The Devil's Hole (orig. El Hoyo del Diablo) [2012]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

The Devil's Hole (orig. El Hoyo del Diablo) [2012] (directed and cowritten by Francisco Disla Fierra (El Indio) along with Humberto Espinal) is a well-made and at times good humored/campy horror movie from the Dominican Republic that played recently at the 29th Chicago Latino Film Festival.

In many respects, the film follows the trajectory / conventions of classic (North) American horror films: A group of vivacious (at time obnoxious) college students set off for a weekend / vacation of fun and find themselves in a "cabin in the woods" that's haunted.

To this outline are overlaid various conventions of local traditional story telling.  The story comes from "Santo Domingo" (the Dominican Republic) after all, which borders with Haiti.  So the well of Santeria / Voodoo inspired lore is quite deep ;-).  The effect for this "gringo reviewer" (but who's still had family connections "with village lore" from his family's native Bohemia (today's Czech Rpublic) was fascinating.  And honestly folks, this story was more positive / edifying than most contemporary (North) American horror film as should become clear in the discussion below.

The story involves a group of college students from Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, who head-off to the countryside for vacation as school's out for Holy Week (Spring Break).  On their way to their destination, however, a truck swerves into their lane, forcing their car to plunge down a rather steep ravine.  When they get out of the car, all rather bruised and bloodied, and search for help, they eventually find themselves by an old abandoned country home.  With it getting dark, they decide to spend the night.

Obviously, this was a bad idea ... ;-) Indeed, the circle of apparently dried blood that encircling the place would probably serve as a good indication to not enter.  But most of the college students don't seem to notice the circle.  Besides it's getting dark and where else are they going to stay?

Who does notice the circle of dried blood is a rather tormented young woman named Sofia (played by Marta Gonzales Liliano) who the other friends kinda dismiss as being kinda weird.  But then they felt kinda sorry for her.  So they took her along on this trip.  Besides she was Miriam's cousin (played by Solly Duran) who was cooler/more fun.  Anyway, as Sofia (and remember her name means "wisdom") approaches that left-over barrier of dried blood, a ghost of a snow white-haired girl named Luz (played by Karla Hatton) in a white dress appears and tells her: DON'T CROSS THE LINE.  So Sofia hesitates.  She asks her friend Brian (played by Johnie Mercedes) if he saw the ghost of the lady in white telling her not to cross the line.  He says no.  So after some hesitation, she crosses.  After all, all her other friends had already crossed.

Well of course the house has a tormented history.  It had been a site in which the Dominican Republic's army under the infamous dictator Trujillo had tortured and killed thousands of Haitian migrants in October 1937.

Not happy that Sofia had "crossed the line," the "lady in white" nevertheless tells her that she's now destined to free the souls of the hundreds perhaps even thousands of Haitians who were murdered in this place by a sadistic Dominican Colonel who had become possessed by the demonic spirit Revenant (played by Juan Fernandez).  Indeed, whenever Sofia touches anything in the house, episodes of its sordid play out in stylized black and white fashion around her.

But before Sofia can free all those people, the other friends in her party that need to be "knocked off."  The first to go are the coolest/most popular in the group (though honestly they don't particularly seem like bad people... though certainly the most worldly).  Escarlette (played by Karla Fatule), who was perhaps most bloodied by the accident must goes first.  He confident/athletic looking, and revolver carrying Jhon (played by Fausto Rojas) soon follows (apparently revolvers don't work well in a house cursed by Satan ...;-).  Miriam initially avoids a really large snake, but eventually it gets her.  Finally even Brian succumbs.

So all who's left is Sofia.  And good ole Revenant comes back from apparently a pit that reaches down to Hell to get her.

HOWEVER, in the midst of this, Sofia's MOTHER (played by Carlotta Carretero) back home in Santo Domingo has a premonition that something terrible's about to happen to her daughter.  So she goes to the local Santoria priestess to ask for help.  Well the priestess tells her: "You know what you're supposed to do, do it."

Well Sofia's mother goes to an altar dedicated to the VIRGIN MARY and prays for assistance.  The Virgin then sends SAINT MICHAEL (played on Luis Filguera).  He appears at the tormented house on a nice Big White Horse, enters, saves Sofia from the clutches of the Evil Revenant, dispatches him back down into the pit of Hell where he belongs.  And afterwards one sees a greyish cloud of all those previously trapped soul leaving the house and ascending up to the heavens.

So Sofia with the help of her mother, the Virgin Mary and Saint Michael is able to defeat the Demon Revenant and free all those tormented souls of the Haitians who had been murdered allowing them to go up to Heaven.

I did find the story fascinating.  And obviously there is some Santeria / Voodoo present in the story.  (The most problematic for me being Miriam and the snake...).  On the other hand, when Sofia's mother does pray to the Virgin Mary, the Virgin does send Saint Michael who does save her daughter and all those trapped/tormented Haitian souls (and most of those Haitians would have been Catholic).

In any case, I found the film well constructed, often fun (as far as the horror genre goes) and arguably more edifying than most of these kind of movies in the States.  After all, GOOD WINS and indeed the Virgin Mary / St. Michael come through.

As far as advice would go:  If you're ever asked to make (or cross) a circle of blood or a pentagram, PLEASE DON'T.  And when in trouble, DO pray to the Virgin Mary (the Hail Mary) or indeed, the Prayer to Saint Michael:

Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle;
be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray:
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits
who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.


ADDENDUM:

Apparently this film, which has been very popular in both the Dominican Republic and in Puerto Rico will play by the end of 2013 on HBO Latino and be released on Netflix ;-).


 << NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>  

Disconnect [2012]

MPAA (R)  RogerEbert.com (4 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
RogerEbert.com (R. Roeper) review

Disconnect [2012] (directed by Henry Alex Rubin, screenplay by Andrew Stern) is a well structured if rather depressing tale involving three concurrent and (loosely) interrelated stories that, together, help express the complexities and potential pitfalls of the internet culture in which we live.  Viewers may find similarities in the structure/storytelling taking place in this film with that present in a similarly titled film Babel [2006].

