Tim joined Paul Douglas to review the new family action adventure “Enola Holmes” (Netflix) and dystopian thriller series “Utopia” (Amazon Prime Video) on the “Paul and Jordana” show on WCCO-AM. Click to listen below. The segment is brought to you by Michael Bryant and Bradshaw & Bryant.
Tim Lammers reviews movies weekly for “The KQ92 Morning Show” on KQRS-FM, “Paul and Jordana” on WCCO Radio, “It Matters with Kelly Cordes” on WJON-AM, KLZZ-FM, “Let’s Talk Movies with Tim Lammers” with Tim Matthews on KRWC-AM, “The Tom Barnard Podcast” and “The BS Show” with Bob Sansevere, and reviews streaming programming on WCCO Radio’s “Paul and Jordana” as well. On TV, Tim has made hundreds of guest appearances on “KARE 11 News at 11” (NBC).
Tim joined Paul Douglas and Jordana Green Tuesday to review the new streaming series “High Fidelity” (Hulu) and “Interrogation” (CBS All Access) on the “Paul and Jordana” show on WCCO-AM. Click to listen below. The segment is brought to you by Michael Bryant and Bradshaw & Bryant.
Click here to hear and see more of Tim’s interview archive.
Tim Lammers reviews movies weekly for “The KQ92 Morning Show” on KQRS-FM, “Paul and Jordana” on WCCO Radio, “It Matters with Kelly Cordes” on WJON-AM, KLZZ-FM, “The Tom Barnard Podcast” and “The BS Show” with Bob Sansevere, and reviews streaming programming on WCCO Radio’s “Paul and Jordana” as well. On TV, Tim has made hundreds of guest appearances on “KARE 11 News at 11” (NBC).
When director Bill Pohlad decided to take on a film about music icon Brian Wilson for a spin with “Love & Mercy,” he chose for a more compact approach to the Beach Boys founder’s life. Effectively, Pohlad decided to tell a dual story — a 45 single and its flip side — rather than attempting to capture everything in Wilson’s complex life in a 33 1/3 album or literal larger record of his life.
By narrowing the focus, Pohlad said, he could key in on two pivotal time periods of Wilson’s life and do them justice, instead of watering the music legend’s life events down for the sake of creating a traditional biopic.
“With a biographical movie, you feel like you have tell every single beat of a person’s story. But in most cases, you end up having to tell these beats at the expense of an intimate look at whoever’s involved,” Pohlad told me in a recent interview. “With all due respect, there’s a place to see the People magazine part of somebody’s story — where they did this and that — but that doesn’t interest me. I wanted to get deeper with Brian Wilson’s story and find out what drives him and moves him as a human being.”
Opening in theaters nationwide on Friday, “Love & Mercy” in flashback scenes chronicle the Beach Boys in the 1960s in the years surrounding the recording of their masterpiece album “Pet Sounds” (Paul Dano plays the younger version) and looks at the musician/composer in the late 1980s and early 1990s (John Cusack). The film begins with the first meeting between the musician and his future wife, Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks), who aims to liberate, and eventually legally emancipate Wilson from the 24/7 care of his controversial guardian, Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti).
A psychologist and psychotherapist who made his name treating several name actors and musicians, Landy micromanaged Wilson’s life with via the use of prescription drugs and duress. One constant throughout “Love & Mercy” is Wilson’s mental fragility, exacerbated by his abusive father/Beach Boys manager and music publisher, Murry Wilson (Bill Camp) and later, by the abusive Landy.
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In his first directing gig since 1990’s “Old Explorers,” Pohlad, 59, said he was fortunate enough to film “Love & Mercy” with the cooperation of Brian Wilson and Ledbetter. The filmmaker was happy that the duo supplied him with the right amount of creative freedom to tell the story the way he wanted.
“They were close to the making of the film in some ways, and not very close in the others,” said Pohlad, the youngest son of late Minnesota Twins owner Carl Pohlad. “Obviously, we had to get their life rights and the rights to the songs, and part of process is coming to an understanding with them so they could find a trust level with me. I said to them, if they were going to make a movie about their own lives, it would be a lot different, and may not be of interest to other people. Sometimes, you need someone to take a look from the outside.”
