Short Term 12 (2013)
In this expansion of his earlier short film, Destin Cretton documents a group home for abused and forgotten kids who’ve been told they were worthless until they believed it.
Grace (Brie Larson), a survivor of abuse and current counselor at the home, must deal with unresolved feelings when newcomer Jayden reminds her of her own troubled past.
Marcus (Keith Stanfield) who will be forced out of the shelter when he turns 18 and is afraid to leave the security of the only safe place he’s ever known.
Mason (John Gallagher Jr.) is a fellow counselor and Grace’s long-term boyfriend who offers unqualified support only to be rebuffed as he gets too close.
Stephanie Beatrix (best known as Rosa Diaz on Brooklyn Nine-Nine), is very funny as Jessica, one of the counselors at the center.
Despite the bleak setting, this is a hopeful film which shows it’s possible to beat the odds and rise above the filth of our lives.
Hannah Arendt (2012)
This is tough biographical film about the German-American political theorist Hannah Arendt who was already a famous intellectual theorist when she agreed to cover the trial of notorious Nazi Adolf Eichmann for The New Yorker.
Her concept of the banality of evil was her attempt to reconcile the monster she expected with the non threatening man found. He was an anti-Semite, but these impulses were subservient to his desire to advance his own status, and she believed his trial was a proxy for the trial of Nazism.
Following the publication of her account of the trial, Arendt became a pariah, losing many friends who accused her of sympathizing with Eichmann and defending the Nazi cause.
The film is a continued exploration of her primary themes, the nature of evil and the consequences of honesty and courage, applied to her own life story.
Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)
Roberta (Rosanna Arquette) is fascinated by the messages Susan (Madonna) leaves and receives in the personal section of a New York City tabloid. When one message mentions a meeting at Battery Park, Roberta goes to meet her on a whim. In a convoluted plot involving amnesia, stolen earrings, gangsters, and a midlife crisis, Roberta assumes Susan’s identity.
Laurie Metcalf, Aidan Quinn, comedian Steven Wright, and a young Giancarlo Esposito (later to become famous as Gus Fring) have supporting roles.
The film is a minor representative of a sub-genre of whimsical realist films from the 1980s which included All of Me (1984), The Golden Child (1986), and Big Trouble in Little China (1986). The tone is Lewis Carroll, but the look is Mean Streets (1973) and Saturday Night Fever (1977).