In this film, Disconnect [2012], the three concurrent and loosely interrelated stories that play out are:

(1) A local television reporter, Nina Dunham (played by Andrea Riseborough), decides to do an exposé on the exploitation of minors by internet "cam sites."  To do so, she befriends, "Kyle" (played by Max Theriot) an underaged local male "cam model," who when she makes acquaintance with him (over the cam site) initially expects her to want him to "perform" for her but to his surprise finds that she just wants to talk to him.  Eventually, she convinces him to meet off-line and to do an interview (face blacked out, voice altered) for television, about his life and the exploitation of minors such as him by those who operate such "adult cam sites."  In the interview, he tells her that the younger the model looks the more money he/she makes, which is just "golden" for reporter Nina Dunham's exposé. 

But of course, even if Dunham wants to be helpful and arguably even wants to help "Kyle" get out of this way of life before he gets hurt, once Dunham's exposé is picked-up by CNN, making the "big time" ... the FBI comes-in asking questions and the ethics of what Nina Dunham had done to get the interview become murky indeed.  To avoid getting too much into "spoiler territory," consider simply that in order to be able to "make acquaintance" with "Kyle" to begin with, Nina had to PAY (the cam-site) for the opportunity to "chat" with him.  Now of course, she said that this is all that she did ... just talked to him.  BUT how could one possibly know that for sure (except take her word for it ...)?  And Kyle was, of course, a minor. The local TV station's lawyer, Rich Boyd (played by Jason Bateman) sensing potential trouble for the station immediately recommends to the station manager to suspend Nina pending the completion of the FBI's investigation.  For its part, the FBI wasn't going anywhere until Nina gave them information about "Kyle's" whereabouts so that they could try to shut that illegally operating website down... 

(2) Teenager Jason Dixon (played by Colin Ford) along with a skateboarding buddy and with a partly justified (and partly not...) "chip on his shoulder" decides that it'd be fun to create a fake profile (of a girl, of course) on a Facebook-like social media site to pick-on Ben Boyd (played by Jonah Bobo) a quiet, kinda nerdy classmate of theirs.  Ben swallows the bait, hook, line and sinker and Jason and his buddy have oodles of fun until the prank inevitably gets out of hand.  Ben's dad, the lawyer mentioned above, of course had no clue at all what was going on in Ben's life and indeed, had been initially happy that his quiet son was apparently finally "making friends ..."

(3) A still relatively young married couple, Cindy and Derek Hull (played by Paula Patton and Alexander Skarsgard) are grieving (not particularly well...) the tragic loss of their young son.  To cope Cindy had joined an online support group emptying her heart there.  Derek just kinda shuts down and spends at least a portion of his time when he's "out of town on business" (and with his wife not watching ...) playing online video blackjack in his hotel room.  Well, one evening Derek wishes to make an online purchase of $50 more dollars worth of chips and finds that the credit card was maxed-out.  What happened?  He calls his wife.  She didn't spend the money.  And though Derek had something of a gambling addiction (and had taken out, without telling his wife, a second mortgage on the house ...) STILL it didn't add up.  Someone had stolen their identity. 

When the bank proves that it doesn't really care whether or not their identity was stolen but simply interested in Cindy/Derek making their payments, the two call-in a local expert on internet fraud, a former cop, Mike Dixon (played by Frank Grillo) who had left the force after losin his wife, and yes was the father of teenager Jason above.  Mike goes through Cindy and Derek's receipts and internet records and shaking his head, tells them: "Look, I'm not a marriage counselor ..." and proceeds to explain to both of them that anyone of those "nice people" on the internet support group that Cindy participated in, let alone the "nice operators" of the gambling sites that Derek frequented could have pieced together the necessary information to steal their identities...

Anyway, all three of the stories are sad and yet I do believe that there is at least some redemption in a couple of them.  Together the three stories remind us that we do live in a "looking glass" and at least PARTLY FALLEN WORLD, where people are not always what they seem and, yes, fraud/corruption/sin occur.

All in all, this is not a bad film (not by a long shot) just not a particularly happy one, something that viewers should be aware of before seeing it.

So good job folks, even if you've succeeded in depressing me ;-)


 << NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>  

Dust (orig. Polvo) [2012]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

Dust (orig. Polvo) [2012] (directed and cowritten by Julio Hernández Cordón along with Mateo Iribarren) is a Guatemalan/German and Chilean (Spanish language, English subtitled) film that played recently at the 29th Chicago Latino Film Festival about the lingering psychological effects on the rural victims of the brutal 30 year Civil War that raged in Guatemala during much of the Cold War. 

The story centers on Juan (played by Agustin Ortíz Pérez) a troubled villager whose father had been murdered along with most of his home village in the aftermath of a Guatemalan military counter-insurgency sweep sometime during the 1960s or 1970s.  The only reason why Juan and his mother Delfina (played by María Telón Soc) had survived was that when she and Juan along with the rest of the villagers were being marched out of town she tripped (and presumably dragging down her son) and was able to be passed-over in the brush by the (para)military detachment that later performed the massacre and leveled the village.  Juan and his mother had resettled in another town some distance away.

What caused particular anguish to Juan was that the man he and other survivors of the massacre were convinced had betrayed their village (and thus was responsible for the murder of his father and most of the villagers) lived then in the same town where they had resettled afterwards.

