Thursday, March 14, 2013

Week of March 15 to March 21 (Rhoades)


Tropic Cinema Follows
Oscar Season With
Amazing Variety

Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades

Now that the Oscars are behind us, we can concentrate of seeing new film releases … as well as catch up on a few we missed. And Tropic Cinema is assisting us in that goal.
Leading off at the Tropic is “Quartet,” the directorial debut of actor Dustin Hoffman. And what a wonderful stepping out, with a warm and funny film about aging British opera singers in a retirement home for musicians. A trio of singers (Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly, and Pauline Collins) is thrown for a loop when a difficult diva (Maggie Smith) joins them at Beecham House. The music score is soaring, the cinematography crisp, but it’s the perfectly timed performances that will win you over.
If you missed “Quartet” when it played at the Key West Film Festival (or like me, simply want to see it again), here’s your chance to truly enjoy a movie.
You can have a musical interlude of another sort with “Sound City,” a documentary about rock n’ roll’s legendary recording studio hidden amidst the sagging warehouses in California’s San Fernando Valley. Here such performers as Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, Tom Petty, Rick Springfield, and Nirvana made the music of a generation. Directed by Nirvana’s Dave Grohl, the film gathers some of rock’s biggest stars to collaborate on a new album at this “this real-life rock n’ roll shrine.”
Another film to catch is “The Impossible,” the drama of one family’s tale of survival amidst the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. A harrowing real-life experience, it’s recreated on film by a solid cast that includes Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts, Geraldine Chaplin, and Tom Holland. Directed by J.A. Bayona (“The Orphanage”), we follow the struggle of a family caught up in one of the worst natural disasters of our time. The event itself may be epic, but the human emotions are close up and personal.
Bill Murray continues his run as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in “Hyde Park on Hudson,” a dramedy about FDR’s flirtation with his cousin during a head of state visit by the King and Queen of England.
And topping all this is “Rust and Bone,” director Jacques Audiard’s loveless love story about a brutish Belgian and a disabled trainer of killer whales. Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard offers a sensitive performance as a woman who attempts to transform her affair from casual sex to one with meaning.
Retirement homes and recording studios, presidents and tsunamis, even killer whales – what more variety could you ask for?
srhoades@aol.com

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