Paper Towns (2015)
Very good little film about a young man, Quentin (Nat Wolff), who has lived across the street from his secret crush, Margo (Cara Delevingne), for most of his life. Moments of their childhood are shown, but the movie kicks into gear when they are in high school and Quentin and Margo have drifted apart. Margo is with the more popular crowd and Quentin mainly hangs with his best friends Radar (Justice Smith) and Ben (Austin Abrams). Margo barely acknowledges Quentin at school but one night she shows up at his house to involve him in a little revenge spree on the popular kids who wronged her. This is all highly comical but turns dramatic when Margo disappears. Quentin is convinced that she's left clues to where she's gone and he involves his best friends in a trek to find her whereabouts. Also in the mix is Margo's best friend Lacey (Halston Sage), whom Ben has a massive crush on.
The trail of Margo involves a road trip from Florida to New York where Quentin is convinced Margo has gone. There is lots of good humor and some bittersweet drama that mainly involves Quentin growing up over the course of this trip. I liked model-turned-actress Delevinge a lot as Margo, but Halston Sage really came off better (and is better-looking, IMHO) as she shows her real character along the way. This is a very nice film that has some John Hughes-like touches about the frustrations of High School life. But it is its own entity and all the principles do nicely in this film.
Nosferatu (1922) Re-watch
Classic silent horror film that has lost none of its potency over the decades. I don't know how many times I've watched this film but it's usually quite a few years in-between viewings. Still, its impact has not lessened for me. It basically copies the framework of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" but doesn't take every bit of it for its own, in my opinion. We do have the real estate agent who is sent to Transylvania to sell property to Count Orlok, a mysterious fellow who is very creepy-looking and sleeps during the day. Of course he's a vampire and the agent, Hutter, soon finds out he's a prisoner in the castle of Orlok while Orlok makes plans to travel to Hutter's small town to move into the property across from Hutter's own home. Hutter's wife is left at home and she seems to have a psychic connection to Hutter's trouble at the castle and even Orlok can feel her across the sea. There are major references to the Black Plague in this film, but of course vampirism is connected to this.
Director F.W. Murnau imbues this film with a great sense of dread, particularly during the first half when Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) is trapped by the vampire and cannot lock his door against his visits. Von Wangenheim is super at portraying the terrible horror of facing the dreadful (and butt-ugly) Orlok. Orlok, as portrayed by Max Schreck, is one of the creepiest creatures to ever "grace" the motion picture screen. The film is sometimes sped up to show Orlok at work preparing for his voyage to Hutter's hometown. Greta Schröder is forlorn as Ellen, Hutter's young wife, who mourns at Hutter's absence almost immediately and keeps up her sadness for the length of the film. Alexander Granach is completely bonkers as Knock, Hutter's boss who sends him on his journey in the first place. The guy acts so crazy that Hutter should have realized something was up and not gone. Knock becomes the Reinfeld-type character of the film and has lots of scenes of madness, some of which are humorous, especially during his brief escape. Anyway, this movie is a masterpiece of German cinema and has inspired lots of film tributes (
Salem's Lot and
Nosferatu the Vampyre in particular). Never boring and frequently scary, this a must-see for any film buff.