Tag: biopic

400 Words on: The Smashing Machine (2025)

or, “Beating All the Well-Bushed Bits”:
A spoiler-free mini movie review.

2 out of 5

If I was John Krasinski (Jim from the U.S. “Office”), and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson was going around telling everyone he was “best friends” with my wife (his “Smashing Machine” co-star Emily Blunt), it wouldn’t matter how many more seasons of “Jack Ryan” I’m signed up for: I’d be jealous.

Thankfully, the Universe has stepped in six-ways-from-Sunday to give John the break I assume he wanted from his spouse’s new champion: the most egregious being the leads’ shared sequences in their new movie.

Taken separately, both Johnson & Blunt are inarguably beguiling. However, their joint scenes here have a sloppy, off-the-cuff quality that probably comes from under-rehearsed improvisation, spoiling any chemistry I may have thought the acting colleagues had, and never convinced me of their characters’ connection. When Johnson’s Mark Kerr mansplains the aura of the crowd to Blunt’s Dawn, it reads like something he’d have said on their first date: not after moving in together.

[cont’d]

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Dub’s Take: The Program (2015)

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

3 out of 5

In Tom Tykwer’s 2009 thriller The International, there’s a two minute scene explaining banking for laymen. Being now middle-aged, I get that financial institutions profit off interest, but, 16-years-ago & raised without financial skills, some surprise edu-tainment was appreciated.

Same goes for Lance Armstrong biopic The Program: Guillaume Canet as moustache-twirling Dr. Ferrari breaks down the science of steroids for a non-sports guy like myself within a few well-delivered lines.

If there’s one thing to admire about the film, it’s this streamlined structure: we start with Armstrong’s first Tour de France, and stay largely with the Tour and Lance’s first-hand experiences with cycling culture – including doping – in a linear narrative.

Ben Foster is the perfect lead for this creative direction: he exudes determination, even in his Lance’s moments of weakness. This vulnerability very rarely materializes under the narcissism, leading to some genuine – albeit cringey – humour, like a break-up message from Nike, or whispered threats to his competitors mid-race.

Awkward levity is par-for-the-course for High Fidelity director Stephen Frears, who also brings a digital, documentary quality to the film’s images, which work in favour of the lengthy, zestful racing scenes.

Alas, the film also feels the need to pivot to The IT Crowd’s Chris O’Dowd as David Walsh – a real-life journalist skeptical of Armstrong’s wins & author of the non-fiction book the film is based on. The Program may maintain a sprightly momentum its entire duration, but that includes the numerous office scenes with O’Dowd, which are visually edited so haphazardly they took me out of Golden Topping Land. Chris is good as the character, but viewers already follow a first-hand account in Lance himself, rendering O’Dowd’s role & the scenes it inhabits narratively supererogatory.

Usually I’m a champion of shorter movies, but The Program’s ninety minutes end too abruptly, where there would traditionally be a third-act courtroom climax. The post-film text alludes to events not-yet-transpired, suggesting the movie was made while Armstrong’s fate was still in litigation. Had producers waited, and exchanged O’Dowd’s material for more about Lance’s personal life (his wife’s meet-cute is blocked like a fling, but in the next scene they’re married), I may not have been disconnected from the material as often.

In spite of that, The Program is still worth watching for the knowledge gained, the racing, and Ben Foster’s performance.

Poster sourced from impawards.com. As of publication, The Program is available to watch for free in Western Canada on Tubi (unsponsored). What do you think? Leave us a comment below!

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Dub’s Take: Unsung Hero (2024)

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

2.5 out of 5

“Unsung Hero” – the much-anticipated faith-based family drama inspired by the lives of, and produced by, the boys from “for KING + COUNTRY” – is a perfectly middle-of-the-road motion picture. There’s your one-sentence Kojima-style review right there.

Viewer mileage will largely depend on their opinion of FKAC: you’ve probably heard one-or-two of the Christian pop-duo’s crossover hits on Top-40 radio. My wife is a fan and we attended their 2023 Christmas concert, where half the intermission was taken up with promoting Unsung Hero. Their stamp is all over it: its namesake song off their 2022 album “What Are We Waiting For” is the film’s theme; Joel Smallbone steps into the shoes of his Job-like father; and the young actors playing Joel & Luke as children are in the background of scenes ten-times more than the other adolescents, even making sly jabs at their eventual rise to stardom, despite the film’s focus being the awakening of their older sister’s singing career (Rebecca St. James).