What to do?  Well as he explained to a German documentary film-maker (played by Eduardo Spiegeler) who had come in to make a documentary about the recovery of the the bones of the victims of the massacre that had occurred decades ago, "What the heck can we do?" Apparently though convinced of the responsibility/guilt of the man in question there never was any solid proof.  Yet the survivors (and certainly Juan) hated the man for it.  Indeed, after film-maker had asked Juan about this intense hatred Juan had for the man, Juan's mother abruptly wanted to end her (and Juan's) cooperation with the film makers, telling them (more or less obviously): "You people just don't understand.  You are asking Juan questions that are very painful to him."

And she spoke with correctly here, because even as the "documentarians" were going about their business of filming what would be their wonderful documentary, viewers of this film were able to follow Juan's troubled behavior:  He tries to kill himself (not particularly effectively) ... again.  He cuts himself and the sits himself down beside Delfina's bed.  When she wakes-up she finds him on the floor unconscious but not dead.  So she puts him into a wheelbarrow and wheels him to a clinic for care...  Soon afterwards, we find him playing a portable battery operated keyboard for a local street corner preacher.  Then we see him interacting first in a seemingly friendly manner and later in a sabotaging manner with the man he's convinced was responsible for killing his father and most of his home village.  And this goes on throughout most of the film... until it reaches a more or less clear breaking point.

I found the film both very, very sad and very honest.  The peasants of rural Guatemala suffered in truly unimaginable ways during the fighting of the Cold War.  Hundreds of thousands of people mostly unarmed villagers had been murdered, entire villages razed/wiped off the face of the earth.  This can not but leave enormous psychic scars.  YET THIS IS (POOR) GUATEMALA.

Honestly folks, imagine the horror of 9/11 repeated continuously for 30 years producing a death toll 30-50 times greater than 9/11 AND NO ONE (OF CONSEQUENCE...) SEEING ANY OF IT.  No headlines from Le Monde  in the massacres' (PLURAL ... CONTINUOUS FOR 30 YEARS) aftermath declaring "Today we're ALL GUATEMALANS."

Imagine the amount of counseling we've been able to give our 9/11 survivors (And I'm writing this review a day after the 4/15 bombings at the Boston Marathon another TERRIBLE life-altering tragedy for so many people/survivors).  Now imagine NONE OF THE SERVICES (or NEXT TO NONE OF THEM) that we provide survivors of terrorism or other horrific tragedies available to all those survivors of all those massacres in Guatemalan countryside.  That's what this film is about ... 

Now honestly, what to do?  After seeing this movie, I did check and there are groups like:  Psychology Beyond Borders and a Psychological division of Doctors Without Borders.  And of course there are continuing efforts of various religious charitable organizations (including, of course, Catholic Relief Services and Food for the Poor that are always stretched and have various competing though always urgent priorities).

But honestly, at least say a prayer for these poor people who've suffered so much and try to understand what they've gone through.   That would be but the very first step to help set things right...


 << NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >> 

7 Boxes (orig. 7 Cajas) [2012]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing

7 Boxes (orig. 7 Cajas) [2012] (screenplay and directed by Juan Carlos Maneglia and Tana Schembori, w. screenplay collaboration by Tito Chamorro) is a critically acclaimed / award winning Paraguayan film (including a nomination for Best Spanish Language Foreign Film at the 27th (2012) Goya awards, Spain's equivalent of the Oscars).  It played (subtitled in English) recently at the 29th (2013) Chicago Latino Film Festival.

The film has also proven to be the most successful movie ever to be made or even shown in Paraguay, attendance having beaten out the previously most popular movie ever to be shown in Paraguay (James Cameron's Titanic [1997]) by nearly 2 to 1, this in a country that's been previously so poor / so marginalized that's made a total of only about 20 movies in its entire history).

My only regret is that the film did was not submitted (representing Paraguay) for consideration for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 85th (2012) Oscars because while it may not have won, IMHO it would have stood a very good chance of making the top five.  (I'm not sure now if it would qualify of this year's (2013) competition.

So what's the film about?  Well it's basically a cross between Slumdog Millionaire [2008] and the Vittorio de Sica classic Bicycle Thieves (orig. Ladri di Biciclette [1948].

The story is about a day in the life of Victor (played Celso Franco) who freelances in the central market in Asunción, Paraguay, transporting goods (for paying patrons) on his wheelbarrow.  The movie begins with Victor's older sister Tamara (played by Nelly Davalos) videocapturing Victor pushing his wheelbarrow using Tamara's coworker Alejandra's (played by Liliana Alvarez) cellphone.  Tamara stops Victor and shows him the phone and the little video that she made of him pushing the wheelbarrow around.  "Isn't this cool?"  she exclaims, showing him then some other features that the phone has.  "Yes, it certainly is.  How much is it?"  "Oh, forget it.  It's my coworker's.  She needs to sell it because she needs the money for when the time comes time for her to deliver.  She's asking 800,000 Guarani (about $120) for it.  Maybe she'd go down to 400,000 Guarani but that's still way beyond our price range."  "Hmm..."

Still the image of the cellphone sticks in Victor's head.  So he goes over to a cell-phone kiosk in the market to price phones.  He knows the attendant Leti (played by Katia Garcia), but the phones she has are all basically of the same price range (300K Guaranis and up) and so out of his reach.  However while he's there, Leti gets a phone call from a friend/relation named Gus (played by Roberto Cardozo) who, among other things, tells her that the guy that he has to deliver his goods didn't show up this time.  So she asks Victor: "Hey do you want a quick delivery job?"  "Sure."  She tells him to go over to Gus' butcher shop and that he'd have a job for him to do.

When Victor comes to Gus' shop, Gus tells him the deal.  He wants him to transport seven boxes from his shop to another at the other end of the market and if he'd do that, he'd receive 600,000 Guarani as payment.  Wow!  (That'd be more than enough for that cellphone).  But Victor is incredulous.  How's he gonna be sure that Gus would really pay him that kind of money.  Gus shows him a $100 bill (which he tells him is worth about 600,000 Guarani).  Then he tears it in two and gives Victor one half.  Gus then tells Victor that when he gets word that Victor's delivered the goods, he could come back for the other half of the $100.  Great!

