1950’s Brooklyn is sumptuously captured in John Crowley's wonderful story of an Irish immigrant trying to choose between two lands. Saoirse Ronan is pure delight as Eilis, who gets a job in New York and quickly falls in love with blue-collar worker Tony (Emory Cohen), a charming Yankees fan with eyes set on marriage.

When family tragedy calls Eilis back to Ireland for a spell, she’s forced to decide between Tony and Jim (the ever-so-busy Domhnall Gleeson), a hometown boy who is also trying to win her over. The film does a splendid job depicting and immigrant’s life, from the woozy boat trip over, to the derogatory remarks in diners.

Ronan finally gets the role she deserves, and will certainly be a frontrunner for an Oscar. Crowley has not only put together one of 2015’s best acted films, but one of it’s best looking ones, and the score is a true winner.

This is a great movie for anybody looking to experience a little bit of New York history in a truly romantic way.

The Hollywood blacklisting that led to the imprisonment of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo was a travesty, and it’s high time somebody made a movie about it. Director Jay Roach eschews his comedy-making skin for this riveting look into the tribulations Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) and fellow artists faced during the Red Scare early days of the Cold War.

Cranston does his best movie work yet as Trumbo, a confessed member of the communist party who did jail time and lost work due to his beliefs. He eventually started writing screenplays anonymously, even winning an Oscar under a different name.

The film’s best scenes involve Cranston and none other than Louis C.K. as writer Arlen Hird (a fictional composite character), who marvel at the injustices bestowed upon them. The film does a nice job of capturing the paranoia of the times, with nice touches such as John Wayne (David James Elliot) throwing his weight around, and Diane Lane as Cleo, Trumbo’s very patient wife. The film does a nice job balancing truth and fiction, and Cranston is marvelous.

Also, let it be said that C.K. continues to show surprising prowess as an actor. He’s building up an impressive resume for a guy who insists he can’t act. 

Oh man, is it the weekend already? We've had a busy week with restaurant protests, restrictions on what we can offer Tucson's homeless and new local album releases. 

Get out and do something cool, finish up your holiday shopping (don't worry, we made a list for you) and then maybe pick up a recently released flick to help you come down from fighting those crowds. 

Editor Mari Herreras put it best in this week's gift guide:

Casa Video

2905 E. Speedway Blvd.

casavideo.com

Before you make some comment to your movie lover that it's time for Netflix or lament about the death of the video store, shut your mouth and head over to Casa Video. Are you a movie-watching family during the holiday? Go. Like to drink some good craft brew what you're watching a movie? Go. It's a Tucson institution made for movie lovers and one of the best places to stroll, with popcorn in hand, picking that special movie.

Enough small talk. Here's the list of movies you and everyone else want to pick up from Casa Video this weekend:

The concept is very solid: a disgraced cop faces his toughest and most important case, finding his missing teenage daughter. As he begins to learn that she was no angel, his mission becomes even more heartbreaking.

The World of Kanako starts with that premise … and then goes completely nuts. As manic as it is violent, the Japanese film dives headlong into a drug underworld filled with dirty cops, gang warfare and underage prostitution. The way director Akikazu Fujishima ties all of this together, while also weaving in a few related subplots, is phenomenal. And the work by Koji Yakusho as the father driven to rage and madness (not that he ever had far to go) is sensational.

The tone and the bloodshed may be too much for some, but there’s no question that Fujishima goes for broke here and meets the challenge head-on.

Jared Hess makes weird movies. Napoleon Dynamite remains his calling card, although Nacho Libre and the terrible Gentlemen Broncos also fall in that category.

Don Verdean is no different: it’s all quirk. However, it’s also borderline unwatchable. It also wastes so much talent, with Sam Rockwell, Amy Ryan, Danny McBride and Jemaine Clement foundering while Hess creakily moves his story along.

Rockwell, who executive produced—doubling his pain if not his blame—plays the titular character, a Biblical archaeologist on the hunt for Goliath’s skull who has to, shall we say, cut a few corners to “find” the artifact. While Hess’ oddball characters and fresh story could make for a good time at the movies, Don Verdean just isn’t funny.

It feels like all the lines intended to be funny were just dropped in as placeholders until they came up with something better. But, unfortunately, that never happened.

