Movie Recommendations, Rants and Ruminations
moviegourmet The “must see” films in theaters are Winter’s Bone and Toy Story 3. For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now.
My DVD of the week is The Girl on the Train. For the trailer and other DVD choices, see DVDs of the Week.
Movies on TV include The Third Man, Blue Velvet and Cool Hand Luke.
Winter’s Bone Director Debra Granik has delivered one of the year’s best American films – with just her second feature. Every moment of Winter’s Bone seems absolutely real and absolutely true. Granik shot in southern Missouri, and used local people, local homes, local clothes and local music – all choices that result in the film’s authenticity. Even the Army recruiter is a real-life Army recruiter. Similarly, the soundtrack is spare and pure – pretty much just the snapping twigs, chirping birds, barking dogs and sputtering pickups of the Ozarks; the audience feels the gripping story without the filmmaker layering on manipulative music.
Granik’s first feature, Down to the Bone, won acting awards for its star Vera Farmiga as a grocery clerk mom who undergoes drug rehab without support from her husband or employer. In both Winter’s Bone and Down to the Bone, Granik lets her actors act, most compellingly when they are not talking. Down to the Bone is available on DVD and Netflix streaming.
Granik and screenwriting partner Anne Rosellini were looking for a story that featured a strong female protagonist ans found it in Daniel Woodrell’s novel. Here are Granik and Woodrell on NPR’s Fresh Air.
Richard von Busack also has an excellent interview with Granik and Lawrence – click here and scroll below his review.
Thanks to David H. Schleicher of the Schleicher Spin, here is the blog of Marideth Sisco, the musical consultant for Winter’s Bone, and the lead singer in the pickin’ scene.
Winter’s Bone inspired me to think of other great movies set in a hillbilly milieu. If there is a Hillbilly Genre, these movies don’t fit because they aren’t about Being a Hillbilly. They are human stories that happen to be set amongst hillbillies. Winter’s Bone and Ulee’s Gold are about determined individuals determined to protect their families no matter the risk. Coal Miner’s Daughter is about an artist’s journey from naive teen to superstar. Harlan County USA is about a community banding together to find justice. And Deliverance is about men sharing an ordeal and secrets from it.
1. Deliverance: Four suburban guys seek a mild adventure – canoeing down a backwoods river before it is dammed. The adventure becomes an ordeal. The most horrible things happen to them, and they are forced to do horrible things.
I have watched this twice in the past few years, and it still really stands up today. In particular, the cinematography and editing are fantastic. Here is the famous banjo scene.
2. Harlan County, USA: This is the story of coal miners seeking a union contract with a hostile mining company. It won the Oscar as best documentary. Filmmaker Barbara Kopple embedded herself among the strikers and got amazing footage – including of herself threatened and shot at.
3. Winter’s Bone: A 17-year-old Ozarks girl is determined to save the family home by tracking down her meth dealer dad – dead or alive. The girl’s journey through a series of nasty and nastier Southern Missouri crank cookers is riveting – without any explosions, gunfights or chase scenes. Every moment of this film seems completely real.
4. Ulee’s Gold: In his finest performance, Peter Fonda is a rural beekeeper who must enter a dangerous underworld to track down his druggie daughter-in-law. Here is how Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert saw it.
5. Coal Miner’s Daughter: Sissy Spacek won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Loretta Lynn in this successful biopic. In an early major role, Tommy Lee Jones plays Loretta’s husband Mooney. Levon Helm, the Arkansas-bred drummer for The Band has one of his rare but compelling film roles as Loretta’s Daddy. Besides the performances, the movie works because Loretta must grow from nobody to star, girl to woman and hick to worldly.
The Girl on the Train (La fille du RER) is an absorbing mother daughter drama set in the Paris suburbs.
The young woman is Emilie Dequenne, the Belgian actress who won the best actress award at Canne when she was only 17 in the Dardenne brothers’ Rosetta. In contrast to Rosetta, she doesn’t play a force of nature, but a slacker bobbing through life on a tide of random influences. She lives with her single mom (Catherine Deneuve), and they get along, despite the mother’s unwelcome tips on job hunting.
The daughter meets a guy, her life takes some resulting turns and then she makes a really bad choice. The mom seeks out an old beau, now a celebrity attorney to help fix the situation.
