In 1994 Quentin Tarantino introduced a whole new way to tell a story, by starting at the end and then filling in all the blanks with flashbacks in a circular order and then doubling back to where the movie began. Over the years I have seen a number of movies that have tried to tell a story this way and most of them have failed. The new movie “Destroyer” starring Nicole Kidman has successfully used this highly unusual story telling method; not as well as Pulp Fiction but well enough to make the movie both engrossing and understandable.

As far as the acting, you have to admire Nicole Kidman for taking this role because not only does she not wear any makeup, but she is made to look like she is a disaster of a person who has not slept in weeks and might be close to suicide. As the story unfolds her appearance becomes more and more understandable due to an undercover assignment with a fellow police officer that goes in a very bad direction. Kidman probably took this role to enhance her acting ability and perhaps hoped for an Academy Award nomination, but unfortunately the film itself is not strong enough for the highest movie awards.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for Destroyer are an average 72% and due to some of the flaws in the story that is slow in some areas, I would give this movie around a 75% rating and give it a solid recommendation.

I give the new film “Miss Bala” some credit, with the idea that a beauty pageant has never been combined with a story about a drug cartel before. There is nothing possible or plausible in this story about a friend of a beauty pageant contestant who for some reason gets spared during a bar shooting and before she knows it is being used as a mule to smuggle drugs into Mexico. The story from this point on, barely makes any sense and from about the half way point, I was hoping the movie would end soon.

The Rotten Tomatoes for this mostly bad movie are a very low 27% and I agree with this rating. The title Miss Bala also makes no sense because the beauty pageant is for “Miss Baja California”. For her first big starring role in a mainstream movie, the actress Gina Rodriguez sure picked the wrong starter film. Miss Bala is a must miss.

For those who hate reading subtitles for any foreign language film, the new movie “Cold War” is not for you.

I found this film highly unusual as its based mostly in Russian occupied Poland some years after the end of World War 2. Cold War is a love story between a woman who is a singer who travels around Europe in various musical troops and a man who did not have a defined profession in this story. The problem with this film as I saw it, were the reasons why the couple was not able to stay together were not portrayed clearly enough. The hardships and the aftermath of World War 2 was one obvious reason for their many breakups, but perhaps the real reasons were all lost in translation. I thought the quality of the film-making was very high, including some impressive black and white photography. There are some scenes of very good musical numbers in this film, all sung in Polish and Russian.

The ratings for Cold War are a very high 95% and this film has received three Oscar nominations this year including best Foreign Language film, but for me this story was too boring in many spots to give it a rating any higher than 75%.