Tag: Rooney Mara

The last time we got a Guillermo del Toro film is when he directed the one about fucking a fish.

Will someone fuck a different creature in Nightmare Alley? Hard to say based on the title alone. I did not know until a little bit before hand that Nightmare Alley was an older book, and also an older movie from 1947. So we are getting a remake. And honestly, this is the exact reason for remakes in my mind. Often remakes are made for successful film that they just want to try again because people liked the first one. They should do more remakes either based on films that failed, or at least just more unknown work to give them a new fresh light.

Not to insult those of you who know and love the original Nightmare Alley film, but honestly, it isn’t super well known now, regardless of how big it may have been in the past.

This new version promised to be closer to the book. Alright, whatever, I am just hear for the movies. Specifically, Guillermo del Toro movies.

No, this isn’t a screengrab from the next Indiana Jones flick…Who is that mysterious stranger, Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper)? The one with the smooth outfit, the clean face, the twinkle in his eyes, the hat? The one who burned down that house for some reason and is willing to just…drift.

Stan finds himself at a traveling show, a carnival, full of lies and deceit. But he sees a geek show, and agrees to help load up for the night for a small payment. And then he gets offered a job to stay along more, because he looks like someone who just needs to be there.

So he stays, he listens, and he learns. Quickly. He learns the tools of the trade. He has plans and ambitions. He has been kept quiet and hidden for so long, he thinks he can take some of these skills and become famous. A celebrity. But if he becomes a man who deals with deceit, eventually, he will be deceited right in the ass.

Also starring Cate Blanchett, Clifton Collins Jr., David Strathairn, Holt McCallany, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, Rooney Mara, Tim Blake Nelson, Toni Collette, and Willem Dafoe.

I bet his eyes aren’t even closed under there. He is using those eyes and his blindfold eye. He is a phony!

Nightmare Alley is so damn aesthetically pleasing to look at. It is polished (some would even say, polished as fuck). I know it is getting harder and harder to really tell how much of a movie is made in front of green screens, but it feels as if this film was mostly main in real places and scenes, using fine cameras to make everything pop. That is what I truly hope and believe, especially since I know del Toro is a fan of using as many practical effects as possible, generally. But maybe most of it is CGI’d, who knows. It looks wonderful.

The big cast works really together. Some in much smaller roles than expected, but still bringing in their all to tell this strange story. It was good to see Perlman get some work in a non straight to video film. Blanchett is in particular quite a force, basically stealing the movie away from Cooper’s character after she walks into it. She is given a really strong role and one that is hard to top. Cooper also does a wonderful job. It takes awhile before his character starts to talk. I wondered if he would be a silent protagonist for the whole film (like Cage was recently in Wally’s Wonderland) but once he started to actual talk, getting him to stop was the harder part.

The actual story for the film is also a pretty good one, if not slightly familiar in some ways. The ending is the type of thing you can see miles away, because they foreshadow everything really hard. However, it is okay knowing how it ends up, because finding out the lengths someone can fall and also rise is often the most exciting part of a film.

Nightmare Alley, shockingly, has no puppet animals, or strange creatures, or any non humans getting fucked. Is this growth? Nah. That was a one time thing for del Toro. Until it isn’t.

3 out of 4.

I have put off watching Song to Song as much as possible. At this point in my career, I am more likely to check out the director before watching an unknown movie for only one reason. To see if Terrence Malick was secretly the director.

Because if he is, I need to go into the movie with a completely different mindset than literally any other film.

I need to have hawk eyes to figure out just what the main plot of the film is going to be, especially when the narrators decide to switch on me, or even be from characters I never paid attention to.

No one else makes me waste my time like Malick. And I just need to know before seeing if a movie how mad I will be five minutes into it.

Yeah, get that bitch some Christmas lights…

What do Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, Holly Hunter, Val Kimer, and Bérénice Marlohe have in common?

They are all in this series of maybe related scenes “film,” and have been tricked into working with Malick!

Look at all these dynamic camera shots!

2017 was a year of change for me. I gave up watching the Sharknado movies, because heck, they didn’t need my review saying they were shit on top of the pile of reviews saying they were shit, as it did nothing. Everyone agreed they were shit and I realized I can stop. I also gave up on the Transformers films, because fool me four times, then fuck me over.

I think…I think I might have to do it for Terrence Malick films. Which is a significant director still in the film community, so it is not something that I can say lightly. Or maybe I will never see them in theaters again, and only at home…where I can distract myself with my phone.

