The Witch

William: There's evil in the wood.

Roger Eggers' The Witch is perhaps best described by its subtitle, A New England Folktale. It's the world as Puritans understood it. Witches are real, the Devil walks among us and the strength of the community is the only way to weather the trials of life. This is the story of a family that has been cast out from the community and now lives on an isolated, struggling farm on the edge of the forest. When the baby disappears under the care of oldest daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), the fragile peace the family has achieved begins to crumble. The mother Katherine (Kate Dickie) succumbs to despair and anger. The father William (Ralph Ineson) struggles with his own growing feeling of inadequacy as he struggles to protect and provide for his family. Thomasin is overwhelmed by guilt while her brother Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) worries for the baby's unbaptized soul and the young twins (Ellie Grainger and Lucas Dawson) are lost to their own delusions. With the family consumed by sin and weakness, the invasive evil of the witch quickly tears them apart in this smart, atmospheric horror film.

Like all the best films, the story works on two levels. The supernatural elements are convincing and integrated into the plot but it's the characters' own failings that lead to their ultimate downfall. In many ways, this plays out as a Puritan morality tale. The Puritan values of community, faith, honesty and public confession are presented early on as the ideals for which they strive and had they abided by them, they likely would have overcome the evil in their lives. The film opens with Thomasin's confessions, a list of sins ordinary for a girl her age that we can easily dismiss as worries caused by her over-exacting religion but when they are tested we see how these seemingly trivial sins become the seeds of disaster. We see a father with much love but weak virtue and a mother with virtue but little love. Even without the witch, this was a family doomed to failure.

With the realistic dialogue and the inclusion of historical culture, it feels very much like a lost Hawthorne story. Don't come to this hoping for jump scenes and gore. This earns its place in the horror genre by insinuation and disturbing situations. The Witch is a must for not only people interested in the supernatural but also fans of early frontier life and family drama. It's definitely one of the best movies of the year thus far.

The Nice Guys

Holly: Dad, there are whores here and stuff.
March: Don't say, 'And stuff.' Just say, 'Dad, there are whores here.'

I have to begin by saying I have been waiting for this movie since Kiss Kiss Bang Bang came out. Another pulp detective buddy comedy from Shane Black? Yes, please! And I was not disappointed. The Nice Guys is a smart comedy with great characters and an interesting mystery. Holland March (Ryan Gosling) is an amoral screwup alcohol who rips off the elderly and neglects his daughter but does it all with such charm that we love him anyway. Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) is hired gun with a very tarnished heart of gold who will call a scared woman out on being seven dollars short of his fee but longs to make a positive difference in the world. Initially on opposing sides of the case, they are thrown together in investigating the disappearance of a girl named Amelia (Margaret Qualley) who is inexplicably linked to the death of porn star Misty Mountains (Murielle Telio). But as they dig deeper into the case, they uncover a conspiracy larger than they ever imagined.

Black has an inimitable sense of humor that keeps up a playful banter through the film, often making fun of detective and action tropes while the characters return to the same subjects in attempts to make their own misguided points. Everything about it as wonderfully flawed and ridiculous as humans are. Each gets distracted from their goals in their own way and is spurred on by unique motives. But even with the jokes, distractions and general incompetence, they use real detective work to solve the case. To say too much about it would spoil the fun and it's best to have a thick skin when watching because there is ample swearing and nudity, but this a a movie well worth seeing especially if you enjoy pulp detective fiction. I can't wait to add it to my DVD shelf.

The Lady in the Van

Alan Bennett: The houses in the Crescent were built as villas for the Victorian middle class and their basements are now being enlarged by couples who are liberal in outlook, but not easy with their new-found prosperity. Guilt in a word. Which means that in varying degrees, they tolerate Miss Shepherd. Their consciences absolved by her presence.

The Lady in the Van, directed by Nicholas Hytner and written by Alan Bennett about his real life experience, tells the story of a homeless woman (Maggie Smith) of questionable sanity who lived in Bennett's (Jim Broadbent) driveway for fifteen years. She is a study in contradictions: a woman who professes religious visions while treating everyone around her like second class citizens, who professes independence while manipulating a community into supporting her, who professes innocence while trying to escape the mistakes of her past. While she struggles with her own demons, her presence forces the whole neighborhood to examine just how much they're willing to help their fellow man, especially when their fellow man is so cantankerous and ungrateful.

