The last day of a festival is always bitter, rarely sweet. No matter how exhausted your bones are, or how badly your spine begs for a chiropractor, if the festival was a success you could do it all again for another two weeks. It’s with this dread, and a double shot of espresso to keep the focus, that I entered my last screening; Olivier Assayas’ Clouds Of Sils Maria. The final film shown in competition with a superstar cast of Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, and Chloe Moretz; three women representing three different generations in a story about coming to terms with the past, age, and the consequences of time. Sounds kind of lovely, doesn’t it? Not sure what happened then, because Assayas found a way to drop the ball on this one and produced a lazy, uninspired, and forlorn piece of work.

Maria Enders (Binoche) is a famous stage and film actress who is offered a role for a play she has a deep and personal connection to. The play is about a young seductress called Sigrid who manipulates the older Hanna into a lesbian relationship only to leave her brokenhearted and forgotten by the end. 20 years ago, Maria played Sigrid and immersed herself into the role so much that it mirrored her own personality. Now, after the death of the playwright who wrote the piece, Maria reluctantly accepts the much weaker role of Hanna, but has trouble coming to terms with the way the character is written as it fills her with past memories and present insecurities about her own relevance. With the help of her assistant Valentine (Stewart), she begins to rehearse the role and has slight trepidation and pretentious misgivings with the idea of working with Jo-Anne (Moretz), the 19-year-old Hollywood superstar who has a Lindsay Lohan temperament.

There is so much there to grab on to, it’s a shame Assays butterfingers practically every element of the story. The main conflict, Maria’s relationship with the role, is written with such melodrama that it forces a rather minor performance by one of cinema’s all time greats, Binoche. Her work in English has always been slightly inferior to her French roles, but it just never seems like she gets under the skin of her character and leaves a trail of overacted scenes. Stewart has never been better, and yet she’s still stuck in a stifled shell; even when she’s at her most animated. While Moretz brings in the laughs and proves to be the aspirin for the headache induced by the scenes she’s not in. She, too, has never been better but unfortunately we get much more stifled Stewart than catty Moretz.

The biggest obstacles, however, lie in the execution of the story not the actors who do their very best with what they have. Assayas is squarely to blame for the poorly written dialogue which sounds like it was copy-pasted from some Bold and the Beautiful episode and for montage sequences which make absolutely no contextual sense, only serving to push us away and check our watches. The name of the play is tied into the phenomenon evoked by clouds and wind in the mountains of Sils Maria, where Maria rehearses her part. While the imagery is captivating, and the idea even more so, the meaning behind it is lost in a haze of poorly edited and awkwardly placed images desperate to attach themselves symbolically to characters who are too poorly written to be attached to anything. Not even with the help of 3D glasses would you find three dimensions anywhere in this film.

So, my Cannes festival ends on something of a sour note screening-wise (though, a soon-to-be-published article will show you the high it actually ended on) because Olivier Assayas, usually so on point, missed all his targets with Clouds Of Sils Maria. Fans of Stewart will declare her Best Supporting Actress material mostly because this is her greatest role yet, Moretz surprises in a funny parody of Hollywood celebrities, and Binoche makes you miss Julianne Moore’s batshit crazy and entertaining woman with similar issues in David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars. Watch this only if you’re a diehard fan of someone involved, or if you’re interested in seeing what a comic book movie directed by Assayas would look like (a highlight among the weariness.) Otherwise, this thematically redundant and soapy opera full of flat notes is not worth your time.

Originally published on May 24th, 2014 during the Cannes Film Festival.

Having premiered at Cannes over the weekend, the upcoming drama Clouds of Sils Maria has debuted a trailer for the film with an anxious Juliette Binoche, a disaffected Chloë Grace Moretz, and a thong-clad Kristen Stewart. With writer-director Olivier Assayas at the helm, Clouds of Sils Maria takes its name from the breathtaking views from the Alps of Sils Maria, Switzerland (the onetime home of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche), featured in part in this new teaser.

Starring Binoche as an aging starlet at the peak of her fame, asked to perform in a revival of the play that made her famous, only now in the role of the older woman. Moretz stars as the young actress that’s been cast in the role that made Binoche’s character famous, and Stewart plays Binoche’s assistant in this movie about age, nostalgia, and art imitating life (read our review).

Watch trailer for Clouds of Sils Maria

Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011 was Hick, a film directed by Derick Martini about a teenager who aimlessly drifts away from her Nebraska home. Aimlessly drifts are a common theme here because the entire film seems to follow the main characters lead. The film tried to be bizarre and off-beat but ultimately it felt more contrived than anything.

