When it comes to comedies that revolve around teens, peer pressure, and popularity, Book Smart is that movie.  The two main characters have set many goals before they go off to college. Book Smart is a witty, heartfelt, and raunchy comedy that is Superbad (2007), but with females. For Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut, Book Smart is one that she will be remembered for. The film has numerous hysterical scenarios, and twists that are not what viewers will expect. The female characters are not partying or popular types, but they do what it takes to redeem themselves and seem like they know how to have a wild time.

The film gears on two friends, Amy and Molly (Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein). Amy and Molly are at the ending point of their high school days with honor roll grades due to their tremendous discipline with academics. For some reason though, it occurs to them that they wasted their high school days working too hard and studying too much. This leads them to want to cram a night of questionable behavior into one night. As their night begins, they start to drink and find a variety of different partying locations that they have never knew about before.

What I enjoyed about Book Smart was that it featured nerdy characters that want to have a good time.  Both characters are played by actors who have also done movies where they are not popular and not obvious party types.  Kaitlyn Dever was a low-key character in Laggies (2014), Men, Women, and Children (2014), All Summers End (2017), and other films. Beanie Feldstein has played someone mellow, however can also be vicious and negative as she was in Lady Bird (2017). Both of the actresses come out of their shells to portray party types of women. I was impressed with their performances.

One element that I felt was impressive about the movie was that the harsh language was at a minimum. I remember with Superbad, there would be multiple F bombs, negative discussions, and just crude dialogue in almost every scene of the movie.  Book Smart does have some raunchy dialogue, but it is not the focus of the movie. The focus of the movie is the funny in the crazy situations. While I did enjoy Superbad, I have come to realize that they tried to make it even more funny by adding all the swearing. Book Smart is a lot lighter and more tolerable to watch.

I give Book Smart four stars. I think this is one of the top comedy films of the summer. I walked in with average expectations, but I was thoroughly entertained. The film had me laughing the entire time and at moments that were not expected. Also, the chemistry between the two actresses is top notch. Both Dever and Feldstein have promising careers. Do not miss Book Smart.

Dennis Quaid has always had the looks and the attitude to portray a character that is angry, frustrated or tough. However, I cannot recall a film where he plays the enemy like he is in The Intruder. The Intruder is a thriller that builds with tension. The film has a positive opening introduction, a setup with a couple that looks to be promising, and a nice man who gets creepier in multiple situations until the film reaches the climax. Deon Taylor brings his viewers an engrossing situation that will hold their attention until that situation gets out of control.

The Intruder focuses on a married couple, Scott and Annie (Michael Ealy and Meagan Good). They decide to move up in the mountains of California on a ranch that is quite deserted and peaceful. They buy their new home from a man named Charlie (Quaid). Charlie appears to be very generous and helpful with the property that Scott and Annie purchase from him. He continuously cuts the grass, does house updates, and is always around at unexpected times. However, his repetitive appearances make Scott feel uncomfortable. When Scott tries to talk to Charlie about why he does not feel comfortable with Charlie always being around, Charlie begins to show more disturbing signs of strange behaviors.

What I enjoyed about The Intruder is that for Charlie, the film takes some time for his behavior to worsen. I felt the delay in attitudes with the antagonist set the scene for more dramatic situations to come around. Another portion of that is Annie being in disagreements with Scott about Charlie. When Charlie does show up a lot, Annie does not view it as negative as Scott does. She views Charlie to be someone that is trying to be genuine, kind and busy, because supposedly he lost his wife recently. Charlie’s wife passed away, but the question to how she died remains a mystery. This leads Scott to do more background research with his colleagues to figure out what Charlie’s real-life history is.

Charlie is good at reading into people’s behaviors when it comes to them thinking he is bad news. There is a scenario where Scott has a colleague do the background check, and when the information on Charlie is finalized, Charlie gets to that colleague and puts a hold on the background information on him. Therefore, this prevents Charlie from having authorities after him. However, when he eliminates something or someone, his behavior gets more violent, disturbing, and stalker-like. Scott has no idea what Charlie is capable of.