I missed seeing this in the theater because the trailer emphasizes a faked hate crime (and I wasn’t eager to see a topical movie). But the movie is not about the faked hate crime, which occurs late into the story. The story is character driven. The daughter drifts first part of the movie and is controlled by events until she finds herself in a desperate situation; she panics and sees the most stupid option as a solution. The situation then forces the mother to re-open a chapter in her life that she had chosen to close – how far will she open the old door?
It’s on my list of Best Movies of 2010 So Far.
See the rest of my DVD recommendations.
The trailer is out for The American, which goes into wide release on September 24. George Clooney plays an international professional assassin who takes One Last Job and encounters some beautiful, available and potentially dangerous women. From the trailer, it looks like at least one of these beautiful women is Up To No Good.
Solitary Man: Michael Douglas plays a man whose selfishness and charm know no bounds, and whose impulsiveness drives him into spiraling self-destructiveness. Douglas’ performance keeps us caring about this unattractive character and there is humor in his comeuppances. Mary-Louise Parker, Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, Jenna Fisher, Jesse Eisenberg and Olivia Thirlby round out the excellent cast.
Winter’s Bone is the year’s best live action movie so far. A 17-year-old Ozarks girl is determined to save the family home by tracking down her meth dealer dad – dead or alive. The girl’s journey through a series of nasty and nastier Southern Missouri crank cookers is riveting – without any explosions, gunfights or chase scenes. Every moment of this film seems completely real. Winter’s Bone won the screenwriting and grand jury prizes at Sundance.
With just her second feature, Debra Granik has emerged as an important filmmaker to watch. She presents an unflinching look at this subculture without ever resorting to stereotype. Granik hits a home run with every artistic choice, from the locations to the spare soundtrack to the pacing to the casting. I’ll be watching for her next film.
As the protagonist, 20-year-old Jennifer Lawrence is in every scene. With a minimum of dialogue, she creates a lead character of rarely seen determination.
Dale Dickey is exceptional as a criminal matriarch. John Hawkes (the kind Sol Star in Deadwood) also gives a tremendous performance as the ready-to-explode Uncle Teardrop.
On June 24 and 25, TCM is showing fourteen straight Korean War movies: The Steel Helmet (1951), Men In War (1951) , Men Of The Fighting Lady (1954), I Want You (1951), Battle Circus (1953), Tank Battalion (1958), Mission Over Korea (1953), Battle Taxi (1955), The Bamboo Prison (1955), All the Young Men (1960), Take the High Ground! (1953), Time Limit (1957), The Rack (1956) and Hell in Korea (1956).
If you’re gonna watch just one, I recommend The Steel Helmet, a gritty classic by the great Sam Fuller, a WWII combat vet who brooked no sentimentality about war. Fuller and Peckinpah favorite Gene Evans is especially good as the sergeant.
This time, TCM is not showing the three most well-known Korean War movies: Manchurian Candidate, Pork Chop Hill and M*A*S*H.
Earlier this year, TCM broadcast War Hunt, a 1962 film about Robert Redford joining a Korean War unit as a new replacement with John Saxon as the platoon’s psycho killer. Along with Redford, Sidney Pollack and Francis Ford Coppola are in the cast, making War Hunt the only film with three Oscar-winning directors as actors. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss for Coppola as an uncredited convoy truck driver.
Click here for this week’s recommendations. Scroll down this blog to watch trailers. My top recommendations are Toy Story 3, The Secrets in their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos), Micmacs and Iron Man 2. You can still find The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in theaters.
My top picks on DVD is The Deep End. Last week’s pick, Stranded: I’ve Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains and The Messenger are also good choices on DVD.
To Kill a Mockingbird and The Steel Helmet are on TV.
I’ve updated my Movies I’m Looking Forward To page (also known as The Paula Page). I’ve included the movie Get Low and trailers or clips from/about Get Low, The Girl Who Played With Fire, Cane Toads: The Conquest, Welcome to the Rileys, Animal Kingdom, Uncle Boonmee and Carlos.
I’m still the most eager to see Mike Leigh’s Another Year, The Girl Who Played With Fire, The Kids Are Alright, Poetry, Certified Copy, Inside Job and Cane Toads.
I had already posted the trailers for The Kids Are Alright and Homewrecker/The Locksmith, plus the teaser for Certified Copy (Copie Conforme).
Other movies featured include The Square, Biutiful, Howl, The American, Blue Valentine, Of Gods and Men (Des Hommes et des Dieu), One Too Many Mornings and Aurora.
