Oh So Geeky

We need more sci-fi movies with women. I’ll point you to director Alex Garland’s Annihilation as one of the most recent reasons why. Despite having a familiar plot of an isolated team searching an almost alien-like treacherous land, the film hypnotizes you with its bizarre world and the mystery of unanswered questions. The movie's cast, cinematography, and world-building is satisfying enough on its own with what it gives to the story but also leaves you wanting more. Based on the trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer, a mysterious translucent orb looms over Area X. No one knows how or why it came to fruition, just that its electromagnetic power slowly absorbs everything in its wake. Anything or anyone that crosses the Shimmer’s threshold is never to be seen or heard from again. That is until cellular-biology professor Lena (Natalie Portman) is inexplicably reunited with her husband (Oscar Isaac), a soldier who entered the Shimmer as part of a military operation and was the only survi...

On the very rare occasion that Tom Cruise doesn’t deliver on his promise to thrill moviegoers, almost every summer we count on the renown star to bring on the excitement as the daring spy Ethan Hunt. Waiting for another installment has become an event in itself for fans anticipating where Cruise will take his passion for this sage next. Every Mission: Impossible installment seems outdo the last tone. Coming back for the sixth time, Mission: Impossible Fallout again proves to be the best entry in a franchise that just keeps getting better. After failing to recover three plutonium nuclear cores, IMF Agent Ethan Hunt is forced to team up with the CIA’s top assassin August Walker (Henry Cavill) to prevent the weapons from falling into the hands of a religious anarchist group known as the Apostles. While dealing with the aftermath of capturing one of its dangerous associates Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), Hunt’s past comes back to haunt him, and question how he can save the world just ...

Everyone deserves a love story, but cinema has been slow in letting everyone share their affection for others. Based on the best-selling book  Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda  by Becky Albertalli, Love, Simon is one of the most refreshing romantic dramedies in a long time. Simon is gay. But nobody knows it yet. One evening, the gossip site for his high school tips off the community that someone is secretly gay but hasn't revealed their sexual identity yet. In a bid to ward off any attention, he anonymously shares his story of fears and worries about coming out, and begins a penpal relationship with "Blue" - another kid at school who's in the same position he is. When a nosy theatre nerd finds out Simon's secret and promises it'll stay so if he's hooked up with one of Simon's friends, Simon does everything he can to help him while sorting out his feelings. Though I haven't read the best-selling book yet, the adaptation proves to be a hit on...

Photo Credit: Focus Features A period film is rarely going to be anything else than what you expect. They carry with them a certain routine charm and elegance, and often breathtaking costumes and scenery to draw us into another time. Unless it's an old-fashioned mystery, biopics of twentieth century figures or unrequited love stories in the seventeenth century, aren't pegged to have some massive twist that leaves you feel like you've left a suspenseful thriller. Phantom Thread has all those things you'd expect of a typical period film, but surprisingly, not everything is what it seems. Hiding twisted secrets underneath its beautiful facade, something hypnotic and unsettling lingers within the gorgeous visuals of director Paul Thomas Anderson's latest feature. A waitress Alma Elson (Vicky Krieps) falls head over heels with fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day Lewis). Being in love with Woodcock is to be caught in a beautiful web. With Woodcock's ...

Photo Credit: Marvel Studios When a new movie enters the Marvel Cinematic Universe, critics expectantly hail it as a game-changer before it even hits theaters. Facing a mountain of expectations and pressure to deliver, sometimes the final product isn't worth the excitement or gets lost in the shuffle among all the other pending projects. As one of its most anticipated movies of the year, Black Panther had a lot to overcome. Entertaining, socially relevant, and engaging, the long-awaited film soars to the occasion and conquers the predictable MCU hype. After his father's passing in Captain America: Civil War , T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) must claim his throne as the King of Wakanda, a technologically-advanced African utopia that's shielded itself from the outside world. The transfer of power is challenged as his country questions hiding their innovation and culture to protect themselves in fear of being conquered. His journey is further caught in the crossfire when...

Photo Credit: Neon For nearly twenty five years, the complicated rivalry between figure skaters Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan took the world by storm. In 1994, obsessed news outlets and the public tried to call the shots of how Harding attacked her fellow competitor to stay on top. Now, this time solely focusing on the former, I, Tonya ambitiously sets at least one side of the story straight. Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie) was raised by her ruthless, narcissistic mother LaVona (Allison Janney) to be the best figure skater in the world. Determined and hard-working, she manages to become a U.S. Champion on her way to Olympic glory. Then her abusive husband Jeff (Sebastian Stan) and his lame-brain friend Shawn (Paul Walter Hauser) clumsily attempt to out her biggest competitor Nancy Kerrigan by whacking her in the knee. The attack instigates a worldwide scandal spiraling Harding’s fall from grace. Taking a page out of Tonya’s book to be unpredictable and unvarnished, direc...

