Causeway

Causeway (2022)

Directed by Lila Neugebauer

Screenplay by Ottessa Moshfegh and Luke Goebel & Elizabeth Sanders

Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Brian Tyree Henry, Linda Emond, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Frederick Weller, and Jayne Houdyshell

There were rumbling about the performances in this movie from the film festival circuit. I agree with that, but the script fails them from truly shining.

Lynsey (Lawrence) has been sent stateside after a traumatic event while she was on deployment in Afghanistan. Suffering from PTSD, Lynsey tries to reconnect with her mother, Gloria (Emond) to no avail. She befriends a mechanic, James (Henry) on day and they strike up a friendship. These two broken people try to find some way to forward with life.

As I stated before, Lawrence and Henry give solid performances in this film. Lawrence conveyed the raw emotion of having your world turn upside in a split second, and having to pick up the pieces again. Henry's character has to deal with a stupid decision that affect the people around him, and how he dealing with the fallout of that.

It felt like it was not a fully realized world. People were going through the motions. The screenplay tries to paint the portrait to a shattered woman living a shattered life. The downside is that the pacing of the movie makes the flow feel like a slog. The dialogue does not feel authentic. The plot sometimes gets lost along the way. 

You question if the screenwriters dropped subplots or they didn't have a good way to have any resolution. It is a shame that the movie does not living up to expectations.

Rating: 6/10

Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Directed by David O. Russell

Screenplay by David O. Russell

Based on the book, "The Silver Linings Playbook" by Matthew Quick

Stars: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Anupam Kher, John Ortiz, Julia Stiles, Paul Herman, Dash Mihok, Brea Bee and Chris Tucker

I have no idea why it took me so long to see Silver Linings Playbook. I guess, it was something about football that I don't know shit about. It's all a foreign language to me. Since the movie was nominated for eight Oscars, I thought I should check it out before it leaves the theaters. I am glad I did.

Bi-polar Pat Solitano (Cooper) has been released from the loony bin after eight months by her mother, Dolores (Weaver). He was put in there in the first place, because he had a psychopathic break when he caught his wife, Nikki (Bee) cheating with another man and almost killed him. Pat tries to integrate back into his family's eccentric dynamic. Pat Sr. (De Niro) is a obsessive compulsive man who is very superstitious about his betting on the Philadelphia Eagles in order to open a restaurant.

Pat is obsessed with Nikki and wants to change for Nikki to take him back. Pat meets a broken young widow named Tiffany (Lawrence) who is self-described as dirty sloppy slut. They have a weird set of run-ins until they both have major things that want done.

What made stay away from this movie with mental illness and football aspect of the film. I have suffered from mental problems all my life and I hate how it is portrayed on screen. It's either the butt of the joke or completely over the top. I'm glad it was not exploited in this movie. It made me relate my eccentricities to the characters on screen.

Even though, I loved the movie. It was something about the ending that made me scoff. I understood there can't be "Silver Linings Playbook" without the silver lining. I forgave it for that. I'm thankful that the Oscar nominations made me get off my butt and see this film.

My Rating

Winter's Bone

Winter's Bone (2010)

Directed by Debra Granik

Written by Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini

Based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell

Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Garret Dillahunt, Lauren Sweetser and Dale Dickey

This movie was very well recieved when it came out back in 2010. I wanted to see this movie, because it recieved some much acclaim.The movie was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actor for John Hawkes and Actress for Jennifer Lawrence. This film made her into a star. Personally, I didn't get the point of the film.

Set in Ozarks, it seems like a world left behind. A very bleak existence with Ree Dolly (Lawrence) trying to take care of her brother and sister while her mother is suffering from a mental disorder. The family doesn't enough food to feed themselves everyday so they have to depend on donations to survive. Their ho-hum life gets worse when Sheriff Baskin (Dillahunt) comes by to warn them about their father, Jessup. Jessup is out on bond, but he put the house/farm up to get out. He is missing in action. If he does not show at his trail, they would take the house. Seeing as Ree does not want to end up out of the cold, she ventures out to her relatives to see where her father is at.

The biggest thing that I took out of the movie is that either the men act like complete dicks and the women were evil shrews. The only saving grace with the neighbor, Sonya (Shelley Waggener). I didn't really understand the motivations of the characters. Why did they do what they did? The whole central mystery was intriguing, but then it was left unresolved. I felt like, why was the point of the movie? It looked like things was be as terrible as it was in the beginning of the story. Nothing changed. Why did this story need to be told? I felt like chunks of the story were left hanging.

As much as I thought this people in this town were disgusting, John Hawkes was polarizing as Ree's uncle, Teardrop. He deserved his Oscar nomination for his role. This frail little cokehead has a commanding presence whenever he appears on screen. I thought that Jennifer Lawrence was fine here. I didn't think she deserved her nomination. It didn't feel like her character had an arc. It feels like the movie is very one note, one color, one tone to it.

My Rating

X-Men: First Class

X-Men: First Class (2011)

Directed by Matthew Vaughn

Written by Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn

Story by Sheldon Turner and Bryan Singer

Stars: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne, Jennifer Lawrence, Kevin Bacon, January Jones, Zoë Kravitz, Nicolas Hoult, Álex González, Jason Flemyng, Caleb Landry Jones, Edi Gathegi and Lucas Till

I have been a big fan of the X-Men movies ever since the first movie that came out in 2000. The franchise held different meaning for people that have ever been bullied or judged because they were different. The last two movies The Last Stand and Wolverine were not the best movies, because they jam packed mutants into one movie. They was no room to breathe. It was like the opposite effect with this movie. I wish they had better characters to pull out of the Marvel vault.

Being the comic book geek that I am, I have read the "X-Men First Class" comic series. The original first class dealt with the original X-Men in their early days at the Institute set in not so distant past. But for the big screen adaptation everything is transported to the 1960s where a pre-bald, walking upright Charles Xavier (McAvoy) explains his theory about genetic mutations. Meanwhile, Erik Lehnsherr (Fassbender) is on a mission to kill the man that manipulate his magnetic powers in a concentration camp, Sebastian Shaw (Bacon). they what the two men don't realize is that they have common enemy when Shaw wants to bring on World War III.

This movie has its good moments and some of its meh moments. First, I want to say that Fassbender's portrayal of young Magneto was great. I understood why Magneto thinks the way that he does. It was exactly Shaw's way of thinking. I have to say that Shaw in this movie was not evil enough for me. He was like Timothy Olyphant's bad guy in Live Free or Die Hard. I didn't believe it for a second.

I thought the first half of the movie was very solid and engaging. I think when they newly formed X-Men were focusing on Shaw, that's when it went off the rails. Besides, you have these people that nobody knows; Banshee, Havok, Darwin or Angel. Come on. Their powers were really lame. The part that really killed it for me was the ending. It had to wrap up everything in a new little package for the other movies to exist in continuity. The movie did ret-con a couple of characters and situations that had me scratching my head.

Lastly, there were two memorable cameos that had me laughing out loud with I saw them. You have to see it to get my mentioning of that.

My Rating: