"Oh I definitely ain't moping around..."

Leave it to David O. Russel and co. to make a simple story about the invention of a mop looks fascinating and complex. His unconventional approach makes said mop the driving force throughout Joy, the biographical film that depicts the struggles of  Joy Mangano to patent her most popular invention to date: the detachable, self-cleaning miracle mop that eventually became a prominent fixture in almost every household across America, and possibly the world.
 
Such a lofty statement, I know, since I don’t have the exact sales numbers, but it could be, especially if Jennifer Lawrence is selling it directly to you. I’d buy it for sure. The 90s-set Joy makes a point in presenting the titular characters as a calm, self-reliant working-class young mother of two who’s practically keeping her broken family together: her mother, Teri (Virginia Madsen) spends all day in her room watching soap operas; her father, Rudy (Robert DeNiro) — recently dumped by his girlfriend — has moved back in and now staying in the basement along with Joy’s ex-husband, Tony (Edgar Ramirez), despite having been divorced for two years; and her supportive grandmother, Mimi (Diane Ladd), also shares space. (Inexplicably, the loving grandma who always has a deer-in-the-headlights look in almost every shot is the narrator of the film even though she dies halfway through.)
 
Joy has always been creative since she was a little girl but it was implied that her parents’ divorce dampens her inventing skill. She sacrificed college education to take care of them, eventually helping her father’s auto shop as bookkeeper as well as doing other odd jobs. She might look like a cool operator — fixing every problem in the house without any fuss — but on closer inspection it’s more of the result of being blasé after years of dealing with her oddball family.
 
 I gotta say though she got one bizarre family (which I am sure is a somewhat comedic version designed by Russel who wrote the script), and they are quite possibly the reason why she never accomplishes anything in her life; despite later getting a loan from her father’s new lover, Trudy (Isabella Rossellini), but her family’s reaction to her brief failure is astonishingly crass. She also has a half-sister, Peggy (Elisabeth Rohm), who works at the auto shop, but she’s cynical and visibly jealous of Joy’s talent. The Mangano family is definitely not presented in the best of light, and I wonder how the real counterpart reacts to this particular portrayal.
 

"Joy to the...world?"

David O. Russel is certainly not intent in making a conventional biopic; his approach to the story is straightforward — Joy creates, Joy succeeds, Joy fails, Joy rises again — but he infuse the rags-to-riches tale with humour and well-timed energy, especially when Joy decides to sell the miracle mop herself at the Home Shopping Network (where once the late Joan Rivers was the host for one of the program, and here the comedian is exceptionally brought to life by her daughter Melissa), and it goes a bit quirky during sequences where the soap operas her mother is addicted to (starring real-life soap opera stars like Susan Lucci) creeps into her dreams. One weakness Joy has lies in some of the dialogues: scenes involving Bradley Cooper as the head of HSN are fine and interesting, but the way the Manganos behave and talk don’t feel like real people to me, with Rossellini delivers some of the oddest lines.
 
Ah but to gripe on the small details of the film would be to undermine the heart and force of the story: no, not the miracle mop (though its role should not be underestimated as well) but the titular character herself. Despite rarely exhibiting the emotion that her name expresses, she is one grace under pressure, a determinate and committed woman realizing her potential against all odds. In the end Mangano is a self-made millionaire who manages to build a lucrative business franchise where she invents and patent more original products, and helps other inventors too.
 
Kudos for Russel (The Fighter, Silver Lining's Playbook, American Hustle) for putting a woman in the spotlight this time around, and despite being too young for the role (actual Joy was 30 when she invents the mop) but the director's frequent collaborator, J-Law, as always, gives a brilliantly mature mixture of confidence and vulnerability in her performance, and totally deserving of the Academy Award nomination she received. The story and the characters might be somewhat fictionalized (the ending, however crowd-pleasing, is unmistakeably Hollywood) but at least the opening title makes clear to the audience that the film is produced as an homage to all inspirational women out there, and in the case of Joy, one inspirational woman. Hopefully little girls get to be inspired by watching it. 

"So my list goes Angels & Demons first, howboutchu, Feli?"

No matter how potboiler-y a Dan Brown’s novel is but you gotta admit that he writes as if he was doing it simultaneously while watching 24, meaning there’s always the exciting frenetic rush that keeps us on our toes and “forces” us to read it through ‘till the end because almost every chapter ends with an (annoying) cliff-hanger.
 
