The best films in theaters right now are no secret – most are Oscar-nominated:
- Clint Eastwood’s thoughtful and compelling American Sniper, with harrowing action and a career-best performance from Bradley Cooper.
- The inspiring Selma, well-crafted and gripping throughout (but with an unfortunate historical depiction of LBJ).
- The Belgian drama Two Days, One Night with Marion Cotillard, which explores the limits of emotional endurance.
- The cinematically important and very funny Birdman. You can still find Birdman, but you may have to look around a bit. It has justifiably garnered several Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture.
- Reese Witherspoon is superb in the Fight Your Demons drama Wild, and Laura Dern may be even better.
- The Theory of Everything is a successful, audience-friendly biopic of both Mr. AND Mrs. Genius.
- The Imitation Game – the riveting true story about the guy who invented the computer and defeated the Nazis and was then hounded for his homosexuality.
- I was underwhelmed by the brooding drama A Most Violent Year – well-acted and a superb sense of time and place (NYC in 1981) but not gripping enough to thrill.
My DVD/Stream of the week is last year’s best Hollywood movie, the psychological thriller Gone Girl, with a star-making performance by Rosamund Pike. It’s now available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and Flixster.
It’s time for Turner Classic Movies’ annual 31 Days of Oscar – a glorious month of Oscar-nominated and Oscar-winning films on TCM. This week, I am highlighting:
- The Great Dictator (February 7): Charlie Chaplin’s hilarious and devastating takedown of a thinly disguised Adolph Hitler – almost two years before the US entered WW II.
- Laura (February 9): perhaps my favorite thriller from the noir era, with an unforgettable performance by Clifton Webb as a megalomaniac with one vulnerability – the dazzling beauty of Gene Tierney. The musical theme is unforgettable, too.
- All the King’s Men (February 11): one of the best political movies of all time, from the novel based on the saga of Huey Long . Watch for the brilliant, Oscar-winning supporting performance by Mercedes McCambridge.
- The Bad Seed (February 13): very bad things are happening – the chill comes from the revelation that the murderous fiend is a child with blonde pigtails.