Joy (2015)

“Don't ever think that the world owes you anything, because it doesn't. The world doesn't owe you a thing.”

            It is amazing how much money people can make when they invent something and it takes off and possibly even gets bought by a larger company. I keep crying hearing how much money some companies pay for certain apps. They pay millions and millions and the app’s creators are living a very nice life. Besides apps and technology there are many simple inventions that have been developed over hundreds of years especially in the 20^th century. Some of these simple inventions are taken advantage of today. Before the invention of the self-wringing mop mops would have been wrung out by hand. Mops are gross and could even be dangerous. In the movie Joy we get to see how the invention of the self-wringing came to be and how much it changed the life of the inventor.

            Joy Mangano (Jennifer Lawrence) is a divorced mother of two living in upstate New York. She can barely afford to pay the mortgage on her house, her mother just stays in her room watching soap operas all day, her grandmother Mi-Mi has been the only one who told Joy she could be anyone she wanted to be, her father has been married countless of times and comes back to her house after he latest wife divorces him, and her ex-husband lives in the basement.

            Her father, Rudy (Robert De Niro), almost right away begins seeing this wealthy woman Trudy (Isabella Rossellini). Rudy and Trudy take the whole family out on her late husband’s boat. Wine gets spilled and because Joy is walked all over she is the one left with cleaning up the spilled wine. She winds up cutting her hands on the broken wine glass as she is wringing out the mop. Joy soon gets the idea to invent a self-wringing mop. Rudy has a warehouse where he does his business from and Trudy has a lot of money so she asks them to help back her invention.

            Joy soon meet with Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper) the head of the QVC channel. She gets Walker to put her invention on the show with her showing it how it works and not a washed up celebrity the channel has on hand. With Joy explaining and showing the product herself it starts to sell.

            Unfortunately, there is an issue. Before she began production Joy had Trudy’s lawyer look into any copyright issues with the product. It was found out that a Japanese man had invented something similar and created parts. Joy uses the man’s parts in her product which she gets through a company out in California. The company starts messing with her and charging her ridiculous amounts. Rudy and her step-sister Peggy blow up any deal that could have been made by paying the company. Joy finds out the manufacturer has been fraudulently charging her for the patent. She winds up going to the manufacturer out in Texas and gets his ass good and owns her product outright.

            Several years later Joy is a very successful business woman and also invests in other people’s inventions.

            Joy was a good movie. It was not that great, I found the story a bit boring. The cast was great. I always enjoy seeing Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence together in a movie they work so well together. I adore Isabella Rossellini and I had no idea she was in this movie before I started watching it and I got so excited when she came on screen. Joy is worth watching at least once because of the cast and also because it is a bit inspiring to never give up on what you believe in no matter what life throws at you.

 

Serena (2014)

“I think you've taken none months to do about six months' work. But a few changes should greatly increase profitability.”

 “What did you find, wife or a partner?”

 “Both.”

            I am not really into movies that deal with crazy, jealous wives or ex-wives or the same thing with crazy, jealous husbands. That storyline just drives me up a wall because I am not a jealous or seriously crazy person. I also do not like those kinds of stories in movies because they have been made since the dawn of the motion picture industry. I went into Serena not knowing precisely what the story was about. I had read a summary somewhere and it was a good summary because it made me want to watch the movie and it also left out the jealousy/craziness aspect. Well, I must confess, even if the summary did mention that aspect I still would have watched Serena because I adore the hell out of Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.

            George Pemberton (Cooper) owns a timber mill. He makes a nice sum of money but lately he has found himself in some financial trouble and also trouble with the law. George wants to sell his business in North Carolina and move to Brazil. He would like to sell his business for a few million but it is the middle of the Depression and not many people have that kind of money.

            He goes out to Chicago for a while and there he meets Serena (Lawrence). Her family had been killed in a fire and she now single handedly owns the family timber business in Colorado. George begins to flirt with Serena because she has money but of course soon they fall in love with each other. They are soon married and he takes her back to his timber business in the middle of nowhere North Carolina. Serena proves to be an asset as she suggests some changes and even goes out to view the workers. The first person not to warm up to Serena is George’s partner Buchanan. He does not like how Serena has told him what to do. She did not tell him to do something in a harsh way, it was a suggestion and George told him to go along with it. Buchanan definitely did not like to be told what to do by a woman.

