There’s so much new stuff at Reel Life, it’s hard to know where to start, except from the very beginning, with A — A for Ajami, that is…
Ajami was Oscar-nominated for best foreign language film, and has drawn raves from critics. Ajami is a neighborhood in Israel that is home to Christians, Jews, Israeli Arabs, and Palestinians alike — a community that is fraught with crime, drugs, and death, which makes for complex plot lines and gripping drama.
B is for Bounty Hunter, which pairs Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, either to create box office gold or make Brangelina jealous, depending on who is doing the speculating. Aniston is the sassy, extremely fit and tanned wife and foe to Gerard Butler’s wisecracking (and determinedly American-accented) bounty hunter.
Ricky Gervais in Cemetery Junction
C is for Chloe, in which Julianne Moore decides to “test” husband Liam Neeson and his commitment to monogamy by hiring sexy Amanda Seyfried to seduce him. It being an Atom Egoyan film (remember Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon in Where the Truth Lies?!), Moore and Seyfried end up getting cozy, which ends up as stills on the internet. There’s also Cemetery Junction, a new effort from the indefatigable Ricky Gervais, and Clash of the Titans, a nice juicy escapist special effects spectacle, and Cop Out, starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan.
D is for the latest season of Dexter out on DVD, a series which continues to collect rabid fans, and also the American remake of Death at a Funeral, with a huge cast including Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, Danny Glover, Luke Wilson, and a personal fave of ours, Keith David. Date Night does the no-brainer comedic pairing of Steve Carell and Tina Fey as suburban parents who decide to have a big romantic night in the city, with humorously unfortunate results.
There being no new releases that begin with E or F, let’s skip to Ghost Writer, the icy thriller from Roman Polanski. The majority of this film may take place at a beach house, but nothing could be chillier than the drama unfolding as Ewan McGregor attempts to assist disgraced former Prime Minister Pierce Bronsnan in penning his memoirs while Olivia Williams and an excellently subdued Kim Cattrall lurk nearby.
She doesn't look much like a loser, does she?
Ip Man is a martial-arts dazzler starring Donnie Yen as Bruce Lee’s mentor, and Kick Ass delivers plenty of colorful comic-book violence (although it’s strictly for adults only). Life, the BBC Miniseries from the makers of the phenomenal Planet Earth series, explores wildlife all over the globe with its usual breathtaking footage, eye-popping detail, and thought-provoking observations. The Losers is an action-flick about a rag-tag — yet suspiciously glam, as portrayed by the likes of Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Zoe Saldana — CIA black ops team getting revenge on those who tried to kill them. There’s nothing glam, though, about the eponymous Mother, who tries to find that always elusive Real Killer after her son is arrested for murder. The term “will stop at nothing” is not only the tagline but a phrase that doubtless comes up again and again when describing Mother’s efforts in this film by Joon-Ho Bong (The Host).
Mary and Max looks at first glance like a film for children, what with its Wallace and Gromit-style claymation-looks, but it’s actually an astonishing tale for adults only, voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette. Mary is a lonely little girl living across the globe from isolated New Yorker Max, and the film spans years and years of their unusual friendship, which begins when Mary randomly tears his name and address out of a phonebook. The film is at times hilarious, always unpredictable, and may even provoke tears from its viewers (it did from this viewer!).
He doesn't really look terribly happy, does he?
We don’t have new releases in every letter of the alphabet, okay? But two films listed under T are worthy watches. Claire Danes stars in the title role as real-life wonder Temple Grandin, a doctor, professor, author, and expert in the field of animal welfare — who is also high-functioning autistic. And in the Danish noir/thriller Terribly Happy, a police officer is sent to a tiny town after his way of life in Copenhagen comes to an end under mysterious circumstances. While coping with some seriously frayed nerves, he must also adapt to a new style of police work in this strange village, as well as eccentric — and dangerous — locals and a seductive blonde who immediately begins drawing him into her own considerable drama (which may not be the best cure for what’s already ailing him).
As always, there’s more to come — maybe in letters E, F, Q, or the like….