Musician Laurie Anderson directs a moving eulogy for her dog Lolabelle that also works as a loving tribute to her late husband, Lou Reed, and a sad meditation on the death of her mother.

Shot on small cameras and iPhones, the film is scored and narrated by Anderson sounding not unlike some of her great spoken word singing from past albums. She explores the life and death of her dog, a true member of her family, and the virtues of feeling sad without being sad in a time of loss.

There’s a soothing quality to the movie, which stands as competent coaching for the future death of loved ones, and sound advice for coping with deaths in the recent past. Anderson ruminates on the existence of ghosts, and even shares footage of her dog, who had gone blind, performing a piano concert for an amused audience (Yes, Lolabelle learned how to play keyboards).

The music is some of the best Anderson has ever composed, and the film closes out to the strains of the wonderful Lou Reed and his song “Turning Time Around.” Anderson fans will love this, dog lovers will love this and Lou Reed fans will be enchanted. This is one of 2015’s better documentaries.

Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to start a search for a piano teacher to work with my dog. 

Break out the lightsabers, nerds, because it's almost time for the next Star Wars film. Can't squeeze in a seven movie marathon in the next few weeks? Don't want to get Star Warsed out before the new movie is released? Or perhaps you can't bring yourself to watch Episodes I, II and III? Well, Eclectic Method doesn't think you should have to. They've cut the whole series so far into a three minute clip. You're welcome. 

So, Hollywood decided to remake a great foreign film again, and they ruined it. The Secret in Their Eyes was a beautiful, gripping Argentinean film from 2009—the Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film that year—and now, it’s just some dumb schlocky cop revenge movie.

What happened? The dream factory changed the script, which was pretty close to perfect, ostensibly to consolidate a couple characters. Julia Roberts plays a cop whose daughter is murdered and the killer gets away. Another cop, Chiwetel Ejiofor, is crazy about his supervisor (Nicole Kidman), but can’t work up the courage to say so.

It’s odd when Hollywood makes unnecessary changes and you can’t figure out where the advantage is, and that’s what cripples this new Secret in Their Eyes. It’s not quite painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa but for recent crimes against great cinema, it’s up there.

Seth Rogen might just win the award for all time great drug-tripping performance in this very funny holiday film from director Jonathan Levine.

Rogen and Anthony Mackie play Isaac and Chris, best friends to Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who lost his parents when he was young. Since the death of Ethan’s parents, the three have gathered every Christmas Eve to celebrate together in rambunctious fashion.

In what is supposed to be their final Christmas Eve journey together (Isaac is having a baby and Chris is a famous football player), Ethan scores tickets to the wildest party of the year. Rogen spends the majority of the film tripping balls after consuming mushrooms, pot and cocaine (gifts from the wife) and he should get some sort of drug performance Oscar for what he does in this movie.

Michael Shannon shows up as one of the strangest drug dealers in cinema history and, lord knows, there have been some strange ones. The film gives us the greatest gift of all with Lizzy Caplan as Ethan’s love interest because, let’s face it, she’s awesome. Miley Cyrus makes a fun cameo as herself, while somebody else who I shall not reveal makes a surprise appearance and steals some scenes. This one is a nice addition to the holiday movie canon, and Rogen solidifies himself as a stoner hero.

This movie’s cast is jam-packed with talent. Diane Keaton, Marisa Tomei, John Goodman, Anthony Mackie, Alan Arkin, Amanda Seyfried, Ed Helms and even the voice of Steve Martin all show up in this supposed holiday film. If you are looking for a Christmas movie to add a little joy to your holiday season, this movie will not do the trick. If you are looking for something totally weird, dark and unfunny while being sort of stupid and wasteful overall, this one might please you.

Coopers obviously has a lot of characters played by those performers I listed above, and a lot of plot lines to go with them. It gets a bit tiresome trying to follow all that’s going on, and I’m not going to recount everything for you. I would need this entire publication’s space to do that effectively. Well, I say effectively, but it would probably be a horribly boring description so saying I would do the whole description thing effectively is actually total bullshit. A bunch of family members come together for the holidays and stupid stuff happens. Too many characters, not enough good zingers, and a genuinely nasty vibe make this a total waste of time for everybody.

How the hell did they get all of those great cast members to sign up for this thing?