If you fear the aging process and aren’t remotely excited in seeing your possible future as a senior citizen writ large without any regard for your afterlife possibilities, chances are Michael Haneke’s new film Amour will be your scariest encounter of the year.
Except for the silent opening scene of one happy date night, the film is contained entirely within the spacious apartment where elderly couple Georges and Anne (Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva) are finishing out their decades of wedded bliss. The first telltale sign that something is wrong occurs when one normal morning is interrupted by one abnormal moment of stupor. After we learn from a reluctant Anne about her distrust of doctors, her condition quickly progresses to a full-blown stroke that leaves her paralyzed on one side and requires Georges to transition from the role of equal partner to majority decision-maker and full-time caretaker. Subsequent days bring new forms of debilitation and add new responsibilities to Georges’ list. How can he continue to manage? Can he continue? The film asks: should he continue?
To Die Hard or not to Die Hard: that is the question now before me.
I saw Silver Linings Playbook over a week ago and have been procrastinating saying anything about it because it’s tough to express my opinion without ruining the ending. I suppose the ads aren’t that coy about the gist of the film, but part of my enjoyment was derived from that rare feeling of having no idea what would happen next. Under the guidance of director David O. Russell (previously appreciated for The Fighter and Three Kings), I wasn’t sure if Playbook would be predictably atypical or deceptively Hollywood about the strange relationship between its May/December starring couple. Would it end in for-your-Oscar-consideration breakup and tears? Would it opt for the mushy happily-ever-after ending, complete with gratuitous dance party at the end? Would the payoff be just-good-friendship, like Lost in Translation? Would they both die horribly of movie cancer? My second-guessing was useless against it.
Each year since 2009 my wife and I have made a day-long date of visiting Keystone Art Cinema, the only dedicated art-film theater in Indianapolis, to view the big-screen release of the Academy Award nominees for Best Live-Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film. Results vary each time and aren’t always for all audiences, but we appreciate this opportunity to sample such works and see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences deemed worthy of celebrating, whether we agree with their collective opinions or not. A few of the past marathons have varied wildly in quality, but this year’s proved a superb bunch. To be honest, this is the first time in memory that I’ve preferred the live-action contenders to their animated colleagues.
Each year since 2009 my wife and I have made a day-long date of visiting Keystone Art Cinema, the only dedicated art-film theater in Indianapolis, to view the big-screen release of the Academy Award nominees for Best Live-Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film. Results vary each time and aren’t always for all audiences, but we appreciate this opportunity to sample such works and see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences deemed worthy of celebrating, whether we agree with their collective opinions or not.
After seeing Zero Dark Thirty as part of my annual Best Picture nominee binge, I exited the theater with just one thought on my mind: I’d hate to be a guy trying to start a new country in this day and age.
My annual quest to see all the Best Picture Academy Award nominees continued last weekend with the scrappy indie competitor of the lot, Beasts of the Southern Wild, a magical-realism fable about stubborn penury-dwellers who do their best to ignore ripped-from-the-headlines natural disaster and do whatever they want whether it’s healthy for them or not. Not since No Country for Old Men has a film left me so depressed.
I hadn’t originally planned to see Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. Unlike many of my longtime Internet peers, his films aren’t an automatic draw for me. Though Reservoir Dogs has been a qualified favorite of mine since college, the rest have been a mixed bag. His previous work, Inglorious Badwerds, was a mature, complex, riveting film about WWII and about the role of film in WWII, but was hampered by Brad Pitt’s Kentucky-fried B-movie brigade who snuck in from the direct-to-video good-ol’-boys revenge flick next door. From the trailers, Django looked to me like a 2-cool-4-school blaxploitation Western. Call it Shaft in Texas or Black Grit. Despite the talented cast involved and the joyous responses from the critical majority, it didn’t really sound like my kind of movie.
The advance screening of Broken City I attended last night was made possible through a marketing promotion run by a social-event notification service, from which I’d considered unsubscribing months prior. Lucky for me, their very first useful offer crossed my path at just the right time.
Some evenings at the theater, the marquee only has two choices: $200 million action blockbusters and $5,000 found-footage camcorder flicks. If you’re yearning for a simple, mid-sized film with no CGI monsters and at least two famous actors, Broken City offers an R-rated option for fans of crime drama in general and tough-talking guys in particular. It’s a capable primer for anyone who’s never seen a film about political scandal or government corruption, and comfort food for those who can’t get enough of watching little guys taking down big dogs.
Every year I follow exactly one (1) awards ceremony, ye olde Oscars. I care not one whit for the Golden Globes, the Peoples Choice Awards, or the various awards from industry guilds or critics’ cliques. I have no use for the Emmys, the Grammys, the American Music Awards, the Harveys, the Eisners, any award set beginning with “MTV”, or the Tonys, though I might be amenable to the latter if Manhattan ever moved next door to me. Since I don’t care for sports, I’m also left out of everyone else’s trophy excitement for the Super Bowl, the World Series, or whatever basketball calls their season finale.
Welcome once again to the Midlife Crisis Crossover Request Line, in which recommendations from MCC fans send me reading, viewing, and reviewing assorted art and art-like objects, either because they want a proxy to evaluate the damage, or because my life won’t be complete without seeing them. Today’s suggestion came from 
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23. Wrath of the Titans. The explosions were clearly the star of the show. The labyrinth lent a welcome assist as the explosions’ chief henchman. The underworld was lacking, and perhaps should’ve spent more time as an understudy to the underworld from Spawn. Now that was a classy underworld, one that really chewed the scenery but was nonetheless generous to its costars, much more of a team player.
Of all the movies I wanted to see most in theaters this year, none required as long a wait as The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey did. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I had to sit quietly and wait until its third whole weekend of American release before all schedules properly aligned. Those of you who wait to catch movies on DVD or via basic-cable hatchet job may roll your eyes at my impatience if you must, but I like keeping current on my movies, especially those that have been pinned on my mental calendar for months. 
Remember that time when the world ended on December 21st? And before that on January 1, 2000, at the hands of the Y2K bugaboo? And before that in 1994 as Nostradamus predicted in The Man Who Saw Tomorrow? Neither do I. As the humble survivor of at least three documented ends of the world, I count my blessings and try not to take the failures of those premature endtimes for granted.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 