Lawless [2012]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  Roger Ebert (2 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
Roger Ebert's review

It would be tempting to dismiss Lawless (directed by John Hillcoat, screenplay by Nick Cave based on the novel The Wettest County in the World by Matt Bondurant) as an right-wing American Presidential election year propaganda piece.

The chief villain of the story, set in rural Franklin County, Virginia ("moonshine country") during the Prohibition Era is a thoroughly greasy and corrupt "Special Agent" Charlie Rakes (played by Guy Pearse) sent ostensibly "by the Government" to "wrap up" the operations of the "down home" Franklin County bootleggers "just tryin' to make a living."  Actually, he seems to have been sent there more "on behalf of the Chicago Outfit" (think Al Capone) to shake them down.  Then, when he gets there he seems to take a "likin'" to local "African American hookers" ... You get the picture ... Is this film really set in the 1920s or in a paranoid fantasy of a present day Obama-hating (who, after all, is mixed race, pro-government, or at least not "anti-government," even democratically elected government, and from Chicago ...) fatigue clad white supremacist with an axe to grind?  (The film is actually based on the historical novel given above ... but of all the possible novels to be made into a film, why _this one_, and _why now_?  "Well, Virginia ... it's an election year" ... And there's also a thoroughly anti-Iranian film called Argo [2012] in Hollywood's pipeline set to come out in the fall "just in time to prepare us" for the coming conflict there).

That said, readers of this blog will also know that I've consistently trashed viciously stereotypical portrayals of "hicks" in Hollywood films (Straw Dogs [2011], Killer Joe [2012] or say nothing of Shark Night [2011]) while giving good reviews of films that lampooned the awful stereotype (Tucker and Dale vs Evil [2010]) or at least tried to offer a more complex (if at times troubled) portrayal of contemporary rural life in the United States (Hick [2012]).

Further, if the current film, Lawless, wasn't being released 2 months before an American presidential election and the villain (from the current President's hometown, and arguably _my_ own hometown) wasn't painted in such an over-the-top, thoroughly greasy/slimy stereotypical way, I'd probably be more positively disposed to it as well (and I'm giving it 2 1/2 stars, not exactly trashing it, despite my thorough dislike of the portrayal of its crayon/catchup-drawn villain).  It's a good "under dog" story, celebrating freedom (symbolized by the moonshine whiskey and hills) and certainly the list of actors and actresses playing in the film is excellent.

The story's about the Bondurant brothers, Forrest (played by Tom Hardy) and Jack (played Shia LaBeouf), moonshiners from said Franklin County in rural southwestern Virginia during the Prohibition Era (1920-1933).  Already at the beginning of the film, they had a reputation of being "indestructible."  One had been the sole survivor of his _entire battalion_ in "The Great War" following a shipwreck on his way to Europe to fight.  The other, despite having caught the 1918 Spanish Flu that decimated the region (killing also much of his family as well as some 50 million people world-wide) had "gotten better" a few weeks after catching that flu and simply "went on with his life" even as all kinds of folks all around were dieing from it.

This sense of their apparent "indestructibility" then informed their response to "Special Agent Rakes'" arrival "from Chicago" to "turn the screws" on Franklin County's moonshiners (more like them "shake down") on behalf of the Government (in reality more like for the Chicago Mob).  Feeling themselves "indestructible" the Bondurant brothers decided to tell Special Agent Rakes to "go to Hell" when he sought to extort them, and the rest of the movie unspools from there ...

Of course a good moonshining, Prohibition Era gangster drama needs more than just "gangsters," "corrupt lawmen" and "rum-runners."  It needs women, and Jessica Chastain playing a former "show-girl" (again from Chicago...) who "just wanted some peace" (apparently all the way out in rural Virginia's Franklin County) and Mia Wasikowska playing a "preacher's daughter" from a presumably dry Amish-like sect provide the film's love interests for both Forrest and Jack respectively.  It all makes from a very good story and is at least in part based on true events.

