The Expendables 2 [2012]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  Roger Moore (1 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1764651/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv093.htm
Roger Moore's review -
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-16/entertainment/sc-mov-0814-expendables-2-20120816_1_expendables-2-meep-jean-vilain

Let me begin by saying that Expendables 2 (directed by Simon West, screenplay by Richard Wenk and Silvester Stalone) is clearly not going to be up for any Academy Awards come winter this year.  There are entire sections of the film that feel like a "1st person shooter" video game (PARENTS DO TAKE NOTE) rightly earning the film a relatively hard-R for violence in the film universe and _definitely_ an M in the video game one.

That said, there is both enough humor and "sappy" trademark Stalone-esque "Rocky style" melodrama in the film, that I'm not at all surprised that it made the top spot in the box office on its opening weekend.  Like many Silvester Stalone products, the editing is _superb_, the pacing keeps one from getting bored, and yes, both the often self-deprecating humor and the doses of sappiness, argh! WORK!  Yes, THESE "Dogs of War" have a heart. It's Blackwater, Inc wrapped in a "Have a Nice Day" Smiley-Face.

Seriously Silvester Stalone, Bruce Willis, Ahhrnald Schwarzenegger and to a lesser extent Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris (all in this movie) all know this game and give still relative newbies/wannabes like Jason Statham and possibly Jet Li (both also in the film) lessons on how to become truly transcendent "tough guy" superstars. 

Still, in my line of work (as a Catholic priest) I do have to say that in my assignments in both Florida and in Chicago, I have met real life "tough guys" (some even who have even done or I'd suspect have done some intelligence work before) who fit the "tough guy" but still "loveable" model.  So Stalone and Schwarzenegger (both Catholics incidently), et al, are, in fact, onto something.

Yes, someone like me has to regret the blood in these films/video-games.  And the Church has long sought to find ways to divert, dilute, (and more problematically, occasionally sought to utilize) the bloodlust apparent at times in society. Arguably Pope Urban II's call for the First Crusade was to divert the Christian Knights' propensity to fight and kill each other to a "worthier goal" of winning back Jerusalem and the Holy Land.  I also wonder if the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy role playing game had existed in the time of Richard Wagner fanatic Adolf Hitler's youth, if Hitler and his inner circle Nazi friends, would have been content enough to "form a party" and be 25+ level "fighters", "clerics" and "magic users" in some fantasy world inhabiting the Internet rather than seek to conquer the actual world ...

Yes, I understand that at times this film _is_ appalling.  There's even a scene, when, the group finds itself somewhere in Russia (and combating some really evil, bent on stealing plutonium, sort of guys), Jason Statham's character disguises himself as an Eastern Orthodox priest and then kills a bunch of them using, among other things, the Orthodox priest's ever present incensor ;-).  And I think then of the similarly violent but also clearly stylized sci-fi-fantasy film called Priest [2011] which was based on a South Korean comic book series where an Order of Catholic-looking Priests (Next to the Philippines, South Korea is probably the most Christian/Catholic nation in East Asia with Vietnam following relatively closely afterwards) used martial arts to vanquish a race of humanity threatening vampires.

All this is to say that this film is clearly not for everybody and yes, it is bloody.  But yes, with the twinkle in Stalone's, Willis', Schwarzenegger's, et al's, eyes, I don't think that anybody would really take the film seriously even as it does take-up issues of relatively serious concern -- internationalized mafia networks and nuclear weapons trafficking.

So "Fan boys of the world unite!  You have nothing to lose but a few hours (until you'll probably buy the game, after which you'll probably lose a lot more)."  And it doesn't surprise me at all that when I checked a couple of my favorite movie sites that I've found since starting my blog, that this film has been a hit among the young in Ireland [2] and Russia [Eng-Trans] and for the same reasons as it has been popular here in the States.  It entertains (and yet remains, _thankfully_, fake ;-).


