Wreck-It Ralph (2012) - Original story gets lost in benign but overly flashy animation

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The festive poster with kapow value for Rich Moore's Wreck-It Ralph

 

Ralph (John C. Reilly (Chicago (2002))), the arcade computer game character of the game Wreck-It Ralph, is tired of being a lonely outsider in his world, who only gets to smash things to smithereens. So he leaves his game to win a medal. - But his decision lands everyone else in the arcade game world in deep trouble!

 

Wreck-It Ralph begins as a fresh, original and really funny idea. But it later turns out to have some real problems: Sarah Silverman's (Masters of Sex (2014-16)) girly character and the villain King Candy (voiced by Alan Tudyk (Wonder Boys (2000))) are both boring, and it is as though Wreck-It Ralph gets lost in the candy world which much of it plays out in. It indulges in flashy animation for its own sake and attempts to pull an edifying story out of the mess in the end, which as a result feels cheap.

Before this meltdown, though, Wreck-It Ralph provides enough lavish and computer game-enthusiastic fun to make it worth seeing. Jane Lynch (Rio (2011)) and Jack McBrayer (Bad Night (2015)) are both fun, with the latter building on his Southern-charm trademark.

The film is written by Phil Johnston (Zootopia (2016)) and Jennifer Lee (Frozen (2013)) and directed by feature-debuting Rich Moore (Zootopia).

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 165 mil. $

Box office: 471.2 mil. $

= Box office success

[Wreck-It Ralph premiered October 29 (El Capitan Theatre, Hollywood) and runs 101 minutes. The concept for Wreck-It Ralph was developed first by Disney in the late 1980s, and was redeveloped and reconsidered several times before the film that came to be. Moore was hired based on his previous work directing animated TV-series such as The Simpsons (1990-93)) and Futurama (1999-01)). Wreck-It Ralph contains an estimated 188 individual character cameos from a wide variety of real and imaginary computer-games. The film opened #1 to a 49 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed in the top 5 for a total of 3 weeks and grossed 189.4 mil. $ (40.2 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 36.1 mil. $ (7.7 %) and Japan with 29.6 mil. $ (6.3 %). Wreck-It Ralph was the 14th highest-grossing film and the 4th highest-grossing animation of the year. Roger Ebert gave it 3/4 stars, equal to a notch better than this review. The film was Oscar-nominated for Best Animated Feature, which it lost to Brave, and for the same Golden Globe, also lost. A sequel is in the works for a 2017 release. Wreck-It Ralph is certified fresh at 86 % with a 7.6 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Wreck-It Ralph?

Wuthering Heights (2011) - Arnold's take on the Brontë classic is an unusual treat

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1 Time Film Excess Nominee:

Best Sound (lost to Drive)

 

 

+ Best Romance of the Year

 

A gorgerously composed poster for Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights is an adaptation of Emily Brontë's same-titled 1847 English classic and only novel, written by Olivia Hetreed (Finding Altamira (2016)) and great English co-writer-director Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank (2009)).

The father in a poor, English country home takes pity on a young negro slave named Heathcliff and takes him into his home. But when the man dies, the strange boy is left completely to the whims of his violent, racist son, - and his own enormous affection for his dead benefactor's daughter Cathy.

SPOILER Whereas Heathcliff's change from boy to adult mostly involves his having grown wilder and more savage, Cathy's appearance alters completely in this version of the story, as they have an affair that becomes the downfall for them both.
Arnold's Wuthering Heights uses unusual, anachronistic fonts for its titles and credits, and Mumford & Sons have made two songs for it, one of which is an acoustic track that runs over the end credits, which is strange and a little off. But it is still a good film, impressing especially with its crackling sound design and its beautiful, unusual aesthetic, (cinematography by Robbie Ryan (Slow West (2015))), which frequently, - and consciously, - lets objects and characters slip in and out of focus.

Related post:

2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

 

Here is a short trailer for the film

 

Cost: 5 mil. £, equal to approximately 6.5 mil. $

Box office: 1.7 mil. $

= Box office disaster

[Wuthering Heights premiered September 6 (Venice International Film Festival) and runs 129 minutes. Natalie Portman, John Maybury, Abbie Cornish, Michael Fassbender, Gemma Arterton and Peter Webber were involved with the project at different times before it landed with Arnold. With James Howton portraying Heathcliff, this is the first Wuthering Heights adaptation to have a black actor play the part. Filming took place from September - November 2010 on location in England. The film opened #73 in just 1 theater to an 8k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked at #67 in 12 theaters and grossed 100k $ (5.9 % of the total gross), the 3rd biggest market. The 2 biggest markets were the film's native the UK with 963k $ (56.6 %) and Holland with 130k $ (7.6 %). Wuthering Heights is fresh at 69 % with a 6.5 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Wuthering Heights?

