Tag: Biography

You can’t spell controversy without an ‘s’ and you can’t spell Nina Simone without an ‘s; as well! There must be something deeper there.

If you are like a lot of movie watchers, you probably watched What Happened, Miss Simone? last year. It is free on Netflix and was nominated for an Oscar, so that is really all I should have to say on the matter. It was about the troubling life of Musician and Activist from the 1940’s to the 1970’s. She won a shit ton of Grammys, so you should know her name at least, even if you didn’t know anything about her.

But there is another film about her life. Not a documentary, but a nice musical bio film, just named Nina. It was originally supposed to star Mary J. Blige in the title role, which makes sense. She is a singer and somewhat an activist. But she had to drop out and they replaced her with Zoe Saldana which led to some issues.

Nina Simone grew up in a time where she wasn’t expected to succeed, she was a very dark woman and had a very distinct face, while Saldana was much lighter skinned, very pretty and is not known for her singing. In particular they had a problem with the skin color because Simone was SUPER active in the Black Power movement and it felt like a form of white washing, since Saldana is Hispanic. That, and they also colored Simone’s skin darker. Is it Blackface if the person doing it is not White? Eh, probably.

Because of all this and more, this film took a long time to come out. It was being filmed in the end of 2012, so it took years to release, possibly waiting for all the controversy to die down and maybe finally out thanks to the successful documentary. However, it seems like the distributors still wanted to bury it, with a very limited release and instant VOD.

Sad Simone/Saldana doesn’t like the controversy.

Nina Simone (Zoe Saldana) grew up like a normal black kid in a southern town. But some old white lady liked her and taught her how to play piano. She got really good at classical music and had a dream of playing at the Carnegie Hall and totally did as the first Black Jazz musician. She also went to Julliard. She made a lot of albums, mixing Jazz with Rock and Roll and Gospel and protest songs. She worked with Martin Luther King and a whole lot of other famous activists. She had an abusive husband/manager and a daughter.

Then, eventually, she left America to Paris to play, because America was too racist. And everything in the above paragraph was basically the first five minutes of the movie, told through newspaper headlines, and this film takes place all after that. Like, in the 1980’s, after she had already been out of America for a long time. She was put in a psychiatric hospital for a day in LA after threatening a lawyer with a gun, where she met Clifton Henderson (David Oyelowo), an orderly. She liked that he tried to help her, so she hired him as her assistant and took him back to France.

So she is a drunk and a jerk to him while he tries to help. She forces him to help her get one nigh stands and makes his life hell. But hey, he eventually gets her back into the US for a concert, despite no one wanting to work with her. Yay biography movie!

Also featuring Kevin Mambo, Ronald Guttman, Mike Epps, and Chuma Gault.

But Simone/Saldana loves that booze apparently!

I don’t plan on talking any more about the controversy. I mean, I’d say just let Saldana be her self with the fake nose and not go all out. The entire skin experience just felt distracting for the most part, because I recognized Saldana, except she was “off” the entire time. Just a distraction, just like the controversy.

But let’s focus on this trainwreck of a film. Simone has been the focus of several documentaries and part of a few more, but never a biography of her life. Out of people who deserve their own Hollywood bio film, Simone is definitely up there on the list. For whatever terrible reason, they focus on the late 80’s and early 90’s and none of the “good stuff” in her life.

Fuck. She was a domestic abuse victim for years and couldn’t get out of it. She made so many great songs and led amazing protests. She had a ton of achievements. And I only know any of this thanks to the documentary about her entire life. Most people in the current generations don’t know anything about her and will only learn this stuff through theatrical films. And they pick her lamest and a very unimportant part of her life. They ignore so many important points in her life and focus on such a small frame it just seems disrespectful.

It seems like the people who made this film hated Nina Simone and didn’t know how to hide it. They showed her as a terrible person and ignored how she got to the lowest point in her life. It is misleading and just…just so bizarre.

Watching Nina, I can only see huge amounts of wasted potential. Even if I didn’t see the documentary, this movie wouldn’t have excited me in any way. I would be left wondering what the heck happened. Why did this person get a movie? Why did Paris matter?

Nina is a mess of a film, and one of the worst biographical movies I have ever seen.

If you don’t know who Hank Williams is, then you are probably not an American. Or at least not a Southern American. Which is okay in either regards, we will take all readers here at Gorgon Reviews.

He was a pretty big deal in the country music industry, and since Walk The Line got to be a big deal, it makes sense to see other country legends getting their own biopics. Hell, even the titles are similar with I Saw The Light. Verb the Noun and titled after real songs.

