Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)

Director: Matthew Vaughn. Cast: Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Julianne Moore, Pedro Pascal, Michael Gambon, Channing Tatum, Halle Berry, Elton John, Jeff Bridges, Bruce Greenwood, Emily Watson. 141 min. UK/USA. Action/Comedy.

Compared to the original, which included multiple Star Wars references, the sequel goes back to its roots with numerous James Bond homages (metallic claw-arm, knife-jabbing shoe, etc). But that's all the sequel does: stays at its roots. We have the same comedic gruesome violence and slow-motion/camera-spinning action shots, simply substituting bad guy Samuel Jackson here with bad girl Julianne Moore. There was an interesting theme with a Trump-like President sanctioning American death and skilled professionals following him to a tee - but hey, you don't want to alienate half your viewers, do you? Avoid the controversy; keep the cash flowing.

Mo says:

Crooked House (2017)

Director: Gilles Paquet-Brenner. Cast: Christina Hendricks, Honor Kneafsey, Gillian Anderson, Glenn Close, Max Irons, Stefanie Martini, Terence Stamp, Amanda Abbington, Julian Sands. 115 min. Rated PG-13. UK. Crime/Mystery.

You see those names among the cast, and resisting the urge to watch another Agatha Christie adaptation becomes quite a task - even though you've read the book decades ago and vaguely remember whodunit. And while American actresses (Close and Anderson) faking British accents or the boring quarrels of a typical English mansion may all wake you out of your movie dream, you still don't mind. What amazed me, was how the creepy and twisted ending, which may have been blasphemous for the time of the novel's writing, has now become quite acceptable. The times, they are a changin'.

Mo says:

Justice League (2017)

Director: Zack Snyder. Cast: Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, J.K. Simmons, Ciarán Hinds, Amber Heard, Joe Morton. 120 min. Rated PG-13. USA/UK/Canada. Action/Fantasy.

Justice League's main success ... is that it manages to avoid being as awful as its predecessor, Batman v Superman. Otherwise, this is just a superhero movie like any other, big monstrous villain and collection of heroes clobbering each other around through the most minimal plot. Primarily Gal Gadot (as Wonder Woman) and secondarily Ezra Miller (as Flash) are the rare specimens that keep the character dynamics interesting, but Ben Affleck once again proves he was one of the worst possible choices for Batman. How disappointing that the movie we could only dream about since childhood, eventually turned out like this.

Mo says:

Lady Bird (2017)

Director: Greta Gerwig. Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Beanie Feldstein. 93 min. Rated R.  Drama/Comedy.

All of us have experienced teenage angst, so the idea of a film playing out such a commonplace theme on screen sounds dull. Conclusively, making an engaging film on the subject is extremely difficult. That's the incredible goal Greta Gerwig (in her second directorial effort, first in ten years) achieves here. I'm not a teenage girl with a jobless dad and a mother hounding me down, but I exactly understood how this protagonist felt, because the film manages to show real people with real issues. Linklater's Before trilogy was the last time I experienced such 'hyper-realism' at portraying day-to-day life.

PS: Not only 100% on the Tomatometer, but the best reviewed film of all time? I mean, it's good, but not that good ...

Mo says:

Coco (2017)

Director(s): Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina. Voices: Anthony Gonzalez, Gael García Bernal, Benjamin Bratt. 109 min. Rated PG. Animation.

Not to set general rules, but beside questionable religious edicts, American culture is not well-equipped with assisting kids deal with non-material concepts - and could use a helping hand from other cultures. Coco does them the favor of defining 'death' in an entirely new way, by setting up a 'land of the dead' with its own simple rules, and creating a story more engaging than in the land of the living. That, and an animation so stunning, it could've been an entity on its own. Waiting to see if Pixar will ever run out of insanely unique ideas.

PS: There's this well-known social media post:

Pixar, 1995: What if toys had feelings
Pixar, 1998: What if bugs had feelings
Pixar, 2001: What if monsters had feelings
Pixar, 2003: What if fish had feelings
Pixar, 2004: What if superheroes had feelings
Pixar, 2006: What if cars had feelings
Pixar, 2007: What if rats had feelings
Pixar, 2008: What if robots had feelings
Pixar, 2009: What if dogs had feelings
Pixar, 2012: What if Scotland had feelings
Pixar, 2015: What if feelings had feelings

I would like to add:

Pixar, 2017: What if the dead had feelings ...


PPS: If you plan on seeing this is in a theater, plan on showing up 40 minutes late. Come early, and have Disney molest your brain with probably the worst animation short they've ever done.

Mo says:

MoMagic!

