Nerd in the 'Noke

12 Years a Slave (2013), R, 134 minutes - I saw this film a week ago and it has taken me a few days to figure out how I felt about it, and I'm still not sure.  Actually, that's a lie.  I know that it sickened me.  It sickened me on a number of levels.  Not because it isn't a well made film - it is, it's one of the best I've seen this year - but because the content it brings to life is just that appalling. 12 Years a Slave is based on the memoirs of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free man in a pre-Civil War United States who was abducted from his home and family in upstate New York and sold into slavery.  Just hearing a story like that is disturbing enough, but then you see the circumstances in which it occurred it is that much more sickening.  Solomon wasn't taken from his home in the middle of the night, he was conned.  An able musician, he thought that he was entering into a business arrangement with two men, Brown (Scoot McNairy) and Ham...

Winter’s Bone (2010), R, 100 minutes – Winter’s Bone is a dank and cold drama/thriller that I never would have checked out had my friend Chris not mentioned it one conversation over beers. So when he was back in town almost a month later we decided to give it a look down at the local art house theater, the one place in town that consistently screens such films. And I’m glad we did. Winter’s Bone is based in the Ozark Mountain region and revolves around Ree (Jennifer Lawrence), a 17 year old girl who gets by day by day supporting her family (mother, two younger siblings) in the absence of her drug peddling father who has recently been arrested. Things get more complex when the local Sherriff (Garret Dillahunt) stops by to inform Ree that her father put up the family house and land in order to post bail. If he doesn’t show up at his hearing, they lose it all. Ree vows to make sure that her father shows up and begins hunting him down by contacting some not so nice family members a...