Recommendations

Movies You Haven't Heard Of, But Must See:

Winter's Bone

Easily the best film I've seen this year. The performance by Jennifer Lawrence is achingly real. Even months later I'm still thinking about it. It's one of the few films I've seen recently that I would see twice in theaters. The film follows a teenage girl in the Ozarks, whose father has disappeared on the run from the law, leaving their house as bond. Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) then embarks on a dangerous journey to find her father and try to keep her family together. This film is exquisitely acted and the story told with haunting and heartbreaking realism. A must see.

Samson and Delilah

This is one of those films that serves as a painful reminder of the world we often allow ourselves to forget. I found it extraordinarily painful to watch, mostly because I recognized so much of it as real. This raw Australian film follows two aboriginal teenagers in a desperate struggle for survival first in their own depressed community,

and then on the merciless streets of the city. When I watch films like this I remember that these are the stories that most need to be told. This is why film and storytelling exists. Incisive and unflinching, this story will leave you aching and bruised, but a with little more understanding of the world.

Toy Story 3

Directed by: Lee Unkrich

Featuring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Michael Keaton, Don Rickles, Ned Beatty, Joan Cusak, John Ratzenberger, Estelle Harris, Timothy Dalton, John Morris, Laurie Metcalf, Jodie Benson

If you loved the previous installments of Toy Story and come into the theater with the pure enthusiasm of a fan, you will not be disappointed by this film. This is a respectable addition to the Toy Story franchise (and for once I do not use that term in a derogatory way), though it falls short of its predecessors. This film is quite a bit darker than the previous two, as our favorite characters come to grips first with abandonment and then with the prospect of their own end, which seems all the more tragic for our characters (after all, is there after life for toys?).

Unfortunately, however, it's hard to deny that this latest installment is a bit more vapid than the first two. There's less to think about and feel, and more roller coaster action scenes to be entertained by. At one point in the film I watched Woody fly wildly through the air on a kite caught in a roller-coaster gust of wind, and found myself wondering what the point of this scene was. I could provide no answer except: to entertain us with mindless action. Of course, Pixar operates on a completely different level than your average studio film, so this film is still smarter, wittier, more subtle, and genuine than most animated films, but I still found that it was missing the heart and the thoughtfulness of the first two.

The ending, however, won me over, as did the characters, who maintain the sardonic humor and (ironically) humanness of the previous films. Toy Story 3 is what you might expect the third installment of a good film to be. It could have reached higher and achieved more, but it still left me more or less satisfied and, I'll admit, bashfully wiping a few tears from my cheeks as the end credits rolled...

Winter's Bone

Directed by: Debra Granik

Featuring: Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Kevin Breznahan, Dale Dickey, Garret Dillahunt, & Sheryl Lee

The buzz around this film has centered almost entirely on Jennifer Lawrence, who plays the lead character, and well it should. Her performance is real and grounded, with an intense focus reminiscent (and I am sure I am not the first to say this) of Jodie Foster. Films like these serve as encouraging reminders: There are still good films and good actors out there. I won't say much more about this film except this: Go see it. It is dark and not for the faint of heart, but anyone craving a good film with real characters will breath a sigh of relief as they are carried away into the depth and realism of this story.

The Oscars

This has been a tough year for the Oscars, in my opinion. This is has been an Academy Award season of disillusionment, remembering that, prestigious as the awards are, the Oscars are still the biggest party in Hollywood.

I do not understand why the Best Picture category was expanded, perhaps it is because the nominations this year are relatively weak. Overall, there were no surprises. No underdogs with surprise wins, no unknowns became known. The Oscars catered to the masses, honoring films that the majority of America saw and enjoyed.

Why is it that the films I actually want to see, like The Secret of the Kells and many of the documentary nominees, are not yet released in the US?

Still, there were some good moments. Jeff Bridges is a brilliant character actor, and fully deserved his award. His performance is a true inhabitation of the role, and his award a long-deserved recognition of his great gift as an actor.

Of course I loved Up and was thrilled to see it win Best Animated Film, but how amazing would it have been to see The Fantastic Mr. Fox or The Secret of the Kells win Best Animated and Up win for Best Picture? These are the films that really deserved recognition.

This is the first year where I do not want to see all the nominees, and the ones I have seen I have had real issues with. So many of the films this year made me angry. There are some serious issues we are dealing with today, as these films all make clear, but the way in which these issues have been depicted and interpreted through film has been tragically misguided, confused, and superficial. War, race, colonial legacy, and environmental collapse...these are issues that simply are not dealt with responsibly in Hollywood. If I had my way, Up in the Air would have won the major awards. This was a film that dealt with our culture and times in an incisive, intelligent, and honest but uplifting way. If you want to see real films deal with stories in an honest and intelligent manner, don't look to the Oscars to tell you what those films are. Go to your local independent theater and catch a film you haven't heard of. Go see Lucy and Wendy or The White Ribbon, or even A Single Man or A Serious Man. Notice the natural performances and refreshing absence of cliche in Lucy and Wendy, the disturbing complexity and art direction of The White Ribbon, and the symbolism in the mis en scene of the Coen brothers. Great films are out there, you just have to search. And sadly, few of them were honored here tonight.