Photo Credit: Universal Pictures Horror movies are a great opportunity for people to confront their fears, either imagined or real. Putting bigotry at the center of his stunning debut, director and writer Jordan Peele churns out a smart, scary, and relevant thriller with  Get Out. Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) is about to meet his girlfriend’s family for the first time in their secluded home far from the city. There's a slight catch: Rose Armitrage (Allison Williams) is white, and didn’t tell her parents that Chris is black. Though she tries to reassure him that everything will be fine, Chris discovers a disturbing family secret that shows their true colors. Ignorance and prejudice permeates all the time on the news, social media, and everyday life. The system has us so conditioned to treat people as if they’re invisible for simply trying to live their life like anyone else, except for what they’re stigmatized against: their gender, sexuality, religious preferences...

Photo Credit: Fox Searchlight Pictures Like athletes on the field laying it all on the line, sports movies have to have a certain finesse. They strive to capture the underdog versus the champions-that-can’t-be-beat, setting audiences on the sidelines to witness the push-and-pull of who deserves to win. Uplifting and compelling, directors Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton’s Battle of the Sexes is one of timeliest movies to come along, showcasing one of the biggest matches in tennis history and exploring the importance of perserverance. In 1973, Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) began a revolution for pay equality when she discovered herself and her fellow teammates weren’t getting paid as much as their male counterparts. Starting their own women’s tournament sparks an exhibition for Wimbledon Champion turned hustler Bobby Riggs (Steve Carrell) to make women's lib a laughingstock.  Along the way, King discovers more than the power of her voice and talent on the court, but ...

Photo Credit: Blade Runner 2049 / Warner Bros. Pictures For thirty-five years Blade Runner fans have waited for the next chapter of director Ridley Scott's cult classic. His grim noir world focused on a future 2019 where LAPD officer Deckard (Harrison Ford) retires replicant slaves (androids) who have gone rogue against their human masters and ends up falling in love with one of his targets (Sean Young). After audiences were left wondering the whereabouts of humanity and its android population, its sequel  Blade Runner 2049 succeeds at being more than a replica. Set in 2049, the world has continued to fall into economic and enviromental despair as a genius with a godlike complex Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) has reinvented replicants with a shorter lifespan and wired to obey their masters. Agent K (Ryan Gosling), one of the newest models, is tasked to "retire" older rogue versions like Deckard. When one target sets K off on a quest against Wallace's corpora...

Lionsgate In cinema and television, the war genre often showcases men departing for the home front, while their mothers and girlfriends waited for them to come home, and not much else. Historically, as their loved ones left for the battlefield, predominantly women, children, and the elderly were left behind to keep the economy going and their spirits up, and fill in empty spaces left behind in the factories, military bases, sports fields, and entertainment industry. Outside of a few different movies and tv shows that come to mind like Land Girls or A League of Their Ow n, it was a delightful, refreshing surprise to find Their Finest. During the Blitz in London, a young talented copywriter Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton) is hired by the Ministry of Information to turn "slop" - the women's angle in film - into uplifting and informative morale boosters for home and abroad. Working alongside a fellow screenwriter Tom Buckley (Sam Claflin), she is inspired to weave a tale ...

For decades, frustration mounted as Hollywood churned out franchises, reboots, and spin-offs for male superheroes while a comic book icon Wonder Woman was shelved. Sometimes it felt like her time would never come, but it's moments like this when we realize the anticipation, worry, and excitement was worth it. Everything had to align with the director, actors, and story, not so we could just get a female superhero movie just to have one , but because it needed to be good. Thank the movie gods. Wonder Woman isn't just good, it's amazing. No longer waiting on the sidelines, director Patty Jenkins dives into the origin story of the Amazonian goddess Diana Prince (Gal Gadot). As a daughter of Zeus molded out of clay, Prince was born on a paradise island Themyiscra populated by female warriors and hidden from the modern world. Though shielded from mankind's penchant for destruction, she trained for the day when another war would arise. When trouble swings by in the for...

Photo Credit: Beauty and the Beast / Walt Disney Studios A remake rarely fills a gap of something that simply wasn’t there before in the original. As Disney re-imagines a string of their own animated classics into live-action flicks, it’s difficult to imagine why they’d want to toy with perfection. Their transformation of the timeless Beauty and the Beast is truly spellbinding, if a little imperfect. In a tale as old as time, Emma Watson stars as Belle, an independent bookworm who dreams of a bigger life than the one her small, provincial town expects. As a self-absorbed veteran Gaston (Luke Evans) sets out to own her affection, she is compelled to break a powerful spell held over another self-absorbed beast (Dan Stevens), who is actually a prince in disguise. Only one is truly worthy of her kindness to discover more than what meets the eye.

Photo Credit: Arrival / Paramount Pictures Aliens invading Earth forces humanity to take drastic action. Suspicion and premature counter-attacks are sparked by world leaders and civilians trying to protect themselves. What do we do to quell panic? get answers? defend our turf? Director Denis Villeneuve tackles the complexity of humanity in  Arrival. Based on Ted Chiang's short story Story of Your Life , linguist Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) are recruited into a special military operation to communicate with the creatures which initially harbor ill intentions. Together, the duo work with other countries to prevent war. The science fiction genre has had a rough go recently. Audiences can mostly count on a franchise like Star Wars to transport them to another galaxy, while others have failed to live up to the hype like Independence Day: Resurgence . Ones that aren’t quite so loud like Interstellar, which invites big ideas about ...

