A memoir from a non-fiction writer may seem sort of an odd idea. And it is. Doesn’t mean it’s not wonderful.
Author Bill Bryson uses tales of his childhood alter-ego “The Thunderbolt Kid” as a dramatic device to tell long, rich and wonderful anecdotes about growing up in Iowa in the 1950’s. Not a bad conceit, really, and if it helped him to collect these thoughts into a narrative – great. But I found these interludes a little distracting, taking the book away from what is a very detailed and entertaining time capsule.
One of the things I appreciate the most about Bryson’s writing is that it doesn’t really matter what he’s talking about; his ability to humanize situations and provide perspective is the glue that holds his books together. There’s a personal touch to his work even when he’s discussing technical material, but it really shines through in this one. Highly recommended.
[schema type=”book” url=”http://www.billbryson.co.uk/” name=”The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid” description=”From one of the most beloved and bestselling authors in the English language, a vivid, nostalgic and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the middle of the United States in the middle of the last century. A book that delivers on the promise that it is “laugh-out-loud funny.” Some say that the first hints that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came from his discovery, at the age of six, of a woollen jersey of rare fineness. Across the moth-holed chest was a golden thunderbolt. It may have looked like an old college football sweater, but young Bryson knew better. It was obviously the Sacred Jersey of Zap, and proved that he had been placed with this innocuous family in the middle of America to fly, become invisible, shoot guns out of people’s hands from a distance, and wear his underpants over his jeans in the manner of Superman. Bill Bryson’s first travel book opened with the immortal line, “I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.” In this hilarious new memoir, he travels back to explore the kid he once was and the weird and wonderful world of 1950s America. He modestly claims that this is a book about not very much: about being small and getting much larger slowly. But for the rest of us, it is a laugh-out-loud book that will speak volumes – especially to anyone who has ever been young.” author=”Bill Bryson” publisher=”Broadway Books” pubdate=”2006-10-17″ isbn=”0739315234″ ebook=”yes” paperback=”yes” hardcover=”yes” ]
Odd little indie movie within a movie. Felt like a student film. I think it must have been a vanity project. Kept waiting for it to start…
What’s more:
I stumbled upon this and gave it a shot. It would have made a boring one hour tv show. At 90 minutes I was damn near asleep.
There’s nothing wrong with quirky little love stories. This wasn’t one, though. It wasn’t quirky and there was no real love. This just felt like a film student’s first project unexpectedly got financing and populated with real actors.
The casting is near perfect, which is another backhanded compliment. Jay Baruchel & Alexis Bleidel are given nothing to work with but that’s ok, as that’s more or less what they bring with them. It’s like a deadpan delivery contest. I’ve liked each of them separately in other projects before, but putting them together is a non-starter.
Ben Stiller PLUS Robin Williams peg the overacting meter in the red, but it’s not a deal-breaker, because this is such a fun family film…
What’s more:
When this film was promoted I was very hopeful, simply because this story reminds me of the kind of book I read when I was a kid, like From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Makes sense, since it’s based on a 1993 children’s book of the same name by Milan Trenc. It’s a fantastic premise, simple though it is.
The big worry, of course, was the double threat of Ben Stiller & Robin Williams, two of the most shameless overactors of all time. But where Williams is funny if overbearing, I’ve never particularly cared for Stiller. Add in Owen Wilson & Steve Coogan, and this could have been a really unpleasant experience.
So no one was more pleased than I at how this turned out. Yes, Stiller is Stiller – a smug clown over-amused at himself – but his role as a struggling divorced father is a perfect vessel for him. He has an opportunity to show a quiet humanity and it suits him well. His interactions with his son are really sweet and make the picture.
Williams as Teddy Roosevelt is great casting; the blustery overbearing thing is actually well met here. Wilson is his usual whiny self – I completely miss the appeal of him – but Coogan is kinda fun.
A real pleasure here is Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney & Bill Cobbs as the museum’s former night guards. So great to see these old farmhands practice their craft.
(Note: this review was written on 4/7/2014 – word that Mickey Rooney passed away broke this morning. What an amazing talent we’ve lost.)
