Another Year - NYT Critics' Pick

“Another Year”: Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen play a happy couple surrounded by less fulfilled souls in this film, which opens on Wednesday in Manhattan.
Injustice, British and Otherwise
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: December 28, 2010

Class consciousness has frequently played a role in Mike Leigh’s films, and not only because, as a storyteller whose native terrain is modern Britain, he can hardly hope to avoid it. And sure enough, the observant viewer of his splendidly rich and wise new feature, “Another Year,” will notice the shadows that an always-evolving system of social hierarchy casts over the passage of the seasons. (“We’re all graduates,” one character reminds another, with the prickly pride of belonging to the first generation to receive a university education in an era of expanded opportunity.) More

The Strange Case of Angelica - NYT Critics' Pick

Ricardo Trêpa in “The Strange Case of Angelica,” a new Portuguese feature by Manoel de Oliveira, who turned 102 this month.
In Remote Corner of Portugal, a Photographer Finds More Than He Expects
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: December 28, 2010

What is the opposite of precocious? If no suitable word exists, somebody should invent one — in English, French or, ideally, Portuguese — to describe the 102-year-old filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira. He has completed a dozen features and a handful of shorts since 1998, which is to say since his 90th birthday. His latest feature, a tale of supernatural romance called “The Strange Case of Angelica,” arrives in New York on Wednesday, and while it is evidently the work of an artist with great stores of wisdom and a long view of history, it also has a playful, wry quality that can only be described as youthful. More

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, cheffery and sfrose.