Best bets in theaters this week:
- If you see the thought-provoking drama The Place Beyond the Pines with Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper, you’ll still be mulling it over days later;
- I guarantee that you will enjoy the absolutely winning The Sapphires, a charmer about Australian Aboriginal teens forming a girl group to entertain troops in the Vietnam War.
- Read my ambivalent comments before going to see the enigmatic Upstream Color.
PBS is broadcasting the compelling doumentary The Central Park Five from Ken Burns, et al.
On Video on Demand:
- Letters from the Big Man: a beautifully looking and sounding fable about a prickly woman with a guy and a Bigfoot competing for her affections.
- Electrick Children: an entirely unique teen coming of age story with fundamentalist Mormon teens in Las Vegas.
- Music fans will enjoy the bio-documentary Beware of Mr. Baker.
On the Road is the faithful but ultimately unsuccessful adaptation of the seminal Jack Kerouac novel, with surprisingly little energy. The HBO movie Phil Spector is really just a freak show.
I haven’t yet seen the Norwegian scientific true adventure Kon-Tiki. Also opening today is Terence Malick’s To The Wonder. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.
My DVD of the week is the indie drama Smashed, with its breakthrough performance by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. It’s available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes and other VOD providers.