Monday Morning Quarterback Part III
By BOP Staff
November 16, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: As we head into awards season, are there any smaller films you'd like to champion?
Edwin Davies: It's been a pretty fertile year for independent and foreign language films, at least from what I've seen, and I'll just rattle off a couple of my favorites. I don't know how likely it is that any of them will end up getting serious consideration, but if you're not sure what to see at your local arthouse or rent from Netflix, then these titles might be worth checking out.
Senna
I went into this documentary about Ayrton Senna, the Formula One Champion who tragically died during a race back in 1994, with no real expectations. I'm not a fan of F1, didn't really know about Senna and nothing about the subject matter really spoke to me, but I came out absolutely amazed by it and it is a strong contender for my favorite film of the year. Using no talking heads, just disembodied voiceover played over footage from races and Senna's life, the film creates a vivid and exhilarating portrait of an extraordinary sportsman which is hugely involving and moving. It's a film that really understands how sport can be transcendent and how it can give hope to people who have none (there is a considerable focus on what Senna meant to the people of his native Brazil, which held him up as a symbol of hope and pride at a time of great economic and social turmoil). It's just a really beautiful and well-made film that I found hugely affecting.
Submarine
Directed by Richard Ayoade, perhaps best(?) known in America for his role as Moss in The IT Crowd and Dean Lerner in Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Submarine is a really hilarious and touching coming of age story set in a Welsh town in the 1980s and following the story of a young man trying to lose his virginity and to stop his parents breaking up. Ayaode directs the film in an incredibly smart and sharp way, employing the edits and shot composition to sell his gags as much as the lightning fast script, and it's a film that is funny and sweet in a very low-key, sardonic way that I find really charming.
The Skin I Live In
Pedro Almodovar's luridly entertaining potboiler about a plastic surgeon who...well, I can't really say anything else since the film has some twists and turns best left unrevealed until you watch it, but suffice it to say, it manages to be funny, creepy, sexy and disturbing, often in the same scene, and it boasts a career best performance from Antonio Banderas.
Attack The Block
Aliens invade a London tower block and a bunch of kids try to fight them off. A really entertaining homage to the works of John Carpenter, Walter Hill and Steven Spielberg, Attack The Block manages to sneak in some genuine scares and social commentary amongst all its cool action sequences and funny dialogue and it's a really fast, hugely fun work.
The Tree of Life
It's a love it or hate it work but I loved it. Terrence Malick puts his heart and his beliefs out there for all the world to see, and whether you agree with them or not, it's hard to argue with the craft and ambition on display as he juxtaposes the relationships between members of a family in Texas in the '50s against the very birth of the universe itself. Spellbinding and kind of crazy.
The Guard
Brendan Gleeson is a morally dubious Irish cop who winds up unwilling caught up in a web of murder, blackmail and international drug smuggling and banters with FBI agent Don Cheadle. Pitch black in tone and featuring some hilarious - and completely unrepeatable in polite society - lines, it's a weird combination of odd couple comedy and Sergio Leone Western (albeit one set in County Galway) that is tremendous fun from beginning to end.
Samuel Hoelker: Most of the art-house fare this year (and especially the past month or two) has been very good, but just falling shy of excellent. Looking forward to the rest of the year, I'm starting to get afraid that they're just going to have to take what they can get, even if they have fewer than ten nominees this year.
Melancholia
Before today, the only Lars von Trier film that I had seen was Antichrist, which also was the only film to ever give me a visceral emotion outside of shedding a single tear when Royal Tenenbaum buys Ari and Uzi the dalmatian. Knowing that von Trier's depression had only gotten worse in the past two years, and that his new movie was called Melancholia and was about the end of the world, I braced for something that, in the end, Melancholia wasn't. Sure, it's depressing and, more or less, about depression, but it doesn't hit in the same way. Instead, it's a slow and beautiful mediation on disaster and stress, championed by an excellent performance by Kirsten Dunst. For me, it made me realize the extent of my own depression (that's bad) but also how much I could have it worse (that's good!). I didn't like Tree of Life at all; this, to me, was what The Tree of Life should have been. My #3 of the year so far.
Take Shelter
This was the fourth movie this year that I had seen which had Jessica Chastain in it, and the only one that I thought was good, as well as the only one in which I thought she was good. She's actually excellent as the put-upon midwestern wife, dealing with Michael Shannon's deteriorating mental state (he keeps on getting visions and nightmares of a coming storm). Its plotting isn't perfect, and both starts and ends a tiny bit too late, but it keeps its growing tension throughout. Shannon's absolutely explosive; if there were justice in the world, these two movies I've talked about so far would have three of the acting Oscars won. My #9 of the year so far.
Bellflower
If the Academy had any sort of "best debut film" category, my vote would go to Bellflower. It's Evan Glodell's first feature, taking place in what almost seems like an pre-apocalyptic LA (notice a theme with these films?). The main characters drink and prepare for the upcoming reckoning, and then they drink some more and then drink some more. It's morally devoid, but it seems like an insight to a route not taken in most people's lives. Plus, the cameras were built by Glodell himself, and it's got a very unique, burnt look to it. Halfway through, I thought to myself, "Well, this movie's really good, but where can it go from here?" Surprisingly, in interesting directions, handled expertly in ways that debut filmmakers can rarely succeed with. My #4 of the year so far.
Tom Houseman: There are so many great movies that just didn't get enough attention this year and won't be awards contenders, but deserve to be seen. My esteemed colleagues have already mentioned Attack the Block and The Skin I Live In, but there are two that I would like to give special attention to.
Circumstance
A beautiful, heartbreaking drama about the hardships faced by women in modern Iran, it features a number of phenomenal performances, and is perhaps the most important movie of the year.
Weekend
If all romantic comedies were as good as this indie gem, I would be a very happy man. Chris New and Tom Cullen are superb as they dive into a new relationship with each other over the course of the weekend. The production quality is low, but writer/director Andrew Haigh creates a moving and insightful film that manages to have far more depth than you'd expect.
I also want to give a shoutout the Korean psychological drama The Housemaid and the documentary Black Power Mixtape.
David Mumpower: A movie that is easy to catch right now is Waiting for Forever, which is already on Showtime. The Rachel Bilson romantic drama tells an odd story well, something we frankly don’t see enough in this industry. The premise is that a young boy’s entire personality finalizes in a single instant when his parents die in a tragic train accident (their train was not Unstoppable). From that moment, all he wants to do is entertain others, a special talent he has since his personality is so innocent and child-like. And he wants to be with the love of his life, the girl who consoles him at the funeral for his parents. So, he follows her around the country, which would be something of a surprise to her if she were aware of it.
The movie is by no means a masterpiece, but its combination of talent makes it worth a watch. Director James Keach is that famous, at least not relative to his brother, Stacy Keach, or his medicine woman wife, Jane Seymour. What Keach has proven over the years is that he understands how to get the best out of his actors, which is why Jane Seymour fell in love with him in the first place on the set of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. With Rachel Bilson playing off her character in The OC as an actress who doesn’t believe she has done any real acting, he has a winning female lead to compliment Tom Sturridge, the best part of this movie. Sturridge’s character is laconic, causing him to act a lot with body language. I was mesmerized by the performance and I fully expect it to be a finalist for me in the Best Acting category.