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ParaNorman [2012]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB ()  Michael Phillips (3 Stars) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1623288/
Michael Philkips' review -
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-16/entertainment/sc-mov-0814-paranorman-20120816_1_paranorman-george-pal-puppetoons-movies

ParaNorman (written and codirected by Chris Butler along with Sam Fell), since it is a movie in a sense about witchcraft, is one that many Catholic and otherwise Christian parents will probably not particularly like.

Yet, Catholics and other Christians did burn heretics and then specifically women accused of witchcraft at the stake throughout Europe during the Middle Ages and up until the time of the Enlightenment.  Further, this practice extended to the early settlers of the English colonies that eventually made-up the United States through the (if we are honest, the "Taliban-like") Protestant sect called the Puritans.  The Salem Witch Trials in the Massachusetts colony are a matter of historical record as are various atrocities committed by Catholic/Christian fanatics across the ages.  Indeed, the Muslims were as appalled at the behavior of Christian Crusaders like Richard the Lionhearted a millenium ago as Westerners (Christians and non) today have been rightly appalled by Muslim fanatics like Al-Queda founder Osama Bin Laden.  (Then ask a Serb Orthodox Christian about what he/she thinks of the (generally Catholic) Crusaders, and you'll _still_ get an earful ...).

So a movie like this, intended for children, does give everyone, including Christian/Catholic parents, a chance to reflect on: (1) what happened? and (2) what do we want to preserve of the Christian message?  The Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus ought to be a message of hope: "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom 8:38-39).  This "Good News" ought never to become an excuse to hate one or another or even a large number of groups that are declared to be in some way (and they're _always_ cast as being in some "important way") "different" from us.

Catholics in particular, since they belong to a Church that sees its mission to be UNIVERSAL (hence big enough for all) ought to be (and, again if one is honest, actually _generally_ have been...) very careful in drawing boundaries that would out-of-hand exclude entire groups of people from communion with it.

Indeed, Catholics/Christians have the Christmas tree today because St. Augustine of Canterbury, when coming to Christianize the pagan (and by reputation even _cannibalistic_) Anglo-Saxon "savages" in Southern England decided that ultimately there's nothing wrong with the Anglo-Saxon (Germanic) practice of bringing evergreens into their homes in the winter.  The Bible, after all, is full of references to trees.  Why not just "baptize" the symbol and be done with it, rather than _choose_ to condemn the practice as some sort of "nature sorcery?"  Throughout the history of the Catholic Church/Christianity, similar accommodations to local culture/sensitivities have been made to the obvious enrichment of the whole).

The Second Vatican Council's declaration Nostra Aetate declared that the Catholic Church "rejects nothing that is true and holy in other religions." [NA#2].  If then for its past sins, the Church has to "eat crow" for a while, well that's something that average Christian / Catholic experiences in his/her day-to-day life _anyway_ when one realizes that one has failed or otherwise sinned against someone in the past and embarks then on a path toward restitution and reconciliation with the hurt/offended party.  But this is not the end, and indeed, admitting one's sins actually lifts the burden of continuing to have carry them and offers us an opportunity for New Life.  And how Catholic / Christian is that! ;-) ;-)

So then ... returning to the film.  The film's about a little boy named Norman (voiced by Kodi Smit McPhee) with a gift.  He "sees dead people."  Why?  Well probably because film-makers saw The Sixth Sense [1999], and like a lot of others found the gift of the child in that film (again of "seeing dead people") really, really cool and then useful in the telling of this new story.

Norman also lived in a town somewhere in the American North East, a town that was "celebrating" the 300th anniversary of a "witch trial," in which a young girl was accused of witchcraft.  Prior to her awful death (again witches were _burned at the stake_), the girl had cursed those who condemned her to suffer as a result.  In the film, no one among the townspeople particularly believed the legend.  But the town certainly enjoyed the "tourism business" that the legend brought in ... ;-).

Well it turns out (in the story) that there was something to the legend.  Indeed, Norman's family had actually "kept the peace" in the town over the 300 years since the trial and burning of the poor little girl by each year going to her grave to read her a bed-time story (THE LITTLE POOR GIRL HAD BEEN THAT YOUNG...) and this would cause the ghost of the little girl to sleep for another year without rising to wreak vengeance on the town that had so mistreated her.

