Gianni Di Gregorio (right) and his wing man in THE SALT OF THE EARTH
The Kid with the Bike is an extraordinary film that tells a riveting story of unconditional love. It is emotionally powerful without being sentimental and is gripping without stunts and explosions. It’s now topping my list of Best Movies of 2012 – So Far. It may be out in theaters for only another week or to, so see it now.
The Hunger Games is a well-paced, well-acted and intelligent sci-fi adventure fable with excellent performances by Jennifer Lawrence and Stanley Tucci.
The Deep Blue Sea is well-crafted and deeply, deeply sad tragedy of a woman (Rachel Weisz) who loves too much.
The Salt of the Earth is a gently funny and insightful Italian comedy about men of a certain age.
In Footnote, a rising Talmudic scholar sees his career-topping prize accidentally awarded to his grumpy father. This potentially comic situation reveals the characters of the two men.
The searing and brilliantly constructed Iranian drama A Separation won the Best Foreign Language Oscar. The Best Picture Oscar-winning The Artist is still playing in theaters.
I haven’t yet seen Monsieur Lazhar, which opens this week. You can read descriptions and view trailers of these and other upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.
My DVD pick this week is The Descendants, a family drama with superb performances by George Clooney and Shailene Woodley.
In director Alexander Payne’s first film since Sideways, George Clooney seeks to care for his daughters in Hawaii after his wife is hospitalized, but then learns that she has been cheating on him. That news sends him on a quest that he defines along the way. To complicate things, his daughters are cooperative to various degrees. The heat is turned up even higher by a potential land deal that could make Clooney and his many entitled slacker cousins wildly rich, but the deal’s deadline looms and he is pressured by his VERY interested relations.
The situation is promising enough, but Payne takes the story in unanticipated directions. And, as you would expect from Sideways, there are many funny moments in The Descendants.
Clooney’s performance is brilliant. Here, he does not play The Coolest Man on the Planet. Instead, Clooney is a grinding workaholic who is so clueless about his kids that he doesn’t realize how clueless he is. He is stunned by news of the affair that he never suspected. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he must work through his situation figuring it out as he goes along.
Shailene Woodley’s performance as the older daughter is even more essential to the success of The Descendants. It’s not just that she perfectly plays a bratty teenager, but that we can see that some of her brattiness is hormonal and some of it is entirely voluntary and manipulative. Woodley had to convincingly play a character who is at times self-centered and shallow, but who can rally and reach within herself to serve as the family glue and support her dad and little sister.
The Descendants approaches being a perfect movie but for two things: 1) the daughter’s stoner boyfriend is just too oblivious to be credible among the other colorful yet completely authentic characters; and 2) the audience can never believe that there’s any chance that George Clooney is going to allow bulldozers on thousands of pristine Hawaiian acres. Still, almost perfect is pretty good.
Oscar deserving Michele Williams (with Dougray Scott as Arthur Miller) in MY WEEK WITH MARILYN
I’m really not too exercised about tonight’s Oscars because I trust that it will a good night for my favorites among the nominated films: The Artist and The Descendants. Most of the nominations are relatively deserved, so it’s not like two years ago, when I was gnashing my teeth over the battle between The Hurt Locker (my fave) and Avatar (NOT my fave).
I am really rooting for Michele Williams to win the Best Actress Oscar. Her performance is deserving, and she warrants recognition as the best of our younger actresses – and one who bravely picks quality scripts (Brokeback Mountain, Wendy and Lucy, Blue Valentine).
If you’re betting, the three biggest locks are Christopher Plummer for Supporting Actor, Rango for Animated Feature and A Separation for Foreign Language Picture.
The Movie Gourmet's culinary tribute to 127 HOURS and WINTER'S BONE
Every year, The Movie Gourmet watches the Oscars while enjoying a meal inspired by the Best Picture nominees. For example, last year’s highlight was the ice sculpture of severed hands for 127 Hours andWinter’s Bone. We also had Appletinis for The Social Network, cowboy beans for True Grit, and steak and organic roast vegetable salad with a Petite Syrah from The Kids Are All Right. (I decided not to skin my own squirrel for Winter’s Bone and not to recycle my urine for 127 Hours.) You get the idea and you can read more at Oscar Dinner.
The pickins are slimmer this year, but fortunately I have found food and/or beverages referenced in or inspired by the Best Picture nominees.
You may remember George Valentin’s uneasy breakfast with his wife in The Artist, or the ruined crop in War Horse, or Jessica Chastain serving up some 50s fare to Brad Pitt in The Tree of Life. One thing for sure: Minnie’s chocolate pie from The Help will make an appearance!
Oscar nominated Berenice Bejo in (and married in real life to the Oscar nominated director of) THE ARTIST
It’s Oscar Weekend, your chance to catch up with the magical silent romance The Artist, Director Alexander Payne’s (Sideways) family drama The Descendants with George Clooney, Martin Scorsese’s revelatory 3D tale Hugo, the rockem sockem thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and the searing and brilliantly constructed Iranian drama A Separation.
Safe House is a fine paranoid action spy thriller with Denzel Washington and the director’s pedal jammed to the floor. Thin Ice is a Fargo Lite diversion.
I have also commented onSteven Spielberg’s War Horse, the sex addiction drama Shame, the biopic The Iron Lady, the very odd fable Albert Nobbs, the feminist action thriller Haywire and Ralph Fiennes’ contemporary adaption of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.
I haven’t yet seen the Woody Harrelson police corruption thriller Rampart, which opens this weekend. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.
My DVD pick of (last) week is Drive starring Ryan Gosling, a stylishly violent noir tale unfolding on a brilliantly filmed canvas.
