Tomboy

A 10-year-old girl, settling into her new neighborhood outside Paris, is mistaken for a boy and has to live up to this new identity since it’s too late for the mistake to be clarified. (IMDb)

I don’t know about this one. It actually just left me a little confused. Firstly, it was quite interesting. Seeing the lengths this girl will go to try and hide her actual identity. I almost wish I went into this completely blind, because the reveal that she is a girl doesn’t come until like 15 minutes in, and I wonder how that would have changed things for me if I didn’t know that she wasn’t a boy. Also, I loved how cool the parents were. They were totally loving and accepting of their daughter, but I think they were a little oblivious. The character I fell in love with was Jeanne, the little sister, played by Malonn Levana. She was the cutest six year old who was insanely wise beyond her years. My big problem with this whole thing, however, is that it doesn’t go anywhere. It’s just a bunch of scenes of kids playing different games, then Laure going home and hanging with her family. There’s no plot. It’s like we’re just watching their lives and the whole gender thing is a subplot in their lives. Which may have been intentional, but I got bored about an hour in. So, like I said, I just don’t know about this one. I don’t even know if it’s a commentary on gender, simply because nothing really happens. So for me, a really interesting story that fell short of actually being entertaining.

4/10

 

Melancholia

Two sisters find their already strained relationship challenged as a mysterious new planet threatens to collide with the Earth. (IMDb)

I’ve heard a lot of things about this one. Basically everything from that it’s a work of art to it’s complete crap that’s trying to hard. So of course I had to decide for myself. And I really enjoyed it. I loved the opening montage. The shots looked like moving paintings, they were beautiful. Was it absolutely necessary to the plot? Eh, not really,  they were perhaps a little distracting considering for the rest of the movie I was looking for the real versions of the opening surreal images, but was it pretty to look at? Absolutely. Something else I enjoyed was the stark contrast between the first part and the second part. The first part was much more realistic, focusing on the family aspect and watching a marriage fall apart on the wedding night. While the second part delves a little more into watching one family deal with possible end of the world. And is a little more surreal visually. On that same note, these two parts were so different they could have been two different movies entirely. I don’t know if that was intentional, or even if I liked that or not, but it was interesting. But I will say the second half dragged a little more than the first, especially near the end. Different topic, the acting in this movie is a force to be reckoned with. This is the best work I’ve ever seen out of Kirsten Dunst and Alexander Skarsgard. Watching Dunst try to get through her wedding night, and then the way she basically crumbles to pieces in the second part, it was heartbreaking to watch. Skarsgard also broke my heart. He tries extremely hard to connect with Dunst’s character, to show his love and devotion, and then it’s not reciprocated in full, basically he was fantastic. Now, I know of Charlotte Gainsbourg, but I’ve never seen a movie of hers, but I thought she was brilliant as well. She is the glue trying to hold all of these scattered people together, and she was fascinating to watch, up until the very last moment. Now, all this being said, yes, the plot could have moved a little quicker, and some of the dramatic framing devices are a little obvious, and overall, it’s a little out there, to say the least, but I still enjoyed it.

8/10

 

Star Trek Into Darkness

After the crew of the Enterprise find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction. (IMDb)

So. I go into this having finished the ’09 Star Trek only an hour and a half beforehand. And I really enjoyed the first one so I was looking forward to seeing this new one. And overall, it didn’t disappoint. Having the whole cast back again was great. Anton Yelchin was more adorable, Simon Pegg was even more funny, Zachary Quinto was as awesome as ever, I think this cast works great together. Prize for casting though goes to Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan, the villain. Holy crap was he good. He was a scary evil villain, but yet I liked him. I thought he was great. I liked the different twists and turns that this one took. Things would happen and I would just be like “wait they can’t do that.” But then I remember that this is in an entirely separate universe so they can actually do whatever they want. I will say, did anyone else notice different shots, moments, that were just like other movies? I got Avengers, Titanic, and Inception on three different occasions. I wonder if those were on purpose or not. Regardless, this was still really entertaining and I enjoyed it a lot.