Winter's Bone (2010) - Lawrence stands out in Granik's melancholic adaptation

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Jennifer Lawrence hovers like an eagle on the poster for Debra Granik's Winter's Bone

A 17 year-old girl, who is caring for her two younger siblings and sick mother, gets a big problem on her hands, when her alienated father doesn't appear in court. To keep their house, she now has to find out what has become of him.

Winter's Bone is an adaptation of Daniel Woodrell's (The Ones You Do (1992)) same-titled 2006 novel, written by Anne Rosellini (My Abandonment (2017)) and co-writer-director Debra Granik (Down to the Bone (2004)). It's a film filled with tristesse, unusual as the piece of outskirts social-realism Americana that it is, taking place in the rural Ozarks, Missouri in central USA, where even food can be a luxury.
Jennifer Lawrence (The Devil You Know (2013)) is a cool heroine as Ree, - likely a performance that locked her for her subsequent Hunger Games (2012; 2013; 2014; 2015) mass-stardom. Winter's Bone is a nuanced, fine and only slightly dreary film.

 

Jennifer Lawrence gives an interview to the BBC about the film in this video

 

Cost: 2 mil. $

Box office: 13.7 mil. $

= Huge hit

[Winter's Bone premiered January 21 (Sundance) and runs 100 minutes. Filming took place on location in Missouri in just 25 days from February - March 2009. The film opened #35 to 84k $ in 4 theaters, peaking at #16 and 141 theaters (different weekends though), playing for an unusually long 45 weeks in North America, where it grossed 6.5 mil. $ (47.4 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Sweden with 1.3 mil. $ (9.5 %) and the UK with 0.9 mil. $ (6.6 %). Roger Ebert gave the film 4/4 stars, two notches better than this review. The film got nominated for 4 Oscars, winning none: Best Picture (lost to The King's Speech), Actress (Lawrence), lost to Natalie Portman for Black Swan, Supporting Actor (John Hawkes), lost to Christian Bale for The Fighter, and Adapted Screenplay, lost to The Social Network. The film was also nominated for a Golden Globe, won AFI's Movie of the Year award, won 2 Independent Spirit Awards and was nominated for another 5, was chosen by National Board of Review as one of the year's ten best films, won the Grand Jury Prize and the screenwriting award in Sundance, as well as many many other nominations, awards and top 10 listings. Winter's Bone is certified fresh at 94 % with an 8.3 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Winter's Bone?

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps/Wall Street 2/Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps (2010) - Stone's sequel is an entertaining spectacle

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2 Film Excess nominations:

Best Cinematography: Rodrigo Prieto (lost to Wally Phister for Inception)
Best Music: Craig Armstrong (lost to Treme S1)

 

Michael Douglas and Shia LeBeouf both look tight in expensive suits on this poster for Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

 

Gordon Gekko is released from Sin Sing prison to a greedier world, he says. The home loan bubble, green energy and insider trade are ingredients in the drama that follows between him, his daughter and her fiancée.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, written by Allan Loeb (The Switch (2010)) and Stephen Schiff (True Crime (1999)) and directed by great New-Yorker filmmaker Oliver Stone (Snowden (2016)), is the sequel to Wall Street (1987). It circles around the bubbles of financial systems (that's been around for for centuries) and the topical issue of bail-outs, and is exciting and visually flashy in a concept of looking expensive, telling a story of the very rich, which works like a charm. - No expense is spared, it appears.

The entertainment value of Money Never Sleeps is high, helped along by an ensemble cast with Michael Douglas (The Jewel of the Nile (1985)), Shia LaBeouf (American Honey (2016)), Frank Langella (Stardom (2000)), Carey Mulligan (The Greatest (2009)), Charlie Sheen (Wall Street), Josh Brolin (Milk (2008)) and, in his last feature before his death in 2014, Eli Wallach (Eye of the Cat/Attenti al Buffone (1975)) is first-rate and truly a treasure in the film. LaBeouf and Mulligan are good enough actors, - and make a damn cute couple, - that Douglas gets the necessary counterweight.  

Rodrigo Prieto's (The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)) cinematography lifts the spectacle that the film is, and the score by Craig Armstrong (The Great Gatsby (2013)), featuring songs by Brian Eno and David Byrne, is outstanding, especially if you (like my) are a fan of those artists in the first place. 

