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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