Drama, 134 Minutes, 2013
Slavery was a reality in the United States for the first 89 years of its existence and in the colonies for 157 years before that. It was abolished only 149 years ago. It’s impossible to underestimate the devastating impact this had, and continues to have, on this country.
Drama, 98 Minutes, 2013
Leigh (played by Kristen Bell [IMDB]) is having an existential crisis. Life just hasn’t turned out the way that she had hoped it would. In high-school she was a straight “A” student, class valedictorian and spent her summers working as a lifeguard at the local public pool. In real-life she’s working as the most junior of reporters at a scruffy newspaper in New York, dating the wrong guy and unable to get anybody to take her seriously.
Drama/Comedy, 93 Minutes, 2013
Miss Sinclair (Julianne Moore [IMDB]) is a dedicated high-school English teacher in a small, Pennsylvanian town. Her encompassing love of literature has given her an overactive romantic sensibility and little patience for ordinary relationships. She’s perfectly content being left alone with her teaching, her cats and her books.
Comedy/Drama, 90 Minutes, 2011
The Walling and Ostroff families have lived across their suburban street from one another for years. Dads David and Terry (Hugh Laurie [IMDB] and Oliver Platt [IMDB]) are best friends and moms Paige and Cathy (Catherine Keener [IMDB] and Allison Janney [IMDB]) raised their daughters together. Everybody has settled into comfortable, if not particularly happy, ruts.
Drama/Romance, 102 Minutes, 2006
[Wife and kids are away visiting for the holidays. I’m staying home with movies and am taking a break from horror. There’s only so much corn-syrup and red food coloring you can take in a sitting.]
Drama, 94 Minutes, 2011
The movie revolved around two friends in an eternal bromance bonded over their mutually shitty childhoods. They make a good living stealing cars from mourners at funerals. Their baggage makes them unable to keep other relationships intact. They begin to empathize with the child of the woman renting an apartment from them and it eventually changes their lives forever. It’s difficult to discuss specifics without spoilers but it’s probably not to hard to see that this is about finally growing up, cobbling together families that shouldn’t work but do and finding out what’s really important in life.
Drama, 94 Minutes, 2010
This is a quiet, little, personal drama. Like most quiet, little, personal dramas this lives or dies on the success of the actors. The script is crucial as well, of course, but good actors can carry a weak script – and weak direction, lighting, staging and pacing. If the actors can grab you up front and convince you that their characters are authentic, you’ll accept just about anything else.
“The Trouble with the Curve” on IMDB
Drama, 111 Minutes, 2012
I’m not a sports fan. I don’t really have much use for them. Sure I’ve had the occasional decent time watching a game with friends and I’m just as mesmerized as the next guy by the insanity that parades across ESPN 3 but, in general, they’re just not my thing. Too much work for too little gain, in my opinion.
But I love sports movies.
Comedy/Drama, 93 Minutes, 2013
We gave this a shot because, after watching the excellent BBC America series “Orphan Black” [IMDB] we became very impressed with Tatiana Maslany [IMDB]. Her turn as an entire group of clones, all with radically distinct personalities, is truly impressive. Very highly recommended.
This movie? It’s fine.
Drama, 83 Minutes, 2009
This is an odd little animated movie that I immensely enjoyed. The story is, basically, a biography of Tulip, an Alsatian dog owned by Londoner J.R. Ackerley. Tulip is, most people would have to concede, a “problem dog”. She’s rambunctious, hyperactive, possessive and unruly. Her owner lives in constant wonder of her.
