Babyteeth (2019)

Some movies you just love. Some movies you just hate. Some you think are okay but turn out to be a lot more. Shannon Murphy’s Babyteeth definitely is one of the latter as I wasn’t that invested in it and yet it had a devastating, emotional effect on me. 

Lost River (2014)

I added Lost River on my list years ago because of Saoirse Ronan but, I don't know why, I never cared to watch it. Probably because it sent me a negative vibe. 

Anyways, the film centers on Billy (Christina Hendricks), a single mother of two who has fallen behind on her house payments and may lose her home because of it. As a desperate attempt to save her childhood home, she takes a disturbing job into a macabre underworld. In the meantime, her older, teenage son, Bones (Iain De Caestecker), steels chopper from old houses to make some money and gets into trouble with a vicious local criminal named Bully (Matt Smith). 

Captain Marvel (2019)

Although it took Marvel more than a decade to make a movie about a heroine —and they probably made it only because they needed her in End Game— and the web filled with negative reviews earlier this week, I'm a Marvel ho and I love Brie Larson and I'm also a woman so of course I went seeing Captain Marvel. And I had pretty high expectations about it, even though I was said to lower them. 

Set in 1995, the story begins on the planet Hala with Vers (Brie Larson) training with her mentor, Yon-Rogg (Jude Law). They soon go on a mission to rescue an undercover Kree operative who infiltrated a group of Skrulls, shapeshifting aliens who have been fighting with Krees for centuries, but it turns out it was an ambush, Skrulls leader Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) captures Vers and tries to extract information. Instead, he revives some of her memories, she manages to escape and crashlands on planet Earth, where she joins forces with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to discover who she really is and to stop the Skrulls from getting an experimental engine designed by Dr. Wendy Lawson (Annette Benning).

Animal Kingdom (2010)

Genre

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Director

David Michôd

Country

Australia

Cast

James Frecheville, Ben Mendelsohn, Guy Pearce, Jacki Weaver, Joel Edgerton, Sullivan Stapleton, Luke Ford, Dan Wyllie, Anthony Hayes, Laura Wheelwright, Mirrah Foulkes, Justin Rosniak, Susan Prior, Clayton Jacobson, Anna Lise Phillips

Storyline

After his mother dies, seventeen year-old J Cody (James Frecheville) has no choice but to contact his maternal grandmother, Janine "Smurf" Cody (Jacki Weaver), who rules her criminal family with a borderline incestuos love over her three sons. Among blood brothers and blood, manipulated trial sand revenge served cold, J will soon lose his innocence.

Opinion

The extremely impressive debut from Australian director David Michôd, Animal Kingdom is a tense, gloomy, innovative and mesmerizing crime family drama.

In this bitter and dramatic film, Michôd tells the gangster life as if it was an animal kingdom, where the strongest, the one that eats the weakest wins, and also makes a criticism to those men - and women - who are neither men nor animals. He shows all this with a cynical eye, with no compassion, and wonderfully manages to convey violence without aestheticizing it. 

However, the moral condemnation aforementioned soon stops to make room for a world where no one is really good or bad. In fact, whether criminals or cops there is no difference: they all use others for their own ends. Only detective Leckie makes exception. 

Also, don't expect long shooting scenes, or robberies or car chases because there are none in Animal Kingdom, as the action is reduced to a minimum.

The films makes use of the minimalist synthesiser music from Antony Partos to create an air of dread and tension.

The cast is uniformly excellent. In his debut James Frecheville is basically a piece of wood as J (in a good way), he is in a constant catatonic state, seemingly frail and confused, Ben Mendelsohn delivers a convincing performance as terrifying psychopath Pope, Guy Pearce gives a wonderful and intense performance as detective Leckie, and Jacki Weaver gives a strong performance as Smurf, the matriarch of the family with the psychotic smiles.