Pick of the week: “The Trip to Italy“ — My full review is here. The second go-round for Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon isn’t quite as much fun as the original “The Trip,” despite gorgeous Italian locations and mouth-watering food. But it’s still a lot of laughs, as they trade impressions, rock to Alanis Morissette and chuckle in the face of impending mortality.
Pick of the Week: “House of Flying Daggers“ (Netflix) — Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s follow-up to the martial arts epic “Hero” is one of the most visually gorgeous action films ever made, from a fight in a bamboo forest to a climactic duel in the middle of a snowstorm.
Pick of the week: “The One I Love“: My full review is here. This indie comedy/drama takes a “Twilight Zone”-esque turn early on as an estranged married couple (Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss) decide to spend a weekend at their therapist’s vacation home — only to discover there’s something very strange going on in the guest house. While it gets a little too enamored of its own plot twists in the third act, this is still an inventive and thoughtful film about how relationships change and don’t change.
Pick of the week: “Happy Christmas” (Netflix Instant) — Joe Swanberg’s latest feels a little less baked than “Drinking Buddies,” although it mines the same territory of white Chicagoans trying to deal with each other. In this case, it’s Swanberg himself playing a filmmaker whose alcoholic younger sister (Anna Kendrick) moves in, disrupting the lives of him and his wife (Melanie Lynskey). It’s slender but charming and authentic, with a feel for how people really talk (and don’t talk) to each other.
Pick of the Week: “Under the Skin” (Amazon Prime) — My full review is here. Jonathan Glazer’s chilling sci-fi arthouse movie will certainly have one of the very top slots on my 2014 Best Movies list, following an alien predator (Scarlett Johansson) who lures horny young men home and then . . . well, you just have to see it. With its mix of gritty on-the-street filmmaking and surreal imagery, “Under the Skin” is an unsentimental meditation on humanity that’s like nothing you’ve seen before.
Pick of the week: “Nebraska“ — My full review is here. Writer-director Alexander Payne gazes his sharp but empathetic eye homeward in this comedy-drama about a cantankerous old man (Bruce Dern) whose quest to claim a phony sweepstakes award brings him through his old hometown. Will Forte is the perfect foil as his sweet, estranged son, and the film is a nuanced portrait of old age and small-town life, devoid of cliche but not meaning.
“Snowpiercer” — My full review is here. Bong Joon-ho’s wildly imaginative sci-fi epic, in which what remains of humanity is crammed aboard a supertrain endlessly circling a frozen Earth, starts off as an action film and turns into a surreal allegory that would make Terry Gilliam proud.
Pick of the week: “Django Unchained“ — Samuel Fuller knew that sometimes only genre pulp can tell the truths that more high-minded films skirt around, and Quentin Tarantino’s revisionist Western “Django Unchained” was in that spirit. An unholy mash-up of Spaghetti Western and ’70s blaxploitation, set in the pre-Civil War South and West, in addition to being a bloody, rip-snortin’ good time, “Django” was unflinching in showing the evils of slavery, how cruelty and greed kept it going.
Pick of the week: “Liberal Arts“ — My full review is here. Josh Radnor wrote, directed and starred in this soulful comedy about a disenchanted college admissions officer who goes back to his alma mater and connects with a bright student (Elizabeth Olsen). Radnor deftly avoids the skeevier aspects of the May-December relationship, and with fine supporting turns by Richard Jenkins and Allison Janney, the film is a lovely ode to keeping that college curiosity about the world going well after graduation.
Pick of the week: “In A World . . .“ — My full review is here. Lake Bell wrote, directed and starred in this sly comedy about a female voiceover artist trying to make it in a male-dominated profession. It’s very funny, but also has a lot to say about the need for women to find their “voice.”
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