Ein volk!

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS

This is the anti-Frances Ha: the story of a loser who loses, and everyone, including him, knows it.  Inside Llewyn Davis is a beautifully-acted, sharply-written, tragicomic study in wasting your life on a dream and how it is so tempting—and so terrible.

2013
Written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
With Oscar Isaac (Llewyn Davis), Carey Mulligan (Jean), Justin Timberlake (Jim), Ethan Phillips (Mitch Gorfein), John Goodman (Roland Turner), and Garrett Hedlund (Johnny Five)

Spoiler alert: moderate

A parliament of rooks

THE HUNT
(Jagten)

Though it often feints toward genre territory, The Hunt never becomes the kind of movie it direly needs to be, and is, after a fashion, worse for it; yet it must be conceded that it explores its chosen themes more broadly (never deeply) by so rudely eschewing anything remotely resembling audience satisfaction.  So if you didn't know that a presumption of innocence is important for a just society and needed two hours of didactically cruel infotainment with one (1) cool fight scene to explain it, have I got the movie for you!

2012 Danmark/2013 USA

Directed by Thomas Vinterberg
Written by Tobias Lindholm and Thomas Vinterberg
With Mads Mikkelsen (Lucas), Thomas Bo Larsen (Theo), Annika Wedderkopp (Klara), Alexandra Rappaport (Nadja), and Lasse Fogelstrom (Marcus)

Spoiler alert: severe

Man, this newest John Carpenter movie is disappointing

ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW

At about the 60 minute mark, Escape From Tomorrow proceeds to end.  It does so approximately 4.5 times, and it's only the half of an ending that is remotely satisfying.

2013
Written and directed by Randy Moore
With Roy Abramsohn (Jim), Elena Schuber (Emily), Katelynn Rodriguez (Sara), Jack Dalton (Eliot), Danielle Safady (Sophie), Annet Mahendru (Isabella), Alison Lees Taylor (Other Woman), Stass Klassen (Scientist)

Spoiler alert: moderate