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