Movie Reviews
Film Review: “Big George Foreman” – SM Mirror
FILM REVIEW
BIG GEORGE FOREMAN
Rated PG-13
133 Minutes
Released April 28th
In this film about a celebrated boxer who was born into poverty, rose to stardom with little experience, and after retiring, ran a youth program to give positivity to kids in need, casting directors Mary Vernieu and Lindsay Graham Ahanonu performed an extraordinary feat as well. They cast a difficult true story about a known celebrity that doesn’t seem forced. Every member of the ensemble embodies their character candidly, which is difficult when portraying well-known contemporary figures.
Director George Tillman Jr. has framed the establishing backstory as an integral part of the timeline, not a flashback or an afterthought. Tillman is very attuned to young actors, and his portrayal of George Foreman’s youth displays that skill. I had the chance to work with a young actor who starred in Tillman’s touching 2013 film, The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete. Tillman drew an outstanding performance from young Ethan Dizon and his costar. And it’s not just the kids in “Big George Foreman” who are outstanding. Khris Davis as George Foreman, Sullivan Jones as Muhammed Ali, Sonja Sohn as Nancy Foreman, and Forest Whitaker as Doc Broadus have combined their talents to tell the gripping story of Foreman’s life, which has not been given the attention it deserves, perhaps because he was a fighter more likely to communicate with his punch than his words. Tillman’s fight choreography is excellent, and the camera work and editing are fluid so that you can feel yourself in the fights.
Sohn is an incredible actress and adds an emotional touch as Foreman’s mother. You can also see her as Detective Amanda Wagner in the new series Will Trent. Before she was an actress, Sohn was a trailblazing veteran of the slam poetry movement. She wrote, directed, and co-starred in the film Slam (1998.) Whitaker brings reality to his role as Doc Broadus.
Khris Davis is the heart of this movie as Foreman. Davis spent 5-6 hours a day of intense training learning Foreman’s specific and unique boxing style, having never been a boxer himself. Davis is an accomplished theater actor and realized from this experience that to tell a “fleshed-out story on film…requires immense, immense work and discipline.” He watched a huge library of Foreman interviews, but they were professional, not personal. So, Davis felt compelled to travel to Foreman’s home in Texas for three days just to see what his everyday life was like, how he interacted with his wife and kids, and who he was as a person.
Davis has about the same natural height and weight as Foreman, so the transformation in the first part of the movie was relatively easy. For the later part of the film, the filmmakers wanted to put a fat suit on him, but he insisted on making the change for real. Davis told them, “’…come back in five weeks. Look at my body. If you think I need a fat suit, let’s put it on.” Davis went from 225 pounds to 275 pounds in five weeks. Watching the movie, I thought at first that this was a different actor, the change in weight and character is so astounding.
What you can feel from Davis is his absolute respect for Foreman. No one can describe how Davis was able to channel Foreman better than Davis himself. As he puts it, “I didn’t become George because I’m not Mr. Foreman. I could never be Mr. Foreman. What I could do was try to give a proper representation of his experience, to emulate some of his essence as best I could…The thing about Mr. Foreman is that he’s like a deep, deep lockbox. You open up one box, and there’s another one. You open up another one. There’s another one.” This explains the depth of the personality that everyone missed during the famous bouts with the much more gregarious Muhammed Ali.
Kathryn Whitney Boole has spent most of her life in the entertainment industry, which has been the backdrop for remarkable adventures with extraordinary people. She is a Talent Manager with Studio Talent Group in Santa Monica. kboole@gmail.com
Movie Reviews
Sean Means Movie Reviews for May 10th, 2024 – X96
Opening May 10, 2024
What I saw:
“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” • continuation of dystopian future series • theaters • 3 1/2 stars
Many years after the reign of Caesar, a young ape goes on a journey that will lead him to question everything he’s been taught about the past and make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike. via IMDB
Wes Ball
Stars: Freya Allan, Kevin Durand, Dichen Lachman
Next week:
• I Saw the TV Glow
• IF
• Evil Does Not Exist
Movie Reviews
'Star' Twitter review: Kavin's film is a blockbuster, rate netizens | Tamil Movie News – Times of India
Check out what netizens have to say about the film:
According to netizens, ‘Star’ is an engaging entertainer from director Elan, and the director impressed fans with his brilliant writing. Kavin excelled in the lead role to deliver one of his lifetime best roles, and the rising star of Tamil cinema is a star now. Netizens call ‘Star’ the best film of Kollywood in 2024 so far and the entertaining film has given them everything they needed. Yuvan Shankar Raja steals the show with his outstanding background score and netizens call the composer the soul of the film. ‘Star’ also has a message of achieving dreams in life and the motivational film is set to rule the box office. Fans and netizens refuse to reveal the surprise elements in ‘Star’ following the request from Kavin and his team.
