Citizenfour

First Hit:  I think all US Citizens need to see this film and I’m wondering why congress and the President have done nothing to stop this.

Our government is spying on each and every one of us. Do they look at my online behavior or are they listening to my phone calls? Probably not, but they can if they want to.

I love the beginning when one of the speakers states, “if you have a metro card (NYC) and it is replenished by a link to your bank account, they (our government) knows your personal information and behavior patterns.” If it is something they think suspicious (using algorithms), you will be tracked and monitored.

Yes there was an upheaval when Edward Snowden leaked NSA collected data and with good reason, our government is lying to us under the guise of “protecting us from terrorists”. Our government is behaving badly and we’re letting them. Why?

Edward Snowden is compelling as to the reasons why he released the data and his commitment to sharing the truth about our government’s spying on us all. Glenn Greenwald the Guardian (UK) reporter who set the stories free in the press is a real brave patriot to his work and country. William Binney, a former NSA government employee who foresaw our spying errors is a hero. Our entire US Government is lying to us and you. Laura Poitras directed this elegant portrayal of how our government is not only breaking its own laws but have abused our trust.

Overall:  Although I’m not shocked, I supremely saddened by our untrustworthy government and especially the people who continue to perpetuate this illegal spying. I’ve met the enemy and it is us because we let our leaders get away with this.

Beyond the Lights

First Hit:  I was surprised at how much I liked it.

I didn’t think I was going to enjoy this film after reading a brief story about the movie.

However Mini Driver, as Macy Jean, the mother of the biracial Noni (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), was effective as a goal obsessed mother who had to fend for their livelihood. She did this through her daughter's singing talent.

Noni is the dedicated daughter who, under the managing guidance of Macy Jean, has become a worldwide singing sensation. However, she is struggling because she isn’t singing her songs, she’s not in control of her life, and her life doesn’t feel like her own. In desperation she gets drunk, hangs from a balcony and gets saved from a suicide attempt by police officer Kaz Nicol (Nate Parker).

Kaz is also having his career guided by his single parent, Police Captain Nicol (Danny Glover). Captain Nicol wants his son to become a successful politician and therefore has been guiding Kaz's career moves. What was enjoyable was the way the story came together.

Driver was really good as the headstrong mom who both success for her daughter but also success for herself. Along the way, she lost sight of her daughters inner life. Mbatha-Raw was strong as the singer who wants to find her own way. She made a compelling story on the screen. Parker is very good as the officer that wants love but will not live in a way that lacks integrity. Glover is perfect as the dad who wants his son to be great. Gina Prince-Bythewood wrote and directed this film. The story-line was well thought out with some great scenes in the boardroom with Marcy Jean speaking her mind. The direction was good with the scenes in Mexico deftly giving the audience a sense of peace coming over the characters.

Overall:  An enjoyable film that kept its perspective all the way through.

Interstellar

First Hit:  Beautiful pictures, very long and, at times, a confusing film.

I walked out of the theater unsatisfied by the film. It meanders between philosophical, spiritual, pragmatic, and scientific. Example:  The earth is dying and is being encumbered by dust storms but we only see Midwest of the United States. Where is the rest of the world?

The focus of society is on growing food, but corn is the only surviving food. Is that what they are growing in Asia? Another hole  was that NASA is a secret unit of the government because no one would authorize spending money on rockets to find a place for earthlings to re-populate. Why would we want to repopulate a new planet when we screwed up our own?

The holes in the initial setup of this story are huge and gaping. Because there were so many questions from the beginning the story was confusing. Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is a former NASA pilot, turned farmer who has two kids Murph (10 Yrs – Mackenzie Foy, Jessica Chastain as mid-aged, and Ellen Burstyn as the older Murph) and Tom (15 Yrs - Timothee Chalamet and older Casey Affleck).

Because his wife is deceased, also living with him is his father-in-law Donald (Jon Lithgow). He improbably (gravity helps him discover where it is) finds NASA’s working headquarters and because he’s there, Professor Brand (Michael Caine) decides to ask him to fly a space vehicle into a wormhole near Saturn.

The film wants us to believe that some super being placed the wormhole there for our use to figure out how to save the planet. Professor Brand’s daughter Brand (Anne Hathaway) is part of the scientific crew as well. The story spins off into different planets (worlds) for the crew to explore as a way to “save earth”.

