2015

Movie Review – Mississippi Grind

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Mississippi Grind (2015)
Written & Directed by Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck

mississippi-grind

Gerry is a gambler who finds himself losing more than he wins, but he earns just enough to keep himself hooked on the game. During a Texas hold ‘em at a casino in Iowa, he meets Curtis. Curtis is a fellow gambler, though not as concerned about winning as he is with the rush of the game. The two men strike up a friendship quickly, and as Curtis is shuffling off down New Orleans, Gerry convinces him to travel down the highway, following the Mississippi and gambling as they go. The goal is to make $25,000 to buy into a high stakes private game in NOLA. However, Gerry doesn’t know when to quit and always pushes against the odds.

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Movie Review – Dark Places

Dark Places (2015)
Written & Directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner

dark places

In 1985, a brutal murder occurred in Kinnakee, Kansas. The culprit appeared to Ben Day; the victims are his mother and two of his sisters. Little sister Libby Day survives and goes on to testify that she saw Ben committing these acts. Jump to present day, Libby has squandered the last of the money she got from her book about the events and the goodwill of people who have heard her story has dried up. She is approached by Lyle, a member of the Kill Club, a group of amateurs that takes murder cases and reopens them to try to solve them. They believe Ben is innocent though he’s never appealed his life sentence. Libby is skeptical but eventually agrees to pursue their leads and uncovers the secrets of those final days of her childhood innocence.

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Movie Review – The End of the Tour

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The End of the Tour (2015)
Written by Donald Margulies
Directed by James Ponsoldt

the end of the tour

Writer/journalist David Lipsky wakes up one morning to the news that David Foster Wallace killed himself. Wallace was a novelist who published Infinite Jest in 1996 and was a book that hit with tremendous impact on the literary world. Lipsky worked at Rolling Stone in the 90s and proposed going out to Central Illinois where he would follow the author on the last stop of his book tour. Lipsky arrives and finds Wallace to be a man not exactly comfortable with the fame his book has brought him. He seems very agreeable though considerably quiet and not having too many close friends, but lots of acquaintances. Over the course of a couple of days, Lipsky gets to know Wallace and probe into places the writer might not want to go.

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Movie Review – Slow West

Slow West (2015)
Written & Directed by John Maclean

slow west

Young Jay Cavendish has traveled from Scotland to America in pursuit of his one true love Rose Ross. Rose and her father fled their home after a crime was committed. Jay crosses paths with Silas Selleck, a bounty hunter who appears to take a fondness to the naive and earnest younger man. They begin a trek across the West to find Rose and encounter other travelers along the way. Following them are a band of fellow bounty hunters who want to catch Jay for their purposes. The journey is a quiet one with short bursts of violence, like a strange dream.

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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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