Victor has Gus' attendants load-up his wheelbarrow with the seven boxes and heads off toward the other end of the vast central market with visions of a nice video capturing cell-phone in his head.  Along the way, Victor meets up with a friend about Victor's age named Liz (played by Lali Gonzalez) telling her of his good fortune. Together they continue then on their mission.

Well about 5 minutes after Victor leaves Gus' butcher shop, the original delivery guy, Luis (played by Nico Garcia) shows-up running with his wheelbarrow.  He's apologetic.  He had been delayed at the pharmacy (and viewers will have seen this).  Luis has an 18 month old son with diabetes.  He had been at the pharmacy to get insulin for the child but didn't have the money.  He had tried to explain to the attendant at the pharmacy that while he didn't have the money today (about 300,000 Guarani) he'd certainly have it the next day (after the delivery of Gus' shipment).  Luis even tried to leave his own cellphone with the Pharmacy attendant as collateral.  But the attendant was adamant.  The owner of the pharmacy had a simple rule: No credit for anybody.  People had to pay upfront for their medications, no exceptions.  "But this is a matter of life and death of child." "It's ALWAYS a matter of 'life and death' ..."  So now Luis was late.  But boy did he need to deliver those boxes (or else his 18 month old WOULD DIE ...).  Gus shakes his head "Sorry, you weren't here.  I gave the job to another guy ..."  So Luis leaves Gus' butcher shop desperate to find "the other guy" with Gus' boxes ...

On the way to deliver those boxes, Victor runs into his sister again.  He tells her, "Hey would you believe it, I got a job that could pay for that cellphone!"  "Don't be ridiculous! Where you gonna get that kind of money that quickly?"  "No seriously, all I have to do is deliver these boxes."  He shows Tamara the half a hundred dollar bill and tears it again in half, telling her to give the now quarter of a $100 to her coworker as a downpayment for the cell phone."

RIGHT AFTER HE DOES THIS, SOMEONE COMES OUT OF NOWHERE AND STEALS / RUNS OFF WITH ONE OF THE BOXES!  Victor tries to give chase to the guy but loses him.  When he comes back to his wheelbarrow and the other six, he and Liz spot the rather muscular 20 something Luis with his wheelbarrow bearing down on them.  "Hey I need those boxes!"  They quickly run off with the wheelbarrow and the six remaining boxes finding a place to ditch Luis in the labyrinth of this large central market.  Much then ensues ...

A question could, of course, be asked "What the heck is in these boxes that makes them so valuable to begin with."  The film does give an answer that I'm not going to reveal here except that it's not necessarily what one would expect and yet does make sense...  Nor will I reveal how the story ends except to say that the story is obviously well structured and that what we learn of pretty much all the characters during the course of the story allows one to have at least some sympathy for most of them.

Honestly, what a well structured story / parable and what a great job!  


 << NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >> 

The Gold Brooch (orig. Broche de Oro) [2012]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing

The Gold Brooch (orig. Broche de Oro) [2012] (screenplay and directed by Raúl Marchand Sánchez) is a lovely Spanish language / English subtitled family-oriented comedy from Puerto Rico that has enjoyed impressive popular success "on the island" (playing in theaters there now for 7 months and counting since its release in Sept 2012).  The film has recently played as part of the 29th Annual Chicago Latino Film Festival.

The story is about the relationships existing in a multi-generational family in Puerto Rico with the middle class, already moderately successful father, Alberto Medina (played by Carlos Esteban Fonseca) wishing to move his family to Orlando, Florida (the Orlando area becoming very much to Puerto Rican immigrants to the mainland what Miami has become to Cuban immigrants) where he had gotten a promotion even at the cost of disrupting the life of his high school aged son Carlos (played by Luis Omar O'Farrill) who unbeknownst to Alberto has become a rather good surfer, and leaving his own aging father Rafael (played by Jacobo Morales) "solito" (alone) in a nice if somewhat regimented "old folks home" run rather amusingly by the (Catholic) "sisters." 

What to do?  Well a little miffed at the insensitivity of his dad who wanted him to stay at home and pack rather than participate in one last surfing tournament on the coast, Carlos conspires with his grandfather Rafael to take his father Alberto's car, pick-up Rafael along with two of Rafael's domino-playing buddies -- still "playboyish" Pablo Díaz (played by Diego de la Texera) and somewhat "hypochondriac" Anselmo Rodríguez (played by Adrian Garcia) -- and go to the surfing tournament anyway, stopping in the countryside along the way to visit the tierra (land) where Rafael grew up and Carlos' abuela (grandmother) was buried.

Much comedy, of course, ensues as not only Alberto but also the "Madre Superiora" (played by Marion Pabon) from the old folks home along with the "security guard" Norberto (played by Luis Raul) give chase after them.  Pablo runs into an old-flame Coco Galore (played by Sara Pastor) who it turns out was now running a beach-side watering-hole.  Anselmo, for his part, finds to his (and really everyone's surprise ;-) that he's evoked some kind of irresistible magnetism in Margarita (played by Carmen Nydia Velásquez) another widowed/alone owner of a small eating establishment near Rafael's hometown.  Finally, since this story is largely built around a "surfing tournament," Carlos finds himself in competition not only for a trophy but also for the affections of a sweet local girl named Sofia (played by Maria Coral Otero Soto) who's been the girlfriend of the previous champ Manolo (played by Willie Carrasco) but Manolo had been becoming something of an overbearing jerk...  Together, the "three old guys" (Rafael, Pablo and Enselmo) who really know next to nothing about surfing, but have lots of experience (and let's face it Pablo has probably far more than he should... ;-) with life,women and relationships become happy as "pie to help" Carlos and Sofia straighten things out in their still young lives.

