Woody Harrelson Film Festival

It pains me to have to say this, because I was really looking forward to this one—I mean, how often do we get an animated movie about Pilgrims—but unfortunately it was not very good. I found the depiction of William Bradford to be both disturbing and disrespectful, and I think the Pilgrims in general could have been a lot cuter. In first grade, for example, we got to make little salt and pepper shakers decorated like Pilgrims for Thanksgiving, and I still have both of them, and they're still incredibly cute. We also got to make mini loaves of pumpkin bread, which I would describe as a pivotal experience. We also (of course) made turkeys by painting out hands and then stamping our hands on paper. The turkeys in this movie were not anywhere near as cute as the hand turkeys we made in first grade. That's not to say it wasn't a fun role for Woody—as they say in The Business, every great actor needs to play a turkey at least once in his career. It had to be done, I just wish it ...

Christopher Walken? More like Christopher Could-You-Please-Stop-Talken like that???? Good movie. 

I'm horrified! They should not have done this to Woody! Why did they need to make his ears so damn big? And get rid of his beautiful blue eyes?? I had a specific memory of watching an HBO movie about LBJ in 2016 and liking it, so I was expecting this to be good—little did I know, HBO made two movies about LBJ in 2016 and this is apparently the bad one! And when I say bad, I mean bad! Etc., etc. There's a much more important issue that needs to be discussed.  Please take a moment to think about this question: What color hair did JFK have? If you said dark grey, you'd be like me. I mean, look at this picture and tell me that's not what color it is! Well, color me surprised, because apparently this is a black and white photo and that means that even though everything in it looks to be various shades of grey, that's actually due to a specific type of photographic technology which is not capable of reproducing colors.  Okay. Fine. Whatever. If this picture is concealing ...

It is, perhaps, a little-known fact that a movie only needs exactly one (1) ingredient to be a good movie. That ingredient is not a good director (what even is a director? The guy who clacks the black and white thing and shouts "action!"?). That ingredient is not beautiful cinematography (though The Big White  has no shortage of that. I really liked the vast snowy landscapes and also the matching snowy whiteness of the insurance office, especially since it was snowing outside my window while I watched this movie and I guess that just felt serendipitous). That ingredient is not an incredible and talented cast—something I think everyone agree this movie has (Robin Williams, yes, but also  this guy , who looks like Pete "Mad Men" Campbell, but isn't. I like him a lot and would like to see more of him!). That ingredient is not even—dare I say it?—Woody Harrelson. Many a movie, in fact, as this blog evidences, is very bad in spite of Woody's wonderful presence. ...

This movie started out as a major snoozefest, but got a little better as it went on. It comes very close to being the kind of pranky heist film that I tend to enjoy, but it tried a little too hard to be dark and gritty. I don't like movies where everyone is sweaty all the time. It also relied too much on the audience's presumed love of Woody Harrelson to build sympathy for and interest in his character, whose death is meant to be disturbing and thought provoking, but only mattered to me because of how much I love Woody. While that may have worked in my case, it is definitely cheating in the character development department!  As far as cop movies go, this one is fine, but it's really nothing special (but it did have way fewer feet in it than Rampart , so points to director John Hillcoat for that.