Boston Strong

Patriots Day

Director: Peter Berg

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Kevin Bacon, John Goodman, Michelle Monaghan, J.K. Simmons, Melissa Benoist

Released: December 21, 2016

This movie is based on the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, which I'm sure everyone remembers as it only happened a mere four years ago. I thought I remembered everything about this incident, but apparently not because there were things in the movie that I found myself going, "Wait, I thought it happened this way!" or "Wait, I don't remember that happening!" But I'll get to those later. Mark Wahlberg (a native Bostonian as you all know) does not play a real person, but his police officer character, Sergeant Tommy Sanders, is suppose to represent the everyman Boston police officer during this tragic event.

Everyone else, to my knowledge portray real-life people. Before the day of the Marathon we are shown the home lives of a few different characters. Even though they tell us the last name of the family/person we're viewing, I didn't know who any of these people were. I didn't remember the names of the terrorist brothers, but once I saw the title card say, "Tsarnaev residence", I knew it was them because I remember them being Russian and sure enough we see them along with the older brother's wife (played by Melissa Benoist...who I did not recognize until the interrogation scene because she wears a hijab and that was the first time the camera lingers on her. I guess I forgot that the wife was American). We see a young married couple and a young Chinese man who's attending MIT and showing his parents his new car via his phone. I had no idea who these people were and thought maybe they were victims of the bombing. Well, they were victims, but they weren't the ones who were killed by the bomb like I had thought. I had to remind myself who died because I only remembered the police officer, who wasn't killed by the bomb, but who was killed the following night by one of the brothers, and an eight year old boy died from the blast. Two other young women also died from the blast. Except for the police officer, there is no mention of the deceased by name and they don't have anyone playing them which I thought was a smart choice. The only mention of the deceased is when the young boy who died is covered by a table cloth from a restaurant and they are unable to remove him until they are sure there isn't any bomb residue on him. I'm sure this happened in real life (otherwise why would it be in the movie?) and I can't imagine being the parents of that boy who took him to see the Boston Marathon, but weren't able to take him home because two low-lifes (one who has a young daughter!) took his life.

For two bombs going off, it is very fortunate that not more lives were lost that day. The majority of the devastation came from injuries, the severest being lost of limbs. The couple that is shown the night before the Marathon are actors playing a real life couple who both run the race every year and had to have their legs amputated. Saunders is near the finish line when both bombs go off (which were only 13 seconds apart...a fact I did not know) and his wife is also there because she had come down to bring him something. He will feel very guilty for putting her in harm's way, but she tells him it wasn't his fault. During all the commotion, the race is (surprisingly) still going on and runners are running into the confusion and they have to block the area.

John Goodman plays Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis and Kevin Bacon plays Richard DesLauriers, special agent in the Boston field and both head the investigation to find out what happened. You get a glimpse of what happened behind the scenes. It seemed to happen really fast because the bombing happened on a Monday and by Friday the older brother was killed and the younger one was caught. But we see the process of trying to find out who set off the bombs is painstakingly slow as several people are scouring over security footage (and they used real footage) of every angle from where the bomb went off. Someone alerts the two men in charge when he sees footage of a young man in a white hat looking away from the camera (as though he knows a bomb is about to go off) a second before everyone else does. They try to find other angles where they can see "White Hat" and Saunders tells them which business security camera to look up and they find a few more angles of him as well as him standing next to someone wearing sunglasses and a black hat and holding a backpack (the older brother) who they assume are together and are the bombers. Even though they have clear photos, they can't find them in the criminal database as they have no records. Now what I didn't know is that the FBI agent did NOT want to release the photos of the suspects because if they were wrong and they weren't involved, they would be raked over the coals by the public. He wanted more evidence that these were the bombers. They just wanted a little more time to figure out, but then it turned out FOX News (of course it was FOX!) got a hold of the photos and were going to release them in a few hours, so they decided they would go ahead and release them before the media did so they could get them out there their way.