One of the first scenes in Hick is Luli McMullen (Chloe Grace Moretz) having her thirteen year old birthday party at a crappy dive bar in Nebraska. One of the birthday gifts she opens up happens to be a .45 Smith & Wesson. Afterwards her mother and father both drunkenly fight over who is driving her home but both are too drunk to do so. Instead, she gets a ride from a person who works at the bar. That is how this family operates in a nutshell.

The next morning her mother leaves with a real estate agent with Luli witnessing. After telling her father the news, he seems more upset than surprised. After he finishes his breakfast also abandons her. On a whim she gets the idea of going to Las Vegas for no other reason but there is sugar daddy potential there. And that is how the adventure starts and we have little choice to accept this as the plot.

Luli manages to find a ride from a young gentleman named Eddie Kreezer (Eddie Redmayne) but it is not long before she manages to upset him enough to kick her out. After finding shelter to sleep underneath a bridge she is awakened by a woman who pulled over from the highway to urinate, nearly on her. Somehow she convinces the woman to give her a ride.

The woman’s name is Glenda (Blake Lively) who seems to be exactly like Luli in 30 years. Within the first few minutes of meeting each other Glenda offers cocaine to Luli. Her thought process is that Luli will probably doing it with her friends sometime soon anyways so why not let her try it now.

The two stop at a convenience store and form a plan to rob it. Both feeding of each other’s similar personalities, they are a dangerous combination. If there were related they would be a twisted mother and daughter version of Bonnie and Clyde.

It turns out that Eddie, who first picked Luli up for a ride, knows Glenda. Glenda is in some sort of relationship with Eddie’s boss and for no good reason Eddie is put in charge of looking after Luli. Eddie seems to have a sexual connection with Luli that soon becomes dangerous.

I have little doubt that the novel this film was adapted for would be more intriguing then it’s film counterpart. This is one of those cases where the book most likely did not translate well to film, although I have to speculate because I have not read the novel. I felt like the characters in Hick were not developed well enough as they could have and the film only skimmed the subject matters they encounter.

The best part about the film is the performance by Chloe Grace Moretz. She is a fearless teenager who waves guns around like they are nothing and snorts coke when given the chance. She has played in roles ranging from Kick-Ass to Let Me In to Hugo but probably never has had as much on-screen face time as this. When most of the other actors seem to overplay their characters she was the least offender.

What annoyed me the most is when Luli suddenly shows that she does have normal human emotions when she for some reason is mad when Glenda leaves her. She did not seem to bat an eye when her mother did the same thing at the beginning. Now granted, her mother did not seem to care much for her so maybe she saw Glenda as a role model to look up to. But why? Maybe she wanted to believe Glenda was a better person than she really was. Again, lack of character development.

There is more than one scene that will leave you scratching your head. I appreciated the strangeness that was found in the scenes but so many of them felt forced. They really did not seem to fit in or were not needed at all.

To use the film’s own words, Hick is not “worth of note”. The big problem is the film never hooks the viewer in from the beginning. So the story arc never seemed to peak because it never really began. The underdeveloped characters make it nearly impossible to sympathize with them, making you wonder what the film was trying to accomplish.

“Come and dream with me,” a character says a one point during Hugo, which would also have been a very appropriate way to begin the film. A story about a young orphan who lives at a train station trying to solve a mystery link to his father is not be a kind of film Martin Scorsese is used to doing, but it does not show. It is a film about dreams and magical realism adventures that is entertaining for both children and adults.

Set in Paris during the 1930’s at a train station where a young orphan boy named Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) keeps the station clocks running. He learned how to fix clocks from his father before he passed away. In a way of honoring his memories, Hugo continues to fix clocks and other gadgets around the station.

One item in particular that reminds him most about his father is an automaton, a mechanical man his father received from a museum. Guided by an old journal of his father’s notes, Hugo tries to complete what his father and he were not able to do which is to get the automaton working again. Standing in his way is a special heart shaped key that Hugo must find in order to unlock a secret message the automaton is believed to have.

In order to get the parts needed for the automaton, Hugo steals gears and other equipment from a local station toy shopkeeper, Georges Melies (Ben Kingsley). Melies is an old grumpy man who finally catches Hugo stealing from him one day. He takes Hugo’s father’s book of notes from him and threatens to burn them.

Hugo follows Melies home and begs him not to burn his precious notes but the grumpy old man shows no sympathy. Hugo does manage to befriend Melies’ goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloe Moretz), who agrees to try to stop her godfather’s actions. The two form a friendship full of adventures and discovery as Isabelle shows Hugo the world of literature and he shows her the world of cinema.

They stumble upon a book about the pioneers of cinema such as Lumieres’ Arrival of a Train at the Station and read about how the audience literally jumped out of their seats while watching because they were afraid the train was going to hit them. They soon discover that Georges Melies was actually a legendary filmmaker which begins another discovery in which they find a link between Melies and Hugo’s father.