The ending of the film drags out some and seems to testify to a process where the filmmaker maybe couldn't really make up his mind about how to properly end this saga. Stone seems to have attempted to make the financial crisis '08 movie here, which I must quietly remark failed, however. That came a few years later, in The Big Short (2015). Still, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is recommendable and a respectable sequel.

 

Related posts:

 

Oliver Stone: Snowden (2016) - Stone's inflammatory political thriller is a powerful must-see

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Born on the Fourth of July (1989) or, Beautiful Struggle

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 70 mil. $

Box office: 134.7 mil. $ 

= Big flop

[Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps premiered May 14 (Cannes) and runs 133 minutes. Stone was unwilling to make a sequel until the 2008 financial crisis came and changed his mind. Much research was done by Stone, Loeb, LaBeouf and Douglas to make the film accurate. Filming took place in New York and in Dubai from September - November 2009. Sheen reportedly couldn't remember his lines on his one day of shooting. Douglas was, according to LaBeouf, an "open wound" on set due to his son being arrested for drug trafficking prior to filming. LaBeouf has also elaborated that Stone at times would order him to get drunk in a bar before filming to get him into an aggressive mindset. The film opened #1 to a 19 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed in the top 5 for a total of just 2 weeks and grossed 52.4 mil. $ (38.9 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were China with 7.1 mil. $ (5.3 %) and Spain with 6.7 mil. $ (5 %). The film was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor (Douglas), which it didn't win. It made in excess of 15.5 mil. $ in addition on home video sales in North America alone, which, if added to the theatrical gross, would change the film's status to simply 'flop'. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is rotten at 55 % with a 5.9 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps?

The Way Back (2010) - Weir's honorable but muddled, presumably last film

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A textural and visually appealing poster for Peter Weir's The Way Back

 

A political prison in Sibiria during the Stalin regime: Extreme hardship reigns, and surrounding the camp is colossal, hostile Russia. A group of prisoners escape and launch on a 4,000 mile walk through forests, desert and mountains. - Not every one makes it.

 

The Way Back, written by Keith R. Clarke (Ben-Hur (2016)) and great Australian co-writer/co-producer/director Peter Weir (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)), based on Sławomir Rawicz's supposedly autobiographical novel The Long Walk (1955), is on an honorable mission: Portraying the misanthropic consequences of communism with a story that utilizes Christian themes. Unfortunately the film isn't good enough.

The language aspect, (different kinds of English accents, Russian accent, broken English and some few Russian words are combined), is interfering and strange. Colin Farrell (Alexander (2004)) is just plain bad as a brutal Russian with Stalin in his heart. The film has nearly no releases in the form of humor, - but it does have unconvincing CGI wolves, (ugh!) The harshness of nature isn't done justice in this regrettably mixed experience which seems destined to become Weir's last film.

 

Related review:

 

Peter Weir: The Cars That Ate Paris/The Cars That Eat People (1974) or, Small Town, Big Hell

Watch a 1-minute clip from the film here

Cost: 30 mil. $

Box office: 20.3 mil. $

= Huge flop

[The Way Back premiered September 3 (Telluride Film Festival) and runs 133 minutes. Filming took place from February - June 2009 in Bulgaria, Morocco and India. Pole Rawicz's book's truthfulness has been contended by several since its publication, which was sold in more than 500k copies. Weir believes the story to be true but says his film is "essentially fiction". The film opened and peaked at #15 in 678 theaters to a 1.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed just 2.7 mil. $ (13.3 % of the total gross). The 3 biggest markets were France with 7.3 mil. (36 %), Spain with 4 mil. $ (19.7 %) and the UK with 3 mil. $ (14.8 %), (followed by North America.) The film was nominated for the Best Makeup Oscar, which it lost to The Wolfman. The Way Back is certified fresh at 75 % with a 6.8 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Way Back?

The Wolfman (2010) - Johnston's luxurious, effects-driven remake

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1 Film Excess win:

Best Makeup and Hair 

3 Film Excess nominations:

Best Supporting Actor: Anthony Hopkins (lost to John C. Reilly for The Extra Man)
Best Practical Effects (lost to Inception)
Best Makeup and Hair (won)

+ Best London Movie of the Year 
+ Best Werewolf Movie of the Year
+ Most Expensive Flop Movie of the Year 

 

The heads of the stars float around in varying sizes on this rather standard poster for Joe Johnston's The Wolfman

 

Blackmoor, England, 1891: Lawrence Talbot returns home from America, because his brother has been murdered. Against a background of violent attacks, the family secrets are forced to the fore.

