Love is Strange (2014)

LOVE IS STRANGE, a film, unaffectedly directed by Ira Sachs, is so natural and unassuming in its portrayal of relationships that the divide between audience and the characters on the screen disappears; we are directly slipping into their lives with the ease of familiarity. There is a formal beauty to the movie, thanks to the cinematography of Christos Voudouris - the way he captures each space - delineated not only through décor, but through the light which mutates with the atmosphere, very much like a Chardin still-life painting, classic in its grandeur and silence.

The film tells the story of an older couple, who are forced to leave their Manhattan apartment after one of them is fired from his teaching position. They temporarily move in with relatives and neighbours, until they have found a new place of their own. The film shows the interaction between civilized and polite people who are all perfectly willing to help each other, but nevertheless are increasingly annoyed by the uneasy situations caused by the arrangement.

Into the Woods (2014)

"Into the Woods" intermingles the fairy tales of Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, and Red Riding Hood in a complex but fairly deftly plotted meta-fairy tale. A bewitched baker must bring back an item out of each fairy tale so that his wife may conceive, along the lines of the Sondheim musical.

Meryl Streep is superb as the witch. She symbolizes all the mothers who can't let their children grow up and leave the house, keeping Rapunzel locked in a tower and the young prince at bay for as long as she can. Rapunzel happens to be the baker's young sister, stolen by Streep as a baby to exact revenge on the baker's father, who visited her garden one night and made off without spilling the beans. But when did Meryl do a bad thing in movie? BUT when you say Meryl wont do a bad, this is her due. This movie imo is not good. Doesnt mean its not watchable.

"Into the Woods" is wordy and boring. It's a fairy tale story, so we expect something breezy and entertaining, not something existential and overbearing. As much as you can appreciate how Lapine and Sondheim have challenged the notion of fairy tales by turning them around on the audience, at some points it just gets boring. The film's third act, when "happily ever after" gets turned on its head, for example, is a test of patience, even though without it, the story would have no meaning and the film would therefore become artistically pointless.

Whiplash (2014)

Finally, Freaking Finally. I have been waiting for this movie since the last Sundance. and It paid off. At first sight, Whiplash seemed to me as another talent movie, which features the same clichés, no matter it's about music, dancing or sports. But the great reviews made me really curious about it, and I can honestly say, that it's nothing like your usual film about music.

Damien Chazelle's work, like every beginner director's is full of raw power and energy. Every moment of Whiplash has so much dynamics and tension. You wouldn't expect surprising twists from these kind of movies, but Whiplash has the quality to show you something unexpected in every minute. The director incorporates a few small, but clever twist in the narrative, and these aren't twists for the twists' sake. Chazelle is unlike any other young director: his work is unbelievably calculated, there's not a single unnecessary frame in this picture, and he can always capture the essence of the moment or the actors' performances.

The Good Lie

The Good Lie is a beautiful, heart wrenching film inspired by true events. The film begins in Sudan during the Civil War and follows a group of young children as they attempt to flee their village after it is destroyed and find refuge in Ethiopia. Thirteen years after fleeing their country, the four surviving friends are sent to America to start a new life, but that presents its own challenges. Mamere, Jeremiah and Paul are sent to live and find work in Kansas, while their sister Abital is sent to live with a host family in Boston. They three boys must work together to navigate through this strange new world, while trying to become reunited with their sister and save their families back in Africa.

The first part of the movie can be difficult to watch, as it depicts the horrors of the Sudanese Civil War, and how these surviving children saw their families killed by invading troops. Also, how they trekked nearly 900 miles across the sub-Sahara, under the most dangerous and difficult conditions to reach the Kakuma Camp. The remainder of the film depicts the culture shock awaiting them in Kansas City as they relocate to America.

This was definitely better than expected.  The acting was decent although amateurish at times. I easily connected with all the characters, and would have loved if the film went deeper into their personal stories.

Laggies (2014)

I'm a big fan of all girl romcom. So when I heard Keira Knightley would be in romcom movie, I will gladly watch it.

Laggies is all about growing up, with its main character unable to take life seriously. The film explores to several compelling points of moving on to adulthood. Then it takes to a quirkier turn where Megan tries to make another life with a younger crowd where she feels more accepted of who she is. This is meant to be a story about getting away from the comfort zone, the movie does bring a lot of acknowledgment of why this is supposed to be the right thing, but it resolves to a more comfortable type of ending which doesn't live up much to what it wants to say.

While this movie does not bring anything new to the table at all, Laggies is still a very funny and entertaining movie. Great performances from everyone involved especially Sam Rockwell. I recommend this movie. The movie starts out with the main character going to a class reunion dance, she goes to the dance with her boyfriend of 10 years I believe, it was a while ago I saw it, and they were having a good time. The boyfriend tries to propose but Megan, the main character, tells him she is first going to a conference for a week. She instead goes to a teenager to whom she purchased alcohol for in the beginning. This is how the movie starts and the rest is up to you.

Foxcatcher (2014)

Channing Tatum stars as Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz. When we first meet him, he's already reached elite status by winning a gold medal. But the achievement hasn't allowed him to escape the shadow of his older brother, Dave, also a gold medalist. The younger Schultz wants more. He wants to be the best. His past prize also doesn't pay the bills. After training sessions, he's eating ramen noodles. All that changes, however, with a phone call from du Pont (Steve Carell) who offers to pay him and set him up in a first-class training facility on his Pennsylvania estate.

Steve Carell is going to get an Oscar nomination for this. He has finally proved to audiences that he can undertake and perfect dramatic acting. There is not one specific scene in the film that showcases this talent rather his performance as a whole. He is John Du Pont. They plaster on him a fake nose, make him look much older, and voilà you have Steve Carell looking like Du Pont. Next, he masterfully had to act like Du Pont. His struggle to prove to his mother he can do something and his sickening obsession with Mark and Dave give us that eerie feeling he is up to no good. Steve Carell freaked me out in this film. If it were up to me, I would absolutely give him a nomination and probably the Oscar.

Hobbit : Battle of Five Armies

I know it's been a very long time since I posted something. I just finished my exam and all. Yay for me. So let's start with Hobbit III

"The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" is the final chapter of Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit" trilogy, and this particular film tells the last three or so chapters of J.R.R. Tolkien's book of the same name.

For those who are fans of the book, one thing that will quickly stand out is that the movie takes great liberty with the book, inasmuch as Peter Jackson has made an entire feature length film out of a story that was told in a relatively succinct fashion by Tolkien. Jackson's work expounds on the story that Tolkien left us with, going into much more detail with character development and the story of the battle of the armies itself in this film.

That being said, though, the movie does all of this in a way that is true to the original source material. I didn't feel as though I was watching something that was untrue to Tolkien, but instead a movie that was made to put meat on the skeleton of a story that Tolkien had left us with in the final chapters of "The Hobbit".