Short Term 12 (2013)

Whenever someone on Twitter says that Brie Larson can't act there's always someone that brings up Short Term 12 to prove the contrary. Now I love Brie Larson as, to me, she's always proven she can act, but since I had never seen the film, I checked it out. 

The story mainly focuses on Grace (Brie Larson), the young supervisor of a group home for troubled teenagers called Short Term 12, who lives with her long-term boyfriend and coworker, Mason (John Gallagher Jr.). While facing personal issues as she finds out she's pregnant, she has to deal with two difficult kids at the home, Marcus (Lakeith Stanfield), a quiet kid who is about to turn eighteen but doesn't want to leave the facility as he's not ready to face the world out there, and Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever), a troubled teenage girl who seems to be deeply scarred. 

As you can probably tell, Short Term 12 is not a plot-heavy film. It's instead a film that tells a simple and yet complicated, complex story about real people, facing real problems, and that deals with themes such as mental health, domestic abuse, self-harm, depression, and emotional trauma with sensitivity and without being judgemental. This is when it really shows that director and writer Destin Cretton lived this situation — he had a two-year experience in a similar caregiving facility — and he makes great use of his personal experience. 

Unfortunately, the characters aren't nearly as complex nor as developed as one would expect from a film relying on its characters so much as Short Term 12 does. While they are not shallow, the characters could have used more characterization and development — they feel incomplete and their development is quite disappointing as there isn't much progression in their lives. Also, the main character, Grace, never seems challenged as she always seems more capable of handling the problems she faces. 

Cinedigm

Despite the not-too-strong screenplay, the cast does a pretty good job. While the role is somewhat predictable, Brie Larson does a great job as Grace, the caring young woman who tries to help others but can't help herself and keeps her problems away from everyone else. She adds so much soul to the character and portrays both Grace's fragility and toughness very well. As for the supporting cast, Lakeith Stanfield delivers quite a powerful performance as Marcus, Kaitlyn Dever gives a solid performance as Jayden, and John Gallagher Jr. is effective as Grace's boyfriend. 

The cinematography, although not particularly beautiful, gets the job done as the shaky camera helps set the tone for these people's world and makes the film, the story feel more real. 

This, however, is not enough to make of Short Term 12 a throughout compelling and engaging film. Actually, it never really involved me as I felt barely any emotion or empathy toward the characters. 

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Spoilers ahead! I never cared much about superhero movies, but then the Marvel Cinematic Universe happened and, every year for the past eleven years, they've been the movies I was looking forward to seeing the most. No matter how disappointingly awful some were, I was still excited to see what would come next. And after Avengers: Infinity War ended with that huge cliffhanger, Avengers: Endgame became my most anticipated Marvel film ever. And boy, I was not disappointed. 

The story picks up after the devastating events of the previous film, with the remaining Avengers — Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) — joined by Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), and Nebula (Karen Gillan) to track down Thanos (Josh Brolin), steal the Infinity Stones and reverse his action. Unfortunately, they learn upon finding him that he had destroyed the stones, and Thor kills him. Five years later, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) comes back from the Quantum Realm and proposes the others to travel back in time and prevent Thanos from finding the stones in the first place.

While it's a bit convoluted and confusing, the time travel plot not only makes perfect sense — and even if it didn't, I still wouldn't get why many people are vigorously complaining about it being nonsense. Have these people forgotten its a superhero movie involving time travel they are talking about? — as it manages to combine the storylines of the twenty-two previous movies beautifully, but it pays tremendous homage to the fans who have been following the Marvel Cinematic Universe for more than ten years, and to the characters — Captain America gets to reunite with Peggy — I don't get why people are complaining about this, Cap deserves a happy ending and him staying in the past doesn't mean he changes the past/future, it simply means that he created another timeline and that at present time there are two Steve Rogers, one old and one young as he's been defrosted as he was supposed to be —, Tony Stark gets to see his father, Thor his mother and Jane, and Bruce is finally at peace with the Hulk.

As for the characters, many viewers didn't appreciate the treatment some of them got, especially Thor who, according to some people, has been reduced to a pathetic comic relief as he's now a fat alcoholic other characters, specifically Rocket, often make fun of. I, on the other hand, think that the writers wouldn't have done anything better than that with him. Sure, we are so used to seeing this muscular, powerful and confident man, it feels weird seeing him in this as he's the opposite of that. But keep in mind that he has lost everything — his father, his mother, his brother, his best friend, the woman he loved, Asgard — and on top of that, he blames himself for failing to kill Thanos when he had the chance in Infinity War. So much has happened to him, it's only natural that he has become the man he is here. And what the did with the character of Tony Stark over the years is beyond impressive — not only he's no longer the selfish, arrogant he used to be and has taken the young Peter Parker under his wing, but he gets to the point of giving up his happiness, his chance of having a family to save the universe. With Endgame, we also get to see more of those characters who either weren't in the previous film, such as Hawkeye and Ant-Man or were barely in it, such as Captain America. I was a little disappointed with how little they used Captain Marvel though.