And it’s also historically and geographically educational: numerous fascinating trivia about world history are sprinkled throughout and unheard of landmarks (by me) encouraged this particular reader to seeks its images on Google. Reading books like DaVinci’s Code, The Lost Symbol, Angels & Demons, and Inferno is as much a thrilling adventure as a crash course on (Western) olden times.
 
Which is why adapting Brown’s book to the big screen is a bit tricky, not just because of the pressure to stay faithful to the book but more of keeping its rather talky structure appealing to the audience. And for me that’s the main problem of the latest adaption, Inferno, still starring America’s most lovable star, Tom Hanks (fresh off Sully), and still directed by Hollywood veteran, Ron Howard.
 
Even though the team players are more or less the same but somehow there’s something missing in Inferno, a story about a disillusioned billionaire geneticist, Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster), who’s idea to solve the problem of world’s overpopulation is by decimating half of them. Beyond the grave, he still intends to finish the job, and naturally leaves clues to his doomsday device - which is actually a lethal virus - hidden in various artworks (most notably Dante’s Inferno that depicts the nine circles of hell) so that our hero, symbologist Robert Langdon (Hanks), can try to find it.
 
The problem is: Langdon is suffering from one of those selective amnesia where he can’t remember recent events, let alone recognizing the perpetrators who knocked him out. He wakes up in a hospital in Florence, Italy, next to Dr. Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), and soon they are being chased by the cops, officials from the World Health Organization led by Dr. Elizabeth Sinskey (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and agent Christoph Bruder (Omar Sy) whom I just knew could be such a badass people (or was that purely fictional?), and also from a hired assassin named Vayentha (Ana Ularu) under the orders from a shady organization led by Harry Sims (Irrfan Khan). 

"Oh no Venician dove can stop us now!!"

Much like the book, Inferno hits the ground running from the start with Langdon waking up in a hospital and then trying to retrace his steps all the while also piercing together current information to look for Zobrist’s deadly virus; Sienna and he constantly out and about from one location (or country) to the next, always on the run but of course there’s always time for brief historical expositions from the esteemed professor.
 
And there lies the problem in Inferno (or in other Brown’s film adaptation): in the book we never noticed how expositional it was because it’s as if we’re reading a history-for-dummies books, but in the film it felt like an oddly-placed lectures, inorganic moments where characters decide to take a breath and talk to us what’s going on or what we’re seeing. And there are short yet insightful interactions in the book that gives depth to some of the characters but there are none of that in the film, well, perhaps only Sienna but that’s simply because she plays a surprisingly crucial role in the story. I know I might sound like a book purist, and I most probably am, but I feel Inferno has trouble in its direction, namely how (ironically) everything feel rushed and mechanical as for me there were just no thrills nor tensions in the action sequences, save for the ending, but I think that’s more because of the gorgeous cistern setting in Istanbul. (To be fair, my friend — who read the book and is a fan of Dan Brown’s works — says it was intense and thus was very much entertained by it.)
 
There is even a lack of dramatic tension nor chemistry in the performance: my dear ol’ favourite Tom Hanks is just good but not great nor engaging per usual; Felicity Jones (Hollywood’s current It Girl) leaves no impressionable mark as her face always looks superserious from start to finish; Denmark’s Babett Knudsen seems to be around simply to bark out hollow orders (“every second counts!!”, “if you find it let me know immediately!!!”, well — duh!); and the only one looking like he’s having a bit of fun is Irrfan Khan who has a drawer chock full of knives of various handles and blades. There are hints of potential romance between Langdon and (thankfully the more age-appropriate) Dr. Sinskey, but that too feels muted and spark-less, and one sorta lovey-dovey scene between them prompted me to ask my friend, “What the hey are they talking about?”. And I’m still on the fence whether it’s because of the direction, the script (by David Koepp) or the actors.
 
But all is not that bad about Inferno of course: the one obvious thing that the film medium can do to a book adaptation is visualizing the written words, especially for the fantastical ones, and Inferno brings to life vividly (by cinematographer Salvatore Totino) the images of Langdon’s horrifying nightmares and visions like river of blood, people being buried head first, faces appearing on the back of the head, and creepy hooded figures, to the tune of Hans Zimmer’s haunting score. The travelogue aspect of course is also riveting, jumping from Italy to Venice to Istanbul, but that is to be expected from the franchise.
 
