The best of the current crop of films is Take Shelter , Jeff Nichols’ brilliant tale of a psychotic breakdown with Oscar-worthy performances by Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain. One of the Best Movies of 2011 – So Far.
50/50 is an engaging cancer comedy with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen. Margin Call is a taut financial meltdown drama with superb performances by Jeremy Irons, Paul Bettany and Stanley Tucci. The Ides of March is a fine political drama with Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti and George Clooney. Drive is a stylishly arty and ultraviolent action film with Ryan Gosling.
Blackthorn is a beautiful but flawed Western set in Bolivia. Dirty Girl is a fun but unexceptional romp with promising newcomers Juno Temple and Jeremy Dozier.
You can still find The Guard, the Irish dark comedy starring Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle, and Sarah’s Key, an excellent drama starring Kristin Scott Thomas as a journalist investigating very personal aspects of a French episode in the Holocaust. The Debt, with Helen Mirren, is a multigenerational thriller that addresses the costs of both truth and untruth.
I haven’t yet seen Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In, which opens this week. You can see trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.
My DVD of the Week is the heartwarming documentary Buck. Other recent DVD picks have been Incendies (the year’s best movie so far), the very original teen misfit movie Terri, the delightful indie comedy Turkey Bowl and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy (1979).