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

The cast does an excellent job, from Chris Hemsworth who embodies to perfection this new Thor with an incredibly humorous performance to Scarlett Johansson who finally gives a strong, compelling performance as Black Widow to Tom Holland who is barely in the film and yet manages to still the scene as he shares a touching moment with Robert Downey Jr.. There are also many wonderful and unexpected cameos from Natalie Portman (Jane Foster), Rene Russo (Frigga), Tilda Swinton (the Ancient One), John Slattery (Howard Stark), Robert Redford (Alexander Payne), Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter), James D'Arcy (Edwin Jarvis), Michael Douglas (Hank Pym) and, of course, Stan Lee.

The film is also filled with memorable scenes from Captain America finally grabbing Thor's hammer — the reaction of the audience was insane! — to the scene with all the Marvel women — I actually cried at this point because a boy sitting right next to me was very excited as he said, "it's all the girls".

The film is, as always with Marvel, visually spectacular, it has a killer soundtrack's and it's wonderfully paced — the three hours running time flies by — but most of all, it's rollercoaster of feelings and emotions with its homages, and the graceful combination of moments that make you laugh, moments that give you goosebumps and moments that will make you cry.

Unicorn Store (2019)

I love Brie Larson so when I learnt that her directorial debut, Unicorn Store, was available on Netflix (by the way, fuck you Netflix for telling me about every single insignificant rom-com of yours but totally forgetting about notifying me about this, and thank you Film Twitter for making me realise it), I watched it immediately.

The story follows Kit (Brie Larson), a young woman who is ejected from art school and goes back in with her parents (Bradley Whitford and Joan Cusack). After dumping herself on the sofa watching TV, she decides to join a temp agency, takes up an office job and soon finds encouragement from Gary (Hamish Linklater), the company's vice president, to pitch a campaign for a vacuum cleaner. But then she gets an invitation to The Store where the salesman (Samuel L. Jackson) promises that not only unicorns exist but that she'll be able to have one of herself to love her forever if she lives up to a few demands. 

While it's arguably not your typical coming-of-age story, Unicorn Store is yet another movie dealing with themes of growing up, letting go of childhood and living in the real world. Unfortunately, it's all been done before and more effectively too. In addition, it often gets cheesy and overly positive and it's quite annoying, and the romantic subplot never really takes off. It does, however, a good job at portraying how young people feel about failure and it's quite relatable because of it. 

The characters aren't particularly captivating either. Kit is not your typical twenty-something who is afraid of growing up and facing the real world, she is an immature young woman obsessed with glitters, rainbows and unicorns. What bothered me about her is that we don't get to know enough of her story to understand why she is so immature and acts the way she does. Also, the way she goes from laying on the sofa all day long wearing basically kids clothes to getting a job and wearing grown-up clothes just seems unrealistic. As for the supporting characters, they don't have a lot of depth. 

Netflix

Despite the lacklustre script, every single member of the cast does a wonderful job. Brie Larson is just fantastic as naive dreamer Kit, a character that seems to fit her personality like a glove. She gives such a charming performance that radiates so much happiness and joy, it's a delight to watch her, and makes the character very likeable and lovable. Also, she yet again shows off her comedic skills. Samuel L. Jackson is obviously having a lot of fun as The Store owner which makes us have a lot of fun watching him. Joan Cusack and Bradley Whitford do a great job as Kit's parents. It's Mamoudou Athie though that steals the scene as Virgil, a new acquaintance of Kit's as well as about the only "normal" character in the film.

The visual aspect of Unicorn Store is quite interesting too. The film is indeed nicely shot, the shaky camera works well and so do the many close-ups, and it's very, very aesthetically pleasing with its bright pastel and wild colours.

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).

After a pretty bad start —I don't know if it was just me, but the beginning was so tedious and uninteresting—, and despite the many plot holes and the fact that there's simply too much going on to fit in a two-hour film and because of it, it often feels clumsy and rushed, the story eventually becomes interesting and engaging and the major twist, while slightly predictable, is nicely pulled off.

