Interstellar

This is all kinds of awesome. It looks great and it is engrossing. Everything that a sci-fi film should be. And I have absolutely no idea what was actually going on. Also a standard in a sci-fi film.

Lemme see if I can convey what happened - as I understand it.

Cooper used to be an astronaut and is now a corn farmer. The year is sometime in the future. Not sure when. The bookcase corresponds with his daughter Murph, or so she thinks. What or who truly communicates could be anything from a poltergeist (Murph's initial idea), 'them' or maybe Cooper himself from the future. Anyway, the message is either coordinates or the word 'stay' or both. The coordinates lead to NASA, where Cooper runs into his old pal Dr. Brand. He is recruited to go on a mission to find an alternative planet for the people of earth, because the one currently occupied is dying and/or killing them all.

Plan A is to find a planet and take earthlings to that planet. This turns out to have never actually been a viable option. Dr. Brand simply made up this story for people working on the project to keep working on it. Because (presumably) you will work harder to save yourself and your families than all mankind.

Plan B (and this is the one that was always going to be put in action) is to send frozen embryos to whatever livable planet is discovered on the mission and sort of reinvent mankind.

Cooper goes on the mission under false assumptions. So, apparently, does everyone else on the spaceship with him, including Dr. Brand's daughter. Of course, time passes with different speeds depending on where you are in the universe and whether or not you go through a wormhole/black hole. The difference on the other end of the hole relative to time on earth is 1 month = 7 years. This sucks for someone who left behind his two young children, as Cooper has. When he realizes what this could mean, the mission becomes more desperate for him. He needs to complete the task as quickly as possible. But then he learns of Dr. Brand's rouse and several complications along the way make the mission even harder.

While Cooper and his fellow astronauts are off in space, back home on earth life moves on for his children, as well. The son, Tom, takes over the family farm and the daughter, Murph, was always a potential scientist. After she learns of Dr. Brand's story and plans, she tries saving mankind from her end, as well.

And yes, I know how all of this sounds.

I maintain that I barely understand whatever was going on onscreen. But it sure is pretty to look at.

8/10

Mama

I like a good ghost story. Especially when it is as pretty as this. Sure, it looks goth and is macabre, but I find it pretty nonetheless.

Jessica Chastain (sporting an unfortunate hairdo) stars alongside Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (of Game of Thrones fame) as couple Annabel and Lucas taking care of two little girls named Victoria and Lily. When Luke's twin brother went of the rails five years back, he shot two work associates and his wife and took off into the woods with his two girls. They ended up in a cabin, also inhabited by a ghost, who mainly lived in the wall.

After the ghost did away with the father, the girls spent the next five years there, growing savage and calling the creature Mama. Luke never gave up looking for his brother and nieces and they were eventually found and after spending some time in psychiatric care, were handed over to him and Annabel, while under the watch of one Dr. Dreyfuss, who slowly pieced together the story of this Mama the girls keep referring to.

Unfortunately, Mama came with the girls into the new house and becomes very jealous of Annabel. Luke ends up in a hospital after a fall down the stairs and Annabel is left to fend for herself. She finds out the story Dr. Dreyfuss has pieced together after he disappears while trying to solve the enigma of Mama by going back to the cabin the girls were found in (he doesn't make it out again).

Mama was separated from her own child when held in an insane asylum. She escaped, kidnapped the baby and ended up falling down a cliff with the child. While Mama fell into the water, the baby's blanket got caught on a branch and the two were again separated in death. She haunted the area looking for her baby ever since. Annabel and Luke try to get rid of the ghost by offering the remains of the child, that had been stored away in some government facility because nobody ever came to claim them, as a trade for Victoria and Lily. In the end, they have to make a huge sacrifice.

Some of this is truly scary. One can recognize Guillermo del Toro's producing hand in this.

8/10

Zero Dark Thirty

This is a 157 min movie that feels like a 157 min movie. Does that make any sense? What I'm trying to say is that it does not drag on, but it doesn't fly by either. Every scene is stretched to the point where it is about to get exhausting, but then doesn't quite.

It starts off with an extended torture scene. The main players are established as being tough, but only because they need to be. They are really only doing it for the intelligence and are totally awesome true patriots. Never mind that the new name they get out of the poor guy is one that they eventually get from multiple others that seemed to be giving up details much easier.

From this moment until the final showdown at Bin Laden's hide-out we follow CIA agent Maya in her years of struggle to convince her superiors that her hunches are right and, ultimately, she knows how to find the big bad wolf. This part is pure drama, no action - other than the occasional explosion that will have you jump out of your seat.

The storming of the hide-out feels like it takes place in real time. Sure, it is exciting, but - much like the torture scene - is so detailed one could argue that it is too long.

Overall pretty good. Jessica Chastain is much more deserving of the Oscar than Jennifer Lawrence in the same category.

6/10