Joy
Mop & Glowing
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 124 min

The Silver Linings Playbook/American Hustle crew is back!  And possibly better than ever!! David O Russell and Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper bring the JOY and the pain in what has got to be the greatest movie that has something to do with a mop and/or QVC – Joy 

Joy is prideful, and joyful, and funny, and mildly melancholy, and 300% fun.  You know the movie is super super dope when it utilizes Robert De Niro talent (in this day and age) and instead of stupefying it.  And you know I aint no J-Law fan, but I love J-Law in this, and thus I love this movie!!

And the story is all true-ish!!!

Joy Mangano is an inventor.  She invented the Miracle Mop

At one point in time, there was no Miracle Mop, and Ms Mangano needed a miracle to support her children, and her ex-husband, and her wacky mother, and her twice-divorced father.  The mop changed everything and this movie is about getting that mop to market and the struggles to get there.  A total underdog story, that you’ll be rooting for from the get go.  Go Joy! Go Joy! Go!!!!!!!!  

Wait, they made a whole movie about a woman who invented a mop?  Well, it’s more than juss that.  It’s about ideas, and family, and things and stuff.  And what a family!!  You couldn’t ask for a more fun and willing bunch of family folks helping her along - Isabella Rossellini, Édgar Ramírez, Elisabeth Röhm, Diane Ladd, Virginia Madsen and the Gadsby twins.  Loved them all.  Makes me wish I was a member of her family so I could hug these people!!!

And the QVC stuff was super cool.  You get to see what it looked like at the beginningish, and things, and stuff, and I think it’s juss so super super super cool and honorable that Melissa Rivers played her mom Joan Rivers, and how eerily alike they look

Did we mention that this movie was 300% fun?  You like fun, right?

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Joy to the world – everywhere on Xmas day

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

American Hustle
Hustle & (Mostly) Blows
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 129 min

American Hustle sorta tells the story of the Abscam FBI sting operation that took place in the late 70s/early 80s. Some of the names (and details) have been changed to protect the imbeciles. Some of it is entertaining, but most of it is like one REALLLLLLLLLLY long run on sentence that keeps on going and going and going.  Director David O Russell and writer Eric Singer swing for Goodfellas-ian heights, but kinda blows it like 2001’s Blow – all 70s scenery, but not much beyond the sniffy, sweaty surface.  But oh, those surfaces…

like…

hey, if you’ve always wanted to see 1/3rd of good-too-shoes Amy Adams‘s boobs (I never wanted to), then this is the boobie/movie for you!

or see Jeremy Renner smile in a movie, for the first time ever!!!

or be depressed watching Bradley Cooper give his all again (this time with curls!!!), and think about how much bullsh!t it was that he didn’t win best actor Oscar last year for the much better Silver Linings Playbook

and then watch his Oscar-winning co-star J-bLaw blah us to death with her blah acting and eyes that bore her and we to tears

or JO to the thought of a mustache ride from Jack Huston!!!

or watch Alessandro Nivola steal the show, in like a grand total of 6 minutes that he’s in the movie

and look, we all LOVE Louis CK and all, but lets face it, he can’t act

THE ARABIC VERSION OF ‘WHITE RABBIT’!!!

but nothing and nobody tops Christian Bale as a combed-over, hairy chested, big gutted Jewish dude, who hides behind those tinted shades OH SOOOOO WELLL.  BALE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Man, CB is such a fcuking great actor.  So much so that I’m starting to think that the Batman movies were a waste of his time.  Anyone can be Batman (I’m sure even Affleck can’t ruin Batman), and since anyone can, we lost the time that Bale coulda been in other movies, like ones were he coulda played some overly intense mother-effer, who’s quietly ready to explode at any given moment.  Bless you Bale.  May you be ready to smolder at any given moment in a zillion movies to come

Verdictgo:  Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Hustle American’t currently at a theater near jews

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

The Fighter
A Champ In The Land of Chumps
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Boxing movies have reached a point of predictability.  They are all about underdogs rising to the challenge, and either they stay on top or fall, really hard (well, all boxers eventually fall, don’t they?).  There’s Rocky and Raging Bull and then there’s everything else.  David O. Russell‘s take on real life brother boxers Micky Ward and Dickie Eklund is somewhere in between the two, with Micky ultimately becoming a contender, a somebody, while his brother falls from grace and becames a great pretender, and horribly a crack addict (watch this HBO doc on crack featuring him!).  And yet for all his deadly vices and unpredictability, Micky needed Dickie in order to become a king of the ring.  Brothers in arms!!  And in fists!!!

Mark Wahlberg fits into Micky’s glove like a… glove.  The role comes naturally to him, but doesn’t eggzactly show any great reach in this tale of the tape.  Christian Bale has the harder and juicer task playing deadbeat Dickie, and while in full Machinist gaunt mode, Bale’s brilliant performance keeps this pedestrian Beantown throwdown from going down for the count.  For a majority of the ride you’ll want to punch Dickie/Bale in the face, and by the end, you’ll want to hug him more than we wanted to hug the movie The King’s Speech.  But the brothers aint alone in all of this.  They have an over reaching family, with bossy matriarch Melissa Leo (to learn more about her, click here) ruling the roost and her SEVEN daughters (more about 2 of em below), a pushover papa (Jack McGee), and in this corner, a loving trainer (Mickey O’Keefe, in a mini-Ditka stache look).  Throw in a sexualized Amy Adams (we never wanted to see her like that, but boy, the girl’s got curves!) as Micky’s tough love interest and family divider, and you’ve got a lot of fight in The Fighter!  It’s a winner, not by a knock out, but by decision based on this judge’s scorecard!

Sister Act: Micky & Dickie”s sisters put on quite a show, and quite a lot of hairspray.  one of them is played by Conan’s sister!!  but there was one sister in particular that was driving our brain into overdrive.  we was like, who IS that, and how do we know her?  well, her is Jenna Lamia and she played popular Poppy Downes in the very first episode of Strangers With Candy!!!!!

watch!

Verdictgo: mos def Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Fighter fights the good fight this Friday only in NY/LA AND the boys’ hometown of Lowell, Mass!!!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…