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.