Sarah D. Bunting

OSCARS DEATH RACE: WAR HORSE

In his review of "War Horse" for IFC.com, Matt Singer noted that "I did like one scene which is complete enough as its own unit of story and character that it could be pulled out of the film and played as its own short subject." The scene, of course, is the one in which said horse, Joey, makes a gal...

OSCARS DEATH RACE: EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE

Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn) lost his father, Thomas (Tom Hanks), on 9/11. About a year later, Oskar finds what he thinks is a message meant for himself in his father's closet: an envelope with the word "Black" written on it, and a key inside. Inspired by the memory of the myth-burnished scavenger hun...

OSCARS DEATH RACE: PUSS IN BOOTS

I bailed on the "Shrek" franchise after the first movie; I didn't really like it and I didn't need any more of it. So, either I forgot or never knew that the titular puss in "Puss In Boots" is a character from the second "Shrek" installment, which probably let me enjoy the story and the jokes withou...

OSCARS DEATH RACE: Surveying the race for Best Documentary

Ah, Best Doc -- where the short list gets the finger-pointing and pearl-clutching underway early. I like to imagine Steve James watching the Oscars at home with a bottle of Goldschlager and a Krazy Straw, wearing PJs with basketballs on them, because as you probably heard, he didn't get nominated. (...

OSCARS DEATH RACE: Pina

"Pina" made me impatient for at least an hour. A small part of it is seeing the film at BAM, where arriving at the specified showtime is considered entirely optional and in fact rather bourgeois, but whispering knowingly throughout the film is considered mandatory. A much larger part of it is the me...

OSCARS DEATH RACE: THE MUPPETS

I loved the Muppets as a kid -- "The Muppet Show" is one of the few programs my parents' ambitious first-child rules about TV would allow -- and I remember them fondly. But I had misgivings about "The Muppets" going in, for two reasons. The first is that, while I like Jason Segel, he works better fo...

OSCARS DEATH RACE: Anonymous

I'd rather have seen a "Noises Off"-style story about what's going on backstage at the modern-day framing-device production that opens "Anonymous" -- actors rushing to their places; the stage manager lighting torches with one of those little lighters chefs use to fire a crème brulee -- than the film...

OSCARS DEATH RACE: FOOTNOTE

In the press notes I received at the screening of "Footnote," writer/director Joseph Cedar comments that his film "qualifies as a tragedy, as most father-son stories do." It's a big statement; what's interesting about "Footnote" -- if not entirely successful -- is how Cedar presents that tragedy.

OSCARS DEATH RACE: DRIVE