So, how would I rate Inferno compared to the previous adaptations? I’d say Angels & Demons, DaVinci’s Code, and Inferno; though my friend puts Inferno second on the list. (She also thought the distance between the first sequel and this last one is too far, which is seven years, which hopefully doesn’t affect audience’s interest.) Now I am just curious how The Lost Symbol will stand against the rest, assuming they’re making a new one of course. Despite my so-so response to Inferno, oddly I still want more…
 
 

"This is what happen when you play fetch with a dragon, kid.."

Like its titular character, Disney's Pete’s Dragon is such a sweet and fluffy adventure; a throwback to when a family film needs no heavy emphasis on visual effects but a good personal relationship at the core will suffice. For sure this David Lowery film (a remake from a 1977 musical of the same name) employs a certain amount of digital trickery what’s with the lead protagonist being a green, furry dragon that flies and breathe fire, but it never eclipses the humanity within the story.
 
The story starts when little Pete (Oakes Fegley, the third kid in the past year who have to undergo a modern life adaptation after Jacob Tremblay in Room and Neel Sethi as mowgli in The Jungle Book) survive a car crash that killed his parents, and immediately he was taken under the wings of the friendly green dragon he named Elliott. Five years later he was discovered by a park ranger, Grace Meacham (Bryce Dallas Howard, again dealing with prehistoric beast after Jurassic World) and introduced him to her family, hubby Jack (Wes Bentley), daughter Natalie (Oona Laurence), and father Mr. Meacham (Robert Redford), who claims he had seen the dragon when he was young.  The discovery of the child inevitably also attracts unwanted attention, namely from shady hunter, Gavin (Karl Urban), brother of Jack, who of course wants to domesticate Elliot.
 
There’s a charming homely quality in Pete’s Dragon, with the setting a small town located near a forests and mountains (oh you can just smell the fresh, cool air) and the soundtrack uses soothing country or folk-y songs that are just perfect for cross country trips. The characters are simple—no grey area here—and though this might result in lack of dramatic complexities but one thing to never forget that this is a family film first and foremost. It’s about a dragon taking care of a stray kid and raising him like his own; of how cute and fun their life in the forests playing hide-and-seek (Elliott can make himself invisible, btw); and how the intervention of strangers threatens their relationship. My eyes felt all warm when in one scene Elliott — venturing into town to look for the missing Pete — peers through the window of the Meacham's house and see him being all cuddly with his new family, then decides to go back living alone in his cave (sniff sniff). 
 
Despite the ending at times veers to close to Hollywood tropes where things MUST be destroyed but in retrospect it’s miniscule by comparison, intense but refreshingly restrained. What’s important is that our eyes—and hearts—are still attached to the characters, including to that adorable green dragon. Now that’s a sign of a great family film. 

"To go back to the future or to not go back to the future..."

I dinna know that I am going to like this Starz period drama but four episodes in I found myself getting curious and curiouser. Outlander is one of those shows I watched simply because I’ve read glowing reviews about it; a time-travel tale of a woman magically transported from the year 1945 to 1743 Scotland where soon she got involved in the war between the Brits and the kilt-wearing Scots, and during which finds time to strike a romance with perhaps the kindest hunk living in that particular era — and she has a husband in the present already!
               
According to a friend’s description, Outlander is a romance novel brought to life, and she has a point. It is based on the popular series of books by Diana Gabaldon, and the TV adaption certainly has that “female gaze” perspective in which the men’s physicality (mostly Sam Heughan as said hunk) are objectified, and boy does the show offers supersteamy and explicit sex scenes. 
 
But to judge it based on those merits alone is a disservice to the creator of the show (by Ronald D. Moore) because Outlander is so much more than that. First of all, the lead character — Claire Randall — is one of the strongest female characters you’ll find on TV: as played regally and fiercely by model-turned-actress, Catriona Balfe (an Irish but has to sport an English accent for the show), Claire is a woman ahead of her time, stuck in an era where women are supposed to be subservient, intelligence considered to be unbecoming, and any medical expertise (which she has because she was a British army nurse in WWII) might be seen as witchcraft in the eyes of foes.
 
