Rust and Bone

— “Rust and Bone” (DVD) certainly isn’t your usual love story, but it is a good one. Instead of gentle caresses there’s something almost brutal about the path of these two damaged people moving from odd friendship to romance. No cupid’s floating around the exceptional performances by Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts as their relationship grows deeper. I really liked Jacques Audiard’s well-crafted and unusual love story.

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[2012. 120 min. Directed by Jacques Audiard. Starring Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts.]
http://movies.nytimes.com/2012/11/23/movies/rust-and-bone-starring-marion-cotillard.html?_r=0

Oblivion

— Enjoyed "Oblivion" and it's amazing graphics—Tom Cruise still draws me to the movies! I pretty much agree with Michael O'Sullivan's review, except it wasn't painfully loud in the theater I went to.

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[2013. 124 min. Directed by Joseph Kosinski. Starring Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, and Andrea Riseborough.]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/oblivion-movie-review/2013/04/18/af45ace0-a760-11e2-b029-8fb7e977ef71_story.html?wpisrc=nl_movies

42

— “42”, the biopic about Jackie Robinson, is engaging and emotional, and Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford, and Nicole Beharie all do a good job. It is a little heavy-handed, many characters may be overly two-dimensional, and all the scenes are a little too clean and crisp, but it’s still the kind of irresistible story that makes you feel good because it about a win over racism in the 1940s. Good summer fare!

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[2013. 128 min. Directed by Brian Helgeland. Starring Chadwick Boseman, R.R.Knight, Harrison Ford, and Nicole Beharie.]
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-17/why-42-had-the-most-successful-opening-weekend-of-any-baseball-movie-ever

A Place Beyond the Pines

— “A Place Beyond the Pines” is a remarkable film and much more than just another look at the relationship between fathers and sons. It’s also a look at the effect of a single choice, at what being a male seems to mean, at misjudgment, at corruption, at rebellion or acceptance, at receiving the sins of our fathers, and at fate. The film is divided roughly into thirds with the first third focusing mostly on the Ryan Gosling character, the second on the Bradley Cooper character, and the third on their sons 15 years later. The last third is the weakest and suffers from weaker actors and a tendency to seem to be tying up loose ends, but there’s no denying the effectiveness in terms of taking us from one generation of flawed characters to the next. This film is complicated, ambitious, and well worth seeing, and both Gosling and Cooper are superb.

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[2012. 140 min. Directed by Derek Cianfrance. Starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, and Eva Mendes.]
http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/movies/the-place-beyond-the-pines-directed-by-derek-cianfrance.html?_r=0

A Royal Affair

— “A Royal Affair" (DVD) is “a lush romantic drama set in 18th-century Denmark.” (Well, all that and more.) It’s gorgeous and it has lots of good ideas. It’s a satisfying look at Danish royals and the Enlightenment, even if it unfolds a bit slowly amongst the beauty of the countryside and the castle—it’s 137 minutes.

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[2012. 137 min. Directed by Nikolaj Arcel. Starring Alicia Vikander, Mads Mikkelsen, and Mikkel Boe Folsgaard.]
http://movies.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/movies/a-royal-affair-with-mads-mikkelsen.html?_r=0

Olympus Has Fallen

— When all you want is a diversion, something that’ll tug at your pride in country, then “Olympus Has Fallen” is the perfect film. It really should have been released on the Fourth of July like its relatives “Die Hard 2”, “Armageddon”, and “Independence Day”. Not much more to say about it except that it’s exactly what it claims to be and that’s all that’s needed sometimes. (Now I'm wondering why "Air Force One" wasn't a July 4th release...)

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[2013. 119 min. Directed by Antoine Fuqua. Starring Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Finley Jacobsen, Dylan McDermott, Rick Yune, and Morgan Freeman.]
http://www.pluggedin.com/movies/intheaters/olympus-has-fallen.aspx

Hyde Park on Hudson

— Bill Murray’s been in some pretty good films, but “Hyde Park on Hudson” isn’t one of his best. The set-up had promise and Laura Linney’s presence should have helped, but it was hard to know if this was a comedy or a drama gone awry. It was still somewhat enjoyable and interesting enough to make me wonder where fact was lost to fiction, but it’s a good thing there’s not much in theaters where I live or I would have been disappointed to have chosen this film over something a little more focused.

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[2012. 94 min. Directed by Roger Mitchell. Starring Bill Murray, Laura Linney, Olivia Williams, Samuel West, Olivia Colman, and Elizabeth Marvel.]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/9843381/Hyde-Park-on-Hudson-review.html