Labor Day Ushers In New Year

      Happy Chinese New Year distinguished cinephiles, shout outs to Greece, Russia, France, India, and the United Kingdom for the hits.  This is the year of the horse!  The year the DENVER BRONCOS will win  SUPERBOWL 48!  2014 where does the time go?  As David Lynch would say it is strange.  Love is so strange.

Today I had the privilege and honor of watching Jason Reitman's latest film.  When Kate Winslet said in an interview that this was her favorite love story she has ever been a part it peeked my interest.  She was perfect at playing a depressed single mother.  At the inception she seems dead to the world and unable to function in society.  The look of the film is excellent.  Small town east coast.  The film takes place in a Massachusetts.  The story is simple yet great.  A lonely woman and an ex-convict are forced to be together.  However, the magic exists in the acting between the two actors.  Kate Winslet completely comes alive and looks like a different person in the film once she falls in love.  Josh Brolin is fantastic at being dark and mysterious.  While, simultaneously he is a amazing cook, mentor, and handy man.  The scene of the family baking a peach pie together is a show stopper.  The hunger and the passion of medieval romance is so refreshing to see in a motion picture.  I feel that all too often the magic is dissipated.  The fact that the film takes place in 1987 is a key element.  The family actually spends time together engaging in baseball, eating food, and relaxing on the porch.  It takes place in the summer time helps create a feeling of heated romance.  Kate Winslet portrays someone whom is very much a prisoner of her own life and Brolin is a prisoner.  However, the two bring out the best of each other in a remarkably beautiful way.  Gattlin Griffith portrays the son of Winslet.  The character is so well written for a kid.  I credit Reitman with having the gravitas to create a young person with so much depth.  In many ways he is more socially stable than his mother.  However, watching Winslet blossom during the course of the film then wilt is awe inspiring.

      Reitman's on a hot streak JUNO, UP IN THE AIR, YOUNG ADULT, LABOR DAY!
      Go see a film that is unlike so many this year of the horse.  Go Broncos!