Category: Kyle Chandler

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA

By Marc S. Sanders

Whether it is Gone Baby Gone, or The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, or even Good Will Hunting, Casey Affleck is an actor who never compromises for glamour or grandeur in his roles. He will look ugly, dress down or be the most unlikable of characters to preserve the authenticity of a movie’s script. I imagine good directors just let him loose and film him with whatever he comes up with on the spot. It would be a tribute to his talent to do so. Here, in this Best Picture nominee, he is incredibly moving and quietly unhinged. He’s excellent.

Manchester By The Sea is a heavy, dramatic script held together by a simple story. Affleck plays Lee Chandler who will probably be destined to endure one unspeakable tragedy after another for the rest of his life; hammered away until it seems there’s no way to ever recover from inner demons of guilt and sadness.

At best, his recently departed brother (the always reliable Kyle Chandler) blesses him with an opportunity by making Lee the guardian to his 16 year old son, Patrick, played by Lucas Heges in one of the best screen debuts I can remember. He’s an eerie doppelgänger for a young Matt Damon.

Patrick needs Lee, and Lee, who doesn’t know it yet needs Patrick.

Manchester By The Sea takes its time to set up story and character, and maybe that is its downfall. People get in their cars, they shovel snow, they get out of their cars, they shovel more snow. All this set up for a 2 hour and 15-minute film might handicap the pacing, but I can’t think of a better way to improve upon its heart wrenchingly real narrative. The tragedy at the center of Lee’s turmoil is difficult to accept.

Michelle Williams as Lee’s wife is proves once again that she is an amazing actor finding her own unique method for a penultimate crying scene. She is underused. I would have liked to see more of her in this film.

Manchester By The Sea was nominated for Best Picture, Actor, Director, Screenplay and Supporting Actress. All well-deserved but maybe not worthy of the awards. (Affleck won the award, actually, and so did Kenneth Lonergan for his screenplay.) I think there were a few better nominees in each of these categories. Still, had it not been for the Oscar nods I probably wouldn’t have watched it. All I can say is, I’m glad I did.

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

By Marc S. Sanders

When a person carries on with his/her life knowing full well that practically every action is illegal, immoral and harmful, it’s a story that must be told. Jordan Belfort, The Wolf Of Wall Street is such a person.

Leonardo DiCaprio explodes with rages of drug use, drinking, more drug use, banging prostitutes, even more drug use and pink slip stock trading along with some drug use. To get this manic, this wild, and this crazy requires a certain kind of energy to perform. The real Jordan Belfort must have had a massive amount of stamina to live this life. After all, he’s still alive today. DiCaprio, portraying the on-screen persona, throws himself into it. There’s no way he got to this pinnacle of hyperactivity on cue, with director Martin Scorsese’s call for action. DiCaprio had to thrust himself into this debauchery. It takes a certain skill to not let up on this. Pay attention to a hilarious scene where his quaaludes have paralyzed him to the point where he can’t even crawl to, much less open the door to his car. It’s a hilarious display of crippling physicality. DiCaprio maxed out on his Belfort portrayal, thereby earning his Oscar nomination. I thought he should have won that year. He lost to his cameo co-star, an excellent Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club.

DiCaprio is so good that he yanks the entire cast into comparable craziness as well. Jonah Hill plays Jordan’s sidekick Donny: a buffoon of a guy who’ll whip out his member at inopportune times for attention and display. Hill doesn’t hold back either in his earned second nomination as well.

Scorsese, with a script by Terrance Winter based on Belfort’s book, is not concerned with necessarily showing a story arc where characters question their actions. Instead, he focuses on the hubris of all of this. Crashed helicopters, crashed cars, crashed planes and crashed luxury yachts not to mention endless office orgies, including one in first class on a commercial flight to Switzerland. It’s filmed very well, and while it is one over the top thing after another, it is nonetheless very funny and very entertaining.

The nerve of this guy, right? Yet that’s the thing about The Wolf Of Wall Street. Right from the get-go, Belfort is strongly urged to let up as the FBI easily closes in, and he doesn’t. It’s kinda crazy, really. Belfort put himself in an unwinnable situation and his addiction to money, drugs, ridiculous sex, and the ease by which he does it all calls to him to stay in the game until the lights just turn off.

This film marked the highly visible introduction of Margot Robbie as Jordan’s wife. She’s excellent with a New York accent (Robbie’s Australian) who loves the money and glamour but is not so stupid. Following up with a nominated role in I, Tonya (which she should have won against an aggravating Frances McDormand in Three Billboards…) and offering the best moments of Suicide Squad, it is easy to believe that she could go toe to toe with DiCaprio here. They have great arguments on screen together; funny but true.

Scorsese offers up his signature narrative voiceover from DiCaprio just as he did before in Goodfellas and Casino. His editor Thelma Schoonmaker is great at keeping the energy alive by taking advantage of the legendary director’s quick cuts and great music samplings.

The cast is just right with memorable moments from Jon Bernthal as Jordan’s tough guy friend and errand boy, Brad. (Bernthal is a great character actor all together. Check him out in Baby Driver, too.). Kyle Chandler is the modest element as the FBI agent who brings it all down. He knows he doesn’t have to exert himself too much. Belfort is doing all the work for him. Still, he spells it out harshly and honestly. No bullshit. He just cuts to the chase.

Other great appearances include Rob Reiner, Jon Favreau, Jean Dujardin, Joanna Lumley and I have to recognize Stephanie Kurtzuba. She offers a scene not widely recognized, as a disciple of Belfort’s team who is full of pomp, and confidence that far exceeds any of the guys alongside her. It occurs midway through and it’s an important moment because it really shows the power of influence Belfort had with his stockbrokers. He made them criminal millionaires overnight and to them he’s a Messiah. When Kurtzuba’s moment occurs, she solidifies the power of Belfort’s misdeeds.