There is one other aspect of the story I did not like -- it's episodic _needlessly brutal_ depictions of violence.  Yes, this is largely a "gangster film," so violence comes with the territory.  However, I would argue that the violent scenes in this film are often so over-the-top graphically portrayed that they cloud over, arguably _drench_, the rest of the story.  PARENTS PLEASE TAKE NOTE that one of the characters in the film HAS HIS THROAT SLIT.  The depiction of that scene is still _with me_ and there are several other scenes approaching that level of brutality.  Yes, the throat slitting apparently really happened in the true story, BUT is _that scene_ really what a film-maker/story-teller would want the viewer to remember from the film?   Is not the larger story largely in danger of being lost in the blood of that one scene?  And I do think that this is a problem whenever film-makers _choose_ to focus _too much_ "on the blood" of a story rather than on the story itself.

So bottom line.  This _not_ a bad film, but it could have been MUCH BETTER.  If the film-makers chose to focus less on the blood of the one scene described above (and several others like it) and less on the "Chicago-ness" of the "dirty government agent" they would have had on Oscar contending 4 star movie.  Instead, they give us a 2 - 2.5 Star arguably right-wing propaganda piece that leaves viewers remembering largely brutal details in the film rather than the larger story itself.  The film makers owed the actors/actresses of this film (and viewers) much better.


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Lymelife [2008]

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

IMDb listing
Roger Ebert's review


Lymelife [2008] (directed and co-written by Derick Martini along with Steven Martini) is an award-winning indie film that was recommended to me since I had clearly enjoyed/appreciated Derick Martini's more recent film, Hick [2012]. (Readers of this blog will know that I enjoy small, imaginative, well-acted/crafted projects like said Hick [2012], The Future [2011], Rid of Me [2011], Damsels in Distress [2011], Small Beautiful Moving Parts [2012], Safety Not Guaranteed [2012], and even foreign equivalents of these kind of projects like Avé [2010] from Bulgaria, Riscado (The Craft) [2011] from Brazil and Ha Algien Visto a Lupita? (Have You Seen Lupita?) [2011] from Mexico.  Please check my listing of Independent-Art House Films for a full listing of any number of such films that I've reviewed here.  These _small films_ often available for download via Amazon, iTunes, or various other On Demand services before becoming available through NetFlix or Blockbuster.com are IMHO, often enough, a true joy to watch).

Very good, Lymelife, is a coming of age story set in suburban Long Island in the early 1980s.  The story centers on Scott Bartlett (played by Rory Culkin) a 14 year old, preparing for Confirmation (the first time he's ever going to be officially called an adult), who has an enormous crush on the one year older Adrianna Bragg (played by Emma Roberts).  The two, indeed the two families, neighbors, have known each other for years.  Indeed, Adrianna's mother Melissa (played by Cynthia Nixon) has worked as an assistant to Scott's father Mickey (played by Alec Baldwin) in his local real estate development firm.

Business has been good, indeed booming.  As a result, Scott's father and Adrianna's mother have been spending far more time together than they probably should have, while leaving the other two parents/spouses -- Adrianna's father Charlie (played by Timothy Hutton) who had come down with the then utterly bizarre and previously unheard-of ailment called "Lyme Disease," and Scott's mother Brenda (played by Jill Hennessy) who had never really adjusted to suburban life and was still "pining for Queens" where she grew up -- behind.

So even as Scott and Adrianna are really in the beginning stages of growing-up and discovering themselves, they're also doing this in an environment where their parents are living in a very unstable situation.  Needless to say, much ensues ...

A remarkable aspect of this movie is that it is so well written and directed that one can understand and appreciate the point of view / motivations of _everyone_ of the major characters in the story.  To give an example: In a fit of frustration about how things were going (and really not going) with Adrianna, Scott spreads a rumor about her to friends at school.  We get to understand/appreciate why did it.  We also get to appreciate how Adrianna had to deal with it after it was done.  Finally we get to watch how the effect of "The Rumor" dissipates and the two characters can move on.  (And this is just a part of the story involving the teens.  The relationship between the adults and the adults with their kids is _all the more_ complex and fascinating.)

