Only God Forgives (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2013)

The brothers Julian (Ryan Gosling) and Billy (Tom Burke) are part of the Bangkok criminal underground and smuggle drugs under the front of a boxing club. One night Billy gets beaten to death by the father of a girl he raped and killed. Their mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) is off the wall and wants Julian to kill his brothers’ murderer, but when he finds out what his brother did, he adjudges the man not guilty. Julian finds out that a police lieutenant (Vithaya Pansringarm) is responsible for the murder and so he tries to find him.

Vithaya Pansringarm and Kristin Scott Thomas in Only God Forgives

You probably know that feeling: for whatever reason you have big expectations in a movie. As you watch it, you want the film to be good, but your guts tell you otherwise. You catch yourself, trying to convince your guts that they’re wrong, but soon you realize that you may be watching a mediocre film. I had this feeling a lot, when I watched Only God Forgives. The film just feels weird for most of the time. It has very long and slow scenes, nothing really happens. The lighting is mostly just red and the level of violence is very high to the point of being ridiculous and unreal. However the film isn’t all that bad, but more unusual. I liked the music a lot, which consists of pumping rhythms and some Thai songs and fits perfectly into the setting and brutal story. The actors were good too, especially Pansringarm, who is a real BAMF (there you go). I also liked the beautifully composed images, which really stuck to my mind. Only God Forgives is kind of a buzzkill if you expect it to be the next Drive, but it has some good moments.

TL;DR: Brutal and strange, but also beautiful crime movie with Ryan Gosling.

Monsters University (Dan Scanlon, 2013)

The little green one-eyed monster Mike (voiced by Billy Crystal) has a big dream: to become a scarer at Monsters, Inc. Scarers extract energy from the screams of the frightened children in the human world. Mike enrolls Monster University, where he soon faces a huge problem: Although he knows everything about scaring, he is not scary at all. When he faces exclusion from university, he has to team up with his rival Sullivan (voiced by John Goodman), who is mainly Mike’s counterpart. In a number of challenges they have to compete against the fraternities of the university.

Mike in Monsters University

As a fan of Monsters Inc., I was quite sceptical how this prequel would turn out, but I wasn’t disappointed. Although the characters weren’t new, the story was and there were some unexpected turns and twists to make things interesting. I liked the childish humor of the film and the many, many details, most of which nobody will ever fully recognize. Monster University is just what you expect it to be: a nice, entertaining family film with lots of laughs.

TL;DR: Funny and entertaining prequel to Pixar’s Monsters Inc.