Elle

Note: spoilers So, what is this film? It stands in the middle of being a plot driven and a character driven film. I might even be wrong. I don't really know what to make of it. When you screaming 'what the hell is happening' every five minutes on the screen, your thoughts about it are mostly up in the air. If you dissect it - acting, dialogue, cinematography, editing, sound, direction - and find that the factors compliment each other, why am I not raving about it? I'm confused with what I've seen, and I don't think I would revisit this film at all.

Black Swan

One of the things that I am guilty about when it comes to keeping my blog is how unpolished my work is. I have a tendency to type and publish without proofreading. This leads me to see my errors after my post is up, and while I am now aware that I need to polish my work, I am not good at it. While my blog isn’t my whole life, I though I would mention this in comparison to Nina Sayers’ need to be perfect. She has devoted herself to her dance, wanting to emulate the principal dancer of the company, a woman she thought to be perfect. She has this desire to be perfect in her craft, and I feel like the opposite of her. This incessant need of hers has brought out pressures that she is impervious to, and this is what Black Swan is about. Classified as a psychological horror, this is about a dancer who was cast in the lead role of their production of Swan Lake, and her destruction to fulfill her role.

Blade Runner 2049

It can be said that the sequel to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner is one of the most anticipated films of the year. It is impossible to escape the excitement of it; from the stunning images that peppered articles discussing the film, to interviews and sightings done by the film's star powers, and the trailer to boast it all. The addition of it being helmed by Denis Villeneuve gives the film a certain expectation, as not only is the original considered a classic, but Villeneuve has been churning amazing films. I watched this knowing nothing about the sequel, and with no expectations. I was very surprised, not because it was an incredible film, but because I was already anticipating another viewing even before I finished the film. *spoilers ahead*

Reservoir Dogs

Reservoir Dogs is about a group of people who were hired for a diamond heist, only for their plans to be foiled by a police informant in the group. The plot is straightforward, so this is relying on the delivery and pacing of the narrative. Since this was one of Quentin Tarantino's prolific work, my expectations were a bit high.

The Girl on the Train

There was a lot of hype surrounding this movie - from the cast down to its intensive marketing as the next 'Gone Girl'. The Girl on the Train mainly tells the story of Rachel, an alcoholic who commutes to the city every day. On her way to work, she always passes by a house where she envisions the couple living there to be the happiest of couples, just like she and her ex-husband were. It also happens that she used to live a few houses away from the couple, and her house is now occupied by her husband and his new wife.

Split

I haven’t seen any of M. Night Shyamalan’s latest movies, but seeing that he’s had some sort of resurgence with The Visit, I went to give Split a view. I didn’t know what to expect from this because I avoided a lot of reviews and spoilers, but it’s best to go to this one blind. Split is not so much as a horror flick, but a thrilling piece. This review has spoilers.

Train to Busan

The movie opens to a checkpoint area by the highway. Men wearing protective gear patrol the area. A delivery truck passes by and stops, the men checking the contents, and allows the truck to pass through. In a fluster over the checkpoint, the driver accidentally hits a deer and decides to drive off instead of tending to the dead animal. A short point passes by and the deer springs back to life, but instead of the eyes being its normal color, it has changed into light blue.

A Conspiracy of Faith

The third installment of the Department Q movies, it immediately launches into the case at hand as a bottle washes up on shore with a note dating from six years ago. Since it is an unknown case, it was sent to Department Q, a police branch that handles unsolved cases. This leads Detectives Carl Morck and Assad on a manhunt whom has been kidnapping children from religious sects, with two children falling privy to his hands.

Mockingjay Part 1 & 2

Mockingjay is the third book in the Hunger Games series and frankly my least favorite one. So it made no sense (besides financial reasons) for the third book to be split to two. I had to wait for a while before watching the two movies, and I will be reviewing them as one. Each movie was a bit lengthy and it could have trimmed down a few scenes, but I thought the movies were good in a general sense.

Spectre

If Daniel Craig's planning to end his run as James Bond, this is a great movie to end it with, no strings attached. Set after the death of M (Judi Dench), Bond was given a task to locate a man and kill him. The opening sequence leads to Bond's hunt for the man, eventually masking the organization that has been behind multiple terrorist attacks. It doesn't help that the man in charge has a link to Bond's past. Besides that, MI6 has also been dealing with a new head of international security whose mission is to announce the Double 0 program obsolete and shut it down.