It all makes for a lovely story.  Yes, it all has to come to a tear-filled (if also realistic) resolution.  And then as any good Puerto Rican family drama (or "dramedy") must do, it all ends "under a Flamboyan tree" ;-).

Good job folks, very good job!


 << NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >> 

42 [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III) RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars with Expl)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (R. Roeper) reviewAVClub (S. Tobias) review

42 [2013] (screenplay and directed by Brian Helgeland) runs in good part like an good old-fashioned, supremely family oriented baseball movie.  (Both Jackie Robinson [IMDb] and similarly baseball/cinema legend Lou Gehrig [IMDb] would be proud).  As such, some viewers may initially find the film "kinda hokey."  But then on reflection I do believe that the film was _intended_ to be that way.

I say this because I find the film to be intended to be challenging on multiple levels:

On the most obvious level, the film reminds us of a time when blacks (seriously) could not play professional baseball in the United States SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY WERE BLACK.  Today, this seems so utterly foreign to our common experience. However, up until Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey [IMDb] (played superbly in "good ole fashion baseball movie" fashion by Harrison Ford) simply found continuation of that state of affairs to be insane (and FRANKLY AGAINST HIS METHODIST (CHRISTIAN) UPBRINGING) segregation in professional baseball was a reality.  And I know that there will continue to be some white viewers who will resent the film's bringing-up of this rather embarrassing aspect of American history.  After all, the two, Rickey/Robinson, desegregated baseball ONLY AFTER WORLD WAR II.  African American Olympic star Jesse Owens [IMDb] was considered a hero in 1936 for sticking it to the Nazis (and their Aryan race-based delusions) at the Berlin Olympics.  But it took until 3 years after the still SEGREGATED U.S. ARMY along with the Russians on one side and the British on the other CRUSHED NAZI GERMANY in 1945 that an African African baseball player was allowed to swing a bat for an American Major League Baseball team ...

But putting this obvious aspect of the film aside, the film also underlines aspects of 1940s era Baseball that OUGHT TO CHALLENGE and SHAME Professional Sports today as a whole and the individuals (athletes, coaches/managers and owners) as well.  After all, Jackie Robinson [IMDb] (played again superbly for this kind of the film by Chadwick Boseman) was portrayed AS A FAMILY MAN who married his Pasadena, CA hometown sweetheart Rachel (played again superbly for this kind of film by Nicole Beharie).  Imagine a ballplayer TODAY who's portrayed as WITHOUT QUESTION FAITHFUL TO HIS WIFE AND FAMILY.

To underscore this film's challenge to the both on and off-field moral failings of today's professional sports, a side plot in the film involved Branch Rickey having to have to let go of his manager just before the start of the tumultuous 1948 (Jackie Robinson starting) season on account of pressure on Baseball's commissioner BY THE NATIONAL CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) because the Dodger's manager was having an adulterous affair with a Hollywood starlet.  Honestly, could anybody today imagine a coach or manager of a professional sports team being pressured to resign (or as in the case here, take a year's suspension) for simply having "slept around" with a model or actress?  Today, adultery in Professional Sports is taken as "par for the course."  We've all heard media commentators shaking their heads, perhaps with some sympathy but certainly with resignation, saying of cheated-upon athletes' wives: "Well, you know, SHE MARRIED A BALL PLAYER. (What do you expect?)"  Well in the 1940s, it was still largely expected that ball players and all those associated with Professional Sports would "play by the rules" set for everyone and to be faithful to their wives and kids.  (Yes, I know that Babe Ruth [IMDb] was a legendary womanizer but (1) perhaps he was the single exception who could get away with that behavior at the time ("he was Babe Ruth...") and (2) without a doubt, in that regard, he was considered a bum by the American public.  Certainly the celebrated Yankee considered of much higher moral caliber was Lou Gehrig [IMDb]).

So then this film, which chronicles the struggles of Jackie Robinson [IMDb] and Dodgers' owner Branch Rickey [IMDb] to finally break the racial barrier in professional sports in the United States, ALSO offers a challenge to American sports and society today.   For Jackie Robinson [IMDb] was not portrayed here as merely a "great baseball player."  He was also portrayed as a good man.


 << NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

Room 237 [2012]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Chicago SunTimes (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (A-)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
AVClub (N. Murray) review
Chicago SunTimes (J. Emerson) review

Room 237 [2012] (directed by Rodney Ascher) is a truly "mind blowing" nervous-smiling ;-) documentary about folks who've spent a lot of time watching Stanley Kubrick's Jack Nicholson starring horror classic The Shining [1980] (Kubrick's film of course having been a not altogether faithful adaptation of Stephen King's novel by the same name).

The hermeneutic of the interviewees in this documentary is basically this: Stanley Kubrick was a master. Hence Kubrick made no mistakes in The Shining [1980] and truly every single item or aspect in this film was intentional.

Hence the seemingly stock "ooooh, scary" mood-setting throw-away line in Kubrick's film by the "Overlook Hotel's" manager informing Jack Nicholson's character (and viewers) that the hotel was "built on top of an Indian burial ground," was not merely a stock "oooh, scary" mood-setting throw away line but a signal that the film was actually a coded essay about America's genocide of the indigenous American Indian population that's, well LARGELY OVERLOOKED by most Americans today.  How else could one further explain the odd "Calumet Baking Powder" cans (Of all the cans in all the world, why those...?) that show-up somewhat prominently (especially if one's looking for them...) in the scenes filmed in the hotel's pantry.  Then "Calumet" happens to mean "pipe" as in "peace pipe" in Norman French (and the French were probably the most traveled among the Native Americans throughout North America in the early period of European exploration).  Yet American-Europeans came to smoke the "peace pipe" with all kinds of Native American tribes and then proceeded to slaughter them ... Hence why should one be surprised then with the visions of rivers of blood flowing out of the hotel's elevators and down its corridors in the later stages of the movie?