Would I recommend this film to parents for their teenage kids?  Well, folks, the film is _kind_, but it is also real.  You're definitely gonna squirm at times.  But, yes, giving you the warning that both you and your teens are going to squirm at times, I would certainly recommend it. 

Finally, I would honestly encourage readers here to take a look at the list of actors' names that are involved in this project.  This was _a small film_ but it did attract some really big names and _deservingly so_.  It was a nice, nice and at times painful/poignant story that was told here.  Honestly, good job all around! ;-)


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The Apparition [2012]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  The Onion/AV Club (D)  Fr. Dennis (2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB's review
The Onion/AV Club review

The Apparition [2012] (written and directed by Todd Lincoln) seems me to be a thoroughly average post-Paranormal Activity [2007] low budget horror film. This is not to say that the current film is simply a "knock-off" of the PA franchise.  As a decent enough "genre film," The Apparition does pay homage to some of the genre's tried-and-true formulaics (notably in terms of subtext) even as it tries (perhaps even quite boldly) to advance the genre as well.  Where The Apparition fails perhaps is in execution.  But then, The Apparition aims simply to be a "b-movie" in our time.  It didn't have the budget to execute better than it did. 

Subtext.  One thing that The Apparition does better than the Paranormal Activity franchise is that there is actually discernable subtext to the current film something that was largely lacking in the PA franchise.   The first Paranormal Activity [2007] film simply played itself out in a random house in a random subdivision in suburban San Diego in Southern California.  In contrast, The Apparition, while borrowing from the PA franchise its "house" setting, anchors itself in two phenomena in America (post-2008 Financial Crisis) today:

(1) The house in which the two protagonists live is in a _largely empty_ subdivision at the edge of the Southern California metropolis, empty because the housing crash resulted in a collapse in new home construction and in a wave of foreclosures among those who owned (or speculated on the prices of) existing homes.  So the two find themselves living in basically a "ghost subdivision."

(2) The two principal protagonists of the story live in the house that they do (in that "ghost subdivision") on behalf of one of their parents to both try to protect what's left of that previous investment (so that it's not completely lost) and because as students (or recently graduated students) they simply can't afford to live anywhere else.  (The whole Occupy Movement of the Fall of 2011 was largely driven by students'/young people's anxieties over student debt and their future).   So even before the two protagonists. Ben (played by Sebastian Stan) and Kelly (played by Ashley Greene), find the house in which they are living in to be "haunted" in a particular way, they are already dealing with multiple levels of anxiety. 

Now why is the house haunted?  Here in the tradition of American b-movie horror films, writer-director Todd Lincoln seeks (perhaps) to develop "demon motiff" (obviously) present in the Paranormal Activity franchise and perhaps other recent films like Insidious [2011].  Who are these demons?  And why would they entering into this world?  (POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT)  Without getting into too much detail here, The Apparition suggests that these entities, if certainly "driven" and arguably "hungry", they are not necessarily "demons" in the classical sense (ie "they are simply Evil").  Instead, writer-director Todd Lincoln suggests that they may simply "entities from another plane" whose motivations we presently don't understand (something more akin to the entities from the sci-fi Predator franchise).  This is an interesting, arguably "scientific" approach to what has previously been relagated to the realm of, well, Religion :-).

As a Catholic priest, I do find Todd Lincoln's idea interesting.  However, I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't necessarily want to pursue the "study" of these "beings from another plane."  Science has brought us enough problems with "containment" of "toxic materials" and preoccupations with their "safe handing/disposal" as it is.  And indeed, once Ben and his friends realize that they had inadvertently opened a path for these "beings from another plane" to enter into our world (through a bone-headed, "seance" that they conducted while still in college some time back), some of them begin to use the language of "containment" to seek (of course futily...) to put a lid on the problem.

