Ten to See

Theaters are rarely as full of great movies as they are during the holidays, and that's certainly the case now.  There are lots of movies playing that deserve your hard-earned dollars, and there's something to suit anyone's taste.

In Theaters
Silver Linings Playbook - Like The Artist last year and The King's Speech the year before, The Weinstein Company is charging into the Oscar season with a heavy-hitting crowd-pleaser, Silver Linings Playbook, based on Matthew Quick's novel of the same name.  The film is already suffering some of the backlash from bloggers and Oscar pundits that TWC's Oscar contenders generally experience, but the film should get off a little easier, if only because it doesn't seem like a front-runner for Best Picture.

Silver Linings Playbook is written and directed by David O. Russell, who made it to the Oscars with The Fighter a couple years ago.  Like The Fighter, SLP is a showcase for great performances.  Bradley Cooper, known for The Hangover and lots of failed attempts to do anything else worthwhile (the less said about The Words, the better), gives the best performance of his career.  He's playing a broad sort of crazy, but he loads his performance with humor and sincerity, resulting in a character that is all over the place but still very grounded.

Cooper is at his best when he shares the screen with Jennifer Lawrence, who is without doubt the main reason to see this film.  Lawrence has had a stellar career, and this is yet another perfect turn from the incredible young actress.  She plays Tiffany with an edge that masks a frightening fragility and a gritty go-get-'em toughness, all the while maintaining great comedic timing.  It's one of my favorite performances of the year, and a sure contender for Best Actress at the Oscars.

The performances are made possible by both Russell's funny, touching, but not mushy screenplay and the perfect editing; the film has rhythm and momentum, appropriate considering that it deals with football and ballroom dancing.  Though it's not a life-altering inspirational tale, Silver Linings Playbook fits neatly into the Weinsteins' run of feel-good Oscar contenders.

Rise of the Guardians - I remember when Dreamworks' animated fare relied on easy pop culture references rather than investing in interesting characters, thematic depth, or exciting story-telling.  With Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon, the studio turned the corner, and seems keen to never look back.  Rise of the Guardians, based on William Joyce's The Guardians of Childhood book series, continues the trend, marking one of the most beautiful, action-packed, and enjoyable animated flicks of the year.  (It's also one of the rare movies that ought to be seen in 3-D.)

Rise of the Guardians imagines a world where Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), and the Sandman all work together to help preserve childhood innocence by giving kids something to believe in.  When Pitch (Jude Law), the Boogeyman, starts taking over kids' dreamscapes and replacing the happy glow of unicorns with rampaging black stallions, the Man in the Moon chooses mischievous Jack Frost (Chris Pine) to join the Guardians' ranks.  It's a gooey premise, to be sure, but thanks to the mature, creative art direction and the general buzz of the holiday season, it works quite well.

The movie moves along predictably, but it's never boring.  The Guardians band together to help protect each other and make sure the kids keep believing, and the battle comes down to one especially resilient child who can't let go of his faith in the supernatural beings.  Jack Frost is a great hero; nimble, cool (yeah, I said it), and sarcastic, and the dynamics between him and the other Guardians (including the silent Sandman) are lots of fun.  The elves and yetis at the North Pole, which serves as HQ, are great comic relief in the vein of Despicable Me's minions.

Though Rise of the Guardians feels distinctly like a Christmas movie, it's really one of those that can be enjoyed at any time of year (one of the benefits of cramming multiple magical characters into one movie).  Knowing Dreamworks, a couple sequels should be announced in no time, and I don't mind that one bit.

The Sessions - The Sessions' subject matter seems about as far from the realm of feel-good as one can imagine.  It's a true story about Mark O'Brien, a man confined to an iron lung (John Hawkes) who hires a sex surrogate (Helen Hunt) to help him lose his virginity and embrace his sexuality, despite the bodily difficulties his childhood battle with polio has plagued him with.  If the premise sounds weird, it's because it sort of is; this is a pretty singular tale, with nothing else like it playing in theaters now (or in recent memory), and thanks to how talented the leads are, it works exceedingly well.

Hawkes, like Jennifer Lawrence, launched into the limelight with an Oscar-nominated turn in Winter's Bone, and has since delivered fine supporting work in movies like Martha Marcy May Marlene, Contagion, and Lincoln.  Here, he gets a starring role, and what a role.  Though his body remains prostate and still throughout the film, Hawkes delivers a powerhouse performance, making the most of facial expression, vocal delivery, and the limited mobility above the shoulders that his character uses to type, dial the phone, and do what other things he can.

