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Walter Goggins

Fatman: Santa Shoots from the Hip

November 25, 2020 by Jason Thai Leave a Comment

Written and directed by Eshon and Ian Nelms, Fatman begins when Santa (Mel Gibson) decides to give a spoiled 12-year-old a piece of coal for Christmas. Feeling slighted by the Fatman, the boy decides to hire a deadly hitman to kill Kris Kringle and have his revenge.

The film takes an interesting look into the realistic problems that Santa Claus would face by giving billions of children gifts for free, making him the biggest economic stimulus in the world. In a world driven on greed, profits, and capitalism, Santa Claus is getting frustrated by the state of the world. But more than this, Santa regrets not selling his image for royalties. With the Christmas season generating over $3 billion each year in the U.S alone, Santa can’t even afford to pay for his own electricity. Realizing that ‘altruism isn’t in their bottom-line’, Santa decides to ‘sell out’ and begins taking on a government military weapons contract for the money.

In doing so, however, Santa becomes the very thing he hated. Being the greatest social service on the planet has given him nothing in return, except unbearable poverty for him and his elves. In this way, Fatman becomes a metaphor for how commercialized Christmas has become in our culture. Once a celebration of giving and family, the holiday has become a barbaric season where businesses push their products on consumers. Everything about the Christmas season is monetized. 

Making the choice to depict Fatman as a hardcore action movie was hilarious and unexpected, especially due its extreme contrast of not only the Christmas season but the standard image of a jolly Santa as well. Personally, I thought it was a good choice as the action makes great use of the Christmas environments such as the elves’ workshop. (Besides, there’s not many movies where you see toy-making elves and Santa in a bloody shoot out.) The ridiculousness of the violence is pushed to the extreme when Santa “toughens up”, by dressing in a red pimp suit and turning his classic “see you when you’re sleeping” line into a threat. In moments like these, there’s some great dark humour throughout the film.

Overall, I enjoyed the world-building of Fatman. By portraying a more realistic image of Santa Claus and the real-world implications of acquiring the resources necessary to operate his magic toy shop in a capitalism world, this is an absolute blast for those who have been yearning for a ways to have their Christmas mixed with hardcore violence.

Fatman is available in select theatres and on demand now.

Filed Under: Featured, Film, Reviews, VOD Tagged With: Fatman, Mel Gibson, Santa Claus, Walter Goggins

Vice Principals: Educators with No Filters

October 26, 2016 by Jacob Sahms Leave a Comment

vice-principals-3
When the principal (Bill Murray) of North Jackson High retires to take care of his ailing wife, his two vice principals attempt to fill the power vacuum. But for the students of NJHS, this could be an absolute disaster because these two men are train wrecks.

On one side, the rule-oriented Neil Gamby (Danny McBride) dictates behavior with his loud, profane barking at students, faculty, and staff; on the other, Lee Russell (Walton Goggins) shallowly covers his ambitious scheming with schmoozing. These two foul-mouthed administrators each believe that they will be the next principal – until the School Board sends in college professor (and actual educator) Dr. Belinda Brown (Kimberly Herbert Gregory) into the the school. Suddenly, rather than vying for different elements of the school to like them better than the other, they are united against this common threat.

vice-principals2

While the show has its funny moments, the overall trajectory is a downward spiral of self-destruction and brokenness. Vice Principals is like a school-based sitcom with Married with Children mixed in: we watch this kind of comedy to feel better about ourselves. Frankly, McBride and Goggins are spot-on as absolutely ridiculous and over-the-top creeps, even when they’re not burning down Brown’s house. Their inability to appropriately interact with other people is even worse.

 

One of the saddest (and sometimes funny) side stories is Gamby’s ‘family’ life. He has no friends at school and can’t seem to connect with Amanda Snodgrass (Georgia King), the new English teacher he has his eyes on. But he tries to stay involved in the life of his daughter, which draws him into the circle of his ex-wife, Gale (Busy Philippe), and her new husband, Ray (Shea Whigham). The thing is that Ray might be the most wholesome person on the show, and Gamby can’t see it because his whole vibe is so messed up!

HBO’s new comedy hits on dysfunction, and thrives on brokenness. I doubt it’ll be used in an educational snippets in schools, but some educators may find that the uncensored take on school is really what their inner monologue wants to say. Vice Principals proves that sometimes, what we don’t say could be as important as what we do say.