The year of the film, however, Norman's uncle, the last one to keep up this tradition was no longer able to fulfill this task (he had died just before the anniversary) and so the town was in danger of finally feeling the little girl's wrath, and on the 300th anniversary of all this having taken place, no less!  Enter Norman ... (a little boy who was also rather misunderstood/picked-on in his time...) ... Much ensues ...

Actually, sounds like a nice story, huh?

And one can't help but feel sorry for the little girl who was named Agatha (voiced by Jodelle Ferland): "They used to call me Aggie" she tells Norman.  (And whether the film makers realized it or not, Agatha is actually the name of an early Christian Martyr, St. Agatha, who had been horribly tortured and ultimately murdered for refusing to renounce her Christian faith when Christians were being tortured and killed for holding onto a "new" and "subversive religion.")

So parents, this is a complicated story.  I would understand why a lot of Christian / Catholic parents would not necessarily like it.  However there's a lot to this story that is very nice and it does invite us all to reflect on (and teach our kids) what is actually essential to our faith.  And hopefully hate isn't part of it.


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Sparkle [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  Roger Ebert (3 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
Roger Ebert's review

Sparkle [2012] (directed by Salim Akil, screenplay by Mara Brock Akil [IMDb] based on the story by Howard Rosenman and is a remake of the 1976 original by the same name).  The story was inspired at least in part on the beginnings of the 1960s Motown girl group, The Supremes.  The current version will probably be remembered for a number of things: (1) as the debut film for 2007 (season 6) American Idol contest winner Jordin Sparks [IMDb] (who plays the title role of Sparkle in the film), (2) another triumph for the African-American husband and wife film-making team Salim and Mara Brock Akil (even if due to the popularity of the 1976 original film in the African American community posed risks for them), and perhaps above all (3) the "swansong" for superstar but increasingly troubled Whitney Houston [IMDb] (who played Sparkle's and her two sisters' mother in the film).  Houston was found dead in her hotel room sometime after the shooting of the film apparently the result of an accident following the her use of cocaine.  Since the dangers of drug use in the context of celebrity was very much part of the story in this film (and Houston herself was playing a character who was trying to impress on her three daughters exactly those dangers that she (the character) had experienced first hand in her own life: "Is not my life enough of a cautionary tale for you girls?" she tells the girls at one point), Houston's [IMDb] death following the making of this film perhaps is even more poignant/tragic.

The film itself is set in Detroit in the 1960s.  It's about three young adult sisters -- the oldest named Sister (played by Carmen Ejogo) who's certainly the most driven/outgoing and the one who one would guess "shows the most promise," Sparkle (played by Jordin Sparks [IMDb]) who's much shier than her older sister but is a smiling and sympathetic songwriter, and Dolores (played by Tika Sumpter) who loves her sisters, will go along with them, but is the one who probably listened to her mother the most and thus (to her mother's relief) has other _more sensible plans_ with her life, plans that _don't_ involve "fame, bar halls and lights." (Honestly, _from a parent's perspective_ SO LONG AS THE CHILD PROVES HAPPY, having a "Dolores" among one's children IS A BLESSING.  Indeed, over the years, I've told not a few couples preparing for marriage that the ideal number of kids to have would probably be about 4-5.  That way one kid could die, another could end up in jail a third or fourth could really end up "going his/her own way" but there'd be _a pretty good chance_ that at least one kid would end up being what "one hoped that at least one kid would end-up being."  Otherwise there'd be an enormous pressure for the 1-2 kids to end up fulfilling all (or at least _some_) of the parents' hopes.  And that could be a lot of pressure on an only child or only son/daughter.  Yet the converse is also sad ... the unfulfilled aspirations of the parents for at least one of their kids).

Very well ... the film starts with two of the sisters -- Sister and Sparkle -- having sneaked out of the house to sing at a club, proving to be rather good, so good in fact, that a young man, Styx (played by Darek Luke) would like to manage them.  But how to explain this to mom?

