brutzel

In 1977, a self proclaimed "fixer" Mr Healy (Russell Crowe) and a private detective Mr. March (Ryan Gosling) team up to locate Amelia (Margaret Qualley) who may hold the key to all the murders and what the Hippie demonstrations are really all about. They are helped, at times, by March's teenage daughter Holly (Angourie Rice).

One thing becomes absolutely clear: Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling should never do comedy or not do comedy with a lame script such as this. Their banter doesn't go anywhere, there are no good lines, nothing is funny and the sight gags fail too. Aside from all that the acting is okay, but what's the point when everything else fails? We couldn't wait for this to be over.

Another thing and this is disheartening is when we have children mouthing F-bombs as we see Holly do. What are we coming to? Huh?

This movie gets dragged out overly long with aimless running around for……..oh, for clues and a big shoot'em up near the end with a couple fight scenes that could have used Jackie Chan's choreographers.

Notable: Kim Bassinger, Amelia's mother, who is also in charge of the Department of Justice.

A monstrously forgettable movie and our hope is that Crowe and Gosling go back to drama where they belong and where we also hear some good lines from time to time. (3/10)

Violence: Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: Yes, but very brief in an under water show. Language: Yes, but not all that much.

In the dead of winter, somewhere in the Northwest 2-brothers, Wyatt (James Ransone) and Samuel (Josh Peck) go bounty hunting for someone who has killed many people. Bringing in this killer will help them save their ranch which is about to go into foreclosure. The killer is their father whom they haven't seen since they were little boys.

The clear winners in here are the cinematography and photography. Kudos. If you did nothing else and turned the sound off and just watched the scenery including some really beautiful horses you would be ahead of the game.

The story is simple enough, but having 2-people trudge along in hip-high snow tired me out too. I was exhausted. Why were they walking? Well, they lost their cart and their horses.

One brother asks Col Rupert Thomas (Mark Caven) their guide and hired gun, "What is the Timber?" The reply was, "it's eventful." Look at The Timber as the BADLANDS. See?

So they journey on and things happen and they meet some mountain men who are bent on killing them maybe for the meat as cannibalization was not unheard of in those times in those very harsh winters.

Meanwhile the women and a baby left at home are having to deal with the Bank's henchmen who are about to evict them and reclaim land for the bank. Oh, oh! Did the bankers trick the brothers into leaving? You decide.

Sometimes in the beginning when the brothers talked to each other, it was difficult to understand what they were saying as they came down with the mumbles. That got better later on. I thought Samuel's name was Daniel because when Wyatt goes looking for him later on in some huge cave, he kept calling out what sounded like: Daniel? Daniel? Daniel? Well that is what it sounded like. Okay, I will get my ears checked. Pretty sure it was…….. Daniel. Pretty sure...........

I don't recall the music (Ears again?), and it was the scenery that kept me going. There are some scenes that were tough to watch during the fighting and tortures. I had the FF button at the ready. Make sure you do too.

Over all this is a movie you can pass on and miss nothing. But if you like to see a lot of snow all the time, and like watching people lumber along in it, this is for you.

Oh, the fighting was done mostly with knives. Hey, they had guns why didn't they use them? No one knows.

This was a western, but it wasn't that good a one. It is watchable though. (5/10)

Violence: Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Language: Yes, but not too much.

The is based upon a true story. In 1929 Scribner Bookseller Publisher Editor Max Perkins (Colin Firth) agrees to publish a novel by Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law). It was said that other publishers rejected Wolfe's novels due to their being overly long, but this did not deter Perkins who was captivated by Wolfe's autobiographical poetic prose. Look Homeward Angel was the result of that collaboration wherein we saw Perkins cut much of the work. Later in their lives when their relationship was somewhat strained Perkins remarks if editors make the work better or different. This story revolves around Wolfe, but we know the Genius in here is Perkins.

Of course, we all know that Colin Firth used to be King of England. (You like saying that, right?) Yes, the King's Speech was one of the best movies I have ever seen.

Back to Genius. Again with "true stories" we are not really sure how much of what we see is actually true and we have to almost accept everything, but when One goes to other reviewers as this One did, this time, we see that not all in the movie was actually true; and in some instances Wikipedia supports some of this. It will be up to you to decide what you want to believe. I could provide examples but that would lessen your interest in doing your research. See?

Colin Firth and Jude Law have, perhaps, given one of their best performances ever. (Well, except for Firth in The King's Speech you would agree, I am sure) We see Law's Wolfe as somewhat out of control at times, too exuberant, too over-confident, too uncaring about people especially his lover, Mrs Aline Bernstein (Nicole Kidman) when he refused to attend an opening night play of hers. At the same time - it seemed - that Perkins wouldn't go on a family vacation because he and Wolfe had work to do. Their obsession with the work of editing Wolf's novel was the only driving force in their lives.

I did not recognize Nicole Kidman as Mrs Bernstein and kept wondering who that was. But the credits said it was Nicole Kidman so there you are. Maybe she should wear her hair longer and keep it black as she was absolutely stunning and beautiful in this movie. Who knew? And the role she played could be considered Oscar Worthy along with Colin Firth and Jude Law. Kudos to all.

We see that both Perkins and Wolfe knew Ernest Hemingway (Dominic West) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Guy Pierce) and those scenes were pure gold. Perkins was the editor for both Hemingway and Fitzgerald.

We kept wondering when Perkins would finally remove his hat which he wore in every scene except the last one.

We don't often get to see anything of the great writers/authors and the people who help them. This is a good first start and this was a great story. (9/10)

Violence: No. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Language: No.