Aaditi Pohankar and Preity Mukhundhan play female leads, and the film also has Lal and Geetha Kailasam in crucial roles.
Movie Reviews
Movie review: ‘The Fall Guy’ jumpstarts the summer movie season
When April meets May, the unofficial summer movie season kicks off, ending a long and treacherous few months of movie purgatory between the holiday season and summer break.
Around this time, theaters begin to bloom with an abundance of “popcorn flicks” — fun, lighthearted action or comedy movies that serve as a good time out for a wide range of audiences. “The Fall Guy,” the latest film starring Ryan Gosling (“Barbie,” “La La Land”), checks all those boxes as it commences 2024’s summer movie season.
Directed by stuntman-turned-director David Leitch, who oversaw “Deadpool 2” (2018) and “Bullet Train” (2022), “The Fall Guy” co-stars Emily Blunt (“Oppenheimer,” “A Quiet Place), as Jody Moreno, a first-time director in need of a stuntman after her previous one disappeared under mysterious circumstances. This comes in the form of Gosling’s Colt Seavers, who just so happened to date Moreno on a past movie set before he suffered a back-breaking accident performing a stunt and was forced to quit his job.
The awkward romance that still lingers between the duo grows even more complicated when Colt is tasked with tracking down the superstar actor he stunts for, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who also has gone awol.
“The Fall Guy” is Leitch’s love letter to the underappreciated role of the stuntman, a theme that absolutely permeates throughout the 125-minute runtime. Every aspect of the film is over-the-top and in-your-face, from the constant explosions of the stunts to the absurdist subplot of Colt investigating the absence of his missing actor.
Like Leitch’s previous films, particularly “Deadpool 2,” the humor is meta, with Gosling often breaking the fourth wall, as well as the plot centering around the behind-the-scenes of a campy space film that frequently pokes fun at movies like “Dune” and “Mad Max.” The humor works most of the time, though the physical comedy and recurring jokes are more consistent than the one-liners, which sometimes fall flat.
It’s ironic that “The Fall Guy” starts off with Gosling’s character breaking his back, because Gosling’s back must hurt from carrying the film. He and Blunt both put in excellent performances, and no one would expect any less after their respective Oscar nominations for “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.” The pair has innate chemistry that sustains the movie and keeps audiences entertained in a surprisingly touching romance.
“The Fall Guy” is at its best when Leitch takes a step back from directing the written quips and lets Gosling drive the movie forward with his natural charisma, but runs into issues when it gets too caught up in replicating the success of Leitch’s prior films.
In particular, Colt’s meta dialogue often seems like it was written for Ryan Reynolds, the star of “Deadpool” who is infamous for breaking character and the fourth wall, instead of Gosling. Gosling fits much better into the role of the character than Reynolds would, so it’s a shame that there’s a dissonance that lingers over the movie when it becomes obvious that some of Colt’s character quirks weren’t molded for the “right” Ryan.
In addition to the sometimes half-baked jokes, the CGI for “The Fall Guy” is genuinely awful, although it doesn’t necessarily always detract from the experience. Most of the time, it adds to the tacky charm of the backstage comedy; however, there are points at which it seems pretty ironic that a movie about stuntmen relies so heavily on computer-generated action.
All in all, “The Fall Guy” is a refreshing, digestible action-romcom that highlights an unsung subgroup of Hollywood glamor. The movie doesn’t quite know when to step off the brakes at times with its layered plot and barrage of banter, but it’s hard not to have a fun time sitting in a theater with a full bucket of popcorn watching Gosling — and his stuntman — set themselves on fire, bungee jump off buildings and drive cars over cliffs.
Rating: 3/5
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