Good Kids was a cute, sort-of funny film about four friends in the summer after they graduate from high school. They were the nerds of their class, and can't stomach the idea of going off to college without having any of the life experiences they feel like they should have had by that age. So they set out to have those experiences, to reasonably comical effect.
Kodachrome is entirely an all-too-predictable film about an estranged son's relationship with his dying father. It's also an homage to the eponymous color film; the dying man is a photographer who is on a quest to get his last rolls of film to the sole remaining location in the U.S. which is developing the film. The movie itself, as I said, is completely predictable. It is worth watching to see a wonderful performance by Jason Sudeikis.
Spectral is what you should watch if you just want to see lots of shooting and explosions. It's a sci-fi military tale, with a main character who is a DARPA scientist, and travels to eastern Europe to solve the mystery of the supernatural beings which keep killing American special ops fighters without leaving a trace.
Quiz Show had been on my list for a long time. It's a fictionalization of a true story -- a Congressional staffer investigated television quiz shows when he believed they were fixed. The film focuses on two contestants: Herb Stempel (John Turturro) and Charles van Doren (Ralph Fiennes). Great performances by both of them.
Revolutionary Road is another one that had been on my list for a long time. Unlike Quiz Show, this one was more depressing than satisfying. Which is not to say that the acting wasn't impressive in this one as well -- both Leo and Kate (reunited after the Titanic went down!) do a nice job. But it's just so hopeless. Not fun.
Blue is the Warmest Color got so many great reviews, and I have to say that I was a little bit underwhelmed by it. It was likable enough, for what it was, but it seemed like the only thing that really made it anything other than a run-of-the-mill coming-of-age love story was that it was about lesbians rather than a heterosexual couple.
The Last Five Years stars one of my favorites, Anna Kendrick. Consider yourself warned before you start it, though: it's a musical. It's a clever story-telling tactic though. The plot moves backwards and forwards in time, while you piece together -- you guessed it -- the last five years. Those years make up the length of the relationship between Cathy and Jamie, as Cathy's songs move backwards in time from the end of their relationship and Jamie's songs move forward from the beginning of it.
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