Brothers and Fantastic Mr Fox top films this week

Chronologically, I started the week (Sunday 29 November) with a repeat viewing of what I think will be one the the year's best films, PRECIOUS, and I'm happy to say it lived up to a second view....it's still strong, startling and very well made and acted. After a late lunch at The Deluxe on Broadway, the three of us went to see THE FANTASTIC MR FOX with voices by George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Bill Murray, and it is one of the damnedest "kids" movie ever--in fact, I don't think that kids would really get it or appreciate it, but the adults sure were laughing. Roald Dahl wrote the book and Wes Anderson directed it (along with his previous winners RUSHMORE, THE LIFE AQUATIC with STEVE ZISSOU, and THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS)in a sardonic and ironic style, which adds to it's charm. If you like your 2D cartoons with creatures who act like animals, smoke and drink and thieve, and say witty things, then you'll enjoy FMF.
THE MAID played at SIFF last May and even though I was not bored, I found the film rather pedantic. Fortunately, the lead actress is gung-ho as a domestic who is beloved by her employer family, yet due to some physical (or mental) illness, becomes increasingly paranoid about her position, and when a succession of new help is hired to assist her, she drives them off with petty and exasperating hi jinks. Fun to watch, but not very cinematically adventurous.
EVERYBODY'S FINE is a remake of an Italian Marcello Mastroianni film from several years ago, remade to fit Robert De Niro, as a father who feels neglected when his four adult kids all cancel for a family reunion dinner, so he sets out around the country to visit them all one by one. There are obviously some big secrets that are uncovered, and some fences that need mending, and to its credit, the film has a lovely finale that is quite emotional, but getting to that point, it's bland and slow. It's also predictable. If his kids weren't such liars in the first place there'd be no film. I wish that were true. If you are desperate for a teary eyed film that ends at a Christmas reunion, then you might enjoy it. Otherwise, forget it.
The best new film this week turned out to be BROTHERS, another remake of a Danish film from a few years ago that has one brother (the "good" one) played by Tobey (Spiderman) Mcguire, going off to war in Afghanistan and leaving behind his loving wife Natalie (V for Vendetta)Portman, and his "bad" brother just back from prison, played by Jake (Brokeback Mountain) Gyllenhaal. The good and the bad get mighty blurred by the end. The TV spots for this film would have you believe this is a tale of infidelity, sexual jealousy and revenge. In reality it is a very intense and honest portrayal of the horrors of war, the pain of separation, the loss of loved ones during war-time, and the difficulty of readjustment to civilian life for returning soldiers. It is a fine and important film, possibly one the year's top films.
My library dvd find of the week is NINELIVES (2004)--basically 9 short films, all about women in transitional or climactic dramatic peaks in their lives, and each story shot in one 10-14 minute take (no cutting or editing). There is a large and dynamic cast which includes Aidan Quinn, Sissy Spacek, Amanda Seyfried, Amy Brenneman, Kathy Baker, Holly Hunter, and others. Sometimes it is hard to invest emotionally in so many different characters and stories, but each is quite different and unique and each strikes a different dramatic punch. I especially liked the first one with Elpidia Carrillo as an inmate who has a breakdown when a technicality denies her a visit from her child, a middle one where two ex-lovers (Jason Isaacs and Robin Wright Penn) meet in a grocery store and try or not to pick up where they left off several years earlier, and the last one with Glenn Close and Dakota Fanning as a mother and daughter who spend an afternoon picnic at the grave site of --well, let's save that shock for the viewer to discover.