Tag Archives: jennifer lawrence

Jun 25 2023
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Movies

Movie Review – No Hard Feelings (2023)

Fun! Sun! Naked J-Law!

BQB here with a review of one of the best raunchy comedies I’ve seen in a long time.

If video killed the radio star, then streaming definitely put a bunch of nails in the coffin of the R rated comedy. The last nail hasn’t been hammered yet, and flicks like this one might stave that off for now. At any rate, movie theater released movies tend to be made with young audiences in mind, as the kids tend to go to the movies while adults stay in and stream.

This movie reminded me of the good old naughty comedies of years gone by like The Hangover, American Pie, Something About Mary and so on. Mind you, this movie comes nowhere close to those greats, but its main goal is to produce an honest effort at making you laugh. There are moments that are heartfelt and touching, but there’s definitely no wokeness crammed down your throat or avoidance of problematic subject matter that seems to be the calling card of so many flicks the streaming services try to pass off as comedy these days.

Jennifer Lawrence, one of the funnier leading ladies in recent years, lets her comedy chops shine as Maddie, a bartender from the seaside vacation town of Montauk. About to lose the house her late mother left her due to high property taxes caused by an influx of rich NYC city folk who only spend their summers there, she answers a rather conveniently timed Craigslist ad placed by helicopter parents Laird and Allison, promising to sign over a used Buick to a woman willing to “date” (in quotation marks) their 19 year old son, Percy. Maddie needs the car so she can drive for Uber and pay off her taxes.

Percy, as his parents explain during a job interview of sorts, is brilliant and talented but very awkward and shy, a gifted musician who refuses to perform live due to his social anxiety. Unpopular and depressed, the lad just stays in his room and Mom and Dad fear the kid will just do the same when he gets to college if um, well, you know the rest.

Fearing she’ll let her late mother down if she allows the family homestead to be repossessed, Maddie takes the job, only to find that Percy is so epically clueless when it comes to women that he’s literally unable to be seduced. Hilarious gags ensue where Maddie’s advances are met with fear, shyness, attempts to call 911 and yes, as seen in the trailer, mace.

Indeed, the movie does adopt many tropes from films/sitcoms where one half of a couple is in it for the money while the other half is unaware, and yet, romance blooms along the way and the fear the other will be crushed when they discover the profit motive was once at play.

And truly, the film illustrates a big time double standard when it comes to men and women. Flip the script and have this movie be about an older man trying to seduce a younger woman and it would be downright creepy as hell. Here, 32 year old J-Law is so remarkably well preserved that she looks, at least to my old eyes, as though she could be one of Percy’s classmates, even though there are jokes about the couple’s age difference throughout the movie. At any rate, do I wish my 19 year old self had befriended a 32 year old JLaw type willing to teach me the ins and outs of love before going out into the real world? Yes. Would I call the police if a 32 year old man tried to do the same to one of my 19 year old female relatives? Also yes.

Long story short, blah blah blah, the relationship becomes less about money and more about companionship as the two enjoy spending time together, learning from one another and helping each other follow their dreams and so on.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Come for the laughs. SPOILER ALERT: Stay for the naked J-Law!

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Jun 02 2018
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Movies

Movie Review – Red Sparrow (2018)

Spies!  Communism!  Boobies!

BQB here with a review of “Red Sparrow.”

It’s every red-blooded, God-fearing American man’s worst nightmare – to hook up with a super hot chick only to discover that she’s a Russian spy.

Luckily, that’s never happened to me.  I’m so ugly that if a woman comes onto me, I automatically assume she’s a foreign intelligence agent.

Joke’s on her.  There’s no intelligence to be found here.  :::rimshot:::

Jennifer Lawrence stars as Dominika, a ballerina whose career is cut short due to an injury, recruited to become a “sparrow” aka to receive training on how to gather intelligence by seducing men with the power of her vagina.  What a heavy responsibility, to have to spy for your country with the power of your lady parts.

My main observation is that I doubt there would ever be a school to teach women how to lead men down a path of self-destruction, not because women aren’t into that but because they usually know how to do that naturally anyway.  Sorry, bringing my own personal baggage into this review.

Going into it, I thought this would be a pretty standard spy flick, but it actually did catch my attention, and not just because you get to see J-Law’s hooters (possibly her butt though I’d wager it’s a stunt butt double).  It’s refreshing to see boobs in a movie.  You so rarely get to see them anymore.

I don’t want to give away too much of the plot.  Suffice to say, her first assignment is to seduce American CIA operative Nick Nash (Joel Edgerton) and as the film progresses, Dominika starts playing both the Russians and Americans.  At times, you begin to wonder which side she is on, has she chosen an allegiance, or is she just playing both sides off the other for personal gain?

Hard to say, but I like a movie that a) keeps you guessing and b) shows boobs.

STATUS:  Come for the sweater puppets.  Stay for the intrigue.

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Dec 24 2016
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Movies

Movie Review – Passengers (2016)

J-Law!  Chris Pratt!  Chris Pratt’s gratuitous ass! (I swear it did nothing for me).

BQB here with a review of Passengers.

So, 3.5 readers, do you know how technology rarely works?

I mean, it works great for a little while but sooner or later it breaks down, develops a bug, has something go wrong with it and after you exhaust yourself with tech support and trying everything you can think of to fix it, you eventually pull your hair out and give up, resigning yourself to the fact that you’ll have to just live with a shitty piece of equipment until you can afford to buy a new one which…will eventually break down?

As it turns out, technology isn’t that much different in the future.  Unlike the sleek, always operational ships in Star Trek, the Homestead Corporation’s ship totally sucks.

