Only God Forgives

I hated Drive the first time when I saw it but after that I have learned to appreciate it more for what it is. Now this is unexpected but upon watching it the first time I loved nearly everything Only God Forgives.

Blue is the Warmest Color [La Vie d'Adèle – Chapitres 1 & 2] (2013)

Blue is the Warmest Color is the story of Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a high-school beauty who's life change after she meets Emma (Léa Seydoux), a young woman with blue hair. A love at first sight. What follows is a affair initially based on carnal desire, that slowly morphs into true love that spends over the course of decades.

The good stuff first. The acting in this film. Léa Seydoux was just magnificent. She made me believe she was her character so much that I needed to search what the actress have done before this film. Apparently she was in plenty of stuff I watched. She played Charlotte LaPadite in Inglourious Basterds, Gabrielle in Midnight in Paris, Sabine Moreau in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol and Clotilde in The Grand Budapest Hotel, just that her performance here is miles better. But really what sells the film is Adèle Exarchopoulos. She gives what may be the best performance of 2013. Her transition from timid, confused teen to empowered, independent woman was so elegant, that it made her reckless behavior later in the film that much more heartbreaking. This is one tour-de-force performance and it shouldn't be missed by nobody. The actresses won Palme d'Or deservedly.
Also the cinematography is great. The film is filmed in very tight close-up, which consistently produces an intimate effect. The shot composition also stands out pretty well.
The script develops the characters in such a way that the film at 179 min doesn't feel dull in anyway. And the conversations just feel real and on point.

Now, the bad stuff. The graphic sex scenes felt like too much. These scenes helped me understand the bound between the characters but the scenes were too long and I felt like the director just wanted to show all the thing that he could show.
Other than that, the way that the bar scenes were filmed (and that's something that most film are guilty of). When you film a bar scene it makes sense to add music in post-production, because if you didn't as soon as you'll make a cut and you editing the song would cut as well and it would cease to be seamless. So when they're filming the scenes and delivering those lines there's nothing that they have to shout over but than they had in the lab music. And the dialogue stays loud enough to hear, but they're fucking whispering it. It takes all the The Social Network did the bar scenes perfectly and sadly most films do not.
realism away from me. The music in the background is obviously suppose to seem loud because of the post-production effects but the characters are never speaking as though there's something loud in the room that they're talking over.

Overall this film is really good and recommendable. Everything it seem super real and natural and I really love nearly everything about it but I'm kind of upset that it did have some problems. I'm not sure if this grade will stay consistent, maybe someday I'll change it. B+

Killer Joe (2012)

Finding himself in considerable debt, Chris (Emile Hirsch) a Texan drug dealer, decides the only solution is to murder his mother to collect the insurance money. Getting together with his father (Thomas Haden Church), the ex-husband of Chris' mother, they decide to hire Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) a contract killer, who also happens to be a police detective. The plan is that the money will go to Chris' sister, Dottie (Juno Temple). However due to the size of the contract fee, Chris agrees that Joe can take Dottie as a retainer until the insurance comes through.

Directed by William Friedkin (The French Connection and The Exorcist) this film is certainly brutal, at times disgusting and at end disturbing... and beautiful. There is violence, nudity and tension all over the place. Matthew McConaughey gives one hell out of a performance and the rest of the cast is great, mostly Gina Gershon. Unfortunately if you like KFC chicken I can't recommend the film. In the third act everything gets fucked-up and in real-time, so it's that. The editing at times was a little distracting and jumpy, but overall good. The shot composition and the lighting was good too. There are some continuity errors with wounds, but there is some obvious symbolism representing that it will happen something bad in the next scene.

I'm not sure if I like it or not, because it's...different. This film was really polarizing. I'm between 'It was a piece of shit' to 'It was great'. But I definitely respect it for it's WTF-ness and the bravery to go a step further. A-