A French British Brazilian Canadian American drama directed by Walter Salles, starring Kristen Stewart, Amy Adams, Elisabeth Moss, Kirsten Dunst and Viggo Mortensen.
An aspiring writer has an interesting friend. They wander around popping bennies, drinking liquor, sharing sexual encounters with women, speeding when they drive and hitchhiking.
The premise sounds good, right? At least interesting. Unfortunately, it didn't go anywhere from there. That was it. Most of it looked good. There were a few too many handheld shots for my taste (hand holding is for romance, not movies). The characters were relatively good. Much more memorable than those from 1980s Chinese kung fu flicks. There was a really good musical performance at 1:40:32. The jazz vocalist onstage is either speaking a foreign language or using nonsense words. That's really all I have to say about this. I rate it o.k. because the subject matter was good, but the plot was seriously lacking.
An American science fiction directed by Jeff Nichols, starring Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst and Sam Shepard.
A boy with special powers is on his way to a certain place with his father. They previously belonged to a religious cult and are also being tracked by the government.
This was modern American mediocrity on display. I thought that an hour and 46 minutes was too long for so little to happen. The plot was so simplistic that it really should have been shorter. There was very little development of characters either forward through the plot or in development of back-stories. The dialogue was written relatively well and the actors gave convincing performances. Sets/locations and costumes would best be described as mundane. Camera-work seemed decent because I could see everything that was happening. Some shots looked good, but it wasn't anything special. The special effects were all digital (a standard of modern American mediocrity) and looked convincing, but again, not extraordinary. The audio was not so great. I thought that music and sound effects were mixed to high and dialogue mixed too low, but again, that is another Hollywood standard. IMDB gives this 6.6/10, Rotten Tomatoes has 83% tomatometer with 67% audience score and MetaCritic rates it 76/100 for and average of 73%. I agree with the C- grade because it wasn't bad, but wasn't good either. I rate this o.k.
An American drama directed by Sofia Coppola, starring James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Kirsten Dunst and Danny DeVito.
Boys from school chase after a group of sisters with strict parents.
I felt like this whole film was leading up to something that never happened. It seemed like all beginning with very little middle and no ending. The plot held my interest and I kind of cared what happened with the characters. The camera-work was really good. At times, it was noticeable in a good way and at others, invisible as the story came through. The pacing seemed rather slow to me. Overall, it was really weird for such tame subject matter. I'm giving this a strange pink rating for being so far out there in such an odd way. I don't know what to think about it.
A science fiction drama directed by Michel Gondry, starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst and Elijah Wood.
A couple have their memories of each other erased and then meet again.
This film starts at the end and ends where it started. It's so appropriate that the characters reunite in Montauk, because that is where the government has been centering their trauma based mind control experiments for quite some time. The plot was good, but I didn't like the characters and I thought they were under-developed, despite the fact that their whole past together was shown. The style was kind of cool as it skipped around while the guys messed with Jim Carrey's brain. I'm rating this o.k. for a balance of good and bad things.
A CG animation directed by Chris Delaporte and Pascal Pinon, starring Kirsten Dunst.A village of people gather sap for their gods. An adventurous young woman doesn't believe all that the priest tells her and runs away from the sick society. She is found by a man who (with his army of worms in mech suits) has built a spaceship to leave that world behind. The girl tells him of a blue sun, which is really an artifact from the man's civilization. They head out to save the artifact and the girl's people.Some of the plot was relevant to the real world, but otherwise it was pretty "run of the mill". The animation looked almost like Pixar and the characters seemed Disney-like in some ways. Disney characters' minds are all very closed, if you've ever noticed. They are very 2 dimensional. I'm rating this o.k. because I enjoyed watching it, but it resembles Freemasonic brainwashing material. Oh, and don't think that because it's "brainWASHING" that your brain gets cleaned. It doesn't.
A fantasy directed by Joe Johnston, starring Robin Williams and Kirsten Dunst.A boy finds a magic board game and plays it with a girl he knows. The game causes jungle things to pop into existence in the area that it is played in. The boy gets sucked into the board game and the girl runs away. 26 years later, a brother and sister pick up the same game and start to play. They release the boy (now a man) from the game and retrieve the girl (now a woman) who played it with him in order to finish the game.Robin Williams is cool. It's a fact. The plot and characters were good. The style had a little too much CG for my tastes, but the pacing was right. I remember watching this film when it came out and liking it. I'm rating it good.