Here is really what I know about this film. It was supposed to be a big deal, was liked in festivals, and supposed to come out during awards season last year. But it was delayed until April the next year. Something happened along the way and the people in charge no longer thought the film was as good as they had hoped. Real shame. More British people should be playing Country superstars, after all.

There’s an Avengers joke around here somewhere.

Let’s talk about Hank Williams (Tom Hiddleston), a young country singer from Alabama. The movie begins with him marrying Audrey (Elizabeth Olsen) at an auto shop. This is her second marriage and she already has a daughter, but this is real love. And besides, she is going to join him on some songs and on the radio show he gets to sing for.

Well, her singing ain’t as pretty as her face, and that causes some problems, including his own support for her dreams. But Hank has his own dreams. He wants to play at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville someday, his Carnegie Hall, basically. Yeah, sure, he is just 23 or so, but he thinks he can make it. He just has to get more publicity and hit songs. With Audrey as his manager, he gets some singles and CDs, but eventually gets the help of Fred Rose (Bradley Whitford), who helps get him to the Opry with his hit cover of Lovesick Blues.

And then everyone becomes a Hank Williams country fan! Everyone! Which means more alcohol problems for Hank. He also gets some back problems too, which leads to a bit of pain killer drug abuse. And all the constant traveling and depression puts strains on his relationships with his wife and children.

Uhh, yeah, and then the movie is about the problems Hank faced. Including his extra lady problems, including Billie (Maddie Hasson) and Bobbie (Wrenn Schmidt), his mother (Cherry Jones) and his favorite band mate friend guy (Wes Langlois).

Ladies loved Hank, but not as much as Hank loved the ladies.

Hank WIlliams is actually a tragic figure in the country scene. His life was short, but he did a whole lot in that life and helped shape country music forever. I Saw The Light could have been a pretty dark tale, with some great acting and hardships on the screen, with the occassional tune to keep us on our toes. But instead, I Saw The Light is just a mess of a film, dull and boring from the get go.

For sake of keeping things honest, there was a moment where I fell asleep during the film. It was early on when the film was going nowhere, at most I missed the amount a bathroom break would cause.

I really cannot comment on how much Hiddleston looks or sounds like the actual Hank Williams, but I will say Hiddleston had an impressive American Country voice that surprised me. The songs in the movie weren’t bad and probably the most enjoyable element. Hiddleston had a goofy grin most of the time and made everything look very fun.

I listened to the official soundtrack for the film however, and it is horrible. Half of the songs on it are not performed by Hiddleston, but background tracks in the movie. Because of that, not every song they actually sing in the film made it to the soundtrack. None of the songs that feature Audrey, not the beautiful Cold Cold Heart that opened the film, not even his version of Lovesick Blues. It is a travesty.

And one more thought on the music. This film is called I Saw The Light. It wasn’t made by Williams, but he did sing it and make it pretty famous. And you know what? Williams doesn’t sing the name sake song in the whole damn movie. Sure it shows up near the end. It is a good rendition too, but one that carries absolutely no emotional weight behind it thanks to the piss poor editing and story decisions the movie makers made.

Like I said. The music is mostly fine, but the story is choppy and the directing and editing decisions are bad. I don’t always know what is happening. It sometimes feels like a made for TV family bio film, then we get random boobs and Fuck to show that it is actually an R film. They can only imply an abortion and usually only imply infidelity. It is probably one of the worst examples of trying to show the bad sides of a celebrity while actively ignoring it at the same time.

This is not the film Hank Williams deserves.

Whoa whoa whoa, hold up. This movie Race is about a true story, inspirational sports figure, and it ISN’T made by Disney? They are dropping the ball!

Whoa whoa whoa, a second time. This is about Jesse Owens, famed Olympic runner, and he isn’t being played by Chadwick Boseman? I thought he had the monopoly on super famous Black historical figures now, what with Jackie Robinson, James Brown, and T’Challa, prince of Wakanda.

And hey, that title, Race. It is about a runner. But he was also black. Dare it…might it… be about his skin color as well?

A double entendre! And neither side is sex related! A movie miracle here, folks!

The only film that has made me care about the state of Ohio.

Early life be damned, let’s talk about Jesse Owens (Stephan James) in 193. This man was college bound. He is headed to The Ohio State University, land of the Buckeyes and people too ignorant to cheer on Michigan. He turned a few heads during a high school track meet in Chicago, breaking records left and right. So he was able to get a scholarship to attend. He isn’t a simple boy either. He has Ruth (Shanice Banton), who is working at a beauty salon, and a 3 year old girl he has to support. Sure he is going to college to run on the track team, but he also wants an education and a way to support his family, so he can marry Ruth and live a good long life with her.

Well, Larry Snyder (Jason Sudeikis) doesn’t have time for all of that. He doesn’t care about skin color, he just wants to win, like he did when he went to Ohio State. Almost went to the Olympics too!