The effects are mostly good, although a few extra bucks of production value wouldn’t have gone amiss. Director Shawn Levy acquits himself nicely on his first big fx picture. It’s a really fun and not too stupid family movie and that’s not a bad thing at all. We need more of them…
A newly recruited night security guard at the Museum of Natural History discovers that an ancient curse causes the animals and exhibits on display to come to life and wreak havoc.
Not as good as you’d hoped, not as bad as you’ve been told. Not Ratner-bashing, but really would’ve been interesting to see Singer’s take…
What’s more:
Whatever your opinion of Superman Returns, it is unquestionable that it really hobbled X-Men: The Last Stand. Coming off of the critically and commercially successful X2, the third X-Men movie was poised to be a solid follow-up, with the same cast & crew. Then Bryan Singer got a better offer – reboot Superman. Sinking feeling begins…
Look, blaming Singer is plain unfair; you should never begrudge someone the chance to accept a promotion, and I don’t care what you say, X-Men is not on the same level as Superman. Yeah, I said it…He wanted to move on to what appeared to be a great opportunity. Sadly, it didn’t really work out for either franchise.
Still, this should have been a slam dunk. While Singer hadn’t planned out the storyline for the third film, the ending of X2 all but ensured we were headed into Dark Phoenix territory, so the story should have written itself. So they have the raw materials: a Claremont Classic (mixed in with a Whedon story arc), the same cast, and pots of money.
Search for a new director; directors who turned down the job included Darren Aronofsky, Joss Whedon, Alex Proyas & Zack Snyder. They hired director Matthew Vaughn, but he left the film. Sinking feeling intensifies. They replaced him with Brett Ratner. And we’re sunk. I know that is unfair to Ratner. I don’t really know why he is so reviled. He seems like a perfectly average director – nothing to write home about, sure, but not incompetent. I suppose it has more to do with the feeling that an A-list director was replaced with a utility infielder.
A further problem is that Fox was developing the Wolverine “solo” film at the same time as this movie. You can’t serve two masters successfully, and this was no exception. They didn’t want to use certain characters in this movie and not have them for Wolverine’s movie. Danger…
So, after that long introduction, how is X-Men 3? Not bad, really. At times it’s excellent.
Here’s everything good about it:
Angel – great effects lead to some great visuals
Casting Kelsey Grammer as Hank McCoy/Beast. Hold your hand up if you thought this was a good idea. That makes one. This seemed a horrible idea that I am only too happy to eat crow on and applaud. Frasier has got game…
The storyline(s): both the Dark Phoenix and the Cure arcs are great stuff and welcome.
Appearance of film version of Dr. Moira MacTaggert, making my daughter Moira smile…
Here’s everything that isn’t:
Digital de-aging, also known as “digital skin-grafting”; this technique needs to go sit in the corner until it’s ready to play with the other modern visual effects. It’s time-consuming, expensive, looks like crap, and has convinced older actors that they can continue to monopolize roles that should go to newer actors. The “success” of this technique led Brian Cox to insist that he could play Stryker in the Wolverine spin-off. C’mon, son…
Cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel is an artist – he left after X2 (Singer brought him over to Superman Returns; seeing a trend here?) He is replaced by Dante Spinotti, who is certainly talented, but I think he was given confusing direction here. It doesn’t help that he himself is a replacement for Philippe Rousselot, who left during shooting. Spinotti then had to leave the project before the end of photography, so J. Michael Muro completed it. See what I mean about the confusing look of the film?
Where the hell did Rogue go? Was Anna Paquin double-parked or something? She was in this movie for seemingly seconds. Considering how much these movies obsess over “Best Actress” Berry, you’d think they’d recall that Paquin actually earned her Oscar and utilize her as much as humanly possible.
As a love interest she is replaced with Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat. That’s the third Kitty actress in three movies. Page is really not bad, I’m just including her here because the character is simply not as interesting as Rogue.
Singer took James Marsden with him, so Cyclops is relegated to a small role, barely more than a cameo. Guess they shouldn’t have cut all his scenes in X2, huh?
