If you're wanting to get a jump on Valentine's Day with a special someone this weekend, look no further. These recommendations from Up To Date's indie, foreign and documentary film critics could be a great date. They also have a few special recommendations you can check out just in time for the Oscars.
Steve Walker
2017 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Live Action, Not rated
- The best of the five are a rhapsodic Swiss film starring Jane Birken, pop icon of London's Swinging Sixties, a timely French entry about an Algerian man’s pre-citizenship interview, and a mini-musical set in a parking garage that shows in fifteen minutes more creativity and inventiveness than in all of La-La Land.
Julieta, R
- Pedro Almodóvar’s beautiful new film casts Emma Suárez and Adriana Ugarte in the title role, captured twenty-five years apart, of a free-thinking woman whose daughter severs their relationship out of spiritual conviction.
Elle, R
- Isabelle Huppert cements her reputation as the most fearless actress working today by playing the CEO of a company specializing in violent video games who exhibits complicated reactions to the man who rapes her and the act itself.
Cynthia Haines
2017 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Animated, Not rated
- If you're a fan of those shorts that used to play before a Pixar movie, the top five 2017 animated shorts are right down your alley. From hilarious to heart warming and even a tad somber, these movies are brief but effective at delivering a message.
2017 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Live Action, Not rated
- All five of the 2017 nominated live action shorts are from foreign countries and bring their own culture's flare. For example, the movie "Sing" displays insight into the life of a schoolgirl in Hungary, who must deal with an overly demanding choir instructor.
Julieta, R
- Director Pedro Almodóvar's 20th feature film is about fate, guilt, and uncertainty. After her daughter abandons her to search for a "spiritual dimension" in life, Julieta moves on and settles down but, thirty years later, her life is derailed by a chance encounter.