And um. You know. Watch Jesse train, work, and make mistakes. He breaks many records, which the movie goes into, and qualifies for the Olympics! The Olympics that were being held in BERLIN, GERMANY, in 1936 before World War II (although they didn’t know it at the time).

So we also have the side plot of America maybe protesting and not going to the Olympics. Avery Brundage (Jeremy Irons) wants us to go, so he heads to Germany ahead of time to make sure there aren’t big human rights issues. Jeremiah Mahoney (William Hurt) leads the Olympic Committee and wants America to not compete.

Also starring Eli Goree and Shamier Anderson as fellow Black American racers. In Germany is Joseph Goebbels (Barnaby Metschurat), leader of the Olympic games, Leni Riefenstahl (Carice van Houten). director who wants to film the games, and Luz Long (David Kross), the best European racer.

That’s not him, he is Swedish, not German! But that is Jesse.

Race is 145 minutes long, telling the story of Jesse Owens, the fastest man in the world and winner of multiple Gold Medals. Kind of a lot of time for a guy who didn’t take a long time. It also tells the story of the movie Olympia, which depicted the games and was directed by a woman director. It also tells the story of Avery Brundage, a rich architect, who might have had bad dealings with the Nazis.

Race is crowded and too long. The other side stories are a little bit interesting, but they can get the fuck right out of here. It seems messed up for someone like Owens to finally get a biopic, and have to share it with a scumbag and a German director. Similarly, Owens had to face a lot of racial pressure. The NAACP didn’t want him to go, protesting Germany’s shitty human rights laws and compare them to the USA. So if he went, he could let down his race. If he didn’t go, he could let down his race. It was intense.

But this is also a true story. We know he went. We know he kicked back. The third or fourth time we had to see him threaten to stay home got ridiculous. Repetition only helps build the character so much.

It is a shame too. James acted great in this, and so did Sudeikis. I thought I had seen him as a coach before, but it was just a long commercial playing a Football coach. Check it out. They are the story here and you can tell they both care about the subject matter.

Race is just too bloated to tell the best possible story.

Trumbo! The great white buffalo! Of the main acting awards, this is the final film I needed to see to complete the categories.

I missed it when it came out in November, because, I dunno, I was busy or something. I didn’t care to see it. I figured it wouldn’t get nominated, no matter how much I like Bryan Cranston.

But hey, he did get nominated for best actor. And with a mustache! It is basically what Johnny Depp was doing with Mortdecai. That is the movie in 2015 he wanted to win Best Actor for right? I can’t think of any other film.

Erm. Trumbo! True story! Communists! Time to party! Red Party.

That’s a communist joke and damn it, that is probably a communist dress too.

Back to Trumbo, or Dalton Trumbo (Cranston) as everyone everywhere calls him. He lives a good life. He is one of the most successful writers in Hollywood. He has contracts with movie studios to write exclusively for them, meaning that his family can live a nice life. That is of course his wife (Diane Lane), main daughter (eventually Elle Fanning) and two other kids who we don’t care about.

But he has a secret. A very vocal secret. He cares about the rights of the workers. Any workers technically, but specifically the Hollywood workers who don’t make money and should make more instead of the Hollywood fat cats. He is a…a…a…COMMUNIST. And there are a bunch of them too. This is now the late 40s and people are starting to get afraid of the Commies, thanks to the Russians and the coldness of their threats. So they try and round up all the communists in Hollywood and KILL THEM! No, not kill them, but black list them. Refuse to let them work in movies ever again. After all, if they are writing their movies, they could be putting subliminal communist things into mainstream America and fuck us from the inside! That would be terrifying.

And Trumbo is about how this man and his friends decided to try and fight for their first amendment rights. And to work despite the blacklist through aliases, friends, or by boldly ignoring the threats of others. Guess how many Oscars Trumbo won while black listed? Three. He was basically penning the “Fuck The Police” song well before the boys in Straight Outta Compton.

And of course we have more people in this movie: John Goodman and Stephen Root are brothers who make a shit ton of B movies. David James Elliott plays JOHN WAYNE. Louis C.K. is a fellow writer commie, Alan Tudyk is a fellow writer, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje is a prison man, and Helen Mirren and Michael Stuhlbarg fuck some shit up.

It is rumored that Cranston was able to grow out the ‘Stashe in just 3 minutes.

Despite my wildly successful movie watching lifestyle, I am super behind on almost everything before 1990. I only barely have the 80’s covered, and everything before that is pitiful. So if I can watch a modern movie telling me about movies back in the day, I consider it a win. I have never seen Roman Holiday or The Brave One, but you bet your ass I have seen Spartacus. Getting to hear behind the scenes stories of how these films were written and what they had to do to hide Trumbo’s name was fascinating. It is probably the sexiest thing I have ever heard of when talking about 1950’s Hollywood writers.

