Up

Both LA Times movie critics Kenneth Turan and Betsey Sharkey give Pixar's "Up" a thumbs up. Sharkey writes:

Oh, for a flight of fancy on a summer day, carried aloft by a rainbow bouquet of a hundred balloons -- that's what the animated "Up" feels like, a lovely escape from the realities that tether us to the ground. In a sense, directors Pete Docter and Bob Peterson have given us two movies, which is not so disconcerting if you know that going in. It opens with 78-year-old Carl, voiced by an excellent Ed Asner, remembering life with his beloved late wife Ellie, a loving look at an ordinary life. But with memories come regret and soon Carl and a young wilderness explorer named Russell (Jordan Nagai) are off in search of the South American adventurer Carl and Ellie meant to track down all those years ago. One part sentiment, one part adventure, terrific animation, catch it if you can.

The full review of "Up" by Kenneth Turan can be read here at the LA Times

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Opened May 29, 2009 Runtime:1 hr. 36 min.
Cast: Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, John Ratzenberger, Bob Peterson, Jordan Nagai, Delroy Lindo
Director: Pete Docter
Genres: Family-Oriented Adventure, Children's/Family

Seraphine

Kenneth Turan awards a "Critics' Choice" to French movie, "Seraphine":

What makes this winner of seven Césars, including best film and best actress, so exceptional is that it neither condescends to nor romanticizes its subject, a World War I-era Primitive artist. Rather, powered by a performance of a lifetime by Belgium-born actress Yolande Moreau, it allows us to meet this singular person on her own terms, lets us see how ordinary life, extraordinary artistic ability and eccentric mental states can and do exist in the same person.
Kenneth Turan's review of "Seraphine" at the LA Times

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Synopsis

Belgian actress Yolande Moreau headlines this biopic, starring as a little-known but uncommonly brilliant painter. Frenchwoman Séraphine Louis (Moreau), aka Séraphine de Senlis, lived from 1864 to 1942. Though ostensibly a shepherdess and housekeeper whose chief duties involved cooking, cleaning, and ironing, in her off-hours Séraphine joyously turned to natural elements of the outdoor world, with which she felt a tremendous degree of emotional and spiritual communion. Séraphine channeled these undying passions through painting, and, having only the scantest materials at hand, created paints from elements such as animal blood, oil from church candles, and dirt pulled from the ground. With these crude and raw tools, the nascent, budding artist created tableaux of floral arrangements utterly unlike any seen before. Sadly, those around Séraphine perceived the paintings as coarse and unimpressive -- something of a joke. Her life took a most fantastic turn, then, when Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur), a German art critic, turned up in Senlis -- and laid eyes on the young woman's creations for the first time. Yet, despite the success that Uhde brought to Séraphine, a sad future still lay ahead for the young woman -- one accompanied by continued obscurity and emotional isolation. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Opened June 5, 2009 Runtime:2 hr. 5 min
Cast: Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur, Anne Bennent, Genevieve Mnich
Director: Martin Provost
Genres: Period Film, Drama
French with English subtitles

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Summer Hours

Kenneth Turan wrote the review of "Summer Hours", while Betshy Sharkey gave it a critic's choice award:

Though you can almost smell the wisteria blooms, don't let the heavenly French country home and the lovely family gathered for lunch in the garden lull you into thinking that "Summer Hours" offers an escape from life's tougher realities. Rather, writer-director Olivier Assayas' finely wrought film uses the bucolic landscape to sow the first seeds of what will become more of a death and taxes discussion. Edith Scob's Hélène, the family matriarch, sets the table nicely, pulling aside her eldest, Frédéric (Charles Berling), to discuss her wishes on the dispensation of the house and its contents after her death. Also starring Juliette Binoche as the sister and Jérémie Renier as the other brother, "Summer Hours" proves a sharply incisive, yet poignant look at how we decide what bits of our past to keep and what to let go of. In this case, it's more than a mother's mementos at issue, it's France itself.

Synopsis
The divergent paths of three forty-something siblings collide when their mother, heiress to her uncle’s exceptional 19th-century art collection, dies suddenly. Left to come to terms with themselves and their differences, Adrienne (Juliette Binoche), a successful New York designer, Frédéric (Charles Berling), an economist and university professor in Paris, and Jérémie (Jérémie Renier), a dynamic businessman in China, confront the end of childhood, their shared memories, background and unique vision of the future.

Opened May 15, 2009 Runtime:1 hr. 43 min.
*Note: Film is presented in French with English subtitles.

Cast: Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, Jérémie Renier, Edith Scob, Dominique Reymond
Director: Olivier Assayas
Genres: Drama, Family Drama

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