Eva's 2013 Movie List

Eva's 2013 Movies Most Worthy of Mention, in no special order other than that the ones Herman saw too are grouped first & *’d.

1. *Edie and Thea, A Very Long Engagement Dir. Susan Muska & Greta Olafsdottir. This film was referenced in the really good NYer article on the couple behind the landmark Supreme Court case that struck down DOMA. (Sept 30, 2013, p. 55 The Perfect Wife). Edie and Thea were together for 42 years before they married in Canada in 2007. Thea died of MS in 2009. Edie had to pay giant inheritance taxes which she would not have had to pay had their marriage been recognized. They loved to dance.

2. *42 ©2013 Dir Brian Helgeland. Chadwick Boseman stars as the legendary Jackie Robinson. Harrison Ford plays Branch Rickey. Equal parts sports movie and racial history. It’s about leadership. Branch Rickey had it. I love this kind of movie.

3. *Trouble with the Curve ©2012, Dir. Robert Lorenz, with Clint Eastwood, & Amy Adams as his daughter. A feel-good movie, which was just right for Herman’s first night home from rehab. Beautiful lawyer beats pool shark. A jerk is shown up by the guy he used to ridicule. Anti-Moneyball because the old scout who can “hear a good pitch” makes a better call than the numbers guy.

4. *Call the Midwife ©2012. BBC series about a community of nuns who operate a midwifery service in the East End of London in the 1950’s. Trained young lay midwives board with the nuns. Transportation: bicycle. Recommended by Marion Molloy. Good!

5. *Foyle’s War. ©2002. starring Michael Kitchen as a senior detective in wartime Hastings England, Honeysuckle Weeks as his driver Sam, and Anthony Howell as Milnor, his assistant. MaryDan recommended it. George Keilbach and I shortlisted it as one of the four DVDs we took home from the library for Herman to choose from. We all enjoyed it. Herman and I have since watched another season, and I have a library request in for a third season. I love the 40’s period piece aspect. We have since taken out of the library two other Michael Kitchen vehicles, to see what he looked like in 1971 (The Brontes of Haworth—he plays Branwell Bronte, the brother who does not live up to his potential) and 1985 (we re-watched Out of Africa.)

6. *Lone Star ©1996 Dir. John Sayles. w/Elizabeth Pena, Kris Kristofferson, Ron Canada & Joe Morton. One of MaryDan’s favorite movies. I’d never seen it so I requested it at the library. With our Thanksgiving guests we had just seen Matthew McConaughey, Buddy Deeds in Lone Star, in The Dallas Buyer’s Club. His role was as big in that as Chris Cooper’s was in L.S.

7. *Bramwell ©1995 Another TV drama on DVD from the library we got into this year. Jemma Redgrave (Vanessa’s niece) plays Eleanor Bramwell, an idealistic physician in late 1890’s London. Like Downton Abbey, a period piece with great clothes.

8. *The Way Way Out Toni Collette plays a divorced mom on vacation with her adolescent kids at her b.f.’s beach house. Allison Janney, another of my favorite actresses, is a neighbor. The boys who played Duncan and Peter, and the water park employees, were good too. In fact I liked all the characters except Steve Carol (the b.f.) , and the viewer wasn’t supposed to like him.

9. *How Green Was My Valley Dir. John Ford ©1941. Black & White. Based on the National Book Award winner ©1939 by Richard Llewellyn that had so impressed Christopher Hitchins at age 11. Goebbels read it in 1943 to try to understand the English mindset. Set in the waning days of Queen Victoria’s reign in a Welsh coal mining town. Winner of 5 academy awards including Best Picture and director. Angharad is played by Maureen O’Hara. Young Huw Morgan’s father and five grown brothers are miners. Four of his brothers are for the union. Lots of singing.Some chapel. Preserved in the Nat’l Film Registry.

10. *London River ©2009 Dir. Rachid Bouchareb. Set against the background of the July 7, 2005 terrorist attacks in London. Elizabeth (Brenda Blethyn), a widow running a small farm in Guernsey, phones her daughter Jane in London when she hears the news. Jane does not return her call. Elizabeth travels to Jane’s address in London, which she had not visited before. On the street where Jane lives above a shop E. meets Ousmane, who is searching for his son Ali. Fortunately Elizabeth is fluent in French. Turns out Jane and Ali lived together. They track down a travel agent who tells them Jane and Ali had tickets to Paris July 7. They are elated that the reason they have not heard from their children is that they are on holiday, but that hope fades.

11. *Into the Void (Israel) ©2012 The older daughter of a Hassidic family dies in childbirth leaving an infant and a widower. 18 yr old Shira was eagerly awaiting her arranged marriage to a fellow near her age. But the tragedy caused a delay in confirming the match. Shira was pressured to accept the widower. This film is a window into a contemporary Hassidic community in Israel.

13. Barbara ©2012 Dir. Christian Petzold (Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival) w/ Nina Hess as Barbara, a doctor in East Germany in 1980 who is assigned to a provincial post and watched by the Stasi for daring to apply for an exit visa. Her West German lover makes trips to the East, giving her cigarettes and a plan and money for an escape by sea to Denmark. Meanwhile, Andre (Ronald Zehrfeld), a colleague at her new hospital, offers friendship.In a surprise (but foreshadowed) ending Barbara sends her pregnant teenaged patient Stella to Denmark in her stead and returns to Andre. Germany’s entry for Best Foreign Film Oscar.

14. Fruitvale Station ©2013 First time director Ryan Coogler, for under $1million. The NYer gave this a great review. I concur! It’s a dramatization of the last day in the life of 22 year old Oscar Julius Grant III (a real person). In that one day plus a single flashback to his mother visiting him in prison, we see Oscar’s significant relationships, his basically warm and attractive personality, and his serious problems (chronic unemployment, trying to break the habit of making ends meet by selling dope.). Oscar was gunned down in the wee hours of New Year’s morning 2008 by a BART cop who said he mistook his gun for a taser.

15. Amour. ©2012 Dir. Michael Haneke. In French, with Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuella Riva as the cultured elderly couple, both retired musicians. Their daughter is played by Isabelle Huppert. The wife suffers a stroke early in the film, and we see her decline over the ensuing months, and how they both handle it. Almost entirely set in a large old Parisian apartment.

16. Short Term 12 ©2013 Dir Destin Cretton, Set in a short term foster care facility, with Brie Larson as Grace and John Gallagher Jr. as Mason, her fellow social worker and eventual fiancé. Normally I do not seek out books or movies with a social work or psychotherapy theme but this got great reviews. During the movie Mason attends the 30^th anniversary party of his own former foster parents, a Hispanic couple. Grace also has a background not unlike some of the adolescents she shelters. I’m glad I went.