Married Life, Snow Angels, and Paranoid Park Open This Week!

Two very good movies open this weekend in the New York City area, that I can recommend heartily, and oddly enough somewhat companion one another.

The first is "Married Life," Ira Sachs new 1920's romance/thriller/mystery/comedy, which is based on a noir book from the 50's that he adapted into a rather offbeat mediation of love and marriage and everything else in between. I saw the movie at the Toronto Film Festival, where it opened to rather mixed reviews, one of them from Dan Sallitt, whose own film thoughts can be found here, but I found it to be quite good and one that I would like to revisit. My full review of the film from the festival can be found here. The film can be found at a few locations around Manhattan, including the Sunshine, the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, and the Chelsea Clearview Cinema.

The second is "Snow Angels," which I saw last June at the Sundance Film Festival at BAM's week long festival. I fell in love a bit with the film, and its other haunting mediation on love, marriage, and other various stages of relationships. This is a much heavier film than "Married Life," but its themes somewhat connect. Sam Rockwell gives another fantastic performance here, and one that I would have considered for awards had the film been released during the awards heavy season. At the moment I consider "Snow Angels" and "In Bruges" the two best films of the year, and this is one I hope lasts long enough for me to get a second look at it nearly a year later. My full review for that film can be found here.  The film can be found at the Sunshine Cinemas and the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.

On the other hand, Gus van Sant, probably my least favorite film maker currently working, has a new film coming out called "Paranoid Park," which I saw at the New York Film Festival and somewhat hated just as much as his last two efforts "Last Days" and "Elephant." Dull, long (which is tough to say with an only 80 minute run time), uninterested performances, and a script that has scenes of filler because there isn't enough story to cover a full length film (there is even a scene where a younger brother is reciting dialogue from "Napolean Dynamite" to his uninterested older brother!), "Paranoid Park" was simply a waste of my time, but fans of van Sant might just eat it up.  My full review can be found here, and it can be found at the Angelika Film Center and the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.