Anyway, The Apparition [2012] is not by any means a "great movie."  Instead, it seeks to be a "b-movie," of the type that was famous in the 1950s-60s when Invaders from Mars [1953], The Blob [1958] and so on were the rage.  And yet those movies, like this one, were rooted in anxieties of their time.


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Hope Springs [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (L)  Roger Ebert (3 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1535438/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv089.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120807/REVIEWS/120809990

Hope Springs (directed by David Frankel, written by Vanessa Taylor) is a movie that, I admit, I did not go enthusiastically to see.  To be sure given the actors involved, notably Meryl Streep and Steve Carrell, but also Tommy Lee Jones (who IMHO was cast _perfectly_ for his role), I fully suspected that the film would be excellent.  But like many others, I wasn't sure I really wanted to sit through a film exploring the marriage (and yes, sex life) of an older couple, much less pay for it.  However, having done so, I do think that the film is worth a view.  After all, "we're not 20 forever," and we are generally living longer.  It behooves us to seek (and find) happiness in our lives and in our relationships (with each other, and I would add, with our God) when we find ourselves in our late-40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and into our 80s and perhaps even beyond.  Otherwise, we'd find ourselves facing a _long_ period of progressive decline and increasing unhappiness.

The film begins with a Nebraska couple, Arnold (played by Tommy Lee Jones) and Kay (played by Meryl Streep) "having the kids over" for dinner (Kay made "prime rib") to celebrate their 37th wedding anniversary.  It's "an odd year," so the the sensible pair felt no need to celebrate it in a bigger way.  When one of their daughters asks them what they got each other for this "not particularly important" anniversary, they answer "a new cable TV package."  They assure their kids and their spouses "it has a lot of channels..."  The younger generation is unconvinced, but seem to say to themselves heck "that's ma' and dad, perhaps when we're 'old' we'd do the same."  After the kids leave, we see what the "new cable package" actually means for Arnold and Kay:  While Kay washes the dishes, Arnold falls asleep in his chair watching a a program "about improving his golf swing."  Sigh ...

A few days later, Kay, who works in a clothing store in town, talks to her co-worker Eileen (played by Jean Smart) about the rather depressing / no longer going anywhere / "static" apparently "just waiting to die" state of her marriage.  As a result of the conversation, she decides to go to a book store afterwards, where she finds a book by "relationship guru" Dr. Feld (played by Steve Carrell) who promises older couples like Kay and Arnold that they _don't_ "have to settle," that they _can_ continue to have a marriage that excites them and fulfills them as they grow old(er) together.  Kay looks up Dr. Feld's website on the internet and is immediately impressed.  This is what she wants a marriage that continues to excite her even after 37 years, rather than resigning herself to the same routine, day-after-day, until mercifully through "death do they part."

Arnold, of course, _has resigned himself_ to the day-to-day routine -- He gets up each morning, showers, dresses for work, eats the breakfast that Kay's prepared for him each day, kisses her (on the cheek), goes to work (apparently for some insurance company), comes home from work, eats the dinner that Kay's prepared for them, and then crashes in front of the TV-set to watch "the Golf Channel" to get some tips about "improving his game" (which it appears he doesn't play much anymore anyway).  Some years back he had a back problem and then "some sleep apnia" (he snores).  As a result, he's been sleeping in the guest room (for years) anyway.  It's not exactly an exciting life, but Arnold's resigned to it and generally happy with it, and doesn't understand why Kay would want to "shake things up." (Of course, he's not the one getting up to cook his breakfast and only getting a perfunctory kiss on the cheek and perhaps a mumbled "'love ya" afterwards as he "rushes" then to work...).

