Beyond the Hills (Dupa dealuri)
Director Cristian Mungiu's film Beyond the Hills takes place in a remote monastery in Romania, where two young women who grew up together in an orphanage are reunited with tragic…
War Witch (Rebelle)
I really wish that films nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar were available before the awards were given out, so that just once I could fill out a ballot…
Greedy Lying Bastards
Greedy Lying Bastards is a documentary by Craig Rosebraugh looking at global warming, its causes and consequences, and the enormous oil industry funding of the climate change deniers. The film…
Arty Chick’s Oscar Adventure
During all my years living in Los Angeles, I never got anywhere near the Academy Awards. I watched at Oscar parties (including one attended by my favorite ♥ George ♥),…
The Oscar nominated Live Action Shorts
The live action shorts are not nearly as short as the animated ones. Some even clock in at over a half hour. (The cut-off is 40 minutes.) I imagine that…
The Oscar nominated Animated Shorts
It is rare that I have gotten to see all the Oscar shorts ahead of (or even after) the awards were given out. Wouldn’t it be nice if they brought…
Headhunters (Hodejegerne)
Headhunters is one of those movies that grows on you. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it when it was over, but then days after, I kept thinking about…
Zero Dark Thirty
What a thrill to be reviewing the movie at the center of a huge political controversy! Zero Dark Thirty is a great piece of film making, but since it is…
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir zamanlar Anadolu’da)
Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Once Upon a Time in Anatolia begins with what seems to be an impossible task -- finding a buried body in the vast expanse of…
Django Unchained
I am not a huge Tarantino fan. I was when he started out with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, but then he went through a phase that I can only…
The Hidden Fortress 隠し砦の三悪人
The Hidden Fortress may not be one of the most well known of Kurasawa's films, but it is a wonderfully entertaining mix of adventure, comedy and drama. It opens with…
Jiro Dreams of Sushi
Jiro Dreams of Sushi is an ode to the greatest sushi chef in the world, Jiro Ono. This 85-year old sushi master has been at his craft for 75 years…
Barbara
East Germany in 1980 really must have been a dystopian hell on earth. In the film Barbara, a doctor is exiled from Berlin for a minor offense and forced to…
Rust and Bone (De rouille et d’os )
Rust and Bone opens with a man and a little boy hitchhiking, then on a train scavenging food from left-behind scraps. This is Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) and his young son…
Anna Karenina
If ever there were a Chick Flick shoo in, this should be it. A tragic heroine foolishly throwing off her shackles for a forbidden love, and all wrapped up in…