Of course, one large, important chapter of Wilson’s life that needed to be told in order for “Love & Mercy” to be effective was about the command Landy had over him, which eventually came to a head after Wilson met Ledbetter.
“One of the first things I said to Brian when I met him for the first time was, ‘My vision for this is a real intimate movie. That means that it’s not just going to be a story on the surface and that everything is great. It’s going to leave you vulnerable. We’ll have to address a lot of things that make you uncomfortable,'” Pohlad recalled. “But Brian wasn’t shy about that. He cared, but he has a pure presence about him. He’s like a child. Once he trusts you, he trusts you. He wasn’t cynical about things. He was very balanced. ”
No matter what subject matter he and his fellow filmmakers broached, Pohlad said that Wilson and Ledbetter were constant sources of support. At the same time, Pohlad — the producer of such noted films as “Brokeback Mountain,” “The Tree of Life” and the 2013 Best Picture Oscar winner “12 Years a Slave” — said the couple kept a safe distance from the production.
“Brian and Melinda were there to draw from when we needed them, but they weren’t hanging around the set going, ‘Ah, I wouldn’t say that’ or ‘I wouldn’t have done that.’ That would have been a killer. Instead, they were super great about it,” Pohlad said. “Besides, Brian isn’t interested in much else but music, and that’s where he lives. Sitting around on a movie set doesn’t do much for him. He would just as soon get back to his piano.”
If anything, Pohlad said, Wilson’s greatest involvement came at the beginning and the close to the end of the project.
“We had a read-through of the script before we started shooting for him to hear, and we showed him a rough cut of the film,” Pohlad said. “Both times he gave us very insightful notes, but he wasn’t all over us about changing things.”
Despite the leeway Wilson and Ledbetter gave him, Pohlad said he took his creative freedom very seriously.
“There’s a lot of responsibility in making a movie about Brian Wilson’s life,” Pohlad said. “Still, you have to ignore that to some degree and build up enough ego or confidence to say, ‘I can do this,’ and not be swayed by anyone else who says, ‘You better have this in there and you better have that.’ It was important to me not just to connect to the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson and all their great music, but find the personal side of it.”
Melissa McCarthy and writer/director Paul Feig have reteamed again in “Spy,” an uproarious action spy comedy where James Bond meets “The Heat.” Bringing the best of all her acting qualities to the movie, “Spy” has the sweetness of McCarthy from “Bridesmaids,” “St. Vincent” and TV’s “Mike & Molly,” as well as the physical, foul-mouthed force of nature that she brought to “The Heat.”
McCarthy stars as Susan Cooper, a CIA desk analyst who through her technical prowess guides super spy Bradley Fine (Jude Law) through his most dangerous missions. But when tragedy befalls the agency at the hands of Raina Boyanov (Rose Byrne) – a ruthless British nuclear arms dealer – Cooper, who is highly trained in weapons and physical combat, leaves her thankless desk job for the first time to infiltrate Raina’s circle to exact revenge and prevent the weapon from falling into the wrong hands.
The biggest difference with McCarthy’s performance in “Spy” is that she’s not playing the loser this time around, a move that threatened to derail her comedy career with last summer’s disappointment, “Tammy.” In “Spy,” she lacks confidence at the beginning to be sure, yet when her mojo kicks in, she’s sweet, charming, self-assured, glowing and physically, kicks maximum ass. Is the action fast, furious and ridiculous? Absolutely. But it’s also insanely funny. McCarthy is purely magic when she teams with Feig, who previously directed the comedy queen in “Bridesmaids” and “The Heat” opposite Sandra Bullock.
Adding to the hilarity are a smattering of top-level co-stars, including the always great Allison Janney as the no-nonsense deputy director of the CIA; Jason Statham as a rugged, accident prone agent who insists Cooper isn’t the person for the job; and Peter Serafinowicz as a lecherous Italian agent who gropes Cooper at every turn. Byrne is also terrific as the cut-throat Raina, and is hilarious as she and Cooper personally attack each other at every turn.
