The House That Jack Built

There have been plenty of stories where a huge family lives under one roof or lives not that far from each other. This huge family is together all the time and usually fighting like crazy and usually a comedy. The House That Jack Built has a large Latino family living in the same apartment complex and it is not a comedy. It is a rather heavy drama.

            Ever since Jack was little he has been devoted to his family. When he is older he buys an apartment building and lets his sister, brother and sister-in-law, cousins, parents, and grandmother live in the building rent free. It is his dream come true that everyone is under the same roof together. It is not the dream come true for the rest of the family. His father constantly comes home drunk and his mother and grandmother are constantly yelling at him, his brother’s wife keeps going out every night leaving their new baby with his brother, his sister is a lesbian and Jack does not approve of that whatsoever, and his fiancé Lily is always talking about them getting married.

            One day his mother hears some gossip at the laundromat about Jack. The two women gossiping do not know that she is Jack’s mother. They talk about how the owner of the apartment building is actually a drug dealer and that is how he was able to buy the apartment. When his mother confronts him Jack lies to her face and says no that he is not a drug dealer. Jack owns a bodega that is really front for selling marijuana. Outside his store Jack notices two guys standing on the street corner. He knows they are local gang members and drug dealers. Their leader is a drug kingpin and will not leave the neighborhood. Jack is forced to go into business with the drug kingpin.

            Jack’s brother has enough with his wife going out every night. He gets the idea that his wife is cheating on him and one day he mans up and follows her. She is cheating on him and in a rage he shoots her and the man she was with. Turns out the guy she was with is the cousin of the drug kingpin that Jack is working with. The drug kingpin now needs to kill Jack’s brother or else he will kill everyone else in his family.

            Despite the brother being killed the movie ends up on a somewhat happy note. Jack does marry Lily and he is surrounded by his family.

            The House That Jack Built was not a bad movie. It was interesting to see a darker side to having family constantly around and also having that mixed with a drug dealing/gang storyline (at least I think that was one of the storylines…). The only reason I watched The House That Jack Built was because I really like Melissa Fumero. I adore her as Amy Santiago on the TV show Brooklyn Nine-Nine. She is hilarious on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. It was cool to see her in a serious role because now I can say she really is a good actress. The House That Jack Built is not one of the greatest movies I have watched on Netflix but I say it is worth seeing at least once. 

Mistress America (2015)

“Your tragedy is your armor.”

           

            Ever since I saw the trailer for Mistress America I have wanted to see it. I cannot even tell you why I wanted to see because I HATED Greta Gerwig’s last movie I watched Frances Ha. I think I had a hope the story of Mistress America would be less annoying than Frances Ha. I. Was. Wrong.  

            Tracy is a college freshman at Barnard College in New York City. She is an aspiring water who wants to join the school’s elite literary club. She writes a story and does not get in. Her mother is getting remarried and her mother’s fiancé has a daughter named Brooke (Gerwig). One day Tracy messages Brooke to meet up and Brooke takes her soon-to-be step-sister out for a really fun night all around the city. Tracy’s fun night with Brooke has inspired her to write a story based on Brooke.

            Brooke is woman who does not have her life together. She has several different jobs and does not seem settled whatsoever. Brooke has a new venture trying to start her own restaurant with help from her boyfriend.  Her life kind of falls apart when her boyfriend decides to split up with her and she no longer has money for her restaurant. She tries to go to her ex-boyfriend and his wife who Brooke thinks stole her idea for t-shirts and then made a fortune for the backing for her restaurant. That trip goes horribly nuts with Brooke and Tracy ending up in a huge fight and other things happen but Brooke does have a light bulb moment about her life and eventually makes some changes.

            As for Tracy, she does write her story in full based off of Brooke and gets into the literary club. She realizes the club is not all it is cracked up to be and decides to make her own club. After their dust up Brooke disappears and Tracy looks all over the place for her. By the end of the movie Tracy finds Brooke and Brooke is moving on and bettering herself.

            I know my summary of Mistress America is not that great. There is a lot more detail but I did not like the detail. Here is the reason I did not like Mistress America: the character of Brooke drove me insane. I have always been an ambitious person and know what I want from my life. I understand that everyone is different but when I see characters in movies that are adults and immature and do not have their life together and have all this wasted potential I get pissed. Brooke seemed like an immature woman wandering around in life and that made me upset. I hope I did not come off like a snot saying all those things. If you are a person like Brooke or Frances Ha if it is working out for you, you do you and hopefully you are happy.

            Despite my not liking the story or the characters I did think Mistress America was very well acted and very well directed. Greta Gerwig is a great actress and I hope someday to see her in a movie that I like the character she plays. And I will also say that Mistress America is worth watching at least once.  

The Man From U.N.C.L.E (2015)

“For a special agent, you're not having a very special day, are you?”