Fortunately, Arnold does have a friend at work, Vince (played by Brett Rice), who is able to "hear" for Arnold what he himself would have otherwise missed.  When Arnold complains to him that Kay "had this crazy idea" of going out to Maine for a week to take an intensive seminar by this Dr. Feld, it is Vince who convinces him to go, telling him that if had listened to his wife when she had wanted to do something similar, he wouldn't be going home "to nothing" these days.  (Indeed, one of very _nice_ aspects of this film is the attention given to the friends of both Arnold and Kay (Eileen and Vince) in the story.  Their roles are not large but important).  So Arnold grudgingly goes with Kay to Dr. Feld's "intensive couples' seminar."  And much, of course ensues ...

Here I want to say that the performances of all three of the princpal actors Streep, Carrell and Jones were all excellent.  I've come to expect this (for different reasons) from both Streep (heck she's a "living legend") and Carrell (he really seems to be on a mission use film and his career to make people, common, regular people, happier ... honestly look at Carell's career and the roles that he's taken.  He's been _repeatedly_ willing to take the role of "the schmuck" for the sake of bringing greater happiness to others.  And someone _like me_ "in my line of work" simply has to admire and _applaud_ that).  The performance of Tommy Lee Jones was more of a surprise to me.  To some extent he played  the same role that he always plays -- of a "crotchety older man."  However, he plays it absolutely perfectly here and with enough depth / surprising nuance that one gets to better understand his character and also understand how/why a character like his _could change_.

So I want to say that this film is worth seeing.  It is not exactly a slick/glamourous movie.  After all, it's about a supremely average and aging "white collar" couple from suburban (Omaha?) Nebraska trying to find happiness and fulfillment in their lives after being together for 37 years in marriage.  But I do think that ANYBODY who's "been there," is approaching "there,"_is_ "there," would appreciate the film.

Finally, I would remind readers here that a surprising number of the stories that we find in the Bible are about "older people" given a new lease of life.  Abraham was called by God when he was 75 (!!).  Sarah (Abraham's wife) became a mother (became surprisingly _generative/creative_) at 90 (!!).  Moses only saw the "burning bush" when he was 80 (!!).  In each case, arguably their lives ONLY BEGAN THEN.  Their many decades of life before were actually just prologue.

In our youth obsessed time, the Good News of this may be difficult to fully appreciate or fathom.  But it does appear that the God of the Biblical Scriptures wants us to be happy and find purpose/fulfillment.  There are certainly times in our lives where we may (like Abraham/Sarah, Moses/Israelites) find ourselves "sterile" and/or "wandering through the desert" for long periods of time.  But we are told that we can find ourselves, fulfillment and even God at 75, 80, 90 or 100.  This is something to remember when we find ourselves perhaps wondering if "our lives are over" and/or "our best years are behind us."


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Cosmopolis [2012]

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

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1480656/
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120822/REVIEWS/120829995

Cosmopolis (screenplay and direction by David Cronenberg, based on the novel by Don DeLillo) is an eiree, and excruciatingly slow-moving film about "the day" a 20-something billionaire Wall Street magnate named Eric Parker (perfectly cast and played by Robert Pattinson of vampire Edward / Twilight Saga fame).  At the beginning of the film, we find Eric standing by his gigantic stretch limo presumably outside of his Manhattan office building deciding that he's going to "go for a haircut."

Most of the rest of the film takes place in the simultaneously coffin / casino like interior of his limo as the limo navigates the terribly slow moving traffic from his office to the barber shop in his old neighborhood to get his hair done.  Immediate parallels could be made to James Joyce's Ulysses [Amaz], Orson Welles' [IMDb] Citizen Kane (1941) [IMDb], and even Dante's "descent into Hell" in his Inferno.  For it's one heck of a slow-moving ride that Eric takes that day.

(SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE WHO WOULDN'T WANT TO READ BEFORE-HAND WHAT ALL HAPPENS DURING ERIC'S LIMO TRIP TO THE BARBER).  During the course of his limo ride Eric (1) meets with various consultants who dutifully "wait on the curb" for "their master's limo" to pass by before entering its hallowed confines; (2) has the associate of his personal doctor give him his _daily_ physical complete with a prostrate exam (the real-time ultra-sound of which is dutifully displayed on the ghostly flatscreen monitors that grace much of the inside of the limo, even as Eric meets, face-to-face, with one of his consultants; (3) loses most of his fortune on an ill-conceived bet on the Chinese Yuan in the currency markets; (4) has sex twice, first with his French-accented 40-something "Mrs Robinson-like" longtime mistress (played by Juliette Binoche) who laughs at him for having apparently recently married his "cold fish" 20-something wife Elisa (played by Sarah Gadon) from an old moneyed patrician family, the second time with the wife of his trusted bodyguard (why? because he was bored? because he was miffed at his truly somewhat "cold fish" newly-wed wife? because he could? because he hated his trusted bodyguard precisely because he was so trustworthy? who knows? but was clear was that Eric didn't particularly care), (5) loses his wife, though not really for his beyond-obvious infidelites ("Eric, you smell like ...") but for the far more "unpardonable sin" of, well, losing his fortune in the course of the day...; (6) has the outside of his limo trashed by Anarchists (whose protests are partly responsible for the terrible traffic delays that Eric experiences that day); (7) gets "pied" by a Euro-loon "reality showman" who's "famous" for "pieing the rich and famous;" and (8) _possibly_ meets his death at the hands of a loser gunman (played masterfully by Paul Giamatti) who tells Eric that (a la JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald) the only way anyone was going to remember a loser like him would be if he killed someone as "important" as Eric.  And through the course of the day, the ghostly white complected Eric does not seem to care ... (END SPOILER ALERT).

The film (therefore) becomes a grand parable about a search for meaning.  Like the Buddha in his youth or the Biblical writer of Ecclesiastes/Qoheleth, Eric seemed to have it all, but none of it seemed to mean anything to him.  In Gospel terms, "What profit would it be to gain the whole world and yet lose one's eternal soul?" (Mark 8:36).  My sense is that Eric did not particularly feel that he even had one to lose...

It all thus makes for one heck of a movie IF one can bear its slow-moving pace and excruciatingly monotone dialog.  But then both the pace and the dialog were obviously intended to be that way.


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Premium Rush [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (L)  Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1547234/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv098.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120822/REVIEWS/120829996

Premium Rush (directed and cowritten by David Koepp along with John Kamps) is a film about a New York City subculture (that of bicycle couriers) that I'm positive would annoy many residents/commuters.

On the other hand, I've known a fair number of cycling enthusiasts -- sometimes, while always nice people, they've bordered on being fanatics;-) -- that I went to the theater happy to enter "their world" for a while and to enjoy the ride.

The plot is clearly thin: Ace bicycle courier nicknamed Wilee (after Wiley Cayote from the Warner Bros. cartoon and played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is given what would seem to be a typical job -- carry an innocuous looking letter from one end of town to another.

However there are some surprises right from the start.  The client, turns out to be the quiet, studious Chinese roommate (named Nima and played Jamie Chung) of his girlfriend Vanessa (played by Dania Ramirez).  Vanessa also worked as a bike courier (on the side) but her main job was being a student (as of course was her roommate).  In fact, early in the movie it was clear that Wilee and Vanessa had something of a recent falling-out.  Vanessa had just graduated law school and bike-couriering/adrenaline junkie Wilee had missed her graduation.

Early one afternoon, Nima calls Wilee and Vanessa's South Asian dispatcher Raj (played by Aasif Mandvi) asking specifically for Wilee to run this letter, from her office at the university on one end of Manhattan to Chinatown near the other end.  Why did he choose him?  Well, from what she heard from Vanessa, "he was the best."  Much ensues ...

Among that which ensues is that almost immediately after receiving the letter and dutifylly putting it in his courier bag, someone, a man in his 30s-40s (played by Michael Shannon) wants the letter.  This man stops him right as Wilee leaves the Nima's building and asks for the letter (giving some story along the lines that he's actually the one who's supposed to receive it anyway).  Wilee responds AS ANY 20-SOMETHING with this kind of job would respond: "You see, sir, once I receive a package and put it in my satchel, I don't give it to anyone until I deliver it to the address requested," and leaves.  The man proceeds to chase Wilee first by foot and a few minutes later shows-up behind him in a car.  A chase then ensues ...

