Now that the nation is steeped in the post-Oscar, pre-Fourth of July movie-release lull, it’s the perfect time to look to the future and prepare ourselves for another year of excellent movies. In no particular order, here is a selection of films that are likely to amaze in 2009:
Tree of Life:
Tree of [...]
Carlos Reygadas’s intractable, luminous film deals in punishing obscurity, uncommonly beautiful images and a kind of tight-lipped mysticism that jibes with the story’s German-speaking Mennonites who have cloistered themselves in Chihuahua, Mexico. The old folks bucked and snorted at the deliberate, lingering pace and the easily pretentious conversations referring to God and “the enemy” (the [...]
Simultaneously serene and action-packed, this movie has everything: nascent adolescent love, redemption, revenge, bloody murder, and vampires! Set in the bleakest reaches of Sweden, the movie depicts the blossoming relationship between oft-bullied Oscar and possible vampire, Eli, during the dark days of Nordic winter. But even though the movie is about [...]