Netflix A-Z: Zipper (2015)

Its the last movie of Round 2 of Netflix A-Z!

Our Z selection is Zipper! My husband got to choose between the few choices, most notably Zipper and Z for Zachariah and he chose this one. I think both weren’t quite so appealing  but this one maybe seemed to have more of an edge.  I don’t know is mindset behind it. Mostly I don’t even give that much thought to my Netflix A-Z! Its the point that I’m exploring movies that had intrigued me and ended up on my list and the random times its not, its just giving a chance to something new. Why not, right?

Enough rambling, let’s check this out! 🙂

Zipper (2015)

Director (and co-writer): More Stephens

Cast: Patrick Wilson, Lena Headey, Ray Winstone, Richard Dreyfuss, John Cho, Dianna Agron

A family man has it all until he risks losing everything due to his inability to fight off his obsessive temptation for other women.-IMDB

A few things to address before we begin.  IMDB’s summary is kind of part right.  We’re looking at a family man but also a man striving for some political power with a lot of potential of success, currently as a federal prosecutor. This is a political (sexual/erotic?) thriller. Now that we know what we’re meant to be seeing, let’s continue.

Its not hard to say that Zipper has one very fantastic pro and that is its cast. Patrick Wilson, Lena Headey, Richard Dreyfuss, Ray Winstone, John Cho and  Dianna Agron, even though she gets on the cover of the poster (not the one I chose here) but has a very small role: they are all decent actors and actresses and make up for the depth the characters should carry.

This is also where I start talking about cons.  First of all, don’t go and believe that this is anything like Gone Girl or that its a thriller.  Its neither of those things even if it tries to be the latter. I’m a huge fan of Gone Girl so maybe my love might skew how I feel towards that statement but without any comparison, since I never thought to compare the two, Zipper lacks a story or maybe it lacks simply a good pacing for the story it wants to tell or even feels like it might have lost direction of where it wanted to go with all this.

Thing is, I’m not bothered by sexual content or anything like that.  The deal is with Zipper is that in the first 20 minutes (maybe shorter, I didn’t check the time), there was a lot of watching Patrick Wilson’s character Sam Ellis masturbate. Like, you know, the back of him of course because we need to have some class here.  This isn’t pornographic material especially with the cast, although we do  some naked ladies like Lena Headey and some of the escorts he encounters. It would be nice to know what the movie was trying to get.  Because the ending is even worse especially when Sam Ellis himself doesn’t know why he did all that stuff but I guess it refers back to a speech he has during the movie about finding yourself because you can never change who you are or something like that. What makes me a little more frustrated is that there are some complex characters here.  There is a hint of its existence but the story is not put together well enough to give it time to be more.

While I’m not a fan of political thrillers, the political portion of this wasn’t actually a lot other than the fact that Sam Ellis tried really hard to live in this alternate reality as Bob Fisher who was paying all these escorts but hoping he wouldn’t be noticed.  I think that is ridiculous personally but I can accept what they were trying to do and understand it. The political portion was really dealing with people and trying to avoid people caught up.  Once the second part of the movie starts off with investigations of the escort agency he was a client of and all that bit, it picks up a decent pace but doesn’t last long enough for it to have an impact.  Its where I feel the movie could have spent more time on and chopped a bunch of the beginning away since it didn’t make me connect with his character more but rather just felt dragged out.

Overall, Zipper was a disappointment especially with the cast that it had.  The cast did fine in their roles as limited as the story was. The standout most probably will have to go to Patrick Wilson. The story could’ve been structured a little differently with focuses more on the second half than the first’s pacing and it might have been better.

End of Round 2 of Netflix A-Z!
A little break while I construct the next round which may possibly be indie themed!
Do you have any other suggestions or recommendations on Netflix?

Bridge of Spies (2015)

After a slight break with a whole backlog of posts needing to go up, I’m back on the 2015 reviews catch-up.  My new goal is to work on Oscars nominees that I can get to.  If I don’t get to everything, the Best Picture nominees have the first priority as long as I can get my hands on it. Its a bit limited but I’m trying.  I have two more lined up in the next two weeks before Oscars swings around!  First up is Bridge of Spies!

Let’s check it out! 🙂

Bridge of Spies (2015)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Alan Alda, Joshua Harto, Amy Ryan, Austin Stowell, Will Rogers

During the Cold War, an American lawyer is recruited to defend an arrested Soviet spy in court, and then help the CIA facilitate an exchange of the spy for the Soviet captured American U2 spy plane pilot, Francis Gary Powers.-IMDB

I love a great thriller now and again. I’m even okay with espionage sort of films because they can be really intriguing.  The deal with Bridge of Spies which made me hesitant to start it was the fact that its about war and hints of politics. Call me ignorant but I’m not one to love the reality of it all and it hits me really hard.  Going into Bridge of Spies, the possibility of me liking is not quite as high as the general public.  For starters, my husband loved this movie. I’m more of a meh.  There is no doubt that Steven Spielberg does a good job with the directing and Tom Hanks pulls a great performance.  Those are expected factors.  The breakthrough role here is Mark Rylance who is on trial as a Russian spy and yet he is such a cool cat. If you watched it, whenever he says “Would it help?”, it just changed the whole dynamic of the scene.  He turns into a character that seems to have such depth without even saying a whole lot.

I took a few days to ponder over Bridge of Spies.  As you can see, I do praise this movie for being good.  The directing, the acting and even the story is good.  The script was well-written.  Except I can’t help but to hesitate in saying that I fully appreciated it, because I didn’t.  I know what is good but maybe its the length or the pacing or just the war and politics that didn’t grab me because I tried to watch this two times and I had to force myself to stay awake.  When I woke up, I was into the story right away but then I felt it a little tiring all over again.  The best part of the movie was the beginning and the ending.  Everything in the middle was good but maybe just not tight-knit and thrilling enough.  With a long movie, this one had to stuff in scenes that jumped from different places and honestly, I felt it was hard to follow since they never dwell long enough in one place to make it something I cared about.

 The best aspect for Bridge of Spies was that it did capture the devastation of the East and West Germany/Berlin Wall and the touchy time that everyone dwell in.  Even the urgency and danger of the situation was highly evident when Tom Hanks’ character was in negotiations.  Other than that, it did well to highlight the selfish political choices and the contrast of what using an untrained citizen would make in the broader spectrum.  Tom Hanks character Donovan was a good man and really was simple.  He didn’t want to be in this but he made choices he thought was right and he was a very perspective man who stepped out of his comfort zone literally to do just that. Tom Hanks embodied that character really well.

Overall, Bridge of Spies is a good movie.  The directing and the cast was great, especially when we talk about Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance.  The devastation and the desperation of the place and the situation was both captured really well also.  However, I can’t help but feel that something didn’t pull me in completely.  Maybe its the length being tiresome or simply the pacing was a flawed.  The better way to word it would be that at its high points, it was tense but at its low points, it was lacking the thrills. However, I do blame it a little on my lack of interest in war/political based espionage thrillers. I do think that Bridge of Spies is worth a watch!

Have you seen Bridge of Spies? What did you think of it?