The only person shown being killed is Officer Sean Collier. Like the other characters the day before the bomb happened, we also get a glimpse into his life. I remember a police officer being killed by the suspected bombers, but I guess I thought it was from a shoot out. I didn't remember that he was sitting in his car in front of MIT and the younger brother came up to his car and motioned for him to roll down his window and when he did, he shot him and stole his gun. That's scary. The thing that shocked me the most from watching this was what happened next because I did not remember this AT ALL. In fact, I don't think I even knew about this until I watched the movie. This is when the young Chinese student comes into play. We see him in an earlier scene having dinner with a new friend and he's telling her what it's like living in a new country. I was wondering what he had to do with this story and this is when we find out. He's sitting in his car, looking at his phone, when the older brother comes up to his window and motions for him to roll it down. Both brothers hijack the car with their new gun and make Dun Meng, the young Chinese man drive them. This seems like a big part of the story, was it even in the news? How could I not know this happened? They make him get out of the driver's seat and into the passenger seat so the older brother can drive. As they're driving, they tell him that they bombed the Marathon and are planning to go to Manhattan and bomb Times Square. They also talked about 9/11 being an inside job by the government (now I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person...I am all about the JFK and TWA 800 conspiracies....but the 9/11 one, I never got that one).

Speaking of 9/11, we get a comment from a news reporter saying that the bombing is the worst act of terrorism in the U.S. since 9/11 and I'm thinking, "What?" Because it seems like that's a pretty big gap between 2001 and 2013, but then I realized all the 40 million shootings in those years weren't linked to terrorism groups...we just have a bunch of idiots who live in this country. Before the race begins, there is a moment of silence for the victims of the Newtown, CT school shooting and I had to remind myself that had only happened four months prior and in just a few short hours they would have their own tragedy. I've seen the Boston Marathon bombing be compared to 9/11 on a few occasions and aside from the terrorism aspect and when they shut down the city of Boston that day (like when they shut down all the airports), I've never really understood that. I was reminded more of the Oklahoma City bombing. I am always amazed at the amount of people who refer to 9/11 as a "bombing". There were no bombs involved in 9/11! Let me tell you a true story....the week after 9/11 happened, my school had a banner saying something along the lines to donate blood or money for the victims of the 9/11 bombing. And I see it and I'm thinking, Huh...I don't remember any bombs being reported. Anyway, I'm getting way off topic...

The brothers stop at gas station for snacks and this is when Dun Meng makes his escape. He has already pleaded to be let go and they can have his money and car and he promises he won't tell anyone, but the brothers refuse. You know that since they have already told him who they are and what they plan to do, that they have no plans to keep him alive once they don't need him anymore and you know he knows this. While the younger brother is getting snacks, the older brother has the gun in the side pocket of the car and is looking out the window. We see Dung Meng getting ready to escape. Now I just thought he had to open the door and that was it, but he also had his seatbelt on, so that gave the bomber notice that his abductee was getting ready to leave, but luckily Meng manages to escape and runs to a gas station across the street and screams at the manager to call the police. When the police arrive, Meng tells them he was abducted by the two brothers who were involved in the Boston Marathon bombing and his phone is still in the car an they are able to track them down. Saunders tells Meng that he was very brave to do what he did and I have to agree...if I had done that, I would have over thought it and would end up dead. Meng was just sitting in his car playing with his phone when he was hijacked and I told myself that I would NEVER just sit alone in my car while on my phone. Well, just a couple days after I saw this, I found myself in a parking lot with my phone trying to locate a place I was looking for. Now it was broad daylight, but I still locked my car! So starting now I will NEVER sit in my car, night or day, and look at my phone!

When  the police locate the bothers, they have a big shootout and many bombs are involved so right there the police knew that they had plans to bomb other places. This is when the older brother is killed, which I remembered. What I don't remember is that the younger brother ran over him with the car! He was aiming at the police who had gotten a hold of the older brother, but jumped out of the way when the car came towards them. He gets away and the next day is devoted to looking for him which I remember, especially since I watched it on TV when they had located him in the boat. That would be so scary to be the guy who owns the boat and find the one person everybody in the city is looking for is hiding in your boat! In the film, the owner of the boat notices something wrong with his boat and calls the police, but I watched a documentary about this whole ordeal and they interviewed the guy and he said that he actually went up to his boat and saw the kid (I think he was sleeping?) and then called the police, but in the movie, it's Saunders who discovers him.

We all know how the story ends and the perpetrator is caught. The movie ends with the real footage of David Ortiz giving his speech at the April 20, 2013 Red Sox game against the Royals and we see the Mayor of Boston, Ed Davis, and other people who helped make Boston safe. Then we see clips of the real life couple who lost their legs talking as well as a father and son who were separated (who were also featured in the movie). I really didn't think it was necessary to have these talking heads in there because it felt like I was watching a documentary and an entire new movie was starting. This should have been in the special features portion of the DVD. And believe me, there are TONS of documentaries on the Boston Marathon bombing to watch if you want to find out the many stories that come from it. I think having the baseball speech was the perfect place to end it, as well as have the in memoriam photos of the four people who lost their lives. 

