Michael Haneke’s most recent achievement is a wondrous film entitled Amour, i.e., “Love.” It is with love that I watched the film and with love that I write about it now. For Amour, the acclaimed Austrian director picked up his second Palme d’Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and the Best Foreign Language film award from the New York Film Critics Circle this week. The film is Austria’s official selection to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and I believe it has a strong chance of receiving the Oscar as 2012’s Best Foreign Film.
Gut is not a film for everyone. The slow, deliberate pace will frustrate some of the more mainstream horror fans, and the decidedly low-budget indie feel will turn some people off as well. For others like myself however, these aspects of the film set it apart from the typical run-of-the-mill slasher, and elevate it something different and more interesting than most horror flicks.
There are a lot of moments in Rust and Bone, the new film from French director Jacques Audiard, that leave the viewer utterly dejected. These beautifully crafted and framed moments continue to beat down the viewer and the characters, themselves, over the course of the film's 120 minute run time.
There is a moment very near the beginning of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln that made me literally roll my eyes. My disdain for Spielberg’s recent work is not a secret, and it’s mostly because of the overwrought, shoe-horned, out of place schmaltz he forces into his later works.
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