            Soon Buchanan decides to side with the local sheriff when he catches Buchanan taking money to bribe a senator. Since Buchanan is pissed off with George for bringing Serena around he decides to testify against his friend and show them the books for the company and how they are fixed. Needless to say George is pissed off that the guy he thought was his friend would betray him. George takes Buchanan out hunting out day… and if I have to tell you what happens you have obviously never watched movies in your life.

            Before George killed Buchanan, Serena told him she was pregnant. Unfortunately she loses the baby and that devastates them both. Serena, even after so many years, is still suffering from the loss of her family. This new loss is too much for her to bear. She soon has one of George’s hired help kill anyone that threatens George and their business. Serena especially targets a young woman named Rachel. Rachel had once worked on the timber yard as a teacher but left because she had a baby out of wedlock. George let her back in despite protests from Serena and a few other workers. Serena finds out that the baby is George’s and that sends her out of control.

            George manages to get Rachel their son out of the county before they can be killed. He goes back to the woods near his yard and his kills himself by attracting a mountain lion that was in the area. Serena also kills herself by setting the house on fire.

            There was a lot more to this story that was very interesting and that lead to George and Serena’s downfall.

            Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper were perfection together. I love their chemistry and they are both such great actors. I believe that without them playing the main characters the movie would not have turned out as well as it did.

            Serena was a good movie despite the story. I feel that even though it had a typical jealous wife story it played out differently than others with the same story. Both George and Serena obviously had a lot of issues both personally and professionally before they married and after they were married their issues just escalated. There were some parts of the movie and story that dragged but for the most part I liked it. Serena is currently available to view on Netflix. It is worth watching once. 

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

“I am going to die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy.”

            I live in a house full of boys. I have three younger brothers who mercilessly love to torture and pick on me. My one brother is such a nice boy, last year he turned twenty I told him that I felt worse I was turning twenty-six and then he proceeded to say that he would kill himself. Yeah, nice brother, I know. At least you do not have to live with him!

            Anyway, that brother and our youngest brother are obsessed with superhero movies. Both of them have had a deep rooted love for superhero movies since they were small. I am very familiar with the worlds of Batman and Superman and all the Marvel heroes. I have not sat through many of those movies which I feel ashamed to admit. Give me a damn break I have a lot of movies I want to watch and the superhero ones are not high on my list! I did today just watch a superhero movie I have wanted to see since it came out in theaters and I never got a chance to (this should be the story of my life with newer movies, I swear). I am very happy and proud to announce that I sat through Guardians of the Galaxy.

            Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) watched his mother die from an illness when he was boy. His mother was all he had in the world. The night she died Peter ran outside furious and sad over his mother dying. He ran outside, fell onto the grass and just cried. All of a sudden a space craft shines its light on Peter and they beam him up.

            Twenty-six years later, Peter has been taken in by a ruthless guy who goes around “recovering” things for people to collect money. Peter is sent to recover an orb. With his headphones on his ears and a Walkman playing a mix tape his mother made for him, Peter dances his way into a crumbling building and into the room where the orb is kept under security. His job could not have been completely easy. As soon as Peter has the orb in his hand a few men barge in and demand the orb from him. Peter fights his way out and barely makes it out of the planet he is on.

            The team that came for Peter had been  sent by an evil Kree named Ronan (Lee Pace). Since the job was not done he sends his assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana) to kill Peter and take the orb.

            Peter goes rogue from the people he works for and takes the orb to the planet Xandar to sell it. The guy who rescued him is pissed so he puts a bounty out on Peter. When Peter takes the orb to be sold at a shop the owner becomes nervous and orders him out. After he comes out into the open again a highly enhanced raccoon named Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and his tree friend/bodyguard Groot start coming after Peter. Rocket is a bounty hunter and is determined to get the money for capturing Peter. As this fight is happening, Gamora comes in. Now Peter is fighting two fights. All four manage to get themselves thrown in prison.

            In prison, Gamora is not a very well liked person. She is connected to Ronan and his family who have killed hundreds of people mercilessly. Gamora explains to Peter that she is no longer loyal to Ronan she hates him and wants to take the orb to someone who can give them a ton of money. Rocket devises a break out from prison. They all go to the man Gamora wants to sell the orb to. The man shows them that the orb is extremely powerful and in the wrong hands can wipe out galaxies.