Rebecca Romijn had to accept a reduced role because of scheduling conflicts caused by the film being rushed into production. This happens WAY too much. Studios are so focused on certain release dates that they push the creative process past breaking. The breakneck pace likely had impact on the movie’s one-dimensional tone than any mismanagement by Ratner. I suspect he did the best he could; Vaughn admitted that one of the reasons he left the project is that there would not be time to complete the film properly. Really drives home the insight of Ben Burtt; “Films aren’t released, they escape.”
Berry managed to bully her way into nearly every scene, but thankfully was still not allowed to drive on camera – they wanted to keep casualties to a minimum…
Um, every single new mutant. Juggernaut is a dumb character, so I guess we can’t fault the fun Vinnie Jones for that. But what pop band did they raid for the rest of these people? When I see characters/actors this bad in a movie I usually assume they are rappers, even if they aren’t. Callisto, Psylocke, Arclight & Kid Omega (I had to look these up; they deservedly don’t even get named in the film) look like a multi-gendered, multi-cultural boy band; you know, during the “edgy” part of their career.
With so many decades of comic characters to choose from there are there no better choices? Maybe my opinion that Marvel has crap villains is actually true. Scary…
Also, it’s just sad that they always have to struggle with the problem of how to let Wolverine slash his way through lots of people without actually killing anyone important. In the previous movies they could always pull in nameless, faceless soldiers. But here in the forest, there’s nothing but mutants. Yet they seemingly have no powers unless looking non-descript and getting gutted without putting up a fight is some new mutation. They only gave him one guy with powers to actually fight (Spike). Why couldn’t he have killed some of the hair gel squad?
When a cure is found to treat mutations, lines are drawn amongst the X-Men, led by Professor Charles Xavier, and the Brotherhood, a band of powerful mutants organized under Xavier’s former ally, Magneto.
The last Boston film to be predominantly shot outside of Boston, hopefully for a long time. Classic Scorsese, but with a real plot for once.
What’s more:
Scorsese always does really well with character study films, but this may be the most story-driven of all of his movies. And it makes this one of his most enjoyable. Despite the length, there is an energy to The Departed that keeps it moving along wonderfully.
For starters, this may be the best source material he’s ever had to work with. Originally made in Hong Kong as the film “Infernal Affairs”, relatively new screenwriter William Monahan adapted the story and was rewarded with an Academy Award for his work. The dialogue is so perfect – this is the sound of Boston tough guys.
The story of Boston’s most famous gangster, Whitey Bulger, is overlaid on what was already a great crime tale: the cops want to take down gangster Frank Costello and both sides employ undercover operatives. The filmmakers wisely realize that what is most fascinating about this tale is not the crime – it’s the development of these parallel characters, mirroring each other as they progress through an increasingly dangerous series of events.
All the acting is excellent, of course, but Leonardo DiCaprio really stands out. His story is arguably the most interesting, but it is a testament to the actor that he is able to wrest attention away from such a heavyweight as Nicholson and his Costello character. Reportedly DiCaprio shied away from any award promotion for his performance as he didn’t want to take away from any of his co-stars. Pretty stand-up if so, but it certainly cost him a Best Actor win.
As his counterpart, Matt Damon is his usual solid self. No knock on Damon at all. He’s a great actor and he’s great here – just nothing new here. Vera Farmiga is an excellent addition to the cast; nice to see a (relative) newcomer among these familiar faces. Although hers is one of the less believable Boston accents.
Thelma Schoonmaker received a well-deserved Oscar for editing; the movie absolutely hums with energy and the many characters and scenes work together to keep the excitement level high.
Every good filmmaker deserves a chance to craft a great thriller. It’s really interesting to see how different artists approach the genre. It’s one of the reasons I tend to like remakes; they don’t need to be improvements on the original, just new interpretations. In classical music it’s called variations on a theme. Like anything else, the key is having a really solid story to work off; then let’s see what you can do. For this one, Scorsese puts on his game face and nets Best Picture…
An undercover state cop who has infiltrated an Irish gang and a mole in the police force working for the same mob race to track down and identify each other before being exposed to the enemy, after both sides realize their outfit has a rat.
Poster
Runtime
151
Tagline
Lies. Betrayal. Sacrifice. How far will you take it?
