3 - Revolutionary Road

January 18th
Tara Cinema

I've had a hard time coming up with what to say about this story of suburban dystopia. It's ostensibly about the masks we wear to keep up appearances, yet everyone in it seems so obviously transparent. But I guess that's the point - it's transparent to us, the viewer, because the camera lingers on the actors in a way we never linger looking at people in real life. To stare so intently would be rude. And we're also not filtering their expressions through our own desires, so we're not seeing simply what we want or hope to see.

Anyway, if you ever need to see a movie to make you glad you haven't achieved the house with the picket fence and the 2.5 kids, this'll more than do the trick.

2 - Wendy and Lucy

January 4th / Key Sunday Cinema Club
Landmark Midtown Art Cinema


Wendy and Lucy is about a woman who loses her dog while stranded in a small town in Oregon waiting for her car to be repaired. Really. That's it. That's the whole movie. It's 80 minutes of Michelle Williams counting what little cash she has and looking for her dog.

And normally, this would be the sort of slow-moving, minimalist indie picture that I would stay far, far away from. I don't know if it's because the dog reminds me of my dog Blue or just because I find anything with a woman and her dog automatically more relatable, but in this case, I was okay with it.

True, it's not action-packed. There's not even a lot of dialog, really. But I liked it's stripped-down quality - everything was conveyed clearly and concisely and all you knew about the character was what was happening to her in the story at the moment, which I feel has a certain purity to it. I thought it worked nicely. But again, I'm a sucker for dogs.

I was clearly in the minority in today's Cinema Club audience; I heard several apologies from people to friends they'd brought for the first time and others complaining that it wasn't worth getting up early and driving in from Blairsville, GA. Definitely not a popular choice. I'd be cautious about recommending it to just anyone. But I surprised myself by feeling that it was actually worth checking out and I'm glad I was sort of forced into seeing it.

1 - Valkyrie

January 2nd
Landmark Midtown Art Cinema

Everyone's so excited that Tom Cruise's latest movie isn't totally tanking at the box office it's like everyone in Hollywood thinks Earth just narrowly avoided getting hit by an asteroid or something. Personally I felt the best you could say about Cruise's performance was that you weren't thinking about his crazy the entire time. Also I liked his hair with some curl in it.

I like Bryan Singer and pretty much all of the ensemble cast (especially Eddie Izzard), but Valkyrie had a tough row to hoe in that the outcome was a foregone conclusion. And unlike Apollo 13 it's not a happy foregone conclusion - pretty much anyone you like in this one is going to die. So, yeah...not really a feel-good kinda film. I'd describe it as workmanlike - not something I want to rave about but well-done enough to feel like you got your money's worth.