There are few films like Under the Skin: part experimental, part surrealist, part science fiction, Under the Skin is a bewitching little movie that's hard to describe but impossible to forget. The movie stars Scarlett Johansson as a disguised alien seductress in Scotland who peruses the Scottish streets for horny men, luring the men into a black abyss so they might be vaporized into some liquid juice that is apparently beneficial to her alien race. Of course, none of this is ever made explicitly clear in the movie itself, as dialogue is hard to come by in Under the Skin, but as you watch the bizarre images unfold before your eyes you more or less pick up on the film's "plot". What's astounding about Under the Skin is its stunningly cold and detached view of the human race. If you ever had the desire to see humanity from the point of view of someone other than a human being, this is your chance. Surprisingly though, the film does a complete 180 half way through, as Johansson's alien murderess begins sympathizing with her victims to the point where she desires to become human herself. Like a perverted version of Pinocchio, she desires to be a real human girl, but her non-predatory interactions with human beings ends up costing her. A movie this strange has zero chance of receiving any Oscar recognition, which speaks more to the limitations of the Academy than anything else. At the very least, the Academy needs to consider the film's chillingly haunting score which is one of the most hypnotic pieces of music you will ever hear.
A film fanatic at a very young age, starting with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies and gradually moving up to more sophisticated fare, at around the age of ten he became inexplicably obsessed with all things Oscar. With the incredibly trivial power of being able to chronologically name every Best Picture winner from memory, his lifelong goal is to see every Oscar nominated film, in every major category, in the history of the Academy Awards.
