I watch movies every week and then write down my thoughts. Read my previous reviews!
My rating is simple, Watch It, It Depends, Skip it.
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| The Babadook - Reading has never been so scary. |
Watch The Babadook
Written by: Jennifer Kent
Directed by: Jennifer Kent
Starring: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Daniel Henshall
Rated:--
Plot:
A single mother's son is constantly afraid of monsters under his bed, and the mother discovers a book that causes her to begin believing a monster is hiding in the shadows of their home.
Review:
Ba-ba-dook!
Obviously if you don't like horror movies you should avoid this.
The title alone is intriguing, and the movie has a great mood. Every scene has this creeping sense of dread. The Babadook book is a great plot point, but I wonder about the kid. While he seems over the top initially, how does he make these rustic looking weapons? At the end, the kid takes quite a jump to deal with the monster. We got a Home Alone type sequence in there.
The movie makes me wonder about the mother. She has a lot of symptoms of someone dealing with depression or at the least being on the edge of sanity. Is there a monster or is she crazy? Essie Davis had an amazing performance.
Verdict:
This a very good horror/thriller movie. Each scene is effective at being creepy and the music had really good queues in relation to the book. The movie keeps you guessing and leaves the end open to interpretation while not hindering your understanding of what's happening. It doesn't pull any cheap shots.
Watch it. (if you like horror movies)
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| Kill Your Darlings - Good advice this movie could have taken. |
Watch Kill Your Darlings
Written by: Austin Bunn (screenplay &story), John Krokidas (screenplay)
Directed by: John Krokidas
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Dane DeHaan, Michael C. Hall, Jack Huston, Ben Foster, David Cross
Rated: R
Plot:
The formative years of the Beat generation, authors Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, and classmate Lucien Carr.
Review:
The plot sounds intriguing, but the execution is not. The movie reaches for something that it never quite grasps. This origin story never fully develops the characters. The audience is told what a big deal this is, but it never goes past that. We see college aged hi-jinks, but nothing that makes clear the importance of this generation of writers.
Radcliffe may not have been the best choice for Ginsberg, it's hard to divorce him from Harry Potter and I tired of his grimaces. His acting consisted chiefly of grimacing. His lack of depth was only magnified when he next to Ben Foster. Foster did a great job, but his character seemed to be present, just because history required it. He served very little purpose.
This movie checks the boxes for historical accuracy, but fails at being an entertaining movie. It promises to depict a literary rebellion, but soon becomes a love triangle. Based on the movie, the love triangle doesn't even fit into the rebellion, which seems to be little more than just part of growing up.
Verdict:
Harry Potter goes to college. It's a bit superficial with the curious freshman meeting the enlightened upper classman. The movie tries to cash in on something yet to be earned. The moment when the new movement is formed should have more impact, instead it's lost in quick cut editing comparing this literary movement to the intricacies of jazz music. We should identify with Ginsberg, but we need a few key scenes to really connect. In a word, it's overwrought.
Skip it.
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| Your Sister's Sister - Love can be a tricky thing. |
Watch Your Sister's Sister
Written by: Lynn Shelton
Directed by: Lynn Shelton
Starring: Emily Blunt, Mark Duplass, Rosemarie Dewitt
Rated: R
Plot:
Iris invites her best friend Jack to stay at her family's cabin for the weekend, where he meets Iris's sister and an odd love triangle begins to form.
Review:
It''s a slice of life type film, granted a complex and unlikely slice. It's got a good plot, decent dialog and engaging acting. The actors chemistry is really good. The pancake scene was a standout due to the nuance. Duplass is sipping water, and you know he's just trying to down the vegan pancakes that must taste horrible. It's very subtle, but funny.
We know the conflict early, but the last third just drags. It turns into this montage that lost the nuance and humor. I get the characters are upset and have to work it out, but there has to be a better way to resolve it, or a shorter way.
That ending is a cop out. I get that it's saying it doesn't matter, but if it doesn't matter then cut that half scene out completely. It's a trick and a sham. That ending alone makes me dislike a movie, that otherwise wasn't bad.
Verdict:
It's a good rainy day, typical indie movie with a few clever moments. While the plot becomes muddled near the end, the chemistry between the actors makes up for it. It's hard not to like the characters as they each have endearing qualities and flaws.
It depends.
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| Third Person - Let me be the first person to tell you to not watch this movie. |
Watch Third Person
Written by: Paul Haggis (screenplay)
Directed by: Paul Haggis
Starring: Liam Neeson, Mila Kunis, Adrien Brody, Olivia Wilde, Maria Bello, Kim Basinger, James Franco
Rated: R
Plot:
Liam Neeson is a writer whose stories about three different couples are metaphors for the mistakes in his own life.
Review:
The plot of this movie has such promise, but in essence it's fantasy. Even for a fantasy it makes so little sense that it's annoying. There are layers of fiction here, the movie, and the fantasy worlds in the movie. Neeson's character is a terrible writer. His fictional agent states it best citing the story as embarrassing to read.
Remember in The Usual Suspects when we realize <SPOILERS> the whole movie is fictional and everything we watched has no basis, but we gave it a pass because it's entertaining and the ending is solid. This movie tries and fails to be the romance version of that. Not many movies am I mad at having watched. Even bad movies help me appreciate good movies. This move, just makes me mad.
The movie has lots of setup with stories that go nowhere. I was puzzled with Liam Neeson and Olivia Wilde's relationship throughout the movie because she seemed to waver between hate and infatuation. We get a pseudo explanation that the script writer thinks explains it, but is actually nonsense. As Neeson's character said early on, what he doesn't know, he just makes up. I'm guessing that's the basis for a lot of this movie.
I'm going to give you a scorecard of the relationships, because a lot of the information comes in too late. The catch is that the only real relationship that isn't part of the movie's fiction is Liam Neeson and Kim Basinger's marriage or possibly former marriage. Oliva Wilde may or may not be fiction within the movie as Neeson's mistress. Who knows. Who cares. The couples or former couples are James Franco and Mila Kunis with Franco having moved on, Adrien Brody and Maria Bello with Brody having moved on. Kunis represents the suffering and misery Neeson's character deserves and Brody is the redemption.
Even if you stripped each individual story, none of them are compelling. Another gripe is that 'this writer' is terrible at locations. I didn't pick up on it at first that Kunis works in New York but somehow cleaned Neeson's room in Paris. This happens a second time and then I realized it. It's not clever, funny, or amusing.
The reveals come too late and feel smug, a writer trying to impress us with 'cleverness'.
What was real, within the context of this movie? The first and last scenes with Neeson writing in a little hotel room.
Verdict:
This movie does not and will not respect you as a viewer. I feel confidant it will be on my list at the end of the year for worst movies I've seen in 2015. It's basically a random assortment of scenes masquerading as an ensemble piece trying to evoke emotion and failing.
Skip it.
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