Animal Kingdom

Zootopia

Directors: Bryon Howard, Rich Moore, and Jared Bush

Voice Talent: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, Jenny Slate, Octavia Spencer, J.K. Simmons, Alan Tudyk, Shakira

Released: March 4, 2016

 

Oscar nominations:

Best Animated Feature (won)

After this movie won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, I wanted to check it out, especially since I knew it had been released on Netflix. If you had asked me to place a bet on which movie would win Best Animated movie, I would have put all my money on Moana. That just seemed like the more Oscar-ish movie to me. Even after watching Zootopia, I still think that. Don't get me wrong...I really enjoyed Zootopia, but I'm still surprised Moana didn't win. I didn't know too much about Zootopia going into it, the only thing I knew was that it was about animals who lived together, both predators and prey, living in peaceful harmony. We get a little narrative at the beginning explaining how this came to happen.

Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) is a bunny who wants to make the world a better place. Her goal is to move from the country where she lives with her parents and her 275 brothers and sisters to Zootopia, the big city, where she wants to be a police officer. Not just any police officer, but the first bunny police officer. She trains with animals that are much bigger than her: bulls, lions, tigers, polar bears, elephants, rhinos; but with a lot of dedication and hard work and cleverness she manages to complete her training and joins the team. She eagerly awaits her first duty as a police officer, but is disappointed when her cape buffalo boss, Chief Bogo (voiced by Idris Elba) gives her parking ticket duty. Judy is determined to write so many tickets in an allotted amount of time and because of her tenacity, she manages to do it. I did love every time she heard the little click of a meter going off, she lifted one of her ears.

The interesting thing about Zootopia, despite it having both prey and predator and despite it having the biggest animals from elephants to the smallest of mice, it only has mammals. There are no reptiles, insects, birds, fish. Look, I understand there are millions of species of animals and not all of them can be represented in this movie, so I'm fine with it being only mammals, but I am a little confused that there were no primates. No monkeys, apes, gorillas, etc. Those are some of the most popular animals at zoos and you would think in a place called ZOOtopia, they would make sure to have a couple. If there were any, they certainly weren't in the foreground and didn't have any lines. Why not throw in a capuchin monkey named Marcel? I don't know; I just thought it was weird that in a city full of a variety of animals, there were no primates. Maybe in the sequel, perhaps? You just know there's going to be a sequel because this is a world full of so many possibilities. Not to mention it made a bucketload of money at the box office! And it did win an Oscar, let's not forget that! 

Judy sees a fox with his young son enter an ice cream parlor run by elephants. One of the elephants is scooping out the ice cream with his trunk...oh, ew! Judy is suspicious because she has always learned never to trust foxes especially since she was always bullied by one when she was younger. The fox wants a jumbo pop for his son's birthday, but the elephant refuses to serve him one and tells him to go to an establishment that caters to his own kind. Judy steps in and tells the elephant she's going to write him up for having one of his employees scooping up ice cream without the proper sanitation. I laughed when she said "Are your customers aware they're getting snot and mucus with their ice cream?" and one of the customers overhears her and sprays ice cream into his mate's face. To avoid the citation, the elephant agrees to let the fox buy a jumbo pop for his son, but he doesn't have enough money. Judy feels bad and buys it for the little guy. She learns the fox's name is Nick (voiced by Jason Bateman). She also learns, later that day, that Nick is a con artist and the fennec fox (never heard of a fennec fox, I got this info from Wikipedia!) is not his son, but his partner. She follows the two of them and sees they are making the large elephant jumbo pop into several tiny pops that they sell to hamsters (gerbils?) during their work break. They then collect all the tiny popsicle sticks which have been dyed red from the popsicle and sell it as "redwood". Judy is angry when she sees this and confronts Nick, but he doesn't have any remorse for conning other animals.