What's going on?  Well, I'm not going to say more because to do so would take away from the story, except to say that the story itself, while at times poignant/touching, is really beside the point.  What we viewers get in this movies is the opportunity to watch an hour and a half of some really, really cool bike-riding on the busy streets of Manhattan.

We also get a sense, in as much as bike couriers really cycle like this all over the streets of Manhattan of why these bicycle couriers would probably be hated by both motorists and pedestrians over there.  Still to more sedentary film critics the cinema-world over, THE SHOTS IN THIS FILM ARE JUST AWESOME.  Yes, Wilee, Vanessa and Raj work for a "Premium Rush" courier service.  However, just watching the film honestly gives one a rush as well!

So kids, PLEASE DON'T DO WHAT'S SHOWN IN THIS FILM.  The crazy cycling in the film is done by true stunt cyclists who know what they're doing.  On the other hand, I do have to say, THE FILM IS REALLY, REALLY COOL ;-) and anybody who's ever liked cycling or known a cycling enthusiast/fanatic before would certainly enjoy this film!  Good job folks!

ADDENDUM:

A specialized "niche" film like this inevitably brings the question of how many other "bicycle" films are out there.  A list is of such films, ranging from the Neo-Realist (and very sad) post-WW II Italian film, Bicycle Thieves [1948] to Spielberg's ET [1982], was compiled by the good folks MassBike Online and is given here.


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Hit and Run [2012]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (0 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2097307/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv096.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120822/REVIEWS/120829991

I suppose we learn a number of things about Dax Shepard in the film Hit and Run, which he wrote, codirected (along with David Palmer) and costarred in: He likes cars, can write a decent slacker comedy/rom-com, but for some reason is either really stupid or a racist:

There is a scene in this film, which he wrote and codirected, in which co-star Bradley Cooper drags a large, otherwise powerfully-built African American man out of a convenience store with a leash around his neck and then proceeds to force feed the African American man the "slightly cheaper" dog food that he was trying to buy for his dog.

Was the scene necessary to the plot?  Even if "the point" was to portray Bradley Cooper's character, a former bank-robber as a psychopath, there would have been any number of ways that Shepard and the rest of his film-crew could have made it.  Instead, they chose _this_ way, which congers up the dragging death (SENSELESS MURDER) of James Byrd, Jr in Jaspers Texas, one of the worst hate crimes to have occurred in the United States in past 20 years.

The choice of including this unnecessary scene is unfortunate because the movie is often very funny as both a "slacker comedy" and as a "romcom" about a smart talented, but not particularly confident young woman (who really should have been a professor, having gotten a PhD from Stanford University in "Conflict Resolution Studies") played by Kristen Bell, and a nice/supportive if not particularly bright ex-con played by Shepard.

Some more conservative Catholics/Christians would have probably objected to the generally lighthearted/positive portrayal of a couple of gay characters in the film.  Yet this is always the frustration when it comes to trying to take a stand against bigotry.  The film challenges anti-gay bigotry (even that, if we are honest, which exists within many places in the Catholic Church today) and then features the utterly needless scene above featuring the humiliation of an African American man.

Shocking hate crimes, after all, have been committed against homosexuals as well, notably in the case of the torture and de facto lynching Matthew Shepard in Wyoming a few  years after the Jame Byrd's dragging death in Texas.  (Dax Shepard shares Matthew Shepard's last name but is apparently not related to him).

So I am disappointed with this film and do hope that its young stars which include Dax Shephard, Kristen Bell and Bradley Cooper choose to do better in the future.  To carelessly walk into a situation which leaves viewers scratching their heads and wondering if the film-makers/actors were a bunch of racists, can't possibly be a wise career move.  After all, these talented young actors are one day going to want to work with likes of Zoe Saldana, Viola Davis, Will Smith, Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman.  Yet, thanks to this film, they've probably made such future collaboration somewhat and _stupidly_ "awkward."