The Wolfman is a remake of George Waggner's great Universal horror The Wolf Man (1941), written by Andrew Kevin Walker (8MM (1999)) and David Self (Road to Perdition (2002)) and directed by Joe Johnston (Jumanji (1995)). It is a super-cool, modern update of the classic with class actors Benicio Del Toro (Sicario (2015)), Hugo Weaving (V for Vendetta (2005)) and especially Anthony Hopkins (The Good Father (1985)) rising to the sound material. Only Emily Blunt (Edge of Tomorrow (2014)) as a the brother's fiancée is fairly uninteresting.

The Wolfman is very much a special effects-driven film, and it is devilishly handsomely made and stylish, (cinematography by Shelly Johnson (Captain America: The First Avenger 2011))), with wicked, wicked attack scenes. Also the insane asylum scenes are terrific. The Wolfman is a bloody good, no-expense-spared studio horror.

 

Related posts:

 
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a short interview with Benicio Del Toro about the film here

Cost: 150 mil. $

Box office: 139.7 mil. $

= Huge flop

[The Wolfman premiered January 27 (Rome) and runs 103 minutes (with an extended version running 119 minutes.) Mark Romanek was hired to direct but left the project due to creative differences with the studio. Filming took place in England, including in Pinewood Studios, from March - June 2008, with reshoots in May 2009. Del Toro and the film's makeup effects wizard Rick Baker are huge fans of the original film, and Baker was disappointed that the transformation scene would be handled with CGI. The allotted budget of 85 mil. $ was heavily overrun during production, landing at the colossal 150 mil. $. Danny Elfman had his score modified for the film, as it was cut with 30 minutes, including a scene with Max Von Sydow. The release was postponed several times, from 2008 to 2009 to finally 2010. The film opened #2, behind fellow new release Valentine's Day, to a 31.4 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent a total of 3 weeks in the top 5 and grossed 61. 9 mil. $ (44.3 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Mexico with 11 .1 mil. $ (7.9 %) and the UK with 7.3 mil. $ (5.7 %). The film was nominated for the Best Makeup Oscar, which it won in front of Barney's Version and The Way Back. Roger Ebert gave the film 2½ stars, a notch harder than this review. Ronald Meyer, then President and CEO of Universal Studios, now Vice Chairman of NBCUniversal, has called the film "crappy" and "one of the worst movies we ever made." The film has made in excess of 27 mil. $ on home-video sales in North America, which, if added to the box office gross, would change its status to, simply, 'big flop'. The Wolfman is rotten at 34 % with a 4.8 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Wolfman?

V/H/S (2012) - Energetic, periodically intensely creepy if flawed found footage horror anthology

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The inventively designed, sinister poster for Batt Bettinelli-Olpin, David Bruckner, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, Chad Villella, Ti West and Adam Wingard's V/H/S

Some very simpleminded guys get a job of breaking into a house to locate a VHS-tape. In the house they find a dead man, - and a lot of scary tapes. - They nevertheless try their best to complete the job ...

This accounts for the framing story of anthology horror V/H/S. Both that and the first story within the story, (all coming from tapes found in the house), are about really awfully dumb people, who yell brainlessly and break stuff. This combined with the nausea-inducing shaky camera technique that is the modus operandi for much of V/H/S makes for an inauspicious beginning that might lead some audiences to simply leave or switch off the film. It is a general problem for V/H/S that its stories are inhabited by too many foolhardy loudmouths.
But it also offers some well-functioning and extremely creepy periods, - SPOILER especially the motel break-in story (Second Honeymoon), the Skype woman (The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger) and the concluding, wild 1998 Halloween haunted-house story (10/31/98). The video aesthetic lends an uncomfortable realism to the film's best sequences, although many of the glitches and shakings are a bit much.
Still, V/H/S is an energetic and inventive anthology, - obviously made by true horror-lovers. It is made by a very long row of people, so take a deep breath: Conceptualized by Brad Miska (co-founder and editor-in-chief of Bloody-Disgusting.com); Tape 56 (frame story) written by Simon Barrett (Blair Witch (2016)), directed by Adam Wingard (Blair Witch); Amateur Night written by Nicholas Tecosky (SiREN (2016, based on characters created by) and co-writer-director David Bruckner (Southbound (2015, writer-director); Second Honeymoon written and directed by Ti West (In a Valley of Violence (2016)); Tuesday the 17th written and directed by Glenn McQuaid (Chilling Visions: 5 States of Fear (2014), writer-director); The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger written by Barrett, directed by Joe Swanberg (Happy Christmas (2014) writer-director); 10/31/98 written and directed by Radio Silence (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez, Chad Villella (Devil's Due (2014), all)).

