Drama Movies

An old maid turned millionaire’s wife realizes that she’s going to be denied her husband’s inheritance and decides to do something about it in Elena, the 2011 winner of Cannes’ Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize. Described as a Hitchcockian thriller but in reality a somber drama without a third act, Elena has a lot of good things going for it until it doesn’t, begging the question: what’s the point?

Read FilmJabber’s full Elena movie review.

If you ever wanted to see Seth Rogen in a serious movie… If you ever wanted to see Michelle Williams in yet another emotional drama… If you ever wanted to see full frontal nudity from Sarah Silverman… there’s Take This Waltz, the second full-length feature from Sarah Polley. At times cute, others moving, Take This Waltz is a mesmerizing little movie. I just wish I could remember how it ended.

Read FilmJabber’s full Take This Waltz movie review.

Complex, star-studded and gripping, Margaret had serious potential for award contention – back when it was made in 2007. Five years later, the drama arrives on DVD and Blu-ray with a whimper, a victim of multiple edits, lawsuits and rumors. The final result, a 150-minute epic, is a paradox: it is simultaneously incredible and a muddled mess.

Read FilmJabber’s full Margaret movie review.

You may not be looking forward to the upcoming drama Anna Karenina, but I am. The movie is the latest movie from Joe Wright, who directed the excellent period dramas Pride & Prejudice and Atonement. And just like those movies, this one, about a high society Russian woman who begins to question her happiness and marriage when she meets a daring young man, stars Anna Karenina.

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I typically try to write reviews for every individual Blu-ray I receive in the mail (well, the good ones), but after a crazy hectic June I came home late last week to find a stack of great movies sitting on my doorstep. All were released in the last few weeks, but the thought of tackling all of them was overwhelming. I won’t write about movies just because I receive them, but these six warrant attention:

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When Willem Dafoe sets his sights on something, he’s going to get it. That’s too bad for the elusive Tasmanian tiger in the drama-thriller The Hunter, in which the celebrated actor plays a mercenary hired by a secretive military biotech company to track down the last remaining specimen of the animal. Usually a loner, he bonds with the troubled mother and her two children that he lodges with while on his quest.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Hunter movie review.

I just watched a Channing Tatum stripper movie. By myself. In a theater. And I sort of kind of I’ve got to admit liked it. Let me rephrase. I just watched a new Steven Soderbergh drama. And it was good.

Read FilmJabber’s full Magic Mike movie review.

The high-stakes world of Seattle politics gets the big screen treatment with Grassroots. I’d be lying if I said it was a movie only a Seattleite could love, because Grassroots is a well-acted and entertaining drama – albeit one that fades in the home stretch.

Read FilmJabber’s full Grassroots movie review.

Jim from “The Office” and Drew Barrymore star in the lighthearted drama Big Miracle, which is apparently based on a true story about three whales trapped under a sheet of ice, miles from the open ocean. Despite being sappy and melodramatic, Big Miracle is a movie that is hard to hate – and one that gets you rooting for the inevitable salvation of those silly whales.

Read FilmJabber’s full Big Miracle movie review.

Your brother’s dead. Your brother’s girlfriend, who is also your best friend, tells you to go to her cabin for a weekend to get away from things. You sleep with her lesbian sister. You find out your best friend is in love with you. Best weekend or worst weekend ever? Lynn Shelton’s Your Sister’s Sister tackles just such a scenario and offers audiences one of the most engaging movies of the year.

Read FilmJabber’s full Your Sister’s Sister movie review.

Is Robert Zemeckis finally back? The evil spirit that took control of the Back to the Future director for the last decade has apparently been vanquished, at least temporarily, for Zemeckis’ first non-motion capture movie since 2000′s Cast Away arrives this November in the form of Flight, a serious drama about a plane crash and starring Denzel Washington.

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The renowned novel Les Miserables
comes to the big screen [again] in grand fashion, helmed by The King’s Speech director Tom Hooper and starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway. The first teaser trailer is now online – watch it here.

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