Harper's Review

  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy tells the story of MI6 agent George Smiley (Gary Oldman) coming out of retirement to aid in the investigation and capture of a mole planted by the Soviet Union.  It is a movie based on a miniseries of the same name from 1979 with Alec Guinness as the lead role.  This film features one of the most star-studded British casts I have seen and every player fits their role perfectly.  Gary Oldman is one of my favorite actors of all time, and is well accompanied by Colin Firth, John Hurt, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy, Mark strong and others most will recognize.  The plot follows a team of agents who seems to work specifically against the soviet union as they utilize various intelligence resources to identify and rectify issues they are having with intelligence leaks.  That's basically the whole plot, and watching it unfold is actually very, very BORING.   I've been dancing around watching this film for a long time.  So...

  The Killing of a Sacred Deer   is a thriller that centers around a cardiac surgeon named Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell) and his family. Very early on, we are introduced to a young boy named Martin (Barry Keoghan) who Steven has taken under his wing.  Martin is very strange in some way, but Steven's life seems to be going well as a surgeon, and also as a family man.  He is happily married to an Ophthalmologist named Anna (Nicole Kidman) and has a 15 year old daughter and a 12(?) year old son.  Life seems well here, on paper, but from the very beginning something is not right about anything.  This film does an amazing job of creating a sense of unease throughout, which builds the suspense.  There is a large amount of silence surrounding the scenes, as if we are to look at whats not being said more so than what is.  The music is discordant and eerie, and the shots leave so many questions for an astute audience member.  There are a fe...