Photo Credit: Jackie / Fox Searchlight Pictures Ask anyone of the Baby Boomer generation, and chances are they'll recall the day President John F. Kennedy was killed and how the news reverberated around the U.S. Even though history has cemented the family's legacy, as well as Jackie as a style icon, time itself, has rarely scratched the surface of the former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy's experience. That's where the intimate, poignant biopic Jackie steps in. On November 22nd, 1963, Jack Kennedy and his wife Jackie were on a political tour through Texas when he was violently assassinated. Following Jackie through this horrendous ordeal, arthouse director Pablo Larraín dismisses the blind patriotism many biopics have taken before and dives into a non-traditional portrait of Mrs. Kennedy with a beautiful existential approach to trauma. Swinging back and forth between the past and present, Jackie (Natalie Portman) dictates her memory of what happened on that fate...

Photo Credit: Christine / The Orchard Based on a true story, Christine Chubbuck (Rebecca Hall) is an ambitious journalist for a local Sarasota tv station. Her immense dedication to simple yet meaningful human interest pieces is compromised when upper management intends to increase ratings for sensationalist news. 'If it bleeds, it leads' becomes the new standard, and Chubbuck struggles to match the style going as far as killing herself on-air. Despite knowing the outcome of Chubbuck's life for this biopic, Christine intensely and thoughtfully delves into her mindset and struggles, especially mental health. Just shy of her 30th birthday, Chubbuck is a person unto herself. She's never been involved with someone romantically, closes off from potential friendships, and has a complicated relationship with her mother. Getting married and having children is on her future itinerary, but it's sideswiped by plaguing health issues both physical and emotional. A linger...

Photo Credit: Fences / Paramount Pictures Sometimes we build fences to keep people out, but those same barriers can keep their loved ones locked in. In Fences, this gripping realization chips away for the Maxson family. Set in the 1950s against the backdrop of Pittsburgh, Troy's (Denzel Washington) marriage to wife Rose (Viola Davis), lost potential and responsibilities of as a father, husband, and man buckle under his own personal demons and the limitations of the times. Like most theatrical adaptations, the performances and script deliver all of the emotional action to give a wildly complex study of characters. This is completely true of Washington's adaptation of the August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play. At the center of this complicated drama is Washington and Davis bursting with restless energy. Imprisoned by the nature of the era, Troy and Rose have raised a family together but their compromises have kept them coiled to each other for good and bad reaso...

Photo Credit: 10 Cloverfield Lane / Paramount Pictures Monsters come in many forms. Michelle (Mary Winstead Elizabeth) encounters a series of her own when she wakes up in an underground shelter after a brutal car accident. She's being held hostage by a paranoiac ex-Navy man Howard (John Goodman), who claims he didn't just save her from the horrific wreckage but a hostile enemy invasion. Faced with mind-games within the absurd refuge and the loom of an apocalypse, she is forced to decide whether the person who claims to rescue her is as dangerous as the unidentifiable threats she's protection against. Hollywood has attempted the innocent-woman-held-captive trope time and time again. A lot of films in the genre merely torture-porn babes and commits to violence for violence's sake to cheap effect. Another go of this type of flick doesn't seem strictly necessary, but producer J.J. Abrams and his team prove it's worth another try. By transforming those worn-out...

Photo Credit: Galaxy Quest / Dreamworks Pictures Galaxy Quest is a very clever satire, mixing fans' passion for science-fiction and highlighting the best and corniest aspects of its entertainment with clever homages. At the height of its popularity, a fictionalized sci-fi soap opera  Galaxy Quest  was canceled. The riveting cliffhanger involving Cmdr. Peter Quincy Taggart (Tim Allen) and his crew are left to the imagination of hardcore fans in cult corners and fan conventions. Science fiction proves to be all too real when the dysfunctional cast is greeted by real aliens who misinterpreted their tv show as facts and are calling on them to save their race. Parodies are a particularly challenging film to pull off. Films like  Scary Movie or  Epic Movie  start off with decent ideas to spotlight inconsistencies and zany cliches but then it's enterprise is warped by absurd and irrelevant jokes.  Galaxy Quest , on the other hand, is a totally fun rid...

Photo Credit: Ghostbusters / Columbia Pictures Dr. Erin Gilbert (Kristin Wiig) is a quirky physics professor whose bid for tenure is put on hold when a former friend obsessed with the paranormal Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) and her zany engineer Dr. Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon) republishes a book they wrote about the supernatural. In exchange for removing the book from publication, Gilbert assists the duo to investigate a possible haunting. When their investigation turns out to be a real phenomenon, the group decides to open a ghostbusting business, soon adding Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones) into the mix. This being 2016, the gals' work soon faces backlash from online spectators and band together to save New York City from an impending supernatural apocalyptic event. Even though the movie features some of the biggest comedians around today, my two biggest reservations were the movie's comedic tone and the cast. Comedy and action flicks today have a knack for breaking the four...