Les Miserables (***)

LES MISERABLES
Directed by Tom Hooper

***

For various reasons, musicals don't sell in Hollywood like they used to. As movies began to gravitate more towards sensibility and realism in the late 1960's, the spectacle of the Hollywood musical fell out of favor. There's something very stage-y about the old films like The Band Wagon and Meet Me In St. Louis, and I don't think it's much of a coincidence that musicals still run on the stage for decades to acclaim and popularity. Truth is, there's enough spectacle on the screen already, and singing doesn't add a whole lot. I'd love to see someone make another Singin' In The Rain type movie, but instead of singing about the death of the silent film, they'd be singing about the death of their beloved musicals. But I guess I shouldn't really be giving away free, uncopyrighted pitches here.

Django Unchained (****)

DJANGO UNCHAINED
Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino

****

The last two movies that Quentin Tarantino has made deal with the two biggest eras of racial injustice in America's two-plus centuries of existence. His first one, 2009's Inglourious Basterds, dealt with World War II, in which the German Nazis did their best to exterminate the entire Jewish race in a few years. In that war, the Americans were the good guys. But in his latest movie, Django Unchained, we're moved to what is probably the blackest (forgive the pun) point in the short history of this country: African American slavery. In this era, Southern Americans were not so much the bad guys as they were ignorant orchestrators of centuries worth of oppression that was so deeply rooted in the social and economic infrastructure that it wasn't even considered evil, it was considered a way of life. The Nazis seemed deranged in their genocide, while Americans were straight up stupid and entitled - a very dangerous combination.

Amour (****)

AMOUR
Written and Directed by Michael Haneke

****

Amour is about something that almost everybody has to deal with eventually, but that's not talked about very much, and is almost never shown with such stark detail as it is here. Georges and Anne are both retired music teachers, in their eighties, living in Paris with what appears to be a wholly solid, long-lasting marriage that has produced at least one daughter (at least, that's what the film shows) and several successful students that have gone on to success in the music industry. After decades of being together, I'd imagine that it would seem like nothing could pull you apart from your life partner. But when Anne has a stroke, and her quality of life begins to spiral down quickly and dramatically, it seems to be the first time that their near-lifelong commitment to each other will be tested.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (**1/2)

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY
Directed by Peter Jackson

**1/2

There seems to be two kinds of people in the world. One type has read all of J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings books and sang the praises - high and loudly - of every frame of Peter Jackson's trilogy of film adaptations, even going on to further suggest that these three bloated films (all three hover around three hours, with the last one spilling way over) could be even longer with all the material that was left out of the screenplay. Another type (my type, in case that wasn't obvious already) never read the books and found the three movies to interminable - like cinematic waterboarding - and the thought that any of the movies could be even a second longer, makes this type of person ponder a manic, hard-to-keep-your-hand-off-the-knife kind of lunacy. Like Democrats and Republicans, these two types of people not only disagree but fail to see anything but stupidity in the other side's logic. So, alas, Peter Jackson went ahead and made The Hobbit into three movies, the first of which just came out, bringing the two sides clashing again, but I'd bet only one side is actually going to pay money to see it.

Holy Motors (***1/2)

HOLY MOTORS
Directed by Leo Carax

Holy Motors is a strange movie. But it seems strange in a David Lynchian sort of way, that seems to cry out for meaning - for a puzzle to be solved. (As opposed to strange in a The Master sort, which is mostly just eccentric and aimless, and by the end seems to be exactly about being aimless.) I have never been a huge Lynch fan. I consider Blue Velvet and Mulholland Dr. to be two tremendous movies, but I don't know why. If you want so strongly to imbue a story with a foundation of metaphor and meaning, why make it so difficult to understand? Why make putting the puzzle together so much work? Well, you can only bang your head against a wall so many times before you realize what a dumb activity it is, and that's how I feel about finding meaning in Holy Motors. I just sat back and enjoyed the fantastic limousine ride.

Skyfall (***1/2)

SKYFALL
Directed by Sam Mendes

***1/2

I'd been staying away from Skyfall despite the craze over the latest James Bond film. Not because I had some reservation about the franchise, or that I had found that - based on trailers and reviews - that I didn't think the movie was that good. It was more because I have such unfamiliarity with the franchise (with Die Another Day being the only other film that I'd seen), that I didn't want to jump in with a story without true appreciation for its past and history. Kind of how I'm weary of watching the TV show The Wire because I find the concept of watching 60 one-hour episodes unbelievably daunting. But after the constant imploring of many friends, I finally buckled and saw the movie (over a month after its initial release, but I digress) discovering that the franchise's past films do not really hold any stock in just how remarkable a film it is.

Rust and Bone (***)

Rust and Bone
Directed by Jacques Audiard

***

The gulf between the roles that Marion Cotillard plays in her commercial American films and the ones in her native language seems large enough the fit a cruise through. Consider the ferocity of her Oscar-winning performance in La Vie en Rose and try to think if she's ever even done anything that commanding and demonstrative on an American screen. Perhaps it's not a fair comparison, because there are few actors who are ever as good/better in there second language (Javier Bardem?) - and she did come close in one particular scene in Nine, but that movie was an absolute garbage apart from that one glowing moment. Rust and Bone - part gritty love story, part redemption tale - gives Cotillard her first role with real meat since her pre-Oscar career.