At this point when it comes to directors, I am still willing to watch things that Luc Besson has dealt with, even if I generally hate it all, whereas I feel like I will just burn into painful flames if I have to watch a complete Malick film.

They are all now just feeling the same at this point. I can’t imagine saying new stuff for the next film, I didn’t even really say new stuff for this film.

Song to Song is just home made movie trash.

0 out of 4.

This is part of Fantasy and Sci-Fi Week at Gorgon Reviews!

2017 has been a great year for alternative thrillers and horrors. From Split, to Get Out, to It Comes At Night, to even Colossal on some levels, a lot of fucked up shit is happening this year in movies, and we get to watch it on our screens.

So why not turn things even further on their head with A Ghost Story?

The idea behind this movie I have to imagine was taken as a bet. And it seems funny that it is by David Lowery who just gave us Pete’s Dragon. I wonder how many parallels can be made between the two?

Omg turn around such spooks watch out!

The story is about a man (Casey Affleck) and a woman (Rooney Mara), madly in love with each other. The man is a musician, the woman really enjoys books and writing notes. They fight some times, sure, but they at least communicate well.

And then the man dies. In a car accident, right outside of their home. Fuck.

The woman identifies the body at the morgue and leaves, unsure of what she is going to do with her life. And then? And then? And then?! The man rises up from his table, still covered in the sheets from the morgue. He walks down the halls and no one notices him. He feels a calling, back to his home.

And in that home is where he stands and waits. He glimpses into the woman’s life that he used to be married to. He sees her in her great levels of grief, he sees her begin to move on with her life. He even sees the worse thing of all – he sees her find another person to love.

Also featuring Liz Franke as a real estate agent and Will Oldham as the Prognosticator.

Something haunts these hallowed empty halls. Something that smells sheety.

Of course of course, how could a film that looks so much like a joke be anything more than a joke? How can a joke supersede its own existence into something greater than the movie average that exists? How can I cry to a man dressed in a ghost sheet costume?

Well, I did. At least five times. An emotionally gripping movie where sure, a lot of it was my own imagination getting away from me imagining how similar circumstances would affect my own life. But that’s what movies should do, draw upon your own life experiences and make you feel shit.

But I am getting ahead of myself. The movie. First thing someone should notice is the aspect ratio. It is 1.33:1, which is basically a box with rounded edges, to make the whole thing seem like an old styled family film. It is not just the introduction, or the ghost scenes, it is the whole film. And the film uses very minimal camera movement. Long scenes where it just sits as the characters move around, or scenes where it basically floats around the house/room/office like a ghost itself.

In ghost form, Affleck doesn’t say anything (if it even is Affleck under those sheets). But he says so much in those darkened sheet eyes. Fuck this is hard to describe.

A Ghost Story is possibly one of the realest feeling films this year. Mara herself just captivates the idea of grief incarnate. Watching her just exist in the home alone brings so much pain to the viewers. You just want to jump through the screen and hold her, letting her know everything is not okay but she is okay and she will be fine. Just get out of the house, make some friends.

In this film you get to watch Mara eat pie. Like a real human being. One long shot of her just going into some pie, with a break away shot, then more goddamn pie. It is the most human thing you will see in cinemas this year.

A Ghost Story is an experience unlike many others. It takes us across time to question what is the purpose of life and how hard it is to move on – both for those who survive and for those who do not.

4 out of 4.

Netflix has decided to go hardcore with 2017. They are releasing movies every week. New shows. A fucking comedy special every week. New content all the time, and new fodder for me to review with relative ease.

Had I ever seen a poster or trailer or anything for The Discovery? Fuck no. But it is new, has people I like in it, and was available for me to watch while laying down in my bed. Thank you technology.

As long as they keep churning out original content that will interest me, I will keep on reviewing them. Most recently I checked out I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, and I am sure I missed at least 2-3 other films since then.

Netflix is not paying me for this introduction.

But they did threaten to steal my brain energies if I don’t visit them daily.

Set in the not so distant future, in this world, science has made a major discovery. Thomas Harbor (Robert Redford) has discovered with near certainty with science and shit that there IS an afterlife. He didn’t figure out what kind of afterlife, but that some part of the conscious moves on to another plane. It could be terrible, it could be amazing, it could be boring as fuck. No one knows, but we do now know that SOMETHING is out there.

