Random Feats of Heroism: James Shaw, Jr.

Here's another topic that I am late to the party on. I had actually been mulling this topic over for a quite some time but I am finally getting around to it.

On April 22nd at a Waffle House in Antioch, TN a WHITE MALE used an AR-15 to fire into the building, killing four people. While possibly reloading, Mr. Shaw was able to wrestle the gun away from the WHITE MALE forcing him to flee. Listen to Mr. Shaw describe the events...

Wow. Mr. Shaw was able to disarm the shooter while being unarmed. Read it again. MR. SHAW WAS ABLE TO DISARM THE SHOOTER WHILE BEING UNARMED. Maybe that's why there has not been the media exposure this kind of feat deserves. The NRA routinely says that only more guns can stop gun violence. but they have been quite silent. It even took President Trump three weeks to say "good job"  to Mr. Shaw. Oh yea, Mr. Shaw is also Black. So an unarmed Black man disarmed a WHITE MALE gunman. Is it possible that Mr. Shaw being Black had something to do with the delayed congratulations from the President? It only took one day for the President to give a shout out to the man who took out the Texas Church shoot last November. That can't possibly be the reason.

According to the New York Times, "officials, from detectives to trauma surgeons at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said there would have been greater bloodshed" had it not been for Mr. Shaw. I would also like to say "nice work" to the Nashville Police who arrested the gunman, Travis Reinking, 34 hours later without incident. The four victims were; DeEbony Groves, Joe Perez, Taurean Sanderlin, and Akilah DaSilva. My condolences to their families for their loss.

Thank you for your bravery Mr. Shaw. 

Random Feats of Heroism: Captain Tammie Jo Shults

I apologize for being a little late to the party on this entry. I had actually been mulling this topic over for a quite some time but I am just getting around to it. Better late than never.

By now you have heard the story of Southwest pilot Tammie Jo Shults. She is the pilot who had an engine fail twenty minutes into a flight from New York to Dallas. Ms. Shults is a retired U.S. Navy pilot who had to settle for a combat instructor gig during Operation Desert Storm because she was a woman. She was also the first female pilot fly the F/A-18 Hornet.

Anyway, I wanted to say something about Captain Shults because this is by no means a small feat and I don't feel as if she got enough attention for this (she probably won't get a major motion picture made about it). An engine failure! Are you f*cking kidding me?! Not only does she lay that plane down ever so gently but she just seems to nonchalant it when she lets the tower know what happened like it's no big deal.

Tragically, one passenger lost her life when she was partially sucked out of the plane. Passengers managed to pull her back in but she succumbed to her injuries. Oh by the way, nice work passengers! That's some very quick thinking and they deserve credit for their efforts to try to save a total stranger under circumstances a regular person isn't supposed to face. There's no course on how to save a person from being sucked out a plane. There was a lot of heroic acts on this flight. Nice.

Captain Shults, thank you for your service and for the ice water in your veins. You are a special person.

2017 Films: #41. Atomic Blonde

March 3rd on HBO. My last 2017 viewing of 2017. I was making a mad rush to see a few extra titles from 2017 before the Academy Awards. I actually had wanted to see this while it was in the theater but never got around to it.

The film takes place in 1989 right around the time the Berlin Wall came down. MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) has to go to Berlin in order to retrieve a list of deep cover agents from an East German defector after a fellow agent and her lover is killed. She meets up with David Percival (James McAvoy), an agent on the edge who's also selling western goods like Jack Daniels and designer jeans in East Berlin. Lorraine works her way through intrigue and fistfights to try to get the list. I found it weird that a six foot blonde super model in heels manages to coast through cold war Berlin without being noticed.

She totally blends right in.

The film is based on a graphic novel and is very similar to any Bond, Bourne, Mission Impossible or John Wick film. In fact, director David Leitch was an uncredited co-director of the 1st John Wick film. The plot is pulled right from the 1st Mission Impossible film. The film is told in flashbacks. Lorraine is being debriefed about the mission and she tells her handlers what happened, much like Usual Suspects and very similar to Basic Instinct.

There are a lot of problems with this picture that my friends over at Cinema Sins can delve into better than I can. However, I did like the fact that Lorraine gets tired after a fight and even takes a beating. We get a scene where Lorraine has to take an ice bath to dull the pain. Bourne, Wick and Ethan Hunt never did that. The film received a 77% Rotten Tomatoes rating that is in the ballpark of where it should be. At the end of the day this is a nice change of pace because the protagonist is female (women can clearly kick as much ass as men). It's fun to watch but it's derivative, especially since John Wick 2 was released a few months earlier and trailers for the new Mission Impossible installment have been out.

2017 Films: #40. Message from the King

Netflix viewing on March 2nd in Chicago. Since Black Panther was scheduled to be released in 2018, I had been wanting to see this film to get geared up for. However, that didn't happen as I saw Black Panther first. So I saw this to see Chadwick Boseman in a role other than T'Challa, King of Wakanda.

Fabrice du Welz directs this revenge film that plays out along the lines of 1999's Payback or any revenge/action film where the protagonist works his/her way through a criminal organization in order to bring it down. Not that there's anything wrong with that as there are a few plot twists that give it a little originality.

Boseman plays Jacob King, a South African citizen who comes to LA to find his sister whom he's lost contact with. He finds that his sister is dead and he needs to find her killers. While working his way through the criminal organization, he meets a cast of characters like the single mother hooker with a heart of gold, some sketchy Euro-mobsters and some creepy LA rich guys. Boseman can be as ruthless as his enemies and displays compassion when needed. He manages to outsmart the villains and escape an assassination attempt by some crooked cops. He brings down the organization, collects his sister's body and returns to South Africa, all in under a week, where it's revealed that he is a police detective.

