Beasts of the Southern Wild

First things first: HOLD THE CAMERA STILL! Now that that's out of the way...I wanted to hate this film, because of the stupid amateur shakycam BS, but that contrivance becomes less of a problem as the movie moves forward. Good thing, too, because the visual settle-down actually lets you focus on the meat of the movie: the deeply compelling relationship between main character Hushpuppy and her father Wink. The girl (Quvenzhané Wallis) got all the glory around Oscar time, but I actually found Dwight Henry's work as Wink to be the more riveting performance. Both excellent performances, along with an interesting storytelling vision and a lot of engaging oddness, make this movie worth the effort. (The film is also fairly short, which never hurts the cause.)