And unfortunately that news has hit the world hard, and suicide rates over the last year have skyrocketed. Now that people know they will go somewhere, they are more likely to end it all and take the quick release. The world is a sadder place, more funerals and so much shit.

Will (Jason Segel) is on a ferry to his home, where he meets Isla (Rooney Mara). They have their different opinions on what the research means, but it is really all that anyone talks about now. Turns out Will is the son of the scientist, and he doesn’t like what it has done and does’t trust it. Isla is just a woman about to commit suicide, who he saves.

The doctor is about to announce a new discovery though. One that adds on to his previous discovery, hopefully able to answer specifically where the subconscious goes.

Also starring Jesse Plemons and Riley Keough.

The beach almost has enough screen time to be a cast member as well.

The Discovery was a slower film, but one with a great concept. Add in some high tier actors, and you got a low budget film with quite a story to tell. An exciting story, but still one that doesn’t push the afterlife or religion certainty in your face.

Segel and Mara are strong in this film. Segel continues to give very strong dramatic performances when you never expect it, like The End of the Tour and Jeff, Who Lives At Home. Mara is rarely ever off of her dramatic game, so that comes to no surprise here either. Redford doesn’t have as much to work with, but does okay in his role.

The middle is long and drawn out, and it takes awhile to figure out just where the story is going. And because of that, the ending feels a bit rushed. Which is a shame, because the ending reveals are quite wonderful. The ideas presented are definitely science fiction in nature, but an exciting idea and one that doesn’t get explored enough in a serious tone.

I personally really enjoyed the film, despite its faults. I hope it leads to more serious sci-fi films on Netflix. And no, it is nowhere close to being as good as Arrival.

3 out of 4.

I didn’t know a whole lot about Lion going into it. Well, I knew it had some sort of awards hype, and that I’d probably cry (yay!), but that was it.

Outside of it starring Dev Patel. And you know what? Dev Patel really needs a win right now.

Last year he had Chappie and The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. This year he had The Man Who Knew Infinity. Outside of The Newsroom and Slumdog Millionaire, he hasn’t had a lot of hits.

So really, I just hope it is good for him, as I know he is a great actor, he just doesn’t get to be in great films.

Is that the best Lion Face you got? I mean, I get the mane. But wheres the roar?

Saroo (Sunny Pawar) is just a little boy, around 5 year old, living in a small town in India. His mom (Priyanka Bose) is single, so she is a laborer, having to care for four kids. Saroo has an older brother, Guddu (Abhishek Bharate) who he looks up to and convinced him to take him on a small work trip. On the way, Saroo got too tired, so Guddu had to leave him at the train station. As long as Saroo stays there, Guddu will find him after the job and take him home. But when Saroo wakes up he gets scared. He looks around and he is all alone. And he ends up asleep on an empty train, and when he wakes up, he is speeding along the tracks unable to get off for a couple of days. When he gets off finally, he is 1600 km from home in Calcutta.

Being five, he doesn’t know a lot about his home, his mother’s real name, or where he came from. After living on the streets, and eventually getting into an Orphanage, they still cannot find his family. But they have a family willing to adopt him. John (David Wenham) and Sue Brierley (Nicole Kidman). In Australia. In the Tasmania part of Australia. Pretty far away.

Needless to say, he obviously goes, now 7 years old for a whole new life. And 20 years later, he is going to college for Hotel Management. He is older, so that is why Dev Patel is in this movie. He has a girlfriend (Rooney Mara), he has basically forgotten about his past life. Until he sees a reminder in the form of a pastry he always wanted to try. Following the advice of a few friends, he uses this new thing called Google Earth (This was 2008) to find a theoretical circle of travel he might have come from and you know, slowly look over all of it for his home.

And it drives him insane, taking over his life, making him leave his job, leave his girlfriend and talk a lot less with his family. A lot of strain. Given that this is a true story, you can figure out how part of this end.

Also featuring Divian Ladwa and Kershav Jadhav as the other son adopted by the Brierley’s, who has his own sort of problems.

They both lost their families, but Saroo lost his at a bigger scale.

Strangely enough, Lion is actually surprisingly similar to Slumdog Millionaire. An Indian boy has terrible things happen to him in his youth, but eventually something incredible happens to him, and he has to spend a lot of time searching for a loved one. Except Slumdog Millionaire, yes a drama, also has a lot of funny moments and is a romance. Lion is drama, straight through and through, and one that will just make you cry a variety of ways.

