Here’s another random movie list: Worst Movie Mothers. These range from the stomach-turning to the chuckle-inducing. And three of the top ten are in movies from the past three years.
Worst Movie Mothers
Animal Kingdom
Movies to See Right Now
You can still see True Grit, The King’s Speech, Black Swan, The Fighter and Another Year. They are on my Best Movies of 2010. 127 Hours and Biutiful are also good movies out now. The Illusionist is the wistful and charming animated story of a small time magician who drifts through an ever bleaker array of gigs while helping a waif blossom. Cedar Rapids is a fun and unpretentious comedy.
For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now.
You can see trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.
My DVD pick is Animal Kingdom. For my recent DVD choices (including trailers), see DVDs of the Week.
Movies on TV this week include Tom Jones, The Silence of the Lambs and All About Eve on TCM.
DVD of the Week: Animal Kingdom
Watch this, and you’ll be rooting for veteran Australian actress Jacki Weaver to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
In this 2010 Aussie crime drama, a high school kid’s mother OD’s on heroin, forcing him into her estranged family of brutal criminals, presided over by his sunny grandmother. Like many teen boys, he is terse in speech and impassive in demeanor. As he is plunged into increasingly desperate situations, neither the characters nor the audience knows what he is thinking in every instance. This, along with his peril, is the key to the movie’s success. Will the teen safely navigate through the maze of his murderous relations? Will evil prevail? We don’t know until the final scene…and then some questions remain. Animal Kingdom won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.
My take on the Oscar nominees
I’m pretty pleased with this year’s Oscar nominees. The Academy did better than usual and avoided its frequent horribly undeserving nominations and inexplicably unjust missed nominations.
I’m downright giddy that my pick for the year’s best movie, the underdog indie Winter’s Bone, earned four Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Actress (Jennifer Lawrence), Best Supporting Actor (John Hawkes) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Director Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini).
Of the ten nominees for Best Picture, eight are on my list of Best Movies of 2010 – all except 127 Hours (which I have not seen) and The Kids Are Alright (which was OK but not great in my book). The one-year old format of ten Best Picture nominees made it pretty obvious that True Grit, The Social Network, Black Swan, The King’s Speech and Inception would make the list along with the deserving Pixar entry Toy Story 3. The question was about the other four, and, fortunately, Winter’s Bone and The Fighter slipped in.
I’m also delighted that Australian veteran actress Jacki Weaver was nominated for her role in Animal Kingdom as an impossibly upbeat gal who can effortlessly put out a contract on her own grandson.
Christopher Nolan should have gotten a Best Director nod for his Best Picture nominee Inception. I wish that Winter’s Bone‘s Debra Granik had been nominated for Best Director. And I did find it odd that GasLand rated an Oscar nod for Best Documentary, but not The Tillman Story or Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. But those are just quibbles relative to my complaints in other years. Here’s to the Oscars!
2010 in Movies: The Year of the Crime Drama
2010 continued a trend of really good recent crime dramas. This year, most of them came from overseas: The Secrets in Their Eyes (Argentina) won the most recent Best Foreign Language Oscar and A Prophet (France) and Ajami (Palestine/Israel) were nominated.
All three made my list of the year’s best movies and my list of Best Recent Crime Dramas.
We also had other strong imports in this genre: the Mesrine films (France), Animal Kingdom (Australia) and Mother (Korea).
The best American crime drama was The Town, in which the rockin’ first two acts were betrayed by a sappy and implausible climax.
Here’s the trailer for Ajami, an ultra-realistic crime drama set in a scruffy neighborhood in Jaffa, Israel. The story weaves together Arab Christians and Arab Muslims and both religious and non-religious Israeli Jews. Everyone aspires to make a living and live in personal safety, but the circumstances and tribal identities make this very difficult at best. There are two trans-religious romances, but no one is going to live happily ever after. Ajami was co-written and co-directed by Scandar Copti, a Jaffa-born Palestinian, and Yaron Shoni, an Israeli Jew. After seeing the film, I was surprised to learn that it has no trained actors – all of the roles are played by real-life residents who improvised their lines to follow the story line.