Another interviewee fixed his attention on the apparent prominence of the number "42" in the film.  Now 1942 was the year of the infamous Wansee Conference which set in motion the Nazi Holocaust of Europe's Jews and apparently Stanley Kubrick had long wanted to make a movie about the Nazi Holocaust but never was able figure-out how to go about it (and then Steven Spielberg beat him to the punch with Schindler's List [1993]). Thus those rivers of blood flowing out of the hotel's elevators and down its corridors were (also?) expressive of this horror, the Nazi Holocaust.

My personal favorite theory proposed (and honestly, this one's now burned in my head and I'll want that part of my memory back again soon... ;-) is that the film was Kubrick's coded admission that he was "the Hollywood director" recruited by the American government to fake the imagery broadcast to the world (and to American viewers) of the Apollo moon landings ;-).

How could one possibly concoct this kind of theory?  WELL, Stanley Kubrick made 2001: A Space Oddysey [1968] (a year before Apollo 11's landing on the moon ... ;-).  By near universal acclamation, Kubrick's cinematography of the SPACE SCENES and EVEN THE MOON SCENES was simply OUTSTANDING.  SO ... IF ONE WERE TO FAKE THE MOON LANDINGS, then Kubrick (and his 2001 team) would have been THE OBVIOUS PEOPLE TO GO TO.  Indeed, PERHAPS "2001" was commissioned to serve as "the dry run" for this massive government conspiracy...

Okay, how does this relate to Kubrick's The Shining [1980]?  Well the Hotel has this mysterious Room 237.  (In Stephen King's original novel it was Room 217 but it was oddly changed to 237 in the movie. Honestly, I now ask why? ;-).  This is the room into which Jack Nicholson's character gets Corrupted and passes into Hell.  (That's where he gets seduced first by a naked woman and then finds to his horror that the naked woman starts to decay/fall-apart in his arms).  Initially Danny, Jack Nicholson's character's kid, isn't allowed into that room.  It's strangely forbidden.  He asks an amiable African American staff member about the room, and is told "not to go there."  THEN ONE TIME when he's playing in the corridor outside the room, the door is suddenly open. DANNY GETS UP and walks toward the room. What does Danny have on?  A sweater with A REPLICA OF APOLLO 11 STITCHED ON IT.

Now the number 237.  What possibly could it mean?  Well the average distance between the earth and the moon is apparently 237,000 miles.  As Danny approaches the door, the room key is in the door.  The camera focuses on the hotel room key on which is written "Room No. 237."  "What are the only words that can be spelled out of those letters?  Room and MOON. So Room 237 is the Moon Room."

Finally, the coup de grace (or still more likely ... "slight of hand") that makes the "moon conspiracy theory" more palatable comes with the interviewee promoting this theory declaring: "I'm not saying that we didn't go to the moon in 1969 or land on the moon in 1969.  I'm just saying that the images that we saw of the moon landings were faked" (and presumably made on the set of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Oddysey [1968]).

What makes this "moon conspiracy theory" SO SEDUCTIVE to me NOW is that IF I WERE TO PICK A HOLLYWOOD DIRECTOR TO "FAKE THE MOON LANDINGS" I'd now probably pick Stanley Kubrick because I'VE BEEN REMINDED OF THE AWESOME JOB the he did with "2001" ;-) ;-)

So, in truth, even if it's all nonsense, I have to say that I just loved this movie ;-).  Not all cinema is linear.  Whether or not Kubrik's The Shining [1980] is as "coded" as the interviewees in this documentary suggest, I have no doubt that it's at least partly "coded" (That's why serious film-makers make horror movies.  There's always "something" underneath).  Then this "documentary" itself is certainly intended at least in part to be FUN.  It's intended to make viewers scratch their heads, laugh nervously and ask themselves: "No, that can't be!  Dear Mother of God that can't be." ;-)

Andy Kaufman er "Tony Clifton" (about whom another lifelong iconoclast/jokester Milos Forman [IMDb] made his film MAN ON THE MOON [1999] ;-) must be laughing ... that's if he's not dead ;-).


ADDENDUM (4/10/2013 ;-):

A quite comprehensive presentation and rebuttal of the argument that the Apollo landings were faked can be found on the wikipedia article on the subject.


 << NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

Starbuck [2011]

MPAA (R)  Chicago SunTimes (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
Chicago SunTimes (S. Boone) review
AVClub (S. Tobias) review

Starbuck [2011] (directed and cowritten by Ken Scott along with Martin Petit) is a likable, arguably très courant French-Canadian (English subtitled) comedy about a Montreal residing serial screw-up David Wozniak (played by Patrick Huard).  Likable enough, a son within a very hard-working Polish immigrant family, he never really fit in.  As such, in his mid/late 40s, still single, living in a dive of a flat, perpetually owing money all over town, the only job that his walrus-mustached Lech Walesa looking father (played by Igor Ovadis) and brothers trust him with is simply driving their family's meat-packing business' delivery truck around town.  And he seems to even screw that job up.  (At one point, his father reminds him on the phone: "Son, you have the easiest job that we could possibly give you.  All you have to do is pick-up our meat and then deliver it.  And you can't seem to get even that right.")  Sigh ... one suspects that the little "hydroponically grown marijuana business" that David's been trying to set-up in his apartment to help pay off his debts is not probably going fly either ... ;-)

Into this life of serial, indeed going on decades long disappointment/failure comes further news.  Some twenty years back trying even then to augment his income, David was selling his sperm to a local fertility clinic under the pseudonym "Starbuck."  Well, his sperm turned out to be remarkably potent (successful ;-).  A court appointed official comes to the door of his apartment, and averting his eyes from having to acknowledge the presence of all those not particularly verdant marijuana plants that David has setup about his flat... :-), hands him a court document informing him that there's a class action suit being filed against him and the fertility clinic by some 130 of the over 500 offspring of his sperm demanding that the confidentiality agreement that allowed him to give all that sperm under a pseudonym be suspended and that the offspring be allowed to learn the identity of their father, David ;-).