Cranston gave a pretty good performance. I am not willing to call it incredible. I saw a lot of Cranston that I have seen in other roles, and I never really saw someone other than himself. I didn’t feel like he ever fully transformed into the man he was playing, not even when he was sitting in the bathtub. I can say it was my least favorite of the Best Actor nominee performances, and would probably rather someone like Steve Carell or Mark Ruffalo from Infinitely Polar Bear.

C.K. and Lane both did excellent jobs with their supporting characters, although Lane wasn’t given a lot to work with.

Story wise, again, there were a lot of interesting moments, but I will say I got confused a few times at a lot of the extra characters, who they were supposed to be, whose side people were on, and just why they were relevant. There are a lot of extra characters here with important roles, too many to list and name, and yeah. I can’t remember most of them. Thankfully it was only small bits of confusion and I could still easily grasp the main points of the story.

Confession time. I did not do my due diligence. But I did almost just say “do do”. If I am ever going to watch a movie part of a pre-existing franchise, I always make sure I have seen all the previous films before it. Just recently I had to watch all the Alvin and Chipmunks before Alvin and the Chipmunk: The Road Trip. I did it with Madagascar 3 and I did it with Ice Age 4.

The theme for all of these are kid movies, but I have to do something similar when Resident Evil: The Final Chapter comes out. Kid movies are easy to do, and honestly, can multi task like a beast through them.

But I did not see Ip Man or Ip Man 2. I have known about them for at least 3 years and heard good things, but never sat down to see them. Getting to review Ip Man 3 was kind of last minute, the kind of last minute that didn’t allow me to put a lot of time into two whole movies full of subtitles. But I read pretty excellent plot outlines on them (Wikipedia), and hey, if I like this one, they are certainly going to be watched within a few months!

Oh I know that guy. This is now familiar and I am no longer afraid.

Alright, Hong Kong! Did you know that something from Hong Kong was called Hong Konese, not Hong Kongian? The more you know.

Ip Man (Donnie Yen) is living with is wife (Lynn Hung) and youngest son, and he is now a successful martial arts teacher. He is a Master at a big school, where masters work together and have their own disciples, including Master Tin (Ka-Yan Leung).

Despite the police force in Hong Kong, crime is still rampant with many street gangs. An American developer, Frank (Mike Tyson) is trying to muscle in his way to HK and is using locals to do the work for him. He hires a former student of Master Tin, Ma King-Sang (Patrick Tam) to force a school to sell its prime real estate to him. Thankfully, Ip Man’s son goes to that school, and he helps guard the school from the vandals.

But that is not all! No, there is also a Cheung Tin-chi (Jin Zhang), who also studied under the same master as Ip Man. However, he claims to be the better martial artist. Apprently Ip Man teaches a modified version of Wing Chun while Cheung knows and teaches the official way. He wants to challenge for title of Grand master, but first he has to earn money (with the bad guys!) despite morals, and make his own gym a big deal.

Also featuring some wife drama. And featuring Karena Ng as Miss Wong a teacher, Kent Cheng returning as Fatso, and Kwok-Kwan Chan playing a young Bruce Lee, whom Ip Man most famously trained.

I want to wear all of the cool outfits, but have no energy to become a grandmaster. 🙁

I had to take some serious notes throughout the film to make sure I wouldn’t get confused, given my unfamiliarity with the back ground. But thankfully, Wikipedia’s plot outline for the third film is also pretty detailed. It just has a big spoiler in the first few sentences, which is stupid.

I loved the fight scenes in the film. They ranged from elegant (the fight scene between the two Wing Chun masters) to extreme (Ip Man taking on what felt like 1,000 fighters, workers, gang members while protecting his son). And they were all so very good. I enjoy the crap out of a fight scene where I can actually tell what is going on. The actors and stunt fighters (if there are any?) did a wonderful job and every jab, punch and strike is visible and well choreographed. In particular, I also really enjoyed a fight scene down a stair case with a lot of interesting angles.

The biggest problem with the movie is that the whole thing seems messy. I was worried about describing the plot, because it seemed to go so many different ways. It wasn’t one nice and easy to follow story, which I believe the other films might have been. Maybe none of the plots were big enough for a film, or they had all these things they wanted to say and only wanted to do them in a single movie for budget reasons. Who knows. But it is quite crowded and at times it meanders.

Yen has a lot of charm as our lead character and watching him definitely made me want to watch the other films. He is extremely charismatic, but in a quiet way, and it is nice having an honest good person to cheer for in the movies. Too many anti-heroes nowadays. Ip Man is a saint.

