Meet the free, proud, independent people of Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzNxLzFfR5w Nothing but reviews. In excess.
From ZERO to 6 ♥s. 100% ad-free. Run on pure love for movies, documentaries and TV-series. June 2025: Countdown to: Top 10: Best horror comedy movies - Upcoming review: There's Still Tomorrow (2023)
Eagerly anticipating this month ... (6-25)
Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value (2025)
Showing posts with label Elizabeth Olsen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elizabeth Olsen. Show all posts
♥♥♥♥ + Best Shooting Star Actress of the Year (Elizabeth Olsen)
The 'true events' that the poster refer to is actually a case from Uruguay that not even the makers of Silent House, Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, know any details about
A young girl arrives at her uncle's house, which she is going to help empty for future sale with her father. But there seems to be a squatter in the house...
Silent House, written by Laura Lau (Grind (1997)) and co-directed by her and her husband Chris Kentis (Open Water (2003)), is based on the Uruguayan horror movie The Silent House/La Casa Muda (2010). It is made with an intense real-time concept that makes the whole film seem like it was shot in a single shot, (although it was mostly shot in 12 minute blocs, - which is also impressive, however, - with cuts hidden by various techniques.) Cinematography by Igor Martinovic (Man on Wire (2008)) The film has an intensely uncomfortable story at the its center. Silent House works! Because you get scared shitless and highly uncomfortable not far into the proceedings. Elizabeth Olsen (Godzilla (2014)) gives another kick-ass performance in a fearless role, a journey into the darkness within. The film and its concept, which only works to heighten things, do, however, become too uncomfortable for some people. - Beware, if you have weak nerves! Silent House is a wild round of visually equilibristic scares, but also, when it sheds its robes, a true feel-bad movie. Luckily at 87 minutes, it is generously compressed lengthwise.
Scream queen Elizbeth Olsen faces terror in Chris Kentis and Laura Lau's Silent House
Watch the trailer for the film here
Cost: 2 mil. $ Box office: In excess of 13.1 mil. $ = Huge hit [Silent House earned mixed reviews and bad audience reactions, as people were put off by the real-time concept, the film's themes and other things. It still made 12.5 mil. $ in North America. Its final gross seems to be somewhere around 16 mil. $.] What do you think of Silent House?
Best Director: Sean Durkin (lost to Agnieszka Holland for In Darkness) Best Actress: Elizabeth Olsen (lost to Bérénice Bejo for The Artist) Best Supporting Actor: John Hawkes (lost to Michael Shannon for Boardwalk Empire S2) Best Cinematography: Jody Lee Lipes (lost to Phedon Papamichael for The Descendants)
+ Best Thriller of the Year + Best Debut of the Year + Best Shooting Star Actress of the Year (Elizabeth Olsen) + Best Low-budget Movie of the Year
The intense, Spanish poster for Sean Durkin's Martha Marcy May Marlene
Martha is a young woman who escapes through a forest from a cult. She subsequently lives with her sister and husband in their summerhouse by a lake in Connecticut, while she remembers her traumatic experiences.
Beautiful Elizabeth Olsen (Kill Your Darlings (2013)) is fantastic here in what is only her second major movie role. She plays opposite a scary John Hawkes (The Sessions (2012)) as a pathetic lunatic and Sarah Paulson (12 Years a Slave (2013)) as her sister. Martha impresses with stunning images, (cinematography by Jody Lee Lipes (Trainwreck (2015))), minimalistic effects and intense suspense. It is the impressive feature debut of NYU graduate Sean Durkin (Southcliffe (2013), TV-miniseries), who has written and directed it, based on a short of his starring Brady Corbet (Force Majeure/Turist (2014)) called Mary Last Seen (2010). Corbet also has a smaller role in Martha. The film forcefully captures the total detachment from reality of a group cult as well as the profound damage done to Martha by blending very uncomfortable scenes and incredible beauty. Durkin may have made one of the year's best films here. He is now working on a Janis Joplin biopic, simply called Janis (announced).
Elizabeth Olsen and Sarah Paulson in Sean Durkin's great Martha Marcy May Marlene
Watch the trailer for the film here
Cost. 1 mil. $ Box office: 3.5 mil. $ = Big hit [Durkin's film won him the Directing Award for Best Drama at Sundance as well as many other nominations and awards and stellar reviews. It made 2.9 mil. $ (83 % of the total gross) in the US. It also helped catapult Olsen's career upwards.] What do you think of Martha Marcy May Marlene?
+ Best Kaiju Movie of the Year + Best Screen Couple of the Year (Elizabeth Olsen & Aaron Taylor-Johnson)
Awesome, beautiful poster for Gareth Edwards' Godzilla
Godzilla is back! After an American hiatus since the 1998 movie by Roland Emmerich, Godzilla, which wasn't terrible, but definitely wasn't great either, and the Japanese Toho's (owners of the franchise) Godzilla: Final Wars (2004), which I haven't seen, the giant, ancient creature is back, - and this time in the best Godzilla movie that I as a Godzilla fan have ever seen, (and yes, I have seen several of the classic Japanese entries.) Godzilla begins in 1998, where a worried American nuclear scientist in Japan sees his worst fears realized, as an apparent earthquake causes his nuclear plant to come crashing down and kill his wife. Fifteen years later, the same man is still obsessed with the event and what is really going on. He gets arrested in Japan, and his son, - a Navy lieutenant with his own family now, - goes to get him home. But father's ideas turn out to be not so far-fetched at all ...