2010 in Review: Foreign Films
It was another year in which foreign cinema was essential. Three of the nominees for the 2009 Best Foreign Language Oscar were released in the US this year: Ajami (Israel/Palestine), A Prophet (France) and the Oscar winning The Secrets in Their Eyes (Argentina). Those three made my list of Best Movies of 2010, along with Mademoiselle Chambon, The Girl on the Train, and The Ghost Writer from France, Carlos from France/Germany, Fish Tank from the UK, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo from Sweden. If I couldn’t see foreign films, I wouldn’t have a Best Movie list.
France also gave us the Mesrine films. Ireland offered Kisses. Italy had the food-centric I Am Love and Mid-August Lunch. In a tremendous year for crime drama, the Aussies added Animal Kingdom and the Koreans contributed Mother. Police, Adjective was another bleak, cynical drama from Rumania.
Here’s the trailer for Kisses.
Best Recent Crime Dramas
We’re living in a good time for crime drama. When I think of this genre, I generally think of The Godfather, Goodfellas, and the film noir of the 40s and 50s. But there are some excellent contemporary ones. This year, we have had A Prophet, The Secret in Their Eyes, Ajami, Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Animal Kingdom. (Interestingly, two of those films are French, and the others are Australian, Argentine and Israeli.)
Here are some more outstanding crime dramas from the past seven years: The Lookout, A History of Violence, Layer Cake, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Tell No One, Gomorrah, Sin Nombre, In Bruges, Zodiac, Maria Full of Grace and Eastern Promises. All of them have inventive, fresh takes on the crime genre. All of them are on my list of best films for its year.
For descriptions and trailers, see Best Recent Crime Dramas.
This week's Movies To See
Mademoiselle Chambon is the year’s best romance, and very worth seeking out; The lovers are beautifully acted by Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Kiberlaine in two of the very finest performances of the year. I’m still pushing the hardhitting documentary The Tillman Story. There’s also the George Clooney arty thriller The American. If you can still find them, there are also two excellent crime dramas – Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Animal Kingdom. For a date movie, there is the charming and relatively smart romantic comedy Going the Distance.
Without strongly recommending them, I can say that The Town is a satisfying Hollywood thriller and the silly A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop has its moments. You can skip Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.
For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now.
My DVD of the Week is one of the year’s best so far: The Ghost Writer. Don’t miss another of the year’s best, The Secret in Their Eyes either. For my recent DVD choices (including trailers), see DVDs of the Week.
Movies on TV include lots of good choices: Seven Days in May, Badlands, Boxcar Bertha, Leave Her to Heaven, Twentieth Century and The Earrings of Madame de…, all coming up on TCM.
If you’re a baseball fan, there’s Ken Burns’ The Tenth Inning on PBS.
New Movies to See Right Now
Mademoiselle Chambon is the year’s best romance, and very worth seeking out in the next two weeks. The lovers are beautifully acted by Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Kiberlaine in two of the very finest performances of the year.
I’m still recommending the hardhitting documentary The Tillman Story, the George Clooney arty thriller The American and the two gritty crime dramas – Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Animal Kingdom. For a date movie, there is the charming and relatively smart romantic comedy Going the Distance.
Without strongly recommending them, I can say that The Town is a satisfying Hollywood thriller and the silly A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop has its moments.
For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now.
My DVD of the Week is one of the year’s best so far: The Secret in Their Eyes. For my recent DVD choices (including trailers), see DVDs of the Week.
Movies on TV include Sunset Boulevard, What’s Up, Tiger Lily? and The Searchers, all coming up on TCM.
Movies to See Right Now
This week, I’m recommending an arty thriller, The American with George Clooney and two gritty crime dramas – the true story Mesrine: Killer Instinct and the Aussie fictional Animal Kingdom. For a date movie, there is the charming and relatively smart romantic comedy Going the Distance. The hardhitting documentary The Tillman Story is one of the year’s best.
For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now.
My DVD of the Week is one of the year’s best so far: Ajami. For my recent DVD choices (including trailers), see DVDs of the Week.
Movies on TV include Underworld USA, Soylent Green, Sunset Boulevard and What’s Up, Tiger Lily? all coming up on TCM.