I almost watched The Grandmaster a few years ago, but the US release was delayed for some reason. And because of that, I forgot about the film, but it is about the same man. I have to believe he was the coolest dude to have this many movies about his life.

Ip Man 3 was the exact thing to get me back into watching martial arts film. I was planning on re-watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for the first time since I was 11 before the sequel is released, and I think I finally have the energy to do it.

There comes a time, when we heed a certain call. When some countries, must come united as one. That is basically the intro to We Are The World, and I am stealing it. But it is okay because I said so right now.

United Passions is about bringing people together, who share a passion, and uniting them under one. A federation of like minded individuals. One that is international. One where people are proud to associate with each other. One where people can talk about Football.

That’s right. FIFA. United Passions is about the founding and history of the organization that brings us the World Cup every four years and is totally fine with people dying in Qatar so the world cup can be there in 2020. They had quite a bit of controversy this year, with charges being put on many members, accepting bribes and kickbacks from announcers and and sports marketing organizations. This had led to situations like, I don’t know, Qatar having a world cup, and a shit ton of revenue going into these people’s hands.

So the fact that they also have a movie coming out to show how great they are is both terrible timing, and also just pathetic in the strongest sense of the word.

Despite the number of trophies awarded in this film, this film will be awarded no trophies.

This is the part of a review where generally I do a rough plot outline or synopsis to let you know what the movie is about. But you know what it is about. It is about the founding of FIFA, how it started, and things that happened in its history after the fact. As John Oliver put it, it is a sports movie about the executives, not the sports stars.

And I can’t be too detailed, because after about 10 minutes I realized how much of a piece of propaganda junk this was, and my brain started to shut off. So here are the bare essentials. Gérard Depardieu plays Jules Rimet, one of the original founders who had to convince everyone this was a good idea. He also might have been their first president? He really wanted Africans and South American’s to be treated with respect and have an equal chance of winning.

Sam Neill is Joao Havelange, who helps FIFA get bigger or something. Also eventually corruption. He is replaced by Sepp Blatter, played by Tim Roth, who totally gets the corruption out of the game. Totally. Also in real life not movie land, Blatter is one of the biggest components in the corruption scandal.

Also featuring Jemima West, Thomas Kretschmann, and Fisher Stevens.

And now the ball is in our court, viewers and soccer fans.

So I am taking these claims from Wikipedia, but I am sure they are sourced correctly. About the corruption and the film ignoring FIFA’s current reality and the decades of rumors:

Roth has said that he asked the filmmakers: “Where’s all the corruption in the script? Where is all the back-stabbing, the deals?” He said he attempted to convey these elements through his performance, saying: “It was a tough one. I tried to slide in a sense of it, as much as I could get in there.”[9] The film’s director, Frédéric Auburtin, claimed he inserted “ironic parts” into the film.

But after watching the film, all of this is hard to believe. There are no obvious winks at the camera or anything, so if anything was subtle, it was extremely subtle. Instead the film plays out like a dreamy Hallmark film. Sure there is some adversary. Like racism! They have to overcome racism! And uhh, some minor corruption. But they get through it and the good guys win and sportsmanship!

Basically everything about this movie is dreadful. I could only look at the clock waiting for it to end. They had some sports, but soccer itself wasn’t the focus so it was all terribly done. There was one point where it was a championship game of Brazil vs Uruguay, I think in Brazil. It would be their first win and the whole country was watching! But it was like an incredibly awkward montage. It kept fading out to black then fast forwarding to a later part of the game, with the narration all being from an announcer of the game. Add in shots of people looking anxious in the stands and listening on the radio. Except it faded at least 5-6 times and it was just so terrible.

Thankfully the tone didn’t go all over the place. It was consistently cheesy and shit. Everyone who watches this film will be united in their passions of “lack of interest” towards a second viewing.

Chess movies? CHESS MOVIES?! Who the heck makes chess movies?

Sure, there was a documentary about middle schoolers playing chess, Brooklyn Castles. But that’s different.

And Pawn had nothing to do with chess! Clearly because its title wasn’t sinister enough. Pawn Sacrifice? Totally a chess movie. You can tell, because it involves death in the title. And you know that the title has a double meaning, it just has to. Why? Because movies about Chess should be smart! Hell, I bet the title has four meanings, but we won’t even figure out the final meaning for another 30 years because it would be a reference to an event that hasn’t occurred yet. That is what I currently expect for movies that deal with chess. I set the bar high.

Why so high? Because. Chess.

Look look! They are playing chess! CHESS IN A MOVIE! Is this The Seventh Seal?!

