Unfriended

This was one I was not looking forward to at all since rarely does a found footage movie with unknown actors succeed. This however, was pleasant surprise. When I first read that the whole movie would consist of the characters on Skype it seemed like a desperate ploy to be different. Surprisingly enough, this is one of the movie's strengths as I can't see it succeeding as well as it did without the viral environment. Due to the movie taking place fully over the internet, it provides a claustrophobic, almost cave-like atmosphere adding a layer of menace considering you can't see what's fully going on until it's too late. Even though I doubt anything like this will ever occur over the internet anytime soon, I loved how this movie emphasized the evils of the internet and how easy it is for a good person to be something completely different when not face to face with the person they are tormenting. Even though the movie does feature a few bloody scenes, the tension mainly relies on internal menace. What will you do to stay alive? Even if someone is your friend, does that matter when you are in the face of danger? Unfriended realizes that sometimes the deadliest threat comes in the form of a close friend, not just a deadly, pissed off spirit hellbent on the emotional trauma that she received through social media.

3/4

The Gallows

Yeah, no. I'm just not sure who this movie was intended for, certainly wasn't me. Completely obnoxious, needing to die characters, awful script, unnecessary, handheld camera shooting that just made me even more nauseated then I already was. Add in a last minute, "BOO" ending and you have a movie that literally tied its' own noose to die.

1/4

The Final Girls

This one took me by surprise. The term "Jack of all trades" seems to used with mild distain but for a movie to achieve success in several different genres I think it something to be admired. What I love most about this movie is underneath all the killings & 80's comedy schtick is that this really is the story of a daughter getting over the loss of her mother. And it's great, Taissa Farmiga & Malin Akerman have such a natural chemistry it's heartbreaking when you realize the direction the movie is going in. And it's rare that a movie's two best scenes both involve strip teases for two very different reasons (seriously if your eyes aren't watery by the second one, you're a monster). Easily one of the most underrated horror movies of the year.

3/4

Zombeavers

This Shit was absolutely ridiculous, ludicrous, and I'm pretty sure that I lost a few brain cells watching it. And I have absolutely no shame in admitting it's easily one of the most fun movies so far this year. Not much else to say.

3/4

The Green Inferno

    Eli Roth is definitely one of the most controversial directors out there right now. With him, you know exactly what you're in for; nasty, unlikable characters meeting their ends in even nastier, more unlikable ways. You definitely can't accuse him of backing down something I appreciate in a horror movie. And this one is fucking nuts. These environmental activists travel to the Amazon to save the jungle and the natives take them as being the very villains that they are currently fighting against. There's a cannibal/dismemberment scene early on that's easily one of the most gruesome of the decade, it definitely sets the tone early on, making the viewer feel very uncomfortable and disturbed. It's almost a relief later on when the dark comic relief sets in; such as the natives getting high followed by a severe case of the munchies. All of this Shit is so insane you have to see it to believe it. The lead girl; Lorenza Izzo is great as well and it wouldn't shock me if Eli Roth ends up using her in future projects. Definitely a tough but recommended horror entry to swallow.

3/4

Jurassic World

Mehh. I had high hopes for this one. As expected, everything on a technical level is undeniable. The effects are stellar, the creatures couldn't look better, even the details in the park itself are immaculate. The problem is everything else feels as primitive as the dinosaurs themselves. None of the characters are fascinating or worth caring about at all, Bryce Dallas Howard's character is the cliche stiff and Chris Pratt is playing his Guardians of the Galaxy character except with ludicrous dialogue this time. The child actors are terrible and could have been devoured at any moments, and there's too much stuffing with the subplots going on (the stereotypical romance/strained family relationships). In terms of the look it's fleek but on a personal level it reeks.

2/4

The Lazarus Effect

This one was kind of dead on arrival. There's definitely a lot of talent in the cast, but the whole thing just feels like been there done that. If you're going to steal from the best, make it your own, but sadly this retread about bringing the dead back to life with fatal consequences just doesn't seem to have anything new to say or do in its' mind. The actors are left out to dry until they're picked off, with the exception of Olivia Wilde who is given a tad more to do and should really use this movie as a platform for beauty shots (drinking game every time the camera zooms in on her face). The group of researchers in this movie play with all of the most high tech equipment in the world but no device known to man would be able to pump life into this stale corpse.

