Friday's Top 5... Oscar Longshots I'll Be Rooting For on Sunday

#5: American Hustle for Best Costume Design
I don't have any particularly strong feelings about the Costume Design category, but it would be refreshing to see the Academy recognize a film that isn't a costume drama. Since AMPAS failed to recognize American Hustle with a nomination in the Makeup and Hairstyling category, I don't expect they'll reward the film here, no matter how deserving the film may be.

Review: The Hunt (2013)

* * * 1/2
Director: Thomas Vinterberg
Starring: Mads Mikkelsen

"The world is full of evil, but if we hold on to each other, it goes away." There is evil in the world, but sometimes its in the holding on to each other, the closing of ranks against another in the name of "justice," where evil truly takes root. Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt is about a man singled out by a community eager to mete out the punishment that the criminal justice system might be too slow to satisfactorily bestow, never pausing to try to look beyond their own sense of righteousness to consider that one of the reasons that the criminal justice system can be slow is that, ideally, the right person will be charged with the right crime - if, in fact, there even is a crime. It's an intense and taut film, well constructed and emotionally engaging, even if its central conceit is built on a straw man argument.

Review: The Counselor (2013)

* * 1/2
Director: Ridley Scott
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Cameron Diaz, Brad Pitt, Penelope Cruz

It's easy to see why Ridley Scott's The Counselor landed with such a thud (both critical and commercial) when it arrived in theaters last fall. It's an aggressively inaccessible film, savagely violent in some places, thick with talk in most places. I admire the film for its confidence; mainstream films (and given its cast and its director, The Counselor qualifies as mainstream), even the good ones, usually seem like they've been put together by committee, designed to appeal to as many people as possible, but The Counselor has the courage to be its own animal and do its own thing. It's bold, it's fascinating, and it doesn't entirely work, but when it fails it does so on its own terms and there aren't a ton of movies you can say that about.

Canadian Film Review: Vic and Flo Saw a Bear (2013)

* * *
Director: Denis Cote
Starring: Pierrette Robitaille, Romane Bohringer, Marc-Andre Grondin

Denis Cote's Vic and Flo Saw a Bear would seem like a relaxed affair about two ex-cons struggling to pick up their lives on the outside were it not for the film's ominous musical score. The beating drums, furious and insistent, force themselves into the foreground, keeping you on edge and waiting for whatever big thing is going to happen to happen. In that respect, Vic and Flo does not disappoint - the "big thing" when it finally happens is pretty shocking, ripping the film out of a tone which at times verges on the darkly comedic, and placing it pretty firmly within the realm of brutal crime drama, and doing so without missing a beat. That's no small accomplishment, and it's only one of the things this charmingly bizarre, character-driven drama has going for it.

Review: Stranger by the Lake (2013)

* * * *
Director: Alain Guiraudie
Starring: Pierre de Ladonchamps, Christophe Paou

There's something almost hypnotic about Alain Guiraudie's Stranger by the Lake, a brutally effective thriller about sex and death in which the intensity of the characters' abandon is matched only by the sharp precision of Guiraudie's storytelling. Sexually explicit, rigidly structured, and narrowly focused, the film may be a bridge too far for some viewers, particularly those who prefer their thrillers a little faster paced, but its level of craft can't be denied.