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Michel Hazanavicius’ effortlessly charming dramedy is really like discovering a lost film from the silent age. The director of the popular French OSS 117 spy spoof series recreates every aspect of a black and white silent film of the 1920s. From the classic 1.37:1 aspect ratio to the title cards to the dramatic pitch, he gets all the details right. His performers nail the acting style, which is a key to the film’s success. But it’s not just a gimmick. It’s a reminder that sometimes words get in the way of visual storytelling.

George Valentin (Jean Dujardin, OSS 117: CAIRO, NEST OF SPIES) is the biggest silent movie star. During the red carpet for his latest international action film, he bumps into Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo, A KNIGHT’S TALE), a pretty young fan looking for an autograph. Embarrassed at first, soon she’s posing for the cameras along with Valentin. The next day she goes to the studio looking to get a job as an extra and lands a role in Valentin’s next picture. He is so charmed by the young woman that he flubs scenes just so he can dance with her over and over again.

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Along the Ardeche River in France, archeologists discovered a vast cave system that had been sealed off for tens of thousands of years. Inside they found pristine cave paintings that seem as if they were created yesterday. The drawings of animals display artistry and imagination. Multiple legs represent movement. One strange drawing shows a bison embracing a naked woman. What were our ancient ancestors thinking? Filmmaker Werner Herzog tries to delve into the question and what it means to us today.

Herzog, who seems fascinated with extreme locations as evident in his Antarctic doc ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD, talks with scientists and scholars and discovers things the cave drawings have revealed, such as the lions of the time did not have manes, which was previously unknown. Since being sealed up nearly 25,000 years ago, skulls such as cave bears have been covered in calcification, making it resemble an ivory statute. We also learn something about the artistic intentions of the people. Herzog films in 3-D to try and capture how the ancient artists even used the contours of the walls in how they approached their paintings.

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It’s been given the dreaded NC-17 rating. But how could an honest film about sex addiction be otherwise? Director Steve McQueen pushes his actor Michael Fassbender to the edge like they did in the IRA hunger strike drama HUNGER. This time Fassbender does things on screen you might not do at home with your spouse or girlfriend. But this is far from pornography.

Fassbender gives his best performance to date as Brandon Sullivan, a hot exec at a web firm who has terrible sex addiction. His mind is consumed with sexual impulses to the point where he has cut off his family and is getting into work later and later each day. Sex for him is just one extreme fantasy or fetish du jour. He hires prostitutes, buys volumes of porn videos and mags and is a steady customer to online sex cams. But his routine of anonymous sexual acts is disrupted when his troubled sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan, AN EDUCATION) shows up at his door needing a place to crash after another relationship has crashed and burned.

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Buy It Now!

Read my review of ANOTHER EARTH

Your appreciation of this AVC transfer relies heavily on knowing the source of this indie sci-fi drama. Filmed with a 720p camera on a next to nothing budget, the picture contains a great deal of grain that increases exponentially under low lighting conditions. One scene in the snow at night really highlights its digital origins. Banding and aliasing often creep up in higher contrasted scenes. Color are muted and natural, which fits the cool mood. But when compared to the DVD version, clarity is greatly increased with the grain issue minimized. All things considered this 1080p release is about as good as this material can look.

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack is as minimalist as the film’s story. The front speaker heavy endeavor again underlines the indie origins. Sound effects are few and the electronic score drones on throughout on all channels. However, it never drowns out the dialogue, which is always clear. The balance between what elements there are is good.

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Here is a unique use of sci-fi. For the most part this film is a drama regarding recovering from a tragic event that fundamentally transforms one’s life over night. The concept of a doppelganger planet is used as metaphor for how decisions we make create new lives and even selves.

Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling, upcoming THE COMPANY YOU KEEP) is a high school student who has just gotten into MIT. After a night of drinking, she makes the mistake of driving home and along the way hits another car putting college professor John Burroughs (William Mapother, TV’s LOST) into a coma and killing his pregnant wife and young son. In an instant, she transforms from a promising future astrophysicist into a convict who must serve four years in prison.

