My Own Little World

Weird, quirky movies are my jam sometimes. There’s something about them that just get to me. Maybe it’s because I find them to have a little extra creativity required, or maybe it’s because I identify with their outlying nature compared to the mainstream – whatever it is, I like them. Guillermo del Toro’s latest, The Shape of Water , definitely falls into that category. It’s got a fish man, a mute woman, and a romance between the two. As if that weren’t enough, the film also takes place during the Cold War, a setting that amplifies its themes quite a bit. Basically, it is the definition of strange, and it’s also an incredibly rich theatrical experience. I’m not terribly familiar with del Toro’s previous work (I’ve watched maybe a third of Crimson Peak ), but I feel like that doesn’t disqualify me for being absolutely enthralled with his direction of this film. Every visual aspect of this fits together marvelously, especially the set and creature design and the color palette....

Warning: I will minorly spoil this movie in this post.  I have this thing with romance movies, that thing being that most of them are really, really not good. There is a definite formula to the genre that I think is becoming so overused that any film eschewing it for something different (*cough* Silver Linings Playbook *cough*) becomes one of the best of the genre in my mind. I kind of wish this wasn't the case, especially now that I am in a very committed relationship with someone who happens to love these movies. However, a couple of weeks ago, my girlfriend somehow got me to actually sit down and watch The Notebook  with her, and I realized something about this formula: there's a reason it's there, and I'd like to bet that that reason is The Notebook . It was successful among audiences, bringing in over five times its budget at the box office, as well as garnering a bit of a cult following in the years since its release. People love the unabashed sentimentality...

I love science fiction films. The Star Wars franchise has a near and dear place to my heart, as well as more recent films like Interstellar , The Martian , and Gravity . I love how people are getting really interested in these films again and also that the special effects used on such films are getting really, really, really good. I couldn't even tell that Gravity  was using CGI, even though I knew it was. So, naturally, I was looking forward to Passengers . Chris Pratt is a really solid actor who has charisma like crazy, and Jennifer Lawrence is Jennifer Lawrence. Morten Tyldum also seemed like a good director from the one thing I've seen from him, 2014's Imitation Game . It was a pretty decent biopic with some minor issues, but the visual front was very well-executed, something that I knew this film would need. And to be fair, the visuals in Passengers  are great, and they're probably the best part of the film. The effects are magnificent and blend well with the...