You can’t just make a vague movie about chess, this chess movie needs a purpose and a real story to tell. So why not the story of Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire)? Arguably the greatest ever American Chess player (and some would argue, Earthian Chess Player) ever, and we do love out greats here in America. Especially if they aren’t boring.

And guess what! Bobby. Wasn’t. Boring. Actually, it is a bit sad, because he was very paranoid among his other potential mental disorders. He grew up with only his mom (Lily Rabe), who thought he had problems because all he cared about was chess. But hey, he became the youngest Grandmaster at the time, and went on to do great chess things.

But Fischer had issues. One, with the Jews, because they were clearly controlling the world. Two, with the Russians, who were basically big cheats. They worked together as a collective unit to insure that Fischer couldn’t go for the title against Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber). Force him to draw and he couldn’t get to the end to beat Spassky. It sucked. He threw hissy fits. He retired from chess and went back to his insane life.

Unfortunately, this was America in the 1960’s. And they couldn’t just let a potential USA vs USSR match up go unnoticed. Especially if they could win said match up! Cold War was really just a lot of small skirmishes, where they competed at events to gain every inch of PR ground. Eventually Fischer was able to do a real challenge against Spassky, in Reykjavík, Iceland. It wouldn’t just be a game, it would be up to 25 games, one a day. They’d gain a point if they won, and 1/2 a point if they drew, and the first to 12.5 would win it all and be World Champion. This was in 1972 and sure enough, televised and watched by all of America, who suddenly became experts at chess.

Also featuring Robin Weigert, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Peter Sarsgaard.

“I will not lower my voice and I am not yelling!”

Some people complain that Steve Jobs has had so many movies since his death. Well, Fischer died in 2008 and has had now 2 movies and 1 documentary about his life after that. Sure, it has now been 7 years versus the 3 or 4 of Steve, but it is still interesting nonetheless.

Fischer was apparently a very interesting individual, and Maguire did a fine as job as any playing him. He had energy and spunk that we haven’t seen since he danced his way into our hearts in Spider-Man 3.

And you know what else? There were some mighty tense moments in the first six or so games between Fischer and Spassky. That was the highlight of the film. Two great actors staring at chess pieces and freaking out about noise and other small details.

However, I think the scope of the film is too specific. After the film, I went to read about Fischer to get some clarification as to why he wasn’t allowed back in the USA for reasons, and you know what? There is a lot of interesting stuff there. Tons of great details, but they instead focus only on the bouts leading up to and against Spassky. Showing his mental deterioation and fleeing around the world? That would make a good movie. Showing his earlier rise to his level through many tournaments? That would be a great add-on to the movie.

Now yes, a lot of biographies are now avoiding the broad scope and going for specific big events, but the issue with this one is that it was a tad bit boring watching him flip out over minor things before the big Icelandic duel. Should it be enough as per the recent trends? Sure, that is a big one. But it didn’t keep my interest throughout the film in leading up to it. Pawn Sacrifice ends up being just an average movie with above average acting about well above average people.

Buy It! – This movie is available now on {Blu-Ray} and {DVD}.

I am so full of Happy Happy Joy Joy. After all, it is the Christmas season, and you know what that means?

That’s right! It’s time for a David O. Russell movie starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper.

I can’t even remember a time when Christmas was without these two somehow in my life. And for the most part, I have enjoyed it each and every year.

Wait, what’s that? 2014 didn’t give us our JLaw BCoop reunion movie? Oh that’s right. That year was supposed to be Serena. But it got shifted around and wasn’t a good movie. Let’s forget 2014. Those were dark times. Probably because someone other than David tried to use them. That must be it.

I assumed this was a revenge action flick based on only seeing this picture pre watching.

Joy (Jennifer Lawrence) used to have it all when she was a kid. She had a loving mom (Virginia Madsen), a dad (Robert De Niro), and step or half sister Peggy (Elisabeth Röhm). It might be a step sister, I don’t know. She loved to invent and create and let her mind flow. Then their parents got divorced. She now had a mom who stayed in all day to watch Soap Operas, and her sister went full time with the dad, who she only saw some of the time.

Now she had to take care of her mom and her head can no longer float in the crowds.

Seventeen years after the fact, things were going to change. Yes, she had two kids. Yes, she was divorced with her ex, Tony (Edgar Ramirez) was living in her basement. The only sane one in her life was her grandmother (Diane Ladd) and our lovely narrator! And of course her best friend is still around to help, Jackie (Dascha Polanco).

Let’s cut to the chase. This story is actually about Joy Mangano, a real person. She invented the mop that was super absorbant, able to be thrown in the washer, and with the handle to twist and wring water out of it. How she got there, and how she became the queen of HSN? Well, that is this story.