            One of my favorite genres of movies and stories is the spy genre. My love for spy stories started thirteen years ago when I first watched the TV show Alias. Sydney Bristow was this incredibly smart woman who got out of tight situations in a pinch and figured things out in a snap. Ever since I got into the world of Alias and Sydney Bristow I have loved the spy genre. I love all the sneaking around and how the agents are always ten times smarter and ten steps ahead of everyone else. What bogles my mind is that a lot of spy stories come from true life stories especially from around the time of the Cold War era. The Russians and Americans were spying on each other like crazy. It was the biggest pissing match in international history. All of this espionage helped to spark the creation great movies and TV shows such as James Bond and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. So many still find that 1960s era of spy shows and movies interesting. Last year director Guy Ritchie made the classic TV show The Man From U.N.C.L.E into a fast paced, action packed movie set in the 1960s.

            Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) is an American thief turned CIA agent. His assignment is to extract a woman named Gabby Teller from East Germany. Her father is supposed to have been a former Nazi sympathizer and scientist who is now working for the US government. He was close to getting her out of Germany without incident until he realized that he had a bug planted on him when he crossed the border. The car Napoleon and Gabby are driving in is followed by Russian spy Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer). Illya almost gets them but Napoleon outsmarts him.

            Napoleon and Illya are forced by their governments to work together to bring down Alexander and Victoria Vinciguerra (Elizabeth Debicki) who are Nazi sympathizers and are looking to use Gabby’s father to create a new nuclear weapon. Of course Illya and Napoleon do not always see eye to eye with each other on this assignment since Napoleon is slick and charming and Illya is very severe and by the books. And of course they wind up getting along well that by the end if the movie they cannot kill each other as they were assigned to do.

            The cast was excellent. Henry Cavill was beyond perfect as a former art thief forcefully turned CIA agent. Whenever I think of a male spy I think of him dressed perfectly and he is handsome and smooth and charming, exactly what Cavill was. Armie Hammer… whenever that man opens his mouth I melt! His voice is so deep it sounds so fake and I love it! But besides his voice he was pretty good as a spy. Hammer was excellent in all the big stunt scenes. Elizabeth Debicki I really liked. I am a fan of hers from The Great Gatsby (she was the only aspect of that movie I liked) and I was very excited to see her in something else. She was the perfect female antagonist she had that look and also charm and seductiveness.

            The Man From U.N.C.L.E was very good. I really liked how Ritchie, who also wrote the screenplay, did not take the story out of the 1960s. I appreciate so much that he did not modernize the characters and the stories. I feel like the charm of the characters, especially Napoleon, would have been lost. I also really liked the cinematography of the movie they were great reds and blues and golds. The Man From U.N.C.L.E is definitely worth seeing especially if you are like me and enjoy the spy genre. 

Silent Sundays: Carmen aka Gypsy Blood (1918)

           The story of Carmen has been done over and over again in the history of film. Without looking through my posts I believe I have seen several versions of Carmen. I decided to watch this silent version of the story because I have never seen Pola Negri in a film before.

            This version of Carmen begins with a group of Spanish gypsies around a camp fire. One if the gypsies tells the story of a woman named Carmen who used men to get whatever she wanted.

            Don Jose is a sergeant in Sevilla, Spain.  He has a loving fiancé named Dolores and a mother he takes care of. When he goes into the city he comes into contact with the local seductress Carmen. Jose arrests Carmen after she was involved with a fight at a bar. Alone in her jail cell, Carmen convinces Jose to help her escape. He goes along with her plan and he is soon demoted in rank.

            Jose eventually hits rock bottom. He is no longer with Dolores and he joins Carmen and group of smugglers. Jose even kills for Carmen at one point.

            Carmen leaves Jose for a famous bull fighter. When Jose learns that Carmen no longer loves him he kills her by stabbing her.

            Around the camp fire the gypsy telling the story concludes that some believe that Carmen did not die because she made a deal with the devil.

            Carmen: Gypsy Blood was alright. It was well worth watching it to say I have finally seen Pola Negri in a film. She was not bad; her acting was pretty good especially for a silent film. Ernst Lubitsch directed it and I like his direction no matter what the film. His direction actually kept my interest. Carmen: Gypsy Blood is worth watching at least once if you like silent films.

Mixed Nuts (1994)

“A fruitcake?”

“Yes.”

“Remarkably like the one I gave you last year.”

            Mixed Nuts takes place on Christmas Eve at a crisis hotline. The crisis hotline is run by a guy named Philip (Steve Martin) who just wants to help people. Christmas is a bit of a busy time for the hotline because people are lonely. The call center is based out of an apartment building and the landlord gives him an eviction notice since Philip has not paid the rent in three months. Philip does not tell his co-workers Catherine (Rita Wilson) and Mrs. Munchnik (Madeline Kahn) about the eviction.

            Philip’s day gets weirder and weirder as it goes on. The hotline gets really crazy calls, Mrs. Munchnik gets stuck in the elevator, Catherine’s friend Gracie (Juliette Lewis) is in a fight with her baby-daddy Felix (Anthony LaPaglia) who has been running around in a Santa suit all day, and a whole bunch of other crazy things happen.

            Mixed Nuts is really, really silly. I bought it years ago and kept it because Madeline Kahn is in it and I adore her way too much to get rid of it. She was hilarious with her straight but silly humor. I nearly died when her character was stuck in the elevator and she yells out to Catherine and Philip, “Hey dickheads”. The story I found to be so-so I was not too thrilled with it. Mixed Nuts us worth watching at least especially if you like Madeline Kahn.