            Peter, Gamora, Rocket, Groot, and a guy named Drax the Destroyer team up to stop Ronan from using the orb for evil.

            Alright, so my explanation sucks, I know. But you should want to see this movie because it looks awesome not because of my poor summary.

            The cast, the direction, and the dialogue were perfect. The reason for the perfection is because of James Gunn. Gunn has a crazy sense of humor which comes out in his screenplay and direction. He makes all the characters have heart and fantastic personalities. Rocket was my favorite because he was so snarky and pissed and Bradley Cooper knows how to create great attitude with his characters. If Rocket had been a human I could imagine Cooper acting him out. Chris Pratt deserves all the praise in the world for making an amazing Peter Quill/Star-Lord. No one could have been better. As hot as he got no other actor could have looked a little goofy and pulled off some of the lines believably like Pratt did. Lee Pace as a bad guy was stunning. I love and adore him. I have to give a big mention to Karen Gillan who played Nebula. Nebula was not a very nice character. I am used to Gillan from Dr. Who and Selfie where she is sweet and adorable. As Nebula she was an evil bad ass and she nailed it. Fun fact: Gillan actually shaved her head for the role. The dialogue was hysterical. It was entertaining and really kept you paying attention so you do not miss anything the characters say.

            Guardians of the Galaxy was amazing. I had such a great time watching it. I am seriously considering buying myself a copy and I never do that with superhero movies. It is entertaining and the action and comedy do not let up for a moment.

 

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)

 “If you ride like lightning, you’re gonna crash like thunder.”

            I like stories that happen from one single event and things just snowball into big things. A lot of the TV shows I enjoy are like that. I think it is fascinating how one event can change and affect everyone involved. Not too many movies I have seen can pull of that kind of a story and do it well. The Place Beyond the Pines happens to be one of the only movies I have seen that has been able to pull off the scenario and do so in a perfect way.  

            Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling) is a stunt motorcycle rider in a carnival. All the women come out to see him. One woman (Eva Mendes) comes out to see him after the show. She asks him if he remembers her. He does he remembers her name is Romina. Luke takes her home on his motorcycle that night. He wants to see her again but she tells him she has a new man. The following night Luke goes to see Romina at her house. Her mother opens the door holding a baby. He asks who the baby is and the mother tells him the baby is his. Romina tells Luke she is doing what she can to survive. She is going to school, working, and has a new boyfriend. Luke decides to quit the carnival and stick around to be there for his son Jason. He goes to the church where Romina and her boyfriend Kofi are having Jason baptized. Luke sits down in a pew and cries.

            Luke meets a guy named Robin. Robin offers Luke a job in his shop but not too many people go to his shop and there is little money to be made. Robin mentions something about robbing banks to Luke. Luke takes him up on the idea. He robs the banks and Robin has a truck where Luke drives his bike into it and they take off before the cops can find him. This goes well for a while until Robin wants to back out. He cuts Luke’s bike in half and Luke almost kills him for it. Luke does a job without Robin on a different bike. The bike stalls in front of the bank and Luke cannot get away before the cops come. He manages to ride away but the cops are right on his tail. Luke manages to ride down a neighborhood street until he almost crashes into a car. He runs into a house to get away from the police officer, Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), who is chasing him. Avery goes into the house and finds Luke upstairs. Luke is on the phone he does not want the person to tell Jason about him and what he has done. Avery tells Luke to put the gun down but Luke is on the phone. He shoots Luke and as Luke is falling out the window he shoots Avery in the leg. Luke falls to his death. When Avery finds out Luke has a baby his own sons age he is very shaken by what he has done. He feels he has ruined a little boy’s life forever.

            Avery is named a hero for saving the mother and son in the house. While he is recuperating some guys from the force come to his house to take him out to celebrate. They take him to Romina’s house telling her they do not have a warrant but they could make her life harder by not reporting her mother for not having papers to live in America. They find the money under Jason’s crib but they tell her they did not find anything. The one cop gives Avery most of the money since he is the hero. Avery goes to the police chief to tell him what happened but the chief does not want to hear it. The one cop pulls Avery over and has him follow him out to the woods. Avery is not stupid he knows the cop was going to kill him and drives away. He goes to internal affairs and makes a deal with the head of the division: if he gives up all this information and helps get the cops he wants to be made assistant DA since he has a law degree.