 

Here is an unrelated video of what is supposedly a real found-footage video found in Croatia of something very creepy ... Watch if you dare

 

Cost: Unknown

Box office: In excess of 1.9 mil. $

= Unknown (likely a big flop)

[V/H/S premiered January 22 (Sundance) and runs 116 minutes. Filming took place in California. Magnolia Pictures purchased the distribution rights for around 1 mil. $ at Sundance, where it was reported that two movie patrons had to be seen to by paramedics, one of them collapsing after tumbling out during a screening of the film. Notoriously horror-bashing Roger Ebert gave the film a 1-star review. The film opened #52 in 16 theaters to a 36k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked in 19 theaters but didn't go above #52 and grossed just 100k $ (5.3 % of the total gross). If projected at a very modest 1 mil. $ budget, the film remains a big flop theatrically, though it has likely made money through home-video and VoD. Besides normal home-video releases, V/H/S has also been released on VHS in 2013. It has spawned two sequels, V/H/S/2 (2013) and V/H/S: Viral (2014) and the Amateur Night spin-off SiREN (2016). V/H/S is rotten at 55 % with a 5.6 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of V/H/S?

Winter Sleep/Kış Uykusu (2014) - Ceylan's complex, novelistic drama masterpiece

♥♥♥♥♥♥

 

+ Best Turkish Movie of the Year

 

An evocative, melancholic poster for Nuri Bilge Cylan's Winter Sleep

 

Aydin is an aging hotel and land owner and a hobby writer, Aydin, who collides with a family of down-on-their-luck tenants, meanwhile his sister and wife are waging a verbal war on him during a Turkish winter.

 

Winter Sleep is a film that is more shaped as a good novel would be than films usually are. SPOILER Around an hour passes concerning a broken car window; the next more or less with the carping sister; and the last, more or less, is spent on the disdainful wife. It is therefore not a movie for everyone, because it may be demanding for some in terms of our capacity for empathy, patience as well as intellectually. But Winter Sleep has a winter's slow pace but is never dull.

The film portrays humans with superior skill, - among other things, it includes a 15 minutes-long row between the brother and sister, which has to pass over in cinema history as one of the finest sibling squabbles ever, as they lash deeper and deeper stings against the other with the awful determination of petty family insight.

There is a lot at stake here. The film tackles meaty topics such as evil, charity and the marriage institution, - and it has some fabulous, archetypal characters. But the main theme, I think, is an unusual one for cinema, namely resignation. Resignation to the facts of life and its imperfect constructs. Resignation to flaws and defeat. The tale is seen from the viewpoint of Aydin (Haluk Bilginer (Buffalo Soldiers (2001))), a matured, melancholicly disposed man, who has passed his prime and knows it, but who still has a high regard for himself, his past years on the stage and his literary talents, especially as they pertain to skewering his local surroundings - in the local newspaper.

Winter Sleep is written by great Turkish co-writer-director Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia/Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da (2011)) and his wife Ebru Ceylan (Three Monkeys/Üç Maymun (2008)). It is based on Anton Chekhov's (The Seagull/Chayka (1896)) short story The Wife and one subplot of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's (The Idiot/Idiot (1868-9)) The Brothers Karamazov/Brat'ya Karamazovy (1879-80). 

 

Related posts:

 

2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]

2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

 

 

 

Watch an official trailer for the film here

 

Cost: Unknown

Box office: In excess of 4.1 mil. $

= Uncertainty (likely even Steven)

[Winter Sleep premiered May 16 (Cannes) and runs 196 minutes. Filming took place with the Sony F65 camera on location in Anatolia for 2 winter months, followed by four weeks in an Istanbul studio. The film was awarded 450k € from Eurimages as a French-German-Turkish co-production. The film won the Palm d'Or in Cannes as well as the FIPRESCI (critics') prize. It seems to have grossed 165k $ in North America (4 % of the total gross) . It made 1.6 mil. $ (39 % in its native Turkey, where it was reportedly Ceylan's biggest hit to date. Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 1 mil. $ (24.4 %) and Italy with 290k $ (7.1 %). It might have broken even but it is unlikely that it has turned a profit. It was Turkey's entry for the Best Foreign Film Oscar but wasn't nominated. It has reportedly made an additional 88k $ on video sales. Winter Sleep is certified fresh at 88 % with an 8.4 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Winter Sleep?