Winter's Bone (2010)

This is one I've been meaning to watch for a long time. It was the only Best Picture nominee since 2010 that I had missed. Prompted by Debra Granik's powerful Leave No Trace this year, I caught Winter's Bone. And I admit I was a little disappointed. I thought it was kind of boring. This is the movie that made Jennifer Lawrence a star. She is an optimistic figure in what is otherwise a bleak Ozark landscape in a relentlessly brutal movie. I just wasn't in the mood for this kind of movie.

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

It's a dark comedy, cleverly written, well-acted, and unexpectedly quite funny for a movie about vigilante justice. But I do feel like it hides a little behind it's label as a dark comedy. There are some rather problematic parts that I think have been glossed over a little quickly without scrutiny. For example, Peter Dinklage's character is the butt of a number of ill-spirited midget jokes. How about the blase attitude on police brutality? There's the cop that beats African Americans. There's this same cop that defenestrates people. There's the sheriff that seems to condone this cop's behavior. And we're supposed to feel bad for this sheriff? And what about the black friend that is thrown in jail on trumped up drug charges? Frances McDormand makes a big fuss about it at first, but then let's it go. Just collateral damage. So what redeems the movie amidst all this? Frances McDormand. She's devilishly good.

Everest (2015)

Everest is a film about torture.  These mountaineers inexplicably put themselves through misery for a steep $65,000 per summit. Climbing the highest mountain in the world does not look like fun. It is unbearably cold, the air is inhumanely thin, and everyone is perpetually exhausted.  I thought Jake Gyllenhaal would have a larger part in the movie, but he was hardly in it.  The visuals are incredible though.  You actually feel as miserable as the trekkers and you feel like you're on the side of the mountain.  You feel the snow pouring down as it becomes more difficult to breathe.  It is a truly immersive experience that probably would've been great in IMAX. Nothing ever goes right in the expedition doomed to fail.  It is a dangerous adventure disaster movie.  And it is done quite well. One of the scariest moments is crossing a ladder bridged across a deep crevasse in the ice.  It is a flimsy looking ladder and there is nothing protecting them from falling down into the depths.  The aerial shot over the bottomless pit is a dizzying visual.  These are some terrifying shots.