            Fifteen years later Avery is running for Attorney General. He and his wife are divorced and his son, AJ, wants to come live with him. AJ is not a good kid. He gets involved with a kid in school. The kid is good and quiet. AJ starts hanging out with the kid and one night has the kid take him to get some drugs. The police catch up to them arrest them. Avery shows up. When he hears the kid’s name is Jason he tells his son to leave Jason alone and has all the charges against Jason dropped.

            Eventually Jason starts looking into his father since Romina will not tell him about Luke. Once he finds out what his father’s name was he looks into how he was killed and even looks up Robin. At party at AJ’s house he recognizes Avery’s police photo from the newspaper articles.

            The three main cast members were perfection. Bradley Cooper, Ryan Gosling, and Eva Mendes were amazing. Gosling has the perfect look for his character. He looks like he could be bad but have good intentions and that is exactly what Luke was like. Gosling’s acting was great. I never really paid attention to his acting before but I think I may now after seeing him in this. Eva Mendes I could not get over how great her acting was. I have never really seen her anything except for maybe one of her chick flicks or on talk shows. I never knew she had the kind of depth and range she had in this movie. Like Gosling I may have to start paying attention to Mendes more. She was heartbreaking, you were not watching an actress you were watching a character. I was so happy to see Bradley Cooper not playing an asshole. This is one of Cooper’s best performances I have seen. He needs to be in more movies like this. Rose Byrne is in the movie for a bit as Avery’s wife. She is so talented and she is always a character or bit actress I wish she could get a leading one (besides the Insidious movies) or go for one. I would really like to see her paired with Cooper in another movie where they are the main characters/actors.

            The Place Beyond the Pines is a very good movie. After the movie was over I was happy to see something like this had been made and released. It was different and at times surprising. I liked how all these characters were connected and even their children were connected years later. The people feel real the characters are people who live around you. It feels like the story is very grounded in real life you are not getting anything glamorous or fake. I can only recommend watching The Place Beyond the Pines if you really likes movies and you like a good story. I have heard from too many people that they did not like it but they have been the ones who think the truly awful movies are good and do not understand movies like The Place Beyond the Pines so only watch it if you really like movies and appreciate a good story.

American Hustle (2013)

“She was the Picasso of passive-aggressive karate.”

            As soon as I saw the cast of American Hustle I had to see it. I did not even care if the plot was awful or if the reviews were terrible I just had to see it. I finally got to see American Hustle and it was very good and the cast was perfection.

            Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) goes to New York City from New Mexico. Through a Goodfellas- like voice over (that switches back and forth between Sydney and Irving)- she says she just wanted to be anyone but who she was and that changes when she meets Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale). The two meet at a party in Long Island one weekend and bond over Duke Ellington. Irving immediately takes to Sydney he really loves her. Sydney comes to love Irving but unfortunately for her Irving is married to a younger woman named Roslyn (Jennifer Lawrence) and has adopted her son.

            Irving eventually tells Sydney what he really does. He does own a few dry cleaning stores and some other legitimate businesses but what he really does is scam people by saying he can give them loans if they pay him five thousand dollars up front. Sydney is upset with him at first but then decides to join his scam. She creates the role of Lady Edith Greensley who has banking connections in England. The loans are never guaranteed so if the people are approved for their loans there is not a huge problem.

            One day trouble does come along in the form of Richie Dimaso (Bradley Cooper) an FBI agent. He and the FBI catch Sydney and Irving but only arrest Sydney since she took the money. Sydney is kept in jail for three days. Richie likes her and wants to help her. When Irving is allowed to see Sydney, Richie tells them in order to get off the hook they have to help catch four people in other scams. Richie wants to go after Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner) a New Jersey mayor who wants to rebuild Atlantic City and does not mind getting his hands dirty for the sake of making his state better.

            After a while the whole deal goes south once Richie starts aiming for bigger fish in his quest to become a sort of celebrity.

