The Place Beyond the Pines (2013)

You can't choose your family

The film is a very clear three act presentation of three related threads of the same story.  The connections become clear later in the film, although Derek Cianfrance tips his hand a little making the payoff a bit predictable.  This film starts off really strong, but finishes a bit weakly with the second and third acts lack the power of the first one.  Cianfrance is the man behind Blue Valentine, one of my favorite films of the past few years.

The Place Beyond the Pines gets 3 out of 5 stars!

Director: Derek Cianfrance
Writer: Derek Cianfrance
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes
Rotten Tomatoes: 81%
Metacritic: 68%

Holy Motors (2012)

Weird, wonderful and, well, just weird

Holy Motors is actually hard to describe, so watching it is a must.  This surrealistic romp through the city of Paris is a beautiful piece of storytelling.  Essentially it is several short stories pieced together in a very creative fashion.  Holy Motors is bizarre, to say the least, but still accessible to the average film watcher.  The director (Leos Carax) manages to avoid the traps that other directors have fallen into thus keeping it from feeling like a bad student film.  At the end of it all, I was left asking questions like, what was real.

Holy Motors gets 5 out of 5 stars!

Director: Leos Carax

Writer: Leos Carax

Starring: Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, Eva Mendes

Rotten Tomatoes: 91%

Metacritic: 84%