Writer-director Ale Abreu did his own drawings and paintings for this animated film, nominated for a Best Animated Film Oscar this year.

Boy and the World tells the story of a little boy who goes on a big, color bursting journey in search of his dad, and it’s not your standard animated movie. The film consists of pencil doodles, collages, crayon drawings, water paints and other mediums, strung together in a manner that flows surprisingly well.

The film contains almost no dialogue, and when characters do speak it’s in a make believe language. It’s full of vibrant music, and creative imagery. The story isn’t necessarily linear, and often told in impressionistic ways. In other words, it doesn’t have your standard beginning, middle and end.

It’s very dreamlike, and even a little scary at times. It also qualifies for multiple interpretations (I rather like my personal explanation for the ending, that of which I won’t give away here). Abreu must’ve had a blast drawing his many pictures for the movie, and it’s certainly a blast to watch them come to life. It doesn’t stand a chance at this year’s Oscars, but it does deserve a chance for you to see it. 

The 5th Wave is based upon the young adult novel by Rick Yancey, the first in a trilogy. God willing, this movie will be the only one to receive a movie adaptation.

Further cinematic installments will cause me to punch myself in the face and hurt my standing at the workplace, in social gatherings, etc.

Chloe Grace Moretz plays Cassie Sullivan, a normal teenage girl who drinks beer at parties, drools over high school football guy Ben Parish (Nick Robinson) and calls the guy from Office Space (Ron Livingston) dad. Things go from routine to wacky for Cassie when a big metal spaceship thing parks over Ohio and starts messing with the human race in “waves.”

The first wave involves an electromagnetic pulse that knocks out all power and renders PlayStation 4 useless, while the second wave brings earthquakes and tsunamis. The third wave involves plague, while the fourth includes survivors battling with aliens in human hosts. The fifth wave…well, that’s a mystery. A mystery you will solve really quick if you put forth even the slightest effort. Liev Schreiber and Maria Bello chime in as military personnel, each doing nothing to advance their film careers.

One of last year’s “It” girls, Mika Monroe of It Follows, plays young alien resistance recruit Ringer, a Goth girl who takes the time to put eye makeup on for the apocalypse. Hey, one hast to keep up appearances, right? Goetz in an interesting young actress but she makes a lot of bad movies. I haven’t been blown away by one of her movies since Hugo five years ago. She looks lost this time out, her bid for her own Twilight or Divergent a sad, sad thing.

You know, most weeks we talk about the Casa Video Top 10 as an alternative to spending the weekend actually doing things. But this weekend, there's a lot going on. You should go to Hotel Congress' Dillinger Days, watch This Changes Everything and/or do your part to beat back buffelgrass. And when you're done kicking ass and having fun, you should reward yourself with a night in, some salty popcorn and a film you didn't manage to catch in theaters. 

These were the most rented DVDs at Casa Video last week:

1. The Martian 


2. Sicario


3. Hotel Transylvania 2

In northern Turkey, four sisters opt to play on the beach, and some boys are present. Their innocent activity turns into a town scandal, with the girls being imprisoned in their own home and, one-by-one, shipped out in arranged marriages.

Denis Gamze Erguven directs this Oscar nominated film with strong performances from the young actresses, based on a screenplay she co-wrote with Alice Wincour. The most memorable of the performances comes from Ilayda Akdogan as the youngest sister, a girl who watches her family get torn apart by strange traditions and incest. There’s a liberating spirit to character that makes this film more about hope than it could’ve been. The adult portrayals aren’t as strong as the young women’s, but that’s okay.

Truth is, it’s there story that really matters, and Erguven tells it fearlessly. It’s a little dispiriting to see what these young women go through, but Erguven’s movie is an optimistic one, and the performers make it engaging.

A young woman (Brie Larson) and her five-year-old son, Jack (Jacob Tremblay) are held prisoner in a backyard shed. When Jack manages to escape, mother and son must learn to cope with life outside of their prison walls, and reacquaint themselves with their immediate family.

While Larson is excellent here, Tremblay is the biggest reason to see this movie. His portrayal of a small boy who has only known one room his entire life is revelatory, a performance like none other. While Larson has picked up a Golden Globe and a much-deserved Oscar nomination, Tremblay was robbed. Joan Allen delivers strong work as Jack’s grandma, dealing with the horror that brought him into the world and loving him the instant they meet. William H. Macy has a small but memorable part as Jack’s grandpa, a person who can’t get over what happened to his daughter. Lenny Abrahamson, who made last year’s excellent and relatively unknown Michael Fassbender comedy, Frank, directs the movie. Based on his work with these two films, he’s one of the industry’s most interesting directors.

The movie basically plays out in two parts, the imprisonment and the aftermath. Larson delivers a performance deserving of the accolades, but it’s Tremblay who makes the biggest mark.

