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I'm torn on this one guys; I would love to see Stef review this movie...... but I would hate for his head to explode..... Hmmm Edit: Video didn't post in original

Joy (2015). Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper. I saw this movie recently. It is good. There are fantastic philosophical topics raised but not addressed. If you have someone in your life with whom you discuss (or would like to introduce to) RTR, peaceful parenting, ethics, feminism, or capitalism watch it together. Joy provides a firm context for conversation, but because it is a fictional setting it provides a safe context for talking about principles. The editing is a great melange of styles with the story context the only guide. The person I saw the film with didn't notice this, you might not either. For me it doesn't detract it adds greatly. I won't go into it more. The story is about Joy and her family. Joy is inventive and brilliant, brave, and highly productive woman in her mid thirties. She is surrounded by what initially appear to be eccentric extended family members all living under one roof in the late 1980's Pennsylvania. The film focus is on the invention, manufacture, marketing, and security of a labor saving device invented by Joy. It is very loosely based on the life of Joy Mangano. Despite a few misplaced and confused metaphors the movie is quite good and well worth your time and money. Beyond this paragraph I will be writing about a few specifics of the movie. Spoilers. The opening is all about establishing Joy and the extended family she permits around her. It opens with a scene from a fictional soap opera, a thematic element that will be used throughout Act 1 and 2. Danica says to Clarinda, "When someone sees a weakness in me I turn that weakness into a strength." This one minute scene is a summary of the entire movie. Clarinda is an analogue for Joy, Danica for Jackie, Ridge as her ex-husband Tony, Bartholomew for the yet unrevealed villain, yet who resembles Joy's father (more on that later). Throughout this movie the gun is used as a blunt obviation for assertiveness and determination. I really wish they'd deleted all the firearm scenes due to superfluity. Also not needed is the young Joy stating "this is my special power, that I don't need a prince" while the camera stays on an origami bird. This, despite clearly stating seconds before that her value was based on "the things that she make". Since this theme only returns in the final minutes of the movie and only by inference (the origami bird is again shown in context) it is a forgivable nod to Feminists. That Joy's family is dysfunctional is clear. What isn't is for how long. Joy is the candle, whose light is concealed by the bushel of her family oppressive needs. Or as put forth in the exposition of the gift of the cicada book by Jackie to Joy's daughter: a cicada nymph who has been living underground for 17 years and is about to emerge in noisy cacophony. Joy becomes irrationally upset and angry because of the book. Again unstated is for how long Jackie had been trying to rekindle the spark of Joy's drive. How many conversations met by equivocations, gifts not understood. It is possible Jackie had almost given up on Joy and was working to enrich the daughter instead. Jackie is a philosophical preparer, an assistant. She isn't a primary. She lacks the ability, but recognizes, appreciates, and craves the ability of others. Unlike the members of Joy's family she desperately wants Joy to succeed. It is unknown why Joy and Tony divorced after perhaps a decade of marriage. Likely the reason is Joy not consciously understanding the stressors she accepted by not living a lifestyle consistent with her philosophy. And Tony is rather one dimensional, but that dimension is virtue. Joy's mother and father are... evil. Her mother hobbles Joy with psychological powerlessness and projection of her fantasy and non-acknowledgement of reality. Her father is a serial monogamist who secretly hates Joy. Triggered by the cicada book Joy emerges. Her noise is to inconvenience her family by asserting her values and needs. She makes prototype drawings of her invention. Her family can't or claim not to understand. The invention doesn't exist in the crude drawings it exists in the mind - and they haven't any. Instead of being able to procure investment from her family on the basis of the virtue of the idea she has to resort to a distasteful guilt trip. That being the language understood should say a lot. Her family doesn't understand virtue but does understand manipulation. From this moment she is in a fight to produce her product. At first it seems that her family is nominally helping her. In reality they are using it as a leash. Her fathers girlfriend, and her mostly nonsense four questions. But in the practical things all they do is hinder her and isolate her from those who are share her philosophical values. In the guise of helping her they just continue doing what they have been doing for the last two decades of her life. But now, she is indebted to them in money not just by way of an unjust morality of family loyalty. They want her to try - and fail. Her failure indicating the death of her virtue and her productiveness forever bridled to the reins of familial control. Her efforts and persistence alarm them and when she is devastated by the death of her beloved grandmother they pounce. In immediate and purposeful countermanding her they treat with Joy's business enemies and try to forge a deal that would both kill the business but also Joy's spirit. In the end, Joy wins. But does she? She never pays her treacherous family in the coin they deserve, instead letting them maintain as dead weight, hangers on, jealous of her productiveness and acuity, seeking ever her downfall. Thematically the movie treats them as the tempering required to forge the strength in Joy. But this is actually never the case. Their actions in fact annealed her consistently, making obvious things obscure. This ultimately is what saves them: she is weakened just enough that they may parasitically feed off her, secure that she will never cast them off. Thanks for reading.

I watched the movie 'It's Kind of a Funny Story". It was enjoyable and humorous due in large part to Zach Galifianakis, but afterwards I was left feeling unsettled by what I had watched. Take a look at this clip and see if you can guess why... It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804497/ Thus I went ahead and made a video review of the movie, in which I discuss the larger issue of youth suicide. I sprinkle in some of my personal history dealing with depression as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMCFBmNcc20&feature=youtu.be Here are some statistics in case you're interested. Youth suicide statistics in the US (2013): 4,878 suicides / year for youth between 15 and 24 Suicide is the 2nd largest cause of death among youth Estimated 100-200 attempted suicides for every death by suicide (youth) http://www.suicidology.org/Portals/14/docs/Resources/FactSheets/2011OverallData.pdf "Statistics indicate that males die by suicide more frequently than do females; however, reported suicide attempts and suicidal ideation are more common among females." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide

I knew I was going to have a problem with this movie (mainstream sci-fi fatigue) and had planned on staying away, but a chum really wanted to go and what the heck it was fun to see him. But oh boy was this hard to stomach. Traumatized, Pro-war propagandized children who control a drone army, led by a boy given all the guns to kill all the bugs. Set in the backdrop of a world without more then a few adults, reason or compassion I felt anxious watching two hours of violent and varied propaganda. Having not read the book I have many questions that may go answered there, but the most pressing is how can you have a story with a boy named Ender and not have a single fanny joke! Not even from his abusive brother or other laser tag bully's or his sorta girlfriend?