Few films rival the rythmic pacing of well executed poetry, few films induce gasp and tears and laughs; few films leave a stain on your mind and create forums for discussion. Few films are like the gem that is Precious.
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Wait, Wes Anderson is trying something new?
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I’ll admit from the start that I don’t quite know how to write about Joel and Ethan Coen’s new film A Serious Man, but I’ll begin with a few things I know for sure.  I know that this is a hysterically funny movie and that it made me laugh so hard that my stomach started to ache.  I know that it is very personal on the part of the filmmakers and that it is perfectly executed for just that reason.  I’m confident that it achieves a polished completeness and finality that many directors only dream of.

But do I understand it?  I wish.  
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For all those who contemplated what a domestic sitcom would be like if it were directed by someone like Luis Bunuel, along comes the pitch black Chilean comedy The Maid. Filmed in the director’s actual childhood home and at least partially based on his own childhood memories, Sebastian Silva’s The Maid is the story of the life-long, live-in maid of a well-to-do Santiago family who we first meet in what very well may be the zygotic beginnings of a nervous breakdown. The film is a revelation of erratic psychosensual characterization. Bunuelian indeed.
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There are few things that Walt Disney Pictures wears more proudly on its sleeve than its complete and utter lack of new ideas. Not only is Walt’s legacy based almost entirely on adapting literature and folklore, but since his death the studio has repeatedly cannibalized its own past with an almost frightening relish. The relentless remaking began with Robin Hood in 1973 — a retreading of the studio’s 1952 feature The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men, and the very first (!!!) animated feature produced following Walt’s death — and has only sped up since, with everything from The Absent-Minded Professor to Treasure Island receiving multiple versions, and all of them with a slew of sequels, even if they have to spit on a few graves to get them made. (Fun fact: Louis Prima’s widow actually sued to keep the King Louie character he created out of The Jungle Book 2.)

With that in mind, I guess it’s no surprise that the Mouse House has deigned to grace us with yet another version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, that classic tale that everyone in the entertainment industry has already raped into oblivion. For anyone keeping score, this is the third version of the tale to have the Disney branding stamped on it (which really shows a surprising amount of restraint on their part, all things considered), the other two being 1983’s Mickey’s Christmas Carol and 1992’s The Muppet Christmas Carol (which actually may be one of the best adaptations of the story ever — not that you asked). This new version, while not un-gimmicky, eschews the Mr. Magoo-inspired shoehorning in of extraneous characters, and has been titled simply (and perhaps somewhat resignedly) Disney’s A Christmas Carol.
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Weaves, extensions, braids, and self esteem, along with sodium hydroxide.

Wait, sodium hydroxide?

These are the follicle-altering components highlighted in Good Hair; a permed, curled, and  lazily combed documentary that examines the effects of those in the African American community.
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