Movies Watched The Week of 4/12 - 4/18

Hello gang.  Welcome back to the newest and kinda light edition of my weekly jerk off sesh.  It's a smaller amount of choices this week because I have a life god dammit and works is bullshit and all that jazz.  But nothing bad here and some really great elements in each.  So sit back on this particularly lazy Sunday and enjoy my thrown together ramblings about these movies.

A Most Violent Year (April 13th, 2015)
Director: JC Chandor

Starring: Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain, Albert Brooks, and David Oyelowo

JC Chandor doesn’t make typical movies.  He’ll take a plot that could be a bit more entertaining in someone else’s hands, but slows them down and makes character pieces out of them.  Like his last flick All Is Lost.  That was a movie that was about Robert Redford getting stranded on a sinking boat in the ocean.  It’s very similar in plot to Gravity, but it is much slower and has virtually no dialogue and Redford is the only character we see.  And with this newest movie from him, we could have gotten a seedier and most violent tale than he gave us.  Especially with a title like A Most Violent Year, one wouldn’t begrudge him for going a bit bloodier.  But he holds off the baser elements of the story and rather shows the simpler moments and existential crisis’ of Oscar Isaacs Abel Morales.  Abel runs an oil company, and he is dealing with multiple crisis’ at the same time.  He is about to spend a ton of money and a bank loan on a new piece of land to expand his business.  But that is threatened with the news of a criminal investigation into his business, being chosen as the whipping boy for the widespread Oil company corruption of the day.  All the while, he is dealing with hijackings of his trucks, costing him money.  And the whole movie is essentially Abel trying to deal with all these problems without going dirty, especially when his mafia princess wife Anna (Jessica Chastain) is needling him to do so.  I really dug this movie, even if it is really slow.  Almost painfully slow, but Isaac and Chastain are magnetic enough to keep it watchable.  And the idea of a man trying his damnedest to get along on his talent without trying to cheat the game is cool enough.  I will say I think the movie kinda gets a bit muddled with the message at the end.  But that’s fine, it’s not crippling.  It works within the story.  But it is a movie with greater ambitions, bringing to mind in terms of visuals and tone The Godfather movies.  It doesn’t reach those immense heights, but it’s a good enough movie.  As a way to show off the talents of the two main actors it’s a good showcase. The story and hands is good if not totally fulfilling.

Rating: 8.5/10

The Babadook (April 17th, 2015)
Director: Jennifer Kent
Starring: Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman

A tough little movie to review as I liked it but it was very frustrating.  It’s almost obnoxiously slow paced.  Nothing happens for the more than half the movie.  And there’s only two real characters in the thing, the mother and the son.  The son is an obnoxious piece of human shit, an untethered little shit that goes to show that some kids need a beating every know and then.  And the mother is a push over, this woman completely unable to admit that there’s a problem with not just her son but herself.  And even when shit goes down, it goes down in such a low budget way that the movie can be really silly if you’re not into it.  But by the end of the movie, I kinda liked what it did.  Even though I liked it and was into it, it is a bit silly.  But the overarching idea of the movie being about a woman so racked with grief that she’s let her life fall apart having to literally fight her demons is interesting enough, what horror movies should do more of.  Use the monsters of your movies to reach higher than simple bloodshedding thrills.  And if you aren’t into the movie, the two characters can be obnoxiously unlikeable.  But if you tune into the movies wavelength, you can empathize with this woman and the hellion she has spawned.  But above all else, The Badadook himself is a visually cool monster.  The imagery is really good stuff.  It’s a good movie that could have used a little tightening and maybe a  some more thrills in it, but it’s a good little horror flick.  Much better than It Follows. 

Rating: 8/10

Batman vs Robin (April 18th, 2015)
Director: Jay Oliva
Starring: Jason O'Mara, Stuart Allan, Jeremy Sisto, and Sean Maher

Blah blah blah, another home run from DC.  If you read this, you know how I feel about DC’s animated offerings.  This isn’t the one to disappoint.  Being a direct sequel to Son of Batman, this is a step up.  May not reach Flashpoint or Throne of Atlantis, but it’s really fucking good.  Taking inspiration from Grant Morrisons Batman run and Scott Snyders New 52 run, this is a much more streamlined story with a better emotional core than Son of Batman.  Dealing with the relationship between Bruce and Damian in a much more interesting and emotionally resonant way than before, this actually has a nice little heart to it.  And the action is superb, and continuing the push towards completely unsuitable for children violence.  The voice acting is really solid as usual and the visuals are as well.  It’s just a great movie and a real treat for fans.

Rating: 9.5/10






Top Movies

1. Batman vs Robin
2. A Most Violent Year
3. The Babadook

- Tom Lorenzo