Actresses Catherine Keener and newcomer Jennifer Lawrence give us good reasons to visit the movie houses this week.
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Does Catherine Keener ever appear in a bad movie? This smart and acerbic comedy-with-bite is the latest display of Keener's huge talent to bring fully realized portraits of modern American women to the screen. She's paired here with Oliver Platt as her husband and co-owner of a vintage furniture store in New York City that relies on, well, other people's deaths to keep the shop well-stocked. Their latest goal is to expand their home turf by buying the adjoining apartment even though its 90-year-old resident (Ann Morgan Guilbert, who boomers will remember as Millie on "The Dick Van Dyke Show") is still kicking. Well-crafted supporting performances by Rebecca Hall and Amanda Peet as the neighbor's polar opposite granddaughters elevate writer-director Nicole Holofcener's film to one with sheen and polish. - Steve Walker
Winter's Bone
The scary and harsh yet oddly beautiful Ozark country of Southern Missouri is the setting for director and screenwriter Debra Granik's masterfully crafted adaptation of a Daniel Woodrell novel. Newcomer Jennifer Lawrence plays Ree, a scrappy 17-year-old whose strength and perseverance are brutally tested when local police threaten to take away the family's property unless she can find the drug-addicted father who has disappeared while out on bond. Though her determination is formidable, everyone in town - especially the women - would rather she just go away. Granik's style recalls such Coen Brothers' films as "Blood Simple" and "No Country for Old Men," and high among her achievements is hiring a crew dedicated to giving audiences a palpable sense of place; one can almost smell the freshly cleaned squirrel sizzling atop the stove and hear the crude wind chimes made of rope and rocks. If the movie gets the buzz it deserves, look for Lawrence to get a Best Actress Oscar nomination - Steve Walker
Listen to Winter's Bone Director Debra Granik on Up to Date
A Saga In The Ozarks, Suited For The Screen (NPR)
'Winter's Bone' Director Re-Creates Life In The Ozarks (NPR)