“Joy” had scenes. And while some of them were very good, I’m not sure that it’s actually a movie, though.

“Joy,” the latest film by David O. Russell is a biopic that proudly displays a big asterisk on the “bio” part. It tells the true story of Joy Mangano (Jennifer Lawrence), an overworked, single mother who created the Miracle Mop and became a millionaire.

Now this is the kind of story David O. Russell loves: somebody who is constantly held down by their insane mess of a family. And that is what ultimately hurts Russell at certain points: he is constantly standing in his own shadow.

By this point, David O. Russell has earned a good reputation in Hollywood after years in creative jail. In 2010, “The Fighter,” about a boxer being held down by his crazy family, was his well deserved comeback. He followed it up with the equally fantastic “Silver Linings Playbook,” about yet another person trying to escape their demons. Between “American Hustle” and “Joy,” it feels like David O. Russell keeps trying to remake “Silver Linings Playbook” while forgetting everything that is so great about it.

People really don’t like “Joy.”

The reviews for “Joy” have been harsh. I am not saying that this film doesn’t deserve that scorn, but it feels like people might have been kinder to it had not come with the added baggage of the Russell/Lawrence team.

It isn’t a complete disaster.

“Joy” is partially saved by some phenomenal performances. Once again, Russell shows that he can bring out the best in Jennifer Lawrence. She has matured greatly as an actress. Sometimes, it seems like she is too young to play this role, but it works in her favor. She seems completely out of place as a woman who has to deal with her parents’ divorce while also sorting out her own. It also helps that she has a great scene partner in Bradley Cooper.

During one scene, she has to go on QVC and convince the world both that they should buy this mop, and that she is an ordinary woman from Long Island, and not a movie star. For a second there, I really did think that mop was the greatest thing in the world.

The film then loses track of everything, including the other characters.

This is why “Joy” can’t be “The Fighter,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” or even “Flirting With Disaster” (a great film from early in Russell’s career): it completely abandons every other character.

Russell is typically so skilled at fleshing out giant ensembles. Here, it just feels like every character is meant to service Joy and their internal lives don’t matter. Early on in the film, Joy’s father (Robert De Niro) is shown as a broken mess of a man. He ruins Joy’s wedding and joins a dating service for widows and widowers, even though he is neither. He is never given a moment of redemption, even though by the end his sins are completely absolved. Sure, this movie is called “Joy” but the story would have been much richer had those who helped Mangano achieve success actually been given her due.

And finally, the mop ends up not being that interesting.

After truly selling me that the Miracle Mop really was important, “Joy” lost me when it suddenly turns into a drama about patent law.

In the end, “Joy” feels like the product of complete creative control. Sometimes, that can be a good thing (see: “The Hateful Eight”). While “Joy” has its redeeming qualities, it feels like a good argument for directors actually reading the notes studio executives give them.

“And the winner of Best Oakleys Commercial of the year is…American Sniper!” Image via Indiewire

There is a rule many screenwriters follow called “Save the Cat,” in which the protagonist must do something good (like save a cat) in the film’s first act in order to be likable. In the first scene of American Sniper, Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) kills a woman and a child. Later, he tries to beat a dog with a belt. Now it makes sense why Chris Kyle is an American hero that nobody can stop arguing about.

American Sniper is about the Iraq War. It is a film that should have been made, and for a certain segment of America (re: cheese curd lovers), it will be the defining Iraq War film. For another segment of America (re: kale lovers), it will be seen as a huge missed opportunity. For film critics (re: movie lovers), it will be seen as a big disappointment from a legend of cinematic badassery. I am lactose intolerant and I hate kale, so you can guess which camp I fall into.

Clint, why hath thou foresaken me? Watching you go from A Fistful of Dollars to Unforgiven to American Sniper is like watching a beloved relative lose their personality and start yelling at birds and blaming everything on ethnicities as they grow older. American Sniper is the story of Chris Kyle, who garnered a reputation as the deadliest sniper in American history. A proud Texan, the horse riding, not cousin riding kind (his words), Kyle is basically a modern cowboy. He is The Fastest Gun in the Middle East, yet he never even gets Ennio Morricone as the soundtrack to his life. Eastwood calls him a hero, but doesn’t know how to actually establish that he is one.