The film has a really good cast with Teresa Palmer as the single mom hooker with a heart o gold, Kelly. Luke Evans is the creepy dentist who has his dirty hands in a dirty pie and Alfred Molina as a creepy Hollywood producer with some disturbing hobbies. To be honest, Boseman's character is like T'Challa without the Wakandan gadgets. He's singularly focused and has an iron will.

I feel that the film was short changed with only a 43% Rotten Tomatoes rating. It's not a great film but it's a good film within the genre. The film is paced well with a 102 minute run time, I never looked at my watch. It's a little derivative but it's a good film. 

2017 Films: #38. I, Tonya

Viewed in Chicago on February 24th. Craig Gillespie directed this mockumentary style biopic about infamous figure skater, Tonya Harding. The film follows Harding's life from her start in figure skating as a 3 year old through her participation in the 1994 Winter Olympic and of course her involvement in the attack on her rival, Nancy Kerrigan.

Gillespie and writer Steven Rogers paint a sympathetic picture of Tonya's life. Her mother LaVona (played brilliantly by Allison Janney) makes the "The Great Santini" look like Ward Cleaver as a parent. Tonya makes suspect decisions, like her relationship with Jeff Gillooly that started when she was 15 years old but she never had a normal upbringing and never had a nurturing environment. She never really had a chance as a skater because she didn't "fit the mold" of what a female figure skater was. She got robbed by judges because she was poor and unrefined (to be fair, Kerrigan came from a working class family and was not privileged by any means but compared to Tonya she comes off that way) and was always an outsider.

Margot Robbie is excellent as Harding. Allison Janney won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance and Sebastian Stan did a very nice job as Gillooly (another gem of a human being). Gillooly and the guys he brought in to go after Kerrigan come off as bumbling criminals. Paul Walter Hauser is a scene stealer as Gillooly's delusional pal and bodyguard to Tonya, Shawn Eckhardt. The film does not explore Harding's involvement with the plot on Kerrigan, but it does let it sit out there to ponder.

This film received a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 90% that is right on the money. Well directed, well written and well acted. A picture that is worth watching.

2017 Films: #39. Wheelman

Netflix viewing on March 2nd in Chicago. Jeremy Rush wrote and directed this thriller about an ex-con, Frank Grillo, who pays off a mob debt by being a getaway driver. "The Wheelman," as he's referred to in the film, is a family orientated working class guy who still has a good relationship with his ex-wife and visitation privileges with his teenage daughter despite the fact that he's a felon.

We start off with the cliche that this his last job that he has to pull. A simple robbery of a bank that is still open after 6pm. As if on cue, things go terribly wrong. His handler appears to have betrayed him, there's a guy on the phone that is threatening his family, the guys that he left behind at the bank are none too pleased about being left behind and his teenage daughter is doing rebellious teenage daughter things. It's just one of those nights.

"The Wheelman" drives around the rest of the night trying to get to keep his family safe and himself alive but goes from bad spot to bad spot. Eventually he has to trust some mobsters in order to put a plan in motion that will save his family and clear his debt.

This is a pretty good film. Lots of action and good dialogue. It lands somewhere in between The Driver and Baby Driver. Not as over the top as Baby Driver and it takes place over the course of one night so it's much more condensed than either of the previously mentioned pictures. The film got an 89% Rotten Tomatoes rating but that might be a bit on the high side. The film is gritty but derivative. A solid action film for sure. Rush kept things very tight and fast paced in it's 82 minute run time. Solid performances by the cast. It's a good film to watch on a Friday or Saturday night. 

2017 Films: #37. The Post

Chicago on February 3rd. Directed by Steven Spielberg, The Post tells the story of how the Washington Post published the Pentagon Papers, a series of classified documents outlaying America's 30 year role in the Viet Nam War.

Meryl Streep is Katharine Graham, the publisher of the Washington Post and 1st female publisher of a major newspaper. Graham comes from old money and is a socialite/player in the DC scene. She inherits the role of publisher upon the death of her husband and the fact that she's a woman in the 70's means that she's clearly unqualified for the job. Tom Hanks plays Ben Bradlee, a legendary journalist and newspaper man.

The Post at this time in the early 70's is not much of national newspaper and is clearly playing 2nd fiddle to the New York Times. It's the Times that actually takes the lead in the publishing of the Pentagon Papers but Post reporter Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk) is able to track down the source of the leak and is able to obtain the papers for publishing.

Now, Graham is taking the paper public while all this is going on and there's fear that publishing the papers could jeopardize the deal. The White House takes the Post and Times to the Supreme Court to block the publication of the papers. The Supreme Court rules in favor of the newspapers and the Pentagon Papers are published. The First Amendment wins!

The film received an 88% Rotten Tomatoes rating and was nominated for Best Film and Best Actress Oscars but in all honesty, it was not that great. The problem I have with historical films like this is that I need to be pulled in because I know the outcome. Spielberg and Hanks teamed up for 2015's Bridge of Spies and that film didn't pull me in either. Spielberg's Lincoln, pulled me in. The Post is not on the same level as Lincoln. I never want to say that mega talents like Spielberg, Streep and Hanks phone it in. Hanks was not that special. A solid Hanks performance given, but not memorable by any stretch. As for Streep, I kept waiting for her to character to stop being such a namby-pamby and finally stand up for herself. I understand that Streep can get a nomination for sneezing onscreen because she's the best. She has no peers (thus she can never be convicted of a crime in a trial by jury).

This is a good picture with standout performances that is worth seeing if you're interested in the subject matter. Are you missing out if you don't see this film? Absolutely not.