A perfect example of the movie’s internal struggle to balance corny cheese with heart-tugging worship can be found in its climax: Dad has one last chance to redeem his music management career, by presenting Rebecca to his rock-star neighbour Eddie Degarmo. While Kirrilee Berger’s singing as Rebecca is enduring, we keep cutting back to Degarmo’s reaction, and “General Hospital” ‘s Jonathan Jackson wears a stupid wig that cessates any sincerity the scene earns otherwise. I can’t think of any other way the filmmakers could have avoided this (Jackson’s acting is fine) other than not cutting to his reaction until the end.

Other bits of movie dissimulation include a trip to the playground that ends in a heavy-handed metaphor about moving on, and at least two of the seven siblings barely getting any screentime. But there’s at least one stand-out moment for Joel’s patriarch when he’s at his lowest, and I appreciated the script not skimping over the financial intervention of Lucas Black’s overly-generous co-congregant. The movie is presented professionally, but workmanlike. There isn’t anything stand-out about its plot or themes, nor anything so egregious it doesn’t deserve a recommendation if you’re into this sort of thing.

Unsung Hero’s faults are cancelled out by its positives & vice-versa, resulting in an average time at the movies. I can’t say I was disappointed, since it was exactly what it said it would be on its label.

Poster sourced from impawards.com.

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Dub’s Take: Ferrari

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

Michael Mann films are divisive. They are Tarantino-esque, with sharp, heavily-stylized direction, punctuated by quick bursts of violence. But Mann isn’t a goofball like most of the characters in a Tarantino movie, and Mann’s films are often misrepresented as action movies. No Michael Mann film is wholly an action movie, and almost all take themselves far too seriously. Once again, with “Ferrari”, I was fooled by the advertising, which classifies the picture as a thrilling extravaganza.

What Ferrari the film actually is, is Mann finally embracing his dramatic side. If you go in knowing there’s maybe 15 total minutes of actual racing in its 2-hour+ runtime, you’ll enjoy it. In fact, none of its racing scenes are as exciting, empathy-inducing, or as well-framed as the ones in Neill Blomkamp’s “Gran Turismo”: barring two admittedly-spectacular crashes, I found Erik Messerschmidt’s camera is often too low to the ground in the close-ups with an over-reliance on wide shots – as the Oscar-winning cinematographer of “Mank”, he should have brought us within reach of those fast, pretty cars. There were also some abrupt transitions (the first dramatized race in the movie starts after a crash on the track that the viewer doesn’t see OR learn about until the other drivers are trying to pass it) that suggest the inevitable Director’s Cut is coming soon. While revisionism is part of Mann’s artistic method, I won’t need to see the movie again.

Great work by Adam Driver – I don’t usually seek his films out – and excellent pulsing orchestral soundtrack (in that Michael Mann way, just with actual instruments) by Daniel Pemberton. Mann should direct a straight romantic movie next without any tough fluff: he would probably be really successful at it.

4 out of 5

Poster sourced from imdb.com. Anyone interested in more of my ramblings on Michael Mann may enjoy this dissection of his first major film “Thief”. Don’t agree? Think the racing scenes were awesome? Big Mann fan? Sick of biopics? Comment why don’t ‘cha!

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Jay’s Take: House of Gucci

A spoiler-heavy & deeply-subjective movie review.

Ridley Scott, what are we to do with you? Guy’s movies consistently underperform at the box office and yet he still keeps pumping them out, and studios are happy to let him. Why is that? We’ve all heard the story about when Kevin Spacey was edited out of “All the Money in the World” and Scott reshot his scenes with Christopher Plummer in one week (we also heard about how Michelle Williams was paid less than a HUNDREDTH of what Mark Wahlberg was to come back but, forget that, because Ridley Scott doesn’t have time for your bullshit). The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that his are the ultimate in money-laundering fronts: high-class picture-films with sky-high production values that add legitimacy to the Lizard People’s ever-domineering hold over the global sex-slave market. Or the Big Studios’ hold over the encroaching streaming & independent markets. Plus, he’ll shoot it for 20-bucks on a weekend: fast, AND cheap! Look, any idiot can make an “important” film on his iPhone now, but it takes a serious “auteur” like Scott to make an “important” film with unlimited resources at his disposal and STILL have it turn out to be plodding garbage that no one is interested in paying money to go see.

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