BrowserMetrics

Still Alice was a horror movie.

That’s not what you say about the film which won Julianne Moore the best actress Oscar, but it was very horrific.

Moore stars as the eponymous Alice, a young Columbia professor who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She’s in her early fifties, but she inherited the disease from one of her parents. The film follows her descent into the horrors of this disease. It was especially tough for her character, because she was an intellect.

It was also tough on her, because she could pass it along to her 3 children, two of whom took a test to discover if they had inherited it. The youngest daughter didn’t, and she kept leading a care free life coming back to help her degenerating mother.

I had a friend who went crazy. He became erratic and delusional. When you looked into his eyes, you did not see him there. That is frightening like the Alzheimer’s in this movie. The person you know is gone but is still physically there. They are living ghosts.

3 of 5 stars.

I was ready to be appalled by the violence in Kingsman: The Secret Service, because of the reviews I read about it. Guts spilling out everywhere, heads exploding, decapitations, mangled bodies. I was expecting Quentin Tarantino levels of blood. The movie had it all, but I wasn’t appalled. After a while, it was pure spectacle. It became hilarious and hard to believe. It was cartoony violence.

The movie revolves around a secret spy organization which keeps the world safe from Saville Row in London. They are the tailors who tinker and spy. To be a part of the organization, one had to be born in high class. The kid in this one wasn’t high born but was given a chance because his dad was a trainee who gave his life to save Colin Firth’s life. The film follows the kid’s journey from novice to international super spy. He saves the world.

The film reminded me of James Bond movies with Sean Connery. It was kitsch in that sense. The cartoon violence was part of that. It couldn’t take itself too seriously. It was like Quentin Tarantino decided to do an Austin Powers movie. Still, there was violence, but come on, it was ridiculous. There was even a secret lair in what should’ve been a volcano. Plus heads asploded in it. ASPLODE!

3 of 5 stars.

Jupiter Ascending is a movie that would’ve been better released in the heady days after the first Star Wars film. It wouldn’t have been considered a disaster and a bomb as it is nowadays, but a better of a cash grab of a movie riding on the coat tails of the epic Sci-Fi films in the wake of the seminal genre defining space epic. We would’ve all went gladly hoping for another Star Wars, but would’ve been disappointed with the lackluster film. It is two films removed from what it could’ve been.

Jupiter Ascending is basically a princess film in the Disney vein. It has Mila Kunis’s Jupiter finding out she is actually space faring royalty. She is out of her leagues caught in the middle of galactic intrigue. She needs to be the Queen of Earth for Earth’s sake. Except the film kept making her the princess needing to be rescued. And that is what is wrong with it. She should’ve been kicking ass and taking names, like a shojou heroine. Unfortunately, she became the princess to be saved like a Disney Princess. Come on, she should’ve been a better character.

I would rather watch Speed Racer than this…

2 of 5 stars.