Monday, April 18, 2011

Movie Monday - 4/18/2011

Get out your pens and paper....there's some good movies to note:

Paul Giamatti stars in Win Win, about an attorney with money problems who finds a way to help his financial issues by becoming the legal guardian of an elderly man. Then, the man’s grandson, whom he’s never met, comes to town. Amy Ryan, Bobby Cannavale, Jeffry Tambor, Melanie Lynskey and Alex Shaffer also star. It was really good.

Set in Northern Africa in the 1990s, Of Gods and Men, is loosely based on the true story. The movie, in French with English subtitles, shows eight monks living and working side-by-side with the residents of a Muslim community. They also provide medical care for the surrounding towns. After a group of foreign workers are murdered by some Islamic fundamentalists, the army offers to evacuate or at least provide the monks with protection. They refuse. It was a good film.


Certified Copy stars Juliette Binoche and William Shimell. It is in French and Italian, with English subtitles. Binoche plays a gallery owner who meets up with a British author, and the two embark on a little art history field trip. They get mistaken for a married couple and do not correct the fallacy. The movie is very good, very well acted. It is comprised mostly of conversation, but unlike the Julie Delpy/Ethan Hawke collaborations (Before Sunrise and Before Sunset), the conversation is meaningful and doesn’t sound fake or forced. Delpy and Hawke should see this movie as it is a perfect example of everything their movies were not. It was very good.


Potiche, starring Catherine Deneuve, Fabrici Luchini – one of my faves, and Gererd Depardieu, is set in France in the 1970s. Deneuve plays a well off housewife, whose husband (Luchini) is a greedy capitalist and male chauvinist pig…but those were the signs of the times. It was cute, very French – so, of course there are subtitles – and I enjoyed it.


The Last Exorcism is a mockumentary about a preacher who, after performing many exorcisms and taking advantage of the faithful, decides to come clean about them not being for realz…So, he decides to make a documentary of his last one. I don’t know where I got the recommendation to see this film…it was a horror movie…and not very good.


Cranford is a mini-series of five episodes on two discs. It is set in a little English town in 1842. It is a sweet story with good acting. Judi Dench, Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton, Michael Gambon and many other good British actors whom you may recognize from other British period films star in it. It was very good.

Enjoy!

MK out.

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