J*A*S*M

If you’re looking for a scary horror mockumentary, you’re in the wrong place. Digging Up the Marrow is mostly a cute pseudo-documentary prank about people who make films and like monsters. It’s clear that they’ve made it themselves for the fun of it, and I had fun with them. You can see a lot of known faces of the genre, Adam Green plays himself and often fools around with his cameramen and other colleagues. – I wouldn’t use the same joke twice! – Ehm, have you seen Hatchet II? En the end I was beginning to get quite interested in the mystery about the underground gate to the realm of monsters (if it were to be taken seriously, it’s very naively presented, but nobody is taking it seriously), we get a couple of slightly atmospheric scenes, some jump-scares and rubber spooks. I like this type of meta film about the process of filmmaking, so I’m satisfied.

What an amazing film experience! Birdman is a sad story about a broken man who longs for the recognition he will never receive. So, basically, your typical Iñarritú’s downer, but this time wrapped in a very refreshing and energetic format. We can debate about the ending, and I’m going to write my opinion on it (spoiler!), so if you haven’t watched the film yet, stop reading now! The entire film is about Riggan trying to gain recognition and long lost glory. He’s convinced that he has abilities that those around him don’t appreciate. He’s not so much after inner artistic expression, he simply wants his play to be successful. When he realises that an unlikeable and influential critic will bury his play at any cost, he attempts to “buy” its success with one last desperate idea: suicide on stage, but not a real suicide – that would simply kill him. With manifest and embarrassingly vulgar gestures he tries to give the aura of an artist who has put at stake his life for his work. Cheap attraction, action, people want to see blood, they are used to it from mainstream movies. The audience applauds, the critic leaves in disgust because Riggan did exactly what she was expecting, maybe even worse. And Riggan dies, because when someone puts a gun to their head and shoots, they usually die. This is followed by a montage (!) and the epilogue. Thus far, the film pretended to be shot in a single take, even if it jumps in time and space, or when we follow the real Riggan or his hallucination. Since the epilogue is separated by the montage, it should make some sense that what we are watching is something different than we’ve been watching so far. It can’t be an alive Riggan, nor can it be what an alive Riggan is imagining while doing something else. To me it’s just an image of how Riggan would have liked his suicide-as-manifesto to ideally work out: a) he doesn’t die: b) the stunned critic writes a positive review, even though she said she would never do it; c) people are interested in him again; d) his daughter acknowledges what he has within himself and his miraculous abilities (the final look upwards). (End of spoilers). So, as I say, quite a downer, but I’m sure other people can have a different opinion. And that’s what’s so great about it.

It should go deeper into the minds of the characters (we don’t get to know much about them, actually), or push the envelope more with regards to blood and terror. As it is, the film is too vanilla and not disturbing enough; bland, I’d say. It’s too shallow for a depressive Scandinavian drama and too detached for a horror movie. I get the intention of bringing in the Låt den rätte komma werewolves, but it wasn’t successful.

A mindfuck that’s stylish and narratively interesting enough to be decent fun for two hours. A lot of things are happening in the ending, but I can’t say that they satisfactorily worked out after watching it the first time. For now 7/10.

The fact that I’m giving it one more star than the second part it’s not due so much to a better quality, but rather to the better mood I was in while watching it. Or maybe it was the more reasonable run, I don’t know. A plus is Thorin’s momentary episode of madness, a negative, is once again, the digital mess. Bilbo floats with the plot, the battle of the five armies breaks down into individual fights, and as a whole it goes nowhere. Once again I must say that adapting “The Hobbit” as a film trilogy was a very bad decision.

A manipulative masterpiece. Actually, it has nobody to root for or to relate to – J.K.Simmons is almost a demonic caricature and Teller, with his drive to be the best of the best whatever the price, feels more like an unlikeable mule. But even with that, Whiplash is best enjoyed as an adrenaline ride where you can relish with how Teller hits those drums and Simmons screams and throws chairs at him. And then you don’t even notice those cheap crutches. 75 %

One star is maybe a tad too hard, because The Atticus Institute it’s not a bad film if we take into account the author’s intention. It’s a fake documentary about a facility where scientists conduct research on people with paranormal abilities, until they come across a woman whose abilities are downright demonic. So, most of the time it consists of the talking heads of those who have survived to the present, period photos with a voiceover from said talking heads, and the mandatory period film sequences here and there. Objectively, the concept holds up, subjectively, it’s terribly boring.

An unenthusiastic 70%. The Imitation Game is the kind of film that every Oscar season must have, a well-executed real-life story about someone exceptional. This time we have Alan Turing, genius mathematician, rather asocial weirdo, and gay. Rather than the building of Turing’s machine and the breaking of the Enigma code, I was captivated by the moral dilemma related to the impossibility to use the broken code to save lives (they could have dedicated more time to that) and the way society treated a hero who happened to be different. Overall, it’s a good film, but I liked Tyldum’s previous thriller, Headhunters, a lot more.

I’m truly shocked that the creators attempted to develop a premise about cockroaches that come from deep down in the earth after an earthquake and live out of ash and the fires they cause themselves (!!!) not as a funny B-movie, but as serious sci-fi horror. And I’m even more shocked that to a certain extent they pulled it off. It’s full of crazy silliness, but in the second half especially, they manage to play some unsettling tones as we follow a biologist who’s gone a little mad after the loss of his lover and has decided to play with the bugs and mutate them. A film so bizarre that it’s worth a watch.

Avengers meets StarGate in a Disney animated version. In some places, the film quotes scenes of other films so blatantly (e.g. Iron Man at the end of Avengers and Hiro at the end of Big Hero 6) that it can no longer be considered a rip-off, but rather a spoof. I’m sure there’ll be people bothered by the overall lack of originality and creativity, I can see them already, but that doesn’t bother me much in animated films. It’s cute, entertaining, funny, even a little emotional, which is enough for an animated comic-book fairy-tale.