It's cold outside. If you're brave (or have taken the initiative to actually build up a proper winter wardrobe) spend the weekend doing things! Enjoy yo'self. Or, you could brave the outdoors just long enough to get in and out of our favorite local video store, before hunkering down under a glorious pile of comforters. 

But what to watch? These were the most popular rentals at Casa Video for the first full week of 2016:

1. Sicario

2. The Visit

3. Bone Tomahawk

From the previews, Youth looks like Cocoon minus the glowing aliens, a goofy old coot movie with Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel leering at pretty ladies in the swimming pool and complaining about their prostates. In actuality, it is far from being anything like Cocoon and, with the exception of some darkly humorous laughs and, yes, a couple of prostate jokes, not something I would classify as a comedy.

Writer-director Paolo Sorrentino isn’t interested in pleasantries or pulling punches. His movie is a beautifully brutal, almost dangerously honest take on artists and artists growing old. It’s also just a little bit crazy at times, to a point where maybe I wouldn’t have been all that surprised if crazy aliens sprang up from the bottom of the swimming pool. Caine, in one of the best and most quietly understated performances of his career, plays retired composer Fred Ballinger.

Fred is on holiday at a dreamy Switzerland resort with his daughter and assistant, Lena (Rachel Weisz, delivering the goods), and his film director friend, Mick Boyle (Keitel, basically reminding you that he is still awesome). I’ll say that word brutal again, because that’s what this film is. The beauty of Sorrentino’s film is that these brutal moments are handled in nuanced, subdued fashion. Many of the characters will not have happy endings. As an aging actress who has a caustic message for Mick, Jane Fonda shows up late in the movie and simply delivers one of the greatest scenes of her career. Adding to the wonderful sound of the actors speaking their rich dialogue would be a score by David Lang that is every ounce as beautiful as the stunning camerawork by Luca Bigazzi. Sorrentino is apparently a big Fellini fan, something most evident in the film’s finale.

A great premise gets lost in the murk in this feature directing debut from Antoine Bardou-Jacquet. Playing off the myth that we never landed on the moon and Stanley Kubrick was hired to direct a moon landing film, Bardou-Jacquet aims for dark humor with clear nods to Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and other Kubrick classics.

There are many clever moments in the movie, but they never come together as a cohesive piece, and one of the central performances drags the film down.

Rupert Grint is good as Jonny, manager of a lame sixties rock band who is deep in debt and running out of options. Ron Perlman is a bit of a muddled mess as Kidman, a Vietnam vet suffering major PTSD and working for the CIA. When Colonel Dickford, (played by Jay Benedict with echoes of Sterling Hayden in Strangelove) comes to the conclusion there’s a good chance the moon landing might not work out (“We’re going to look like dicks!”) he sends Kidman overseas to hire Kubrick, get the moon landing fake film, and then kill everybody involved.

Bardou-Jacquet doesn’t quite have the courage of his convictions in the end, and Perlman seems lost in a role he could’ve had a lot of fun with. Grint keeps things moving okay enough, as does Robert Sheehan as his druggie roommate, but it’s not enough. There are some funny lasting images, including an art film called Bounce that is just an obese man in a diaper bouncing accompanied by bicycle horns and chickens, but the super violent tone, Perlman’s dreary work and the comedy don’t blend (Available to rent on iTunes, Amazon.com and On Demand during a limited theatrical release).

What's it going to be: A weekend out on the town or curled up at home watching some movies? I mean technically if you stop by Casa Video's new Film Bar before checking out your movies, you're doing both. Think about it.

Here's your weekly Casa Video Top 10, a list of the movies you and everybody else wanted to watch last weekend:  

1. Bone Tomahawk

2. A Walk in the Woods

3. Mission Impossible: Rouge Nation

For the second year in a row, director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has delivered the year’s best film. The best movie of 2015 is The Revenant, an eye-popping western thriller that gives Leonardo DiCaprio the role that should finally score him that first Oscar.

The innovative Inarritu was also responsible for last year’s Birdman. DiCaprio gives it everything he’s got as Hugh Glass, a scout working with some fur traders on the American frontier in the early nineteenth century. Glass, while doing his job, gets a little too close to a couple of bear cubs, and Mama Grizzly is not all too happy about such an occurrence. What follows is a lengthy and vicious bear attack where Glass tangles with the nasty mother not once, but twice.

Inarritu, DiCaprio and some amazing visual technicians put you in the middle of that bear attack, minus the searing pain of actually having a bear’s claws and teeth rip through your flesh. Trust me when I tell you, it’s an unforgettably visceral moment when that bear steps on DiCaprio’s head. DiCaprio is incredible here, as are Tom Hardy as a villainous fur trapper who wants to leave Glass behind, Domhnall Gleeson as the commander forced to make horrible decisions, and Will Poulter as the compassionate man who makes a big mistake. It’s a revenge tale amazingly told.