While the plot rambles a bit and Bennett indulges his own introspection more than I care for, The Lady in the Van is an interesting character study of Miss Shepherd, an unusual and sometimes unlikeable woman that shows us everything that makes us uncomfortable around the homeless. The neighborhood she parks her van in, which is populated by self-professed liberals, is confronted with their own hypocrisies as they alternate between giving her charity and attempting non-confrontational methods of forcing her to leave. Bennett, another interesting, often contradictory character, attributes his own charity to timidity but as we see the lengths he goes to to take care of Miss Shepherd it becomes difficult to believe. Smith and Broadbent share a marvelous chemistry onscreen and Smith manages to make Miss Shepherd into someone we love at the same time she is driving us and Bennett crazy.

The Lady in the Van is a quiet film about a woman who, under normal circumstances, would be ignored and ultimately forgotten. Bennett's story of the woman who lived in his driveway shows us the charity we perform has as great an impact on us as it does on its recipients and that every person has a story to tell. It's a film well worth watching, if just to make us question whether we would really sacrifice the cleanliness of our bathroom for the dignity of a person who will never say thank you.

The Station Agent

Fin: It's funny how people see me and treat me since I'm really just a simple, boring person.

The Station Agent, directed by Tom McCarthy, is a quiet film, sometimes funny, sometimes serious, much like its characters' lives that it manages to portray so realistically. It tells the story of Fin (Peter Dinklage), a train enthusiast and dwarf who, after the death of a friend, moves to an abandoned train station to live in quiet solitude. While there, he becomes friends with Joe (Bobby Cannavale), an aggressively friendly, cheerful man who forces his way into Fin's life, and Olivia (Patricia Clarkson), an artist in mourning over her young son's death. As the three become friends, they are forced to confront the problems they have been trying to ignore and become part of the community they have shunned.

This is a quiet film without the strong emotional peaks and valleys of an ordinary drama but instead with gentle slopes that make it seem as though we know these people, that we're simply peeking into the window of their lives. The performances are especially convincing, especially Peter Dinklage who manages to express so much with so little. Each character is someone we can recognize with problems we can relate to. Fin feels ostracized because of his dwarfism and so cuts himself off from people and opportunities in order to avoid becoming a spectacle but by making himself so much of a mystery he becomes more of one. But as people continue to force their way into his life, led by the charmingly irrepressible Joe, he finds there are a whole town full of people willing to accept him as he is. Joe is the heart of the film. He is the only one to not get bogged down by his personal problems and instead almost bullheadedly insists on befriending the two most troubled and reclusive people in town by his positivity and open mindedness. Olivia has run away to this small town to try and recover from her loss but she is unable to let go of the past. The three of them have incredible chemistry in a plot that never rushes the relationships which helps add to the realism and depth.

The Station Agent is a wonderful film about the value of community and the power of friendship in times of trouble. Though it takes it's time, it is itself timeless with likable characters and a realistic look at the world make it a sweet, unforgettable story.

The Good Dinosaur

Butch: If you ain't scared, you ain't alive.

I'm always willing to give Pixar movies the benefit of the doubt but this one was tough even for me. I'm a little surprised Pixar even released it with how many problems it had even on a conceptual level. In the trailer, we're pitched that this is an alternate timeline where dinosaurs were never wiped out and wound up evolving along with people. But in truth, this was really just a clumsy excuse to have a dinosaur be the main character. If you substituted anything else (foxes, dogs, robots), the story would have turned out the same. At its core, it's just a story about a boy who gets lost and has to find his way home. Unfortunately, it wound up as a worse, confused version of Finding Nemo.

The film opens with a dinosaur family on a farm. Arlo is the youngest son, small and scared on everything from small bugs to lighting storms. We spend far to long on the farm to establish just how a big a sissy Arlo really is but we never see anymore of dinosaur society than his family farm. As a result, not only is Arlo an exaggerated charicature, the world also feels sparse, with dinosaurs simply a warped reflection of human evolution. Even when events that should be important happen, they aren't given the weight they need to feel important. When the action finally does start a third of the way through the film, the lost Arlo and Spot, his pet human, are subjected to weird, slightly disturbing events that don't have any relevance to the overall story. It isn't until half way through that the story really picks up and then it suddenly transforms into a western. But by this point, we already know everything that's going to happen in the climax because we've been hit over the head with the foreshadowing so hard, we're in danger of a concussion.

Really I can find very little positive to say about this film. At its best, it's not terrible, but it is never funny, interesting or likable. Everything from the plot to the characters are clumsy and sophomoric. There are gaping holes in the logic behind the dinosaurs' evolution and society. However, if you come to Pixar for the animation, there is some beautiful landscape work throughout the movie. Other than that, it's best suited for children. In my mind, it ties with Cars 2 as the worst Pixar film to date.