Das Weisse Band (The White Ribbon)

Directed by: Michael Haneke

I love the ending of the film, of which I will give away nothing save to say that it makes the film less of a mystery and more of a study. Does it matter who committed these crimes? Is anyone in this community really innocent?

What's frightening and wonderfully complex about a film like this is that it does not focus on individual crimes, a flaw of so many films which center on 'who dunnit'. The question is not who committed these crimes, but who didn't. Who in this town is actually innocent? By the end of the film I had implicated nearly everyone, children and adults alike, save the sweet and naive young couple innocently falling in love in the midst of the collapse of their community. The symbol of the white ribbon is a powerful one, especially as we watch a father tie it to his children, himself as guilty of sordid and heartless actions as his children, whose innocence may simply be a guise for a deeper malice, or perhaps just a transparent film behind which plays the irrational emotional explosions of childhood.

This is the kind of film you can watch over and over and learn more each time. It is disturbing and disheartening in the honesty and deception of the characters, and never strays into cliche or simplicity. A powerful film, captured in black white with brilliant art direction, that puts us into the time period of the film. This is not a film to enjoy, but it will leave you with a feast of symbols and thoughts on which to dine.

The Hurt Locker

Directed by: Katheryn Bigelow

Featuring: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty, with cameos from Guy Pierce, Ralph Fiennes, David Morse, and Evangeline Lilly.

Films can open doors to new worlds, perspectives, and understandings, can expand our minds and force us to think critically about our world. But films are also entertainment. As such, a film about war has to do something really special for it to be justified, because war is not, and should not be, entertainment.

There is no doubt, in watching The Hurt Locker, that Katheryn Bigelow is a talented director. The movement of the camera, the pacing and visuals of the film are all exceptional. However, this was the wrong way to direct this movie. Bigelow focuses on all the wrong things in this film. She slows down shots of explosions so that we see every particle of dust rise from the ground, but what we should be seeing is the faces of the people affected.

The biggest issue with The Hurt Locker is that we are introduced to characters, not people. Look at our three protagonists: We have the straight-talking African American with a witty sense of humor, The Innocent, and The Maverick. Well acted, for the most part, but still all too familiar. If you really pause to study them, you will see that we are not watching real people, but characters, written for a Hollywood movie. In the end, what really separates this film from one like Top Gun? What I want to see from a film about war is real people and real life. Something to make us think critically about what is going on rather than sit back with our popcorn to happily soak up the romantic images of war that Hollywood is feeding us. The fact that Bigelow cast major stars in minor roles, like cameos from David Morse and Evangeline Lily illustrates the studio-nature of this film. Whenever a major actor is cast in a minor role it's hard not to assume that the filmmaker is cutting corners, casting an actor whose previous persona can carry the role, rather than developing characters with true depth and realism. It takes great confidence in your script and story to cast unknowns, and sadly this film lacks that confidence and realism.

The war in Iraq is a complicated and tragic event. Americans are clearly struggling to process it and so I am continuously disappointed when the story tellers among us, who have this powerful opportunity to provide clarity and perspective on this time in history, settle instead for making blockbusters. That Bigelow ends the film with rock music is the final tell tale that this film does not take itself or its subject matter seriously. The rock music blares as the main character marches back onto the front lines, as though we are watching a sports game. I have no experience myself with going to war, but I am sure that this is not what it is like over there. This film asks the audience to play along with these romantic, emotion-tugging images when it should be asking us to think critically about a sad and heavy issue. I cannot condone Hollywood war movies, and no matter how much people claim that this is a 'low budget' film, there's no mistaking the Hollywood mark on it.

Sherlock Holmes

Directed by: Guy Ritchie

Starring: Robert Downy Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams

Guy Ritchie is a director who loves fight scenes, explosions, drugs, gambling, quick British wit, and guns. Yet his films are so smart, so cheeky, so understatedly hilarious, that I am always charmed into loving them.

The classic Sherlock Holmes has of course been re-vamped here, with Robert Downey Jr. playing Holmes, and Jude Law as Watson.

Watch the way Downey commands this role, physically. He uses not only his voice and facial expressions, but his whole body. Every movement, even the most subtle, is a deliberate choice. Of course, one could hardly expect less of the man who played the title role in Chaplin (1992).

I haven't read the Sherlock Holmes books in years (though maybe I would have if I had pictured Watson as anything looking anything like Jude Law). I do, however, remember The Hound of the Baskervilles and the dissection of seemingly supernatural events by the calculating and rational Holmes, a theme which is revisited here. The mystery is, of course, inconsequential. We don't really care who did it or why, it simply serves the purpose of providing the witty dialogue and fast-paced action scenes, though there are quite a few surprising pay-offs when we learn how the mystery unravels.

This is a purely fun movie. There's some smart, very witty dialogue and the action sequences are stylish and interesting, especially when we hear Holmes planning out his method of attack before hand. Don't expect this to take you back to cozy nights reading the classic Sherlock Holmes books, but it's interesting to see Ritchie take his usual story of London gang-life and apply it to Holmes' times. If you like Guy Ritchie, I expect you'll enjoy this latest film of his.