Playtime (1967)

Director: Jacques Tati. Cast: Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek, Rita Maiden. 115 min. No Rated. France/Italy. Comedy.

I don't read reviews before movies, or before writing my own. But then there's the rare phenomenon many believe must be seen in its original 70 mm projection, Spielberg paid homage to by The Terminal, and Truffaut called "a film from another planet". I enjoyed it, but broke my own rule, read a review, and realized how groundbreaking it was - and how well the critic described my impression better than I ever could. So why bother writing a review, or waste your time reading it? Watch the movie, read Ebert's review, and be glad there's a profession called film criticism.

Mo says:

In This Corner of the World (2016)

Director: Sunao Katabuchi. 130 min. Rated PG-13. Japan. Animation.

The story is set in Hiroshima ... before the war. So for a film showing the very mundane daily lives of common villagers, the mere initial mention of that location in itself works to create a ticking clock towards the fateful day of August 6th, 1945: a tense juxtaposition against the characters' countryside innocence. And what better way to picture innocence, than animation? This will remind you of the far more devastating Grave of the Fireflies, and while it digs into these themes a tad too long, it's still worth the trip - considering the saber-rattling shenanigans of two current world leaders.

Mo says:

Kedi (2016)

Director: Ceyda Torun. 79 min. Unrated. Turkey/USA. Documentary.

The cats of Istanbul. That's it! A documentary about the cats of Istanbul. This may sound like a trivial subject, but we're talking modern day Turkey, and imagine elaborating on any subject in that country's most prominent city, avoiding topics like politics, religion and femininity, and still staying focused. In other words, Kedi is an exercise in how not to show, rather than what to show. Look at it that way, and you'll be amazed how you can appreciate these people (and their human-feline relationships) like any other people in the world. No easy feat.

Mo says:

Logan Lucky (2017)

Director: Steven Soderbergh. Cast: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Riley Keough, Katie Holmes, Seth MacFarlane, Katherine Waterston, Hilary Swank. 118 min. Rated PG-13. Comedy/Crime.

A fun, entertaining heist movie, comparable to Soderbergh's other fun, entertaining heist movie(s), the Ocean's trilogy - with one huge difference: the lovable Las Vegas thieves in the Ocean movies are introduced as smart and sassy; here, Soderbergh already plays out his North Carolina heroes as dumb, low-life idiots from the get-go. So when they plan and pull off such a brilliant, intricate job (with a little help from that script device called 'co-incidence'), expecting us as viewers to suspend disbelief becomes the understatement of the year. Literally "introducing" a new actor named Daniel Craig was fun though.

PS: Wow. The Girlfriend Experience, Che, The Informant!, Contagion, Haywire, and this. All 'So-So' scores. I guess Soderbergh can hardly impress me.

Mo says:

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)

Director: Noah Baumbach. Cast: Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman, Grace Van Patten, Emma Thompson, Judd Hirsch, Adam Driver, Candice Bergen, Sakina Jaffrey. 112 min. Comedy/Drama.

My (self-proclaimed) legions of fans already know: as opposed to the rest of the world, I'm not crazy about Noah Baumbach. Here he tells the (probably autobiographical) story of an old narcissistic father and his two sons, who collectively freshen up the term 'dysfunctional family'. You'll find pieces of these relationships in your own family, and some moments will haunt you, but by choosing his central character a Jewish New Yorker has-been artist with a Bohemian wife and successful/loser sons, Baumbach has limited his scope and reach. Don't know - maybe I'll change my mind about this in the future.

Mo says:

Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

Director: Kenneth Branagh. Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Daisy Ridley, Josh Gad, Johnny Depp, Derek Jacobi, Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench, Olivia Colman. 114 min. Rated PG-13. Malta/USA.

The reason I always found Agatha Christie's whodunits far superior to Arthur Conan Doyle's, was that Christie often incorporated a human element in Hercule Poirot's expertise at solving mysteries - a talent Sherlock Holmes generally didn't portray. Ironically, that is what was missing from Sidney Lumet's well-done 1974 adaptation of the famous novel, and that's what Kenneth Branagh has managed to capture in his remake. While the stunning cinematography and Poirot's unexpected crowbar mustache here are characters on their own, Branagh's direction is what makes that baffling ending twist very emotional, and very memorable.

PS: I'm glad there's an ending reference to another famous Poirot whodunit, "Death on the Nile". Looking forward to seeing Branagh in this role again.

Mo says:

MoMagic!

Good Time (2017)

Director(s): Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie. Cast: Robert Pattinson, Benny Safdie, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Barkhad Abdi. 101 min. Rated R. Crime/Thriller.

