The Way Back - I saw this today because it got a nomination for Best Makeup. Yeah, I do that. It was also on the inaugural episodes of Ebert's new At The Movies show. Peter Weir directed (Witness, Dead Poets Society, Master and Commander) this supposedly true story of 3 men who walked 4000 miles from a Siberian prison camp to India. It's a little long but it worked pretty well. Amazing scenery and challenges. This film does reinforce the rule, if you're ever in a life and death situation you want Ed Harris on your side. While you do get to know a little about the characters (apparently you learn in prison not to talk about yourself) by the end I found I could still only visually recognize the actors I knew (Harris, Colin Farrell and Saoirse Ronan). Also, see this BBC article, How The Long Walk became The Way Back.
True Grit - The Coen brothers have remade True Grit. I'd never seen the John Wayne version until it was on TV this December. The two versions are similar but there are differences in the story telling. These differences make me want to read the book (amazon says the paperback will be out in May for $10 but you can download the Kindle version now for $13. Huh.) So it's a straight up Western about Mattie Ross, a precocious girl who hires Rooster Cogburn, a mean and drunk federal marshall to track down her dad's killer in the Indian Territories. They're joined by LaBoeuf, a Texas ranger also after the same man. Maddie in both versions is very good, though I think she's a little better in the original. Wayne won his only Oscar for Cogburn, Jeff Bridges is also nominated. Both pulled off the drunk part well, though I think only Wayne pulled off the mean part and even that mostly by reputation. Matt Damon is the better LaBoeuf, though Glenn Campbell's (!) version had a bigger role. It's the Coen's brother's most profitable film and it's good, but it's certainly not their best. It's a little plain with none of their weirdness (except for a guy wearing a bear's head) and very washed out color. Here's an article on True Grit and the Law.
The Town is an old school crime thriller set in Boston co-written, directed by and starring Ben Affleck. It's a lot of fun and has some of the best helicopter establishing shots I've ever seen. They're quick but they make the city look gorgeous and really help set the scene. The plot follows some local bank robbers mostly Ben Affleck and his hot head lifelong friend Jeremy Renner (nominated for a best supporting actor oscar). Rebecca Hall is a potential witness and Affleck while trying to figure out how much she knows, falls for her. Jon Hamm is the FBI agent after them and I think he's the weakest of them all. It's not the accent that's as much of the problem as his expression and tone, which just seem off a bit. The action set pieces are very good. There's even a car chase in the impossibly narrow streets of the North End that every Boston native I know found believable. In the end, the film didn't evoke all the sympathies that I think it wanted it to. I thought some of the characters didn't quite get what they deserved.
Helvetica - An 80 minute documentary about a font. And it's really fascinating. Really.
Le Mans - A 1971 Steve McQueen film about the car race. It probably has less dialog than 2001 A Space Odyssey. None of the characters talk for 37 minutes. The track announcer probably has more lines than all the characters combined. It's really just the car race and people waiting to race and getting in and out of the cars. I hated it, but if you like car racing, it's probably a must see.
The Kids Are All Right - This is a family drama. What's unique is the parents are lesbians and they had two now teenage children via an anonymous sperm donor. Now they want to track down their father and it turns out to be Mark Ruffalo playing a womanizing slacker who runs a successful restaurant. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are both quite good as the moms who's characters have some real depth. They've been together a long time and their relationship is complicated. I think the script added a few twists that were unnecessary. It's a solid drama though I don't understand the tremendous praise its gotten.
The American - George Clooney plays an assassin doing one last job in Italy. But this isn't a Bourne film and you shouldn't go in expecting one. It's more like a 70s thriller or a European one, think The Conversation. It follows one character who doesn't say much, who we don't know much about and who lives a solitary life suspicious of everyone he meets. A big plot point rests on one line that easy to miss, actually by a name said by one character. A lot of people found this really slow but I got very into it (maybe because I was expecting slow).
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