Silver Linings Playbook (****)

 

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
Written for the Screen and Directed by David O. Russell

****

There's something unbelievably infectious about David O. Russell's latest movie, Silver Linings Playbook. It's not that it's particularly innovative or is a technical game-changer. It's story is simple, almost predictable to a point. But it's the product of a stupendously talented (albeit controversial) filmmaker fully committed to a heart-warming story with highly complex characters. So, too, does a commitment from its cast, armed with stars - both rising and setting - that take characters that could be played as caricature, but instead play them out as fully-fleshed, fully-realized characters. It's this combination that makes this movie the most likable movie that I've seen all year. Funny, tense and wonderfully warm in ways that are very surprising, this may be the most crowd-pleasing movie of Russell's career - and I mean that in the best way possible.

Anna Karenina (**)

ANNA KARENINA
Directed by Joe Wright

**

There probably isn't a more difficult text that has been attempted at film adaptation more than Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. The material, so dense and involved, spirals over 860 pages and delves into issues beyond the main story's love triangle, including (but not limited to) Tolstoy's insistence on political overtones throughout the book's final installments. That being said, it is considered by many to be one of the greatest novels of all time (if not THE best) and so the film adaptations have continued to roll out, in Hollywood and beyond, since the creation of narrative filmmaking. The latest may be the most esoteric and challenging, stunning and beautiful; at times wondrously mesmerizing and at others, interminable and pondering.

Life of Pi (***1/2)

LIFE OF PI
Directed by Ang Lee

***1/2

I wasn't actually too excited about the concept of a film version of Yann Martel's famed novel, Life of Pi, because how can you really tell such a story through cinema? Something about its tale seemed particularly caged by the limits (or lack of limits?) that a novel has. But then I forgot about how resourceful and eclectic a filmmaker Ang Lee is. Shot in breathtaking 3D, Lee turned Martel's sparse tale about spirituality and survival and turns it into a spiraling opus of nature and the will of man. Using the beautiful and vibrant colors of India, along with the mystical tones of the sea, Ang Lee crafted the most beautiful film that I've seen this year.

Lincoln (***)

LINCOLN
Directed by Steven Spielberg

***

There's a bit of an aura that surrounds two different figures involved in the making of the 2012 movie, Lincoln. One of the two is its director, Steven Spielberg, who may possibly end his career as the greatest commercial American film director of all time (depending on how much you like Alfred Hitchcock and whether or not you see Hitch as "commercial"). The other is its lead actor, Daniel Day-Lewis, whose well-publicized, near-psychotic performance methods has lead to some of the most ferocious, spell-binding screen performances of the last two decades. The combination of these two cinematic gods adds up to something of an other-worldly expectation. And add to that, this Abraham Lincoln project has been sitting on Spielberg's IMDb page for about fifteen years, and you have a cinematic event worthy of a film geek nerdsplosion.

The Sessions (***)

THE SESSIONS
Written and Directed by Ben Lewin

 ***

The Sessions is a very optimistic, good-natured film about some very dark, adult themes. It's one thing to be a virgin when you're over 40 (as Judd Apatow has so excellently shown us already), but it's another thing to be a virgin at 40+ and have polio. Most people don't like to think about the terribly ill, but even the few that do will rarely want to think about that part of the equation. The Sessions is very frank, honest and compelling, mostly because it has a great character in its central role, but also because it is totally unafraid to tackle an issue most people would rather not think about: what happens when an incredibly crippled person wants to experience sex and love?

Wreck-It Ralph (***1/2)

WRECK-IT RALPH
Directed by Rich Moore

***1/2

There's a dirty word in movies that comes to describe a certain pandering type of film that plays upon the easiest of human emotions to get cheap reactions. That word is sappy. I bring this up because usually the difference between something that is sappy and something else which is just organically sentimental is basically a screenplay that earns it. I think earning sentimental moments is one of the hardest things to do in screenwriting, and there are so few kinds of films that really do it. There's Rain Man, Terms of Endearment, mostly anything by the late John Hughes, as well as The King's Speech and WALL-E for more recent examples. When you can pull that off you can elicit a pretty strong reaction from audiences that can hide a lot of other flaws the movie may have.

Flight (***)

FLIGHT
Directed by Robert Zemeckis

***

Flight only works because of Denzel Washington. The film's message is plodding and hackneyed, its journey is predictable, and its resolution is something out of a screenwriting class at Alcoholics Anonymous. But it all takes part in a rather enjoyable movie because Denzel Washington, already considered a pillar amongst the screen acting community, gives a performance that is so unlike any that he's given over the course of his career. Building a brilliant career based on performances settled totally in control, here he plays a man so very, very unaware of his lack of control if his own illness. It leads to something of a revelation for the already heralded actor. And a pretty good movie, too.

Seven Psycopaths (***)

SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS
Written and Directed by Martin McDonagh

***

There's a post-modern aspect to the screenplay of Seven Psychopaths that could be lost on a lot of viewers. A work of pretty extreme, complicated meta-fiction that seems to be a much more entertaining alternative to writer-director Martin McDonagh sitting in a room by himself and contemplating the direction of his career. But it seems like that was what McDonagh was doing here - well, at least that's what it seemed like his characters were doing for him. In the end, the complications compound atop each other until what we are left with is a highfalutin bloodbath, containing some fantastically oddball performances and the superb dialogue that we've come to expect from McDonagh.