A Late Quartet

2 Paws
Seen recently at Film Streams

This one has some really great moments that just don't add up to a satisfying whole. The bright spots - a stripped down Christopher Walken puts in some Oscar worthy screen time as a cellist facing the end of his celebrated career, the tonier parts of NYC have never looked more beautiful under a winter sky, and Mark Ivanir is intense as the quartet's first violinist, former love interest of the quartet's violist and (spoiler alert) current love interest of the daughter of the quartet's violist and second violinist (aaaaah, the intrigue).

My biggest gripe - I had a hard time relating to the cerebral, artistic world the quartet inhabits, and the coldness of the violist (Catherine Keener, whom I love) and the second violinist (Philip Seymour Hoffman, whom I love even more) didn't help matters much. Can't you be both a world-class musician and a person you'd want to hang out with?

Bonus Bones: 0
I guess music is everything to these people.

Django Unchained

2 Paws

Seen recently at Aksarben Cinema

My dad loved Westerns. I remember watching the "How the West Was Won" television mini-series with him when I was in high school. There's just something magical about the genre - the stark beauty of the landscape, the sheer determination of simple folk to do what it takes to get through the day, the absolute rightness and wrongness of the time.

There's a little bit of all of that in Django Unchained, plus a whole lot of blood geisers, bad hair and rotten teeth. Jamie Foxx makes one badass slave-turned-bounty hunter who's on a mission to save his wife, and I'd kill for his green corduroy jacket (think Little Joe from "Bonanza"). But you never get to know him, which is a mistake - as is cutting his hair when he earns his freedom. The other bright spots in the long and rather ho-hum execution of the plot - Christoph Waltz's turn as Django's mentor and the cameos from a number of good ole' boys.

Bonus Bones: -2

The pair of killer dogs in this one are pure evil - way to set the dog world back, Quentin.

Silver Linings Playbook

3 Paws

Seen recently at Aksarben Cinema

Let's get right to it - this is the best film I saw in 2012.

Okay, so I have more than a passing interest in mental illness. And I like movies that don't require earplugs or funny glasses. And I'm a sucker for a happy ending. But even if you set all of that aside, I dare you to sit through this one and not feel better leaving the theatre than when you entered it.

It's surprising. It's funny. It's full of flawed characters. It makes your throat tighten and your eyes wet. It has an amazing ensemble cast (Robert De Niro will tear your heart out during the bedside scene, Bradley Cooper is almost unrecognizable as the struggling Pat and the 22-year-old Jennifer Lawrence must have an old soul). It even makes a Giants fan (me) root for the Eagles (at least temporarily).

It doesn't pretend to have all the answers, but sometimes, just trying your very best is enough.

Bonus Bones: 3

I think I counted three dogs in the trick or treat/running scene.