I don’t think I’ll be submitting myself to this cinematic torture again. I guess I prefer my spirit to be uplifted, not crushed, even when the crushing is beautifully and artistically portrayed.
All in Emotional
Jaman Winan’s INK
Seeing INK reminded me of my guardian angel days as it explores the conflict between good and evil and the shadowy netherworld of dreams, nightmares, and overlapping timelines.
Kim Farrant's STRANGERLAND
Not since Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout has landscape played such an important role in a film.
Tomm Moore's SONG OF THE SEA
This charming, lyrical, and exceptional animated film is a reminder of the power of folklore and myth and how the visual arts and music can be combined to tell a powerful and emotional story.
Darren Aronofsky's “NOAH”
While there’s a lot here that’s “true to the Bible,” the movie also make sense as a fantasy set in a time and place far far away. We can’t help but wonder about the morality of such a world where the vices of humans are met not with forgiveness but with genocide on a planetary scale.
Out of this genocide emerges a new and greener world.
Jonathan Glazer’s UNDER THE SKIN
It’s like no place on earth I’ve ever seen.
Steven Knight's REDEMPTION
This is not your typical Stathan action movie. I enjoyed it along with the excellent direction and beautiful nighttime photography. The thick English accents are a bit tough to follow at times but if you just follow the movement and the eyes you’ll be fine.
Christopher Nolan's INTERSTELLAR
The only other movie within recent memory that packed a similar emotional wallop for me was TREE OF LIFE
Toa Fraser's DEAN SPANLEY
When all is said and done, though, this is Peter O’Toole’s movie. The sensitivity of his performance is amazing to watch. We are fortunate to have a record of such performances
Sandra Nettelbeck's LAST LOVE
What an engaging movie this is. Slow, deliberate, and ultimately, complex.
Hey-jun Lee's CASTAWAY ON THE MOON
A young man, depressed, tries to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge. Instead he washes up onto a small island in the middle of the river and is cut off from the city.
Israel Adrián Caetano's A RED BEAR (Un Oso Rojo)
Director Caetano makes a beautiful gem of a movie out of worn out concepts:
Terrence Malik's TREE OF LIFE
This is one of the most emotionally engaging films I’ve ever seen. I’m not completely sure why.
Peter Jackson's THE LOVELY BONES
In THE LOVELY BONES director Peter Jackson returns to the more intimate blending of emotion and fantasy that characterized earlier films like HEAVENLY CREATURES.
Quentin Tarentino's INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
This is some movie. It’s scary, emotionally draining, funny, exciting, tense, thoughtful, violent, whimsical, cruel, and in a few places, just plain weird.
The story is simple: in the early 1920’s a young German mail-order bride, gramophone in hand, comes to rural Minnesota to meet her Norwegian husband to be.
Steven Spielberg's AI: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
I grew up with the science fiction of Clarke, Asimov, and Heinlein. At their best they wrestled with humans coming to terms with very large ideas and concepts in stories that spanned years and vast distances. I especially loved depictions of the far future.
Campbell Scott's OFF THE MAP
What a delicate and moving piece of film making this is. It moves slowly and, if you let them, the characters will get under your skin.
Darren Aronofsky’s “THE FOUNTAIN”
This dizzying and perplexing movie bathes the viewer in a warm and beautiful gauze of, love, death, loss, and redemption. Forget the narrative and go with the flow.
Akira Kurosawa's “RED BEARD”
A young doctor with hopes of being the Shogun’s personal physician finds himself assigned to a poor rural clinic lorded over by a stern, tenacious doctor played by Toshiro Mifune – the “Red Beard” of the title.
Initially the young doctor resists the assignment.