8/10

 

Star Trek

The brash James T. Kirk tries to live up to his father’s legacy with Mr. Spock keeping him in check as a vengeful, time-traveling Romulan creates black holes to destroy the Federation one planet at a time. (IMDb)

To start with, I know nothing about Star Trek. Never watched it, no trekkies in the family or anything. I heard this movie could stand on its own (plus a friend wanted me to go see the second one) so I watched it. And, I actually really liked it. It does a really solid job of explaining things to newbies like me while still being fairly quickly paced. Also, doing the whole alternate reality thing is a great way to leave all of the storylines open for fun new possibilities. The ensemble cast is really impressive, and I love how they all come together throughout the course of the movie. For me, Zachary Quinto as Spock was a total stand out. I thought he was absolutely fantastic. But no one in this movie was disappointing. I also loved the way everything was shot. There was a lot of movement, which kept everything visually interesting, but it wasn’t distracting, so I thought that was great. Also for a sci-fi action movie, it had some really funny moments in it. So yeah, I’m not a converted trekkie or anything, but I thought this movie was awesome.

8.5/10

 

London Boulevard

An ex-con hired to look after a reclusive young actress finds himself falling in love, which puts him in direct confrontation with one of London’s most vicious gangsters. (IMDb)

Ok…so this could have been cool. An interesting story, a good assortment of actors, but I have no idea what happened here. It was basically trying to be two movies. One was about an ex-con (Colin Farrell) falling in love with the actress (Keira Knightley) and the other is about that same ex-con attempting to escape his criminal past but the gangster boss (Ray Winstone) is threatening the ones he loves, like his sister (Anna Friel). Then throw in a random subplots of some high school kids beating a homeless guy to death and David Thewlis getting high, and you have this movie. So, as you can see, it was all over the damn place. It had no focus and by trying to do so many things, you never fully understand anything, you just get bits and pieces of each story. Personally, I think this movie is too much of a mess to be given a shot.

2/10

 

Like Crazy

A British college student falls for an American student, only to be separated from him when she’s banned from the U.S. after overstaying her visa. (IMDb)

Hmmm…I don’t know about this one. At first I was into it, it was a true modern day portrait of long distance relationships. But, as the movie went on, I just became more and more annoyed by this couple. To me, it just seemed like a summer fling that the characters took way too far. Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones were fine enough, but I didn’t quite buy their chemistry, after their first initial split. Then, as they kind of sort of saw other people, I just felt bad for them. Jennifer Lawrence and Charlie Bewley played those people, and I just wanted to tell them to give up. What I actually wanted out of this movie? For Yelchin and Lawrence and Jones and Bewley to be together. You know, like real life. Because at the end, when the two main characters are finally united forever, it was more melancholic and sad than a happy reunion. So, this one didn’t quite do it for me.

2/10

 

The Double

A retired CIA operative is paired with a young FBI agent to unravel the mystery of a senator’s murder, with all signs pointing to a Soviet assassin. (IMDb)

So, the main reason I watched this movie was because of the trailer. No, not because the trailer was phenomenal. But because the trailer revealed a huge plot twist. And I thought no way, there’s got to be more. So, I watch, and that twist comes in a half hour into the movie. So…that would have been cool. If it wasn’t ruined. By the movie’s trailer. So terrible marketing on that. After that, this is a bland crime thriller. Richard Gere is quite good, as is Topher Grace. Stephen Moyer (True Blood) and Stana Katic (Castle) make some fun brief appearances as a crazy Russian hitman and a crazy Russian prostitute. But overall, this was trying way too hard. Plot twists came out of nowhere, and then finally when I thought everything made sense and the movie was headed towards a predictable end, it throws in another twist that is not only random, but makes absolutely no sense, does not fit in with the rest of the story, and there was no evidence leading up to it. And it didn’t change the predictable ending whatsoever…so that could have been taken out. So, while I’ve seen worse, this movie isn’t the greatest.

3/10