HER
Her, writer/director Spike Jonze's tale of a man who falls in love with his computerized operating system, and "she" with him, casts a weirdly hypnotic spell. Although billed as comedy (as least by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association), you don't really laugh much, and when you do, the laughter generally sticks in an odd, uncomfortable place in your throat; marveling at the unbridled sincerity of the thing, your chuckles are laced with a slight hint of mockery. Yet damned if Jonze, star Joaquin Phoenix, and the film's superb supporting cast and designers don't make this improbable project pay off in spades. Thoughtful, haunting, and perceptive, and at all times wickedly clever, Her is like a sci-fi Lost in Translation with a Scarlett Johansson you never get to see.
INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS
Heading toward January 16's announcement of this year's Academy Award nominees, I think it's safe to say that we know a few things.
I can't remember which Web site I read it on, but in prefacing his 10-best list, one movie-reviewing pundit expressed his wish that rankings of this sort be published 10 years after the fact, so he could have a full decade to digest, re-re-view, and potentially re-evaluate what he initially decreed were his favorite films for a particular calendar year. I love that idea, but would also be grateful for a just few extra weeks.
Music
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET
THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY, MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM, and GRUDGE MATCH
"Happy Holidays, Shawn!"
Another year of area stage productions has come and gone, and wanting to try something different this December, Reader theatre reviewer Thom White and I thought we'd bypass our traditional, end-of-year postmortem in favor of an alternate approach: requesting 100-words-or-fewer submissions from our readers on what people found particularly memorable about the 2013 stage scene. "It'll be something new!" we thought. "It'll be exciting! It'll be filled with fresh voices that aren't ours!" And, I must admit, we were dazzled with the overall response.
