Mother!

Well, let me tell you - if you like close-ups of Jennifer Lawrence you will love this film. I like Jennifer Lawrence rather a lot, but I must admit the constant close-ups gave me a bit of headache.

Otherwise I loved the aesthetics of this movie. I generally don't like it when all people talk about after seeing a movie are the clothes the people wore or the rooms and landscapes it was all filmed in, but I loved the fact that this film had a very constant colour theme that was really noticable and cool. I liked that the main character had a very distinct style of clothing, despite the fact that it didn't fall under any pre-established style category. I mean that she wasn't a goth or something similar. Her clothes were very casual, but she still had a style.

I also liked the effects, they were very - effective and different from any I had seen. Visually the film was very very pleasing. 

Did I actually like the film as a whole now? I think I did. Maybe. The story wasn't too pleasant and if it hadn't been told so beautifully and visually I wouldn't have liked it. It had some metaphors and sub-text and hidden meanings into it, but they were very unclear and difficult to decode. You might think that's the point, but with some movies its very easy to think of things that the author might have meant. Here, you wonder of they tried too hard.

i liked the ending, it was satisfying, but I think, once again, more visually, than story-wise

Passengers

Recently someone who was studying scriptwriting was giving a talk in my class and thy told us how writing for a movie was different than writing in books, because in film you can't show character's inner thoughts and struggles. It all has to be dialogue and can't all be very deeply psychological.

Now I'd like to shove this film into their faces and ask how the hell is it possible then? It is a brilliant masterpiece. Touching, deep, well-written, well-acted, well paced. I am honestly having trouble pointing out any grand faults with it. There were things that bothered me, but overall the piece is stunning.

So Jim wakes up on a space ship. All seems well until it becomes clear that he is the only one away and there are almost a hundred years still left to travel...

A big chunk of the story is told with only one human character. A difficult task indeed, made somewhat easier by the appearance of a human-like robot. The said robot, Arthur, is actually possibly my favorite character despite being a plot device for a large part. He doesn't really feel like an easy cop out either, because as a robot - well, he only seems like a slightly improved Siri. He is fun to be around, friendly and likeable, just like Siri is in my opinion. But no matter how long you talk to Siri you never really forget that in the end you are just talking to your phone. Arthur is adorable, but does never really feel too human and I love that. The acting here is also one worthy of an Academy Award.

So we are still left with only one main character for a while and his inner struggles and thoughts and feelings are so brilliantly portrayed - without any narration!

Now to the stuff that did bother me. There are 3 human characters in this film and one of them is a plot device. Honestly I can't even remember his name anymore, because all he was was a plot device. Not a badly written one, but you can tell that he was only ever needed to advance the story in ways in which just having Aurora and Jim there couldn't have happened.

Another question that rises is - why don't they return to Earth? Some answer is given to this, but it sounds like a very unbelievable one. They say it would get as long to get back as it does to go forward and add something about the time it takes to turn the ship around, but that does not seem logical. It is a small thing, but one that has stuck with me.

All in all the film is truly brilliant. The characters and their struggles feel realistic, the acting is fantastic, the story is really fantastically told. It is hard to tell a story with just two people and for the most part this film manages it.

X-men apocalypse

★★★★☆

I like the X-men movies. They are exactly what they are - if you like x-men you will like this too and if you don't you won't. I have to admit I had forgotten some of the plot few weeks later, but it was enjoyable. I wouldn't say the plot was bad, it was actually good, just complex enough for me to forget some of it. I am still not very used to the younger x-men. I love Jennifer Lawrence, but I'm having trouble seeing her as Mystique.I love Charles through, in both of the versions. 

 

The soundtrack is a lot of fun. It's mostly old hits reused, but they're the sort of hits I personally really enjoy like "Sweet dreams are made of this". So yeah, a good, enjoyable, fun X-men film. 

Joy

I decided I want to give stars. For now. 

★★★☆☆

When a movie is called "Joy" and it's not a Pixar or a Disney movie or in general something for children you might as well bet it's not going to be anything joyous. In fact you might even think of the title as sarcasm. But in the current case Joy is the name of the main character, portrayed by the lovely Jennifer Lawrence. She has the life of a Cinderella, every single person in her life, besides her grandmother, seems to use her, take advantage of her kindness, treat her unfairly and lack faith her.

Spoilers ahead

The only thing that changes this story from a Cinderella one os that there is no prince to go after, no fairy godmother to help, if you don't count the grandmother the woman has to handle things on her own. What could and probably should be an inspirational feministic story of a woman working her way up the business ladder ends up feeling me rather depressed. Yes, she succeeded after a lifelong of battling and having been put down by everyone, but all I can think about was how unfair her life was to begin with. Even the happy ending doesn't seem all that happy to me. Yes, she's a big boss now and she managed to maintain her humanity and kind personality, but in the tough business world of America - can she ever really be at peace?


The story is based on the stories of real women and that is it's strongest point. It is depressing and watching it didn't make me feel good, but at least the film was realistic. It was real to the end and Joy is kind and smart and clever. There are a couple of charming characters too, next to the terrible father and evil sister there is a kind girlfriend and a sweet ex-husband. It's not my favorite movie, but it might still be a good one.

Hunger Games - The last part

I've always liked the Hunger Games films. Even before reading the books, but afterwards I always enjoyed the very accurate portrayal of the books. However going into this I had an unpleasant surprise - I no longer remembered that much of the books! Another un-pleasantry was the cinema's projector breaking, while the staff was very nice making sure it got working again I'm still pretty sure I missed a good 10 minutes somewhere.
From what I remembered it was perfectly accurate, from what I asked of friends it was too. I think I missed some of Katniss's inner thoughts from the book most from this. The ending in the movie had a completely different feel to it than the ending in the book for me, even if it was the exact same ending.

I loved the scenes with Peeta explaining the way his mind gets muddled and the others offering him a way to cope with the "true, not true" method. That felt believable. Peeta voicing his thoughts generally felt more believable than Katniss doing it. Maybe because Peeta is the sort of more emotional character from whom you might expected speaking about their emotions like that, with Katniss it just felt like they had no better way of narrating the inner thoughts in the book.

Which brings me to Gale - what the hell happened to Gale? He wasn't this bad in the books, was he? I felt like the only reason they made him kind of mean in the movie was because otherwise it would feel like Katniss was only settling for Peeta, but the thing is - for me it always felt like she did. So that felt like cheating.

Effie is my favorite character and it's always a bit of a shock that she does survive! I love her outfits above all, but I really missed the scene where she is captured for stealing bread. For one I think it was a great way to show that the District 13 was really not that much of a better place than the capitol and two - hey - it had Effie. That's a reason to have any scene.
Those were my thoughts.