This week’s MUST SEES are The Hunt – the best movie of 2013 so far – and the emotionally powerful Fruitvale Station. The Hunt is likely out for only one more week.
Woody Allen’s very funny Blue Jasmine centers on an Oscar-worthy performance by Cate Blanchett.
I haven’t yet seen Amanda Seyfried and Peter Sarsgaard in the porn star biopic Lovelace. You can read descriptions and view trailers of it and other upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.
My other recommendations:
- The rock documentary 20 Feet from Stardom, essential for music fans.
- Another rock doc, A Band Called Death with the story of three African-American brothers in Detroit inventing punk rock before The Ramones and The Sex Pistols – and then dropping out of sight for decades.
- the satisfying shocker The Conjuring.
- The HBO documentary Casting By, which reveals an essential ingredient in filmmaking.
- Another HBO documentary, The Cheshire Murders, which takes us beyond the familiar police procedural.
Also out right now:
- The gross-out comedy This is the End, which has its moments.
- I Give It a Year – a British rom com with a twist.
- A stale intellectual argument from 1961 in Hannah Arendt.
- The Irish horror comedy Grabbers, which fails to deliver on a great premise.
- the wretched crime thriller Only God Forgives is in the running for the year’s worst film.
This week, there’s no DVD/Stream of the Week – get out to see The Hunt and Fruitvale Station!
On August 11, Turner Classic Movies is featuring Henry Fonda movies, including his iconic performances in Mister Roberts and The Grapes of Wrath. But I also like the oft overlooked comedy A Big Hand for a Little Lady, where Fonda plays a pioneer who has lost almost everything in a poker game and then becomes ill just when he is dealt a very promising hand; his wife (Joanne Woodward) must decide whether to hold ’em or fold ’em.