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If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
Directed by Marshall Curry & Sam Cullman
From IMDB: “A rare behind-the-curtain look at the Earth Liberation Front, the radical environmental group that the FBI calls America’s ‘number one domestic terrorist threat.’”
Nominated for Best Documentary Feature this year. See this immediately!
Watched via Netflix Instant.
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The Tree of Life
Written & Directed by Terrence Malick
Starring Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, & Sean Penn
The Tree of Life is a beautiful film full of rich imagery and great performances. While Pitt and Penn are good, Chastain really stood out to me as the best performance. The child actors are phenomenal, especially Hunter McCracken.
From IMDB: “A family with three boys in the 1950s. The eldest son witnesses the loss of innocence.”
Also: “The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father (Pitt). Jack (played as an adult by Penn) finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.”
Watched via Blu-ray from Redbox.
Moneyball
Directed by Bennett Miller
Starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill
Really really good movie. Not great. But really really good movie. Watch this immediately.
Watched via DVD from Redbox.
Uncle Kent
A film by Joe Swanberg
From IMDB: “A pothead kid’s show cartoonist in Los Angeles spends a weekend trying to sleep with his visiting house guest - a woman from New York who he met on Chatroulette.”
You either love Joe Swanberg films or you hate them. I seem to be of the former persuasion. Starring Kent Osborne, Uncle Kent is one of Swanberg’s funniest films. If you like Swanberg, don’t miss this one.
Watched via Netflix Instant.
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Drive
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
Awesome sauce. There’s nothing more that needs to be said other than “watch this immediately.”
Watched via DVD from Blockbuster.
Holy Land
Directed by Kentucker Audley
Cole is going to travel the country and write a novel. Maybe. Part fiction (I think), part documentary (sort of), Holy Land meanders through a few days (? possibly weeks?) in Cole’s life as he encounters old friends and girlfriends. I’m not sure what he’s looking for or if he ever finds it.
At times frustrating, just when Holy Land seems to be going nowhere, Cole steals the camera that the film was being shot on and retreats to, well, I have no idea where he goes; away from the “film” anyway.
Holy Land can best be described as an art project on film, but a good one at that. Audley is slowly becoming a significant figure in independent film and all of his work is worth a viewing. Definitely check out Holy Land online for free. It’s only 59 mins long, what else are you going to do for an hour?
BONUS: Audley is doing a Live Screening of Holy Land Thursday February 23rd on his No Budge Films site, with a Q & A to follow.
Watched via No Budge.
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Putty Hill
Directed by Matthew Porterfield
From IMDB: “A young man’s untimely death unites a fractured family and their community through shared memory and loss.”
A different kind of slice-of-life mumblecore-ish film. Definitely worth a watch.
Watched via Netflix Instant.
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“The Love Competition”
by Brent Hoff
“Contestants” have five minutes in an fMRI machine to love someone as hard as they can. This is just great. Very creative. Watch it immediately.
Watched via Vimeo.
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The Trip
Directed by Michael Winterbottom
Not only one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a long time, but The Trip is also one of the best road trip movies I’ve ever seen. Part documentary, part fiction, part delusional ego trip, this is just a flat out great film.
From IMDB: Steve Coogan has been asked by The Observer to tour the country’s finest restaurants, but after his girlfriend backs out on him he must take his best friend and source of eternal aggravation, Rob Brydon.
Watch this immediately.
Watched via Netflix Instant.
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Busting
Written & Directed by Peter Hyams
Starring Elliott Gould, Robert Blake, Allen Garfield, and Sid Haig
Another these-guys-play-by-their-own-rules buddy cop movie that probably resulted from someone doing a mountain of cocaine and then saying, “holy shit, we’ve gotta make a movie RIGHT NOW!” And then they did… Don’t believe me? Check out this KTTV spot for Busting.
Gould and Blake are awesome, of course. And Gould’s mustache should have won the academy award that year; it’s insanely huge. Soundtrack is rad, the action sequences are decent, and the last shot of the film is really awesome.
Watched via Netflix Instant.
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