Month: January 2018

Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain) uses her wits to run her own poker games.

MOLLY’S GAME

Film Review by Marlene Ardoin

Birth order does matter. Molly Bloom was at most 4 years older than her two brothers, Jordan and Jeremy. For many years, she was older, brighter and stronger than they were.

Then in a curious twist of fate, she ends up with a serious back surgery around the age of twelve. Her edge, her leadership, her physical and mental advantage interrupted, but not forever.

Molly is now the subject of an Academy Award film, “Molly’s Game”, in the category of Best Adapted Screenplay, based on a biographical book that she wrote.

Females are not supposed to outshine their brothers, not in this world or even in an American culture. But, Molly started out ahead, and that has a built in confidence that is ingrained for life.

I hate to speculate on this, but society has its way of preventing such women from succeeding, and from keeping that confidence and advantage.

Molly’s family wants her to become an attorney, but Molly talks them into a year’s delay. Her travels end up in Los Angeles, which is unauthorized and, at which point, her funds are discontinued.

For the first time in her life, Molly (Jessica Chastain) is doing what she wants to do. She is attracted to the film capitol of the world.

Suddenly, without funds, she gets a job as a cocktail waitress. A far cry from an attorney, but it enables her to stay in Los Angeles.

Seeing her comfort and confidence around men, a real estate agent, Dean Keith (Jeremy Strong) invites Molly to be his personal assistant in putting together underground poker games, in which a room full of Hollywood male stars and the elite are invited.

Suddenly, Molly is making $3000 dollar a night tips for her efforts.

Molly is his assistant in this business, and she can see that he is not making it work, but rather than helping him correct this, she betrays him.

Yes, he was verbally abusive to her, but when it comes down to where the rubber meets the road, the boys will always stick together.

Her next mistake is taking her poker games to New York City, which is an even more dangerous place for a woman to try to outshine the guys.

The mob must have seen her as an easy mark, when they saw the kinds of money that was changing hands in her multi-million dollar poker enterprise, all operated by women.

Molly should now be able to see the value of a tough Dean Keith as a partner, because addicts have no boundaries.

A career as a poker princess was not meant to be, but it was not right living anyway.

Skipping ahead, Molly is back in Hollywood, selling her book idea, “Molly’s Game” to screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin.

This is what Molly was meant to do, this is her future, if she chooses to take it.

I found this film to be very timely, considering the “Me Too” climate of today.

Jessica Chastain does a fabulous job of portraying her character, who gets emotionally abused, beat up and hammered by the justice system.

It is noteworthy to say that Jessica Chastain was nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture at the Golden Globes.

Molly Bloom, post poker games.

History vs Hollywood:

http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/mollys-game/

Molly Bloom Bio:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Bloom_(author)

The rise and fall and rise of Molly Bloom:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-rise-and-fall-and-rise-of-molly-bloom-32sfw9fr7

Watch Author Molly Bloom Speak at MPW Next Gen I Fortune:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyAghWuqyFY

Molly Bloom – Molly’s Game Movie Interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK8pbMeKnrI

Molly Bloom & Jessica Chastain Interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPojk2niG2M

MOLLY’S GAME Interviews- Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba and Aaron Sorkin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsnrc34g09A

Academy Conversations: Molly’s Game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grb_sYmqQsQ

Jessica Chastain Bio:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Chastain

Aaron Sorkin Bio:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Sorkin

Aaron Sorkin – From Addict to Academy Award Nominee:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObIfH4utYPU

Aaron Sorkin on the fears he faced in directing “Molly’s Game”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0mThA3kvEg

Aaron Sorkin sorts truth and fiction in his directorial debut, Colorado-rooted “Molly’s Game”:

http://theknow.denverpost.com/2017/12/22/aaron-sorkin-mollys-game-molly-bloom-colorado-interview/170666/

Mother, Char Bloom on board of Make a Wish:

https://wishofalifetime.org/about/board-of-directors/char-bloom/

Molly’s Bio with pictures:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5255519/Molly-Bloom-leads-quiet-life-poker-princess-days.html

Molly with her brothers Jordan (left) and Jeremy (right)

Molly on slopes with her two brothers.

1/26/2018 # Molly’s Game

Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum surrounded by his circus performers.

THE GREATEST SHOWMAN

Film review by Marlene Ardoin

When P. T. Barnum was fifteen, he became head of his father’s household, which included ten children and his own mother, who was his hardworking father’s 2^nd wife.

In the mid-eighteen hundreds, there were no safety nets to catch you, if you fell off the trapeze of life.

The story told in the film, ‘The Greatest Showman,” touches up the rough parts of his story, but only focuses on a very simplified aspect of his life, which was his ability to create acceptance and dignity for individuals, who did not fit into society’s norm.

The real P.T. Barnum (Hugh Jackman), was a shrewd businessman, a store keeper, a lottery organizer, a newspaper publisher, an author, a speaker, a politician, and a showman, who re-invented himself many times.

He did not start the circus until he was in his 60s.

He had two museum buildings that burned to the ground, before he was forced to come up with the circus tent idea.

Barnum backed the Union during the civil war, which was most likely the reason his museum buildings kept catching fire, not because of what he was displaying in his buildings.

Religious-wise, Barnum was a Universalist and had a solid marriage, which lasted for forty years. He fathered four daughters with his first wife.

When his first wife, Charity (Michelle Williams) died, he married a 2^nd time to a woman, Nancy Fish, who was 20 years his junior, and that marriage lasted another twenty years.

In the film, his partner Zac Efron’s character, Phillip Carlyle, is purely fictitious .

In real life, he met up with James Anthony McGinnes, who had been orphaned at eight years, then adopted by another circus owner, who gave him the name, James Anthony Bailey.

When the two circus’s merged, it became Barnum and Bailey’s Circus. The real Bailey died in his fifties of a horrible skin disease. And, he was about 20 years younger than P.T. Barnum. Not too romantic for a Hollywood film.

The reason I am giving you all of this information, is because, even though I loved the film, “The Greatest Showman”, the real story was so much greater.

So, do the filmmakers go for beauty and romance, or what would happen if the filmmakers attempted to tell the real story in its context? If they had, I think it would have been Oscar worthy.

P.T. Barnum Bio:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._T._Barnum

https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/phineas-taylor-barnum-2499.php

https://connecticuthistory.org/p-t-barnum-an-entertaining-life/

History vs hollywood

http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/greatest-showman/

James Anthony Bailey Bio:

http://www.circusesandsideshows.com/owners/jamesbailey.html

Universalist Church:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universalist_Church_of_America