One of my closest friends has been telling to watch this movie for like two months, so I decided to finally watch it. I’m sure he mentioned it was directed by Alex Garland, who directed one of my favorite movies (Ex Machina), but I just forgot because I definitely would have watched it sooner. It even has one of the main actors from that movie in a big role in this movie, Oscar Isaac. Not much acting from him in this movie due to the role he plays, but Natalie Portman does a great job as the main character. Tessa Thompson is also in this movie, and I love anything with her in it.

We follow Lena, an ex-soldier that is now a doctor who’s husband was missing for a year and assumed killed in action. He shows up one day out of nowhere and is acting strangely before needing to be rushed to a hospital. Him and Lena are intercepted by the government before they can arrive and this is where we find out why he was missing. There was a meteor strike that hit a lighthouse and then a “shimmering” force field showed up and started expanding. Anyone who has entered the shimmer has never returned, except for Lena’s husband, a year after his mission. Lena embarks on an expedition inside with four other women and discover that something is causing all of the organisms inside of the force field to mutate and mix together. We see some interesting results, plants that grow in human forms, alligators with shark features, and a bear that can mimic human voices. Eventually Lena makes it to the lighthouse and discovers that the person that returned wasn’t her husband, but some kind of mutated clone. She’s able to destroy a mutant clone of herself that could have taken her place as well, and the entire lighthouse and whatever organism it was that caused all of the mutations. She makes it out and we see her in the ending scene with the clone of her husband embracing each other as she is no longer her original self after being inside of the shimmer, she’s mutated in some way.

I really loved the look of this movie, the colors are muted subtly (except for inside of the shimmer) and the cinematography is executed beautifully. I thought some of the music choices were odd, they could have gone with a more suspense themed soundtrack, but it didn’t ruin anything. The scene where Lena is face to face with this cloud like being made of light was stunning, the music matched it perfectly and the special effects are superb. There are a couple of other remarkable scenes, the landscape shot of the shimmer when it’s introduced, when the expedition encounters the plants growing in the shape of humans, and the last bear scene. I also liked how the theme of self-destruction is reoccurring, all of the characters make self destructing decisions, Lena’s husband destroyed himself after going insane, and the alien organism pretty much destroys itself.

It’s rare that I want to read a book a movie has been based on, but I’m definitely going to do that for this movie. I give this a 9.5/10, a must watch. (Word count: 542)

So this movie has been recommended to me by numerous people over the years and I finally decided to watch it. I’m not the biggest fan Ewan McGregor, but I did like his acting in this movie. There’s also a young Kellie Macdonald and I am a huge fan of hers, she didn’t have a very big role in this though.

The movie follows the main character commonly referred to as Rent and his life as a Heroin addict and his adventures with his fellow junkie friends. An early scene catches your attention if you think things have been progressing slowly, Rent has to use “the worst toilet in Scotland” and the scene is pretty disgusting and appalling but it turns into a hallucination, so you kind of quickly get over the shock, but it was well done. I thought the drug effects weren’t portrayed very well, but that’s ok, I can understand why you wouldn’t want to focus on special effects for a movie like this. We see rent make a lot of bad decisions, but eventually gets clean with the help of his loving and enabling parents. He then is doing pretty well for himself as he’s distanced himself from the bad influences, but they come barging back into his new life and cause him to relapse and get involved in a drug deal that surprisingly doesn’t go wrong. Rent then screws his friends over as they’ve screwed up his new life and we see him walking towards us as the sun sets and the movie ends.

I thought the pacing of the movie was well done, and I really liked the 90s House music that accompanied a lot of the scenes. Not much to be seen of interesting camera angles and the colors were average, but I did like how the club scenes were shot and when Rent had his final overdose. The final withdrawal scenes were also really good and pretty accurate in the way it was portrayed. Although this movie deals with some heavy topics and has some depressing things in it, the humor that is there made me laugh and so did a lot of the situations that Rent and his friends end up in. I also enjoyed the ending and was happy with it and how it mirrored the very beginning of the movie, I’m a sucker for things like that.

