Speaks Reviews: Joy

★★ out of ★★★★

A Speaks Movie Review

Given the mixed response from critics, I kept high hopes for Joy. I must come out right off the bat and be honest:  I love Jennifer Lawrence. I would be entertained watching her read a phone book. She is absolutely gorgeous, naturally gifted, and has proven time and time again, since bursting onto the scene with the dark indie film Winter's Bone in 2010, that she can carry a movie.

In 2015, though, the movies she gave her all to failed her. Mockingjay, Part 2 is half a movie that is way too long and its source material didn't have the "fire" of the previous two anyway. Not her fault. Now, here comes Joy, looking to get some of that late year Oscar buzz. It falls flat, wimps out, and ends up meaning absolutely nothing. Not her fault

Blind Spot 2015: Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock

"Everything begins...and ends...at exactly the right time and place." - Miranda

The minute Picnic at Hanging Rock ended I immediately wanted to watch it again. Its shining quality, its dreamy and mysterious aura, clung to me in ways only certain films and television dramas have. I decided to keep my rented-from-Netflix Criterion Blu-Ray for another day or two. I did watch this movie again. I had to. It was even better the second time.

Thursday Movie Picks: Holiday/Vacation Movies

Holiday season means one thing for me:  time off work. And I mean a lot of time. I am currently on Day Five of my Winter Break, furnished by my school district and the loving taxpayers of my county and municipality.

So, it's Thursday...Christmas Eve...and time for another entry in Wandering through the Shelves' Thursday Movie Picks. This week...Holiday/Vacation Movies, which I took as Holiday Vacation Movies. What can I say?...I'm festive.

Speaks Reviews: Star Wars - The Force Awakens (NO SPOILERS!)

A New Hope...for Me

★★★★ out of ★★★★

A Speaks Movie Review

**NO SPOILERS!**

One weekend day back in 1997, my Dad took me to see Star Wars. George Lucas had just re-mastered, edited, and released his original film with updated special effects. Later, I got the original remastered trilogy box set on VHS. I watched Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. Then, I put on Return of the Jedi, finally, a few months later, and didn't even make it through.

Moral: I am not, nor have I ever been, a Star Wars fanboy.

In Movie Lines: November 22 - December 19

My Movie Life

November 22nd - December 19th, 2015

Thursday Movie Picks: Family Reunions

For me, it was always Easter and Thanksgiving when my whole family got together. Christmas was always spread out. My parents got divorced when I was five, so Christmastime, while wonderful, was split up and not usually a full-on family reunion.

Speaks Reviews: Spotlight

Enlightened

★★★★ out of ★★★★

A Speaks Movie Review

Director Tom McCarthy needed some redemption this year. He made an oddball comedy, released early in 2015, starring Adam Sandler, called The Cobbler. Everybody trashed it. I didn't even see it.

Now, here is his second film this year, your Best Picture frontrunner, Spotlight, a film of calm assuredness, free of frills and excesses, drawing a picture of an institution gone just plain wrong in the darkest of ways, made darker by a cover-up of maddening proportions.

Thursday Movie Picks: Movies Set in a Hotel

Thursday! Less than week and half until I'm off for Winter Break! 

I often joke with some of my colleagues about the long breaks we get every winter, what with the two week break that often extends, intermittently, into January and February with snow and ice. Cabin Fever is real, and we often liken it Stanley Kubrick's locked up wintry hotel in The Shining. It can get crazy. It looks something like this: 

Speaks Reviews: Room

When the Walls Come Down

★★★ 1/2 out of ★★★★

A Speaks Movie Review

There's a feeling that came over me at one point during director Lenny Abrahamson's Room that I don't often experience. I'm sure others felt it too. It is a feeling brought on by an acuteness of suspense, most often reserved for the loftiest of thrillers. Take the final moments of last year's Indie darling, the revenge thriller Blue Ruin, for example. But here, in a movie that is so tender, so loving of its characters, I can't imagine how it was executed so perfectly.

Thursday Movie Picks: Con Artists

My Thursday Movie Picking has been a bit intermittent of late. (I know. I know.) Stress from work begat a weakened immune system begat a fairly brutal case of bronchitis mixed in with the Thanksgiving Holiday, and I've barely had time to do any posting of any kind.

It is Thursday though. Maybe my favorite day, and I just can't say no to this week's theme on Wandering through the Shelves' Thursday Movie Picks. I mean...Con Artists! Easily some of the best movie characters have taken the grift as their lifestyle of choice. And I've always found myself drawn to the seedy ones, the ones who run true confidence tricks with a look at the big score, the long con.