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Up To Date

Up To Date's Indie, Foreign & Doc Critics' 'Three To See,' January 26-28

Merrick Morton
/
Fox Searchlight Pictures
In 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,' Frances McDormand plays a mother seeking justice for her daughter's murder.

This year's Oscar nominees were announced on Tuesday and social media has been buzzing with opinions and predictions. To help you catch up on the contenders you might have missed, Up To Date's indie, foreign, and documentary Film Critics recommend a few movies to see this weekend.

Steve Walker

The Road Movie, Not rated

  • A weirdly hypnotic documentary compiled entirely of dash-cam footage that captures notoriously gonzo Russian drivers confronting the weather, livestock and each other.

Hostiles, R

  • Christian Bale is at his taciturn best as an Army captain who reassesses his indefensible treatment of Native Americans when his superior orders him to accompany a dying chief back to his homeland.

Call Me by Your Name, R

  • Timothée Chalamet gives a break-out performance as a sexually-fluid teenager who, over six weeks of an Italian summer, falls in love with his father's graduate student intern, played by Armie Hammer.

Cynthia Haines

Darkest Hour, PG-13

  • With the fate of western Europe in the balance, newly-appointed Prime Minister Winston Churchill, played by Gary Oldman, must decide whether to negotiate with the rapidly expanding Third Reich or unite his countrymen and take up arms.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, R

  • In Martin McDonagh's latest film, Frances McDormand deftly plays an anguished mother who makes a 15-foot-tall statement to her local law enforcement, led by Woody Harrelson's sheriff, about their inability to find her daughter's killer.

The Shape of Water, R

  • Director Guillermo del Toro weaves another otherworldly fairy tale in this film starring Sally Hawkins and Octavia Spencer as Cold War-era custodians who become fascinated by a captive creature held in the government lab where they work.
Since 1998, Steve Walker has contributed stories and interviews about theater, visual arts, and music as an arts reporter at KCUR. He's also one of Up to Date's regular trio of critics who discuss the latest in art, independent and documentary films playing on area screens.