Mistress America

An intriguing movie covering a coming-of-age sort of thing in New York City. Tracy (Lola Kirke) is an aspiring would-be writer having trouble fitting in at Barnard, so on her mother’s advice she contacts her soon to be step-sister Brooke (Greta Girwig). The movie doesn’t have the sort of predictability you would come to expect, the characters are likable, their relationships and dialogues interesting. Brooke wants to open up a restaurant which is also a hipster paradise, a place where you can hang around and talk, and of course order food, be able to trade etc. She goes a long way but needs some capital to get things started. She’s a smart and independent woman, but still realistically clueless, as we all are when we’re in our thirties. She goes to her ex to get him to invest in the new business, Tracy accompanies her because she really believes in Brooke and is sort of in love with her. There is no one to drive her but Tracy’s ex-crush and his new girlfriend. A mishmash of characters that somehow work together nicely.

The whole movie in the end is sort of depressing, but hey, that’s life. Greta Girwig is a really beautiful and talented actress, I’ll have to keep an eye out for this one. Definitely recommended.

Passengers

An aesthetically pleasing sci-fi flick with a minimal cast and beautiful scenery. The starship Avalon is travelling at 0.5c towards a distant colony. The entire crew and its 5000 passengers are in deep stasis of some kind since the voyage to Homestead II takes about 120 years. Our protagonist Jim’s (Chris Pratt) stasis pod starts a reanimation sequence due to a very specific and unlikely event. The passengers are suppose to be reanimated some 4 months before arriving to the distant colony, but Jim is awaken some 88 years before the voyage ends.

There’s a lot of details in the movie, it’s a part of a new trend where the sci-fi film is realistic as possible. No FTL, no wormholing, no fancy SF shit, a ship like this is maybe possible within 10 generations, maybe. Jim sends a message back to home, but since they’re 30 years out already, it’d take approximately 17 years for the message to reach Earth and then it would have to catch up to the Avalon when they reply, so the earliest reply is in 55 years. Great, a lifetime spent in the bowels of a ship, but it’s not all so grim, he has an android bartender named Arthur (Michael Sheen) to keep him company, and has plenty of food. The movie has a weird melancholy attached to it, how everyone has a different reason for choosing such a strange life as by the time you reach the other world all your family and friends will have died. It’s the ultimate fresh start. Not going to spoil the movie further, surprisingly recommendable for a mainstream movie.

Kiss of the Damned

Now this movie is a particularly interesting take on the vampire genre by a director called Xen Cassavetes. An exquisitely fresh combination of erotic scenes, common vampire themes along with a narrative to explain and explore how an underground vampire society could co-exist with humans. Humans are still preyed upon for food, but is generally not done as the vampires are afraid their cover would be blown. The vampires drink animal blood and substitutes, live in lavish and remote houses where maids reside during the day to keep an eye out for their employers while they sleep and of course do housework. The maid in the movie has a rare genetic blood disorder which makes her completely unattractive to the vampires and that makes her very sought after.

The story begins where Paolo (the always lovable Milo Ventimigla) meets Djuna (Joséphine de La Baume), a hot vampire. They of course, fall in love and very soon proceed to have hot human-vampire sex. She’s shy at first because she has to reveal her true form and insists Paolo chains her to her bed so she can’t hurt him. She turns and the shackles are barely able to hold her sexy demonic form on the bed. This is a major turn on for Paolo who promptly unchains her and they have sex. Oh, she technically kills him in the process but it’s all right since he’s now a vampire. His senses are heightened, can’t stand the daylight and is always battling the urge to suck a human dry.

They’re a match made in heaven, all they have to do is fuck all night and be philosophical since Djuna has a very wealthy and influential vampire upper society friend who lets them use her fabulous house somewhere in the country. They got no jobs, no bills, very convenient for a love story. Their seemingly peaceful (un)life is disrupted when Djuna’s disturbed and of course hot vampire sister arrives, Mimi (Roxane Mesquida). The sisters are pretty ancient, hundreds of years or so and are always fighting. Mimi seems to resent the fact that Djuna turned a human as they swore they’d never do something like that. Mimi is a disruptive element to anyone that has anything to do with her and causes chaos for everyone. Her story line has a great ending, not gonna spoil that one for you.

In essence, a totally unheard of movie which I personally kind of liked. Definitely recommended if you don’t only favor movies with an ensemble cast or a strong and popular lead. Decent exploration of the vampire theme, actually pretty decent acting in a way, and a surprising amount of eroticism in it.