Also featuring Bradley Cooper as a QVC exec, Isabella Rossellini as a rich widow, and Isabella Crovetti-Cramp as Young Joy. And no, she didn’t get there by killing her competition.

Although every good picture for the movie wants to confirm the revenge killing spree thing it seems.

Joy was a lot more different than Russell’s previous few movies. It started slow and took a long time for “the point” of the film to be shown. Again, going in blind, it just seems like this Joy girl has a messed up family and people are mean to her. But she is nice, so people continue their meanness.

Literally. If you like seeing unfortunate things happen to Jennifer Lawrence for 45 minutes or so, you will love the intro. But when Cooper appears, things seem to change. Yes, she still gets shit on occassionally, but not as much. Hell, a scene near the end had me filled with controllable rage over her circumstances. So in that sense, yes, Joy elicits emotions out of you and you might get pissed off.

But at least we know there is a happy ending, because she is super famous and well off now. Journeys can suck though.

This film felt full of women power. All the men kind of suck in some way, with only two male characters actually being helpful in the end. But most of the men just try to screw her over along the way. But Joy prevails.

During the film, Cooper’s character makes a big deal about a person’s hands. With hands working on TV, it is easier for the viewer to imagine the hands as their own. Once they imagine using the product, they are more willing to buy it. That is when a viewer will realize that throughout the film, before and after the scene, they do a lot of close ups of hands before we find out about the person themselves. Some subtle point there, and honestly, I am not sure what it is. But it was definitely interesting.

Joy is different. Joy is weird. Joy is overall entertaining, it just takes awhile for the hook to really sink in.

Did you see Margin Call? No? Well, it had a pretty big cast of actors! I mean, Stanley Tucci was in it, so you should see it. That is why I wanted to watch all the Hunger Games movies, but he only had one damn scene in the last one, and it wasn’t even good.

I ended up really enjoying it and found it informative. I didn’t think I was an expert on the financial collapse that America had experienced, but I got the vibe behind it all and understood that something like that could happen.

Needless to say, I didn’t expect more movies about the collapse. Then The Big Short came along. And I didn’t know what to expect. But here is a hint.

Anchorman. Anchorman 2. The Other Guys. Talladega Nights. Step Brothers. Sure, all of these have Will Ferrell in common, but they are also directed by Adam McKay.

Sure, he has directed some TV shows and shorts and random things, but that list was literally every movie he has ever directed. Up til The Big Short. Can a guy who is BFF’s with Ferrell, make a movie serious enough about the economic collapse, easy to understand, and good, without any Ferrell at all?

Don’t worry, we have mature Gosling to make the women and men swoon instead.

Back to the crisis. Our story starts in 2005, with one man. Michael Burry (Christian Bale). He is a socially awkward guy, with a fake eye. He had a wealthy inheritance, so he took it to wall street to make his own small investment firm. And you know what he wants to put over a billion of dollars? Into the mortgage market.

Mortgages are safe, everyone pays them, and only people who can pay them end up getting them. That idea has made bankers rich since the 1970s, thanks to something called Mortgage Backed Securities, MBS. The banks loan out hundreds of mortgages in one lump sum to many homes, and when they are that big, they can make some sweet interest and that gets them rich. More or less. But banks got greedy. They started renting to riskier and riskier people. So the chance of these large funds crashing, creating very bad scenarios, is actually getting higher but no one seems to notice.

Except for Burry. He wants to “short” the MBS funds. More or less, that means he is betting against them. He is loaning money to banks, like Goldman Sachs, and paying a monthly premium on it. He is letting them have that money, until these MBS’s break and he will get his money back multiplied many times over. He is the first guy to do something like this and most people think he is insane, but he looked at the numbers.

But there were more players. Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) is our narrator, and actually works for Deutsche Bank. He finds out about the Burry deal and tries to get more people to follow suit, believing in him and working to get some profit on the side as well. He ends up talking to Mark Baum (Steve Carell), operator of a hedge fund, who crusades against all the bull shit on wall street, and sets out to find just how corrupt this whole thing is.

Also, Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock), two Denver boys who grew their own money to 30 million, who see this as an opportunity to finally make it to the big leagues.

We have a ton of people in this movie, including Marisa Tomei, Brad Pitt, Adepero Oduye, Hamish Linklater, Jeremy Strong, Rafe Spall, Jeffry Griffin, Max Greenfield, Margot Robbie, Selena Gomez and Anthony Bourdain.

The man who drums at his desk and doesn’t wear a suit, predicted the downfall of American economy.
This is why I choose to wear shorts as well.

I honestly didn’t think much about this movie before seeing it. I saw the trailer once before Steve Jobs, was intrigued by the cast, but then forgot about it. And hey, I like some of McKay’s films a lot. I just didn’t have any faith with this topic.

