Double Feature: Mayhem (2017) & Newness (2017)

Double feature time!

Can I just say how excited I am to talk about these two movies? By far, the most excited I’ve felt in a while. I might actually discuss Newness and films of that sort in a video, once that initial video gets edited…

Let’s just get right to it then!

Mayhem (2017)

Director: Joe Lynch

Cast: Steven Yeun, Samara Weaving, Steven Brand, Caroline Chikezie, Kerry Fox, Dallas Roberts, Mark Frost, André Eriksen

A virus spreads through an office complex causing white collar workers to act out their worst impulses. – IMDB

Over the top violence is what Mayhem is all about. Its extreme and over the top and every bit of it is just all kinds of fun. It goes way out of control. Its makes us wonder how much people repress their feelings at work and just how a virus like this would just be absolutely nuts. For what the film wants to achieve, it definitely seems like they got there.

Their two leads played by Steven Yeun and Samara Weaving are incredibly awesome. Just because they each had their own objective and eventually also grew to trust each other despite the virus in their systems. Plus to find their emotions amplified without any barriers gave them their own credibility. The best comparison I had when I was watching this captivated was the movie was structured like The Raid, where they started at the bottom floor and worked their way to the protected yet infected shareholders at the top to get what they deserved. Except this was much more comedic. This gave them the opportunity to defeat one person or barrier after the next and many times it was playing on events that happened at the beginning of the movie before everyone’s virus started kicking in. Mayhem may have its predictable bits that a story like usually has but the non stop action and crazy spiral of events makes it hard to turn away from. Its entertainment at its very best.

Overall, Mayhem is a definite worthy watch if you are into this type of bloody and violent horror comedy. Steven Yeun and Samara Weaving are great as the leads but that doesn’t take away from the myriad of supporting character they need to get through that represent the exaggerated roles in the company as they move up the corporate ladder.

Newness (2017)

Director: Drake Doremus

Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Laia Costa, Danny Huston, Courtney Eaton, Matthew Gray Gubler, Pom Klementieff

In contemporary Los Angeles, two millennials navigating a social media-driven hookup culture begin a relationship that pushes both emotional and physical boundaries. – IMDB

I love movies like these ones and Drake Doremus seems to have hit a winner with this one, especially when compared to the previous movie of his that I reviewed called Equals (review). With Newness, it takes us on a journey through the relationship of millenials trapped in the world of online dating. Perhaps this story might not hit the chords for a lot of people on every level but at some level, it will highlight its rawness and realness of relationships whether it be the struggle to communicate and be open about their feelings or whether its about knowing whether you have crossed the line from liking to loving someone and perhaps for some, its learning when you are willing to settle down instead of always searching for what this movie is called, Newness. I personally have a soft spot for this type of movie topic, especially when it rides the border of being in the steamy romance category while still delivering a deeper message.

While I do enjoy a lot of the films that Nicholas Hoult has been a part of, I can’t say I’m a big fan of his acting. However, in Newness, it feels like he grasped the role in such a believable way. In fact, I’d go to the extent to say to date, its my favorite role of his. It helps in romance movies that the actress is also doing a fantastic job in portraying her role. Laia Costa literally stole the show. She felt real and we watched Marty and Gabi grow on screen and find ways for their relationship to work and create a balance for their desires and struggles but still remain together. Their characters weren’t perfect. They made mistakes and had to get through it together. Fact is, it made them real and genuine. They were also paired up with some great supporting roles. Gabi meets this rich divorced man called Larry, played by Danny Huston who wakes her up a little on his perspective of relationships. While Marty has talks with his best friend, Paul who shares a lot of insight on his thoughts on relationships. Different characters at different stages in life giving their own perspective on relationships as these two tried to work out their own was what it needed.

Newness probably isn’t for everybody. It deserves a bit of an open mind on this subject and probably a more forgiving view on the trial and errors of the path the two main characters take. Romance films have been pretty lackluster of late but Newness is definitely one of my new favorites. In my mind, Newness is about the bumpy road in relationships and finding the same pacing as your other half until you reach the same page. People change as they go through the different things in their own lives and the people they meet and we don’t all have a defined road map of how to navigate relationships, love and all the feelings that go in between. Newness may be about millenials (which I apparently am considered) but it delivers a much deeper aspect of relationships, much less about the events but what these decisions did for the characters to allow them to develop. I love a great story with fantastic character development and Newness had all of that.

On a side note: Its peaked my interest on Drake Doremus’ directorial efforts to take a look as it seems on a quick glance that he has a love for making romantic films of all kinds.

