The New Wave: 1/21/11

Natalie Portman's on one heck of a hot streak coming off Black Swan. So how does she spend that new found popular capital? With a pair of raunchy low brow comedies(the other being Your Highness). No Strings Attached sees her paired up with another unnaturally good looking star, Ashton Kutcher, looking to bounce back from last year's Killers. Surely a couple this hot would disrupt the fabric of space and time or something, right? With the Justin Timberlake/Mila Kunis starring Friends with Benefits coming out in just a few months, we might be in casual sex overload(is there such a thing?). Watch out for Greta Gerwig as Portman's best friend in the film. Just like last year opposite Ben Stiller in the indie comedy, Greenberg, Gerwig effortlessly manages to steal the spotlight. My review of No Strings Attached can be read here.

Mike Leigh's latest film is an ever evolving piece of work, featuring the ups and downs of a fully contented English couple(the perfectly understated Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen), existing as the calm center to a depressed, unfulfilled group of friends whose lives are spiraling out of control.  The bulk of the buzz surrounding the film has been for Lesley Manville as Mary, a lonely alcoholic who has seen too much of her life slip by with nothing to show for it and nothing to look forward to. It's a powerful, somber performance everyone should check out at least once. My review of Another Year can be found here.

This year's Up in the Air? Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Costner, and Chris Cooper star as corporate employees who struggle to define their lives after being laid off. The feature film directorial debut of  John Wells(ER, The West Wing) had a lot of buzz coming out of Sundance last year, but is America looking to wallow in the misery of the economic crisis yet again? Probably not.

Pissed I haven't seen this yet! It's not often that we get a film from Peter Weir(Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World), and his latest has been the subject of a lot of Oscar talk. Even though the story it's based on, based on Slawowir Rawicz's novel about his escape from a Siberian gulag during WWII has been disputed pretty thoroughly, it's impossible to deny the talent on display. Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess, and Saoirse Ronan star.  I'm particularly interested in seeing how Ronan handles such tough material, especially with her assassin flick Hanna due out in just a few months.