That Evening Sun

Drew's Thoughts:
Scott Teems's excellent Southern gothic slowburner That Evening Sun is the first great film I've seen this year.
Hal Holbrook gives a fantastic performance as Abner Meecham, a grizzled old Tennesseean farmer who leaves his nursing home unannounced after recovering from a hip injury to find his son has leased the farm to another family. Meecham determined to take his farm back takes up residence in the sharecropper house on the property and a power struggle ensues between him and the family.
Just about everything about the film is top-notch. The screenplay is excellent and first time filmmaker Teems sustains tension and controls the mood perfectly (even managing some unexpectedly funny moments.) The acting is strong too with good supporting performances by Oscar-winner Ray McKinnon (who also produces) as the man who Meecham wars with, Carrie Preston (Arrested Development) and Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) as his wife and daughter and Barry Corbin (No Country for Old Men) provides his unique presence as Meecham's neighbor. Holbrook really is the star of the show though with his gruff, convicted and ultimately towering performance. I'll be surprised if he doesn't end up with a Drew nom at the end of the year.
Add to that impeccable cinematography and editing and a good piano/guitar score by Michael Penn (Boogie Nights) and you got yourself a great goddamn movie.
We're only halfway through the year, and there's a lot more films to be seen, but whether That Evening Sun is in the final five at the end of the year or not, it is certainly good enough to be there.

The Wolfman

Drew's Thoughts:
Directed by Oscar-winner Joe Johnston (Jumanji, The Rocketeer) and starring and produced by Benicio Del Toro, I was very pleasantly surprised when I watched this remake of the '41 film and the old Universal Pictures logo came on the screen. You know the one, it appears before classics like The Bank Dick and The Invisible Man. It was a good sign of things to come, as the film seems like it's trying to throwback to the monster movies of yore a little bit. Though the film gets more CGI'd as it moves on, particularly close to the end, the film has atmosphere and its a much classier horror picture than we usually see these days. It's fun to see Benicio onscreen again and his bored recitation of Hamlet at the beginning is hilarious (his character is a traveling actor) and Anthony Hopkins shows he still knows how to play malicious old men exceedingly well. The period detail was good and Donna-nominee Danny Elfman's crackerjack score tops it off. Not a great movie to be sure but a suprisingly engrossing flick. Probably not a great future at the Dolphins other than possible tech noms or a nom for Elfman's score.

The Vicious Kind

Drew's Thoughts:
The Vicious Kind is a decent, darkly comic low budget drama. The main attraction is the central performance by Adam Scott (The Aviator, TV's Party Down) who does what he does best, playing an enormous dickhead. Scott got a surprise Independent Spirit Award nomination last year for his performance despite the film never actually being shown outside the festival circuit. It was released this year and I checked it out on Netflix. First time film maker Lee Toland Krieger does a pretty good job here, doing a lot with a little. Adam Scott is good and totally commits to playing a completely unlikable asshole. He plays Caleb a character with some serious issues and the film sees things get dicey when his younger brother and his girlfriend come home for Thanksgiving to the dad Caleb doesn't speak with. There's a lot of harsh moments though the film manages to make a few of them funny. I wouldn't list it as a comedy as Netflix has though. The films feels a little long at just under an hour and a half but I found it pretty engaging for such a simple story about a jerkoff. It's a better story-about-an-asshole than Greenberg.
Probably not many Dolphin prospects beyond Scott's performance and he's in the usually tough category of Best Actor. It's one of the better lead performances so far this year though.

Green Zone

Drew's Thoughts:
This film, directed by Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum) and starring last year's Dolphin-nominee Matt Damon, turned out to be a fair amount better than I expected it to be. It's better/less ridiculous than the Bourne movies and it doesn't cut to a new shot every second which was a pleasant surprise. Even though Brian Helgeland's script (which I gather is a mostly fictional story "inspired by" a book on Iraq) has its share of cliches and heavy-handed preaching, the story is paced quickly enough to get the job done. Matt Damon delivers a good if unadorned performance as a soldier on the WMD search squad who sets out to figure out why he's being continually given faulty intel (SPOILER: there are no weapons.) However, the supporting players Amy Ryan, a journalist, and Brendan Gleeson, a CIA man, aren't given much to work with though. Greg Kinnear plays a decent slimewad though.
Shot by Barry Ackroyd (The Hurt Locker,) Green Zone is the well-made, entertaining Iraq war thriller Body of Lies failed so miserably at being. Probably not much Dolphin potential beyond the tech categories though.
Also what the hell kind of accent is Brendon Gleeson supposed to have in this film??

Toy Story 3

Colleen's Thoughts:
After being mildly disappointed but entertained by the second Toy Story, I went into Toy Story 3 with low expectations. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about having one of my favorite toys (Barbie) front and center. After bragging to Drew and Ellen that I had the Barbie Jeep and Corvette, as well as, a 4 STORY Barbie mansion with an elevator, I felt ready to see the film. I was pleasantly surprised. But I must make a brief note that it does not even compare to the first Toy Story. How dare IMDB and People magazine say that this movie is better than the original. Shame on you people. Have you no memory? Do you not remember the brilliant craftsmanship that is the original Toy Story? That said there were certainly extremely memorable moments of this film. I thought the part with the toys betting on the farm sounds toy was so clever and hilarious. I also loved it when the toys called Ken an accessory toy; “a purse with legs.” Also, the introduction using the same exact lines from the Toy Story original opening was huge for winning me over. The Spanish Buzz was clever as well. The movie could have used some editing, too many climaxes where the toys narrowly escape death. The Andy leaving for college stuff was also a little cliché and overdone. The Pink Bear character was kind of a weak villain. And didn’t they use the whole abandoned toy thing in the last movie? All and all (minus about 15 minutes) this was a relatively enjoyable film. Toy Story 3 is certainly worth seeing but not a must see.

Greenberg

Colleen's Thoughts:
I tried to go into Noah Baumbach’s movie Greenberg with an open mind. However, I was mildly skeptical considering I listened to Terry Gross’s show, Fresh Air, with Ben Stiller and she talked to him more about Tropic Thunder than the movie he was actually promoting, Greenberg. Unfortunately almost all the great things about Margot at the Wedding (Baumbach’s last film)Greenberg lacks. True, both movies are about privileged over educated whiney snobs. However, Margot at the Wedding (mostly to the credit of the characters played by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jack Black) never seems to lose sight of this. Margot (brilliantly played by Nicole Kidman) is a character we dislike but also see as a real and interesting person. Roger Greenberg (played competently by Ben Stiller) is certainly not interesting and here lies the major flaw of the screenplay in my opinion. Baumbach is already asking a lot of the viewer (especially this viewer) by making a movie with very little plot, all about a depressed rich asshole. Although his medical history suggests Greenberg is “deep” we do not see any evidence of this in the film. Instead Greenberg is just plain grumpy and no fun to watch. (The performance by Greta Gerwig is even less interesting if you can fathom it). I think Baumbach would have been better off channeling this privileged grumpiness into a modern remake of A Christmas Carol, though I doubt at this point he can pull off much of anything.