1/4

The Gift

This one really caught me by surprise. It's great and what I love about is how the whole time you feel so uneasy watching it without a drop of bloodshed. There's such a great dynamic between the three leads that they're able to keep the tension going from beginning to end. Joel Edgerton plays this loner who reunites with someone he went to high school with. As in all movies, he oversteps his boundaries and when they tell him to leave them alone, he doesn't leave with dignity. After he's gone, he exposes a lot of truth about the husband (Jason Bateman) to his wife (Rebecca Hall) that she might have been better off without knowing. There's a definite twist at the end that's no so much as preposterous so much as something that makes you go back and rethink everything that's happened. It's a great thriller and definitely one of the more underrated movies of the Summer.

3/4

Sinister 2

No. No. No. One of the reasons why people tear sequels a new asshole is because not only do many feel like weak attempts at making bank, but they take all of the guidelines from the original and completely destroy them. One of the creepiest elements from the original was that this unknown figure named Bughuul was controlling these children and making them kill their families on tape. This one not only goes against that by making Bughuul appear every 2 seconds, it suggests the children are making new children kill their families. The whole thing just feels desperate and lazy as nothing ever comes across as inventive or remotely scary. Even the tapes feel phoned in, instead of getting stellar ones such as the family hanging or being run over by the lawn mower, we get killed by Snow, rats, and a fucking alligator? There's something Sinister going on here but it started and stopped with whoever released the script for this.

1/4

For a Good Time, Call...

At times, it's as messy as the phone sex line, but the lead actresses' natural charm makes it an overall sticky sweet affair.

3/4

The Boy Next Door

You can take the boy from next door but you can't take the lack of originality or suspense from the movie.

1/4

Ex Machina

Though the central character is robotic, nothing about this fascinating and unsettling movie feels stiff or artificial. 

4/4

It Follows

It resonates,  terrifies, and is as infectious as the curse the central character faces.

4/4

Insurgent

For a movie about standing out and not playing it safe, the movie decides to ironically go against both ideas.

1/4

Poltergeist

So painfully lazy and perfunctory when the hands touched the tv screen I wondered if they were trying to escape into a better movie.

0/4

The Guest

Takes all the standard material of the average stranger danger material and elevates it to the next level.

3/4

Punch-Drunk Love

An Adam Sandler movie I really enjoyed...God help us all.

4/4

Foxcatcher

It's a cold turkey of a movie that never gives you a reason to care despite the terrific trio.

2/4

Horns

Its ambition can't be denied, but an overload of sublots and ridiculous ending drag it all to Hell.

2/4

Snowpiercer

Kudos to the cinematography and Tilda Swinton's menace, but this train flies off the track after the climax.

2/4

The Usual Suspects

Spellbinding all the way from the nail-biting script, to Kevin Spacey's captivating performance, to a twist that pulls no punches.

4/4

A Most Violent Year

Similar to Whiplash, A Most Violent Year is a movie about the great American dream; to become successful, and the less then beautiful things we have to do to achieve it.

Oscar Isaac & Jessica Chastain were completely screwed out of Oscar nominations for this movie, they're spellbinding. Both actors ooze such a fire in their performances in a completely different way. The couple resembles a volcano; Isaac as the firm, steady base with the capability to explode but still a way to go before it, Chastain is the tip of the volcano, oozing such a flame you better stay away.

What's so great about the writing is how authentic it feels. Neither character is a bad person which makes their behavior feel more realistic, good people are capable of the worst things. Every scene keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat, like a horror movie, you're constantly expecting the worst to happen. 

From the beautiful imagery, to the top notch performances, to the terrific script, A Most Violent Year is a most stellar movie.

4/4

Whiplash

There's something consistently pounding watching Whiplash and it's not Andrew on the drums; it's your heart racing faster and faster as you're consistently astounded by the amount of tension in a movie that's practically bloodless (with the exception of a brutal training).

What's so fascinating watching Whiplash is the dynamic between Andrew (Miles Teller) and Fletcher (J.K Simmons) is that the movie really never gives you a clear Black and White answer over who is good and who is evil. Is Andrew doing the right thing by pushing himself to the maximum limit to achieve his dream? Or is he foolish, allowing himself to go down a path of blocking out everything and everyone else just to succeed? Is Fletcher just an asshole who pushes people to the utmost extreme? Or is he someone that wants his students to achieve and knows how to push them to get to that point of perfection? Both actors are at the top of their game and their scenes never register as any less then dynamic.

