Oh So Geeky

Gunfire echo throughout the English countryside as a helpless young man (later given the name Liam, played by Joey Bader) running for his life comes across Chester (Oliver Woolf) in the middle of a forest. He offers his hand and an escape to  safety. It's not exactly what Chester does but what he says - “Let me help you.” - that sets up the rollercoaster ride of Littermates . If you watch enough dystopian dramas or post-apocalyptic films, these four words could be the exact call a distressed character needs to be rescued, or the threat that will draw them into an even more deadly situation than merely surviving a zombie apocalypse or natural disaster. To be honest and fair, just by the looks of Liam, he could use a lot of help. Out of breath, shell-shocked, and unaware of his surroundings, Liam's also lost his motor functions and he has no memory of who he is. But Chester is there like a guardian angel arriving just in the nick of time; to clothe, bathe, and help his new f...

Set several months before songwriter Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) passes away of complications of pneumonia brought on by alcoholism, he spends a night out at the iconic restaurant Sardi's as his old songwriting partner Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) celebrates the premiere of Oklahoma! and goes on to have a legendary creative partnership with Oscar Hammerstein II.  Director Richard Linklater essentially composes a play to film, centering on a one-set location and tiny ensemble to steer Robert Kaplow's wondrous script. As a dialogue driven drama, there's a His Girl Friday pace to the tone of what is said. Think about anything else than what is being heard on screen, and you might miss the string of fast paced one quips Hawke hits out of the park or the painful ruminations as Hart misunderstands his essential part in theatre and fame's grand scheme. Simultaneously revered and forgotten by his contemporaries, the old world of Hart's success and congeniality slips away a...

Cinema often explores a veteran's life in hindsight from detailed accounts of wars that have been won – they supply much-needed perspective as historical events capture the public's interest. But more often than not, they also dive deep into the bloodthirsty brutality of combat, portraying soldiers in extremes as braggadocio heroes or ranting fiends. While films about the hardships of war are necessary to understanding the world at large, soldiers' trauma tells a commonly forgotten story. In his feature-film debut, veteran and director Kyle Hausmann-Stokes brings his experiences to the screen focusing on the ignored middle of what happens when a soldier comes home. With My Dead Friend Zoe , veteran of the war in Afghanistan Merit (Sonequa Martin-Green) struggles to pick up the pieces of her life. Tasked with attending VA therapy sessions led by Dr Cole (Morgan Freeman), she's accompanied by the passing of her friend and fellow veteran Zoe (Natalie Morales). In the be...

STXfilms (United States) With the exclusion of a few titles under his cap, director Guy Ritchie has mostly replicated his plots for the past twenty-five years. Having his universe of copy+paste indie-mob flicks, based solely on the cast and how many times they can find new entertaining ways to curse, isn't the worst career to possess in film these days. But it's not necessarily the most exciting either. Sleazy private investigator Fletcher (Hugh Grant) tracks down the dirty business arrangements between cannabis tycoon Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) and an American millionaire Matthew Berger (Jeremy Strong). With the intel he discovers, he attempts to bribe Mickey’s right-hand man Raymond (Charlie Hunnam), and that's just not going to sit well with at all.

Katie (Olivia Cooke) dreams of leaving her past behind to move to San Francisco and attend beauty school. While pulling double-shifts as a waitress where her tips are wasted by her alcoholic mother, the seventeen-year-old supplements her savings as a prostitute. As she reserves every dime she can for greener pastures, falling in love with an ex-convict Bruno (Christopher Abbott) spirals her life out of control. Everyone in Katie Says Goodbye has to forge their way in a claustrophobic nowhere town in the middle of the desert. There’s little to do for its residents except serve travelers on the road, drink, have sex – either for fun or as a gig. Left to fend for themselves with the basic necessities, Katie makes the best of what she has always looking for the silver lining. A few glimpses at her day-to-day life of monotonous waitressing, and excitedly gleaming at passing trains offers no rhyme or reason as to why she remains abundantly hopeful, and yet the film lovingly sets up this...

With some directors, you never know what you’re going to get. As familiar as you may be with their past projects, they always manage to create something within their own style but also off the beaten track. Director Yorgos Lanthimos is easily one of those types of directors today. Every film he produces from The Lobster to The Killing of A Sacred Deer, Lanthimos stands out even from his own work. This is easily the biggest, perhaps the best way, to describe his latest film The Favourite . Set in the early 18th century, Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) relishes having Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) all to herself. And then, her cousin Abigail Masham (Emma Stone) arrives on their castle's doorstep striving to make a name for herself by any means necessary. The two begin vying for the attention of the Queen as Britain braces itself for war against France.

Universal Pictures Most are probably familiar with Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 mission: the space race between the U.S. and Soviet Union, the "one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" quote, the iconic photo of Neil's footprints on the moon. Here for First Man , director Damien Chazelle explores a deeper, not widely known story, behind one of humankind’s biggest achievements. Following the death of their toddler Karen, Neil (Ryan Gosling) and his family gradually set a course for him through trial and error to chart the famous Apollo 11 mission. While working his way up as a pilot and surviving the Gemini missions to landing on the moon, Armstrong’s eyes are so strongly set on the stars to deal with his grief, his relationship with wife Janet (Claire Foy) and their two sons starts falling apart at the seams. One can’t have a biopic about Neil Armstrong without the Apollo 11, and vice versa. To tackle such an elusive figure with monumental events...

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: Whiplash / Sony Pictures Classics  At the end of 2014 as I was making my Best and Worst of list, a void lingered that I was missing something great; memorable; different; an experience I thought would come with seeing Interstellar   or Gone Girl  . Often, no matter how many great or good movies we see over the course of the year, sometimes what we truly count on are the experiences; a movie that makes you remember who you were with, what you were doing, how you felt when something shocked or excited or made your pulse race. Of course not every movie is going to be a visceral experience, which is cool because they all can't make you feel emotionally cathartic walking out of a theatre on cloud nine or give you something heavy to ponder about for the rest of the day...but when a year doesn't have a marker; a movie that really stands out from the crowd, watching movies for pleasure and for blogging can feel a little bit empty and glib. Part of me truly w...

Two young kids in their motor boat voyage out to an abandoned island on the Mississippi River. Thinking it'll be a day of wandering exploration, it's quite a welcoming surprise to Ellis (one of the two boys) when they meet a lean dirty straggler. He has a few cracked teeth, been living in a dilapidated boat, and owns nothing but the shirt on his back and a glock. His name is Mud. The mysterious presence around him is what makes us itching to know more about why he is a lone wolf on deserted land. After persistent probing, when Mud finally unveils a passionate confession about murdering a man who had beaten up the woman he loves, Juniper, the intrigue doesn't dissipate. Played by Matthew McConaughey, he pours out the truth with such heartache, you can't help but take him at his word. But we hear different perspectives of who Mud is. The boys help Mud make connections to his family and Juniper back on the homeland while helping him rebuild a boat for an escape. His ...