            The cast was brilliant in all sense of the word. I have to admit I am not really a fan of either Christian Bale or Jeremy Renner and that goes for this movie as well but they were not as bad as they usually are for me. Bale pulled off being an overweight con artist so well. I will give the man credit he really does go all out for a role and always does well. I am just not thrilled with him for some reason he does not do anything for me. Renner was totally not believable as an Italian mayor who grew up in New Jersey. Renner to be is Hawkeye or whoever he was in the Bourne Supremacy where he does not have to do too much talking. Despite not being the best choice for the role Renner oddly fit with the rest of the actors.

            This movie truly belongs to Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams, and Bradley Cooper. Seriously Jennifer Lawrence can do absolutely no wrong. The woman is so damn amazing. She is not even in the movie that much but she steals the whole damn thing! I was laughing so hard with all her scenes. The best is when she aggressively danced around the house and singing “Live and Let Die” by Paul McCartney. Lawrence is just awesome. You can see her immense talent because she just falls right into the characters. She convincingly becomes this crazy Long Island housewife. There is a scene between Lawrence and Amy Adams that just blew my mind because Lawrence just kicked its ass. In a review from the Montreal Gazette they perfectly sum up Jennifer Lawrence in this movie:

            “This should have been Adams’s ride, but Jennifer Lawrence, playing Rosenfeld’s wife, carjacks the whole movie in the last act with just a handful of scenes and takes us on a dizzying joyride to the finale.”

            And you know what it should have been Amy Adams’ movie and had Jennifer Lawrence not been casted I am sure it would have been. This is another woman with such tremendous talent. Every year this poor woman seems to be nominated for an Academy Award and she never wins when she totally deserves to. Adams has been in better movies than this and should have won for those but I have a feeling she could win something for her role here. There is a story how Katharine Hepburn told Audrey Hepburn that she would win for an inferior role after Audrey lost with Eliza Doolittle (she would eventually win for Wait Until Dark which was not that great). I have a feeling this happen with Adams with this or some time down the road (I still think she should have won for Doubt she was beyond amazing in that). What I like about Adams is that she looks like an innocent woman like I could never imagine her cursing or being half naked or fully naked and she pretty much does both in American Hustle and has done before in other movies. Maybe that is why I find Adams so great because I am always surprised by what she does in movies. Adams also gets lost in her role she becomes the characters and blows them away.

            Bradley Cooper just gets better and better with every movie he makes. He will forever be Will Tippin from Alias to me (I say this all the time and will forever do most likely with any of his movies I see). He was a good actor then (thirteen years ago!! Holy shit!) and he got better. Cooper, besides Alias, always seems to play assholes. He was an asshole here too… but so was everyone else. I hope Cooper can pull off a nomination for some award for his performance in this movie he deserves it.

            Robert De Niro, Jack Huston, and Shea Whigham make appearances. De Niro plays, what else, a mobster, looking for a piece of reconstructing Atlantic City. Jack Huston plays one of De Niro’s thugs. Shea Whigham plays some other kind of con artist as well. They all have small parts. I mention Huston and Whigham because they are/were both on Boardwalk Empire, which takes place in Atlantic City. Houston and Lawrence have a few scenes together and I have to say I would like to see them together in another movie some time.

            The costumes I liked more for the women. The 1970s were just a bad time for fashion. The clothes were so damn ugly especially for the men. Lawrence and Adams looked stunning in all the costumes they had to wear. Their costumes were all low cut and simple compared to the actual clothes from the time period. Adams looked gorgeous in all her outfits I could not even handle it. Lawrence looked like she was going to fall out of all of hers but she looked fabulous. The suits the men wore were terrible. Holy garbage they were sickening.

American Hustle was very good. I honestly did not know what to expect and I am happy I was not let down in any way. The cast was so good together, thank God otherwise I would have been let down. What I really liked about the movie was none of the characters are likeable and they are not right from the beginning. They are human they are idiots and they make mistakes. Maybe Carmine Polito is the only character you can sympathize with and that is all. David O. Russell wrote and directed the film. He said he cares more for the characters than he does plots and I am glad someone likes character more than plot. You see the care he put into writing these character and they are all enthralling and entertaining. I highly suggest going to see American Hustle for its cast, story, and all around entertainment.