Although we now watch movies piecemeal when the baby is sleeping – we still seem to get through a good number of movies on DVD. Here are a few of my favorite from the last couple months.
The Argentinian flick, The Aura (IMDb 7.6/10.0), gets an A. I find it fascinating when film portrays interiority eloquently. There is relatively little speaking in this movie, as the main character is a man of few words – he’s more of an observer. Through his eyes the viewer also gets to piece together a criminal heist that he falls into. The “aura” is the moment of absolute clarity and inevitability before an epileptic convulsion.
Slow-paced, but riveting.
I also gave Mongol (IMDb 7.5/10) an A, even though there was more style than substance. Well, I just mean that there wasn’t too much of a plot – but still I never lost interest. The cinematography was magnificent and there was an underlying theme of enduring love. Genghis Khan appears to have not been a man of many words, but of great integrity. I just enjoyed this slow-moving epic of about the first half of Genghis Khan’s life and I hope they get around to doing the sequel. This movie reminded me a lot of another favorite of mine, Himalaya, which I highly recommend. (It was originally titled Caravan.)
Bon Cop, Bad Cop (IMDb 7.1/10) only got a B because despite a strong first half, the tail end of the movie spiraled into ridiculous fantasy. Which was really too bad. The acting is pretty spot on. But if you have any familiarity with Montreal or the antagonism between folks from Toronto and Montreal, I say you’ve got to see this one. You will guffaw, guaranteed. In a nutshell, a straight-laced cop from Toronto is paired with a bad-ass hottie cop from Montreal (think Frenchified Bruce Willis) to solve a sick crime that involves an ice hockey obsession. Btw, most of the movie is in Quebequois – which will make you laugh in it of itself.
And lastly, The Visitor, gets a solid B+. This movie is technically excellent, but somehow the whole thing together never rises to A-level for me. We got it from netflix though, because of its unusually high user rating (IMDb 8.0/10), which means that other people LOVED it. The acting from some unknowns is terrific – as is the performance by the lead, Richard Jenkins; you may remember him as the dead dad in Six Feet Under. Basically, an emotionally dead professor gets a second lease on life through a chance encounter with two illegal aliens.
