Well-Digger’s Daughter – 8

How sweet, how innocent, how French! How could anyone with a heart, and nostalgia for simple life in the country before the war (WWI!), not melt at the love affair between the rich, but talented, boy and the poor, but sophisticated, girl. Actually, the love affair we had to take a bit on faith; what the movie showed more clearly, and in a way more movingly, was the struggle by the father to reconcile love for his daughter with the need to protect the honor of his family. And since Daniel Auteuil adapted the Marcel Pagnol story and directed the film, you understood that his performance as the father was a labor of love.

Queen of Versailles – 8

One of those lucky documentaries that ran into a bigger story than the filmmaker could have anticipated – not that the largest house in America, the original story, wasn’t big. Instead, Lauren Greenfield wound up with a microcosm of the U.S. financial meltdown of 2008-09. Easy credit fueled David Siegel’s time-share empire and then brought it tumbling down. The shell of “Versailles” remained as a symbol of the housing bust that is still with us, years later. The movie’s miracle is that it manages to tell this story without moralizing: there are no villains onscreen (or heroes either, for that matter). Jackie, the titular queen, is clueless and tawdry, but not unsympathetic. She is never arrogant and doesn’t go around blaming others or feeling sorry for herself. We are left, mostly, with mouths agape, that there are people like this, that this is what our country has come to, and that a filmmaker could have been so close, watching this story unfold.

Premium Rush – 5

The highlight of this film is the Who’s Baba O’Riley, which plays during the opening and closing credits. Everything in between is just silly, starting with the characters and ending with the plot. For awhile, the rush of the bicycles in midtown Manhattan traffic carried me along, but that eventually grew tiresome and that was left was a plenitude of absurdities.

Elena – 7.8

So Russian, so Dostoevsky, so Cranes Are Flying, so Crime and Punishment! The camera never moves and the characters move slowly (except, notably, the flashing lifeguard). Everything is stolid, everything so mundane. The story, too, is stolid: a murder is committed, and gotten away with, for the benefit of the least deserving young man and his similarly feckless father. There is no moral here, just rot.

Intouchables – 4

Pure hokum. Again, the curse of the “based on a true story.” No screenwriter would’ve dared come up with such an unlikely, farfetched story if he hadn’t had the stranger-than-fiction truth to egg him on. I couldn’t find a laugh all night, although the ladies behind me practically guffawed. As for me, it was a continuity of scenes ringing false, from the hiring of the unqualified, uninterested Driss in the first place, to his painting an abstract masterpiece despite having no interest in art, to madly racing through city traffic without a driver’s license, to taking a private jet to go paragliding, etc., etc. I never knew what to make of Francois Cluzet’s paraplegic, but all I could think of was Dustin Hoffman’s Rain Man. Putting this on top of Marigold Hotel and there certainly seems a disconnect between popular taste this summer and my opinion.

Last Ride – 7.9

At bottom, this is the same story as Beasts of the Southern Wild, with a little less color but without any of that movie’s flaws. Instead of a sick father raising his daughter with tough love to prepare her for the world, here was a doomed father running from the law, raising his son with tough love to prepare him for the world. Both single fathers die and both children survive, lessons learned. The acting was equally brilliant. Hugo Weaving was tough, mean, loving and ultimately out-of-control, while Tom Russell had a less uplifting but dramatically more challening role than his Louisiana counterpart. And as foreign as the bayou was, South Australia was just as exotic. Beyond the parallels, what elevated Last Ride over Beasts for me was the logic of the story and the consistency of its telling. I was never confused as to what was real, what was imagination, what was memory; everything and everyone was of a piece and gripped me all the way.

Pelotero (Ballplayer) – 7.5

There’s a dance in the Dominican Republic on July 2 each year, when Major League baseball teams are permitted to sign contracts with 16-year-old Dominican ballplayers, who have this one chance to raise their entire family out of poverty. The temptation is great to lie about one’s age to command a higher signing bonus. MLB, conversely, is an unchallenged monopoly with an incentive to keep signing bonuses down. The documentary makers ofPelotero had the good fortune to choose for their story two young ballplayers who ended up exemplifying this push-and-pull: one seemingly the victim of collusion to keep his price down by spreading rumors of his ineligibility; the other, to the shock of his coach, having a fake birth certificate. The best news is that the former wound end signing, for less money, with the blameless Minnesota Twins and is now their top-rated minor-league player.

Beasts of the Southern Wild – 6.5

An extraordinary film, vividly capturing a foreign land inside the U.S. The acting is so authentic the movie comes across at times like a documentary, which led to my confusion: parts seem to be a commentary on post-Katrina Louisiana, while other parts – e.g., the escape from the hospital – are as fanciful as Moonrise Kingdom. The story itself wasn’t particularly wonderful, or even interesting. What was wonderful was the depiction of life in “The Bathtub,” a true community where races, sexes and ages mixed in harmony (and liquor) and people lived off the land (except for the liquor).

Moonrise Kingdom – 4

Half the humor and twice the budget of Ted, which we saw the same weekend. There are some artists you just don’t like – e.g., John Marin or Thomas Hart Benton – and Wes Anderson is one of those. His artistry is undeniable: he creates his alternate universe – this one is misleadingly labeled “1965” – and the stage sets and the people are all consistent. But I just don’t get it. None of the humor was funny – maybe “sardonic” was his goal instead – and none of his characters had either interest or appeal. Frances McDormand and Bill Murray have never been less attractive onscreen, and you sort of thought that was Anderson’s intent. The young lovers, Sam and Suzy, had more quirk than charm, and came across as cogs in Anderson’s bizarre wheel, not real people. In the future, when Anderson indulges himself artistically I will try to stay home.

Ted – 8

The heartwarming love story of a boy and his teddy, the one who won’t grow up and the other mature beyond his species. Oh, and there’s also Mila Kunis as the woman who comes between them. The other character is Boston, the city of Dennis Lehane, the Afflecks and the Farrelly Brothers, with homages like the French Connection car chase and the Fenway Park showdown. I laughed from the great opening scene – how children in Boston traditionally celebrate Christmas – and had tears running down my cheeks by the end. There were a few misfires – mainly the whole Norah Jones bit – but otherwise the pacing and tone were pitch-perfect. Only a curmudgeon or a jaded movie critic wouldn’t enjoy this film.