Thin Ice

Movies to See This Week

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DETACHMENT

Yes, it’s Despair Week at the Movie Gourmet, where you can experience the hopeless human experience with my three top picks.  First, the gripping drama Detachment features a top-rate performance by Adrien Brody as a teacher in a hellish school system that decays teachers’ souls.  In a sizzling performance, Woody Harrelson plays a corrupt and brutal LA cop trying to stay alive and out of jail in Rampart.  The searing and brilliantly constructed Iranian drama A Separation won the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

Joshua Marston, writer-director of the brilliant Maria, Full of Grace, has made a fine drama set in Albania, The Forgiveness of Blood.  It’s slightly less depressing than my top three this week.

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.

The Best Picture Oscar-winning The Artist is still playing in theaters.

I have also commented on the biopics My Week with Marilyn (thumbs up) and The Iron Lady (thumbs down).

I haven’t yet seen Footnote and The Kid with the Bike, which open 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 Take Shelter, #2 on my list of Best Movies of 2011 and probably the single most overlooked film of last year.

Movies to See This Week

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It's not going well for Adrien Brody in DETACHMENT

The gripping new drama Detachment features a top-rate performance by Adrien Brody as a teacher in a hellish school system that decays teachers’ souls.

In a sizzling performance, Woody Harrelson plays a corrupt and brutal LA cop trying to stay alive and out of jail in Rampart.

The searing and brilliantly constructed Iranian drama A Separation won the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

Joshua Marston, writer-director of the brilliant Maria, Full of Grace has made a fine drama set in Albania, The Forgiveness of Blood.

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.

The Best Picture Oscar-winning The Artist is still playing in theaters.

I have also commented on  the biopics My Week with Marilyn (thumbs up) and The Iron Lady (thumbs down).

You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD pick of St. Patrick’s week is the Irish comedy Waking Ned Devine.

Movies to See This Week

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Writer-director Asghar Farhadi's real life daughter Samina plays the daughter at the center of A SEPARATION

In a sizzling performance, Woody Harrelson plays a corrupt and brutal LA cop trying to stay alive and out of jail in Rampart.

The searing and brilliantly constructed Iranian drama A Separation won the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

Joshua Marston, writer-director of the brilliant Maria, Full of Grace has made a fine drama set in Albania, The Forgiveness of Blood, which opens this weekend.

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.

If you still need to catch up on the Oscar winners, you can see the Best Picture Oscar winning The Artist and the rockem sockem thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,

I have also commented on Steven Spielberg’s War Horse, the sex addiction drama Shame, the biopic The Iron Lady, the feminist action thriller Haywire and Ralph Fiennes’ contemporary adaption of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.

You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD pick of (last) week is the fine political drama The Ides of March with Ryan Gosling, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti and George Clooney.

All New Movies to See This Week

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Woody Harrelson in RAMPART

In a sizzling performance, Woody Harrelson plays a corrupt and brutal LA cop trying to stay alive and out of jail in Rampart.

The searing and brilliantly constructed Iranian drama A Separation won the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

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.

If you still need to catch up on the Oscar winners, you can see the Best Picture Oscar winning The Artist and the rockem sockem thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,

I have also commented on Steven Spielberg’s War Horse, the sex addiction drama Shame, the biopic The Iron Lady, the feminist action thriller Haywire and Ralph Fiennes’ contemporary adaption of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.

You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD pick of (last) week is Outrage, the hardass Japanese gangster movie with lots of dull body tattoos and severed fingers.

Thin Ice: Fargo Lite

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Thin Ice is the Fargoesque story of a sleazy Wisconsin insurance agent whose small scam spins into a major crime.  By the time that he gets into real trouble, he has already lied to everyone in his life so often, that no help is available.

Greg Kinnear plays the ethically challenged agent who is always “on”; if he asks you the time, you know that he is trying to turn your money into his money.   Literally.

Kinnear is excellent, as is Alan Arkin as the old farmer that he is trying to fleece.  Billy Crudup plays the psycho ex-con who becomes Kinnear’s unwelcome partner in crime.  David Harbour shines as go-getter young salesman.  So does Lea Thompson as Kinnear’s soon-to-be-ex-wife and Bob Balaban as a fastidious luthier (look it up if you have to).  And keep your eye on Michelle Arthur, who plays Kinnear’s long suffering secretary.

Thin Ice is entertaining while Kinnear gets more and more entangled in his own web of lies and the pressure builds.  The final reveal at the end (a loooong eight minutes or so of exposition) is kinda lame, and doesn’t stand up to the top films in the genre.  Still, it’s a harmless and fun diversion.

Movies to See This Week

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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 on Steven 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.