Movie Review: Blackhat

Blackhat is Michael Mann's latest cinematic foray and his first since 2009's Public Enemies. It is pretty interesting to look at Mann's filmography. He is far from a prolific director, but more often than not, the films he makes are of very good quality. I even thought his Miami Vice was pretty good, plus it has some really good gunfights. When it comes to Blackhat, I was not sure if it was going to be a movie for me as it looks like they were going for this computer themed movie built on the back of Thor. Seemed like an odd pairing that was not destined to work. As it turns out, the movie is not what I expected and it surprisingly works.

Movie Review: Prisoners

With his first English language film, Oscar nominated director Denis Villeneuve (Best Foreign Language Film for Incendies) has delivered a finely crafted, intensely atmospheric, and frighteningly believable thriller. It is a movie that feels as if it were ripped right from the headlines, albeit with a dose of movie magic to amp things up to near the breaking point. This, to me, is rather impressive as the trailers, while intriguing, did not cry out as a must see. If you then factor in the two and half hour run time, I found myself questioning if it could possibly be worth it.