I give it a 7.5/10 (Word count: 402)

I think just about everyone has heard of this movie by now, it’s a biopic starring some of the biggest names synonymous with classic mafia movies. This was recommended to me by a close friend, but I was planning on watching it anyway. When I saw how long this movie is, 3 and a half hours, I was a little hesitant. Then I remembered who directed it and all the actors in it that I love and decided it was most likely worth watching every second.

The movie starts off with a very aged Robert De Niro as Frank Sheeran sitting in a nursing home speaking to us, and that’s how the movie’s events are presented to us. I like that they went with a narrative approach, especially since all of this is based on true events. Frank was a hitman for the Bufalino crime family in the 50s and became involved as a teamster with Jimmy Hoffa later on. The movie explores the relationships between the crime syndicate, the Kennedy’s, the CIA, and other major events from that era. The bulk of the plot is centered around the relationship between Frank and Jimmy and Frank’s attempts to keep the peace between them and the Bufalino family. It follows the typical outline of most mafia movies, a rise to power, what it takes to maintain that power, and then the inevitable fall.

While this movie wasn’t quite what I was expecting, it has some great dialogue and keeps your interest, even if you already know how all these events unfold. There’s an early scene where Frank is first being introduced to Russel Bufalino in a restaurant and you can hear a rendition of the theme song from The Godfather, “Speak Softly, Love”. While it’s not extremely subtle, I loved it and it got me excited for the rest of the movie. Since the main character isn’t someone who makes decisions in the Bufalino family, we see everything from his perspective, some killings and aftermath of events, but none of the orchestrating that makes usual main characters of mafia movies seem bigger than life. We just see glimpses and hear about things secondhand, which makes since considering who the movie follows.

Overall, I liked the movie a lot. The classic mafia movie buff in me wished there were more epic buildup scenes to assassinations with crescendoing Italian music playing in the background, but that’s just me. You can feel Frank’s struggle with guilt over killing a close friend of his, someone he considered a mentor and had a lot of respect for. All of the acting is superb, but that’s expected with this cast list. I also really enjoyed the ending, we see an old and fragile Frank sitting in a nursing home room alone, all but forgotten. Even though he lived so large and was feared by man, at the end of the day, people’s bodies decay and you become just another old person waiting to die.

I give it an 8/10. (Word count: 500 words)

So the movie I was going to watch that was recommended to me today was absolutely horrible, so I opted to watch this instead. There’s a reference to this movie in a lyric of a song that I can’t seem to remember, even though I can hear the artist’s voice clearly singing it…possibly Cursive or Fionn Regan but I’m not sure. Anyway, that’s how I know of this movie. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by this film.

This movie is about an unusual son of a wealthy family that seems to suffer from extreme ennui and likes to pretend to kill himself in various ways to get a reaction from his cold and oblivious mother, who was portrayed amazingly. He meets an even more unusual. much older lady and they become friends as she takes him on crazy adventures. They fall in love and unfortunately, their relationship is cut short by Maude’s actual suicide on her 80th birthday. The ending is bittersweet as Harold is devastated but is able to realize life is still worth living, something Maude was able to make him realize.

There is a lot of dry and dark humor in this movie that hits perfectly, it’s doesn’t come off as tryhard. There’s a great scene where Harold breaks the fourth wall and it’s executed so well, it actually made me smile. The scenes where he’s doing his best to thwart his mom’s attempts at getting him to date are also quite funny. It does feel a little dated, but it was made in the early 70s and I really enjoy the aesthetic of that era, the cars, clothes, colors, and music. The soundtrack is done by Cat Stevens and it’s pretty great, although at times it seems like there didn’t need to be a song playing. The characters are interesting and well written, the comic reliefs are placed appropriately, and the acting is great.