We get sad cries AND happy cries with Lion. And not just at a few points in the movie, but just sprinkled throughout it.

A lot of credit should be given towards Sunny Pawar, who was the star of the film for 40-50 minutes. You just feel so bad for the little kid, watching him wander around, escaping bad people, dealing with this shit, AT SUCH A YOUNG AGE. It is heart breaking. He does a wonderful job and will probably be overlooked.

Patel also did a wonderful job, dealing with the angst of remembering his past. And of course the moment where he makes it back home and finds his mother? Yeah, that is when the tears will start flowing. A shout out as well to Kidman, who plays a non-bitchy role for the first time in forever, who brought a lot of emotion as well.

Lion is a great story, well acted, and while it may be emotionally manipulative, it is a good sort of manipulative. Definitely one of the better journeys in film this year.

4 out of 4.

Technically, yes, I have a few biases going into watching Kubo and the Two Strings. But for plenty of good reasons.

Laika, the makers of this film, have a pretty damn solid track record. Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, these guys are stop motion geniuses and their name means quality.

The Boxtrolls also had the best trailers of any film that year. Kubo and the Two Strings? The first and only trailer I watched was decent. It wasn’t as creatively done, but the story itself felt original, large scaled, and awesome awesome.

So yeah, I’ve been excited to see this movie for over a year. This has been my most anticipated animated film all year, even more so than Moana. I am only human, let me be excited.

Shit, this kid is so bad ass he only needs one eye.

Kubo (Art Parkinson) is a 10 or 11 year old boy, and yeah, he is missing an eye. He lives with his mother (Brenda Vaccaro) in a cave by a village. She is out of it, as she had a head injury when Kubo was just a baby, escaping from a threat. A lot of her day is spent staring out in the sea, but sometimes she remembers and tells him stories of his father, a great samurai.

His dad apparently died when he was a baby protecting him. From who? From his grandfather (mom’s dad), the Moon King (Ralph Fiennes) and her sisters (Rooney Mara). The Moon King took Kubo’s eye for reasons and he wanted the other eye as well. So they have been in hiding, Kubo has not been allowed out at night or else he would be discovered. During the day he would love to tell stories in the village, using a magical shamisen to bring origami and paper to life to create wonderful visuals.

Well, as we all know, eventually he is discovered. And a lot of bad things happen. But now Kubo finds himself in the middle of nowhere, with a talking monkey by his side. A talking monkey?! Yes, a toy he always carried was brought to life to protect him, named Monkey (Charlize Theron). And eventually, also a great samurai turned beetle samurai named Beetle (Matthew McConaughey). Kubo can tell a tale, but he is not a namer.

Kubo and the gang have to find three parts of a legendary armor, heard only in stories. They are the only things that might be able to protect him from his grandfather and protect his remaining eye. Oh, and sure, George Takei voices a villager, and I am 90% certain he says “Oh My” at some point.

Holy shit, the moon sisters are straight out of my nightmares.

Kubo and the Two Strings exceeded all of my expectations and gave me a tale for the ages. Laika, known for their stop animation films, still keep up with the design, but also use a lot of CGI for building backgrounds and certain special effects. Despite the CGI, the world is still incredibly immersive and easy to get lost in.

I unfortunately didn’t get to see the movie in 3D, but even without it, I felt like I was almost a part of their world with the large movie screen. Every character was rich and unique, the colors vivid, and of course the dialogue was amusing and dark intertwined.

Kubo goes to some scary places and deals with a lot of real and scary situations. They deal with death, being alone, mystery, and more death. They really went hard on those “thematic elements” in its PG rating. But it of course also deals with friendship, family (in the positive way), memories, and coping with loss. Some more heavy subjects, but more positive.

The voice acting was also better than I expected. Seeing the big names, I rolled my eyes, but McConaughey, Theron, and Fiennes all did amazing jobs.

Do yourself a favor. See Kubo and see him in theaters. Go on the adventure to hear and see his story. I for one want to see the adventure again and again.

4 out of 4.

Live action remakes are of course all the rage nowadays, but Pan is not necessarily just another film in that trend. The Peter Pan story is older than Disney, so anyone can do anything they want with it. In fact, Disney plans on eventually doing their own live action Peter Pan movie within the next decade already, so you might as get used to it.

