Thursday Movie Picks: The Internet

It's Thursday! Time for It's Thursday! Time for Movie Picks. If you're new to this, Thursday Movie Picks is a fantastic series hosted by Wanderer at Wandering Through the Shelves, where each week she picks a theme and we all choose 3 movies that we feel fit. This week's theme is The Internet.

I’m currently struggling to keep a straight face whilst writing this post, as whenever I type out ‘The Internet’ I’m just reminded about the time in The IT Crowd when Roy and Moss convince Jen that their router (was it a router?) is in fact...The Internet. 

Anyway, jokes aside, the internet is a weird and wonderful place, so it’s no wonder really that there’s a whole bunch of movies about it. I’m going with a bit of a theme within the theme this week, as my 3 choices focus on the darker, more sinister part of the internet. Hey, it’s not all sweetness and light here at Flick Chicks!

Perhaps you’ve heard of Julian Assange. If you haven’t, you must have heard of the whistleblowing online platform he created with his colleague Daniel Berg, WikiLeaks. The Fifth Estate (2013) follows the events of these colleagues, played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Daniel Bruhl as they find themselves at loggerheads when the platform really takes off. It’s not the most interesting thriller out there, but when I first watched it I knew very little about Julian Assange, so it was more of a fun, educational experience for me.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that I posted a review of Disconnect (2012) on here. It’s a fantastic movie, and tells multiple stories exploring the dangers of the internet, such as a bunch of school children ‘cat-fishing’ another student which goes terribly wrong, a young video chat-room stripper who lands into trouble when he agrees to tell his story to a reporter, and a grieving couple who have their identities stolen online. I’d have happily watched feature length movies of each of these stories. It’s a must-watch.

I want to say that the title of Ask Me Anything (2014) came from the infamous features on Reddit which go by the same name, or ‘AMAs’, but maybe that’s because I’ve been spending too much time there lately. Anyway, in this, Katie takes a year off before college to ‘find herself’, which leads to her creating a blog to detail her life, but mostly her sexual activities. Amongst all this, she finds herself involved with more than one man at a time. It’s an interesting watch, but takes a sharp turn at the end which leaves you confused.

Mini Reviews: Ask Me Anything (2014), American Ultra (2015) & The Night Before (2015)

When Jenna texts me to tell me about a movie she’s just seen on Netflix that takes a dark and strange turn, I’m game. Just tell me where I can watch it! She also warned me that it was NSFW/T/P/D and other letters of the alphabet, so I made the most of an evening by myself to avoid any awkwardness! Just for the record, it’s currently watchable on Netflix.

Ask Me Anything (2014) is a quirky little drama starring Britt Robertson as Katie Kampenfelt, who takes a year off before college in order to try and find herself. She uses an anonymous blog to write about her innermost secrets and well, looking at her page hits, Jenna and I are clearly in the wrong blogging scene! Kidding, of course. It’s a decent watch, but takes such a crazy turn right at the end that it just left me a little cold, rather than awestruck.  As I had seen 2 out of the 3 movies on this post, I thought I would just tag along, hope you don't mind Allie ;-)

This was a really average film until the end, I was convinced it was a true story and set about finding out what happened, but it wasn't.  I was so shocked and dismayed by the ending, I had to find someone else to suffer with me, hence the text to Allie.  Between us we still haven't worked out a decent theory so I may have to just forget about it!

 

I’m pretty sure Jenna & I were meant to watch this together at the cinema but the times were weird, and then I forgot all about it! How can I even describe American Ultra (2015)? It’s like Pineapple Express, Kick-Ass and the Jason Bourne movies all had a baby together. Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg are stoners in love, but Eisenberg is also some sort of Government experiment which means he’s super skilled in combat, but he doesn’t know that. It was actually a pretty decent movie, but it got really messy at the end with far too many twists to keep track of!

Finally got to see this movie after missing it at the cinema with Allie and I loved it!  You may remember that I have a bizarre and inexplicable crush on Jesse Eisenburg which fortunately meant I could suffer Kristen Stewart for 2 hours!  It could have been funnier in places and there was a lot of talking but I was thoroughly entertained throughout and really did enjoy all the twists and turns.

So, I’d have liked to have posted a review for The Night Before (2015) actually around Christmas time, but as it does, life got in the way. Heck, I’m just super happy I got to watch this before Christmas!

Seth Rogan is back and has teamed up with Anthony Mackie and Joseph Gordon-Levitt for a surprisingly heartfelt festive movie. It has everything you would expect from Seth, including one of the funniest drug-induced scenes round a dinner table that had me in stitches. It’s just such a shame that the first half of the movie is pretty bland. It’s worth sticking with, though!  I have never heard of this but now I really want to see it...is it too late now Christmas is over?! Never! Christmas lasts forever!