Naturally, the door is left open for more “Spy” adventures, and the next one couldn’t come soon enough. A free-wheeling comedy that’s not afraid to launch F-bombs, bullets and bone-crushing action in one-fell swoop, McCarthy, Feig and company, have, in its brisk 2-hour run time, made “Spy” the first must-see comedy of the lackluster summer movie season.
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“Entourage” (R) 3 stars (out of four)
You don’t have to be a fan of the long-running HBO series to enjoy “Entourage,” a wild big-screen tale of a superstar actor and his buddies, and, the Hollywood super agent-turned-studio boss who guides them.
In this long-awaited big screen chapter, Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) spurns retirement to run a studio, and his first big greenlight is a film that stars his longtime buddy, Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier). The problem is, Chase also wants to make the film his directorial debut, which makes Ari, the studio and the film’s major investor (Billy Bob Thornton) and his son (Haley Joel Osment) nervous, since the big-buck blockbuster is millions of dollars over budget and heavily involves longtime entourage (Kevin Connolly, Kevin Dillon and Jerry Ferrara).
While a newbie to the “Entourage” experience (I’ve maybe seen a half episode midway through the show’s eight season run), the big-screen version of the hit show didn’t disappoint. Show creator Doug Ellin, who co-wrote and directed the movie, smoothly creates a way to give audience members the back story of Vincent and company so they won’t feel lost; and for fans of the show, the segment (which is told in a interview segment between the guys and Piers Morgan), will likely be a pleasant trip down memory lane.
From there, “Entourage” is an all-out tale of Hollywood excess with lots of sex, partying and hot girls, loaded with big star cameos from high-profile actors, filmmakers and sports stars. Fans who were thrilled by the large reveal of cameos from the film’s trailer shouldn’t get too excited, though. While there are lots of appearances, some like Tom Brady, last no longer than three seconds. Naturally, Mark Wahlberg, the show’s and film’s producer and inspiration for the series, shows up, naturally, with an entourage, no less. All in all, “Entourage” is a fun look at the inner-workings of the madness of Hollywood, yet without being too inside-baseball.
“Love & Mercy” (PG-13) 3 1/2 stars (out of four)
After years of producing such notable films as “Brokeback Mountain,” “The Tree of Life” and “12 Years a Slave,” Bill Pohlad returns to the director’s chair for the first time in 25 years for “Love & Mercy,” a fascinating look into the genius and mental fragility of Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson during the “Pet Sounds” era and a pivotal part of his life when he met the person who would steer him in a new direction.
“Love & Mercy” stars Paul Dano and John Cusack in two iterations of the musical Mozart, as the film hops back and forth between the early days of the Beach Boys and Wilson’s struggle to get “Pet Sounds” made; and his struggle with mental illness under the 24-hour care of his controversial guardian Dr. Eugene Landy (the brilliant Paul Giamatti). The early and latter scenes are of equal measure in heartbreak, as the young Brian slogs through the mental and sometimes physical abuse of his father/manager; and suffers the mental degradation of Landy as the doctor’s unconventional treatment of Wilson spins out of control.
Dano delivers the most effective performance of Wilson, largely in part to the stunning resemblance of the Beach Boy in his younger years. Cusack, who looks nothing like the older Wilson, still manages to project the heartbreaking vulnerability of the older version of Wilson, but would have been so much more effective with the use of prosthetics. Elizabeth Banks also gives a memorable performance as Melina Ledbetter, the woman who fights to liberate and legally emancipate Wilson from Landy, whose treatment involves him taking a stake in the musician/composer’s business dealings. For music fans – especially Beach Boys fans – “Love and Mercy” is must-see.
Click image to pre-order the 12-inch (1:6 scale) figure of Gamora from “Guardians of the Galaxy” from Hot Toys/Sideshow Collectibles.
Original Interviews, Reviews & More By Tim Lammers