Double Feature: Deidra & Laney Rob a Train (2017) & Equals (2015)

Time for the next double feature! I’m aiming for a double feature every week now! Exciting stuff, right? Yay to organization! As usual, these are quite alphabetical randomness. Deidra and Laney Rob a Train seemed like a fun movie and Equals seems like a more dramatic romantic thing. I’ve been having this desire to bring some justice to figuring out whether Bella is a bad character or whether its Kristen Stewart. You might see a few more of her movies popping up here as I try to find more of her movies depending on what Netflix has to offer obviously.

Let’s check it out!

Deidra & Laney Rob a Train (2017)

Director: Sydney Freeland

Cast: Ashleigh Murray, Rachel Crow, Myko Olivier, Tim Blake Nelson, Danielle Nicolet, David Sullivan, Sasheer Zamata

After their mother ends up in jail, two sisters turn to train robbery in order to support their family. –IMDB

Heist, coming of age and a rag tag family brings together Deidra & Laney Rob a Train. Its about sisterhood and high schools as much as surviving and sustaining their living conditions. In many ways, Deidra and Laney Rob a Train was a pleasant surprise. While it had some flaws, the film was a lot of fun to watch. Their inexperience and how their youth brings in some interesting choices for their props and such in their robberies. At the same time, their family consists of a mom who breaks down at the beginning. Their dad turns out to be this bad influence full of bad records which poses as a bad father figure and can lead to why they are pushed into a rather extreme way to try to keep up with their expenses for the sisters. At the same time, the sisters here also show maybe not enough of their sister relationship but does give each of them their own space for the characters to grow as Deidra prepares to head to college and Laney tries to find the confidence she needs to see herself in a different way and not get trampled on and looked over.

At the same time, being a heist/crime film, these girls’ train robbing days are interrupted by the appearance of a train investigator (or whatever his title is) Truman who starts sniffing around to figure out who the perpetrators are as he hunts around. While Truman is somewhat of a goofball, his appearance only emphasizes how we’ve bonded with Deidra and Laney and start feeling a sense of anxiety for whether Truman will catch up with them and what will happen when and if he does.

With a fair share of fun and ambition, along with some coming of age plots and family, Deidra and Laney Rob a Train is a nice Netflix Originals to catch. It definitely exceeded my expectations and hits a lot of the feel-good moments with some of the humor here which works pretty well. All in all, a very worthy movie to check out.

Equals (2015)

Director: Drake Doremus

Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Kristen Stewart, David Selby, Guy Pearce, Jacki Weaver, Kate Lyn Sheil

In an emotionless utopia, two people fall in love when they regain their feelings from a mysterious disease, causing tensions between them and their society. – IMDB

It seems that my connection to both Nicholas Hoult and Kristen Stewart performances are very one toned love stories, Warm Bodies and Twilight respectively. With that said, the story told here is something of a Romeo and Juliet forbidden love sort of scenario. The futuristic world achieves peace through eliminating emotions and feelings which are thought to be engineered between conception and birth so when someone has this, they have Switched-On Syndrome (aka SOS). Not surprisingly, Silas (Nicholas Hoult) and Nia (Kristen Stewart) both end up having different stages of SOS and are attracted to each other but need to hide it away. There’s a lot to like about Equals. The futuristic world and the idea of it works to a certain extent, the color palette in the scenes also complement to the mood a lot and then there’s the soundtrack that also works well, particularly in the scenes where Nia and Silas spend time together and embrace their feelings in secret.

However, there was a shred of weird sense as I watched Equals that something didn’t work and yet I couldn’t pinpoint what it was. Nicholas Hoult and Kristen Stewart was decent. They worked for the material provided to them. Although, there was a few scenes that Nicholas Hoult’s character felt odd in the beginning but did seem to grow on me as the movie moved along. Perhaps a portion of oddity had to do with the fact that this future had a lot of ignorance to make what seemed incredibly obvious between Silas and Nia especially as their feelings grew stronger and it feels slightly contrived. At the same time, the futuristic Romeo and Juliet does work except the ending felt like it wanted to be different but actually might have made it more predictable. Although, there is a supporting role with Guy Pearce and  personally like him a lot although his roles are usually not enough to show off his acting. Either way, I appreciated his role here.