Well, fuck me, I was wrong, and this movie was really fucking good. Star to finish, it captivated me about wall street fucking over America.

The acting was on point from all points, especially with Carrell and Bale as power houses. Pitt was very subtle in this film, similar to his role in 12 Years A Slave. But even better about these roles is that no single person was really the main character. The main character was the housing bubble and banks lying to America.

Were these people bad for profiting off the downfall of the World Economy? Sure, kind of. That is morally grey. Because it shows that some of them tried to tell everyone the problem with the numbers, tried to do something about the collusion, but were laughed right in their faces. Even if they wanted to warn everyone, no one would listen because the vast majority of people didn’t understand how any of it worked and were lied too constantly.

This movie made me ANGRY. I felt rage at what was going on, only eight years ago. I am mad that nothing has really changed. I am mad that no one got punished for it and that so many people got fucked over. I am mad that this movie is also a comedy, and that I gained so much amusement at something that ended up being so terrible.

And that is what a great movie can do. It can make you feel things. The Big Short is funny and anger inducing, while also taking a very complicated subject and making one feel like they understand it. I feel like I totally understand everything that happened now and it was something I never really thought about before. The Big Short is good enough that I feel like I could watch it every few months and still enjoy it and still feel those same emotions.

The Big Short wants me to almost get political and start shouting at rich people. One of the years best.

Eddie Redmayne, you son of a bitch. I feel like it was first announced before he even won his award for Best Actor for The Theory of Everything. You know, the news that he would be starring in a film next year called The Danish Girl.

The story for the first male to female transition. The first transgendered person to physically change their sex.

Holy fuck. What are you doing Redmayne? Are you that desperate for two acting awards? Or is this to make amends for Jupiter Ascending.

Either way, you should enjoy this Conan clip from awhile back about Redmayne and his history of playing women.

And this is where it all began.

Einar Wegener (Redmayne) is a young painter living in Copenhagen, Denmark in the 1920s. Life is wonderful. He lives with his wife, Gerda (Alicia Vikander), who is also a painter, but she mostly deals with portraits. Einar is successful at his landscapes and often has bidders. Gerda cannot get a show, because people don’t care about portraits, no matter how well done they are.

Their best friend is a dancer, Ulla (Amber Heard), who keeps flaking on their appointments, so Gerda uses Einar to finish the portrait. He just has to wear the tights and shoes and keep the same pose, no big deal. Either way, they all find it hysterical and they call this new persona Lili.

But it turns out Lili might not be something new. Maybe it goes way back in Einar’s wife when he was kid playing with one of his friends, Hans Axgil (Matthias Schoenaerts), a metal name if any. Either way, Einar doesn’t like public shows, but wants his wife to go to a big one to be scene for her art’s sake. And they agree that he should go in disguise, as Lily. It is very deceiving to everyone outside of their BFF. He is so good at being feminine!

Okay, I will stop beating around the bush. This act nor the first act made him realize he was a woman on the inside. But damn it, it certainly gets him on the path. The path that makes doctors think he should be locked up, to try radical treatments, and eventually, the right doctor who is willing to really listen to him and help. Also featuring Ben Whishaw, as a fellow Denmarkian who totally falls for Lili.

Yeah, I’d say he is a little bit convincing.

This rating is the same rating I gave to The Theory of Everything. I recognized how great Redmayne’s acting was, but the story just didn’t live up to his acting.

In this case, the story lived up to the acting, it just wasn’t as amazing as I had hoped.

Let’s be clear. Redmayne was beyond fantastic. At least a block or two past the word. His transition was incredibly believable. His mannerisms, his weight loss, his fucking everything. I can’t imagine a better person to do this role than him. A third of the way into it, I forgot it was Redmayne, and was so engrossed in the character.

I also need to talk about Vikander, who is having a killer year seemingly out of nowhere (See: Ex Machina, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.). Her character went through a lot as well, you know, having her husband lose attractiveness to her and come out as a woman. It was hard on her in real life, and you could see the pain in Vikander’s eyes, not sure what she should do or encourage. In fact, this film really should have been called The Danish Girls to a bit more accurate.

Some may say it is too much about the wife though. A lot of scenes from her point of view, keeping Lili a bit more of a mystery. It did a lot for the real Lili Elbe, but man, the filmmakers almost tried to make it about her wife and not her herself. (Is that grammatically correct? Screw it).

Despite the wonderful acting, there were slower moments. Sometimes they took too long to get to the next important scene. Some parts felt repetitive. But if Redmayne wins again (which I am not calling it yet, because there are some still great acting films coming out this year), it probably won’t feel repetitive, just awesome for a young great actor.