Okay – now we’re at that point in late autumn where the theaters are filling with many of the year’s best movies.
- The French drama Blue Is the Warmest Color, with its stunning performance by 19-year-old actress Adèle Exarchopoulos, currently tops my list of Best Movies of 2013 – So Far.
- I really liked and admired the funny, poignant and thought-provoking family portrait Nebraska from Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants).
- Philomena, with Judi Dench and Steve Coogan is an emotionally satisfying gem.
- The city of Rome dazzles in The Great Beauty, already a favorite for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.
- This weekend, I will write about The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, another fine thriller from that franchise, with another amazing performance by Jennifer Lawrence.
Other good choices include the flawless true story thriller Captain Phillips and the space thriller Gravity – an amazing achievement by filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón with what may be Sandra Bullock’s finest performance. 12 Years a Slave is an unsparingly realistic depiction of the horrors of American slavery.
On December 7, Turner Classic Movies offers the unique Russian Ark (2002). A narrator wanders through the Winter Palace in the famed Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. He is from an earlier historical period, and he meets characters from other eras in Russian history. Along the way he talks to a 19th century French companion and, sometimes, directly to us – the audience. Sometimes the characters see each other and sometimes they don’t – all very trippy. And here’s the most remarkable aspect of Russian Ark – it was all shot with a Steadicam in ONE 96-minute continuous shot. Sure, it’s a gimmick, but the movie can stand on its own as a watchable art film.