Room

Jack: When I was small, I only knew small things. But now I'm five, I know everything!

Room, directed by Lenny Abrahamson, tells an incredible story of 5-year-old Jack (Jacob Tremblay) and his mother Joy (Brie Larson) trapped in a room for 7 years by Joy's kidnapper, Old Nick (Sean Bridgers). Jack, who has lived his whole life in this room, doesn't even believe the rest of the world exists while Joy becomes increasingly concerned about their situation and seeks escape now that Jack is old enough to help. But all plans of escape are risky and even if they get out, the world may not be what they remember.

SPOILERS AHEAD

One of the reasons this movie works so well, aside from the much praised acting by Larson and Tremblay, is that it is told from the perspective of Jack, who is too young to fully understand the horror of what is happening. He has an acceptance born of ignorance that prevents the whole thing from sinking into despair and allows the audience to see the parallel between Jack leaving the room with only his mother to the wider world filled with people and possibilities to the journey everyone makes as they grow. We see Jack try to cling to the familiar but unhealthy room he was raised in before finally growing with his new surroundings. What he is left with is a mishmash of the imaginative worldview he was forced to adopt in Room with a slow acceptance of things like trees and grandparents and pancakes.

Joy brings to life the power of the mother-son relationship that is the core of the film. She needs her son as much as he needs her and they both act selfishly toward the other and make great sacrifices in turn. Her trip home is especially difficult as her parents have divorced and moved during her absence and the normalcy she craves is something she can no longer appreciate. Seeing her through her young son's eyes is at times heartbreaking but Jack became the core of her existence during her captivity and her love for him is obvious. The film accepts that there is no easy answer for their recovery and we are left with an ending that is hopeful but not certain.

Room is a truly moving film in part because of how understated and real it feels. It is as intimate as its surroundings and exemplifies not just what it is to survive but what is to live. The subject matter is treated with enough sensitivity to be accessible to a wider audience so if you are interested in films about childhood and parent-child relationships, I highly recommend this one.

A Knight's Tale

Prince Edward: Your men love you. If I knew nothing else about you, that would be enough. But you also tilt when you should withdraw and that is knightly too.

I have to start this with the fact that I'm a little biased toward this movie. I've seen it so many times I can recite the dialogue along with the characters. And I will be completely honest in saying that this is in no way a great film that will change the way you see the world and I love everything about. For those fooled by the title and a character named Chaucer, you should know that this movie is as distantly related to The Canterbury Tales as I am to its author. It makes almost no attempt to be realistic for the time and place it's set. In fact, this medieval England story is as American as apple pie. It follows a peasant born squire who tries to "change his stars" after his master dies by enlisting in jousts as a noble born knight.

The two things that really make A Knight's Tale work is its great cast and its confidence. It tells a simple story that doesn't get distracted and try to come off bigger than it is, but it tells it well, free with jokes but never so self-conscious that it makes its audience feel ridiculous for liking it. And what's not to like? After all, this is the movie that made me fall in love with Heath Ledger as our plucky young hero, Alan Tudyk as his loyal and lovable sidekick and Paul Bettany as the irreverent and no doubt completely inaccurate Chaucer. Along with them are Rufus Sewell as the villain we love to hate, Shannyn Sossamon, James Purefoy, Mark Addy and Laura Fraser. Not only are they talented actors but they have great chemistry thanks to writer/director Brian Helgeland. There is an ease about their conversation that makes it feel they really have been working and traveling together in poverty and hope.

One of the things the film is most famous for is its anachronistic music but anyone who was upset by the music clearly wasn't paying enough attention to the anachronistic plot. The idea that an uneducated, untrained peasant could ever pass himself off as a knight among other knights for any length of time is as laughable as the fact that his noble born love interest, Jocelyn, spends all her time wandering around virile young men unchaperoned and apparently has some say in who she will marry. But the music, like everything else, isn't meant to convey historical realism. It's meant to show you what people felt like when they watched these tournaments and competed for a lady's token. It's about the timelessness of the human experience, the jokes shared with friends, the struggle to reach for more than you're given, the joy of victory and misery of defeat.

So if you need a break from Oscar season or just a feel good movie for a rainy day, check out A Knight's Tale. It's a light hearted adventure that will have you laughing, cheering and believing that you too can change your stars.