As for the main character, there's something about Vers/Carol Danvers that didn't work for me. While I liked the way the filmmakers introduced her past —and I loved that she is just as clueless about it as us, the audience— and I adored Brie Larson's sassy and charming performance, I just didn't feel an emotional attachment to her. I rooted for her because I liked her, despite the character's striking arrogance, but when the film finished it felt like I still didn't know her. Also, her relationship with some of the supporting characters just didn't feel right —the friendship between Carol and Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) doesn't feel real; the relationship between Carol and Maria's daughter, Monica (Akira Akbar), on the other hand, feels way more genuine and warm.

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

The supporting characters, on the other hand, are quite interesting, specifically the twist they put on Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury. He is not the serious man we saw in the previous MCU movies, he is more relaxed, trusting, and has this sarcastic attitude that fits Jackson like a glove. The Skrulls, despite their lack of everything really as they have no character, they are fun and Ben Mendelsohn is terrific as Talos and manages to give the character that complexity the script denied him.

While I wasn't a fan of the editing which at times reminded me of a Best Editing winner I do not want to mention, the special effects are great, for the most —the de-aging is really impressive and you would never notice it if you didn't know the cast—, the soundtrack is great, and the action scenes are quite good —I don't know whether it was intentional or not, but I liked that 90s spy movie vibe they have. Not to mention how hilarious the film is —there wasn't a lot of people at my 2:45pm screening, but it sounded like everyone was having a really nice time, adults and kids alike.

Captain Marvel Confirmed As The Face Of MCU? Also AVENGERS 4 Spoiler Alert!

So apparently some fans from CineEurope are leaking some info about what they saw regarding Captain Marvel recently. Namely that Brie Larson's character will indeed be the lead of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Who said it? Don't know.

But apparently, the content shown to audiences also displayed Captain Marvel's powers and her dominance. Larson told E! recently (See video below): "She’s so strong - she can move planets. So for me, it was like - how far can I go with this strength?"

Man, I'm excited to see what she brings. And for me, Brie Larson is perfectly cast.

Question for you guys: Do you think that the content is referring to CM taking a temporary lead of the MCU franchise? Or permanent? In other words, do you think some of the characters killed off in AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR will make an eventual return to the land of the living?

** AVENGERS 4 SPOILER ALERT **
DO NOT READ FURTHER UNLESS YOU WANT POTENTIAL SPOILERS

After all, Nick Fury himself, Samuel L. Jackson told Vulture while filming AVENGERS 4: "Who’s really dead, and who’s really in the flaky wind of Marvel dust, I don’t know, but I do know there’s a solution that they didn’t even have to tell me, just because I know who Captain Marvel is and what all that means."

Jackson also went further saying Captain Marvel is "the most powerful character" in the MCU - heroes and villains too. She's the key guys.

CAPTAIN MARVEL is slated for a March 2019 release.

Awesome News: CAPTAIN MARVEL To Be Scored By Female Composer Pinar Toprak - A First!

I'm really excited to hear about this news, and CAPTAIN MARVEL is shaping up to be another must-see (and hear) event from Marvel. Ever since I saw CM's logo come up in AVENGERS INFINITY WAR I've been curious about their next move. This DOESN'T disappoint.

Pinar Toprak (KRYPTON) will be the first female composer to score a major comic book movie after signing on with Marvel's tentpole, CAPTAIN MARVEL, who is also being headlined by Brie Larson.

Says Toprak: "It’s an incredible honor to be a part of the Marvel Universe…. I have so many people to thank for helping me on this journey but first and foremost, my incredible agents Laura Engel and Richard Kraft for believing in me from day one."

CAPTAIN MARVEL is slated for a March 2019 release. I'll have more as it happens!

Source: Variety
Photo Credit: Ray Costa via Variety

MUST WATCH: Final Trailer For KONG: SKULL ISLAND

I have a soft spot for this magnificent creature ever since seeing KING KONG as my first theatrical movie experience in 1976 (I did see WESTWORLD at the drive-in at a younger age). I was thoroughly thrilled and I truly hope there are some out there that are making KONG: SKULL ISLAND their first cinema experience too. I was hooked on movies ever since. Kong makes an impression, let me tell you.

And the tradition continues. Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures is going all out with this production and their final trailer for KONG: SKULL ISLAND is no exception. Honestly, I didn't want to visually spoil more of the movie for myself but what it did really, was amplify my need to see this on the biggest 3D screen possible! You've got to see this in all its glory. Prime Focus is the 3D conversion company of record.

Here's the movie's storyline:
When a scientific expedition to an uncharted island awakens titanic forces of nature, a mission of discovery becomes an explosive war between monster and man. Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson, John Goodman and John C. Reilly star in a thrilling and original new adventure that reveals the untold story of how Kong became King.

Interact:
http://kongskullislandmovie.com
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KONG: SKULL ISLAND opens on March 10. My ticket is already acquired :-)