Jennifer Lawrence

Joy

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Joy
  • IMDb: link

JoyWritten and directed by David O. Russell, Joy gives us the story of a New York single mother and her miraculous invention that changed her life. Jennifer Lawrence stars as the title character Joy Mangano in a role that allows her to showcase far more of her talents than the Hunger Games franchise. The movie is completely built around Lawrence’s performance, and on her back it succeeds.

Fighting through every obstacle including her family (Robert De Niro, Édgar Ramírez, Virginia Madsen, Elisabeth Röhm), frustration, fear, money troubles, and those who attempted to steal her invention from her, Joy is a story of perseverance, determination, and conviction. If there’s a moral to Joy it’s that you have to fight for your dreams every step of the way.

Joy isn’t without its flaws, there are large parts of the story the script skips over (such as Joy’s jump to QVC’s main competitor HSN and the reasons behind it). There are also some notable odd editing and sound mixing issues, the most prominent of which takes place during pretty awful dubbing of Joy’s duet with her husband (Ramírez).

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Mockingjay Part 2

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2
  • IMDb: link

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 concludes the adventures of Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), a dead-eyed girl from District 12 whose only heroic action over the course of the series took place near the beginning of the first film. I don’t know if the original books on which the movies were based are any good, but the films themselves are one (small) step above torture porn with the least-interesting love triangle ever conceived thrown in for good measure. Do we care who Katniss ends up with? Not really. And because the movies have shown her to be largely unimportant as anything more than a symbol it’s hard to invest any emotion in her journey or its outcome.

Picking up immediately following the events of the last film, Katniss licks her wounds and plans her revenge against President Snow (Donald Sutherland) for turning one of the men she kinda, sorta, loves (i.e. leads on) into a brainwashed killing machine. The fact that Snow is the head of a corrupt government with the blood of thousands on his hands isn’t much of a concern for our heroine who has decided murdering an old man with her own hands is the only form of justice she is willing to accept.

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Mockingjay Part 1

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1
  • IMDb: link

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1After two films of murder games by children building up to a rebellion stoked by class warfare the latest entry into The Hunger Games franchise offers only more build-up. Deciding to break the final book of the series into two parts, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 is nearly all set-up with no payoff in sight for at least a full year until next Fall (if ever).

Set an indeterminate period of time following the events of the last film, Jennifer Lawrence returns as reluctant hero Katniss Everdeen rescued at the end of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and recruited by the survivors of District 13 (the most well-funded and fully stocked secret underground rebellion in the history of cinema) to be the face of their revolution against President Snow (Donald Sutherland) and the Capitol.

Mockingjay does offer something new as it delves into rebellion, propaganda, and the physical and emotional toll of Snow’s policies towards those who defy him. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Woody Harrelson, Liam Hemsworth, and Elizabeth Banks return as Katniss’ support system and Julianne Moore steps in as the leader of the rebellion with access to enough hair products to never have a single strand out of place.

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The Top 13 Movies of 2013

/ / Top Tens & Lists

The Top 13 Movies of 2013

Personal journeys, isolation, the style of the 60’s and 70’s, self-destructive acts and debauchery, troubled romance, rivalries, and overcoming hardships – these were the major themes of the films that composed my list of the Top Movies of 2013. It turned out to be a strong year in movies as several films I thoroughly enjoyed failed to make this list. Rather than doing honorable mentions, I decided to stretch the list from 10 to 13 allowing me to include three more films I wanted to discuss but weren’t otherwise going to earn a mention on a list of the Top 10 Movies of 2013. Here then are the The Top 13 Movies of 2013.

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