Filed Under: DVD, Reviews, SmallFish, Television Tagged With: Bill Murray, Danny McBride, HBO, Walter Goggins

Justified: The Heart Of Harlan County #TBT

June 4, 2015 by Jacob Sahms Leave a Comment

justified1Based on Elmore Leonard’s short story, “Fire in the Hole,” FX’s Justified ran for six seasons full of scene-chewing dialogue, adventure, humor, and trouble for one U.S. Marshal Rayland Givens (Timothy Olyphant). When the credits finally wrapped on the sixth season, Givens left a hole that may not be filled, but Graham Yost closed out his show in a way that left most critics satisfied. I had hoped for something happier for Givens, but the ending was ‘justifiable’ given the overall tone and arc of the last six years. In honor of its release on DVD and Blu-ray, I’m looking back at the best western on television (not named Longmire) in a long, long time.

The show begins as Givens is sent ‘home’ to the Lexington, KY, branch of the Marshals after a dishonorable confrontation with a criminal. Soon, Givens sticks his nose into the midst of a conflict in the Crowder family. Givens’ old girlfriend, Ava Crowder (Joelle Carter), has killed her husband in self-defense; Givens’ one-time friend-turned-criminal, Boyd Crowder (Walter Goggins, The Shield), wants Ava’s blood but ends up shot by Givens. His ‘miraculous’ recovery leads him to believe God is calling him to something different…which will later include selling drugs! While Boyd cools his heels in prison, patriarch Bo Crowder (M.C. Gainey, Lost) inches closer to his release, recovery of his drug operations in Harlan County, and revenge on Givens’ father, Arlo (Raymond J. Barry). As if this isn’t complicated enough, Givens is also trying to reconcile with his wife, Winona Hawkins (Natalie Zea).

justified3If the Crowders weren’t enough of threat to the safety and stability of Harlan County, the second season introduced Mags Bennett (Margo Martindale), whose moonshine is to die for. Her sons (led by Jeremy Davies, another Lost alum) want to expand their drug business into Crowder territory, but the feud between the Bennetts and Givens has lasted for decades; this only makes it more volatile. By the third season, an outside crime boss, Robert Quarles (Neal McDonough, Boomtown) and his local henchman, Wynn Duffy (Jere Burns), are even more violent than the other villains Givens has faced, but the Bennetts are still working with the African-American crime boss, Ellstin Limehouse (Mykelti Williamson, also of Boomtown), ratcheting up the intensity again.

After the fourth season (which seemed a bit random in the overall arc but was highlighted by a snake-handling preacher (Ron Eldard)), the fifth focused in on the Crowes (led by Michael Rappaport) and Duffy working to ramp up their drug trade, prostitution, and other criminal aspects. Both seasons are entertaining enough, but they don’t necessarily advance the flow of the storyline featuring Givens, Boyd, and Ava. Every episode has something interesting, but from the opening collision of Olyphant’s and Goggins’ characters, this seems like the inevitable way that the series has to go done.

justified2The sixth and final season finds Givens, Crowder, and Ava wrapped tighter than Givens’ trigger finger. Ava had previously agreed to provide information in exchange for her freedom, and the tension begins to squeeze, and squeeze. An outside drug dealer looking to expand to Harlan, Avery Markham (Sam Elliott), gets mixed up in the season, but this really boils down to who will blink first between our main adversaries.

Ultimately, I thought the show was epic because of Olyphant’s portrayal of Givens. He was earnest, and for the most part, honest. While he often acted with his heart, not his head, Givens sought to be fair and just. His gun, and his steely glare, were his two weapons, hunting down the criminals and eliciting the truth from them. He was the long arm of the law, but he was better than our expectation of the law (if you watch the news): Givens was justice, Harlan-style, and he dispensed that with wit and enthusiasm for the last six years.

While you might think that Givens and Crowder were opposite sides of the coin, they were more likely to be on different edges of the same side. Sure, you could say Givens was “good,” and Crowder was “bad,” but ultimately, they both thought they were doing the right things. Their justice was very much Old Testament-style: “an eye for an eye.” In reality, they were also trying to lay their life down for what they believed in how they worked and sacrificed. You might even find that they were willing to die for a friend. In this murky world of Harlan County, being who you say you are was sufficiently close enough to righteous to make Givens rise to the top.

For six seasons, Yost, Leonard, and Givens rarely hit a bad spot, but now in their absence, they’ll be missed.

Filed Under: #tbt, DVD, Reviews Tagged With: Boomtown, Elmore Leonard, Graham Yost, Lost, Michael Rappaport, Sam Elliott, Timothy Olyphant, Walter Goggins

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