McConaughey was good (and no better than that) as the cowboy-ish pilot of the space vehicle and father of two children he misses. Although he is fun to watch, I don’t think his character was believable and really a tad too self-righteous. Hathaway was good, but again believability in her character was questionable. Foy was one to the highlights of the film as was Chastain in the role of Murph. Lithgow is effective in the brief role as father-in-law. Caine was mediocre as the professor who is neither brilliant nor conniving. Matt Damon as Dr. Mann a pilot who had previously gone through the wormhole stuck on a planet was very good in his role. Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan wrote a script that was too large to film well without it being a 4 hour film. There were too many holes (black or worm) in the story to be believable. Overall, the story was disappointing. Christopher did a very credible job of filming space and creating various worlds, but the ambitiousness of the story left me lost in space.

Overall:  Although there were great pictures this film was too ambitious for its own good.

Laggies

First Hit:  Turned out to be a really good film because of excellent acting.

Although I really disliked the title, the film worked. Laggies refers to young adults that are lost and lagging behind their peers in developmental and societal growth.

Here we have Megan (Keira Knightley) who has been living with her boyfriend Anthony (Mark Weber). He wants to marry Megan and begin to follow the path their friends are taking, marriage then children. These long term  friends ("the group") are from high school and they continue to support each other and do everything together.

The setup is that Megan does things with her friends which are viewed as immature, and as she begins to see she is out of step with her group, she begins to wonder what to do with her life and what it means. Although Megan obtained her MFC degree, she found the work unrewarding. The pressure to act like a grown-up, get a job and contribute to society, is growing but she feels like she is floating. Enabling her situation is her father Ed (Jeff Garlin) because he  lets her work for him spinning a directional arrow sign on a sidewalk guiding people to is tax service office.

When Anthony asks her for her hand in marriage, she freaks and splits for a week to “get her head together”. She meets a high school kid Annika (Chloe Grace Moretz) and her friends who take a liking to this older, yet like them, woman. Annika sneaks her home and when her father Craig (Sam Rockwell) finds her in Annika’s room he decides to question her as to why. Throughout this week little lessons begin to appear to Megan and in the end, she finds a way to make steps towards taking charge of her life.

Knightly is absolutely fantastic. She perfectly embodies a young lost woman and then shifts to become a more responsible woman, yet keeping her young enthusiasm in tact. Weber is good as Megan’s fiancé. Garlin is strong as the enabling father. Moretz is sublime. Her intelligent innocence shines through with wisdom and grace. Rockwell is perfect as Moretz’s father. Andrea Seigel wrote a wonderful insightful screenplay. Director Lynn Shelton did an excellent job of letting this story unfold with good acting.

Overall:  I really enjoyed how this film unfolded although I disliked the title.

Before I Go To Sleep

First Hit:  Nicole Kidman was outstanding as a woman who cannot remember one day from the next.

This is not a film that will have a large audience as there is little that is uplifting about the story.

Christine (Kidman) wakes up every day and has no memory of the previous day. She wakes up in a man’s arms, doesn’t know who he is. She goes into the bathroom where there is a wall of pictures showing her and her husband, getting married, kissing, holding each other and they are appropriately labeled. She comes back into the bedroom and her husband Ben (Colin Firth) begins to explain who he is and what has happened to her.

She also is seeing, unbeknownst to Ben, a therapist who calls her every morning and asks her to review a video camera hidden in her closet. She watches the video she has taken of herself over the previous days, which begins her learning process for the day. At the end of each day she has a story, only to forget it by the next morning.

However, is her husband her husband? Is her friend her friend? What was her life before the accident which rendered her with this memory affliction?

Kidman is very believable. I am constantly amazed as how she can take these odd, sometimes dark, and brooding parts and bring them to life in a way that is so engaging. Firth is almost perfect as the guy who shows, remorse, anger, and darkness while being human. Rowan Joffe wrote and directed this film. From a dialogue point of view there were moments of crisp beauty and other times it seem to drag a little. However, the direction was very strong. He got a lot out of the actors, while creating a feeling of brooding darkness with both the sets in the house as well as outside (rarely sunny and the in nondescript home).

Overall:  Strong acting with a difficult non-uplifting subject ended as a good with a limited audience film.