Overall, Equals is an alright film. I have mixed feelings about it. Technically, cinematography, soundtrack and world building, it does such a great job but when it comes to the story, it is more generic which makes the characters and their acting also be reduced to more generic qualities. However, in the grand scheme of looking at Kristen Stewart works, this one is alright.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

I’m about the most clueless person when it comes to Mad Max.  Maybe its shocking or maybe it isn’t, I have a hard time getting through the first movie of the franchise. I’ve tried over and over again and I just can’t stay awake to finish up the second half of the movie (it might be more than that). It could also be that I just fall asleep in a lot of stuff now and it doesn’t even matter the quality. Its one of the reasons Mad Max: Fury Road wasn’t quite as appealing to me as it was for a lot of Mad Max fans, my husband included and its also because of him that I ended up buying the movie. With that said, its time that I should give this one a watch since I’ve heard its fantastic.

Let’s check it out! 🙂

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

 

Director: George Miller

Cast: Charlize Theron, Tom Hardy, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Josh Helman, Zoe Kravitz, Rosie Huntingdon-Whiteley

A woman rebels against a tyrannical ruler in postapocalyptic Australia in search for her home-land with the help of a group of female prisoners, a psychotic worshipper, and a drifter named Max.-IMDB

 Jumping in at a revival of a franchise is a little weird.  For one, I don’t hold that love for Max that some of you franchise lovers might even if its not Mel Gibson playing it anymore.  Plus, I don’t like going into movies that everyone has hyped up a lot because I usually don’t like it quite as much and it makes me have such high expectations.  Mad Max: Fury Road is kind of a mixed bag.  I do think its a very entertaining movie and maybe its just the fact that every time I sit down to watch it, its after a really long day of work and I’d prefer to be sleeping but I did want to get this one done before Oscars (which is this coming Sunday) so I gave it one final go.  I’ve started the movie like 2 times before so I have the first 30 minutes down already and I just continued on.  This is what I realized, while this is a high octane movie and one that has some fantastic action scenes and production design which it boasts quite a bit at the first 30 minutes, it is still rather “slow”.  But the rest of the movie after that point the first chase scene slows down or whatnot, it gets to a point that things pull together and the story it wants to tell is pretty great.

Mad Max: Fury Road is a thrill ride.  There is no doubt about it.  It packs in some great themes and a really grandiose post-apocalyptic world.  I pondered on what the first 30 minutes was trying to show.  I mean the first car chase scene even.  Because that opening with Max being caught and trying to escape was so awesome.  We get to embrace Max and what haunts him. Even the introduction of the tyrannical ruler of Immortan Joe was done well because we get he controls life in essence because he controls water and calls it an addiction which makes his life a contradiction most likely. What I’m saying is that its a sophisticated post-apocalyptic world, one for the adults and not the teens that we usually see hovering around the theatres of late.  It gets you even know what sort of person Immortan Joe is.  That’s already two of the front runners.  But it doesn’t stop there. The most inspiring roles go to Nicholas Hoult as a war boy who just makes you sympathise and feel a little weirded out by his brainwash of believing this Immortan Joe and his Valhalla and witnessing him and all that jazz. And well, who is the rebel here?  Its Charlize Theron playing Furiosa.  What else is there to say, she is incredible! As for what that car chase bit before it slows down a little might just be showing the brainwash level these War Boys have and their beliefs that they’ve been lead to believe which are so off track and far gone and well, to introduce the second plot of why Furiosa is running.

Everyone seems to be looking for something here.  The story is about getting these ladies out and finding the Green Place.  Max joins in for the ride.  The ladies are Immortan Joe’s rebellious wives who want out.  They don’t want to be his objects so they run, hoping for a better tomorrow to control what they want.  Furiosa (and maybe even Max) is looking for some kind of redemption while Nux (Nicholas Hoult) goes on a journey of his own as he sees the truth but in reality he is the most loyal character here for what he chooses to follow. This gives the story a decent amount of character development (which is something I love).

However, the show stealer here is not even the great cast but the production value from the appearances of the characters and the War Boys, even that guitar playing dude strung up on the mission (who is actually super disgusting to look at up close). The production design and the cinematography and just how its all set up.  Its so pleasing and atmospheric.  If you have seen it,  that crow place gave me the chills.  The vehicles, war rigs, action scenes: it was a lot of fun and completely entertaining to watch.

Overall, Mad Max: Fury Road is mostly a thrilling and entertaining movie done with so much heart.  It has a great cast with some fantastic well-developed characters.  The action is awesome and cinematography is pleasing.  My only issue was the little sequence in the beginning that dragged on for too long but it was overshadowed by the fantastic story that followed when the plot thickened and things got all crazy. However, I can’t help to wonder whether Immortan Joe should even come to discussion since it doesn’t seem to matter.  He was the tyrant who causes this whole thing and who they need to escape from but is he a meaningful villain? Was it even needed? I don’t know.  He’s just incredibly uncomfortable to look at, as are a lot of the villainous cast.  While I think that this movie is awesome, there is an unsettling feeling.  Maybe its the fact that it didn’t live up to the hype that everyone else has.

