JOY: Jennifer Lawrence Overcomes Everything, Including Her Own Director (Review)

Since 2010, director David O. Russell has reinvented himself into an Oscar frontrunner, making prestigious ensemble comedies/dramas. He's attracted big stars like Mark Wahlberg, Amy Adams, Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, and Jennifer Lawrence. His earlier films, including I Heart Huckabees and Flirting with Disaster, were oddball, quirky comedies--a lot weirder than his recent Oscar fare. With Joy, his fourth film in five years, Russell tries to bring some of those surreal elements into his prestige new phase, with mixed results.

Starring Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence, Academy Award winner Robert De Niro, Edgar Ramirez, Isabellla Rossellini, Virginia Madsen, Diane Ladd, and Bradley Cooper, Joy tells the story of creative, independent Joy and her attempts to break out of her crazy, dysfunctional upbringing. The script was written by David O. Russell, from a story by Russell and Oscar nominee Annie Mumolo. The film is loosely based on inventor Joy Magano. Rather than be a straight biopic, it focuses more on the idea of woman inventors and the struggles of the working mother.

2016 Golden Globes Predictions

So now that the Oscar race is fully underway, let's take a look at the 73rd Golden Globe nominations and predict the winners! As I've said before, the governing body behind the Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association or HFPA, are not that credible since they love stars. But it's always interesting to see what and who wins.

Spotlight

Best Motion Picture - Drama
Carol (could win)
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Room
Spotlight (will/should win)
Not only is the Boston journalism drama my top film of 2015, Spotlight is also the frontrunner for the Best Picture Oscar. So I think a victory at the Globes is almost a sure thing. Carol is probably the 2nd likely winner, but each of the nominees (though I haven't seen The Revenant yet) seems like it could be a surprise win. Seeing MM:FR here is great.
What's missing? Brooklyn, Ex Machina, Creed--all worthy films.

Brie Larson, Room

Best Actress - Drama
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Brie Larson, Room (will win, should win)
Rooney Mara, Carol (could win)
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn (should win)
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
I find this category hard to predict. My gut says Brie Larson, but I have a feeling that the Globes might go for the more simple period romances Brooklyn or Carol. Having the two Carol stars in the leading category feels appropriate for their screen time (they're both leads) but might cause a split vote. So for now I'm going to say Larson since she had the more complicated role.
Who's missing? Charlize Theron for Mad Max: Fury Road.

Predicting the Best Actress/Supporting Actress Oscars (What a Mess!)

2015 was a really interesting year for films. The Oscars are shaping up to be a fascinating competition. Sure we have some frontrunners, and some vague ideas about what could/should win. This year, the Academy Award for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories are chaos. We have two examples of possible category fraud, two frontrunners, and a whole bunch of wild cards. Prepare yourself for a looooong post, kids!

The curious case of Rooney Mara & Alicia Vikander
Rooney Mara stars in the acclaimed romance Carol, along with Cate Blanchett. If this film were about a heterosexual romance, both actors would be campaigning for Best Actor/Actress. However, since the film stars two women, the Weinstein Company, which is distributing the film, doesn't want its two stars to cancel each other out. So they made the decision to campaign Rooney Mara as Supporting (probably because Blanchett is the title character).

The Hot Shots of 2015

Man, 2015 was an interesting year. From Asians on TV to Mad Max, some exciting and great things happened. Here's a look at some Hollywood people who had a rocking year.

Elizabeth Banks
I've always liked Elizabeth Banks since I first saw her in 2005's The 40 Year Old Virgin. Her comic energy and striking beauty held her out as a star from the beginning. In 2015, Banks showed her versatility as an actress in the stellar Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy, and directed one of the biggest hits of summer 2015: Pitch Perfect 2. And she finished her run as Effie in the Hunger Games; her performances were so iconic, that the films used Effie much more than she appears in the novels. To be honest, Elizabeth Banks is just one of my fave people in the industry.

Ryan Coogler, and the Creed team
When I first heard about a 7th movie in the Rocky series, I groaned. Did we really need another? Well, as directed by Ryan Coogler and written by Coogler and Aaron Covington, we did. The filmmakers give the franchise adrenaline, heart and innovative filmmaking (one take fight scene!). The cast, including Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, and Tessa Thompson, is amazing. The film looks and sounds beautiful, thanks to the hard work behind the scenes. Creed is a top movie of 2015 and I'm happy to admit being wrong.

Spike Lee's CHI-RAQ is Angry, Absurd, Alive (Review)

How often do we get to see films that are truly passionate, straight from the heart? I'm not talking about just powerful stories that move filmmakers on an emotional level. I mean, films that burst with inner rage and joy, and abundant personality. How often do we get to see films that are about something not in an ironic or metaphorical way but in a direct, confrontational way?

Director Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing, Inside Man) has made a vibrant, exciting, infuriating movie Chi-Raq, and it's a film where rage and passion overflow and overcome the viewer. Based on the Ancient Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes, Spike Lee co-wrote the film with Kevin Willmott (Jayhawkers). Chi-Raq stars rapper/actor Nick Cannon, Teyonah Parris, Angela Bassett, John Cusack, Wesley Snipes, Jennifer Hudson, and Samuel L. Jackson.

Winning the Best Picture Oscar: Blessing or Curse?

The Academy Awards are the film industry's most prestigious awards. Movie fans such as myself spend the months of September, October, November, and December guessing the nominees. Then when the nominees are announced in January, we try to predict the winners. Everyone wants to win an Oscar, right? Well, maybe. It is an honor to be honored by your honored colleagues. But winning an Oscar puts a lot of pressure on the film. A lot of casual movie goers may only see a movie because the Oscar win is a seal of approval.

With hundreds of movies released each year, there's bound to be someone who likes a movie a lot better than the award winner. And so sometimes the Oscar win is more a curse than a blessing. For every time the Academy gets it right (12 Years a Slave, the most recent example), sometimes the public consensus is that the winner was poorly chosen. There have been a number of times when the eventual Oscar winner was a good movie that had the sorry fortune of being merely a good movie. These were films that perhaps beat out more critically acclaimed/fan appreciated works by favorite veteran directors. Ultimately, their histories are tarnished, becoming "that movie that stole the Oscar from a better movie." What I often wonder is, what does it mean to win the Academy Award for Best Picture?

Four Levels of Femininity in HUM AAPKE HAIN KOUN..!

On some level, Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! is probably Sooraj Barjatya's best film. At least, it's the best expression of his voice and his style as a filmmaker. It redefined Indian cinema in the 1990s as the first family musical entertainer after a long period of violent crime stories reigning the box office. Love it or hate it, HAHK is one of the most iconic films in the Indian history, even making it into the Guiness Book of World Records. I watch HAHK fairly often, at least once a year. Each time I keep thinking about the themes of what Indian femininity is to these characters, how modern values intersect with that, and traditions being both appealing and unappealing.

HAHK features four levels of femininity, each represented by a young female character. Because the film revolves around a large extended family, there are certain expectations about the ladies in the family should act. How these women meet these expectations, and how they are treated in the film, is what I want to talk about in this article.