Judy later blackmails Nick into helping her when she has promised Mrs. Otterton (voiced by Octavia Spencer) that she will find her missing husband without Chief Bogo's permission. He tells her if she is unable to find him within 48 hours, she will be fired from the Academy. She tells Nick she needs his help or she will report him for never turning in his taxes. Their first stop is a nudist colony owned by a yak (voiced by Tommy Chong). Judy has no idea it's a nudist colony until the yak comes out from behind the front desk and she sees he's wearing no pants and she freaks out. In Zootopia, animals wear clothes and it's weird for them to be naked. The yak takes them outside where an array of animals are doing all kinds of inappropriate things (you know, for being nude). A giraffe is doing a weird yoga pose with its feet in the air. Funny stuff. They get information about Emmitt, the missing otter, and have to go to the DMV (Department of Mammal Vehicles) to check out a license plate number. The scene at the DMV was one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time and I was laughing so much. First of all, I loved that all the employees were sloths and thought was that was absolutely brilliant. Of course the slowest of animals would work at the DMV! Like everybody else in the world, I hate going to the DMV. Not just because of the slow and long lines, but I swear, this has happened to me at least three times: I always check to make sure I have everything, but yet when I get there I'm missing one thing or another so either I have to go home and retrieve it or step aside and lose my place in line to make a phone call to retrieve the information I'm missing. It's so annoying! I hate the DMV! And I think I have to go this year to get my driver's license renewed, ugh! Well, I can just imagine this scene from Zootopia and have a good laugh. Judy and Nick are helped by a sloth named Flash (we later find out he gets his name because he likes to drive fast in his sports car, heh) and he asks him what can he do for them today, with about a three second pause between each word. Judy tries to tell him what she needs before he's completed his sentence, but he doesn't let her until he's said every word he needs to. When she gives him the plate number they need to look up, it's so funny how he's typing each number and letter so slowly and methodically one at a time. Right before he's about to enter the last digit, Nick asks him if he wants to hear a joke, driving Judy absolutely crazy and frustrated. His joke is, "What do you call a three-humped camel?" (The answer: pregnant). It's even funny how Flash reacts to the joke because it takes him awhile to get it, then he starts laughing, very slowly. He then has to tell the female sloth next to him the joke and poor Judy is just beside herself with frustration. When they finally get the info they need, they walk outside and it's dark when it was light when they first walked in. My brother and I showed this scene to our parents on YouTube because we loved that scene so much.

Emmit is not the only citizen of Zootopia to be missing; there is also a handful of other animals that are to be counted for. The other animals are all predators and Judy and Nick come upon them in a lab. They discover that something has happened to make them return to the more primitive, wild side. They overhear Mayor Lionheart (voiced by J.K. Simmons) telling one of the lab technicians he doesn't want the public to know that these predators have gone back to being dangerous, especially since he is a lion and he wants to know why these animals are behaving the way they are. However, he is arrested in suspicion of the missing animals and his assistant, a sheep named Bellweather (voiced by Jenny Slate) becomes the new mayor. Judy goes on ZNN to talk about what happened (and one of the reporters is a porcupine with a quill pen!) and that it is possible for predators to be revolving back to their primitive ways. This upsets Nick greatly because he was bullied by the non-predator kids from his school because they said that foxes can't be trusted and that's why he cons other animals to this day because he knew nobody would ever trust a fox anyway. 

The two of them stop being friends and Judy returns to her hometown of Bunnyburrow where she sells carrots and other vegetables with her parents (and 275 siblings!) It isn't until Gideon Grey, the fox who bullied her as a child comes by and gives her the clue that the substance that is making the predators crazy is a flower called a night howler. She returns to Zootopia and gets Nick back on her side and the two of them start investigating some more. There's a funny scene where they're in a lab and a sheep in a yellow hazmat suit is making an elixir out of the flower. He's talking on the phone to someone and there's a knock on the door and he says, "Walter and Jesse are here with the lattes, I'll call you back." Now Breaking Bad is my favorite show of all time so of course I absolutely loved that. I was a little disappointed that it was a sheep and, you know, not a badger! 

I totally called it that Bellweather was in charge before it was revealed she was behind the whole turning the prey against the predators. She traps Judy and Nick and shoots Nick with what is the dangerous flower serum so he will revert to his natural ways and kill Judy but what she doesn't know is that Judy and Nick have put blueberries in her dart gun so they get one over on her. Bellweather is caught because Judy has recorded her confessing that this was her idea. She thought that 90% of the population, which is prey, could be united agains the 10% that is predator. (Is that really how it adds up in the real world? Ninety percent of animals are prey? I guess I never really thought of it). 

The movie ends with Bellweather in jail and the rest of Zootopia dancing to pop star Gazelle's (voiced by Shakira) new hit song, "Try Everything". She is an angel with horns as one character put it. I felt sorry for the animals who were behind giraffes! 