But Pan on its own can be something different. After all, we had Hook in the early 90’s, a very diverse film, both in its cast and how people took to it. A modern Peter Pan story, with a grown up Peter Pan! How dare they! I personally loved it and thought the film had a lot of heart.

So we have Pan, which has a similar naming scheme to Hook, going the opposite way and making a Peter Pan prequel. Peter when he was just a regular boy who couldn’t fly. People love Origin stories right?!

Especially if they have thousands of costumes and beards and make up.

Peter (Levi Miller), like every good Orphan, is left as a wee little baby on the steps of an orphanage by his mother Mary (Amanda Seyfried). And he never sees from her again. Now he is about…I dunno, 11. World War II is of course happening, so London occassionally gets bombed. Peter’s life is spent defying the nun (Kathy Burke) with his friend Nibs (Lewis MacDougall).

Next thing Peter knows, he is on board a flying pirate ship. The ship goes to Neverland of course! And the ship has been stealing Orphan boys around the world for ages. They are to be free and to live their lives as awesome people, as long as they can work for it. Namely, Captain Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman) wants them to mine for Pixie Dust for some secret reason.

Yadda yadda, Peter meets James Hook (Garrett Hedlund), with both hands, they find out her can fly, and eventually they escape with one Sam Smiegel (Adeel Akhtar) to get back home. However, Peter thinks his mom might be out here, so he wants to stay and look for her. This gets them to meet the natives. There they meet the Chief and Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara) and a great warrior Kwahu (Tae-joo Na) and find out that Pan is supposed to be some Chosen One Jesus figure to lead a revolt against the pirates and free Neverland.

Yay fun! Peter just wants to find his mom though, so…

Also featuring Nonso Anozie as Blackbeard’s muscle and Cara Delevingne as a mermaid, apparently.

At some points this does feel like an Indian Jones clone though, so watch out for snakes.

I just remembered. Almost no one likes origin stories. That is the biggest complaint about modern super hero films. Every new person seems to need an origin story. Even if we have already seen it many times before in film. We get shit like Fantastic Four where over half the film they don’t have any powers.

Technically no one knows about the origins of Peter Pan, but that is because no one cares. Peter Pan before he was a pirate fighting flying bad ass, was what, none of those things? So we get a story about a regular boy? I am not saying that regular boy stories are boring, because there is a shit ton out there, but knowing he eventually becomes someone like Peter Pan kind of ruins it a bit.

Pan is a strange film that doesn’t seem to know what it is. It is all over the place in terms of story. Blackbeard as the main villain seems strange, but not as strange as Hook being Peter’s BFF older friend. Sure, you might be thinking a Peter Pan origin story means we get to see a Captain Cook origin as well. We get to see that crocodile bite his hand off, fear of clocks, all of that. That could be fun! Well we get about jack and shit of that. The movie ends with them taking some boys off to Neverland, all happy. They have a few references, but no, we don’t get any of it. They want to save that for some futuristic Pan 2 that now will never exist.

See, that would have been a good story. To see what happened to Hook to make him a bad guy. What ruined their friendship. But we get nothing from this story and it is a lot more wasted potential.

Speaking of none of that, there was a lot of hullabaloo about the song choices in Pan. For some reason, large crowds in Neverland (set in World War II) are singing Smell’s Like Teen Spirit and Blitzkrieg Bop. I didn’t mind how they sounded months ago, but the problem is they have NO CONTEXT at all in the movie. They don’t fit the events around them, the lyrics don’t match anything, they make absolutely no sense. They are terribly added to the film, so they should definitely be mocked endlessly.

Pan. Wasted potential. All spectacle. Not even Jackman was good in this one. I feel a bit bad for Mara. At least has Carol.

1 out of 4.

As it happens every year, this year I find myself lacking in the Best Actress potential nominee department. Somehow these films with strong lady leads allude me, it is probably cause I am a man.

But damn it, this year I got to see Carol before they announced Oscar nominations. Sure, it might presumptuous for me to assume that it will get nominated for anything, but it literally received two nominations for Best Actress for the Spirit Awards. One film, two spots of the five. That is pretty damn good. I admire that they didn’t try to shoe horn one of their leads into a supporting actress role, like plenty of films attempt depending on how crowded a potential category is. And after all, competing against yourself must feel a bit awkward. But for 40% of the nominees to be for Carol, I’d have to imagine at least one of them be given some love for the Academy Awards.

