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Kim Hollis: What movies have you watched lately, and what did you think of them?

Edwin Davies: I've been catching up on films from earlier this year and awards contenders lately, so this weekend I watched:

Frances Ha - I'm a bit cool on both Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig, but I was blown away by how much I loved this film. It’s a gorgeous, funny and insightful film about being young and aimless that manages to celebrate the freedom of trying to follow your dreams while also embracing the fact that everyone has to grow up sometimes. I've had Modern Love by David Bowie stuck in my head ever since watching it, and that's a pretty good place to be.

We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks - Alex Gibney's a filmmaker I admire a great deal, both for his prolificity - he makes three to four documentaries a year - and his ability to approach difficult subjects with a cool head. WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are all divisive figures, and I felt that he treated them evenhandedly by portraying them as well-intentioned but flawed individuals. Whether that is true is a matter of debate (WikiLeaks has taken strongly against the film, perhaps unsurprisingly) but I found it compelling nonetheless.

Dallas Buyers Club - This could have easily been somber Oscar bait (real life story, AIDS, actor loses a scary amount of weight for the role) but it's a much more fun and lively film than that. McConaughey continues his superb run of form with a funny, abrasive and sympathetic performance as a man forced to be a hero to save himself from the ravages of HIV, while Jared Leto, who I tend to dislike because he's always trying so hard to be taken seriously, is brilliant because he lightens up and has a little fun. It strikes me as a film that is going to dominate the acting categories as we get deeper into awards season.

All Is Lost - Speaking of great acting, Robert Redford ends years of complacency by anchoring a nearly dialogue-free tale of survival on the high seas. It feels like a companion piece/refutation of Gravity in some ways, but the main point of comparison is that they're both gripping stories of people trapped in dreadful situations and striving to overcome them through sheer ingenuity.

Jason Barney: I have not been out to the movies much recently. The only film I have gone to see of late is Gravity, and that was excellent. Better than expected. I am likely to go see The Hobbit 2 when it comes out, and I did not see the first one in theaters, though I got it on DVD recently. It was better than I expected, although a lot of people disliked it, I guess.

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