Double Feature: Knock Knock / The Final Girls

Since it's a month for spooky movies, I'll be reviewing two horror flicks released this year - Knock Knock and The Final Girls. Let's just say one of them is campy fun, the other is horribly dull.

Solomon's Perjury Part 1: Suspicion

I don't want a lot of Japanese movies that have a mystery as its main theme. However, I do enjoy how they tackle mystery. From what I've seen, they like their build ups and their twists. Solomon's Perjury has those qualities, a lenghtly feature divided into two separate films. Unfortunately I only got to watch the build up but I'm quite interested on how the second part turns out to be.

Double Feature: American Gigolo / Pretty Woman

I think the theme of this double feature review is quite obvious. Here are two Richard Gere movies where he gets to play the ends of the spectrum - American Gigolo and Pretty Woman, released ten years apart.

Blind Spot: Leon (The Professional)

One of my blind spot choices that I was very excited about was Leon: The Professional. Knowing nothing much about it except it was the role the skyrocketed Natalie Portman to fame, there were no prior expectations as to what the movie may be. Needless to say, this was fantastic, considering the last Luc Besson movie I've seen was Lucy, and that was a bit messy, to say the least.

Double Feature: The Keeper of Lost Causes / The Absent One

As of writing, I realized the following things: 1. I have been writing double feature reviews for a year. 2. They didn’t serve the purpose of being condensed reviews. Rather they are still very lengthy - brevity isn’t my strongest suit. As a “celebration” of this one year feature (this is the only ‘feature’ I’ve tried in my blog that lasted this long), I decided to tribute it to my love of reading. The movies I picked for this feature are both book adaptations, written by Jussi Adler-Olsen. I have read both books, and immediately watched the adaptations, so it’s likely that my thoughts on the book carry over the adaptations.

Double Feature: The Raid / The Raid 2

If you're an avid fan of the Star Wars franchise or track movie-related websites, chances are you've encountered the news that the stars of The Raid movies are making an appearance in the new Star Wars movie. I'm stoked that they're going to be on the franchise, primarily because I like The Raid movies, and it's a great opportunity for them to go global. I finally got to catch up with The Raid 2, and though the plot of the movies isn't the reason why people watch the movies, I needed a refresher on what went down with the first movie, hence reviewing them both now.

Blind Spot: Memento

Memento concludes my blind spot list for the year. Unlike the others, I’ve attempted to watch this a couple of times but have failed to finish until now. I have since determined that Memento, while making Christopher Nolan’s name known to the world, is a work of his that could only be viewed with people who really like movies (and would go beyond blockbuster stuff), or at least people who want more pre-Batman Nolan. Told in a backward narrative, it shares the story of Leonard and his quest to find the man who raped and murdered his wife.

Jurassic Park

After the release of the trailer of Jurassic World, I decided to go and watch the first installment of the franchise just to see what I'm getting myself into when I watch the fourth installment. I did not imagine that I would spend the next two hours screaming at the characters to run or do something beside freeze in place to await for their death. The characters' personalities make you panic for their lives, and the same time wonder how on earth they survived.

Double Feature: Die Hard / Die Hard 2

What was originally going to be a four-review feature, I decided to split the reviews into two camps, primarily because of the tone and atmosphere shift that happened in the franchise. The Die Hard franchise follows the life of one John McClane, and all of the horrible things that could happen in a span of one cop's life, considering he stumbles through most of it on coincidence. The movies show a chronological movement in his life: from his troubled marriage to his troubled relationship with his now grown-up children. The first two Die Hard movies happen during Christmas Eve, with a year span from each other. Both movies also carry a one-location format, with Die Hard being set in Holly McClane's workplace, and Die Hard 2 occurs in an airport in Washington, D.C.

Snowpiercer

Snowpiercer is set in a post-apocalyptic world, where the earth has been engulfed in ice, and the only remnants of the human race is living inside a self-sufficient train. Director Bong Joon-ho immediately throws us into the conflict, where the residents of the back carts decide that they had enough of the treatment by the residents of the front train, and decided to stage a coup to take control of the train.