American Sniper feels lazy for most of its running time. The battle scenes lack both thrill and suspense. Watching this film is like watching your friend play Call of Duty. One supposedly epic battle scene is shrouded in a sand storm. This seems less like a metaphor for the confusing nature of war and more like a way to keep the budget relatively low. Then, there is a now infamous scene in which Chris holds his baby that is so obviously fake.  The reason for this is because the original baby called in sick and they couldn’t find a backup on time. I have trouble buying that. There are hundreds of mothers living in the Oakwood who would willingly give their babies away to Bradley Cooper and Clint Eastwood.

Just in case you thought the culture wars were over, they have not. They are being fought on your uncle’s Twitter feed and your former high school bully’s Facebook page. Some people are damning this film as a pro-war statement. Others are using it as an excuse for moronic racism. This situation has basically become “The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs” episode of South Park: everybody is ascribing meaning to American Sniper that isn’t there. Liberals and conservatives alike would rather watch a war movie that preaches to their own choir, instead of one that says something new and different.

Some jingoistic tendencies aside, American Sniper isn’t very political, and that is one of its greatest failures. Don’t get me wrong, apolitical war movies are great. Just look at The Hurt Locker. While that one wasn’t trying to say anything about what got us into Iraq, it had a powerful message about the nature of war that could be applied to almost any conflict in history. American Sniper explores PTSD and the morality of being a sniper in a half-assed way. While it is great that American Sniper is getting us to talk about what veterans experienced in Iraq, it doesn’t actually lend anything valuable to the conversation.

Luckily, the film finds a savior in Bradley Cooper. Cooper is one of few actors who can sell a movie on his name alone who also deserves to be called an artist. He was really passionate about this story, and you can tell from the way that he humanizes Chris Kyle that he really cares about this guy. Cooper gets a few emotionally raw moments out of a weak script, and we can start to comprehend a man who referred to all his targets as “savages,” yet actually hoped he wouldn’t have to kill anybody.

There are a few brief moments where Eastwood really pulls through. In one nail-biting scene, we see the painstaking thought process a sniper must go through in a matter of seconds. Later, we see how exactly the war has come home with Chris in a shot that is one brief image accompanied by an unexpected cacophony of noise. These are the moments that the film could have used a lot more of.

Whether or not you see Chris Kyle as a hero, villain, or a flawed human just like anyone of us, his story is a powerful one, and it deserved a great cinematic treatment. As a war movie about the battle both at home and abroad, American Sniper comes off as The Deer Hunter without any chutzpah. My dislike for the film has nothing to do with its political outlook; I don’t like it because it doesn’t turn war into any sort of emotional experience. It is the kind of film that makes me want to shake Clint Eastwood and tell him that he can do better. Or, better yet, just put him in a home already.

Note: Clint Eastwood is viewed nowadays as a celebrity poster boy for the Republican Party. True, he is a registered Republican. However, he is also a pro-choice, pro-gay marriage libertarian who opposed the Iraq War. That’s the Northern California equivalent of a neocon.

Guardians of the Galaxy marks the first time in a long time in which I was actively rooting for the arrival of another Marvel feature. That might have just been from the odd sight of a raccoon and a tree interacting with one another. Guardians of the Galaxy is the latest film to come out of the Marvel Universe, and it almost feels like they hit the restart button with this one, and got nearly perfect results.

I had an inkling, which turned out to be very wrong, that Guardians of the Galaxy might completely reinvent both superhero and action movies. I was wrong. Guardians of the Galaxy doesn’t reinvent any genre, and it doesn’t even try to do so. Guardians of the Galaxy is a product of Marvel, yet it also bears director James Gunn’s incredibly original voice. James Gunn worked the system: he made a fun summer blockbuster that also happens to be an auteur piece.

For this reason, Guardians is the perfect comic book film for the casual comic book fan. In it, I saw the influence of The Avengers as much as I saw the influence of Steven Spielberg’s entire filmography. In particular, Guardians felt like a throwback to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Like Raiders, Guardians has a fun and silly feel while still committing to its story. Guardians is about a group of people who shouldn’t be heroes, and many people tend to forget that Indiana Jones was terrible at his job. Besides losing the Ark and the Holy Grail, he also gave birth to Shia LaBeouf.

