A Late Quartet

The long partnership of the Fuge String quartet is coming to a close in their 25th anniversary with their cellist, Peter, being diagnosed with Parkinson's. Peter's imminent exit is almost like melting of the glue that held the group together. Old wounds resurface and egos over flow their cups. Through the unravelling you the viewer will be encaptured by this drama whether you like Western classical music or not. Such is the power of the screen play and acting of all the leads.

Rating : * * * +

Poster from IMP Awards. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Synecdoche, New York

Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman ) leads a "normal" life as play director. His painter wife, Adele (Catherine Keener) feels disconnected from him and his daughter thinks he is a little strange. Adele takes off to Berlin for a show with the daughter in tow to get some alone time. With his wife departure,  Caden is welcomed with a genius grant to make a production of a life time. He proceeds to convert a giant warehouse in to a miniature Manhattan. This is when Charlie Kaufman introduces his trademark mind bend and things go to pretentious shite. Or maybe I have just outgrown Kaufman...

Rating: *

Into the Wild

Sean Penn in his directorial comfort zone: barren, white landscapes of Alaskan / American hinterland and a boy attempting to disengage his shadow forever. A true story and all that, with much that one can relate to: anger, loner adventurism, search for truth and such shit. Well made film over couple of hours: must mention the promising performance from Emile Hirsch and as can be expected from a Sean Penn film - a solid soundtrack.

Rating: * * * +

Friends with Money

Olivia (Jennifer Aniston) is the poor single one in this group of affluent friends. Each one has issues in their lives and relationships. But it Olivia who is viewed as the messed up one. As the film unravels the women do too...

Rating: * *