Dallas Buyers Club

Deb 10    Me 9

So this has been out for months and the theater is packed I haven't seen that kind of movie support since Senna. But a bunch of people is not always a good sign. In this case they were right, its a great movie. The star was so convincing, the rest of the cast just as excellent. Its a great story, its told well and kept me going all the way through. We saw How to Stop a Plauge several months ago and it was the nuts and bolts examination of fighting the AIDS epidemic. This was more the human side, a couple humans in particular and avoided too much technical info and just adhered to the story. Very well done!

Why We Ride

Deb hasn't seen it yet       Me 10

No, I'm not just handing out 10s these days, I'm just writing about the 10s as they come to me. This is a documentary about why people ride motorcycles. It isn't so much about the activity of riding, but the motivations and responses to riding. First off, this is one of the prettiest movies I've seen in a long time. There's a lot of talking heads and each one is lit beautifully. In fact every scene is lit with the light of a master, really a great looking film, and this is a documentary, not a Hollywood production. There are action scenes of course and a couple of them portray speed as well as I've ever seen and the slo-mo work is just spectacular. If there's any problem with this movie it might be that it is so sincere it borders on being sappy. But it doesn't quite get there, and proves to be a great study of human qualities. Look for it on the big screen, video will only be a pale reminder of how pretty a movie it is.

Short Term 12

Deb 12    Me 12

We rate movies on a scale of 1 to 10, ten being highest praise. When this was over we both looked at each other and said "12". It has everything I like in a movie and kept me interested every minute. I didn't recognize any of the actors, making it feel all the more real. This is worth looking for.

Tim's Vermeer

Deb 10    Me 10

Another movie about art. Bring 'em on, its a huge and fascinating subject. This one is an extension of Hockney's presentation on the possibility of Vermer working with some sort of visual aid like camera obscura. Simply, it is thought that Vermeer figured out a way to project his subject to his canvas and eliminate a lot of the drawbacks from traditional drafting. If this is true then it is likely a lot of artists did this, not only the Dutch, but Italians too. The reason they single Vermeer out is that there's no record of him ever serving an apprenticeship with anyone in a time when all that stuff was well recorded. 

So this cat named Tim sets out to prove the theory one way or another by painting "his own Vermeer". His journey makes for an entertaining and eye opening movie about one aspect of making art, being creative and keeping your eyes open to opportunity. A great little movie!

Monument Men

Deb 10    Me 10

We'd been waiting for this one for quite a while. We were both impressed with the documentary Rape of Europa and curious how this could translate to a mainstream film. Well, they did a pretty good job. I liked thinking that the actors chose to do the movie because they liked the story, which is basically about the many ways art is important in our society. They managed to make it entertaining and still keep it educational, they developed the personalities but not at the expense of story and most important to me, they didn't make the Nazis out to be any less despicable than they are. For an all star cast type of movie this one really felt like an independent close to the heart film.

Museum Hours

Deb 9    Me 9

If you like movies you might not like this, but if you like art, you’ll love it. First off, it slowed me down, put on my brakes so I could absorb each beautifully created shot. The whole thing was shot unsympathetically in Vienna. I was there in a November and this captures the grey gloom perfectly. The movie explores a new relationship of two people dealing with their past and present through art, some of it at a museum, some of it in their environment. It was really a refreshing and interesting (albeit slow) movie. No chase scenes, no blood, no action. Just respect, affection, and a sincere appreciation for art. Every shot is a beauty, you see art in everything.

In A World

Deb 8     Me 8

I don't know why but I was really looking forward to this and in the end I was very happy to have seen it.This is one of those film where one person is in charge of just about everything. In this case its a gal named Lake Bell who wrote, directed and stars in this little gem. At first I was taken by what I thought was bad acting, then I decided it was the direction, then suddenly, magically about twenty minutes in the problem went away and the rest flowed like ink. The reason I stuck with it during the mis-cue part is that its a great story and just overall appealing. I liked it more and more as it developed. There's a lot of nose humor, some more subtle than others and it covers a lot of social taboo bases quite well. Definitely enjoyable.