Not that strong independent women need to be shown anything at all, technically. Fuck, feminism is hard. What do I say? Just start the review? Okay okay.

See? I am so feminist, I won’t even mention that thing that is on Carol’s head.

Film is called Carol? Fine, I will talk about Therese (Rooney Mara) first then. Therese is young and living in her own apartment in NYC in 1949-51, I couldn’t figure out the year. She works part time at a department store for the Christmas holidays, selling dolls and trains. She has a cheap camera for taking photos, thinking she might be a photographer one day. She is dating a fine young boy, Richard Semco (Jake Lacy), who wants to marry her and taker he on vacations to Europe.

But then she meets Carol (Cate Blanchett). Carol is older and richer and lives out in New Jersey. She has a husband, Harge (Kyle Chandler) but they are getting a divorced, and a young daughter (played by Sadie Heim and Kk Heim. Yes twins, and no, Kk is not her official real name). Why divorce? Well, the love is gone. And Carol might have had “a thing” with the godmother, Abby (Sarah Paulson), Carol’s childhood friend. Yes, a thing means a romantic relationship, when she was already married, to a woman.

Well, due to reasons, Carol and Therese become friends, Therese never really knowing she could find a woman desirable. But this was set 65 years ago and that would not fly. In fact, it is very bad news for Carol’s divorce, as her husband is using her past moral indiscretions as reasons to file for full custody of their daughter, not joint. This wedge is meant to bring her back into the fold, but Carol would rather flee the North east to be away from him, to be herself, until the trial where hopefully it would all just be heresay. But she wants Therese to go with her. Travel west, see the country side. Enjoy each others company. You know. Regular road trip stuff.

Some other guys are in the movie, but they aren’t lesbians, so fuck them. John Magaro, Cory Michael Smith, and Nik Pajic.

I would be appalled as well dancing with Chandler.
You just know he is constantly whispering “Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose” in her ear.

Carol was intricate, intimate, and insanely detailed [Editor’s Note: Yes, that was already covered by intricate.] Carol seems like the type of film that must be based on real events, with the actresses involved recreating the scenes word for word, smile for smile, as it happened in real life. From the first frame, you will begin to feel that old timey movie atmosphere wash over you. It feels like a film that literally came out of the 1950’s, but with the cameras used and credit style. Of course my own viewings of 1950’s cinema is excruciatingly low, so I am not a complete authority on that. But damn it, it still made me feel that way.

Since my rating is already obvious, my only real complaint about this film is that it took me quite a long time to get really involved with it. The beginning is slow, mostly the scenes of Therese without Carol where she is hanging out with her boyfriend and his friends. Yes it is important to establish her life outside of the future romance and not make her a love sick puppy, but they dragged on. Potentially on purpose, to show the boredom that had crept into her life.

But the scenes between Carol and Therese? Everything was golden. Their eyes, their body language, their tones. Fuck, I could stare at Rooney Mara starring at Cate Blanchett all day. It was that real. These two women were complete power houses in their own right. I can see them both being nominated for Best Actress for the Oscars as well, not just Blanchett for playing the titular role.

Carol will probably be in the running for Best Director as well. I think this is a heavy category this year, with Spotlight and The Revenant, but Todd Haynes completely dominated this film. Everything was on spot and meticulously planned. He is the type of guy who has great attention to detail, but isn’t insane about it like Wes Anderson.

Finally, if I wanted to be vague, I could describe this film as “Cate Blanchett has a mid life crisis, leaves her husband, and travels west” and you might think I was talking about Blue Jasmine. What’s that? Blanchett won Best Actress for that film? You don’t say.

3 out of 4.

Without a doubt, Her was one of my most anticipated movies of 2013 to watch. That is why I was disappointed I had to wait until 2014 to see it! It is one of those rather annoying ideas by the guys trying to win Oscars. They release a movie on a limited run near the end of the year, then wide release in early January after it has built up steam.

Living in the middle of Iowa, where they have zero movie previews, you will always get the short end of the “limited release” stick.

Despite the wait, Spike Jonze has made some great movies in the past (Being John Malkovich/Adaptation), so I was hoping he could deliver on his first major release that he both wrote and directed.

Especially with a topic as serious as this one.

Her is set sometime in the distant future. In this world, human interaction is basically nonexistent. Everyone is attached to their computer devices that they carry around with them, more extreme than it is now. In fact, Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) works at a job where he writes hand written letters for people, because people really don’t know how to do that anymore. They’d rather leave their intimacy to strangers.

