An insightful look at the making of a single EDM track - ****

A gritty look at today's 20-something generation growing into a world of quick-single-night successes that promises no realization of any dream.  This film takes on the look that is edgy and dry as it struggles to look for its own rhythm.

It's about  a DJ's discovery of his original sound that will break him into the mainstream club scene in Hollywood.  This discovery is directly aided by an established DJ who takes him in as a protege.  He learns to channel his experiences, his daily life and his struggles to find that organic sound that will set his music apart from the often sampled EDM tracks of today's club scene.

The film moves to an erratic rhythm, but stays too long on the slow side. It excites, it breaks, it dies and somehow it struggles to pick up at every turning point of the story.  But this may be the film's idea of 'telling it like it is', since it follows the relationship of 4 friends who are struggling with their own idea of existence.  At some point the story seems to be going no where, but that matches the characters who are at inert and confused.  At times it becomes exciting as the characters throw themselves in danger for being naive.

The film dares to ask the young people to give more consideration to their future while enjoying their youth and to use  their experiences to move forward.  Though it gives you a long story to produce just one track of music, the end product is remarkable, thus making this as the film to watch this week.

A dramatic representation of emotional growth.- ***1/2

Bright colors and vibrant animation belie the story that is told from inside the head of girl who is challenged to cope with a major change happening with her family while on the verge of puberty.  This new Pixar animation can challenge young people's minds and will put them face to face with their own emotions.

The story is simple.  It is about a girl and his family coping with moving to a new city.  The real journey happens inside the head of Riley, the daughter, as she goes from mental happiness to emotional turmoil as she tries to adjust to her new environment. The story is told through 5 main emotions housed inside what they call as the headquarters.

This movie brilliantly succeeds at transforming emotions into real people talking inside our heads and a re-imagining of our mind set into animation.  It managed to summarize ideas from general science, psychology, biology regarding the mind and translate them into what I term as mental landscape but animated.  It treads on the idea that  we are a summary of all our memories and that our personality is based on experience and a little instinct.

This was a nice film except that to me it was difficult to watch.  It was difficult to see Riley change from a being happy girl to someone who is withdrawn and numb.  Because everything inside her head was represented by actual objects and persons it became more tragic to see her breaking down as if a whole city is being torn down.  Everything is sort of magnified that way and thus while she seems fine on the outside you see her world crumbling from inside and that to me is very tragic.  It took a long time for me to recover from this film as it was to me really sad.

It's a good film, but get ready to cry.  

Absolutely lame - **

A new release that took decades in the making, the most potentially funny cast you could ever assemble and a set-up that could send a nice message to the audience had been put to naught due to a couple of wrong decisions that this film made.

A council of superior aliens discovered the presence of earth and wanted to destroy it, but the law says that they can only destroy a planet if the inhabitants are not able to distinguish good and evil.  And so the council embarked on an experiment to prove this by randomly granting absolute power to a human, checking to see what the human will do given the power. They had randomly picked a British secondary school teacher Neil  Clarke in love with his neighbor Catherine and has a best friend of a dog named Dennis.

I was mainly interested in seeing the three main cast and probably getting a few laughs. I like Simon Pegg in Rogue Nation and was curious to see him sans Tom Cruise.  I miss Robin Williams and so just hearing him as Dennis the dog would make this film worthwhile I thought.  It has been a while since I've seen Kate Beckinsale do something relevant and was hoping that this would be it.  Well I did see/hear them but still is not worth it.  First of all, I was watching this film and thought this couldn't be new,  with the technology available now, editing and visuals shouldn't be very difficult.  It looked like an old comedy film with its texture and special effects that looked a little quirky.  So I was quick to ignore that and just focus on other things like story and characters and stuff but those too did not amount to much.  The characters the movie created were lame, except for Dennis the dog who was just basically being a dog.  Catherine is stuck in a job that doesn't want her and is quick to jump into bed after a few drinks,  Neil took a while to get the message and the hang of using his powers, and couldn't even smart up enough to save himself.

I was almost sure that this film had high hopes for humanity, but I guess the lack of it is what makes this film farcical.  It took a route concentrating more on the relationship of Neil and Catherine  and how one does not need powers to be lovable.  Not bad, but also not good.  I thought this film was a waste of a lot of potential and possibilities but then the production had a different kind of fun in mind.

It isn't so fanatastic.- ***

The Fantastic Four comic series is Marvel's oldest superhero hero team and this movie is the third re-imagination into film since 2005.  This particular installment is really a step back towards history and throws us further away from  the entertainment level that the first two films provided.

Reed Richards had been working on a science project since grade 5 when he was taken in by Franklin Storm who was developing the same kind of technology through a school that is funded by the US government with the aim of discovering other sources of power. He was assigned to work alongside Franklin's children; Sue and Johnny and another genius by the name of Victor Von Doom.

The teleportation device they were working on was proven to be a success at sending organic material into another dimension and along with  Reed's best friend, Ben Grimm, the young scientists foolishly decided an unauthorized test at sending themselves to the other dimension with the intention of being the first humans to successfully come back from another world.  They were able to comeback sans Victor because of  some instability in the other world, and this transport back to our world genetically changed their bodies allowing some sort of powers that are different from one another.

The success and failure of this film largely depends on the viewer.  If one is expecting an action packed, special-effects laden super hero film then this film will just ruin your day.  But if you are someone who would like to understand some details pertaining to their origins as a group then you might like to take some time out and watch this film.

What is ultimately wrong about this film is that it inadvertently broke the momentum that the first two films did and thus it suffers to be called the worst of three films.  It is dark and melodramatic and it spent too much time on the narrative that it forgets to entertain. If you ask me, this film wasn't so bad,  I was glad to see Miles Teller and Jamie Bell. I appreciated that now I know how they are all related.  I appreciated knowing the origins of their powers.  I had wished to see more dynamics in their relationships, like the friendship of Reed and Ben would have been a nice subject to explore or maybe get a glimpse of how Victor's feelings for Sue started but these would have made the film more dramatic.

In summary, there is still much to be desired even by judging this film on its own terms, but then this film possesses a solid story worth telling and it challenges our definition of a super hero film and in effect opens our minds.