Wind River

A young Arapaho woman is found almost naked, frozen solid, on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Murders on the res are investigated not only by tribal police, but by the FBI. Usually in stories like this, the FBI agent is arrogant and expects everyone to kowtow, but this one, played by Elizabeth Olsen, realizes she doesn’t know the land or the people, and that she is in over her head. ... Read more »

The Wind That Shakes the Barley

Ken Loach is an unapologetic lefty socialist Brit who is much more popular in Europe than in his own country or in America. It’s not hard to see why many Brits don’t like him and accuse him of hating his country; his portrait of the British occupying forces in Ireland in 1920 is about as brutal as it gets. But it’s one thing to hate your country, and quite another to hate its government, ... Read more »

The Window

Here is one of those forgotten gems, though I hear it has a cult following. Sign me up. It’s from a story by Cornell Woolrich, and it’s based on the old fable of the boy who cried wolf. Little Tommy (Tommy Driscoll) is a fabulist, always making up stories to tell his friends. Some of them get him in trouble. Then on a hot and sultry night he decides to sleep out on the fire escape. He ... Read more »

Winged Migration

Stunning, awesome, unbelievable! I can’t find enough superlatives for this film. There is no dialogue, no real story; you fly with the migratory birds, right among them. I wish I’d seen this on a big screen, but then I would definitely have rented the DVD later, as well, because there is a documentary on how it was made that is about as long as the film itself, and just about as amazing. ... Read more »

The Wings of the Dove

Based on a novel by Henry James. A young woman (Helena Bonham Carter) with no money, dependent on her rich aunt, in love with a young man with no money, is befriended by a rich American young woman who is dying and in love with the young man. Obvious solution, to Helena anyway: Young man marries heiress, she dies, and then marries Helena and is able to keep her in the style to which she is ... Read more »

Winter in Wartime

Here we have a compelling story, and less than compelling moviemaking. The story is strong enough that I still enjoyed it quite a bit, but every once in a while I winced at the cliches.

There’s a Dutch boy in 1944, during the German occupation. A British plane is shot down and one of the crew parachutes into the snowy woods. The boy finds him, and shelters him in a bunker. Brings ... Read more »

Winter Passing

It’s all pretty routine. The daughter of two famous writers returns home to have it out with her neglectful father after her neglectful mother hangs herself. Ed Harris is an alcoholic, wasting away in the garage behind a country house, more or less unable to write anymore. Will Farrell has moved in as a sort of caretaker, along with Amelia Warner, a former writing student. The daughter, ... Read more »

Winter’s Bone

Most critics won’t admit it, but I think that mood has a lot to do with it. How are you feeling when you watch a movie? Are you distracted by things in your personal life. Did you get out of bed on the wrong side, as they say? Suffering a bout of indigestion? Just generally feeling sour about things? Sometimes I’m in the mood for a good movie that just happens to be depressing … and ... Read more »

Winter’s Bone (Second review)

I tried to watch this when it was new, but I got so depressed after about half an hour that I just had to quit. I mean, who were these horrible people? Did the meth they cook and sell and snort fry their brains, or were they that disgusting all the time? I could not stand watching them as they brutalized poor Jennifer Lawrence. Hillbilly inbreeding, I ... Read more »

Wish You Were Here

Emily Lloyd was a hot actress for a while there in the early ‘90s, on the strength of her performance here as a rebellious young woman. We loved her in In Country, which was probably Bruce Willis’s best performance, too. But the lady has severe problems, including schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, ... Read more »