Ordinary Angels with Bonus Content

[Frank Cox]

Does anyone know what the Ordinary Angels Bonus Content is?

It appears to make the movie about 12 minutes longer than the "regular" version.

Special intro? Extra scenes interspersed within the movie, "director's cut" style? Something else?

I'm sure that as soon as I put "bonus content" on my webpage I'll have a dozen people asking me what that means and I currently have no idea.

[James Wyrembelski]

It was only available to play on the early show date. Basically interviews and such with the cast etc.

[Frank Cox]

I see.

This bonus version along with the regular version just showed up on my Cinesend gadget.

I'll wait and see which version they send me the key for and go from there then.

Thanks.

[Mike Blakesley]

We are playing this movie next week, but yesterday we were in Billings with a couple hours to kill, so we decided to see a 3:00 showing of th is movie at the AMC "Classic" cinema, which is the newer of AMC's two locations in Billings.

I feel like these big chains are not carrying their weight when it comes to keeping this industry alive. The place was sloppy (considering it was early in the day) and staff was lackluster in their enthusiasm, making for a "not special" kind of experience.

There is a lot of griping about concession prices at theaters. While sometimes I think this criticism is misplaced, at AMC it seems justified, because you have to do so much of your own work. You pick out your candy from a self-serve rack in front of the snack bar; you have to put your own butter on your popcorn; and you have to pour your own soda from the messy "self serve" concession area. The only thing the helpful sullen teenagers behind the counter do is take your money and hand you your containers. A box of Junior Mints (which we pay something like 90 cents for) sells for $5.49 at the AMC, so I can see why people might think that's a ripoff.

We don't have any other chains in our area so I'm not sure if this is common across all of them or not, but if these big companies want to know why they aren't selling more tickets, they might want to look at the question, "What kind of experience are you providing?" and consider everything else besides the movie.

Which brings me to the main event. The movie presentation was fine, in contrast to the subpar experience in the lobby. I did get a little annoyed with the repetition of various self-congratulatory AMC 'welcome to the movies' clips that played before the main event; I'd say we sat through at least four or five different clips telling us how great AMC was.

Beyond that, though, I thought the movie was really good, if a bit ponderous in places, and (of course) highly predictable. It was well-filmed, although more darkly-lit for my taste, and well-acted. Hilary Swank does an outstanding job as Shirley, who is a hairdresser with plenty of baggage who becomes an Erin Brockovich-type character, stepping in to help a little girl who is in need of a liver transplant "because I feel like I need to," with no more reason than that. She's hindered at many turns by the girl's dad, Paul, who has to balance his male ego telling him that HE should be the one taking care of his daughter, not this strange woman he barely knows, with the cold fact that he just doesn't have the resources -- or ability -- to do what needs to be done.

With these kind of stories that are "based on" true events, you always wonder where reality leaves off and "movie magic" takes over. At one point, the little girl needs a helicopter ride to a hospital for an operation. Locals have rallied to clear a church parking lot to create a place to land the helicopter, but whiteout conditions due to a huge snowstorm make it impossible for the pilot to see the landing spot. A kid comes up with a solution that I won't spoil here because it's either ingenious or preposterous, I can't decide which. The whole scene takes place at night and is very dramatic with the lights, and the swirling snow and all.

Less than five minutes later, the credits are rolling and we're seeing the "real life" photos and clips of the family from the movie. There's actual video footage of the helicopter scene, which appears to come off just like in the movie, except it happens in broad daylight! The contrast sorta ruined the end of the movie for me, making me wonder "well, what else did they lie about?" in the course of the story.

Overall though, the movie gets through the narrative with virtually none of the preachiness that this kind of film usually relies on; and the acting chops by all the principals makes for a compelling story. The two child actors (Emily Mitchell and Skywalker Hugues) playing the sick girl and her older sister are perfect in their roles; cute without being annoying. And Alan Ritchson, as Paul, has the gruff-but-caring thing down to a science. Another gem is Tamala Jones, as Shirley's co-worker, who I wished had more scenes.

This is the kind of movie that audiences will love, but hardly anybody will see, sadly. Too bad, because it's a nice uplifting tale and you walk out feeling like maybe there really is still some compassion in the world.

3 out of 5 stars from me.

[Mike Blakesley]

We're playing this now, and sometimes I notice something about a movie when I'm just hearing it from the office, vs. actually sitting and seeing it.

The score during the climactic scenes toward the end is terrible. It's a scene that really calls out for a pulsing action-movie type score, but the whole time he's driving through snow and frantic phone calls are being made and a helicopter is trying to land, etc. the soundtrack has this violin-dominated funereal music going on as if the sick girl had already died.

As expected our crowd last night was kind of weak. We'll see how the week plays out. The fact that they did not have any one sheets to send us (I printed my own smaller version) didn't help.

[Frank Cox]

I got two one-sheets for this one.

However, that seems to be an exception. For the past several months I seem to be not getting one-sheets, far more than I used to. I used to have a box full of them for stuff coming out eight months from now. Today I have so few that I'm having to get creative to find something to put into some of my poster holders (and I only have eight places to display one). I end up writing the movie title and the dates on the back of some old single-sided posters and putting that in the window about 50% of the time now.

I sure didn't get much of a turn-out for this one last night either but the big hockey game in town probably didn't help any with that.

As for the movie itself I thought the first part of it was kind of drag. Fundraising just doesn't make a compelling story on the screen. The snowstorm/helicopter stuff gets pretty exciting but that's what, less than a third of the movie?

I'd rate this one as a definite meh.

I'm still hoping the old lady contingent comes to see this, but they certainly didn't show up last night.

[Mike Blakesley]

I end up writing the movie title and the dates on the back of some old single-sided posters and putting that in the window about 50% of the time now.

I like to make my own signs, so we have a printer that can do 13x19 size paper. I use that to make substitute one-sheets when necessary. Too small, but better than nothing.

I've thought about using the "poster" function of Adobe Acrobat to make full-size onesheets by tiling smaller sheets together, but making my own uses so much ink that I hate the thought of doing that.

We're getting quite a few of the "old lady contingent" now, including a few who haven't been here in years. Makes you wonder why they picked this movie to see and have skipped over so many other popular ones.