2015

Movie Review – Barely Lethal

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Barely Lethal (2015)
Written by John D’Arco
Directed by Kyle Newman

barely lethal

Agent 83 is the top student of the Prescott Academy, a black ops facility where orphaned girls are turned into skilled killers for the U.S. government. Agent 83’s class are in their late teens, and she is beginning to yearn for a domestic life that was never provided for her. A chance to escape comes during the capture of arms dealer Victoria Knox when Agent 83 is presumed dead. Using her knowledge of teen movies, she passes herself off as a Canadian exchange student for the Larson family in a small American town. 83 goes through a fish out of water period but seems finally to be integrating herself into daily life. But that’s when her rival Agent 84 shows up with plans to ruin 83’s fun.

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Movie Review – Ex Machina

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Ex Machina (2015)
Written & Directed by Alex Garland

ex machina

Caleb Smith is a computer programmer for the search engine Blue Book whose life is changed when he is announced the winner of a week-long retreat with the company’s founder Nathan Bateman. The journey takes Caleb to a remote estate on a vast swath of property. Here Nathan introduces the programmer to Ava, an artificial being he has created. Nathan wants Caleb to run the Turing Test, a thought experiment where you seek to determine if an artificial consciousness is indistinguishable from an organic one. Strange power outages allow Caleb and Ava to communicate briefly without Nathan’s watchful eye. What Ava tells Caleb causes him to question the true nature of why he was brought here and his reality.

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Movie Review – Cut Bank

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Cut Bank (2015)
Written by Robert Patino
Directed by Matt Shakman

cut bank

Cut Bank, Montana is the sight of a brutal murder of a local mail carrier, Georgie Wits. The whole incident is caught on video by Dwayne Mclaren and his girlfriend Cassie while they are hanging out at their spot in a field outside of town. Dwayne turns the video over to Sheriff Vogel who must now deal with the first homicide the city has ever had. But all is not as it seems and what was caught on video is only one perspective of the truth. While Vogel learns there are deeper layers to what occurred, town recluse Derby Milton snaps when a parcel hasn’t been delivered to him on time. Milton begins his own reasonably active side investigation to track down the mail stolen after the murder.

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Movie Review – While We’re Young

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While We’re Young (2015)
Written & Directed by Noam Baumbach

while we're young

Josh is documentary filmmaker stuck on the same project for the last ten years. His wife, Cornelia, is a producer whom he won’t work with, and his father in law is a famous documentarian whom he also won’t work with. During a lecture at a college where Josh works, he meets Jamie and Darby, a young couple who are full of the sense of life he is missing. Josh and Cornelia become fast friends with the couple and learn Jamie is also a filmmaker seeking out an excellent topic for his own documentary. Josh finally breaks his taboo of never collaborating and decides to help Jamie out with a Facebook-centered doc idea he has. As the two couples become more closely intertwined more tension bubbles to the surface until Josh’s personal life begins to crumble around himself.

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Movie Review – Klovn Forever

Klovn Forever (2015)
Written by Casper Christensen, Frank Hvam, & Mikkel Nørgaard
Directed by Mikkel Nørgaard

klovn

Frank and Casper are Danish comedy writing partners that have reached a turning point in their lives. On the eve of the publication of a memoir about their longstanding friendship, Casper is heading to Los Angeles to develop his career further while Frank is reluctantly settling into domesticity with a second child newly born. After reading through the final draft of the memoir, Frank realizes he just can’t let Casper go and strikes out to the United States to convince him to come back. However, a series of shocking and hilarious missteps.

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Movie Review – Bone Tomahawk

Bone Tomahawk (2015)
Written & Directed by S. Craig Zahler

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A strange drifter finds his way into the small town of Bright Hope. He arrival is followed by the murder of a stable boy and the abduction of two citizens. All that is left behind is an arrow with a head made from bone. A local native explains this belongs to a tribe of men who are not “Indians” but from some other breed of man. Sheriff Hunt takes off with a trio of men, each with their own reason to follow the trail, to rescue their fellow townspeople. They encounter the hazards of the wilderness along the way not knowing that an ancient horror awaits them in the Valley of the Starving Man.

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Movie Review – The Forbidden Room

The Forbidden Room (2015)
Written by Evan Johnson, Robert Kotyk, & Guy Maddin
Directed by Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson

forbidden room

A bespectacled man hosts an aged and worn instructional film on how to take a bath. After explaining the opening procedures, the camera dives beneath the murky water, and we see a submarine float by. We cut to inside the submarine where the crew is in dire circumstances. They carry onboard an incredibly volatile substance that, if they were to surface, would combust due to air pressure killing them all. They find a portal in one of the dank, humid chambers that should lead them out into the waters, allowing them to abandon ship and swim to the surface. Instead, when they open a door, a lumberjack soaked to the bone tumbles forward. He begins to tell the tale of his quest to save a maiden from a band of cave-dwelling barbarians only to find the maiden is their den mother. In her sleep, the den mother dreams of another life, as a noir nightclub singer…and so on and so on. The Forbidden Room is a Matryoshka doll of short films, one nested within the other, moving up and down the ladder of stories until they become intertwined and lost within each other.

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