But I digress. While most action movies are about “The One,” or a person who was destined for something or is just the best at their craft, Guardians is about a group of criminals who are forced to be heroes. Hell, they aren’t even good at that. The nickname “Guardians of the Galaxy” is at first bestowed upon them in jest. Chris Pratt plays Peter Quill a human abducted from Earth as a child. With a nickname like Star-Lord, he fancies himself the most notorious criminal in the galaxy. Yet, nobody knows who the hell Star-Lord is. Quill reluctantly teams up with Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), and Groot (Vin Diesel) to steal back a very powerful orb before it ends up in the hands of the very evil Ronan (Lee Pace). Their mission is one that is both selfish and altruistic.

With The Lego Movie earlier this year, it was apparent that Chris Pratt was ready to be a household name. With Guardians, Pratt is ready to be a movie star. Back to the Indiana Jones comparison, Pratt is great at being both a smart ass and a badass all at once. Yet, unlike Harrison Ford, Pratt has this very sweet, golden retriever quality to him. He has mastered the lovable idiot character, which he first began developing as Andy Dwyer on Parks and Recreation. Like any good movie or TV show, any of the main characters can qualify as the best character. But for now, I will just settle on Rocket Raccoon, who’s identity insecurity sums up the way all the characters actually feel about their place in the universe. For Bradley Cooper, it is the sign of a true movie star when you appear as charismatic as ever when it’s just your voice in a raccoon’s body. Guardians sets up a huge cast of characters in a really efficient way. It didn’t need to resort on being an origin story to do so; it was as subtle as a fart on a first date.

Guardians is truly astounding in scope. This is perhaps the first time I regret not seeing a movie in 3D. James Gunn clearly has Star Wars-type ambitions, as that was all I could think of throughout most of the film’s run. The action sequences manage to dwarf the pretty awesome ones from this year’s Winter Soldier. Oh, I should probably mention this: Guardians of the Galaxy is hilarious. It might not be the funniest movie this year (it is still hard to compete with They Came Together), but it is the most consistently funny. Jokes come out of nowhere and then come back later and land just as well the second time around.

Guardians works as both an action comedy and an action movie with comedic elements. In fact, it nails every emotional note. With a soundtrack ranging from Marvin Gaye to The Runaways, Guardians sounds like nothing I have seen in a long time. The story and the tropes are familiar in a way that is comforting rather than tiresome. Gunn has found a way to mix the best parts of 80s movie nostalgia with modern day cinema. Here is a film that manages to strike a balance between the gritty realism of The Dark Knight and the “ice to meet you” level stupidity of Batman & Robin. Walking out of the theater with a smile on your face, you will just feel every ounce of cynicism in your body wash away.

Brain Farts From The Edge

• I had a bad feeling months ago that Guardians would flop, only to be rediscovered years later. Based on the reaction from tonight’s audience, I think it is going to do quite well.
• I just get a sense that a cultural phenomenon is brewing. I hope that “Hooked On A Feeling” makes a comeback and ends up in the Billboard Top 100.
• This is the first Marvel Studios film in a long time that doesn’t feel like it is trying to sell another future film/product to me. And yet, this is the first Marvel movie I’ve walked out of and thought, “I could really use a Rocket Raccoon action figure.” You see, consumerism works when you don’t shove it in our faces.
• New Sci-Fi Trope: The silver haired, eccentric hoarder/scientist. Examples: The Collector in Guardians of the Galaxy; Hannibal Chau in Pacific Rim
• Other films this reminded me of: Mystery Men, Spaceballs, E.T.
• So Guardians wasn’t completely perfect. I had some small problems with the villains, mainly that they were a little broad. However, that may have been the point. Also, could have used more John C. Reilly. But then again, I say that about every movie.
• It’s hard for a movie to be quotable after just one viewing, but I feel like I already know certain parts of Guardians by heart. Good.
• Something that happened at my screening: as the “Turn Your Phones Off” warning popped up on screen, somebody in the audience shouted, “don’t tell me what to do!” Okay, so I guess I should still be really cynical about things.