Watching Whiplash is nothing less then inspirational; inspiration to achieve your dreams even when they feel a million miles away, and inspiration that movies out there still have the power to get inside our heads like this one does.

4/4

Fifty Shades of Grey

Beat me. Considering the hot mess that the novel is, the movie really should have been a lot worse then it was.

One of the movie's biggest strengths in the early scenes is its sense of restraint. There's restraint watching Anastasia (Dakota Johnson) and Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) that's apparent through the performances and the script. The scenes of the characters using their words to entice the other are far more sexually appealing then later scenes when the clothes come off. 

I've read complaints that the actors lack chemistry but in a way I feel like that works here. These two characters are far from a match made in Heaven so the restraint feels genuine as you're watching two people lose control; whether it be in a physical way from her, or on a mental way from him.

It's a shame that once the action starts, the fun stops. I can't imagine anyone finding these sex scenes appealing as everything comes off so ridiculously forced and contrived you would swear you're watching a production as opposed to anything feeling genuine. The later scenes also struggle with really advancing the characters, as their developments seem to drive in circles, making the conflicts feel stilted and repetitive. Still, there is something about this franchise that leaves me wanting more.

2/4

Guardians of the Galaxy

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The galaxy is the limit for how inventive and energetic Guardians is from start to finish.

3/4

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

In the end, it's hard to make apes that fascinating especially when you feel like the movie was written by one.

2/4

Nymphomaniac Vol. II

All pun intended, but this entry just feels completely limp and stiff at the same time. All the tension, all the intrigue and fascination into watching Joe's sexual tale unfold on screen has no been reduced to a deflated balloon. I feel like the problem is that Joe's younger self is more interesting then her older self. Granted, Charlotte Rampling is great as the title character, you totally believe her in every scene, the problem is, what you're believing just doesn't feel that fascinating. Everything including an odd, misguided and terribly unmoving scene with Jamie Bell as her dominant just feels like punishment to watch. Add in an ending that ties up the story about as well as a shoelace on the Titanic, and you have something that just felt like a big tease that lead you on to nothing.

1/4

Nymphomaniac

What I enjoyed most about this movie was how it took a serious subject such as a beaten nymphomaniac (Charlotte Rampling) telling her sad, sexual, lonely story to a stranger (Stellan Skarsgard) and it made it quite humorous to watch. Granted it's not all fun and games, you have to make it through some pretty demented chapters in her book, none more demented then Shia LaBeouf's ridiculously stiff performance. But there's something quite captivating and arresting about the material. Watching the nymphomaniac (played quite fascinatingly by Stacy Martin) and her journey never lost my attention even though at times it made me want to lose my lunch. Best of all is a scene with Uma Thurman, who pretty much walks away with the movie as the broken wife of a husband who has fallen to the nymphomaniac's knee. 

3/4

Maps to the Stars

This is one where I feel like it's zaniness and kookiness were its greatest strength and weakness. Julianne Moore is stellar as Havana, the lead actress whose realizing her 15 minutes of fame is almost up and she can't take it. Her performance is so full of desperation and lunacy she completely disappears in the role. Same with Mia Wasikowska, whose pretty much a ticking time bomb every second she's on screen, she's proof the biggest sense of fear is the kind that doesn't appear on the surface right away; it bubbles and bubbles until it bubbles over the edge. The men don't fare as well, I liked the actor who was deliciously obnoxious as a Justin Bieber asshole type, but John Cusack & Robert Pattinson just feel underwritten or like they should have been in a different movie. There's a lot of promise in the situations with Havana hallucinating about her dead mother, and Wasikowska's character being the black sheep of her family for mental reasons, but in the last half hour everything flies off the tracks and just gets too ridiculous for its' own good and flies off the map. Shame.  

2/4

See No Evil 2

This is the type of garbage I like to watch; the kind that's actually fun to watch. Same way as I felt about the sequel, which was universally shit on even though it kept me entertained and had some pretty awesome deaths (the cell phone). This one luckily stays in the same territory. I like it when movies take advantage of creepy surroundings and use it to their advantage such as The Descent with the claustrophobic caves. This is the type of movie Danielle Harris thrives in, these B-rated horror movies like this and Rob Zombie's Halloween and I enjoyed watching Katharine Isabelle ham it up as the group's drunk/group's hoe that sets off Jacob's madness. It won't be the cure for cinematic cancer but for what it was I'm not mad.