A very fun and cute movie with beautiful animation. I highly recommend it. Go watch it now if you have Netflix. 

Drummer Boy

Whiplash
Director: Damien Chazelle
Cast: Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Paul Reiser, Melissa Benoist
Released: October 10, 2014

Oscar nominations:
Best Picture (lost to Birdman)
Best Supporting Actor - J.K. Simmons (won)
Best Adapted Screenplay - Damien Chazelle (lost to Graham Moore for The Imitation Game)
Best Film Editing (won)
Best Sound Mixing (won)

Think of the music teacher in Mr. Holland's Opus (whose name was Mr. Holland, coincidently!) and just take the complete antithesis of him and you have Terrance Fletcher, the music teacher in Whiplash. Played by J.K. Simmons (who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar this year), Fletcher is the intense conductor of a jazz band at the competitive music school, Shaffer Conservatory, where nineteen-year-old Andrew (Miles Teller) is a first-year student. Fletcher sees Andrew drumming one night for practice and invites him to his class the next morning. Andrew knows who Terrance Fletcher is and is very excited and honored at the prospect of getting to work with him, although when he first sits in during his class, I'm sure he has a change of tune...pun intended! While observing the class, Andrew quickly realizes Fletcher is a huge jerk. Someone's instrument was out of tune and he told them that this person better speak up so they can stop wasting everyone's time, but nobody says anything. He starts attacking this overweight, timid student and makes snarky comments about his weight and asks him if his instrument is out of tune to which the student says yes and Fletcher makes him leave the class. Just as I suspected, that student did not have the out of tune instrument but Fletcher said it makes it worse that he didn't even know.

He is brutal to Andrew when it's his turn to show Fletcher what he's got. He is either too slow or too fast for Fletcher's liking and never seems to get the exact beat he is looking for. I gained a lot of respect for drummers after watching this movie - apparently, it's a lot more difficult than I thought! I thought Andrew was doing a good job, but since Fletcher picks up a chair and throws it at him, I guess not! I did laugh when he asks Andrew, "Do you know why I just threw a chair at you?" Sheesh, somebody needs to watch Mr. Holland's Opus to learn how to be a music teacher! But let's be honest, this movie was way more entertaining than that one!

Andrew eventually gets the rhythm right and he is invited to join in at a local jazz competition, but only as an alternate in case the other drummer can't do it which is what happens when Andrew loses the sheet music (Fletcher gets mad at the other boy who gave it to Andrew as it was his responsibility to make sure nothing happened to it) and has to play since the other boy doesn't know the music by heart and Andrew informs Fletcher that he has Whiplash, the name of the piece, memorized and can fill in. Even though Andrew saved the day and even though their jazz band won first prize, Andrew does not become the core drummer like he thought he would and instead Fletcher invites the redheaded kid from Andrew's entry-level class (who I thought was one of the Scavo twins from Desperate Housewives, but he's not) to try out and he is given the spot of core drummer. Andrew is outraged by this and Fletcher agrees to let him be the core drummer at the next competition after both boys have auditioned for hours well into the early hours of the morning. However, on the day of the competition, his bus brakes down and Andrew has to rent a car. He forgets his drum sticks at the rent a car place and is rushing to get back to the auditorium because he only has a few minutes left and his car is hit by a truck and flips over! Who didn't see that coming? Even though he should have been dead, or at the very least, critically injured, he runs across the lawn with blood pouring down his head and makes it with seconds to spare. Needless to say, the performance does not go well and he is suspended from the class.

To be able to concentrate more on becoming the best drummer of his generation, he breaks up with his girlfriend, Nicole (played by Melissa Benoist who played Marley on Glee) who he had recently met and asked out. Needless to say Nicole is pretty angry about this and even though when Andrew realizes he may have made a huge mistake and later invites her to attend one of his shows, she says she might be busy with her boyfriend. Ooh, burn. But good for her for moving on. Andrew was a total jerk to her.

The movie ends with Fletcher trying to get back at Andrew and humiliates him in a crowd of people when he is fired from his job after a student has made a report on what an abusive and horrible teacher Fletcher was, but it turns out Andrew gains his respect with a drum solo that goes on forever. I mean, it was really REALY impressive, but if I had been in that audience, I would have been like, damn, is this kid ever going to stop drumming? Great movie; I highly recommend it.