The Sunday Drive: 1/8/12

3. Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol
On paper, passing the torch from Tom Cruise over to the younger, hipper Jeremy Renner may have seemed like a great idea, but Mission: Impossible proves the old guy still has a lot of spring in his step. Cruise still has the physicality and the commanding presence to nail the role of IMF agent Ethan Hunt, working alongside a new in a top secret mission that sees them disavowed by the United States government.

2. We Bought A Zoo
The animals are cool but the people are awesome in the latest uplifting film from Cameron Crowe. Matt Damon is at his best playing a father trying to give his two kids a new start at life when he moves them into a rundown old zoo, and attempts to rebuild it while putting their family back together again. A sweet, touching family drama with lots of heart.
1. Pariah
After doing this for awhile, you start to get a feel for debuts that feel truly special, and Pariah has me keeping a close watch on it's director, Dee Rees. Along with a breakthrough performance by Adepero Oduye, Rees has crafted an emotionally honest, riveting film with a deeply personal touch. The story follows Alike, a teenage African-American lesbian living with her two loving but deeply religious parents. This isn't a story about a girl figuring out her sexual identity, as Alike has already embraced who she is. The journey is in figuring out how to get the people she loves to accept her for who she knows herself to be.

DVD Pick of the Week: Contagion
Y'see that face Gwyneth Paltrow is making on the DVD sleeve for Steven Soderbergh's Contagion? That's pretty much the look I had the entire film. Contagion is the scariest thing I saw all year, an all too real look at the world's readiness(or lack thereof) in the event of a viral pandemic. All I wanted to do afterwards was move into my own personal plastic bubble and bathe in Purell. A horror in every sense of the word, the virus seems to evolve and oppose those at the CDC fighting to put a stop to it's spread. Nobody in the all-star cast is safe, which is perhaps the most gut wrenchingly real aspect of the film, as those we usually expect to be heroes fall by the wayside.