Robert Pattinson, as a small-time thief, manipulates his mentally-challenged brother to accompany him in his own life of crime, then attempts to rescue him when the brother gets caught instead. After a taut, thrilling first half (you suddenly notice the credits rolling at minute 17!) and a brilliant mid-movie twist, the story gradually loses momentum, and becomes like any other crime movie. While the central idea is how one criminal is able to destroy so many lives (himself included), I was amazed at how Pattinson has managed to completely reinvent himself since his deplorable Twilight days.

Mo says:

Ingrid Goes West (2017)

Director: Matt Spicer. Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Elizabeth Olsen, O'Shea Jackson Jr.. 98 min. Rated R. Comedy/Drama.

A smart satire with great potential. The whole Californian (or just American) way of life, where a sub-human materialistic mentality combines with nauseating social media obsession, and creates imbecile mini-monsters unable to observe beyond a two-feet perimeter around them. Aubrey Plaza is perfect as a loser who actively falls prey to the adulation of an "Instagram star" (whatever that is). And while the story sets everything up for a very brave ending, suddenly and disappointingly, it chickens out of that brave ending. We need something that's ready to take this all the way.

Mo says:

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

Director: Luc Besson. Cast: Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Rihanna, Ethan Hawke, Herbie Hancock, Rutger Hauer. 137 min. Rated PG-13. France/China/Belgium/Germany/UAE/USA/UK/Canada. Adventure/Fantasy.

There are original stories like "Dune" and "Valerian", which people claim Star Wars stole ideas from, and if their movies had premiered before Star Wars, each would've revolutionized cinema the way Star Wars did. Well, sorry - they didn't. So now, post-Star Wars, what's left of the films based on that source material, is just repeated plot points ... and blasting visual and sound effects. I kept watching this very long movie, and kept thinking: other than spectacular computer animation, what motivated the illustrious Luc Besson to make this? Is gloating over CGI effects, the sole reason to make a movie?

PS: The title for the original French comic book that inspired this was "Valérian and Laureline". Considering that Cara Delevingne's enchanting screen presence (as Laureline) entirely blows her male counterpart (as Valerian) into oblivion, I'm surprised there hasn't been a female revolt over the movie's title. They simply excluded her.

Mo says:

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos. Cast: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Barry Keoghan, Bill Camp, Alicia Silverstone. 121 min. Rated R. UK/Ireland/USA. Fantasy/Horror.

From the director of Dogtooth and The Lobster, displaying all the familiar staples of a Yorgos Lanthimos film: bizarre fantasy/horror situation, satirically stoic catatonic characters, dark moody cinematography, and even an obligatory self-mutilation scene. But while the first half's theme is similar to Spielberg's Duel (something catastrophic is happening to you, and you don't know why) accompanied by references to The Shining's chilling soundtrack, the presence of a sadistic character should've warned me this will devolve into my greatest film-viewing pet-peeve: a movie that betrays its viewer's emotional investment. Because this film's ending is truly abhorrent.

Mo says:

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Director: Taika Waititi. Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Hopkins, Benedict Cumberbatch, Taika Waititi (voice), Rachel House, Sam Neill, Matt Damon. 130 min. Rated PG-13. Fantasy/Action/Comedy.

Describing a movie as "breathing fresh air into the superhero genre" has become so cliché, it's more of a testimony to a dying genre than a compliment to its most recent flick. But considering the first and second Thor movies have been the most boring of the 17 Marvel films so far, anything is an improvement. Ironically, by adding his own unique touch of humor (here and here), New Zealand director Waititi actually does breath fresh air into the genre. A funny and entertaining movie all around, reminding of the fun of the first Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy.

PS: Considering all the buildup to the moment Thor's unrivaled opponent in the gladiator arena is shown, would've helped if the identity of that opponent wasn't spoiled a thousand times in the trailers.

Mo says:

Pulse (Kairo) (2001)

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Cast: Haruhiko Katô, Kumiko Asô, Koyuki. 118 min. Rated R. Japan. Horror.

Another modern Japanese horror, astonishingly ahead of its time. Similar to The Ring, it uses audiovisual technology (here, the advent of the internet) to delve into the horrors of loneliness in our supposed 'era of connectivity' - even forecasting the duplicity of social media at bringing people together. Add to that, the mastery of sound effects during moments of silence and ambiguous lighting of the backgrounds, create some truly terrifying sequences. But then, the second half loses steam quite fast, due to lack of a coherent script to connect these incredibly imaginative moments of terror. A hugely missed opportunity.

PS: Inspired a Wes Craven-written 2006 remake which apparently flopped.

Mo says: