while the other, the city of apes, merely wants to survive.Andy Serkis is Caesar, beloved and respected leader whose rescue mission skews when personal loss leads to vengeance. Steve Zahn’s character adds such necessary relief to the tension.Blood is spilled on both sides, but the new human enemy, played expertly by Woody Harrelson seems to feel nothing in the face of loss. He kills at will, wounds for sport, captures communities and watches them starve.

This is a war movie, as advertised, but it is shot-for-shot so beautiful, such a big screen wonder, that you may almost forget that the main characters are apes rather than men.Caesar’s literal journey takes sharp turns as he confronts his demons of bloodlust and unworthiness, meeting friends and foes on his own path to redemption. Don’t miss this enthralling finale’ to the trilogy.

GLASS CASTLE (2017) movie review

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My friend Matt is always challenging me to write the story that makes me bleed. It’s the one that comes most viscerally from your gut, from your experience, from your life, from your sorrow, from your joy, from the thing that makes you tick and move forward at the same time. This film bleeds author Jeannette Wall’s life story allowing tandem past memories to engage with present conflicts.

This director Destin Daniel Cretton, who gave us Short Term 12  (2013), has a gift for telling those stories that hurt to tell.Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts give the performances of a lifetime as they attempt to parent on the run from one temporary living situation to the next, one binge drink to the next, one family fight and hungry belly and life lesson to the next.We ache with Brie Larson as she suffers and survives in her films like Short Term 12 (2013), Room (2015), and now in Glass Castle. Her character has changed her status in life and made it to New York as a writer, but her interactions with her homeless parents only force her to deal with the demons from her past.It’s a true story about a girl whose love for her father transcends his poor parenting, his cruelty, his ever-brimming promises to build life into a perfect glass castle for those he loves most. The ebb tide flows in with her belief in him and out with disappointment and carries moviegoers on the journey of forgiveness as they learn alongside her what it means to be like the tree that has lets suffering make it stronger.