When I saw The Intruder, I was enthralled.   However, the film is predictable in some ways, particularly when there are moments of suspense.  Quaid does fit the bad guy role well and The Intruder is a good movie if viewers want a film that centers around a good guy versus bad guy storyline.  I found the film to be Lakeview Terrace (2008) meets Cold Creek Manor (2003). Quaid was also in Cold Creek Manor. The film was the same setup in terms of owning a house and the previous owner being insane, however Quaid was the good guy in that one and that was a hard R violent film where as The Intruder was a light PG-13 thriller. Overall, I give The Intruder three stars.

In terms of movies on the subject of space, isolation, and desperation, High Life is geared towards how people get when they have too much time to think on their hands. Director Claire Denis takes her audience on a visually haunting and psychologically strange thrill-ride in a movie where people are stuck in space. Robert Pattinson and Juliet Binoche are the leads, however, it is hard to tell in the movie who the enemy is, because they all have such dark personalities. Denis’ goal for the High Life is to turn the subject of isolation into hostility. The tension grows as the film gets deeper into the serious subject matter, and for some people, it will be hard to watch.

The plot of the movie is set on a character named Monte (Pattinson), a man who is raising his daughter in a space craft shared with all other kinds of people. The lady who is in charge is Dr. Dibs (Binoche), who deals with the people on board the space craft. She tries to determine who can make babies and such, and who someone can have a child with. For Monte and his daughter, their goal is to reach the black hole, which is a location where space and time do not exist. That is because they are on board with criminals who are on a mission in space to be the focus of a human reproductive system. Therefore, expect a generous amount of unwanted sex scenes, and moments that are very strange and that do not make that much sense.

For me, High life was a slight disappointment. Yes, the cinematography and locations are visually moving and enthralling, but the film’s focus is just a variety of people wanting kids in space. Now, that is not so bad, but a variety of the trailers and the plot descriptions said the film is about a man and his daughter stuck in isolation in space. Yes, that plot was defined well in High Life, however, the film ended up feeling like Children of Men (2006), meets 2001: A Space Odyssey. The major difference though is in Children of Men, the issue that causes the world to be in chaos is that the world has failed to reproduce. In High Life, the women can reproduce, but the question is if they want children with the men they share the space craft with. High Life jumps around with men and women forcefully wanting to try to make children, consistent violent assaults, and deaths that result from the assaults. When the deaths happen, they are not taken seriously.   The characters just act like someone dying is not particularly important and just go back to living their isolated life in space.

In terms of a movie taking place in space, I felt the film simply too negative. Denis directs a space thriller that shows what boredom and isolation can do for people in a corrupt environment. With no laws, no rules, and no boundaries, High Life starts to go overboard with the violent content. Some of the conflict scenarios made sense, but after three of them it was redundant. I was expecting more of a movie where a father and his child are going to find a place to seek change. Not a film where the other negative characters are thrown into the mix. Yes, some may have served a purpose and belonged in the movie. However, focusing on outside characters over the main characters became repetitive.

High Life is amazing primarily for its cinematography. The lighting, the compositions, and the graphics make the world of space look breathtaking and visually stunning. The cinematography was done by Yorick Le Saux and Tomasz Naumiuk. Both have cinematography credits for films, but I believe Le Saux is the champion cinematographer for High Life. Le Saux has done the cinematography for many films that are similar (but a little bit better) than High Life that are creepy and inviting technologically. He did so with Clouds of Sils Maria (2014), I am Love (2009), Personal Shopper (2016), and other titles. Even though, I was not fond of my experience with High Life, the technical and visually amazing space imagery kept me slightly enthralled.

In the end, I am not bashing High Life, I just felt I was let down by what the movie was over how it was advertised. For fans of the director, it may be worth a viewing, but it is the least memorable of the films she has directed. The performances are mediocre, it is disturbing (for no good reason) throughout the movie, and it was not focused. High Life hopped around too many times and had too many moments that were not simply unnecessary. That is why I am only giving it credit for the cinematography. My rating for High Life is just two stars.