The rest of the film with much good music and many rather simple but basically true life lessons ensues ...

Parents, the film is properly rated PG-13.  Some of the themes of drugs, domestic violence, etc, making poor choices (and the consequences of poor choices effecting the people you love) would really be too much for little kids, but it'd be a good film for teens (perhaps even with one's parents) to see.  All in all "a good discussion piece" for families with kids of high school and approaching high school graduation age.


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The Odd Life of Timothy Green [2012]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1462769/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv092.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120814/REVIEWS/120819995

The Odd Life of Timothy Green (screenplay and directed by Peter Hedges, story by Ahmet Zappa [IMDb]) is a gentle family-friendly story about a couple, Jim and Cindy Green (played by Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Garner respectively), who are trying have a family.

The film begins with them being interviewed at an adoption agency and the interviewer wondering why in the space normally reserved for an extended response answering the question "Why do you think you would be good parents?" the two had simply written "Tim Green."  They answer, "Because the story's so complicated that you'd simply need to hear us out."  The interviewer gives them some leeway ... and the rest of the story continues from there ;-).

Basically, the couple who was living in a small town somewhere in the mountains (I'm guessing in either New England or the American Pacific Northwest) had tried for years to have a child.  After finally being told definitively by their doctor that "no" they'll never be able to have biological children of their own, to cope with their grief, the two decide write down on little pieces of note paper the characteristics of the "child of their dreams."  When they collected a sufficient number of such "hopes" they had for such a child (which included that he'd "never give up", "be honest (to a fault)," have his mother's artistic ability, that "he'd rock!", and at least once in his life, he'd "score the winning goal" in a game, etc) they collected the pieces of paper that they wrote those ideas on, put them in a box and buried it in their garden ... and ... went to sleep.

Well, there was a storm that night.  Waking-up in the middle of the night, they find to their surprise a little boy named Tim all covered with mud with a small number of leaves growing out of his feet.  And he calls them "mom" and "dad" ... Yes, parents probably more than your kids ... you'll struggle with holding back tears at times.

Well much ensues.  It's late summer when the story begins and the leaves on his legs "play a role" (actually a number of roles).  But that's all that I'm gonna say... ;-) 

It's just a lovely, lovely, lovely story about a couple that's really wanted to become parents ... and a kid that came to them quite literally "out of the cabbage patch."  Great, great job folks!  Great, great job! ;-)


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Killer Joe [2012]

MPAA (NC-17)  Roger Ebert (3 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (0 Stars)

IMDb listing
Roger Ebert's review

Killer Joe (directed by William Friedkin, screenplay by Tracy Letts based on his play by the same name) is the first movie that I walked out of since I began my movie blog (nearly 2 years ago) and one of only a handful of movies that I've walked out of (or simply shut-off) in my entire life.  The other film that I remember that I also simply had to shut-off at a particular point was the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre [1974] .

I'm not sure about the intent of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre [1974], which may have simply sought to produce a super-realistic film about a mass murdering family, but I'm more or less positive that a good part of the intent of the makers of Killer Joe was to ask viewers how many minutes it would take before they realized that they (the viewers) were being made fun of.  It took me about thirty minutes...

To go any further in watching the film would have required me, the viewer, to participate in the (okay "simulated") rape of a 12 year old.   And yes, folks, we have a right to turn off a tape or walk out of the theater.  We may lose the money (arguably the film makers earned it...).  But there is absolutely nothing other than "pride" or "social control" that would prevent us from saying to ourselves: "Okay, I get it.  The film-maker got me here, but you know what ... I'm done."

Why am I saying that to go more than 30 minutes into this film would have required participating in the ("simulated") rape of a 12 year old?  Because it's filmed that way ...

The set-up of the story is this: A family of "Hick" losers (from "Texas...") decides to hire a hitman named Killer Joe Cooper (played by Texas native Matthew McConaughey) to kill their mother/ex-wife "for the insurance money."  Because, of course, "they're so stupid" that they don't have the money to pay "Killer Joe" upfront, they offer their sister/daughter Dotty (played by Juno Temple) as "collateral."

