Mommy

On Tuesday, October 28, 2014, I went to see the movie Mommy, which is Xavier Dolan's latest feature.  The one where he got all the press at the Cannes Festival.

Another pretentious Xavier Dolan movie.  Two hours and twenty minutes of my life I will never get back.  The only thing that was good about this movie, if I had to say something positive, was the acting...  Especially by the teenager who played Steve, whose name is Antoine-Olivier Pilon.

Horrible storyline, every storybook "indie movie" cliché was in it.  Most of the movie was only concentrated in a square in the middle for some unknown God awful reason.  Humongous holes in the plot, threads that were left undeveloped, every "risqué" topic was covered:  suicide, incest, homophobia...  A surprise/shock/open ending.

And it seems to me that this dude only knows how to do two types of movies:  Movies involving mommy issues and movies with a gay theme.

I do not understand what the hype around this dude is about.  He's not a good director, please.  I would like to start a fund so that he doesn't make any more movies.  In fact, I believe that a bunch of squirrels randomly pushing some buttons on a keyboard on some movie making software will make a better movie than Xavier Dolan.

The Box Trolls

On Tuesday, October 21, 2014, I went to see the movie The Boxtrolls in 3D

The movie is an animated featured by Laika, which is a company that does good work.  And this movie featured many actors and their voice acting work, like Elle Fanning, Ben Kingsley, Simon Pegg, Toni Collette and the best part is that you didn't recognize that it was them until the credits!

The movie is about these creatures called The Box Trolls, who are these trolls that wear a box as clothing.  They also don't have names, so they refer to themselves as what their box carried.  They raise an orphaned child and they live underneath the city (named Cheesebridge) in a cavern.  However, there's an exterminator in town, called Archibald Snatcher, who feeds the townspeople false information about the Boxtrolls that they steal human babies in the night and eat children and their caverns are full of blood.  Of course, this is not true, as we see the movie from the Boxtrolls' perspective. 

What happens?  Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?  You'll have to watch the movie to find out!

My Old Lady

On Tuesday, October 14, 2014, I went to see the movie My Old Lady, featuring Maggie Smith, Kristen Scott Thomas and Kevin Kline.

Mathias Gold, played by Kevin Kline, inherits an apartment in the heart of Paris from his father.  However, when he gets there, he realizes that it is a contract viager...  Which means that he has to pay someone 2400 Euros a month to stay there, until this person passes away.

The viager, played by Maggie Smith, is named Mathilde Girard and she has a daughter named Chloé.  But, this story is so much more than just Mathias who wants to sell the apartment to make money, because he's pretty broke.  It's about uncovering secrets from his father and mother...

A brilliantly acted part by Maggie Smith and Kristen Scott Thomas.  I don't know much of Kevin Kline's work but he was decent in it too.

Pride

On Tuesday, October 7, 2014, I went to see the movie Pride, featuring Bill Nighy, Imelda Stanton, Ben Schnetzer, George MacKay and Andrew Scott.

The movie is about Joe, a 20 year-old closeted gay who comes to his first pride march in London in 1984.  He gets swept into the action of the GLSM (Gays & Lesbians who support the miners) to help the miners who were on strike against Margaret Thatcher's closing of the pits.  He was swept into it by Mark Ashton, an activist who wants to change the world.  And thus, this group gets swept into the mining town of Onllywn.

And here, villagers meet the gays and they learn about teach other and a story, with several subplots, unfolds.

A "feel good" movie packed with lots of laughs and some emotionally intense moments.  Highly recommended.