Here’s you chance to see the Oscar-winning performance by Christian Bale and Melissa Leo in The Fighter. Mark Wahlberg stars as a boxer trying to succeed despite his crack addict brother (Bale) and his powerful, trashy mom (Leo). As one would expect, Bale nails the flashier role of the addict, deluding himself about both past glories and his importance to his family. Leo is almost unrecognized under her teased hair, and is accompanied by a hilarious Greek Chorus of adult daughters, each trashier than the last.
The boxing scenes are very well done, and Wahlberg matches Sylvester Stallone and Hilary Swank in making us believe that he is, indeed, a boxer. See my list of 10 Best Boxing Movies. It’s also on my list of Best Movies of 2010.
The Must See film right now is The Adjustment Bureau, a first rate love story embedded in the action thriller genre. The Music Never Stopped is a crowd pleaser that opens this weekend.
Cedar Rapids is a fun and unpretentious comedy. Nora’s Will is a wry family dramedy, which is also now playing on HBO Signature as Cinco Dias Sin Nora (Five Days Without Nora). The Illusionist is the wistful and charming animated story of a small time magician who drifts through an ever bleaker array of gigs while helping a waif blossom.
Oscar winners True Grit, The King’s Speech and The Fighter are on my Best Movies of 2010 and are still kicking around in some theaters, as is Oscar nominee 127 Hours.
For the first time, Clint Eastwood ventures into the supernatural with the story of three people and their individual experiences with death. It’s also a departure for screenwriter Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon, The Damned United). The most skeptical, nonspiritual viewer (me) finds this to be a compelling film.
The question of What Comes Next is unanswered, and less interesting than the film’s observations of what happens on this Earth to living humans. Eastwood’s genius is in delivering moments of complete truthfulness, one after the other, across a wide range of settings. Young boys enabling a druggie mother. People in a hostel watching for the last breath of a loved one. Experienced, skilled and loving foster parents facing a challenge that they cannot fathom. Every instance of human behavior is completely authentic.
Equally realistic is the big CGI-enhanced action sequence at the beginning of the film – an Indonesian tsunami, not overblown in any way, but frightening in its verisimilitude. The sequence lost the special effects Oscar to Inception.
Eastwood is an actor’s director, and star Matt Damon leads a set of excellent performances. Bryce Dallas Howard gives an Oscar-worthy performance of a woman achingly eager to move past the painful episodes of her life. The child actor Frankie McLaren carries significant stretches of the story with his unexpressed longing and childish relentlessness. Cecile de France ably plays a successful television anchor compelled by events to veer her life in a different direction. Richard Kind delivers a moving portrayal of a man seeking closure after the death of his wife.
Matt Damon and Emily Blunt in The Adjustment Bureau
The Must See film right now is The Adjustment Bureau, a first rate love story embedded in the action thriller genre. You can still see Oscar winners True Grit, The King’s Speech and The Fighter. They are on my Best Movies of 2010. 127 Hours and Biutiful are also good movies out now.The Illusionist is the wistful and charming animated story of a small time magician who drifts through an ever bleaker array of gigs while helping a waif blossom. Cedar Rapids is a fun and unpretentious comedy. Kaboom is a trippy sex romp. Nora’s Will is a wry family dramedy.
Charles Ferguson’s brilliant documentary Inside Job may be the most important movie of the year. It is a harsh but fair explanation of the misdeeds that led to the recent near-collapse of the global financial system. Unexpectedly, the film begins in Iceland, setting the stage for the collapse and kicking off the easily understandable explanations of the various tricks and bamboozles that have hidden behind their own complexity.
Oscar winner Natalie Portman and Natalie Portman in Black Swan
You can still see Oscar winners True Grit, The King’s Speech, Black Swan and The Fighter and Oscar nominee Another Year. They are on my Best Movies of 2010. 127 Hours and Biutiful are also good movies out now.The Illusionist is the wistful and charming animated story of a small time magician who drifts through an ever bleaker array of gigs while helping a waif blossom. Cedar Rapids is a fun and unpretentious comedy. Kaboom is a trippy sex romp. Nora’s Will is a wry family dramedy.
First-time actress Katie Jarvis plays Mia, a damaged and angry young woman from the British lower class. Her party-girl mom is the second-worst mother in recent films (after Mo’Nique’s role in Precious). Can Mia use her passion for dance to escape her grim surroundings? Mom brings home a new boyfriend and everything changes. Michael Fassbinder, starring soon as Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre, is great as the mother’s boyfriend in Fish Tank.
You can still see True Grit, The King’s Speech, Black Swan, The Fighter andAnother Year. They are on my Best Movies of 2010. 127 Hours and Biutiful are also good movies out now.The Illusionist is the wistful and charming animated story of a small time magician who drifts through an ever bleaker array of gigs while helping a waif blossom. Cedar Rapids is a fun and unpretentious comedy.
Watch this, and you’ll be rooting for veteran Australian actress Jacki Weaver to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
In this 2010 Aussie crime drama, a high school kid’s mother OD’s on heroin, forcing him into her estranged family of brutal criminals, presided over by his sunny grandmother. Like many teen boys, he is terse in speech and impassive in demeanor. As he is plunged into increasingly desperate situations, neither the characters nor the audience knows what he is thinking in every instance. This, along with his peril, is the key to the movie’s success. Will the teen safely navigate through the maze of his murderous relations? Will evil prevail? We don’t know until the final scene…and then some questions remain. Animal Kingdom won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.
Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld, both Oscar-nominated, inTrue Grit
The must see films are still True Grit, The King’s Speech, Black Swan, The Fighter and Another Year. All are on my list of Best Movies of 2010. 127 Hours and Biutiful are also good movies out now. The Illusionist is the wistful and charming animated story of a small time magician who drifts through an ever bleaker array of gigs while helping a waif blossom.