Hunt is back in As Good as It Gets mode, and she really is as good as it gets.  She's like sunshine on screen, a magnetic presence, impossible not to love.  She's so comfortable in the role (and out of her clothes), that her mere presence on screen helps to naturalize a pretty strange set-up; she radiates warmth, affection, and empathy, and she does an incredible job giving her character depth and roundness, though the focus is squarely on Mark.  Hawkes and Hunt have wonderful chemistry, and their impressive work helps The Sessions to be more than the slight but fun movie it would otherwise be.

Wreck-It Ralph - The movie theater can be a pretty depressing place for gamers.  Though video games are brought to the big screen pretty regularly, the transition is rarely done with any sort of care or attention to what makes the games great.  Instead, they're usually quick cash-ins that are more interested in tricking a diehard fan into buying a ticket, even with an inkling of how horrific the adaptation is sure to be.

Leave it to the animation wizards at Disney to finally deliver a movie that gamers can embrace whole-heartedly.  Wreck-It Ralph is everything a video game movie should be.  It pays homage to the pastime, including tons of hilarious cameos, one-liners, and allusions to the giants in gaming, but also takes the time to sculpt out a funny, original story that fits into the gaming universe without being a slave to pre-existing molds.  Even after Wreck-It Ralph leaves all the familiar faces behind and starts focusing more squarely on its original characters and the story they're involved in, it's always celebrating video games and using the terminology and generic signs to propel and fill out its sweet, Disney-approved story.

Which is a really great story.  Ralph (John C. Reilly) is sick of being the bad guy, so he decides to jump into other arcade cabinets to try to win a medal and thus prove to the denizens of his cabinet that he's not so bad after all.  He fumbles his way through a Halo clone before ending up in an incredibly fun-looking Mario Kart-type game featuring cars and tracks made out of sweets.  There, he meets impish Vanellope (Sarah Silverman, who does incredible work), a glitch who just wants to race alongside the rest of the game's cast.

The theme may be obvious - be happy with who you are - but it's done in such a novel way and with so many gaming-related flourishes that it feels fresh and exciting.  This is how you tell the moral of the story to a generation with their hands glued to game controllers.

Lincoln - I've already heaped praise on Steven Spielberg's beautiful film about the last months of Lincoln's life, but it's impossible to list the movies that you ought to see in theaters without making mention of this tremendous film.  Tony Kushner has crafted a gorgeous, theatrical, thoughtful script that gives each member the immensely talented ensemble a chance to shine, none more so than Daniel Day-Lewis, who gives a performance to rival his very best work as he completely disappears into the role of our nation's most beloved President.  The film shines in every regard, and along with Argo and Les Miserables, is one of the front-runners for the Best Picture Oscar, and rightfully so.

Holy Motors - Within a given medium, the most exciting, memorable projects are those that couldn't be done in any other medium, those that work their identities as _____ into their DNA, so to speak.  Holy Motors is just such a film, a wild, fevered ride that could only be told through the medium of film.  It wears its filmic identity on its bevy of sleeves, and is all the better for it.

Without giving too much away, Holy Motors follows a man (Denis Lavant) who starts his day by crawling into a white limousine to face a day of appointments.  Upon receiving this information, the viewer wonders what this man does for a living: a doctor, perhaps, or a lawyer?  It's not that simple.  At each appointment, the man fills a spot in the world, putting on lavish costumes and make-up and then performing wildly varied tasks, some that make the viewer question what is "real" and what is, for the man, just an act.

It's a bizarre viewing experience, and one that keeps you on your toes.  The film shifts tone drastically from one episode to another, but it is never anything less than fantastically imaginative.  Half the fun is the anticipation of seeing who this man will be next, and what he must do before he can move on to his next appointment.

Holy Motors gets stranger and stranger as it barrels on, with the last few scenes some of the weirdest I've ever had the pleasure of seeing.  As a peculiar application of the old adage that all the world's a stage, Holy Motors is fascinating and fun.  As a film that wants to take its viewer on a journey unlike any other they've ever been on, it's a masterpiece.  My advice: sit back and soak it in, rather than trying to read some sort of hidden meaning in the madness.  Leave that sort of thing for repeat viewings.

The Loneliest Planet - Contemplative, lumbering, and melancholy, The Loneliest Planet is my recommendation that comes with a grain of salt.  It's a gorgeous movie, and superbly acted, but it will put impatient moviegoers' nerves to the test with its static long shots and long stretches of silence.  For those who are in the right mindset (or simply enjoy this sort of thoughtful nature trek), The Loneliest Planet is a lush treat.

Gael Garcia Bernal and Hani Furstenberg star as Alex and Nica, a couple who go hiking in the Caucasus Mountains of Georgia with a local guiding their way.  They pass the time by having Nica practice conjugating Spanish verbs (perhaps oddly, some of my favorite scenes in the film), standing on their heads, and taking in the gorgeous Georgian landscapes.  The camera often pulls back to show immense stretches of the beautiful views, into which the characters appear and travel through; the wait for their arrival is like a weird game of Where's Waldo?

