There is something there in these movies. They are really good, those that are enjoyed and you know that it is not wasted time to see them. This time it has been difficult to separate the good ones from the jewels because the level has been even … but you have to spin fine:
After midnight (Jeremy Gardner, Christian Stella):
A man who lives in a remote place in the American countryside is desperate because his girlfriend disappears and has a strange visit every night since her disappearance. A simple, funny plot in the way that is told, light and open to any possibility of outcome, which makes this movie intriguing and fun…
Starring Jeremy Gardner himself, I will not say much more, except that its last 10 minutes are a joy and it lifts it to the category of “worth it.”
Pelican Blood (Katrin Gebbe, 2019):
This movie, apparently, has nothing extraordinary, but it is a round reflection of what is being done to protect who you have chosen to care for. A desperate story of an adoptive mother who decides to adopt a second Ukrainian daughter again, who turns out to be a danger both to her and to the family she has armed until her arrival
If there is something that I liked about this movie, it is the inclusion of the fantastic in a very subtle and fine way; which makes it understood as a logical outcome option. Very well acted, the mother (Nina Hoss) who subtly develops horror and despair, as a daughter, a girl who amazes (and scares) with her ability to express everything with her gaze.
Vivarium (Lorcan Finnegan, 2019):
With a very successful aesthetic, this film tells us the frantic search for a way out of a couple that has been trapped in a pilot house in a typical suburb, which can be found anywhere in the world. As an extraterrestrial greenhouse, this place is the exact and tasteless copy of what is recognized as “normal”, identified as common, generic and massive; all that builds the current image of a perfect place to live: a community of identical houses, with generic decoration and packaged food without any flavor, that looks appetizing but disgusting when you eat it. Also the idea of model family and massification. It is, in the background, a kind of parody tinged with very black humor about what is the ideal of today’s society (say neoliberal), where even the clouds and the horizon is that of Windows Vista.
On the other hand, the aesthetic proposal manages to visualize how it could be a kind of multidimensional insectarium, where the guests are human beings. We could say that it is showing us what life would be like if we were animals in captivity, living in a zoo. As direct and cruel as it sounds.
Finally, it is a good proposal if you like rabid movies. If not, you will get bored, because this is another of the movies that are here not only to have fun, but to introduce a current social discourse; because there is something interesting to tell about our way of living.
Corporate Animals (Patrick Brice, 2019):
This is a film whose purpose is to entertain, and achieves its mission. Classic American black comedy format, starring a Demi Moore that shines in an unbearable role, is a film that makes you laugh in the middle of a tragedy: a motivational mode company ride is a disaster from the beginning and ends with the team trapped in an ancestral cave, product of a landslide. All that happens from then on is the attempt to survive the disaster, without resources and with people who, of course, will get the worst of themselves. Lightweight, fun and ideal for the sofa.
The jewels
The jewels are those that you know they will give what to talk about and that move you. My favorites of this version.
There is something there
Come on, it can’t be all gems, but these are worth it, and very much:
The WTF
They are those movies in which when you finish them, you think: what did I just see?