My other godsend when it comes to movie-viewing is vacation. Namely, that week between Christmas and New Year's day when I don't have to go to work and can instead focus on things like sleeping and trying to break my personal record for most calories taken in during one 24-hour-period. To that end, we somehow got to see not one, not two, but three new (to us) movies in three days. And they were all good movies, too. What is this?! Heaven?! Here they are, ranked in order of how much I liked them:
3. Lincoln
Watching Lincoln was like eating a delicious salad: it's good for you, you like it and you're glad you ate it, but you still wish you had ordered a hamburger instead. Lincoln was obviously a terrific movie in that there was no way it was ever going to be bad. A Steven-Spielberg-directed epic, based on a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, and based on the greatest president this country has ever known? Coming out in an election year? And a hilariously whimsical child to boot? The only way this movie doesn't should OSCAR, PLEASE! is that it doesn't have Tom Hanks involved somehow.
And I am glad I saw it. It was entertaining; Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones and James Spader were all fantastic and will probably be showered with gifts and prizes. It was about a part of history that I don't know much about and probably should (the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment), and it made me feel better about our current state of politics, because apparently our politicians were always petty lunatics. But it was also long, dense with information, and at times, really dry. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to nod off during parts, which is reason No. 1 not to see the 8 p.m. showing. I'm happy I saw it and I know it's good, but I'm pretty sure I'll never see it again and that's OK, too.
2. Win Win
This movie is not new to to the world (it came out in 2011) and not new to our house (we've had it out from Netflix for about four months) but it was new to us until last week. And it was absolutely awesome. Win Win is about a lawyer (Paul Giamatti) with a struggling practice, who also happens to coach a really terrible high school wrestling team. For extra money, he becomes the guardian of an elderly, rich client (Burt Young, aka Paulie from Rocky, which made me hope bad things would come to him for most of the movie), but he soon unwittingly also becomes the caregiver for the man's teenaged grandson, who ran away from his drug-addicted mother and her abusive boyfriend. The guy and his wife (Amy Ryan) take the boy in, discover he's an amazing wrestler, and as he becomes more involved with the team and his grandfather, the boy starts coming out of his shell. It is really a sweet movie; Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan are both great and the boy, a newcomer hired because he actually is a champion high school wrestler, was really good, too. I had heard great things, but it was still like finding a great surprise.
1. Silver Linings Playbook
I love everything about this movie, but mostly Jennifer Lawrence. I had high expectations, because of the Oscar buzz surrounding it, but it was so worth it. The story is about Pat (Bradley Cooper), a guy who has a breakdown when he catches his wife cheating on him with another man. After a court-ordered stint in a mental institution (because he beat the crap out of his wife's lover), he moves back in with his parents and works at winning back his wife. Along the way, he meets Tiffany (Lawrence), a young widow who has tried to get over her feelings of grief by jumping into the arms of any man (or woman) who looks her way. The two have a quick friendship founded on their own mental issues and their blunt personalities. She offers to help him get in contact with his wife if he helps her in a dance competition, while he also struggles to connect with his football-obsessed, OCD father (Robert DeNiro).
This movie was sweet, funny, a little dark (but not overly so), and with amazing performances by Cooper, Lawrence, a meeker DeNiro and Chris Tucker (as Pat's buddy from the institution). This is definitely what I'll be rooting for on Oscar night.
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