He is also going through a divorce with Catherine (Rooney Mara), but he is reluctant to sign the papers because he doesn’t want that part of his life to end.

Regardless, Theodore decides to upgrade his computer’s operating system, as it comes with a new artificial intelligence software that will adapt and learn over time. His new operating system, which gives herself the name Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), immediately makes his life more organized and better. In fact, he now has someone he can talk to who seems real. Yay, human-ish contact!

Then, Samantha and Theodore fall in love.

The only other main character is Amy (Amy Adams), his long time friend (who he once dated), who is also currently married (Matt Letscher). She provides an actual human constant experience to his life. Chris Pratt and Olivia Wilde also make appearances.

I bet overall, Theo is actually in love with himself.

The basic concepts of Her are not entirely unique. Futuristic society and very smart computers who have human personalities. See, even Disney had a made for TV movie, Smart House along the same lines. But rarely is love touched upon.

Phoenix, like we have come to expect, did phenomenal in this role. He was a dreamer, but alone, a lover, but afraid. The movie is mostly dialogue based, most of which is between Theodore and Samantha, leaving the camera on Phoenix for most of the film to react and talk. Since Samantha doesn’t have a face, the film just falls on his shoulders. Despite his crazy good performance, he will probably fall short of Best Actor Oscar thanks to Leonardo DiCaprio and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

I thought the writing and dialogue in the movie felt incredibly realistic for what was going on. It was also quite beautiful. You could tell that the main character had a lot bottling up inside of him, so every time he started to talk with Samantha, he could let it all out and be real to himself. The love between him and the operating system was by far one of the more heart felt performances of the year.

Because the subject matters of Her are so serious, I can say that after one viewing I don’t think I was really able to understand and get everything I needed out of the movie. This is the type of film that might require multiple viewings, not because of plot twists or surprise endings, but to really capture and appreciate everything that happens subtly through facial expressions and dialogue.

Her is by far one of the more relevant films of 2013. I don’t even have to go into detail about how it relates to modern day life. I’d suggest watching with an open mind and an open heart.

4 out of 4.

Do I want to see a movie with Casey Affleck in it? Hell yes I want to see a movie with Casey Affleck in it.

Sure, I am one of the biggest Ben fanboys there are. But his brother has some acting chops. Did you see him in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford? If you didn’t, you are missing out on a long, but really well damn acted movie.

Either way, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is apparently a modern western of sorts. Set in the 1970s and Texas. So I will go in, expecting the best.

The best being, I dunno, a lot of gun shooting I guess. And crying.

Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) is a trouble makin’, no good, so-and-so. He’s an outlaw, quick on the draw. But his lady, too, is outlawish. Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara). But she is pregnant, and wants them to get out of the job. Alright fine.

BUT NOT BEFORE A SHOOTOUT. In a house, bullets flying, and Ruth ends up killing a police officer. That is no good. So Bob claims the entire responsibility for the crime. Killing a cop isn’t an easy fix, so Bob is given a strict and long sentence, so he could protect his lady and soon to be child.

Well, many years later, Bob is sick of prison. He has tried to escape at least five times before, but at least the sixth time is finally successful. The rest of the people involved in the escape get caught quickly, but not Bob. He is on a mission. He wants to see his child for the first time, a girl, still a child, but has grown a lot over the last few years.

But he can’t just go straight home. No, that is where the cops expect him to be. Not to mention he made a lot of enemies in his outlawin’, so others are surely out to kill him. The only reason he escaped was to see his woman and child, so really, nothing is going to stand in his way. Also starring Ben Foster and Keith Carradine.

At this point, I think it is illegal for me to not mention/show great mustaches in reviews.

Well, if I came for just acting, this film didn’t disappoint. I was more amazed how much I liked Rooney Mara in this role, more than anything. I haven’t seen her ever try to play such a passive, wait around, old timey role before. Just a loving mother trying to survive. So that was cool.

Casey Affleck, like always, felt really genuine.

But man. The story. A nice idea. But seemed filled with a lot of silly nonsense after he escaped from jail. Just go to the house already! Develop some sort of ruse! Just do it!

That’s what I was yelling at the screen. I don’t dislike it for the character choices, I dislike it for the director making those characters make those choices.

It could not keep my interest after the first 30 minutes or so, and didn’t really seem worth it when I got to the end. Sad times on this end, oh well.

1 out of 4.