It’s very easy to succumb to this lifestyle. Scorsese and Winter show how easily and quickly lots of unclaimed cash can be made at the expense of innocent people. It’s really fascinating. There’s no dimension to Belfort and his cronies of losers who would follow him anywhere despite the cost and the damage. That’s okay for me here. Simply because it fascinates me that he had the chutzpah to continue on with this immoral trajectory.

The Wolf Of Wall Street is a no holds barred, great film.

GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS (2019)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: Michael Dougherty
Cast: Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Ken Watanabe, Bradley Whitford
My Rating: 6/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 40%

PLOT: Five years after the events of Godzilla (2014), humanity finds itself once again at risk as multiple titanic creatures awake from slumber and wreak devastation on the planet.  Who can stop them?  Indeed, WHO?


In many ways, Godzilla: King of the Monsters reminded me of Guillermo del Toro’s kaiju epic Pacific Rim, although, to be fair, the monster battles were far superior in del Toro’s film.  But that’s the framework in which this movie should be measured: the monster battles.  With a title like King of the Monsters, one shouldn’t walk into a screening of this film expecting a screenplay by Ernest Hemingway.  You won’t find self-reflexive, multi-layered dialogue here.  You want that, wait for Oscar season later in the year.

No, this is a popcorn movie, pure and simple, and on that level, I believe it succeeds.  We got two monster “species” total in 2014’s Godzilla reboot, and in this sequel, we get an additional six at least.  We got two major monster sequences in the first film…this time we get, jeez, four, I think?  I lost count.  In the summer blockbuster vein of “bigger is better”, G:KotM pulled out all the stops.

At least, in terms of the monster battles.  The screenplay is one giant cliché after another.  Think of the screenplay for Independence Day and square the cheesiness factor.  Then think of all the monster movies you remember from your youth, and imagine someone funneled every cliché from those terrible scripts into this one.  Yeah, it’s like that.

  • One character talks about humanity being a scourge to the planet, and how it ought to be eradicated by the titans in order for the planet to survive.  As my friend Marc Sanders pointed out, they should have just called Thanos; he could have fixed the problem in a SNAP, thank you, I’m here all night.
  • At one point, a kidnapped little girl is taken to a military-style bunker and, in a feat that rivals Houdini, manages to steal an EXTREMELY important piece of hardware, climb into an air shaft, and literally stroll out the UNGUARDED front gate, presumably while all the grownups are too busy watching the world end on their computer monitors.
  • At another point, it’s determined that the best way to revive an injured Godzilla is to fire a nuclear weapon into his radioactive underwater lair.  Alas, the launching mechanism has failed, and it’s impossible to detonate it remotely, meaning someone must volunteer to hand-carry a nuclear warhead, place it literally RIGHT NEXT to Godzilla, and blow themselves up.  Because, why not?  Instead of feeling like a heroic moment, it felt really, REALLY contrived.

But, I mean…it’s not like any of that really matters here, does it?  To re-state an important factoid, the title of the movie is Godzilla: King of the Monsters.  KING OF THE MONSTERS.  This is simply a mindless, monstrous summer diversion that oddly appealed to me, but only when we saw the monsters fighting.  It kinda took me back to my childhood, watching one of any number of Godzilla films in syndication.

I’m not saying it’s better than the 2014 film, let me be clear.  I thought that film, helmed by Gareth Edwards (who went on to direct the sensational Rogue One), was a more “awesome” movie in the most literal sense of the word.  There was a sense of grandeur, almost, to Godzilla that bordered on reverence. King of the Monsters is all about the fight.  The rumble.  The battle for dominance.  Only one can be king, and Godzilla will not give up his throne without a fight.  Or three.

Many moons ago, I went with my good friend Marc to see what promised to be a cheesy movie: Freddy vs. Jason (2003). Was it cheesy? Yes. But did it deliver on its title? Brother, we got, not one, but THREE showdowns between the two title characters. I got what I paid for and had no complaints.

Same principle applies here.

GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONTSTERS

By Marc S. Sanders

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters

Imagine our reaction upon learning that the cast of this epic features the following:

Academy Award Nominee: David Strathairn

Academy Award Nominee: Ken Wantanabe

Academy Award Nominee: Vera Farmiga

Academy Award Nominee: Sally Hawkins

The FBI Guy from The Wolf Of Wall Street: Kyle Chandler

Emmy Nominee: Millie Bobbie Brown

Emmy Nominee: Charles Dance

…and the guy from Speed and Terminator 2: Judgement Day and most importantly the 2nd episode of What’s Happenning!!!: Joe Morton

Here is a film where scientist Vera Farmiga justifies waking up 10 million ton monsters on earth because it will “SAVE THE EARTH FROM POLLUTION DUE TO OVER POPULATION.” (Ahem, couldn’t she have just called Thanos?”)

Here is a film where scientists reason that the only way to communicate with Gorjira (a bad ass looking three headed Hydra) is by humpback whale frequency. (Ahem…one more thing…couldn’t Spock simply travel back to the mid 1980s and pick up George & Gracie?)

Here is a film where Boston is brought down to rubble save one street conveniently available for a Hummer to race down so that Kyle Chandler and Vera Farmiga can race back to their house to find daughter Millie Bobbie Brown safely taking refuge.

Despair not though my friends.

Boston survived!!!

There was one sole remaining functioning traffic light still standing following the mass destruction. That’s all I need for self assurance.

Let me tell you something though. You get your money’s worth out of this mashed potatoes of a film. One of the best comedies of the year!!!

It was a lot of fun.