Beginners
(2010)

Director: Mike Mills
Rated R for language and some sexual content
Runtime: 105 minutes
Language: English

Delicate business is being transacted in this touchingly personal and altogether extraordinary film from writer-director Mike Mills. As Oliver, a conceptional artist, Ewan McGregor is a surrogate for Mills. The cancer-related death of his father, Hal (Christopher Plummer), has persuaded Oliver to examine his own emotional core. Only five years earlier, at 75, Hal had come out as a gay man.

Oliver doesn't judge his father. He simply looks back at Hal's late-blooming openness, especially at the passion and compassion that blend in Hal's love affair with the much younger Andy (Goran Visnjic), and wonders why he's never been able to find that in himself. Mills turns Beginners into something more than a movie. It's a collage of collected memories of his father coupled with an art project he's developing on "The History of Sadness" and a tentative reaching out to Anna (the excellent Mélanie Laurent), a French actress perhaps looking for more than Oliver can deliver.

McGregor goes bone-deep in a performance of shining subtlety. And a never-better Plummer is simply stupendous, refusing any call to sentiment as he shows us Hal's resonant lunge at life. Mills works the same way. Beginners is one from the bruised heart.

About Oscar winner Christopher Plummer: With his win at the age of 82 in 2012 for “Beginners” as Best Supporting Actor, Canadian actor Plummer (born December 13, 1929) is the oldest actor ever to win an Academy Award.

In a career that spans seven decades and includes substantial roles in theatre, film and television, Plummer has won numerous awards and accolades for his work, including an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a BAFTA Award. He made his film debut in 1957s “Stage Struck”, and notable early film performances include” The Night of the Generals”, “The Return of the Pink Panther”, and” The Man Who Would Be King”.

His most recent film roles include the “The Insider” as Mike Wallace, the Disney-Pixar 2009 film “Up” as Charles Muntz, the Shane Acker production “9” as 1, “The Last Station” as Leo Tolstoy, “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” as Doctor Parnassus, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” as Henrik Vanger, and “Beginners” as Hal.

“Beginners” premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, where the Los Angeles Times heralded it as a "heady, heartfelt film" with a cast who has "a strong sense of responsibility to their real-world counterparts".

With cinematography by Kasper Tuxen, the movie was filmed with a Red One digital cinema camera.

Happy Happy
(Norwegian: Sykt lykkelig)

Director: Anne Sewitsky
Rated: R for sexual content including brief graphic nudity
Runtime: 88 minutes
Language: English, Norwegian (with Engl. Subtitles)

Norway’s official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 84th Academy Awards.

Family is the most important thing in the world to Kaja. She is an eternal optimist in spite of living with a man who would rather go hunting with the boys, and who refuses to have sex with her because she isn't particularly attractive anymore. Whatever. That's life. But when the perfect couple moves in next door, Kaja struggles to keep her emotions in check. Not only do these successful, beautiful, exciting people sing in a choir; they have also adopted a child - from Ethiopia. These new neighbors open a new world to Kaja, with consequences for everyone involved. And when Christmas comes around, it becomes evident that nothing will ever be like before - even if Kaja tries her very best.

Attenberg

Director: Athina Rachel Tsangari
Rated: not rated
Runtime: 95 minutes
Language: Greek (with Engl. Subtitles)

Greece's Official Entry for the Academy Awards, ATTENBERG is a wonderfully deadpan, surprisingly touching coming-of-age story.

23-year-old Marina lives in a small, factory town by the sea where she passes her time watching Sir David Attenborough's nature programs, listening to the proto-punk songs of Suicide, goofing with her only friend Bella, and tending to her ailing father. When a visiting engineer (Oscar-nominated Dogtooth director Yorgos Lanthimos) comes to town, the two form a tentative relationship that pushes Marina into contact with the strange and complex world of adulthood. Critically acclaimed, ATTENBERG is a sincere and humorous look at life's defining moments.

The film was nominated for the Golden Lion at the 67th Venice International Film Festival[1] and Ariane Labed won the Coppa Volpi for the Best Actress. It was filmed in the town of Aspra Spitia, in the Greek region of Boeotia.

Stunning! --Karina Longworth, LA Weekly
Original! Fearless! --G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle
Boldly conceived! --Andrew Schenker, Slant Magazine

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