Sin City: A Dame to Kill for

The original Sin City was a brilliant film that stunningly brought to life the neo-noir graphic novel series of the same name by Frank Miller. So when the follow up was released by the same directorial duo the assumption was that it would continue in the same vein. The film in many ways does do that by reappraising most of the original cast. Miller has thrown in a few stories from Vol 2 and tried to mesh them in a similar fashion as in its predecessor. In other ways the handling of story lines is poor and almost as if the hope was the CGI would be distracting enough to make up for it.

Rating: * +

Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia

Beasts of No Nation

A film meant to be a powerful telling of the wars in Africa and how it is ravaging the youth there. A time meant for the children to be educated instead is spent learning how to become a killing machine. Throw in Idris Alba to play the lead role of a commandant of a guerrilla, one expects a dark and gripping tale. However the story of young Abu who is throw apart from his family by war into the hands of the guerrillas only leaves you mildly interested in the events that unfold in the movie in spite of the message being important and one that everyone should pay heed to.

Rating: * +

Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia

Sicario

The movie opens with Agent Kate Mercer, a up and coming straight laced FBI agent, finding a horde corpses when raiding  a den of kidnappers. The ensuing explosion points at something more than a kidnapping den. She is then drafted into a CIA / DoD task force investigating the event. Part of this team is Alejandro Gillick (Benicio Del Toro) whose identity and allegiance all seem very murky. A taunt action thriller that never leaves you bored but there are times you wish Emily Blunt's character was played by a man and treated the same way. Somehow I feel that it would have been more effective. But that is just a minor nitpick in a well crafted thriller.

Rating: * * +

Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

The Informant

Mark Whitacre was a high flying executive at Archer Daniels Midland, when he decides to blow the whistle on the company's nefarious price fixing of lysine, an additive used in the livestock industry. He teams up with the FBI and walks around wearing a wire and surreptitiously filming secret meetings. But the pressure of leading a double life starts to show as his character starts to fray at the edges resulting in tragicomic situations. Matt Damon shines in this role and you are left in an enjoyable muddle of trying to figure out reality from Whitacre's imagination.

Rating: * * *
Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

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.

Fantastic Four

Marvel's Fantastic Four franchise is given a reboot in this latest installment. The story starts from ground zero with Reed Richards and Ben Grimm being tweener friends working on crazy science projects. They are discovered by Professor Franklin Storm and you are introduced to his kids, Sue and Johnny. Throw Victor von Doom and an experiment gone wrong into the mix and you are left with the beginnings of the Fantastic Four storyline. Unfortunately the reboot and retelling of the story is not very engaging and you leave the theater feeling underwhelmed.

Rating: * + 

Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Birdman

Riggan Thompson used to rule the film industry as Birdman but since then has done little of note. Now he is trying to rekindle his acting career by adapting a Raymond Carver play to Broadway.  The movie chronicles this process through dress rehearsals and opening night. The acting is top notch with Michael Keaton and Edward Norton grabbing most of the limelight. Alejandro González Iñárritu has used a technique that makes it seem the film is one long shot. The end result is akin to playing a first person shoot out except that the film is a drama. The dialogues flow ceaselessly giving not a moment of stillness in the movie. At the end you are left a little nauseous thanks to the roving camera and cranky due to the noisy screenplay!

Rating: * +

Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia

Avengers: Age of Ultron

This installment in the Marvelverse starts with Team Avengers raiding a Hydra base and being introduced to Quicksilver and Wanda Maximoff. The mission is successful in that they are reunited with Loki's scepter. Stark and Banner discover artificial intelligence buried in it and use it to come up with a global defense program. The program comes to life and decides rightly that humans are the biggest threat. What ensues is the usual inner bickering in the team and some good ass kicking as the Avengers struggle to defeat the Ultron menace. Definitely enjoyable for people who hate Abbas Kiarostami films.

Rating: * * +

Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Thor: The Dark World

Loki is locked up and Thor with is warrior friends are forging a peace across the nine realms following the rebuilding of the Bifrost after the previous debacle. But the calm is not allowed to build as Dark Elves, who are thought to be obliterated eons ago are re-awoken by an unwitting Earthling. You are then treated to some heavy CGI magic and loads of hammer wielding Thor action resulting in an enjoyable shallow action flick. 

Rating: * * +

Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Boyhood

A coming of age story of young Mason Jr whose mother flits from one messed up partner to another dragging the young boy and sister along. Take The Wonder Years, convert the Arnold family in to a dysfunctional one with a single mother, shoot it over ten years with the actors aging gradually and you will end up with this movie. However the Tv series had a certain depth and charm to it that is missing here. It feels that the use of time rather than make up and different actors to show aging is the only thing that this film has going for it.