Well, good ole Joe wants "a date" with Dotty.  And that's when the scene about 30 minutes into the film plays out: Joe comes "over for dinner."  The rest of the family has made excuses so only Dotty's there, who's cooked a "nice tuna casserole" for what she had expected to be a dinner for the whole family.  But again, the "rest of the family's" made excuses and is gone.  So it's just Dotty (who doesn't exactly know that she's been "given" to Joe as "down payment" on the "job" that he's been hired to do).  Joe then asks Dotty to change clothes into the dress that he heard the family had bought for her for that evening.

NOW AS A "GENTLEMAN" _JOE_ actually "turns his eyes away" as she "changes clothes."  HOWEVER, THE AUDIENCE "gets to see everything," watching her get out of her clothes, put on the dress, while Joe, a _police detective_ in his "day job," facing "the other direction" empties his pockets, putting among other things a set of handcuffs on a table..

While she's taking her clothes off (completely, I should add..., and then putting on the dress) Joe makes "small talk."  Among other things, he asks, when she's completely naked (again, _he's_ facing away, while the viewers are seeing everything): "By the way, how old are you?"  This is when, though it wasn't completely clear before (even if there were "indications") she answers: "Twelve..."

She puts the dress on.  He turns around (to face her).  We see him walk over to her, around to the back of her, leans her over against the table ... with both of them now facing the camera so that _he_ was not going to see her anguish as he raped her (but presumably the audience would ...).  I can't tell you what happened afterward, because "twelve" was my breaking point, and I was at the door when he leaned her against the table ... And at this point I was out the door and gone.

As a result of the way the above scene was filmed, the audience (the viewers) was/were actually being asked to participate in the ("simulated") rape of a twelve year old.  AND ARGUABLY THE AUDIENCE WAS EVEN MORE GUILTY THAN JOE.  This is because Joe, in fact, had "turned his eyes away" when she was changing and by presumably "taking her from behind" would not see her anguish, WHILE THE AUDIENCE GOT TO SEE "EVERYTHING."  This then, was the "price of admission" for seeing the rest of the film ...which by my guess probably continued down this exact path, challenging the viewer with the question: "When are you finally going to realize that WE THE FILM-MAKERS ARE MAKING FUN OF YOU?"

And even as I was feeling _somewhat_ "good about myself" for "having had the sense to step out" of the film when I did, I realized that this was the whole point of the story:  "You idiot, (Fr!) Dennis, you went to see an NC-17 rated movie, yes supposedly rated that way 'primarily for the violence' about a 'STUPID/EVIL HICK FAMILY' that was going to kill their mother/ex-wife 'for the insurance money' AND NOW YOU'RE UPSET THAT THE FILM WAS ASKING _YOU_ TO PARTICIPATE (much more than you'd like) IN THAT EVIL?

"Isn't the FIRST EVIL here your own 'buying-into' the assumption that 'Hicks' are so 'stupid/evil' to want to kill their mother/ex-wife 'for insurance money' to begin with?  And if you _choose_ to think so poorly of 'country folk,' heck we'll show ya EVIL but we're gonna ask YOU then to _participate_ in it.  And (presumably...) we're gonna _keep pushing you_ until you finally realize what kind of an idiot you are."

So honestly, Killer Joe makes for an utterly unwatchable film, but it made some very interesting 30 minutes.  And yes, I think I "got it."  Thank you.

And folks, once more.  If you find yourselves in a situation where you've obviously been tricked and are being asked to go down a path to further Evil/degradation, you ALWAYS have the right/opportunity to get up and leave.  We all make mistakes, but we don't have to despair or resign ourselves to continuing on a path to things that are even worse ...


