Home Grown Sass

If nothing else, at least I'm entertaining.

Gangster Squad: The Antidote to the Award Season Epic (4 out of 5 stars)

Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about how long movies are becoming. Award season is partially to blame; everyone seems to be assuming that a film’s length is directly proportional to its gravitas. The Hobbit: 169 minutes. Lincoln: 150 minutes. Les Miserables: 157 minutes. Django Unchained: 165 minutes. Sure, they’re all getting Oscar nominations, but not all of them deserve their running time (*cough* THE HOBBIT *cough*).

In waltzes Gangster Squad, at an eminently manageable 117 minutes. It’s a satisfying, good old-fashioned gangster shoot-‘em-up starring Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, and Emma Stone, and a bulldog – oh, I’m sorry, that was apparently Nick Nolte. Sean Penn’s totally amazing fake nose is sadly left uncredited, but more on that later. This movie is a solid piece of action with a great, vaguely-sort-of-almost-based-on-real-life storyline and some engaging performances. It’s the perfect antidote to the award-season epic: it’s fun, and it doesn’t give two craps about gravitas.

Josh Brolin stars as Seargeant John O’Mara, one of the only clean cops in Los Angeles in 1949. He’s a World War II vet with an outstanding service record, some secret special training, and a near-obsession with duty, honor, and Doing The Right Thing. Though most policemen seem to be under the thumb of resident baddie, ex-boxer super-violent gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn), O’Mara immediately starts beating up Cohen’s cronies and busts up one of his whorehouses. Noticing O’Mara’s pluck, Chief Parker (Nick Nolte) instructs O’Mara to put together a squad of clean cops to wage war on the gangster – off the record, no badges, doing what needs to be done. Will O’Mara win out against Cohen, without giving up his ideals in the process? Will the whole gang survive? Will Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone be cast opposite one another in every movie they make from now on?

Brolin gives a solid performance as O’Mara, suitably tough, fair, and tortured by his experiences in the war. Mireille Enos is an absolute gem as his wife, Connie – I would love to see her doing more things. Despite the fact that her character spends a bunch of scenes literally pregnant and in the kitchen, she turns her into so much more than a simple power behind her husband’s throne. Watch her closely – she’s worth it. Ryan Gosling gives a lovely, three dimensional, nuanced performance here; I totally forgot about all the ridiculous chick flicks I refused to see him in and completely fell in love (in my defense, he is a lot more difficult to resist when he’s wearing a fedora and punching lots of dudes). Emma Stone looks good, and the rest of the squad is quirky and entertaining. I’m so glad to see Nick Nolte getting work, but in the same way that Keanu Reeves could be replaced by a 2”x4” in any of his films, Nick Nolte could be replaced by a bulldog, and pretty much no one would notice. He comes into scenes to growl out lines like “WE CAN’T GIVE HIM ANY QUARTER!” and “WE NEED TO STEP UP OUR TIMETABLE!” After a few scenes of that, I just giggled whenever he came on screen and started referring to him as “Papa Nolte” in my head.

The knock-out performance of the movie (pun mostly intended I guess) is Sean Penn, who does a phenomenal job as Mickey Cohen. He’s threatening. He’s violent. Like, seriously violent. Like, we were surprised by how much eerily realistic violence was in this movie, right from the very beginning. Be warned. And his nose is huge. My viewing party was evenly divided on his makeup job. It was obvious they  intended to make him look like his face was messed up from all those years of boxing, which didn’t play with all of us. I liked it and thought it fit; one of my friends, who has seen a lot of Sean Penn and is very familiar with his normal face, found it distracting. Either way, I found him completely scary and believable. Cohen was not a guy you wanted to find yourself next to in an elevator. 

The film’s period design is done extremely well, and the sound track is functional, but nothing to write home about. The real strength here is the storyline, however true it is. It’s exciting, it’s funny, it’s moving. I thoroughly enjoyed this film, and I’m going to buy it on DVD for sure – I want to see it again.