This isn’t the genre of movies I’m usually into, but I did quite enjoy this movie. It was light hearted, but still dark with some heavy themes hanging over the comedy. The scene where Harold discovers Maude has taken pills is probably one of my favorites because she is so nonchalant about it, happy even, and he’s angry, confused, and heartbroken all at the same time. There’s also the fact that his mom only cares about his success so that she won’t have a failure as a son, his therapist doesn’t really care about his problems, and he has no friends until he meets Maude, it’s quite depressing. I didn’t really like him until after he meets Maude and goes through some nice character development, further proof of the excellent writing seen in the movie.

I give it an 8/10, would definitely watch again. (Word count: 464)

So this movie was recommend to me by one of my closest friends, we’re so much alike and have the same thoughts about so many things, it’s quite eerie sometimes. I don’t know how I missed this movie when it came out…well actually I do now that I think about it, but that’s a different topic. This movie is from the same person that brought us Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky.

I don’t even quite know where to begin with this one…the first thing I notice is that Javier Bardem is in it, which is great because I like him as an actor so much. Ed Harris also makes an appearance, he’s not as big of a character in this as he is in my favorite show right now, Westworld, but he still plays his role well. Jennifer Lawrence is the main character, known as Mother, and she does a great job in this movie…which surprised me.  I love the grainy quality that this movie was shot in, it gives it a gritty feel and the mostly muted coloring really adds to that as well.  The camera angles are great, the later scenes where everything is just pure chaos were filmed really well, it was just enough movement that you could tell what was going on, not the kind of shaky handheld camera type of stuff that just disorients you.

The plot seems pretty easy to follow until it just explodes into a million pieces and then collapses back onto itself, but in a good way. It starts off about a seemingly one sided relationship between a poet and his wife that helped rebuild his house after it burned down. They get an unexpected guests that then invites his wife, then his whole family shows up, then about 50 more people show up. They’re all rude and selfish and are just doing whatever they want, it’s quite uncomfortable to watch. Eventually they break a sink and get told to leave by Mother. Some time passes and she becomes pregnant and her husband has a new book out, so of course more people show up at the house again and this is when the film gets…surreal. We see a lot of tragic events unfolding in this house: revolutions, cults, protests, killings, human trafficking, riots, etc. Eventually the house burns down again and the movie ends the same as it begins, but with a slight difference.

This movie could be interpreted in so many ways, it’s one of those films that requires more than one viewing. For me, it’s about how humans are just destroying (Mother) Earth as we take and destroy and desecrate and how we treat each other even though we’re all the same. Some of the visuals in this movie are disturbing, specifically the whole thing with the baby Mother gives birth to and the immediate aftermath. I felt so anxious and extremely tense during the whole movie, even in scenes that had absolutely no horror elements to it. That may be because I’m a bit of an introvert and just having these types of people in my house and so many of them…it’s a nightmare.

I give it 9/10, a must watch. (Word count: 537)

So this movie was recommended to me by a friend of mine that I worked with in Japan, he actually still lives there. We have a lot in common and similar tastes in a lot of things, so I expected to like this movie, despite the odd title.

Mutafukaz is an animated movie, which I normally don’t like, that is really well done. The film was a collaboration between French and Japanese studios, which I found pretty interesting. The first thing I noticed was the unique and interesting animation style, it’s like a mix between western and eastern animation. It flows smoothly and and the intricate and highly detailed backgrounds and cityscapes are gorgeous. The music choices for certain scenes fit so well, it really makes you appreciate the effort that went into it. Another thing that stood out to me almost immediately was the voice acting. Usually when I watch something animated, it feels like the characters are being voiced by a person, but in this movie it feels like the voices belong to the characters. Speaking of the characters, there are some interesting design choices here, some better than others. While most of the world is made up of humans, the plot revolves around anthropomorphic characters.

