Interstellar

There are some movies that are hard to review. It doesn't mean that such movies are of high quality. It is just that writing about it can reveal too much and take away from the pleasure if the movie was one for the ages. This is one such movie and I will do my best not give too much away about this one.

The Earth is ravaged by blight and humanity's hope for survival looks bleak. It is evident from the posters and trailers that some space travel is involved in search of a solution. Throw a wormhole into the picture and the possibilities are endless. As you watch the film you hope for another Contact but as your excitement grows the finale kind of leaves you a little deflated. Maybe the weight of expectations flattened the balloon.

Rating: * * + 

Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Mama

The 2008 financial crisis drives Jeffery, a banker over the edge. He kills his co-workers, ex-wife and drags his two young daughters to an abandoned cabin with the plan of killing them and committing suicide. The plans go awry as a mysterious entity rescues the girls. The girls are discovered five years later by a search part sponsored by Jeffery's twin brother, Lucas.  Lucas takes the girls back to his home which he shares with his partner Annabel. As the girls try to rehabilitate themselves to regular living, it is evident that they brought something back from the cabin with them. The atmosphere created by the directory shows the evident hand of Guillermo del Toro who is an executive produce of the film. Dark, slow and sudden are the adjectives you can attach to the film, which is one of the better horror films to come out in 2013.

Rating: * * +

Take Shelter

Curtis (Michael Shannon) seems like a regular fella with a loving wife (Jessica Chastain) and a daughter who dotes on him. The only trouble the family faces is the little girl’s deafness. Curtis and his wife seem to be taking this in their stride when he starts getting plagued with apocalyptic dreams of a storm front. He soon turns introspective which externally manifests itself in sullenness and strange behavior like fencing away the pet dog. The guts is the family’s struggle to deal with the unraveling of Curtis. A film that moves at a constant eerie pace with the kind of stillness that most directors don’t get right.

Rating: * * +