Thus she adapts to the politics of the time, which includes relenting to an arranged marriage to avoid being handed off to the big bad villain of the show, Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies), a ruthless English captain who is actually related to Claire’s future husband. Some viewers might be repulsed by her decision — and her eventual acceptance of her situation and of her feelings as well — but unfortunately that’s what she has to do to survive, or not to be a rape victim. Initially there are so many near rape scenes in Outlander that made me almost tune out but thankfully the show never treated Claire as a victim — she trudges on valiantly, though her stubbornness and naiveté often worries me but her logic and heart are always in the right place.
 
Some episodes show what a vast difference the approach taken by a woman during crisis or conflict, and it’s never about force. In one tense scenes in episode 6 (“The Garrison Commander”) Claire has to rely on her wits (which mostly derives from her knowledge of what have transpired in the historical books) against Black Jack, but she never transformed into a kick-ass heroine—for how could she wearing those ribs-crunching corsets?! (One could argue that Jamie is always around to rescue her, but, yes, realistically she couldn’t survive without him but that’s just because of her unusual circumstance, and to me that doesn’t make her inferior to men.)

 My only complaints about the show is the writing of the two leading men: one is practically an angel and the other the devil-incarnate. It was briefly hinted that Black Jack Randall is simply a psychopath who finds the perfect job because it gave him power and a gun; meanwhile Jamie does have a backstory (which includes being wanted by authorities and having a feisty estranged sister, Jenny—another strong female figure in the series), but it was always clear from the beginning that he was meant to be Claire’s companion by grace of his kindness and dashing presence (who, btw, is inexplicably a virgin). By contrast, the supporting male characters are more three dimensional because they are allowed to vacillate between compassionate and callous (and thank goodness for subtitles coz I would’ve never understand what these Scots are talking about!). The last episode though (“To Ransom a Man’s Soul”) brings quite a shocking encounter between the two men, in which Jamie is subjected to physical and sexual abuse.
 
At times Outlander is unnerving to watch because there’s always trouble lurking in every corner that our heroine has to deal with be that sexual predators or crooked priests or misogynistic strangers or even jealous teenagers who constantly tries to frame Claire as either the enemy, a prostitute, a witch, a vixen, etc., but ultimately as the story progresses the men learned that she ain’t no weakling nor victim. And that’s why I like the show (and I love the wistful main title theme, "The Skye Boat Song", composed by Bear McCreary and performed by Raya Yarbrough), and that’s why I can’t wait to start season 2.
 
Outlander can be streamed at Netflix. 

"Oh we gonna get dowwnn this partayyyy."

The Get Down is must-see streaming. Sure, some characters are wackily over-the-top, the editing and direction is frenetic but by golly it’s such a mesmerizing experience thanks in large part to the hip-hopping score and discolicious soundtracks. Amidst the myriad of characters and energetic direction the story is quite simple and lovely, really, a romance between an idealistic wordsmith and an aspiring pop star; the mood reminiscent of West Side Story.
 
This six-episode series is produced by the one and only Baz Luhrmann, he who shot Romeo & Juliet, Moulin Rouge, and The Great Gatsby, and though he didn’t direct the entire episodes (he only shot the 90 minutes’ pilot with the rest by Ed Bianchi, Andrew Bernstein, and Michael Dinner) but his fingerprints are all over it, once again concocting a spirited cinematic experience draped in retro costumes and amazing set designs. It’s kind of a musical in that characters would burst into songs but only when the set requires them to, such as onstage, in a recording studio or during a DJ battle, with music ranging from classics such as Leon Bridges’ Balls of Confusion, Donna Summer’s Bad Girls to The Emotions’ Best of My Love, but there are wonderful new songs too produced by Nas and performed among others by Miguel (“Cadillac”), ZAYN (“You Can’t Hide From Yourself”), Christina Aguilera (“Telepathy), and by the stars of the show themselves, Jaden Smith (“Losing Your Mind”) and Herizen F. Guardiola (“Set Me Free”).
 
The plot focuses on Ezekiel “Zeke” Figuero (Justice Smith), an incredibly gifted poet living in gritty, drug-addled South Bronx in the late 70s. He’s in love with his best friend, Mylene Cruz (newcomer Guardiola), but she has little time for romance as she prefers to focus on her singing career. Her father, Ramon (Giancarlo Esposito), a pastor, is aggressively against her being a singer (“it’s the devil’s music!”) but she has support from her politician uncle, Francisco “Papa Fuerte” Cruz (Jimmy Smitts), who introduces her to a (unbeknownst to him) down-on-his-luck record producer, Jackie Moreno (Kevin Corrigan). Meanwhile Zeke by chance comically met aspiring DJ, Shaolin Fantastic (Shameik Moore), at the discotheque Les Inferno and together with his three childhood friends —  Dizzee (Jaden Smith), Ra-Ra (Skylan Brooks), and Boo-Boo (T.J. Brown Jr.) — they formed the Get Down Brothers.
 
