a) Beasts Of No Nation

It surprised me how far you get into this movie before Idris Elba shows up, but it was really effective from a storytelling standpoint -- you get to see the child narrator living a normal life before the war starts, which makes everything that happens afterward that much more horrific. And I kind of liked how the story took place in an unnamed location, like they just let those details go unmentioned instead of inserting the story into history or making up a country. 

b) A Little Chaos

One of Alan Rickman's final films was his second directorial effort, where he played King Louis XIV and Kate Winslet plays his gardener. It's a sweet, playful little film about people practicing a craft, not at all a stuffy important historical movie, really kind of a nice swan song for Rickman to go out on. Actors dabbling in directing tend to be a mixed bag, but they often get together a good cast and get good performances out of them, and Winslet and Stanley Tucci are great in it.

c) Spy

This was really, really funny, definitely one of the best comedies of the last couple years and Melissa McCarthy's best work to date (always thought Bridesmaids was a little overrated, but Paul Feig really got the formula perfect on this and my expectations are higher for Ghostbusters now). Jason Statham was especially great, but really the whole supporting cast brought enough action movie gravitas for a really funny contrast with McCarthy

d) Adult Beginners

One of those aimless movies about an emotionally stunted manchild learning to do basic human shit. Nick Kroll has a certain baseline unlikable vibe that serves him well in sketch comedy but making him the lead character in a movie, as a pretty unsympathetic character, just comes off weird, but I guess that's what they were going for.

e) Song One

I know that comas are something that actually happen to people in real life sometimes, but it feels like any coma that happens in fiction is an emotionally manipulative contrivance. And this is one of those movies that starts with a character in a coma and then becomes about his sister's life and I dunno, it was just stupid. It did surprise and amuse me, however, that for a cliched movie about people who play earnest guitar music, the emotional climax of the movie happens during a Dan Deacon concert, and it's actually a pretty great scene. 

f) Big Eyes

It's nice to see Tim Burton do something that isn't a garish day glo cartoon, and the story is certainly inherently interesting. But there was a typical biopic flatness to the screenplay that kind of spoonfed the events in the most obvious and overexplained way and didn't really capture anything felt like the emotional truth of what was probably a pretty complex relationship. Amy Adams and Cristoph Waltz are pretty great, they're just not given much to work with.

g) Wind Chill

I'm fond of saying that I'll watch Emily Blunt in anything, and that she almost always picks interesting projects. So I had hope that this horror movie produced by Steven Soderbergh from early in her career would be good, but it was kinda dumb. It starts out with a premise that makes you think it's going to be a psychological thriller about two strangers stranded in the snow, but then all these crazy supernatural elements come in and they never totally work. It amused me that the movie is about driving from rural Pennsylvania to Delaware, since those are roads I've driven on many times myself, but there's nothing familiar about the scenery because they filmed it all in Vancouver.

h) To Be Or Not To Be
Even though this movie has a lot of themes in common with the movies Mel Brooks writes and directs, I was surprised by how obvious it is that he's merely the star and not behind the camera. It's not a bad movie, but I think I'm so used to seeing Brooks in a quicker, more broad comedy that it felt weird to me. 

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