I’m giving this movie 4 stars instead of 5 for two primary reasons. First, the clichés just don’t stop coming. Please keep in mind I’m paraphrasing, but…

“Tomorrow they’re taking my badge, but tonight we’re going to finish this.”

“The war taught us to fight. Now all I know how to do is fight. I don’t know how to live.”

Gah, I know, I know, maybe the sentiment is sincere. But the movie’s clichés just kept taking me out of the story, and that’s a disadvantage. Additionally, not all the performances are first-rate. Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Mireille Enos, and Sean Penn are the real heavy-hitters here; outside that core group, I didn’t find anyone who shocked me. The squad-members do fairly well, but the movie is littered with bit parts, various gangsters, girlfriends, policemen, passers-by, all of whom are competent and functional, but there wasn’t solidly great acting across the board. 

That said, I highly encourage you to go and see this movie. It will show you a great time, and it won’t cost you three hours of your life to get there.

We are made out of stardust. The iron in the hemoglobin molecules in the blood in your right hand came from a star that blew up 8 billion years ago. The iron in your left hand came from another star. We are the laws of chemistry and physics as they have played out here on Earth and we are now learning that planets are as common as stars. Most stars, as it turns out now, will have planets.

wilwheaton:

Yes, Conservative Rubes, if America just gives the 2% ruling class everything they want to be even richer at the expense of everything the remaining 98% of Americans need to survive, the 2% ruling class will magically — contrary to decades of data — give you a job that finally pays you a living wage. Honest. They pinky swear for reals this time.

But until then, keep blaming Obama for the shitty economy because of reasons.

It’s odd when I think of the arc of my life, from child to young woman to aging adult. First I was who I was. Then I didn’t know who I was. Then I invented someone, and became her. Then I’d began to like what I’d invented. And finally, I was what I was again.

It’s all about how you have to look a certain way or else you’re worthless. You know when you look in the mirror, and you think, ‘Ugh, I’m so fat, I’m so old, I’m so ugly’, don’t you know that’s not your authentic self, but that is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising, magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself so that you will take your hard-earned money and spend it on some turnaround cream that doesn’t turnaround shit.

When you don’t have self-esteem, you will hesitate before you do anything in your life. You will hesitate to go for the job you really wanna go for. You will hesitate to ask for a raise. You will hesitate to report a rape. You will hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender. You will hesitate to vote. You will hesitate to dream.

For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution. And our revolution is long-overdue.

From Planned Parenthood bombings to excommunicated nuns to legislative manipulation, I feel like a battering ram is being used against the women of this country. Stop it, every person without a vagina who thinks they have a say in what happens to mine. Stop it, every person with a vagina that isn’t mine. Stop making me repeat myself. Stop making me spend my time and energy fending off this degrading mental and ideological abuse.


It’s not moral or ethical to batter another person with the same question over and over and over in different phrasings, breaking them down to the point of exhaustion – then act against their oft-expressed wishes the moment they can no longer defend themselves. That’s not the behavior of someone who should be making laws. It’s the behavior of a spoiled child.

The point of all this is that when women do things, there’s a certain sort of person who wants to put them down and silence them. Not because what they’re doing is bad or wrong, but because they’re daring to do it at all. Sometimes it’s because they’re discussing sexism directly and working towards better awareness of how it pervades the culture. Other times it’s because they’re making things in fields men feel entitled to be the arbiters of, and their sheer presence neatly undermines a lot of common sexist stereotypes people don’t appreciate being made to re-think. Bonus if they have the audacity to be accomplished and good at it, too. Whoops. That’s a big old no-no, apparently.

rifftraxmike: After Battleship’s disappointing opening, the studio that just sunk everything into “Lite-Brite: Rise of the Clown” must be a bit nervous.

rifftraxmike:

After Battleship’s disappointing opening, the studio that just sunk everything into “Lite-Brite: Rise of the Clown” must be a bit nervous.

The Great Fashion War

shitmystudentswrite:

World War Two could have been started by anything.  For all we know, it could have been because Hitler didn’t like Winston Churchill’s shoes that day.