3/4

Ouija

I don't even know what to say about this. It's so hard to come up with something inventive to say about a movie that just feels so ridiculously lazy. Even the actors look like they would rather die, maybe they were emulating how the audience would feel watching them die. The story is terribly flimsy and it's really just a cop-out to throw Shit to the screen and hope something sticks. There's no surprises, imagination, or anything remotely resembling terror here. It's such a lazy trend for horror movies to be PG-13 and think that's a justification to not even try. Only person I feel bad for is Olivia Cooke, who seems to be using her talent in all the wrong games.

0/4

As Above, So Below

This one was another surprise for me, I was expecting a complete Shit-show from the previews/other reviews but I was pretty pleasantly surprised overall. The beginning is flimsy and solid characterization crashes and burns as quickly as the characters' plan to achieve success and fortune but what happens inside the catacombs is pretty intriguing. It looks absolutely stunning and I was at times reminded of The Descent (never a bad thing to be compared to) with how well certain scenes were filmed to make the viewer feel completely claustrophobic, isolated, and unknowing of what lurks around the corner. The ending could have packed a bit more punch as it feels rather hokey and last minute, but luckily the middle is watchable enough for me to walk away somewhat pleased.

3/4

The Babadook

Well, color me surprised. By the previews I was expecting a generic horror movie about a single, helpless mother and her screaming son fighting off a demon but it comes off as something completely different. Instead of focusing on generic, on the surface terror, The Babadook goes deeper into more of a mental terror known as depression. It's about a mother and son dealing with an unexpected, violent death of the father and it's quite fascinating. There's very little bloodshed here but there's so much tension at the surface. The mother, played by Essie Davis is dealing with loneliness, resentment towards her son and others around that don't understand her situation. In a way she's de-humanifying herself to resemble a non-entity such as The Babadook, which is easily the creepiest fucking children's book known to man. This movie really rests on Essie Davis' shoulders and she carries it off amazingly. Performances like this are the reason why more horror movies should host awards similiar to the Oscars. This would never get nominated there, but it deserves to be acknowledged somewhere. She's stellar and the screenplay follows her path, guiding the viewer down a less is more route of terror, making The Babadook feel even more bone chilling.

3/4

Inherent Vice

What a trippy, odd, unforgettable blast. Inherent Vice will take you to a world of such a serious world of crime, poverty, druggies, and coked-out dentists that's it's such a blast when you realize the whole thing is played for comedy.

The players are more then willing to work the joke. What's most fascinating is how when you first meet or hear about each of the characters, the actor plays the role to such a versatility no one ends up as expected. Joaquin Phoenix's character Doc at first sounds like such a dead-end, hopeless guy, but there's such an underplayed charisma to Phoenix's performance you end up entranced by the charmer.

Doc's trip into mayhem is all for his ex-girlfriend Shasta, he's helping finding her current boyfriend whose disappeared, while her boyfriend's wife, and her boyfriend were planning on committing him to the nut house for money. Shasta is such a fascinating character as well. At first when we see her, she seems to be the average damsel in distress, but there's such a mystery and allure that Katherine Waterston brings to the character, you see why Doc would risk his life for this beauty. You wish she was on screen more, and it's a shame that her best, most revealing, most personal scene is one that will never be shown on commericals.

Doc's main ally in this quest is Bigfoot, played by Josh Brolin who almost walks away with the movie. He's such an enigma of a a character they could have made a spin-off of this movie based off his characteristics alone. Brolin is stellar and it's a travesty that he wasn't nominated for an Oscar.

One of the biggest complaints I've read about this movie is that there's too much going on, there's a scene late in the movie where Doc sits there just trying to piece together how everyone and everything is related, and it's easy for the viewer to feel like they're in a similar boat. By this point I realized you're not supposed to really have a "point A to point B" type of mindset and just go along for the ride. If you want to look at this as a straight-forward crime/drama about a man discovering the truth, go ahead. If you want to look at this as a man's vivid and wildly inventive hallucination used to get over an ex-girlfriend, go ahead. If you want to look at this as a love story about a man who will do anything to retrieve his unattainable, unrestriced ex, then go ahead. Inherent Vice makes a solid case for all of the above, proving that sometimes in life the end isn't so much as important as the journey you take to get there.

4/4

Wrong Turn 6

Why. The. Fuck. Did. I. Bother?

0/4