What the heck to do?   Well David goes to his lawyer friend, mind you not a particularly successful lawyer friend ;-) (played by Antoine Bertrand) for advice and agrees to have his lawyer friend defend him, presumably "pro bono" because, well, where's David gonna find the money anyway ...? ;-).  For his part, David's friend takes the case because, quite frankly, "pro bono" though it may be, David has actually provided him the biggest break to make a name for himself in years and perhaps HE could finally make his own mother proud ;-).

Much ensues, and the film becomes quite touching as David, inevitably becomes first interested in all those offspring that he discovers that he has and then tries discreetly to try to help them as a good father would.

There's actually also a lovely conversation somewhere near the end of the film, as of course, it tends toward an inevitable reckoning, between David and his own father.  David's father lets him in on a secret: "Do you know why I've always loved you despite all of your screw-ups?  You've given me a chance to do for you what my own father never had a chance to do for me.  When I left Warsaw for Canada, my father gave me $10 and a blessing.  THAT'S ALL THAT HE COULD DO FOR ME and I knew that it positively crushed him to not be able to do more.  With all of your screw-ups, you've given me the opportunity to become the father that my father wished he could have been for me."  (This was honestly a surprisingly touching scene even if it certainly must have been difficult for David/"Starbuck" to also accept). 

Now there is an obviously "prophetic" side to this film that is NOT all smiles/laughs.  There are probably a whole bunch of "Starbucks" around the world with dozens to hundreds of offspring each, a fair fraction of which would have a legitimate yearning to know who their biological father was even if their biological father had been simply a donor of sperm.  Note here that in the film only about a quarter to a third of the children created with David's sperm wanted to learn his identity.  For the others it presumably wasn't all that important.  Still a quarter to a third is a quarter to a third and in this film that amounted to over 130 people.  Conceiving children using sperm from a sperm bank carries with it this problem for at least a fair fraction of children conceived in this manner.

But then the children do exist and plenty have reached adulthood.  What then to do?  Here this film offers with a certain French Canadian and perhaps even Polish gentleness (note that both of these places have been and at one, Poland, remains very Catholic) a lovely and gentle solution (IMHO borne in fair part out of that family oriented Catholic past) -- acceptance/blessing.  Would David/"Starbuck" be so "free" in selling his sperm as he was when he was in his 20s now that he's realized that he's become the biological father of over 500 children of which at least 130 wanted to have at least some kind of minimal relationship with him?  Probably not.  (And yes, by Catholic teaching, the whole situation is clearly a mess from the get-go.  Just consider how David/"Starbuck" was able to "make available" all that sperm...).  But here they are.  What else honestly can one do except "open one's arms _really wide_ ..." (And for its part, the Church baptizes everybody no matter how they were conceived as long as they or if they are minors their parents consent to it.  A person's mere existence in any stage of life -- from the moment of conception (fertilized human egg) to natural death -- is taken as proof that they were willed and therefore loved by God).   

Anyway, I found the movie very interesting and honestly very nice.  I would also say that while a Hollywood remake of this film is already in the works that this French Canadian original is excellent and Patrick Huard's performance as the David/Starbuck (as well as Igor Ovadis's performance as his dad) were positively inspired.  There is a gentleness to this film that will be challenging to replicate.


<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

The Sapphires [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  ChicagoSunTimes (3 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoSunTimes (N. Minow) review

The Sapphires [2012] (directed by Wayne Blair, screenplay by Tony Briggs [IMDb] and Keith Thompson based on the 2004 stage play by the same name by Tony Briggs [IMDb]) is a nice/feel good, critically acclaimed / award winning film about a First Australian (Aborigine) "girls group" that sang for American (and presumably also Australian) troops in Vietnam during the height of the Vietnam War. 

Viewers will find shades of other 1960s era "girl group" inspired stories like Sparkle (1976) [IMDb] (remake 2012 [IMDb]), Dream Girls [2006 IMDb] / and the Commitments [1991 IMDb] present in the story.  However, the story behind The Sapphires [2012] is inspired by the true adventures of Tony Brigg's mother Laurel Robinson and aunt Lois Peeler who really did tour South Vietnam in 1968 singing soul music with a New Zealander (Maori) band playing for the troops in the midst of the war [1] [2].  The film then touches on universal themes of the promise/hopefulness of youth in the midst of radical fallenness (inherited racial strife and, indeed, war). 

Indeed, one just wants to cry when one realizes that for the young women in this film (and for many of the soldiers around them) this was arguably the best/most exciting time of their lives even as they traveled with armed escort or by army helicopter from one base/gig to another with RPGs, tracer bullets and mortars flying and blowing-up all around them.  And this wasn't even close to "their war" -- they weren't Vietnamese, they weren't Americans, and even the Australians (who did provide troops during the conflict) didn't really consider them "Australians" (or even people) but rather "Aboriginals" who we're told at the beginning of the film were considered by original Australian Constitution to be simply part of Australia's natural "flora and fauna."

And yet, one can not help but appreciate how for a bunch of young wide-eyed late teen, early 20 year olds (played so well by Gail Mailman, Jessica Mauboy, Shari Sebbens and Miranda Tapsell) who grew-up "on the reservation" in the Australian Outback singing Aboriginee church songs and American Loretta Lynn country-western tunes, would find this adventure in Saigon and its environs now singing Aretha Franklin / Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye songs to similarly young, full of life, yet also "far, far away from home" American soldiers (often from oppressed minorities as well) to be positively "the time of their lives."  It's a great if, if one thinks about it, tear filling story.  The presence in the story of their "discoverer"/small-time manager (played by Chris O'Dowd) is perhaps a salute to The Commitments [1991] and multilevel reminder of the universality of the experience being described (there have been plenty of poor whites who've been marginalized/mistreated over the generations and certainly a huge part of the success of the 1960s Motown sound was that it spoke to EVERYBODY who was young). 

