Inside Llewyn Davis

I love most of this film.

The one thing that annoys me, though, is the Carry Mulligan character, Jean. Whenever she is on screen she is very angry. And I am not sure what the point of this angry character is and why she does not seem to have any redeeming features other than being pretty (apparently everyone wants to fuck her, we are told frequently).

Other than that, things are pretty near perfect. Oscar Isaac is wonderful. He is also a great singer. I love folk music, especially the kind from the 1960's, so the music in the film is right down my alley. And the nod to Bob Dylan in the end is nice.

The story is that of the title character sort of drifting through life, here represented by showing 'a week in the life of'. He hops from couch to cough and does in fact not have a set address. Every now and again he will get a paying job, however ridiculous ('Please Mr. Kennedy'). On occasion he will take chances, like hitching a ride to Chicago which in the end comes to nothing.

There is a host of strange characters along the way, as are in most Coen Brothers films. My favorite is probably Roland Turner, played by John Goodman, who sits in the backseat during the drive to Chicago and shares life lessons Llewyn is not really interested in hearing.

Also, a cat.

And wonderful singing, especially by Oscar Isaac.

8/10

Dead Man Down

More often than not I agree with the user ratings on IMDB.com. Dead Man Down currently holds at 6,5/10, so I expected to be entertained but not too impressed with the film. Also, I don't much care for Colin Farrell, which further lowered my expectations.

What a pleasant surprise this was (if you can call a film about a man seeking revenge for the murder of his family "pleasant").

Victor aka Laszlo (I wonder if this is deliberate. If you don't know what I'm talking about, look up "Victor Laszlo".) has been working on an elaborate plan to take out an entire crime organisation responsible for killing his wife and young daughter two years back. The film starts when one of Alphonse's henchman, Paul, is found murdered. Paul has gotten a little to close to uncovering who has been sending his boss all these photos of Alphonse with the eyes scratched out and pieces of another picture, that still has the revealing bits missing.

So Victor has to start improvising. His mission is further complicated by his neighbor Beatrice, who lives opposite his apartemen and can see inside. She witnessed Paul's murder and instead of reporting it to the police she blackmails Victor into helping her with her own revenge. Beatrice is disfigured since a car accident. She was hit by a drunk driver who got a sentence of all of three weeks. This will not do and she asks Victor to kill him for her.

The elaborate plan starts spinning out of control and all the while another guy from the organization is getting closer to learn what Paul found out. In the end, it all comes to blows at Alphonse's residence in one massive shoot-out.

I thought this was actually quite brilliant and the supporting cast alone is well worth the time. Also, Colin Farrell never looked this good. Still not much of a fan but Damn! Plucked his eyebrows and all.

8/10

The Grand Budapest Hotel

I wholeheartedly embrace Wes Anderson's weirdness in films. If you don't appreciate the garishness of the colors and the awkwardness of dialogue you will not like this film.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is only the backdrop to a story of false accusations of murder, jail break and a strong bond between concierges of world-renowned hotels across Europe. When an elderly woman (played impeccably by the wonderful and wonderfully weird Tilda Swinton) dies and leaves the priced painting Boy with Apple (which depicts, yes, a boy holding an apple) to M. Gustave, concierge to the Grand Budapest, her family frames him for her murder. With help from a whole array of weird characters, Gustave escapes from prison and is proven innocent.

It is colorful. It is ridiculous. It is awesome.

And everyone is in it. Everyone. Ralph Fiennes, the aforementioned Tilda Swinton, Adrian Brody (sporting a fantastic hairdo), F. Murray Abraham, Mathieu Amalric, Jude Law, Harvey Keitel, Jeff Goldblum, Saoirse Ronan, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Tom Wilkinson, Owen Wilson, Karl Markovics. Also, several cameos.

Then, of course, there is the utterly unknown Tony Revolori, as Gustave's constant companion and protege, who more than holds his own around the onslaught of brilliant actors.

The story may be contrived, complicated and told in fitful, hurried, overloaded dialogue, but this is everything we have come to expect (and love) from Wes Anderson, who has always stuck to his guns. Finally, people seem to get it on a much, much bigger scale.

8/10

Mimic

Ugh. I hate bugs.

Don't worry, I knew what I was getting into with this as Mimic is a Guillermo del Toro film. As the man himself once said, "I have a sort of fetish for insects, clockwork, monsters, dark places, and unborn things." Dark this is, and full of bugs...big ass bugs living in the New York underground.

From the beginning...

The newly discovered Stickler's virus is spread by the common cockroach and threatens to kill off an entire generation of children. Then entomologist Susan Tyler introduces a genetically engineered bug, the Judas Breed to kill off the cockroaches. The bugs live in a hive system with only one fertile male and are designed to die out after one generation.

Then, three years later, two young boys want to make a quick buck by selling a collection of butterflies and "the weird bug" to Susan, whom they refer to as 'the Bug Lady'. She recognizes the breed as a mutant of her own creation. Together with her husband, Dr. Peter Mann, who works for the CDC, she wants to investigate in the subway tunnels.

What they find are bugs of unbelievable size, all female, and they are all out to kill them. The Judas Breed has mutated through what is known as mimicry, hence the film title, but this should have taken many generations.

In any case, stumbling through the subway tunnels are Susan, Peter, his CDC colleague Josh (who will meet a nasty end), a subway cop and an elderly gentlemen, who made his way through the tunnels looking for a boy (his grandson?), who seems to be autistic. Together, they not only have to stay alive through the bug infestation and try to make it back to street level, but they also have to kill off the entire species of Judas Breed before it can migrate out of the tunnel systems. Not everyone of the group survives, with the cop heroically sacrificing himself for the greater good, but in the end humanity prevails.

The opening credits are visually stunning and those bugs are really disgusting in any size and state of development.

5/10