The story is average, there’s a young adult named Angelino living in a bad part of a big city barely making enough to survive. He looks like a taller version of Mr. Hankey from South Park and his best friend and roommate is a skeleton whose head is eternally on fire. One day, Angelino notices he’s being followed by some men in black suits and something switches in him that allows him to move like a superhero pretty much. We get some really good fight, shootout, and car chase scenes along the way through different hoods and a spaceship as Angelino finds out he’s not of this world. The ending was probably satisfactory to most since it’s a mostly happy ending, but I didn’t like it. We didn’t get to see the main character realize his full potential and while he fought two of the main bad guys, he wasn’t the one that defeated them. Also, the evil mastermind behind everything faced no consequences.

Some things that I found worth mentioning are some really good character designs, specifically the cops that raid Angelino’s apartment at the beginning. They’re these huge armored giants wearing blank faced masks that are armed to the teeth, very intimidating. One of the main villains, Bruce, is also really well designed and written. There is a lot of violence and gore in this movie as well and it’s drawn beautifully. The visuals of this movie are what carried it to me and when you add the music, voice acting, and world building, it overshadows the sub-par plot and disappointing ending.

I give it an 8/10. (Word count: 476)

So another hiking friend recommended this movie to me, him and one of our other buddies argued for an entire hike about if the movie was good or not, so I decided to make the decision for myself. The first thing I noticed are the colors and gradients, it really fits the theme and atmosphere of the movie, which is also really well done. It’s set in a steampunk type setting, so early 1900s fantasy-mecha type of world. It’s a romance story with a twist that might turn some people off, but I thought they did a good job with it. Acting was great, characters were interesting, ending was a little cliché, overall it was a well made movie.

It’s the story of a lonely deaf girl that works as a cleaner at some type of secret government facility that one day brings in a sea creature of some sort. There’s a subplot that involves Russian spies that gets pretty interesting, but the main plot is about the rescue of this sea creature and the budding romance between it and the deaf girl. The antagonist is a government agent that captured the creature in the first place and will stop at nothing to eliminate it after he’s done performing his tests. There’s also the lovable old man sidekick and the sassy best friend tropes that are often present in romance fantasies, but doesn’t come off as too unoriginal in this instance.

There’s a number of interesting side characters with their own subplots that makes the world created in the movie feel authentic and fleshed out, it’s not just about the two main characters and their drama. The creature’s design was really well done, it didn’t look cheesy or unrealistic, the way it behaved and sounded was convincing as well. The plot is a little predictable, but there were some decisions and developments that I didn’t expect. There was also a big plot hole that developed at the end, but other than that, I enjoyed it. Nothing remarkable but that’s also because I’m not a big fan of fantasy unless it involves battles and betrayal.

Some things that I did enjoy from this movie was the Russian subplot, I kind of wished they had done more with it but I can understand not wanting to take away from the main plot. The spy was the most interesting character to me, he had some nice development and the actor had the second best performance of the movie. I also really liked how they showed the husband of the coworker of the main character instead of him just being someone the wife complains about the entire movie. He also does something so in character from what you’ve heard about him, but it still really makes you frustrated with him, something that is the mark of good writing.

I give it a 7/10. (Word count: 477)

This movie was recommended to me by a coworker that thought Hereditary and Blade Runner 2049 were bad movies….so yea, expectations were low going in. I had never heard of this movie before, but the opening was cheesy and it has Daniel Radcliffe in it, an actor I couldn’t remember why I didn’t like other than he has an annoying face and a prepubescent beard. About 15 minutes into the movie I remember why I don’t like him, he’s a horrible actor, along with 90% of the cast.

So basically a guy is accused of murdering his girlfriend by the entire small town they grew up in. The only person that believes he didn’t do it is his best friend, who once saved him from drowning when they were kids. He mysteriously grows horns one day and people are compelled to tell him their secrets and true feelings when he’s talking to them. Oh, and he can see their memories just by touching them and make them do whatever he tells them to do, totally not the beginning of a Mary Sue type main character who can beat up anyone despite looking like a living skeleton. He goes on a journey to find the real killer and discovers everyone in this town is secretly a horrible person. He eventually transforms into an actual devil by way of low budget CGI and gets his revenge on the real killer and is reunited with his dead girlfriend in the afterlife, hooray.

I’m guessing this was meant to be a dark comedy with some very obvious symbolism thrown in to try and offset the fact that there is no character development, or any characters that aren’t one dimensional. I’m almost convinced this movie was written and directed by a couple of angst riddled teenagers with some kind of revenge fantasy they had from high school. Ig, the main character, is walking around with a literal pitchfork and snakes around his shoulder at points in this movie, it’s ridiculous. The real killer is painfully obvious from the first flashback scene we’re shown, the whole plot was extremely predictable. Characters that were good people their entire lives suddenly become deranged rapists and murderers that forget forensics are a real thing, despite their job being involved with criminal justice. Others team up with someone they hated and wanted to kill 30 minutes prior, they had a life changing epiphany in the span of 10 seconds when they see something on the news I suppose.

I didn’t think this movie could possibly get any worse by the end, but it does! I wish I could say the concept was cool, but I will admit it could have been interesting. Poor execution, poor acting, poor characters…2/10 is the best I can do. (Word count: 460)

So this movie was recommended by a hiking friend of mine that has somewhat similar tastes to me in terms of movies, music, TV shows, etc. I’ve definitely heard of this movie before and remember references to it in pop culture when I was younger. I’ve skipped over this movie countless times when looking for something new to watch just because I’ve felt like it’s not really what I’m usually into.

First impressions, didn’t like the opening music and the movie hasn’t aged well, it has that 90s look and feel all over it. However, it has Kevin Spacey in it, so that’s a plus. It’s pretty obvious this movie is going to be about a midlife crisis, but it does go a little further than that. What starts off as a movie about a creepy father developing an unhealthy obsession with his daughter’s high school friend turns into a deeper look into unordinary things that can happen in ordinary people’s lives. Two midlife crisis’, an unhealthy teenage romance, repressed homosexuality turned into aggressive homophobia, and a young girl looking for validation from all the wrong sources later and we have a pretty decent movie and ending. Only one of the morally questionable characters is sort of redeemed by the end, the main character portrayed by Kevin Spacey, but just barely and it’s all for nothing.

Some noticeable things did catch my attention though. John Cho from the ‘Harold and Kumar’ movies has a very, very, very, small role in this, but I do like him as an actor so it was cool to see him. The Ricky Flutts character was without a doubt the most interesting and complex character in the movie and the person who plays him is one of those actors you’ve seen in things before, but never quite remember his name. The color palette was all over the place, not too vivid or themed, which can be nice sometimes. There weren’t a lot of superb or interesting camera angles, only one or two stand out in my mind. One scene where they though they had an interesting shot was forced, people don’t walk in the middle of a street in the middle of the day. They also don’t just stand there and wait until they can walk back in the middle of the street when cars force them onto the sidewalk.

The plastic bag scene that I remember being parodied on late night comedy shows was kind of disappointing, but I did like the message they delivered. We often don’t notice or appreciate the beauty of our world because of how busy our lives are. It’s nice to stop and take a look around you and be amazed at the small things that happen all of the time that aren’t engineered or caused by man. The best scene of the movie was between Ricky and his dad, the typical military father that seemed to be portrayed in every 90s movie, after some confusion and misunderstanding on the dad’s part. The dad is also featured in what I though was the most visually appealing scene and was shot very well, it’s after he confronts Kevin Spacey in his garage and walks back to his house in the rain.

All things considered, it’s a good movie. A little taboo sprinkled into a tale about suburbia to shock and awe the masses and be considered provocative, but not enough complexity or depth for my liking.

A solid 6. (Word count: 578)