Thank you, Tom at Digital Shortbread, for co-hosting this month’s feature of the Lucky 13 Film Club. Tom’s reviews are gracefully constructed and insightful. I highly recommend you check out his site; start with his full review of 

Buffalo Skulls

I’m of the thinking that the best dramas are always able to do so much with so little. The Revenant is a perfect example. Dialogue runs at a premium, and the overriding narrative arc comes down to a simple revenge plot, detailing experienced explorer Hugh Glass’s ordeal after he’s left for dead by his men following a grisly bear attack and after witnessing his son’s murder at the hands of fur trapper John Fitzgerald.

The Revenant is a western unlike any other. Who knew watching a man crawl on his hands and knees for much of the 2-and-a-half-hour run time could be so compelling? Or that experiencing the…