Flow with Nature, No Matter What: Julie Bertucelli's Metaphoric "The Tree" (2011)

Like the murmur of the branches and leaves, "The Tree" will move you silently, quietly, with a powerfully grounding force of nature. "We're going to miss him for as long as we live. But we are going to have to learn to live with that", Charlotte Gainsbourg's Dawn, the widow and mother of four, tells her 8-year old daughter Simone (beautifully rendered by the little Morgana Davies), who confidently and fatalistically responds with a "No". It's easy to fall into metaphoric cliches about the tree, with its roots, its protective powers, its endless branches, its comparison to life's strength and fragility. "The Tree" slowly translates visually and aurally all these concepts, without even a taste or a hint of a cliche. It is a meditation on loss and grief, showing how imagination has the power to lift us through the pain and darkness. And that they are only imaginations to the outsiders, but are grounded reality for the believes because they might be the only real connection to the other world. This film is like a whisper, best watched with the humming background of sea waves and pine tree movements, in the company of closest family.

Tribeca Film Festival Recap (5): The Multiple Shades of (In)fidelity in Massy Tadjedin's "Last Night" (2011)

Tribeca Film Festival Recap (4): Adrien Brody's Powerful Melancholy in Tony Kaye's "Detachment" (2011)

Tribeca Film Festival Recap (3): A Taste for the Untasted, Original, Artistic Plate and for the Michelins in Sally Rowe's "A Matter of Taste" (2011)

Tribeca Film Festival Recap (2): Irish Humor in John Michael McDonaugh's "The Guard" (2011)

Brendan Gleeson saves the movie. Hopefully this will not sound too harsh, but I don't really see the purpose of this movie being made, other than using Gleeson as a pure politically incorrect vector of Irish humor and decorating the scene around him with some, remotely interesting (i.e. original) crime story and pairing him up with the respectable and always quality-delivery Don Cheadle. The two have some comic chemistry, but this does not compare to the ranks of other crime / police duos. Yet again, Brendan Gleeson saves the movie.

Tribeca Film Festival Recap (1): Orlando Bloom's Obsessive (Bad) Gaze in Lance Daly's "The Good Doctor" (2011)

Orlando Bloom stars in a gazing and obsessive role of a first year internal medicine (read: stay away from knives and needles) resident at a Los Angeles hospital, as the “Good” doctor. He is driven by a relentless, merciless and increasingly psychopathic search for respect, deference and status. Bloom consumes most of the screen time portraying how the chase for respect, recognition and respectable medical doctor can lead to an unethical, dangerous spiral. Based on the Daly’s answers after the screening, it seems that the film tries to blur the line between intentional harm and a cycle of bad decision that perhaps many can let themselves get pulled into. Really? Is this the film's intent? To make the viewer question his/her own judgement of ethical and moral behavior? There is no ambiguity, there is no blur between responsibility and bad intentions of the “good” doctor. My slight fascination with the medical profession has ensured that the film contains no boredom, or perhaps it didn't for anyone, even those indifferent to learning more about the portrayals of the working and personal lives of doctors. Orlando Bloom is truly immersed in being Dr. Martin Blake, there is no doubt. Please do not take this as of sign of laziness, but I must steal Variety's synopsis:

"Orlando Bloom stars as an English doctor newly arrived in California for his first year of residency in Lance Daly's highly un-Hippocratic psychological thriller "The Good Doctor." Black comedy lurks just below the suspenseful surface, with more than a hint of "Lolita"-esque absurdity as the doc falls under the kittenish spell of a nubile blonde high-school patient. Daly deftly creates a disturbing, Chabrol-like tension that plays on immediate identification with the handsome medico's lonely, shy vulnerability and slow-building horror at the depths to which his self-delusion can sink. Strong cast and nuanced direction prescribe healthy distribution."

Oscar Night 2011: My Picks

Supporting actor: Bale
Supporting actress: Leo
Adapted screenplay: Sorkin (Social Network)
Original screenplay: Seidler (King's Speech)
Documentary: Restrepo
Film editing: 127 hours
Foreign: Biutiful
Directing: Fincher (Social Network)
Best actress: Portman
Best actor: Firth
Best motion picture: King's Speech

Post-Oscar night recap:
- Predictable and quite uneventful
- The pretty great cinema of last year deserved a better show
- Why was Franco there again?
- A few less dress changes for Hathaway might have actually made the Oscar duo host give us at least one live duo hosting performance. There was no reason to have two hosts, Franco could have easily just made the appearance in the introductory movie scene compilation and there would be no difference.
- I learned something new: all the personal stories behind the production of the King's Speech. Makes you believe again that a labor of love cannot go unnoticed or unrecognized.