Have you seen Mad Max: Fury Road? What do you think about it? 

Fantasia Fest 2015: Dark Places (2015)

That was a fun ride, wasn’t it? Fantasia Festival this year had some great movies.  And I think I made some fantastic choices covering a range of horror with different pacing and styles.  There was thrillers and even one foreign film (which there was more though).  But, we are at the end and with a rather late showing of Dark Places (which was even later because the entrance was delayed).  I’m a huge fan of Gillian Flynn and Dark Places was written before Gone Girl.  Check out my book review here. I had mixed feelings about how Dark Places would turn out but there is no doubt that it has a pretty awesome looking cast.  Plus, hey, Nicholas Hoult non-zombie version. I’m down for that 😉 Plus, its an advanced screening, even if I only got the review up today, after its been released in theatres.

Let’s check this out! 🙂

Dark Places (2015)

Director: Gilles Paquet-Brenner

Cast: Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Sterling Jerins, Christina Hendricks, Corey Stoll, Tye Sheridan, Chloe Grace Moretz, Sean Bridgers

Libby Day was only seven years old when her family was brutally murdered in their rural Kansas farmhouse. Twenty-five years later, she agrees to revisit the crime and uncovers the wrenching truths that led up to that tragic night.-IMDB

I’m a huge fan of Gillian Flynn (like I said before). HUGE! I love all of her three books.  Even though, Gone Girl is by far the best one and the movie adaptation is just pure awesome and I’m not as big of a fan of Dark Places (its the last favorite of the three), the cast of Dark Places was one that made me at least know the performances would stand out. I’m going to tell you right away that Dark Places is an okay adaptation of the book, bordering okay.  One, its a bit long and dragging out in a lot of parts and two, it feels a little disjointed because of the interpretation of how the book was set up and how they did it. The one thing I worried about for this novel being not a good match for the big screen was that in the novel, we learn about Libby Day through what is going on in her mind, and she is one ugly inner beauty sort of person.  She’s really not all that likable because that helps her character build as the story goes along.  In the movie, even with a fantastic actress like Charlize Theron, its hard to show what is going on someone’s mind as they observe the situation and react silently and in their own way.  Its easy to lose or just never build the connection with the main character.

Dark Places does use the set up of the book by jumping from present day Libby linking back to her investigation and revisiting her past to flashbacks of the day before all the murders while also using her mom, Patty and her brother, Ben’s day to piece together the events.  I like that they effectively did that.  That way to tell a story is very Gillian Flynn if you think about it.  Its the art of creating one timeline with multiple points of reference for various characters to reach for the audience to piece it all together.  It makes it engaging to watch.

Except, something also makes it hard to watch.  I’d like to say its the set up of the storyboard adapted from the book.  Maybe its the slow start to introduce us to who Libby is now, 25 years later.  Maybe its to bring us to learn more about her and the situation she is going into but something didn’t wrong so well.  I think its the details or just picking the right pieces from the book to put together that will create the right amount of suspense.  It seemed to just keep revealing certain parts as a way to roughly enter a new character or a “shocking” new situation.  I don’t know, it just didn’t work so well for me.

However, just as I expected though, the strengths of Dark Places lie in their cast.  If anyone less talented than Charlize Theron was doing present day Libby Day, it might be even less expressive of the emotions we’d like to see.  In general, the character of Libby Day was portrayed well enough for us to see that she isn’t so appealing, not quite as hated as in the novel perhaps but we can see that she basks in the world of pity and manipulation and just pure laziness to avoid being caught in work.  Her world is contingent on money and compensation while she chooses to be ignorant of her brother.  I was a little disappointed with not having the investigation group so much but at least Nicholas Hoult still got a few moments to pop up.  The character I bought the most out of was Chloe Grace Moretz.  This is a dark novel and she is an actress that can pull off these dark roles really well.  Although I felt the setup and build for her character, Diondra was great but it was effective her (at least more if you haven’t read the book).  The rest of the cast from the younger boys to everyone else was a good mesh.

 Overall, Dark Places is okay.  The premise is solid because the original was a good piece with a strong story.  However, the adaptation did  not work quite as well.  The story did get lost in itself a little and felt like it didn’t flow so well.  Plus, while the runtime might not be the big issue, it runs a little too slow and doesn’t have the right pieces to make us thrilled with the story.  However, the cast is very well chosen and they do well with they have to work with, making it more enjoyable and mildly compelling. The choice to follow the layout of the novel was a good one and the atmosphere was set pretty well.  What is sad is that Dark Places has quite a bit of potential to be a great movie thriller, however a main character which bases a lot on her inner thoughts to move a story doesn’t work so well on the big screen, especially with a somewhat flawed adapted screenplay.

