The story behind this movie is a good one; have a very rich Martha Stewart-like billionaire woman getting caught insider trading. Then have her go to prison and lose her business and all her assets. This premise mostly makes no sense because just going to prison for 5 months would not result in the loss off a large fortune or a company, but for the purposes of this story this rich woman going broke very quickly creates the second act when she goes broke. Underlying this story is the main characters bad childhood which included several foster homes and eventually an orphanage. Her lack of a real childhood is the reason why she drives herself to being extremely rich by starting her own business.

After getting out of prison the main character played by Melissa McCarthy has to rely on the help of her former assistant played by Kristen Bell to keep her off the streets. What follows for this formerly very rich woman who is now practically homeless, is a period of wallowing around and some humorous dialogue and physical comedy followed by plan to use a girl-scout-like troupe of teenage girls to start a company that sells brownies similar in concept to Girl Scout cookies. The physical comedy in this movie is nothing new but the humorous dialogue at times is hard to follow due to its rapid-fire nature and obscure references, one involving the actor Benedict Cumberbatch which made no sense and was not funny. There is a good deal of foul language in this movie so its definitely not for kids, especially at the end when the overuse of a common phrase for oral sex is used way too many times, probably because they thought it would be funny to repeat it over and over again unnecessarily. Some parts are funny and the proof was some laughs in the audience, but not enough to make a below average story work for the whole two hours. “The Boss” is another example of the clout to get a movie made rather than the quality of a great script written by someone who is a talented and funny screenwriter.

This movie should be seen by big fans of Melissa McCarthy, but probably missed by most everyone else.

The Boss – IMDB

Any person’s reaction to the sudden loss of a loved one, most especially a spouse is probably as different as their DNA. The movie “Demolition” is about the subject of grief and sudden loss of a spouse. The different way this depressing subject is examined is how the husband, played very well by Jake Gyllenhaal handles the shock and grief in extremely unusual ways which include trashing his house, volunteering to demolish other houses, taking machines apart and organizing and examining each individual part. This movie starts with a car accident which is tastefully shown as Gyllenhaal’s wife is driving the car where he is the passenger and his reaction to her being hit on the drivers side by another car and then a flash of deployed air bags. I was relieved that the car accident scene was done without too much graphic display because that is the last thing any driver needs to see. We are all as drivers in this country at the mercy of the bad decisions, alcoholism or the texting of others whom we share the roads with.

From the beginning this movie is highly unusual and certainly not a big budget or widely released summer movie. After the accident Gyllenhaal has a problem with the hospital’s emergency room vending machine where he loses $1.25 but rather than just attempting to get a refund he sends a long letter to the company that manufactured the vending machine and included the entire story about his wife’s car accident, her death and even the details about his life after she died. What follows is a semi-relationship with a woman in the customer service department of the vending machine company played very well by Naomi Watts followed by a friendship with Gyllenhaal and her sexually confused son. Of course any movie like this would not be interesting if the entire story were just about a man going insane from grief and performing strange acts and there has to be several additional side stories to keep the audience interested. The challenge of this movie was; is an unusual story like this compelling enough to keep audience interest throughout the entire two hours? There were parts of these two hours that were slow at times, but for the most part this story did keep my interest the entire time.

I do recommend this movie.

Demolition – IMDB

When this great movie was released in the summer of 1994 I originally thought that it was going to be mostly a comedy. When I saw it, I knew that this movie was not only going to win the Academy Award for best picture and it was far more than just a comedy; this was a great drama that had moments of tremendous emotion unprecedented in my movie-going experience even to this day. Tom Hanks won for best actor for the second year in a row, having already won the previous year for Philadelphia about a gay man who was dying of AIDS. This picture also won for best director for Robert Zemeckis  and best screenplay for Eric Roth , which represents the top four for all awards given by the Academy of Motion Pictures.

Probably the greatest parts of this movie include the empathy that you gain over the two hours for Forrest Gump who is mildly retarded and has physical problems with this legs that he eventually overcame. Despite Forrest’s mental disabilities he was able to go to college on a Football scholarship and excel as a running back and then inexplicably volunteered for the Vietnam War. During the movie, several flashbacks, where Forrest met President Kennedy and other famous people in history were shown that provided a humorous and different dimension to the film that I have never seen in any movie. Additionally, the empathy you feel for Forrest include his difficulty in making his childhood girlfriend his wife mainly because of his mental disabilities and her very bad childhood and as a result her dangerous lifestyle as a “flower child” . Forrest chasing Jenny is the central plot of the story and is the source of the best emotional scenes most especially the ending which was almost impossible to sit through.

In all my years of watching movies I have never had a worse experience as far as an emotional overload at the end of a movie, with the possible exception of “Terms of Endearment” , which came out in 1983. For those who have not seen this movie after almost 22 years, I will try to not give anything away, but there is a devastating death at the end that is unbearable to watch and the barometer I always use to measure any movie is audience reaction. At the end of this movie in the theater I was in, there was not a dry eye anywhere. The music, the emotion of the actors and at the very end a floating feather, which was symbolic of life was extremely well done but just made the whole ending so difficult to get through.

When it was all over,   I remember having great difficulty getting out of the theater when it was time to leave at first because of the crowd and then because of seeing the emotional devastation in the eyes of so many people in the crowd. I also remember driving home being especially difficult because of the emotional roller coaster I had just experienced.

I have not seen Forrest Gump too many times after I saw it in July 1994 mainly because of the ending, but for those after 22 years who have not seen it, you owe it to yourself to see it at least one time, because you will never forget the experience.

Forrest Gump – IMDB