Sicario (2015)

Sicario is an excellent new crime thriller currently in theaters. The main star is Emily Blunt, I enjoyed her performance in last year's Edge of Tomorrow. She plays an FBI agent who teams with Josh Brolin and Benecio del Torio to take down a Mexican drug lord. The scenes on the streets and on the roads in Juarez Mexico are very realistic and impressed me. I was reminded of the time years ago when I was in El Paso and crossed the border into Juarez; I didn't come across anything as dangerous as what was shown in the movie but certainly it could have happened. I love how the film is edited and shot by cinematography Roger Deakins; he creates so many great compositions that I want to see the movie again just to watch the photography. There is a great deal of mystery behind an apparent family man, who appears only from behind at the beginning of the film, but may be a dirty cop -- or someone else we're not expecting him to be.

Edge of Tomorrow, Snowpiercer, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

So far I've seen 3 new dystopian films in as many months, and surprisingly, I enjoyed them all.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014). I heard this movie described as a cross between Starship Troopers, Saving Private Ryan, and Groundhog Day (!). I might not have gone to see it if Groundhog Day was not in the equation; I love that movie and the concept of continuously reliving the same day with the option of doing something different each time, which is not often explored in films. That's exactly what Tom Cruise does in this, and he's teamed along with Emily Blunt; the two make a great pairing. I went to see the movie on the weekend of June 6, the 70th Anniversary of the Normandy landings. To my surprise, the film starts off with solders battling huge bug-like creatures on a beach (!). I couldn't help but wonder why I was was watching this and not The Longest Day (the next day I did watch that film). The film got better as it progressed, and turned into a very good action thriller, feeling like a "video game" (Live. Die. Repeat.) 

Snowpiercer (2013).  After the entire earth freezes over, only a few human survivors exist, and they're all trapped on a train that circles in a continuous loop. This was a big hit in South Korea last year, but elsewhere, it has been slow to pick up steam (pun very much intended). The film features an international cast: Chris Evans, Jaime Bell, Tilda Swindon, Octavia Spencer, and several South Korean actors that spoke mostly in their native tongue. Did I mention the film also has John Hurt and Ed Harris? (Two of my favorite actors) The film explores class struggle as characters from the back of the train (the slum) attempt to make their way to the front. The journey is an exciting one, as each boxcar presents some new obstacle or revelation about the train's operations. In one scene a man realizes he is in the possession of the last cigarette left in the world; I loved how the camera focused on the smoking ash so intensely.  In another scene a character gets to feel how cold the temperature really is outside (and the results are not pretty).  And one character serves as the train's "photographer" using some coal (I think) and a sketch pad.

Read another blog post about Snowpiercer from Avvaganda.com

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014). Not having a vested interested in the series, I almost skipped this. But it's been getting rave reviews for its innovative visual effects, and I just had to see for myself what all the fuss was about. Well, I must say, I was amazed by the CGI and all of the ape effects. For awhile I even thought I could smell the apes (it turned out what I was really smelling was the foot odor from the kids in the row behind me). The movie had a great story, too, exploring themes of war and diplomacy. Thankfully, I didn't need to see any of the previous movies to understand what was happening, and it was a fun movie to watch. I walked out of the movie feeling I really experienced some innovative visual effects.