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Price Check
Who: Parker Posey, Eric Mabius, Annie Parisse
What: Mabius and Parisse play a middle class married couple with a stable life. Mabius gets a new boss, played by Posey, who creates new opportunity for him, but it comes at an emotional price.
When: March 19th
Why: I really like Parker Posey in indie dramas like this.

Riddle
Who: Val Kilmer, Elisabeth Harnois, William Sadler, Diora Baird
What: Harnois plays a college student searching for her missing brother in the town of Riddle, PA. Kilmer and Sadler play town authorities trying to steer her away from the truth.
When: March 19th - DVD and Ultraviolet
Why: A straight to video Val Kilmer thriller! I love these terrible, terrible movies.

Rust and Bone
Who: Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts
What: A French language romantic drama based on Craig Davidson's short stories, about a killer-whale trainer who loses her legs in an accident, and the unemployed younger man who is resistant to loving her.
When: March 19th - DVD and Ultraviolet
Why: Shoenaerts won the César Award for Most Promising Actor, and Cotillard was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. Cotillard gained prominence five years ago for playing Edith Piaf in La Vie en rose.

Zero Dark Thirty
Who: Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Mark Strong, Mark Duplass, James Gandolfini, Joel Edgerton, Chris Pratt, Mark Valley
What: The thrilling drama about the long investigation by the CIA into locating Osama bin Laden, followed by the SEAL raid on his compound. Chastain plays the intrepid CIA analyst, while Clarke plays the interrogator on the ground. Edgerton and Pratt play DEVGRU operators.
When: March 19th - DVD and Ultraviolet
Why: ZDT for a while was a contender to win the Oscar for Best Picture but suffered some controversial press over issues of torture. Kathryn Bigelow was nominated by the Directors Guild but not the Academy. Screenwriter Mark Boal (who previously worked with Bigelow on the award-winning movie The Hurt Locker) won a Writers Guild Award. The movie is tense and details the long slog it took to put everything together, and really should be required viewing.


What I'm watching this week:

Based on a goal of watching 200 movies per year, I try to watch - or limit myself to - four movies per week. (I'm aware that The Hobbit, Les Mis, and This is 40 may be available to rent or buy from some outlets this week but I'm waiting for their Netflix release dates in April to include them.) The two big movies this week both deal with the CIA: Argo, set in the Iran hostage crisis, and Zero Dark Thirty set around the targeting of Osama Bin Laden. Argo of course won the Best Picture Oscar. ZDT features some violent and tragic scenes, while Argo is fun while keeping up the tension. Both are well worth watching. Two other award-worthy movies which received less attention when they were in theaters are Anna Karenina, which won an Oscar for costume design, and Rust and Bone, which won a handful of César Awards in France. That's a lot of heavy material in the same week; I might consider adding something light and fun.

Coming next week:

Chasing Mavericks, Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, The Collection, Killing Them Softly, Lincoln, A Royal Affair, Stand Off, Union Square

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