Rick's Flicks Picks on AWN

Director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody last collaborated on the Oscar nominated JUNO. Cody won the Oscar for her screenplay, her first produced script. Some thought she was a one hit wonder following her entertaining, but not all that original, horror flick JENNIFER'S BODY. YOUNG ADULT proves them wrong.

This dark comedy follows Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron, MONSTER), a ghost writer for a popular tween girl book series. Her life is at a low point with the recent end of her marriage and the close of the book series. Everything seems even worse when she gets a birth announcement from Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson, LITTLE CHILDREN), her old high school flame. So she gets the great idea of going back to her small hometown and break up his marriage.

Tomas Alfredson, who directed the wonderful Swedish vampire film LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, adapts John le Carre's classic spy novel into a slow burn thriller. His film is as laconic as his central character, played with great reserve by Gary Oldman. From its Cold War setting to its visual style, the film at times conjures up memories of Hitchcock's latter day thrillers.

George Smiley (Oldman, LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL) was a top spy for MI6 before being forced into retirement after a botched mission left fellow agent Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong, STARDUST) shot in the street. The incident also took down his boss Control (John Hurt, THE ELEPHANT MAN), who has long believed that there is a Russian mole in the highest ranks of the "Circus." When top official Oliver Lacon (Simon McBurney, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND) gets a tip about the mole, he calls in Smiley to work outside the agency in order to root out the double agent.

This is not the first AIDS message film to come out of Africa and it probably won't be that last. It touches on many of the issues that the Oscar nominated African film YESTERDAY tackled. But what makes this film different is its perspective. The innocent children of the pandemic are at the center. It's tale of struggle and sacrifice works on the audience slowly reaching a power crescendo.

In the first scene, tweenaged Chanda (Khomotso Manyaka) is buying a coffin for her dead infant sister. Her mother Lillian (Lerato Mvelase) is too grief stricken to leave the house. Her stepfather Jonah (Aubrey Poolo) is passed out drunk at a bar with another woman. He has taken all the family's money so Chandra has to go recover it in order to pay for the funeral. Lillian's friend Mrs. Tafa (Harriet Lenabe, HOTEL RWANDA) reminds Chanda that the baby died of influenza so no one will talk. No one shall dare say what they think it really was.

In so many ways this film reminded me of NAPOLEON DYNAMITE – it has a fascinating, unique central character that needs a better movie around him. Hesher and Napoleon are both slightly unlikable, but compelling misfits, but in completely opposite ways. Napoleon is the quintessential nerd, while Hesher is the quintessential anarchist. He really doesn't give a…

Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 50/50) meets the film's young protagonist T.J. (Devin Brochu, IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH) when the boy inadvertently alerts the cops to the long-haired metal head crashing at a house under construction. As a result, this 20-something loner decides to haunt this young boy day and night. He comes to his house and moves right in. He follows him to school. If T.J. tries to tell him to go away, Hesher threatens very seriously all sorts of violence on him. Covered in tattoos including a giant middle finger on his back and a stick figure blowing out his brains on his chest, Hesher is a force of nature.

Michel Hazanavicius' effortlessly charming dramedy is really like discovering a lost film from the silent age. The director of the popular French OSS 117 spy spoof series recreates every aspect of a black and white silent film of the 1920s. From the classic 1.37:1 aspect ratio to the title cards to the dramatic pitch, he gets all the details right. His performers nail the acting style, which is a key to the film's success. But it's not just a gimmick. It's a reminder that sometimes words get in the way of visual storytelling.

George Valentin (Jean Dujardin, OSS 117: CAIRO, NEST OF SPIES) is the biggest silent movie star. During the red carpet for his latest international action film, he bumps into Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo, A KNIGHT'S TALE), a pretty young fan looking for an autograph. Embarrassed at first, soon she's posing for the cameras along with Valentin. The next day she goes to the studio looking to get a job as an extra and lands a role in Valentin's next picture. He is so charmed by the young woman that he flubs scenes just so he can dance with her over and over again.

It's been given the dreaded NC-17 rating. But how could an honest film about sex addiction be otherwise? Director Steve McQueen pushes his actor Michael Fassbender to the edge like they did in the IRA hunger strike drama HUNGER. This time Fassbender does things on screen you might not do at home with your spouse or girlfriend. But this is far from pornography.

Fassbender gives his best performance to date as Brandon Sullivan, a hot exec at a web firm who has terrible sex addiction. His mind is consumed with sexual impulses to the point where he has cut off his family and is getting into work later and later each day. Sex for him is just one extreme fantasy or fetish du jour. He hires prostitutes, buys volumes of porn videos and mags and is a steady customer to online sex cams. But his routine of anonymous sexual acts is disrupted when his troubled sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan, AN EDUCATION) shows up at his door needing a place to crash after another relationship has crashed and burned.

Read my review of ANOTHER EARTH

Your appreciation of this AVC transfer relies heavily on knowing the source of this indie sci-fi drama. Filmed with a 720p camera on a next to nothing budget, the picture contains a great deal of grain that increases exponentially under low lighting conditions. One scene in the snow at night really highlights its digital origins. Banding and aliasing often creep up in higher contrasted scenes. Color are muted and natural, which fits the cool mood. But when compared to the DVD version, clarity is greatly increased with the grain issue minimized. All things considered this 1080p release is about as good as this material can look.

Here is a unique use of sci-fi. For the most part this film is a drama regarding recovering from a tragic event that fundamentally transforms one's life over night. The concept of a doppelganger planet is used as metaphor for how decisions we make create new lives and even selves.

Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling, upcoming THE COMPANY YOU KEEP) is a high school student who has just gotten into MIT. After a night of drinking, she makes the mistake of driving home and along the way hits another car putting college professor John Burroughs (William Mapother, TV's LOST) into a coma and killing his pregnant wife and young son. In an instant, she transforms from a promising future astrophysicist into a convict who must serve four years in prison.

The film claims to be based on a true story. Indeed it is based on Slavomir Rawicz's novel THE LONG WALK, but since its publication the BBC has discredited its account. Some critics have used this to attack the film's faithfulness to the book, which has a great deal of surviving and little interpersonal conflict that makes survival stories really compelling. While I agree that ramped up drama helps, but I found the lack of it here refreshing.

Janusz (Jim Sturgess, ONE DAY) has been sent to a gulag for crimes against the state in which his wife was forced to rat him out. The first person he meets in prison is Khabarov (Mark Strong, STARDUST), who tells him of his plan to escape, which fills Janusz with hope. However, the American Mr. Smith (Ed Harris, APOLLO 13) tells him that Khabarov is a fraud and tells the same story to all newbies as way to parasitically live off their optimism. But Janusz isn't interested in living off dreams and decides to go through with the seemingly impossible escape.

The holidays have different meanings to everyone. For better or worse it's usually a time for family. Now from Aardman Animations, the creator of WALLACE & GROMIT, comes a modern look at Santa and his family. What we find out is that even good ole Saint Nick has a dysfunctional family.

Being the big guy in the red suit is a Claus family tradition that has been passed down for generations. The current Santa (Jim Broadbent, IRIS), however, is more of a figurehead these days. The one-night present delivery enterprise has been streamlined by his heir apparent, his oldest son Steve (Hugh Lurie, TV's HOUSE), a military type hunk with a Christmas-tree-shaped goatee. Steve has the elves working like special ops soldiers who can get a package in and under the tree in a matter of seconds.