Have you seen Dark Places? Have you read the book? What are your thoughts?

Warm Bodies (2013)

I’ve been raving about Warm Bodies since forever.  Probably even before all of you started talking about it, because well, it was filmed right outside my office building.  They closed off streets, warned us that if we heard gunshots or explosions, saw cows and goats, it was all good and safe.  Talk about a calming notice for a few days.  They may have piled on the streets with dirt and then put up boards and damaged cars, and after some research, they actually filmed in other parts of Old Montreal as well.  It makes this movie so much more exciting.  So much so that I went and picked up the book and reviewed it HERE. I liked the originality even if the concept was new and slightly bizarre.  Enough rambling…lets check out the movie!

Director: Jonathan Levine

Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, John Malkovich, Dave Franco, Analeigh Tipton, Rob Corddry

R (Nicholas Hoult) is a zombie who lives at the airport with other zombies.  When he goes out to feed with his fellow zombies, they run into a group of apocalypse survivors out from camp to help replenish supplies.  This group includes leader Perry (Dave Franco) and his girlfriend Julie (Teresa Palmer).  Unfortunately R kills Perry but becomes attracted to Julie and takes her back to his home to protect her.  Little did he know that something in her sparked a change in him and he started becoming more human.  Was there a cure to turn the undead back to living?

I’m going straight to saying that I liked how this movie was adapted.  One of the main reasons is because they chopped off the part that I found really off the charts weird in the book.  But, it still isn’t a perfect adaptation as having read the book, I felt like this was slightly choppy.  I read it a while back so the book is also a bit foggy in my mind and I don’t remember a lot of details but I couldn’t help but feel that the flow wasn’t great.  To me, it still worked fine.

Normally, I don’t go talking about setting because thats not my forte unless it really peaks my interest. Well, I live in that beautiful city up there, minus the fake wall they put up as dividers.  As cool as it was that it was shot totally and completely in Montreal, in my opinion.  That is my city right there, I live there.  So, when the movie ended with that shot and I was feeling a bit uneasy and started thinking, so, this is what my city would be like if there was a zombie apocalypse.  You know, at least make changes to the scene.  I’m staring at Montreal, probably viewed from Mont-Royal.  Just makes things a little awkward.  So at home and yet, not really…

Moving along because most of you won’t feel that way about it as you don’t live in Montreal.  I haven’t had much knowledge of the two main characters.  Nicholas Hoult is completely  a new face to me.  Looking at IMDB, he was in Clash of the Titans but I don’t remember anything from that piece of garbage. I rarely feel so strongly for a movie so I don’t want to think about that.  Nicholas Hoult is pretty good as R.  It fits how I pictured R would be.  Very zombified and slowly going human.  Teresa Palmer is rather new to me also.  I’ve seen her before in I Am Number Four and I actually was impressed with her in that, not so much certain elements of the movie but just her.  In this one, I loved her as Julie.  She was pretty sassy and fun, pretty awesome all around. However, the character that I really thought was pretty hilarious was R’s friend, M, played by Rob Corddry.  There is really just one big name here (at least to me) and that’s John Malkovich as Julie’s father who also leads the army protecting the survivors.  In the trailers, he made me feel like he could be irritating but he actually was awesome.  I don’t even know why I doubted it. 🙂

I felt like there should be a little mention on our baddies here.  Nope, not our reviving corpse but instead, its these fellas here, known as Boneys.  Those undead that has been in that state for too long and just can’t turn back.  They sense the living and sense threat to their being what they are.  There were moments, I have to admit they were a bit chilling and creepy.  This movie is categorized as horror but I’d say its more comedy and romance so it wasn’t a huge dose of it.  Nothing too intense, which is good also 🙂

Thats really all I have to say.  I was looking forward to checking this out to begin with but I also had some reservations.  I enjoyed the movie quite a bit.  The romance was cute, the story was adapted not flawless but relatively good, the cast put life into the characters and it was a nice time.  Its nothing like my favorite movie or anything but I’d gladly sit through it again eventually. Its a new take on the zombie apocalypse so I’d recommend it.  Give it a shot 🙂 It might turn into a pleasant surprise. I mean, my boyfriend’s dad was the one who encouraged us to watch it (much to my surprise)!