Disappearances "The Movie"

Anybody who knows me very well knows that I watch a LOT of DVD's...I only patronize the movie theater for a movie I just can't wait for, such as Pirates 3, Sicko, Ocean's 13 (which I don't care what anybody says, I LOVED!). However, a lot of DVD's I do watch. In the process of watching all these movies I experience a lot of crap...a lot of crap; aka I Love Your Work, The King, Little Athens. Crap, crap and more crap!!!!

At any rate, I've seen a few good ones as of late, most recently Disappearances. A brief breakdown of the story from the website is as follows:

The Story:

Based on the award-winning novel by Howard Frank Mosher. Legendary actor/songwriter Kris Kristofferson (Blade, The Jacket, Dreamer, A Star is Born, Lone Star, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore), stars as schemer and dreamer Quebec Bill Bonhomme -- in a spellbinding tale of high-stakes whiskey-smuggling, a family's mysterious past, and a young boy's rite of passage (Charlie McDermott from The Village and Windy Acres as Wild Bill Bonhomme).

Quebec Bill, desperate to raise money to preserve his endangered cattle herd through a long winter, resorts to whiskey smuggling, a traditional family occupation. He takes his son, Wild Bill, on an unforgettable trip that will long remain etched in the viewer's mind: a journey through vast reaches of the Canadian wilderness and into a haunted and elusive past. What they find is the stuff of genuine legend.

The Time: 1932, just months before the repeal of Prohibition and two weeks shy of Wild Bill's fifteenth birthday.

The Place: Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, the edge of the North Country frontier straddling the Vermont/Canadian border.

The Cast: Kris Kristofferson, Charlie McDermott, Genevieve Bujold, Gary Farmer, William Sanderson, Lothaire Bluteau, Luis Guzman, Bill Raymond, Heather Rea, John Griesemer.

The reason I had to use their description is because to be honest I don't think I could have figured out how to explain this movie. It's wonderful, but there is so much more that goes on than the simple description lets you know. It's confusing and mystifying, but in a good way. Admittedly I'll sit and watch Kris Kristofferson pick his nose for 2 hours and never complain....I find him completely intriguing. But, that aside I feel this is a good flick.

Some others I've seen as of late which I felt were actually pretty good was a little film called Winter Passing. I can't find a good website to link to for this, so the best synopsis I found is as follows:

Who's in it? Will Ferrell , Ed Harris , Zooey Deschanel , Amelia Warner

What's it about? A dramatic comedy by award-winning playwright Adam Rapp, Winter Passing charts the fractious reunion of an estranged father and daughter. Struggling twenty-something actress Reese Holden (Zooey Deschanel) has been promised $100,000 for publication of love letters written by her legendary, but reclusive father, novelist Don Holden (Ed Harris), to his equally revered late wife, also an acclaimed writer and Reese's mother. In search of these letters, Reese treks from New York City back home to Michigan, where she finds her father in flagrant disregard of his own health and living with two younger housemates: one, a practical former grad student, Shelly (Amelia Warner) and the other, a would-be musician, Corbit (Will Ferrell). Though no angel herself, Reese does not approve of this ad-hoc "family." Little by little, she comes to appreciate her unlikely new siblings, and as secrets are revealed, Reese comes to terms with her father, their shared past and hopeful future.

I personally feel this is one of the 2 best pictures Will Ferrell has done, the other being Stranger Than Fiction. But that's my opinion, from a woman who didn't see much humor at all in Talladega Nights....I wanted to like it, just couldn't seem to pull that one off!

To summarize the two films and add a few more I thought were worth the time it took to load them in the DVD player:

1. Disappearances
2. Winter Passing
3. The Painted Veil (Ed Norton period piece...good movie!)
4. Black Snake Moan (Sam Jackson, Christina Ricci) VERY good!
5. Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls. Predictable, but good. I liked it a great deal!

I could go on and on, but if you want some different movies with different angles this is a good short list to give a try.