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Why Stop Now? [2012]

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

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1853643/
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120815/REVIEWS/120819988

Why Stop Now? (written and directed by Phil Dorling and Ron Nyswaner) is a well-crafted "indie" film about a young struggling classical musician named Eli (played by Jesse Eisenberg) who's had a really bad day.  Eli's mentor had gotten him a big break, a chance at an audition for a top of the line music conservatory in Boston.  But Eli comes to the audition late and with one of his hands (!) in a bandage.  His mentor asks: "What happened?"  "Well if you've had the day that I've had, you'd understand ..."  The rest of the movie follows.

Eli begins his explanation "Actually my day began the night before.  A rich jerk down the street was throwing a party and I, of course, wasn't invited.  And so I, of course, had to show-up anyway..."  Eli crashed the party, had gotten really drunk, and just as the host was going to throw him out, Eli spotted a piano.  He forced himself to it, sat himself down, played enough bars to impress everyone there, and then stopped and threw-up right next to it.  That of course got him now definitively thrown out of the place and probably more roughed up than he would have been if he had just left the party quietly ...

The next morning, clearly hung-over from the night before, he had to face the tasks of the new day.  He had, of course, the audition sometime in the late morning/early afternoon.  But before that, he had to get his mother Penny (played by Melissa Leo) finally to rehab.  Of course, she didn't particularly want to go, saying, of course "My problem isn't _that bad_, etc."  But even before that, he had to take his little sister Nicole "Coli" (played by Emma Rayne Lyle) to school.  By now you could imagine that Coli would have come to have some "issues" of her own.  And, of course she does: she's made a hand puppet out of a sock (actually put a face on it and all that...) and through this hand puppet friend who she calls "Diego" (I believe), she's been able to vent a lot of anger at the world.  Basically she's been (err.  "Diego's been"...) telling teachers and other school kids to "go to hell" and so forth.  So when Eli and ma (going to rehab ...) come to drop Coli at school, there's her teacher waiting for them, waiting to talk to her ma' (and Eli if ma's really going to go to rehab...) to tell her/them that, well, Coli's "got problems" that need to be dealt with ... Eli tells teacher that well "we know..." but that he has to take ma' to rehab first ... (Folks, if you've ever thought that your life's been a mess ...)

So Coli's been dropped off at school and now Eli and ma' are standing in front the rehab center.  Will ma' actually go in?  Well after some further persuading, she does ... and about 20 minutes later she's steps out again.  WHY????? Well, she hasn't actually used drugs in 4-5 days and so her urine tested clean!  The attending official told her that without dirty urine (and no insurance on her part) he can't let her in.  But he (seriously ... ;-) suggested to her that she "go get some drugs, get high, and come back then with the needed ditry urine" and THEN he could admit her...

It is here where the movie really begins.  Along the course of the rest of the film, we get to meet Ma's drug connections, two brothers nicknamed Sprinkles (played by Tracy Morgan) and Black (played by Isiah Whitlock, Jr) as well as their supplier Eduardo (played by Paul Calderon).  Very much ensues ...

Why Stop Now? proves to be a very funny, well crafted comedy about someone's epicly "bad day."  I also think that Jesse Eisenberg proves here that he may be the true successor to Woody Allen's nerdy on-stage persona.  And Melissa Leo certainly proves again (as she did in The Fighter [2010]) that she can really play some difficult/challenging moms.  Again, if you've ever thought you had it rough ... ;-)

ADDENDUM:

Like many independent films, while "in theaters in major markets," this film is available through the IFC Video On Demand service (type in your zipcode and cable provider to see if this service as available to you) as well as for download (for $6.99) via the Sundance Now service.  Eventually, these films become available for rent in the U.S. via NetFlix or Blockbuster.com.


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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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