The subplots are aplenty here, broaching serious topics such as racial politics and neighbourhood reformation, and there are gangsters involved too! Shaolin is kind of like a runner—and lover—for the owner of Les Inferno, Fat Annie (Lillias White), who distributes drugs and dangerously in competition with a rival who in one episodes enters the club with machine guns and starts shooting, which must invoke horrifying images of recent headlines.
 
It can be quite convoluted and, emblematic of most Luhrmann’s films, the editing too fast paced which at times makes you unable to focus on the richness of the visuals. But the experience of watching The Get Down is similar to getting high (which explains the state of most of the constantly sweaty characters throughout the series): it starts of slow before escalating into a euphoric feet-tapping, hips swaying, head-bobbing high, such as the scene when Dizzee went into a nightclub populated by drag queens and homosexuals, a place where people are allowed to be “freaks”. The world that the director created is so vibrant and distinctive, and yet it also felt so lived in with real characters, the music conveys not only fun but also social commentaries still relevant today like gun violence or racial tension.
 
It was reported that Luhrmann and co-creator, Stephen Adly Guirgis, developed the show for ten years, pitching the story as “a mythic saga of how New York at the brink of bankruptcy gave birth to hip-hop, punk, and disco.” It is fascinating to take a look back at the music industry in those days where DJs hold a powerful position as their most played playlist are seen as indicators of what the masses love, therefore assisting artist to cut a record deal (Is it no different than today?). Well, for sure, hip-hop and disco are really the two genres that defined The Get Down, and I hope the show will spin an even greater playlist in the following season.
 
Watch the series on Netflix, with the second part planned to be release in 2017.
 

The Walk of Fame

Tom Hanks loves championing the ordinary joes who are doing extraordinary good deeds under extreme pressure. When most actors his age chooses to play action heroes in films that sorta glorifies violence, Hanks picks inspiring dramas featuring true-to-life characters instead like Captain Richard Phillips in Captain Phillips and lawyer James Donovan in Bridge of Spies.
 
Now he’s playing another Captain, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who in 2009 manages to land a damaged US Airways plane from LaGuardia onto the Hudson River without causing any human casualties. Sully was praised as a hero but the people from the Department of Transportation thinks otherwise since theoretically he could’ve landed the plane at a nearby airport. The inquiry board (led by Anna Gunn and Mike O’Malley) conducted several flight simulations where all resulted in the pilots being able to land safely.
 
Like the lead character, Sully is subtle and contemplative, and as directed by Clint Eastwood, even the crash sequences were shot without manipulative scoring (for the rest the score is typically jazz tinged favoured by Eastwood in all of his movies) and all we hear were just the natural sounds of the weakening engines and the warning signals; and it was still tense. The sequence was also replayed as experienced by one crew at the air traffic control tower (who has to excused himself immediately after people assumed the airplane crashed and thus he failed to do his job), the coast guards, and, lastly, from the cockpit with Sully and his co-pilot, Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart), both an image of calm under pressure. (But lest not forget the contribution of the stewardesses on duty who must display composure in front of panicking passengers.)
 
In retrospect, Sully is perhaps a bit thin on story and characters, which is especially true for Laura Linney who plays the stereotypical concern wife and is mostly seen at home phoning her hubby (she never even shared a screen with Hanks), but, yes, the script by Todd Komarnicki (based on the book Highest Duty written by the pilot himself) is always focused on Sully.
 
There are brief flashbacks to when he first discovers his love for flying and his stint in the army but unfortunately it doesn’t add much to the plot. The movie moved or engage me more during the present: repulsed when some people accused him and Skiles of incompetence, and emotional when Sully confidently disprove the “facts” created by machines that disregard the human elements. I gotta say though that some scenes showing people on the ground looking up to see the sight of a plane flying so low must’ve been very scary; it gave me goose bumps.
 
During crisis is usually when we all come together, and as pointed out at the ending, we sometimes forget the camaraderie that happened when trouble arises. In its own subtle and contemplative way, Sully is a celebration of that.