Bridesmaids

Bridesmaids is a wedding comedy from 2011. The main character, a thirty-something named Annie’s (Kristen Wiig) life is falling apart. Despite her love for baking, her retail cake shop failed miserably, leaving her finances in bad shape. She now works a dead-end job as a jewelry store clerk, which she loathes. She is also forced to share an apartment with two bizarre roommates, who don't respect her personal space. On top of that, she is in a dysfunctional “friends with benefits” relationship with misogynistic Ted, who treats her solely as a last-resort sex partner. The only positive aspect of her life at the moment is when she finds out that her best friend Lillian of 16 years is getting married. Annie is initially happy for her, however, soon things take a turn for the worst when Annie starts to become overtaken with jealousy. As Annie observes Lillian’s wedding party, she feels inferior.  The other bridesmaids are all wealthy and married, both things that Annie is not, and she envies this. One of the bridesmaids in particular, Helen (Rose Byrne), really gets under Annie’s skin, and competition for Lillian’s affection and attention ensues.

As Annie seems to be losing the competition for being crowned Lillian’s maid of honor at every turn, another positive change enters her life in the form of police officer Nathan Rhodes. She becomes infatuated with him initially, however eventually gives up on the relationship due to the other failures in her life. As Annie continues to try to one-up Helen, she keeps pushing herself further and further away form Lillian. She suffers a mental breakdown, and struggles to turn her life back around, since she has left a train of ruins. However in the end, she is able to make it up to Lillian, as well as Rhodes, and the wedding party is brought closer together as they finally learn to co-exist peacefully.

Rachel Getting Married

"Rachel Getting Married" is a drama film, released in 2008. It stars Anne Hathaway as Kym, a relapsing drug addict who has been trying relentlessly to get clean. At the start of the movie, she returns home to attend her sister, Rachel’s wedding. Upon arriving, there is still the unresolved tension from Kym’s previous conflicts, one of which ended in the death of her brother. It is evident that her family still weighs heavily on the fact that her drug abuse led to her killing her brother in a car accident. Aside from family tragedies, there is also a war going on for which of the sisters gets the most attention. Rachel is sick of Kym getting fussed over, just because of her drug problem, and would like her parents to focus on her for once, since it’s her wedding. While Kym claims she hates the attention, she’s almost always finding some way to bring the spotlight on herself and her own recovery

“Rachel Getting Married” seemingly aims to illustrate how much havoc a drug addict can have on a family. However, the movie seems quite choppy at times, and has a lot of distractions, which results in it becoming more like a soap opera than a movie. The characters, I felt, were not as developed as they could have been. The family confrontational scenes were far and few in between. The wedding, dancing, and the well-wisher scenes went on and on and on, perhaps taking up almost half of the movie. Adding to the damage is the film’s handheld camera effect. Perhaps it was used to create an authentic feel, however it mostly makes for a dizzy and distracting sequence.

Moonstruck

Moonstruck is an American romantic comedy, debuted in 1987, directed by  Norman Jewison, and written by John Patrick Shanley. It stars Cher, Nicolas Cage, Danny Aiello, Vincent Gardenia, and Olympia Dukakis.

The film was released into theaters on December 16, 1987 in New York City, and then nationally on December 18, 1987.  This film received many popular reviews from film critics, and went on the gross a whopping $91, 640, 528 at the North American box office, making it the fifth highest-grossing film of that year. 

Moonstruck was nominated for six Oscars at the 60th Academy Awards, winning for Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actress.

Loretta Castorini, Cher, a widowed Brooklyn bookkeeper in her late 30s whose husband died several years earlier in a bus accident, decides that it's time to get married again. So she accepts the proposal of a nice, middle-aged fellow named Johnny Cammareri. Johnny Cammareri is not spoken well, quite afraid of life, and obviously not a perfect match for Loretta.  Loretta is convinced her first marriage was cursed because she and her husband had gotten married at City Hall; this time, she's determined to do things right and have a real wedding with everything (hopefully paid for by her father, as is customary for the father of the bride to do). She admits to her mother, Rose, that she's not really in love with Johnny. (To which Rose replies: "Good. When you love them, they drive you crazy, 'cause they know they can." Rose speaks from rueful experience; she suspects, with good reason, that her husband, Cosmo, is cheating on her.) Loretta is convinced that marrying Johnny is the safe and sure thing to do, she just wants a normal life. Until she meets his estranged younger brother Ronny, who tends the ovens in a neighborhood bakery. Loretta discovers that in startling contrast to the pleasant, mild-mannered Johnny, Ronny is moody and passionate; what follow are complications worthy of a comic opera.

Ronny Cammareri: I'm in love with you. 

Loretta Castorini: (slaps him twice) Snap out of it! 

This movie, to me, is a classic.  I couldn't imagine growing up without this movie!  The love story is my favorite; it is witty, hilarious, romantic, and full of relatable family scandal.  Cher and Nicolas Cage fall in love in a very passionate and very Italian inspired movie.  The movie itself is a less dramatic version of an opera, which they attend and complete the spell of their love.  They decide to get married, and it is the reality of a true love story. 

I would definitely recommend this movie to everyone and anyone. This love story is way more relatable, I think, to most people and their love stories.  Not everything works out as planned, and this story portrays that in a realistic and witty way.  There is so much scandal in love, and this movie also illustrates that fact.  Also, family is a heavy factor in your life, and if you are a certain nationality, sometimes even more so.  In conclusion, below, I have what is one of my favorite quotes of the movie: 

Ronny Cammareri: Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and *die*. The storybooks are *bullshit*. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and *get* in my bed!

This is 40... This is awful!

      I recently saw This Is 40 and I have never been more disappointed in a movie theatre. The movie is basically a sequel to Knocked Up but with a different cast. The main "plot," if you could call it a plot, was about the struggles of an upper middle class marriage. To begin, the cast is really not likable and the supporting cast members are a constant reminder about how dull the main characters are. I think that the casting was poorly done and casting is one of the most important aspects of a film. The character development was very weak which made it hard to follow throughout the movie.
     
      The length did not help at all. A slow comedy like this should not be just shy of two and a half hours long. My friends and I were almost praying for the end to come, but the film just kept adding more and more inner stories to the major story. There were a lot of forced conclusions to the inner conflicts. I think Judd Apatow was trying to be too adventurous with this film and it did not pay off. Plus, every humorous part was shown in the credits, so there were barely any surprising laughs throughout the film. I do not understand why a movie would spoil itself before it even premiers. I think that there were a lot of unnecessary scenes that did not move the plot along at all. Along with a lot of unnecessary plot lines, there was also a lot of forced humor, which is very unlike Judd Apatow's movies.

      I was truly excited for this movie, but it really let me down. In the trailer a critic said that "This is by far a Judd Apatow's best movie!" It was the worst by far. The movie was just like a hear beat monitor. It went up then flatlined, then up and flatlined again throughout the entire movie. I wish the film settled on a certain genre instead of switching between a comedy and a drama the entire time. If you could not tell, I was very dissapointed and I really want Judd Apatow to surprise me with a great film in the future.

There is still hope.