Margin Call

This is about financial crisis hitting a big wall street company. Most of it happens during two days, starting with some major downsizing happening, than a rocket scientist (no, really) figuring out that something has been going very wrong lately and is about to hit the company in a big way, the ones earning the really big bucks dusting themselves off by distributing their potential losses down to their buyers and then they all suck it up for a few months and go back to business as usual.

Sounds dry?

Well, it could be with the financial humbug that none of the so-called 'little' people don't understand (this means the average movie goer). Luckily, the cast in Margin Call is stellar and makes this much more interesting than one might expect.

And when I say stellar I mean it.

Here are Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Zachary Quinto, Simon Baker, Jeremy Irons and Stanley Tucci. I love every single one of these men individually and love them even more in an ensemble. There is also Demi Moore, who is brilliant in her own right, of course, but my love for her is limited.

You know what else? This is a directorial (feature length) debut. J. C. Chandoor had one short film to his credit before this and has since made the equally impressive All Is Lost.

Bonus - beautiful shots of New York City by night.

8/10

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

The second installment in the Hunger Games trilogy marks the beginning of the revolution, long overdue in Panem. The victors Katniss and Peeta are paraded around the districts but rather than appease the public and keep them quite, the mere presence of Katniss - unwilling token of the uprising - inspires people to become defiant. It starts with three raised fingers in district 11, as a thank you from the locals for Katniss' treatment of Rue in the previous hunger games.

To stop any unauthorized behavior the new game runner, Plutarch Heavensbee, talks President Snow into a new kind of hunger game, to get rid of Katniss in a way that would not shed any more doubts onto the government. To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the hunger games the tributes will be drafted from the previous victors - two per district, one male one female.

Once in the arena, Katniss and Peeta form an alliance with Finnick and the elderly Mae, arranged for them by Haymitch. From then on, not much goes the way President Snow intended, but very much the way Plutarch orchestrated things. Rather than quench the revolution by distracting the public with the spectacle going on under a dome, a revolution is started on a smaller scale within the dome. Katniss is apparently the least informed of everyone involved.

In the end, the dome is brought down through lightning, wire and one of Katniss' arrows and she and a handful of other survivors are lifted out of the arena. Katniss awakes in District 13, where she learns that while her mother and sister and Gale are there, as well, Peeta and one of their allies, Johanna, did not make it out but are held by the government.

8/10

Big Night

Brothers Primo and Secondo came to America to make it in the restaurant business, but there little Italian place is failing while the restaurant across the street - run by Pascal - is thriving.

Primo is a very gifted chef but unwilling to compromise his art because a 'philistine' customer wants a side order of spaghetti with meatballs to her risotto (starch with starch!). His younger brother is trying to keep their business running but knows they need money fast to keep the place open.

Secondo comes to Pascal for financial help but Pascal offers him a way to make some business. He will call up an 'old friend', a famous jazz musician to come and eat at their place to get some publicity.

Now the brothers start working towards the big night feverishly. And if that alone didn't keep them busy, they also both have trouble with the women in their lives - Secondo is cheating on Phyllis with (of all people) Pascal's girlfriend Gabriella. And Primo has his sights set on the flower lady Ann, but is to shy to even ask her out.

Then the big night comes and all their friends and neighbors have been invited, but the guest of honor takes his time. When it gets later and later - and the guests get drunk and start dancing around the room - Secondo decides it is time to eat - big shot jazz musician or no. Everyone agrees that the food is divine. As the night progresses, Secondo gets more and more nervous about the coveted guest and the publicity and word-of-mouth he should have brought the restaurant. In the end, he never shows. And he was never going to because Pascal neglected to call him in the first place in a rouse to drive the last nail into the restaurant's coffin and convince the brothers to word for him.

An absolute joy to watch.

from Roger Ebert's review:Big Night is one of the great food movies, and yet it is so much more. It is about food not as a subject but as a language - the language by which one can speak to gods, can create, can seduce, can aspire to perfection.

9/10