Being Flynn

Nick Flynn [Paul Dano], a wanna-be writer, finds a job in a Boston homeless shelter and within finds his father Jonathon [Robert De Niro], a self-proclaimed poet and con-man who left Nick and his mother when Nick was very young.

Ruby Sparks

Calvin [Paul Dano] is a novelist in his middle twenties who wrote one novel, in high school, that was a national hit, and since then has failed to find the inspiration/reason/material to write. After dreaming of an idea, he starts to write about a girl, Ruby [Zoe Kazan], that he could love and one that could love him, only to wake up one day and find that his character has literally come to life.

Cloud Atlas

It is not uncommon for a a film to achieve something groundbreaking or new in this age of technology. Things are advancing so quickly that nearly every year we see something that no one else had previously been able to achieve, and with such a wide range and accessibility of information and equipment, more unique ideas and stories are finding festival and box office success. This year, as the days grow shorter and colder and the Oscar probable films start to pour out, we are given Cloud Atlas, which is the most groundbreaking, new, and influential movie of this past year, if not the past five or not.

In the past 10 years, independent films have been increasing in number while the number of Hollywood films slowly declines. Obviously the Hollywood films will all have higher budgets allowing for higher caliber production crews and casts than independent films [for the most part], so Hollywood films have still had more overall draw and interest. But Cloud Atlas, despite being passed up by the six major film companies, was not only able to find a long list of backers to create a 100 million dollar budget, but they were also able to sign Tom Hanks and Halle Berry, two of the most popular and coveted actors in the business today, along with Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Keith David, Hugh Grant, Susan Surandon, and more. This is a big push towards independent film development, for Hollywood doesn’t back a film that could potentially be a bust, and the intricate, complicated plot and vision of Cloud Atlas was seen as too big of a risk. Even though the film was created by Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer, three people that have found success in creating new material, Hollywood did not want to take the chance, and it now seems that these three minds have another trend-setting movie on their resume.

Cloud Atlas is an exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution. [IMDb]

Your Sister’s Sister

The first tip I would give to any avid movie watcher is to go to whatever film your watching’s IMDb page and read through the “trivia” section towards the bottom. You will usually find some really fun and interesting tid-bits that will usually make a film more interesting and cool. In this movie, for example, I found that not only was the filming done in only three days, but a lot of the actors’ work was improvised. This is something I haven’t seen before in a film, and with a low-budget like this one had, it’s intriguing to me to think that we have three actors who were given a story, characters, and some guidelines, and then let loose. Let’s see what transpires!

A year after his brother Tom’s death, Jack is invited to get away from it all and spend some time at his best friend Iris’s family lakeside cabin. He accepts the offer only to find Iris’s sister Hannah. After a tough break up with her girlfriend, Hannah and Jack are both ready and willing to pound down a few shots and end up having sex. They awake to find that Iris herself has come down to the cabin.

Smashed

Smashed is the story of a 1st grade teacher named Kate Hannah, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Kate is a good teacher, but she is also an alcoholic. After arriving to school hungover and helping herself to a drink in the car, she throws up in class. The kids ask her if she’s pregnant, and she takes the easy way out and says yes. It turns our that assistant principal Dave Davies saw Kate drinking in her car before class. Dave, being a former alcoholic himself, 5+ years sober and a part of an AA group, invites Kate to his class where she finds that becoming sober involves a lot more than just being sober.