REVIEW: Ford v Ferrari [2019]

I’ll have you home for meatloaf and gravy. The man at the center of James Mangold‘s Ford v Ferrari is Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon), a former driver turned racecar designer forced into retirement by a heart condition exacerbated by the difficulties of his high-speed sport of choice. His narrative importance lies in being the connective tissue between Ken Miles (Christian Bale as his close friend and colleague) and Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts as a man who needs no introduction) once the titular war at Le Mans gets underway. His…

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REVIEW: Mud [2013]

“Green beans never tasted so good” It’s a rarity to find a coming-of-age story set inside an adult-themed drama. Usually we’re made to watch adolescents caught inside the funny/awkward growing pains of puberty as lust and love and vanity and fear all mix into a pool of hormonal angst, embarrassment, and pratfall through comedy. Writer/director Jeff Nichols looked to create something in opposition to such cliché when he set off on the journey leading him to Mud more than a decade ago. He sought a way to capture the heaviness…

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REVIEW: Footloose [2011]

“We cannot be missing from our children’s lives” Whether it takes place in 1984 or 2011, the Footloose’s premise will never be plausible. No matter how small the place, I can’t wrap my head around a town council banning the act of dancing and listening to loud rock ‘n’ roll for minors under the age of 18 in any era other than the 1950s. Maybe I’m giving ultra conservative America too much credit or am reading into the set-up for a dance movie too deeply, but Craig Brewer’s remake doesn’t…

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REVIEW: Dolphin Tale [2011]

\ “You could have drowned or gotten stabbed by a swordfish for god sakes” People who have seen the trailer love to call it Free Willy 2011. While the subject of a kid doing all he can to save a marine animal from death does eventually come up in Dolphin Tale, it isn’t an issue until we’re well into the film. No, at the start it’s all about young Sawyer Nelson (Nathan Gamble), lost and trying to find a place in the world. A quiet kid with little to no…

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REVIEW: The Blind Side [2009]

“With God All Things Are Possible” Everyone enjoys a feel good story, especially if it’s based on fact. When the main character of the true life tale is a young man saved from the squalor of gang life and an inevitable bullet to be loved, educated, and sent on his merry way towards a career in the NFL, well you’ve got film adaptation written all over it. That is exactly what Warner Brothers thought when optioning Michael Oher’s past, via a book by Michael Lewis, and casting Sandra Bullock as…

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