 
The Assassination Of Richard Nixon The Woodsman
The subject of pedophilia is a hard sell when it comes to films, so
the fact that The Woodsman tackles the issue objectively and with sensitivity,
makes the subject matter positively compelling. Much of the credit has
to go the cast that includes Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Mos Def, Eve,
David Allen Grier and Benjamin Bratt who all took a professional risk
(and virtually no salary) by appearing in this story. Walter (Bacon)
is a convicted pedophile returning to his hometown after spending 12
years in prison. Although this probably would never happen in real life,
Walter is allowed to move into an apartment directly across the street
from an elementary school, making his rehabilitation all the more difficult.
He takes a job in a lumberyard and does his best to keep to himself,
but a suspicious secretary (Eve) soon discovers his secret. Vickie (Sedgwick)
is a hard-nosed broad who has spent her life looking for love in all
the wrong places and not surprisingly finds herself drawn to the mysterious
newcomer, partly out of their shared isolation and loneliness. Bacon
does a superb job of conveying the inner torture he experiences as he
battles his urges to succumb to temptation and does so using largely
facial expressions and body language. He and (real-life wife) Sedwick
are great together, as they confront (and deal with) their individual
pain and the difficulties of opening up to each other. Mos Def continues
to grow into a terrific actor with each new role he takes on and director
Nicole Kassell should be commended for handling such a sensitive subject
with grace and sensitivity and allowing us to emphasize with Bacon's
character. - David Bassin
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Enduring
Love
When Joe
and Claire go off for a picnic in an idyllic country setting, the last
thing either of them expects is to see a giant hot air balloon land
nearby. The passenger is a young boy and a man chases after it, attempting
to secure the balloon to the earth, but the wind is too powerful. Joe
tries to help, as do several passers-by, but as the balloon rises higher
in the sky, all but one let go and he eventually falls to his death.
This event sets off a truly creepy series of events in Enduring Love
that get darker as the film plays out. As Joe deals with feelings of
guilt over what happened, he's contacted by Jed - one of the other participants,
who insists that there's now a connection between the two of them. Uh
oh – it’s stalker time and soon enough, anger and obsession
becomes madness. Enduring Love was written by Ian McEwan ("The
Good Son," "The Comfort of Strangers") and directed by
Roger Mitchell (“The Mother,” “Changing Lanes,”
“Notting Hill”), with strong performances by Daniel Craig
and Samantha Morton. 
Speaking
of dark, it's hard to beat Sean Penn in The Assassination Of Richard
Nixon as a loser whose life is spiraling downwards at warp speed. Set
in 1974 and based on a true story, ...Assassination recounts the story
of a furniture salesman who dreams of starting his own business and
reuniting his estranged family. Sam Bicke (Penn) is clearly unstable
from the get-go, but when he continues to face rejection from his wife
(played by Naomi Watts) and fails to secure a small business loan, he
becomes increasingly delusional and paranoid, believing that there's
a government conspiracy afoot to squash the dreams of people like himself.
As he sits alone in his apartment watching Richard Nixon lie about the
Vietnam war, he associates the President's policies with his personal
failures and devises a scheme to hijack a plane and bomb the White House.
Watching Penn unravel is unsettling to say the least, yet it's hard
to turn away even though you know this story will not have a happy ending.