George Clooney and Shailene Woodley in THE DESCENDANTS
The best films in theaters are the magical silent romance The Artist, Director Alexander Payne’s (Sideways) family drama The Descendants with George Clooney, Martin Scorsese’s revelatory 3D tale Hugo, the rockem sockem thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and the searing and brilliantly constructed Iranian drama A Separation.
I have also commented onSteven Spielberg’s War Horse, the sex addiction drama Shame, the biopic The Iron Lady, the very odd fable Albert Nobbs, the feminist action thriller Haywire and Ralph Fiennes’ contemporary adaption of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.
Some of the year’s very best films are in theaters now. I especially recommend these four:
The Artist: A magical romance given us through the highly original choice of an almost silent film.
The Descendants: Director Alexander Payne’s (Sideways) family drama is set in Hawaii and contains a brilliant performance by George Clooney.
Hugo, Martin Scorsese’s revelatory 3D tale of an orphan living in the bowels of a 1920s Paris train station who strives to survive by his wits, keep his independence and solve the puzzle of an discarded automaton.
I highly recommend A Separation, the searing and brilliantly constructed Iranian drama, but it’s a tough watch. It’s a cinch for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.
Here are my comments on some other current films, the sex addiction drama Shame, the biopic The Iron Lady and the very odd fable Albert Nobbs.
This week’s lightweight pick is the feminist action thriller Haywire. My heavyweight pick is Ralph Fiennes’ very fienne contemporary adaption of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.
I haven’t yet seen the Denzel Washington spy thriller Safe House, which opens this week. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.
Some of the year’s very best films are in theaters now. I especially recommend these four:
The Artist: A magical romance given us through the highly original choice of an almost silent film.
The Descendants: Director Alexander Payne’s (Sideways) family drama is set in Hawaii and contains a brilliant performance by George Clooney.
Hugo, Martin Scorsese’s revelatory 3D tale of an orphan living in the bowels of a 1920s Paris train station who strives to survive by his wits, keep his independence and solve the puzzle of an discarded automaton.
Here are my comments on some other current films, the sex addiction drama Shame, the biopic The Iron Lady and the very odd fable Albert Nobbs. Plus, I liked the lightweight feminist action thriller Haywire.
I haven’t yet seen A Separation or Pina 3D, which open this week. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.
The Oscar nominations are out, and there are few of the head scratching inclusions and omissions that we frequently see. Of the Best Picture nominations, The Artist, The Descendants, Hugo and Midnight in Paris all made my Best Movies of 2011. Although they didn’t make my Best of the Year list, War Horse and Moneyball are very good movies that I recommend. I haven’t yet seen The Help, which is, by all accounts, a fine film. Although I hated The Tree of Life, it was the biggest art film of the year and much praised by mainstream critics. The one jaw dropper is the critically scorned Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which exploits 9/11 in the pursuit of a three hankie weeper.
My biggest disappointments were the snubbing of Michael Shannon’s performance in Take Shelter and the innovative screenplay by Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman for Young Adult.
The acting categories seem a little light to me this year with the exception of Best Actress, with two performances for the ages by Michele Williams in My Week with Marilyn and Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady.
One of the most rewarding aspects of watching movies is seeing the emergence of new talent. Here are some pleasant surprises from the past year.
1. Denis Villenueve: Because Incendies is anything but stagey, you can’t tell that this little known French-Canadian director adapted the screenplay from a play. In fact, he created the most gripping film of the year.
2. Jessica Chastain: She’s on everybody’s “breakthrough” list for a damn good reason. First, she delivered a fine performance as an enabling 1950s mom in the most coherent part of The Tree of Life. She followed that with a riveting performance as a 1960s Mossad agent (the younger version of Helen Mirren’s character) in the thriller The Debt. In Take Shelter, she plays a well-grounded housewife who must deal with a mentally disintegrating husband. She won critical praise for the trashy but aspiring housewife in a film I haven’t seen – The Help. She’s a tough cop in The Texas Killing Fields. And then she’s in Ralph Fiennes’ adaptation of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.
Six movies in six months – that’s quite a way to start a career. And she’s at the top of her game in all of them, playing soft and tough, brittle and sexy, action and romance.
3. Nicholas Winding Refn: With apologies to Ryan Gosling, Refn is the real star of the vivid and compelling Drive. He has a great eye and a great sense of pacing, and could produce a masterpiece with the right material.
4. Michel Hazanavicius: He came out of nowhere to strike gold with The Artist. Who would think to make a silent film today? Everyone will want to see what he can come up with next.
5. Shailene Woodley: Her performance is absolutely essential to the success of The Descendants. It’s not just that she perfectly plays a bratty teenager, but that we can see that some of her brattiness is hormonal and some of it is entirely voluntary and manipulative. Woodley had to convincingly play a character who is at times self-centered and shallow, but who can rally and reach within herself to serve as the family glue and support her dad and little sister.
6. Ben Ripley: The key to Source Code is a breakthrough screenplay by Ben Ripley. In a year with at least some smart action films, Ripley’s is the smartest. He came up with the scifi premise that supersoldier Jake Gyllenhaal can inhabit the brain of a terrorism victim for the same 8 minutes – over and over again. Each time, he has 8 minutes to seek more clues. Can he build the clues into a solution and prevent the terrorist atrocity? Ripley had us on the edge of our seats.
7. Ryan Gosling: He has already established himself as one of our best actors (Half Nelson, All Good Things, Blue Valentine), so why is he on this list? Because this year he has broken out of quirky roles in indies and has carried more mainstream films. He proved that he can play an action star (Drive) and also be the funniest guy in a Steve Carell comedy (Stupid Crazy Love). And he proved that he can carry a George Clooney movie as the male lead holding his own with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti (The Ides of March). He could be looking at a Clooney/Hanks/Nicholson career.
