Ida

— This is one of those black and white movies that’s visually so striking you sometimes wonder if it isn’t just a little too artfully crafted. In many scenes, the people appear small and at the bottom of the 4x3 aspect ratio screen. Above all, it’s a journey in search of identity, uncovering Poland’s wartime secrets and bringing guilt to the surface. There’s a tension just under the veneer of the film that works perfectly with the stark, controlled scenes. It’s easy to understand why “Ida” (Netflix) is nominated for an academy award!

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[2013. 82 min. Directed by Dawel Pawlikowski. Starring Agata Kulesza, Agata Trzebuchowska, and Dawid Ogrodnik.]
http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Ida-review-Self-discovery-against-grim-5499513.php

Wild

— I haven’t read Cheryl Strayed’s book so I came into the movie “Wild” with only the hint of the story provided by previews. This is a very interesting work and it couldn’t have been an easy task to pull off. It’s basically the story of one woman—Cheryl Strayed—coming to terms with herself while walking 1,100 miles across the Pacific Crest Trail after having gone to the edge and beyond. The script is nothing short of amazing, entering the story in the middle of things and filling in bits and pieces of Cheryl’s story through flashbacks, dreams, and mental wanderings, until you have a sense of her life leading up to a trek. Reese Witherspoon is fantastic. So is Laura Dern as her mother. There are many good things about this film but high on the list is the fact that Cheryl isn’t some long-suffering saint or symbol of unshackled womanhood. She’s not exactly looking for redemption as much as just wanting to come to terms with who she is. She’s not a hero, nor even someone with a single flaw, and a film this introspective may not be for everyone, but it definitely appealed to me.

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[2014. 115 min. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Starring Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, and Gaby Hoffmann.]
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/sep/09/wild-a-two-hour-hallucinatory-montage-toronto-film-festival-review

The Good Lie

— A look at children orphaned by the Civil war in Sudan, the so-called “Lost Boys” who walked as many as a thousand miles looking for safety. I thought this would be a pseudo-documentary, but it’s much better than that. By focusing on a few kids, the story becomes a very real tale of survival, hope, adjustment, growth, guilt, gratitude, and redemption. The events that brought them to the U.S. are horrible but the inherent goodness of these Sudanese, their pride of ancestry, and, to some extent, the contrast between their morality and our first-world version, raise issues about how we value family and respect our fellow man, how lines between good and bad blur, and how our values tend to move from black and white to gray. “The Good Lie” (DVD) is worth seeing.

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[2014. 110 min. Directed by Philippe Falardeau. Starring Reese Witherspoon, Arnold Oceng, and Ger Duany.]
http://time.com/3450635/the-good-lie-movie-review/

Fading Gigolo

— This is one of those films whose short summary would sound so unlikely you’d think it couldn’t be the actual plot but, indeed, as implausible as it is, it seems to work thanks to Woody Allen and John Turturro’s talents. “Fading Gigolo” (Netflix) is worth checking out on your favorite streaming vehicle.

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[2013. 90 min. Written and directed by John Turturro. Starring John Turturro, Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Vanessa Paradis, Live Schreiber, and Sofia Vergara.]
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/fading-gigolo-2014