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Searching for Sugar Man [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2125608/

Searching for Sugar Man (directed by Malik Bendjelloul) is the 3rd or 4th remarkable recently released documentary that has passed through Chicago in the last couple of weeks.  This film is about the search for an apparently "washed-up" musician from Detroit in the late 1960's / early 1970s who went by the name of Rodriguez.  After releasing two albums on the Motown label, this artist who all the record producers who had worked with him believed had enormous talent/potential as "the Bob Dylan of Detroit," this painfully shy musician (in live performances, he'd play with his back to the people so that they experienced of him was his guitar and his lyrics) simply disappeared back into obscurity.  As one of the voices in the documentary says "such is the music business..."

HOWEVER, one of his albums made it to South Africa.  By legend, a young woman visiting her boyfriend had brought it there.  South Africa, then under apartheid, was very much isolated from the rest of the world.  His music and lyrics struck a chord.  Soon tapes of both his albums were being distributed among the young white Afrikaner community.  He became so popular that both his albums were eventually released (with some of the tracks scratched out by the Apartheid regime's censorship authorities) with enormous popular acclaim (over there).

Indeed, Rodriguez is credited by one South African musician as having inspired an entire generation of Afrikaner (Dylan, err Rodriguez style) folk singers to the point that this South African musician noted that "in South Africa in the 1970s, there'd be three albums that you'd find in every young Afrikaner's record collection: The Beatles' Abbey Road, Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge over Troubled Waters, and Rodriguez' Cold Fact.  He was that important."

But what happened to him?  That's what the rest of the movie is about, and I assure you, it's a remarkable story.  Further, I would say that MANY older American Hispanics, those who'd be in their 20s-30s "back in the mid 60s-early 70s" would REALLY like this movie.  I honestly think that you'd "get him" and would be (or become) very proud him.  It's a truly remarkable story!


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Celeste and Jesse Forever [2012]

MPAA (R)  Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars) Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Roger Ebert's review

Celeste and Jesse Forever (directed by Lee Toland Krieger, written by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack) is a well-written/crafted/acted film about a young couple in their late 20s/early 30s that's divorcing.  As such, folks, though often funny, this film is not really a comedy, nor (look at its theme...) is it not exactly a "date movie," certainly not a light one.  Still, for a serious couple it's probably worth seeing.

Celeste (played by Rashida Jones) and Jesse (played by Andy Samberg) had been together "forever," certainly all through college (and if I recall correctly, even before).  Yet, sometime before actual story of the film had started, Celeste, a writer and "social trend analyst" had become sufficiently disappointed with Jesse (a commercial artist of sorts) to ask for a divorce.

Perhaps like many couples today, she was definitely "moving (up)" and "knew where she wanted to go," while he was "kinda stagnant" but "happy where he was."  In a telling scene near the beginning of the film, Celeste comes home from work flush from feeling GREAT that her book "Sheitgheist - The Death of American Culture" was about to go the stores, and she finds Jesse in the garage (which the two had previously converted into his studio and where he still lived) sitting on a couch with a beer in his hand watching taped highlights of the "super heavyweight weight lifting competition" from still the 2008 Beijing Olympics (!!) -- Folks it's 2012 and the London Games just took place... -- still doing (for himself) the "German accented sports commentary" that in the past (like around 2008 ...) both Celeste and Jesse probably would have found hilarious.  It's clear that Jesse probably liked things back then and probably hasn't done a lot of "heavy lifting" since then, and Celeste, well ... "has moved on..."

But before beating up Jesse too much, let's underline something key in the film -- Jesse's basically happy (ultimately with or without her...) though he adds to his own problems over the course of the story (but always somehow with a smile), it's Celeste who's the unhappy one.  My hat off to Jones and Mc Cormak who wrote the screenplay.  It's a very interesting insight into many male/female relationships today.

Much, of course, ensues.  The supporting cast -- played by Ary Graynor / Eric Christensen, Elijah Wood / Emma Roberts, Chris Messina / Rebecca Dayan and Will McCormack / Kate Krieger -- is _excellent_.

It makes for a great story ... just, well, kinda sad ... but then look back again at what it's about.  But good job all around!


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