The second half of Hugo is really about paying respect to the history of cinema. Scorsese educates his viewers on the importance of Georges Melies’ legendary filmmaking career. Starting out as a French illusionist he turned to filmmaking as a way to display his technical special effects in a new medium. Clips from A Trip to the Moon are shown many times throughout the film.

2011 was a year in which the top two Oscar winners shared one major thing in common, they both paid tribute to the lost art of silent cinema. Both Hugo and The Artist showcase the extraordinary power of silent films and both illustrate the important influences from which films today came from. As I said when I reviewed The Artist, if you appreciate and are passionate about films you will appreciate this film.

This is the second Scorsese film in a row that Ben Kingsley stars in (the last one being Shutter Island) and Kingsley certainly does a great job with the role of Melies. The role demanded him to play a stiff old grumpy man whose days at being at the top are long behind him. Asa Butterfield is excellent as the lead in Hugo just as he was for his previous lead role in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. He is definitely a talented young actor as these two films confirm.

It only makes sense that a film that is largely about the preservation of old films was done by Martin Scorsese as he is a huge advocate of such thing in real life. In 1990 he founded a non-profit organization that is dedicated to film preservation called, The Film Foundation.

Hugo starts off more of a kid’s adventure film but ends up being more of a shrine to the beginning of film for adults. There are times were it was fairly predictable but considering it was aimed for all audiences it is not all that surprising. There are love stories mixed in with magical adventures as well as a history lesson in filmmaking all found in Hugo. It is an unconventional film for Martin Scorsese, one that truly shows his range as one of the best American directors of our time and it does not disappoint.

Let Me In is an American remake of the Swedish original called Let the Right One In. The film restores faith to those who thought an American vampire film done well was impossible. I must confess that I am not a huge fan of vampire films nor have I seen the original Swedish version, which in return makes it all the more impressive that I found it so entertaining.

Let Me In had a lot going against it from the start. First of all, any time you do a remake you already have an unfair disadvantage, a classic damned if you do damned if you don’t scenario. If you do not change enough from the original, people will argue that the film is too similar. If you change too much, people will think you destroyed the original vision. Most of the time you cannot win and the original is almost always better.

The second thing Let Me In had going against it, is that not only is it a remake, it is an American made remake. Modern day American horror cinema is not exactly looked highly upon by horror film buffs. Lastly, the vampire genre has hit mainstream audiences with cheesy teenage romance films like Twilight, making vampire based films hard to take serious.

Even with all of the above setbacks, Let Me In overcomes each one with relative ease. It proves that Hollywood can produce a solid horror film. Although, some might not even call it a horror film but rather a thriller or even a romance film. In reality, it is a combination of all of those.

Let Me In takes place in Los Alamos, New Mexico in the winter of 1983. 12-year-old Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is raised by his divorcee mother, does not have any friends, enjoys playing with his Rubik’s Cube and eating Now ‘n’ Laters. His school life is not much better, he is constantly bullied for not fitting in. So when a girl named Abby (Chloe Moretz) moves in to the apartment next door, it is his first chance at making a friend.

Although, his luck does not seem to be getting any better as she tells him right away, “I can never be your friend.” Owen is quick to notice that Abby is not a normal girl. Even though it is winter and there is snow on the ground, she is shoeless. Also she has never heard of nor played with a Rubik’s Cube. When he asks her how old she is, she replies, “12 –years-old more or less.”

Owen does not know it yet, but Abby is a vampire. Like any vampire she needs blood in order to survive and she relies on her so-called father (Richard Jenkins) to get it for her. Validating what Owen suspects that she is not normal and also alluding that she is a vampire, she tells Owen, “I’m not a girl. I’m nothing.”

There was not a lot of CGI in Let Me In, which is a good thing. Because most of the CGI in the film was over-the-top, which hurt it more than it helped it. However, the area that it excelled most in was the cinematography. It was magnificently done. The chilly tone was captured perfectly as we often saw with frosted breath and pale faces.

Dramatic irony, showing the audience the killer before the character sees him, is a technique many older horror films used to create fear and suspense. Many modern day horror films often opt for “cheap scares” by turning down the score and all of a sudden have something jump into the screen. Thankfully, this film went with the former. I also found it interesting that we never see Owen’s mother’s face, she is almost never shown on the screen even if she is in the scene.

Let Me In deserves to be in the list of Top Horror Films of 2010. You must go into it knowing that it is not necessarily scary as it is eerie. Also, it is not very fast paced so be prepared to give it some patience. Being that it is a remake and still quite delightful to watch makes me all the more anxious to watch the original.