Five-thousand passengers are suspended in hyper sleep for a hundred and twenty year trip to a new planet, Homestead II.

Unfortunately, technology sucks in the future just as it does now, as Jim Preston (Pratt) and Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence) wake up way too early with ninety years left before they reach their new home world.

In other words, they’re stuck in a ship for life, with no way to fulfill their dreams, doomed to wander the craft’s metal halls, perpetually bored forever with all of their plans out the window.

I must admit, I didn’t expect much out of this film going into it so I was pleasantly surprised by its awesomeness.  Even though there are only two characters (four if you count Michael Sheen as Arthur the bartending Android and Laurence Fishburne as someone but I can’t tell you who yet), there are plenty of epic twists and turns as well as some fabulous special effects.

As I sat there watching it, I thought to myself, “Yeah!  My laptop, TV, and cell phone all worked for about five minutes after I took them out of the box so I could totally see my sleep pod malfunctioning and leaving me to live out my life on a ship!”

See?  Technology sucks, even in the future.

Hyper sleep has long been a staple of sci-fi space travel films.  Interstellar, for example, opened our eyes to the concept that theoretically, it would be possible for a space craft to make it out into deep space as long as there is a way to preserve the human travelers, otherwise they’d live out their lives and die in transit so what’s the point?

But this is the first film (that I know of) to utilize hyper sleep as a big plot device.  While there are moments of comedy as Pratt and J-Law plead for help from pre-programmed, bureaucratic robots who assure them that it is impossible for them to be awake, the film is also a drama, a love story, and a suspense thriller all rolled into one.

Faulty technology, incompetent tech support help and a corporation that doesn’t plan for things going wrong?  Yeah, this film may be set in the future, but it does feel like life in 2016.  Somehow, it seems more plausible than Star Trek.

STATUS:  Shelf-worthy.  Worth seeing on the big screen.  Excellent date movie.  Women, stop looking at Chris Pratt’s ass.  Chris Pratt, stop showing everyone your ass.  I bet no one even asked you to show it, you were all just like, “I’m gonna let my cheeks flap in the breeze!”

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Nov 23 2015
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Movie Reviews

Movie Review – The Hunger Games – Mockingjay Part 2 (2015)

“You live long enough to die a hero or become the villain.”

Such was the advice provided to us in The Dark Knight and it rings true in this final film in the Hunger Games series in which Katniss faces not only President Snow, but an enemy in her own camp as well.

Bookshelf Q. Battler here with a review of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2.

SPOILER WARNING: Reading below will lead to the spoilers being ever in your favor.

The critics are already foaming at the mouths because this movie didn’t beat last year’s installment, Mockingjay Part 1.  

That’s a dumb assessment because it still raked in a hundred million.  Did your movie bring in a hundred million in its first weekend?  What?  You don’t even have a movie?  Oh.  Ok then.  Shut your cake hole.

Our finale begins with some very war weary rebels, exhausted by battle and willing to make morally questionable choices just to win.  Some believe its ok to kill civilian loyalists to the Capitol as long as it gets the job of ousting Snow done.

How far should revenge be taken?  It’s a question asked throughout the movie and applicable to the real world.  One side does X, the other responds with Y…the reciprocity keeps going until one side is big enough to, in the words of Elsa, “let it go, let it go.”

The rebels reach the Capitol and Katniss and friends form a “star squad” meant to wow the people with footage of their daring do, which is supposed to be captured as they hang back from the fighting.

But Snow has other plans.  He’s rigged the Capitol with traps and is recording everything, broadcasting the biggest episode of “The Hunger Games” ever as the war turns into one giant game.

Oh and Peeta is still brainwashed.  So Katniss has to deal with that too.

The film turns on Katniss facing a troublesome dilemma, namely that the rebels’ president, Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) is looking like she’ll make President Snow look like a boy scout when she takes over.

Thus, Katniss has to make a choice but I’ll let you check it out to see how that unfolds.

One complication the movie faced was the untimely death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who played Plutarch.  He was in it briefly and there are non-talking clips of him throughout.  A speech he was supposed to give to Katniss at the end is replaced by Woody Harrelson’s Haymitch reading a note from Plutarch at the end.

It worked out.  As a viewer, you understand given the loss of Hoffman and its done in a way that it makes sense as to why Haymitch is reading a letter rather than Plutarch talking to Katniss himself.

IMO, the Peeta vs. Gale question is wrapped up too neatly.  Katniss has suffered that immortal youthful angsty question of “I love them both and they’re so nice what do I do?”

One of them turns out to be nicer than the other but I’ll let you watch and find out who.  Kudos to Hollywood for a rare display of open mindedness by at least allowing a short nerdy guy to even be in the running.

Overall, lots of great action, suspense, etc.  It was an excellent series that introduced us to the lovely and talented J Law.

As a viewer, when you invest time in a series, you want it to pay off in the end and this one does.

STATUS: Shelf worthy.

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Nov 21 2014
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Book Based Movies, Books

Quick Note on Mockingjay Part I

Doo dee doo doo.

Sorry, that’s how the Mockingjay call translates into the written word.  Best I can do.

Just back from an early Thursday night showing of The Hunger Games:  Mockingjay Part 1.  As expected, it did not disappoint.  I’ll be back later this weekend to review the movies made thus far from the popular book series.

In the meantime:

1)  Enjoy the Hunger Games header.

2) Check out this article on CNN about people being getting in trouble in Thailand for doing the Mockingjay salute.  Katniss inspires freedom lovers in real life!

3)  Few things illustrate the precious yet frail state of life more than seeing Phillip Seymour Hoffman on the big screen yet knowing that he passed away earlier this year.  Damn you, heroin!

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