Rating: * *

Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Killing Them Softly

When a couple of buffoons hold up a high stakes underworld card game, it is predictable how it would end. The mob puts a highly paid hitman to set right the situation. And when you have cast that includes Brad Pitt and James Gandolfini, you except even this simple storyline to pack a punch. However you are left with an insipid journey that turges towards the inevitable end.

Rating: * +

Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Entre Nos

The stereotype of Colombian women falling for men who treat them badly continues in this movie. Mariana and her kids are abandoned by her husband soon after they immigrate to New York city. Stranded in a foreign city and unable to speak English, she struggles to make ends meet. The film shows a dispassionate view of the situation while highlighting Mariana's grit to persevere. There have been better films highlighting women and immigration but if the situation resonates with you then it is worth a watch.

Rating: * *

Poster: Cine Las Americas

Silver Linings Playbook

Bit too much of the silver linings stuff. Though David O. Russell puts together a compelling cute comedy, it falls way short of other films that he has done. Oscar for Jennifer Lawrence for this? Talent certainly, but give her time man.  Bradley Cooper shrugs off his good lucks to strike it out and which he carries through in the American Hustle. I was kind of glad when it ended - but dont get me wrong, it was cute.  

Rating: * *

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

Katniss Everdeen makes her way back to screen after the disastrous end to the Quarter Quell. She finds herself deep beneath the ground in District 13th with the rebels. Advised by the rebel President Coin and cajoled by her friends and advisers, she reluctantly agrees to become the face of the revolution. Thanks to being a movie you are spared the whiny inner dialog of Ms. Everdeen. But the movie makes up for that with its boring pacing and uneventful screenplay. A book that easily could have fit in a single movie is dragged across two films with no real reason other than greed. The only saving grace is that you got to see Philip Seymour Hoffman one more time.

Rating:: * +

Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Empire of the sun

Christian Bale's finest performance, arguably, thus far - in his debut film as a 13 year old. To put a 13 year old through every scene of a film, through a range of emotions that even the best would struggle with and essentially carry a movie of scale, needs balls. Steven Spielberg manages to do so in 1987 - and with some fine photography & direction. 

Christian Bale plays Jim Graham, a young British boy who has grown up in the Shanghai expat bubble scene as WWII enters its end game. Loses his parents through a tragic turn of events and spends the next 4 years more than surviving through all kinds of John Malkovich type hooligans. 

Outstanding.

Rating: * * * +

We Are What We Are

The film starts with a lady struggling in a torrential down pour. The dull weather sets the tone for this moody drama and its eeriness seeps off the screen. You are shown the lives of a strange family that seems to be harboring a secret in a small town in the US. The pace is slow as the director counts on the atmosphere to keep you hooked. It does, except Netflix gave away the plot in the description. I wonder if my rating would have been higher had I seen it without reading the badly written synopsis.

Rating: * *

Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Gone Girl

Its official. Ben Affleck is the Ravi Shastri of Hollywood - overachieving and overrated at the same time. Credit where its due and all, but who gives a fuck. David Fincher digs deep, as always, to tell us the best-selling, diabolical story of Nick & Amy in a super smooth and engaging manner.

Rating: * * +

Edge of Tomorrow

Director Doug Liman hit upon this original idea of making a movie that resembles a video game where you have no control over the players. He then roped in Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt to play the leads and lend sex appeal. For two hours you watch Tom die, live, die again at different points as he tries to stop an alien race from annihilating the human race. Unfortunately, you are not given an option of playing as an alien.

Rating: *

Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

The Fifth Estate

Julian Assange & his WikiLeaks escapades had caught my attention at the time and still does in a way - what happens when the Ecuadorian Embassy's lease runs out in London? 

Anyway, I knew that the movie based on his one-time partner's Daniel Domscheit-Berg book, would portray only one side of the story. What had me more worried was having to sit through Benedict Cumberbatch's wierd ass Assange hairdo. In this instance, the general anti-hype helped me. Cumberbatch showed that he has the temparement to step into different kinds of roles. I got more than what I bargained for.

Rating: * * +

Guardians of the Galaxy

Marvel's cosmic mishmash of a superhero team makes it way to the big screen. The comic books are known to be a little meandering with a host of characters and plot lines. This of course had to be simplified to make things fit in a 2 hour time frame. What you have then is an action packed slug fest that brings a team of an earthling, a tree, an assassin, a rodent and a green thug chasing after an orb whose fate will seal the future of the galaxy. Lots of 80s music and cheesy humor makes the film pleasant, but the Bollywood like melodrama wears on you after a while. Do watch it if you are a faithful Marvel fan for the sake of completion otherwise give it a miss.

Rating: * *

Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.