Along the way, the trio of campers experience a jarring event that sets Alex and Nica on edge, and the film explores the tension in their relationship, which is complicated by the guide's attraction to Nica and amplified by the vast expanse of land around them.  There is little dialogue; the actors emote through body language, facial expressions, and proximity to (or, more often, distance from) each other.  Bernal and Furstenberg take on the Herculean task of making a very internal, interpersonal struggle visual without being obvious, and they prove worthy.  These are two beautiful performances, another in a long line for Bernal (one of my favorite actors) and the first I've seen of Furstenberg.  I'm hoping to see more of her soon.

A Late Quartet - A long-established string quartet's future is put into question when the group's cellist (Christopher Walken) is diagnosed with Parkinson's.  Upon receiving the news, he decides to make an upcoming concert his farewell, starts to seek his replacement, and decides that he wants the quartet to tackle a particularly tricky piece of music.  Meanwhile, the other members of the quartet (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener as the married second violinist and violist, and Mark Ivanir as the first violinist) become embroiled in personal drama that threatens to tear apart their relationships, professional and personal, for good.

With such a talented cast, one would be forgiven for expecting great things from A Late Quartet, but one would be disappointed going into the film with said expectations.  It's a good movie, sometimes very good (this is, after all, a recommendation), but it's a bit of a mess, too.  The performances are uniformly great.  Walken is tender and broken, Hoffman delivers typically strong work marked by huffy ambition and a hunger for more attention, Keener delves into the battling halves of her character: the career musician married to the road and the inattentive mother to a daughter (Imogen Poots) who desperately needs (or at least needed) her, and Ivanir, the least well-known of the bunch, is stoic, haughty, and sharp as his character romances Poots'.

It's unfortunate that the great acting is somewhat wasted on such typical melodrama.  The May-December romance and marital infidelity have been done to death, and here, they're not done with any sort of novelty or twist.  The characters are often thinly written, exploding at the drop of a hat and, in the case of Ivanir's character, behaving so out-of-character as to be absurd.

Despite the problematic script, the fine cast and beautiful music make A Late Quartet worth seeing.

How to Survive a Plague - How to Survive a Plague is probably the hardest of all of these movies to find at a theater near you, but if you can, seek it out.  In a year of great documentaries, this film stands out for its impressive collection of stock footage that helps to flesh out the activities of advocacy groups ACT UP and TAG during the AIDS epidemic that plagued the country, and the world, during the late '80s and early '90s. 

The film does a fantastic job of fleshing out the men and women involved, and even in creating a sense of tension in regards to their fate.  Multiple times in the stock footage, the main subjects of the film state that they believe they will die from their disease, and that they won't live to see an effective medical treatment.  Despite their beliefs, they still fought for more research, and faster, and it's incredible to see how their efforts helped to change an AIDS diagnosis from a death sentence to an unfortunate but survivable disease.

The Documentary race at the Oscars is one of the hardest to predict, but with its great editing and important, moving subject matter, How to Survive a Plague could make it to the Big Show, and even if it doesn't, it's truly a stand-out doc in a year full of them.

Skyfall - James Bond is back in a big way with Skyfall, a huge rebound after the minor disappointment that was Quantum of Solace.  Daniel Craig takes the role on for a third time, and he once again plays the part with a nice mixture of grit and grace.  Even when he gets dirty, he looks great doing it.  (And those eyes!)

Skyfall succeeds where its predecessor failed for numerous reasons, perhaps most notably that it's a self-contained story.  There's a clear arc, it's not terribly complicated, but it gets the job done.  Releasing during the fiftieth anniversary year of the franchise, Skyfall packs in references and in-jokes for fans, and also fleshes out Bond's backstory, as well as his relationship with M (Judi Dench, who shines in the role).  Thus, while Skyfall works well on its own, it also pays homage to the franchise as a whole, and the character as a man, not just an icon.

Two great additions join the cast: Javier Bardem and Ben Whishaw.  Bardem is a wonderfully flamboyant and dangerous villain, so it's a shame that his character is completely wasted in the film's messy, anticlimactic third act.  Whishaw is Bond's new Q, and he's every bit the cute nerd that fangirls want him to be.  Here's hoping that Skyfall will help the talented young actor more roles (while we wait for that to happen, check out Perfume, Bright Star, and I'm Not There).

I'd be remiss not to mention the great contributions of Adele with the title track and the gorgeous cinematography of Roger Deakins, who allows us to actually see what's happening in the action set pieces and lushly frames Bond as he trots the globe.  They are two of the behind-the-scenes MVPs for Skyfall.

Here's to hoping Mendes has another one in him.