Amour: Greetings from Hell  This French film is nominated for
Best Picture. Ummm…that’s about the only cheerful thing about
it.   The only thing more difficult than watching the Best
Picture-nominated Amour is writing an entertaining review of it.
Director Michael Haneke, who brought us such other light-hearted
romps as Funny Games and The Piano Teacher, fine-tunes his
supernatural ability to translate suffering, sorrow, and grief
to the silver screen with the story of two elderly lovebirds who
are facing what all of us eventually must.  Here’s the rub! I
actually really liked both Funny Games (two boys torture a
family physically and psychologically for no reason) and The
Piano Teacher (Frenchwoman with disturbing repressed sexual
proclivities is bossed around by her mother). They weren’t
exactly pleasant to watch, but they made me feel
things–hopelessness, repulsion, anxiety. It’s an odd set of
emotions to explore, but…you know. Movies. They’ve gotta cover
all the bases.   In Haneke’s latest, Georges (Jean-