IO (2019)

You know what I've been seeing for the past week or so as soon as I opened Netflix? The trailer of IO, their new post-apocalyptic movie. Worn out by its continuous playing and because Anthony Mackie is in it, I decided to give it a shot. How bad could it be, right? A lot, as it turned out. 

The film follows Sam Walden (Margaret Qualley), a young scientist as well as one of the last people on a post-cataclysm Earth who is dedicated to finding a way to save the planet and for humans to adapt and survive on it. Time is not on her side though as the final shuttle is about to depart and she only has a few days to make a meaningful scientific outbreak discovery or stay on the dying planet. That's when another survivor, Micah (Anthony Mackie), shows up and tries to convince her to leave.

Thursday Movie Picks: Television Edition: 2018 Freshman Series

Welcome back, or welcome if you are new to Thursday Movie Picks, the weekly series hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. The rules are very simple, pick three to five movies —series on the last Thursday of the month, which happens to be today— to fit the week's theme. I didn't have much of a choice this week as I've only seen three series, but it's alright though as I loved them all.

Cold War (2018)

On Mondays, my cinema shows art house and indie movies but I don't go often as it usually shows movies that I'm not interested in seeing. This week's movie was Cold War (Polish: Zimna wojna) and, since I heard great things about and I was also curious to see if all the Foreign Language nominees are dreadful this year or if it's just Roma, I decided to go. 

Set in post-World War II Europe, mainly in Poland, from the late 1940s until the 1960s, the story follows Wiktor (Tomasz Kot), a musical director, and Zula (Joanna Kulig), a young singer with incredible talent, as they fall deeply, hopelessly in love. Forced to perform communist propaganda songs, they dream of escaping to the West and they soon have their shot in France. However, Zula misses it and over the years they will cross paths often.

Roma (2018)

I wanted to watch Alfonso Cuarón's Roma back in December when it released on Netflix but the length put me off. Then it got 10 Oscar nominations and, despite the Academy once again embarrassing themselves with awful nominations and jaw-dropping snubs and people mentioning how boring the movie is, I decided to give it a shot. 

The film is set in early 1970s Mexico —Roma is a neighbourhood in Mexico City if you are wondering where the title came from— and follows a year in the life of a maid, Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), and the middle-class family she works for.