Beautiful Elizabeth Olsen is a very welcome feature in Gareth Edwards' Godzilla
First of all, Godzilla bolsters a first class cast, led by one of the most handsome screen couples seen in a long time, Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)), who, however, doesn't have much to work with here, and hunky Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass (2010)). - Even in a mediocre monster movie, these two would have made an important difference.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson is a strong and handsome bomb defuse expert in Gareth Edwards' Godzilla
They get great back-up from Bryan Cranston (Drive (2011)) in the strong role as the desperate father and Juliette Binoche (Three Colours: Blue (1993)) as the mother, though she is only in the movie very shortly. Ken Watanabe is a scientist that brings a lot of the welcome 'philosophical' material of the original movies into Godzilla, about Godzilla's motivation, goal, and how we should behave towards him. His acting is mostly variations on this look, which does become a bit comical:
Ken Watanabe as flabbergasted scientist in Gareth Edwards' Godzilla
- But it's part of the fun of the movie. Other minor steps that you as an audience had better jump over instead of pause to speculate at include: David Strathairn's Navy admiral, who seems to accept it right away, when his job becomes to chase MUTO's (giant mutated monsters) or rather lure them his way - with nuclear warheads! Another such 'step' is when the first monster breaks out of a huge mine with loads of people around and flees to the ocean, and the official strategy is then to keep that a secret, which I feel would be difficult if not impossible in our age. But this strategy doesn't remain in place for very long, as the MUTO isn't satisfied just scuba-diving oceans and laying low. These objections are very minor and didn't hurt the overall experience, which was one of wild exhilaration! Read on to know exactly why.Godzilla allows its audience, what Emmerich's Godzilla did not; to root for Godzilla, (which will be most audiences biggest joy at a Godzilla movie, and especially what fans of the franchise are looking for.) We form a kind of alliance with Godzilla in the new movie, and He helps us to defeat the nasty MUTO's before the end of the movie, which I won't spoil, but I'll just say that it's PERFECT. Gareth Edwards' Godzilla leaves us uplifted, exhilarated and filled with boyish excitement and faith in the giant creature. - Which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, very appropriately with the release of this new film, which is my personal favorite in the series now. Edwards has impressed a lot of the right people with his low-budget monster adventure Monsters (2010).After the solid story is laid down, the monsters get the right amount of screen-time for themselves, and the MUTO's are very well-made, scary multi-legged mutant-freaks; their sounds are frightening, - they are very fascinating:
Concept image of one of the MUTO's' attack in Gareth Edwards' Godzilla
Godzilla has grown, - he's more than double the size he was in 1954, which makes sense, because our cities have grown. He's HUGE in the new movie, and the coolest thing is that he gets to cast his blue flames (radiation?) out at his enemies. I loved that the people in the universe of the movie also get to see him as their savior and look at him with tremendous respect and fascination, (as we do). Godzilla really becomes God-like in Gareth Edwards' movie, which is just incredible. Also it was nice to see a huge Hollywood picture actually end, as so many these days seem to think they have an off-putting obligation to promote the next entry at the end of the film. It is also a plus for Godzilla that it doesn't go overboard with Taylor-Johnson's heroic character; he never saves everything and becomes unreal; the movie is never that much his. Locations include Japan - with references to the Fujiyama-catstrophe, - beautiful Hawaii, Las Vegas, - a fun few minutes of extreme destruction there, - and San Francisco, where the main fights go down. My favorite scene was on the Golden Gate Bridge involving a school bus full of kids desperately trying to get off the bridge, as the military try to attack a monster there. - Really exciting! Another favorite scene was the one where the special troops parachute down San Francisco, emitting red smoke, as Godzilla and the MUTO's prance around the city, - really beautifully achieved! Online critique that Alexandre Desplat's (The King's Speech (2010)) score is below par for him, - because it isn't as 'sophisticated' as he usually is, - is ridiculous. Desplat's Godzilla-score is bombastic, as it should be, and intelligent, - as so many other decisions about the movie is, - and works perfectly with it. I especially liked the music at Godzilla's triumph at the end, which was just perfect. Go enjoy this rare monster movie, bring your kids if you have any, and they're big enough to see it (age 6/8 depending on the child), enjoy the roars, because it may very well be years before a movie about giant monsters as good as this is released again. (But I am really hoping for Jurassic World (2015)!) I didn't see it in 3D and enjoyed is just as much without it, but if you're a 3D fan, go for it.
Budget: 160 mil. $ Box office: 489.4 mil. $ = Big hit What do you think of Gareth Edwards' Godzilla? Do you agree it is the best Godzilla movie to date?