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This Norwegian fantasy thriller is Norwegian at its core and that is the best thing about it. On its surface, the film takes from found footage pictures such as THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. A group of students set out to make a film and get more than they wished for. But in this case there aren’t witches, but trolls.

The students originally set out to chronicle bear poaching. They follow the gruff mountain man Hans (Otto Jespersen), whose Land Rover looks like it’s had a few run ins with some big “bears.” But the filmmakers find out quickly that Hans isn’t after bears, but trolls. He’s part of a secret government agency set out to keep the existence of the giant creatures secret. With incidents getting deadlier and more frequent, he decides to bring the students along with him to get the truth out.

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The film claims to be based on a true story. Indeed it is based on Slavomir Rawicz’s novel THE LONG WALK, but since its publication the BBC has discredited its account. Some critics have used this to attack the film’s faithfulness to the book, which has a great deal of surviving and little interpersonal conflict that makes survival stories really compelling. While I agree that ramped up drama helps, but I found the lack of it here refreshing.

Janusz (Jim Sturgess, ONE DAY) has been sent to a gulag for crimes against the state in which his wife was forced to rat him out. The first person he meets in prison is Khabarov (Mark Strong, STARDUST), who tells him of his plan to escape, which fills Janusz with hope. However, the American Mr. Smith (Ed Harris, APOLLO 13) tells him that Khabarov is a fraud and tells the same story to all newbies as way to parasitically live off their optimism. But Janusz isn’t interested in living off dreams and decides to go through with the seemingly impossible escape.

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This dramedy frustrated and delighted me in equal measure. Writer/director Michael J. Weithorn (THE KING OF QUEENS) proves himself an observant chronicler of human nature and a sitcom gag craftsman. He develops rich comedic scenarios and weaves them together, but leaves us hanging at times. All of it is held together by the wonderful performance of THE OFFICE’s Jenna Fischer.

Fischer plays Laura, a dental hygienist, who suspects that her husband Bob (Chris O’Donnell, BATMAN & ROBIN) is cheating on her. He denies it, which finds a way of costing him his life. Now Laura, who was drinking a bit too much before becoming a widow, is left to care for her son Dennis (Daniel Yelsky), who has a way with coming up with massive lies to win friends.

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What could a 3-D family film from Martin Scorsese be like? With HUGO now as an example, the answer is magical. And it’s a magic that Scorsese is best suited to bring to life — the magic of the movies. At one point, a young boy visits a movie studio and the director leans down to him and tells him if he’s ever wondered where his dreams come from this is where they are made.

Based on Brian Selznick’s celebrated illustrated novel THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET, the story follows its title character (Asa Butterfield, THE BOY WITH THE STRIPED PAJAMAS) as he survives as an orphan in the clockworks of a Paris train station. After his father (Jude Law, A.I.), a clock maker, died, he has been trying to finish a project they were working on together — fixing an automaton. This mechanical human is a complex one that seems to be designed to write something and Hugo believes it will give him a message from his dad. But the boy loses his notebook filled with calculations to Papa Georges (Ben Kingsley, GANDHI) after the toyshop owner catches him trying to steal. What Hugo doesn’t know is that Georges is Georges Melies, the once famed filmmaker who is best known for A TRIP TO THE MOON, where a rocket sticks into the eye of the man on the moon.

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The holidays have different meanings to everyone. For better or worse it’s usually a time for family. Now from Aardman Animations, the creator of WALLACE & GROMIT, comes a modern look at Santa and his family. What we find out is that even good ole Saint Nick has a dysfunctional family.

Being the big guy in the red suit is a Claus family tradition that has been passed down for generations. The current Santa (Jim Broadbent, IRIS), however, is more of a figurehead these days. The one-night present delivery enterprise has been streamlined by his heir apparent, his oldest son Steve (Hugh Lurie, TV’s HOUSE), a military type hunk with a Christmas-tree-shaped goatee. Steve has the elves working like special ops soldiers who can get a package in and under the tree in a matter of seconds.

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