Finally, The Sapphires [2012] reminds the viewer of the inspiration that the African American Civil Rights movement has had on the civil rights movements of "darker skinned" peoples across the globe.  This film dealt with the struggles of Australia's "First Australians" to gain respect in a land that was frankly theirs prior to the arrival of Europeans.  Recently, I saw another film, a Czech, Slovak and Romani collaboration called Gypsy (orig. Cigán) [2011] about Europe's indigenous dark-skinned minority (the Romas/Gypsies) whose civil rights / dignity movement is finally gaining some traction.  We can honestly ask ourselves why such an utterly random characteristic like skin pigmentation could have been allowed to cause such great division and suffering across our globe and our world's history.  It honestly does not make sense.  And yet so many people, often young people, have been destroyed over the generations on account of it.


 << NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

The Place Beyond the Pines [2013]

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

IMDb listing
Chicago SunTimes (R. Roeper) review

The Place Beyond the Pines [2013] (directed and cowritten by Derek Cienfrance along with Ben Coccio) is a well if heavily structured story in three parts about consequences, consequences of actions and situations that are perhaps beyond the characters in the story's control, but consequences nonetheless.  The obvious structure of the story may initially bother some viewers even if the parts do ultimately add-up to produce a final rather poignant/powerful result.   Yes, folks this is an "indie film" even if it has a star-studded cast, the result being that culminates in an ending that's very different (and on several levels) from what one generally expects from "Hollywood" fare.

The story is set in (upstate) Schenectady, New York.  Part I of the story centers on a bleached blond small-time motorcycle stuntman named Luke (played by Ryan Gosling).  As part of a carnival troupe, he's been on a circuit and has arrived in Schenectady after a one year absence.  After performing an intricate if utterly meaningless stunt -- he and two other motorcyclist stunt-drivers ride their bikes in a necessarily synchronized yet also quite random manner inside a small 15-20 foot (5-7 m) diameter perforated steel globe to the amazement of onlookers -- he runs into a young local woman named Romina (played by Eva Mendes) who he had met when the carnival had been in town a year before.  He also finds to his surprise that she's had a boy, his, since their last meeting that one gets the sense had probably been a one night stand.

Romina actually doesn't expect anything from Luke.  Indeed, she's already assembled a life (support system) without him.  She has a job as a waitress, a boyfriend named Kofi (played by Mahershala Ali) who appears more than willing to raise "baby Jason" as his own, and she also has her mother (played by Olga Merediz).

Luke, however, feels guilty and responsible.  He tells Romina that his own father had never stuck around when he young.  So he summarily quits his carnie job and decides to stay in Schenectady to try to provide for the kid (and, dare he hope ... perhaps even for Romina).

But where can someone like Luke find a means to support himself, let alone a possible wife and child, in a town in which he knows next to nobody (and the one person he knows, Romina, would, truth be told, prefer that just leave and continue his past life as a carnie stunt-rider)?  So it's pretty much inevitable that he gets involved in crime...

Enter Part II of the story, centering on a rather strange young cop named Avery (played by Bradley Cooper).   Avery was from an upper middle-class background, his father being a judge.  Yet after finishing law school and passing the bar, Avery had decided to leave the more or less obvious direction that his life had been heading-in to become a beat cop in his hometown of Schenectady.  He too had a young son named AJ, and a wife named Jennifer (played by Rose Byrne).  Jennifer didn't really understand why her husband had made the radical change in direction that he did, but was willing to accept it (for a while) perhaps hoping that his joining the police force rather than pursuing a career as a lawyer was "just a phase."

Well the small time criminal Luke and the small town beat-cop Avery eventually run into each other ... and the result of their encounter changes both of their lives (often in not immediately obvious ways) and of everyone around them.

The final repercussions of their encounter extend into the late high school years of their two sons Jason (now played Dane DeHaan) and AJ (now played by Emory Cohen).  This forms Part III of the story.  After all, the two high schoolers were both "from Schenectady" even if from "very different parts of town."  And since those late high school years are rather formative years in the lives of people, the effects of Luke's and Avery's presumably extend even beyond...

Indeed, by the end of the movie the viewer is tempted to reflect back to the initial scene in the film which featured those three carnival stunt drivers riding their motorcycles around in that seemingly random yet also supremely synchronized fashion inside that small steel globe (cage).   Now what if one of those three drivers crashed...?

Again, this classically "indie film" is definitely not typical "Hollywood" fare ...


<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

On the Legacy of Roger Ebert - April 4, 2013 R.I.P.

All of Chicago (two thumbs up ;-)

Chicago SunTimes tribute
Chicago's WTTW's tribute
NPR's Fresh Air tribute
AVClub tribute 
www.rogerebert.com

Those of us who grew-up in Chicago in the 1970-80s, grew-up in good part watching a weekly TV Show "Siskel and Ebert At the Movies," which featured rival film critics Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times giving their opinions of films "coming to a theater near you." ;-)

Their program, which began on Chicago's local PBS station WTTW Channel 11, eventually went commercial and became syndicated nationwide.  Indeed it was remarkable that these two film critics from Chicago (rather than New York and Los Angeles) became probably the best known / most trusted film critics in the United States.  My family just loved them and we probably watched the two talk about the movies more than we actually went to them ;-)

Gene Siskel died in 1999, Roger Ebert's career continued even as he himself began a battle with cancer in 2003, a battle that cost him his jaw (and ability to speak and even eat normally) in 2008.  Since his voice had been taped so often during his years in broadcasting, team of computer specialists came with a way allow Roger be able to talk once more in his own (previously recorded) voice using a computer keyboard, a remarkable feat and something that by news accounts at the time deeply impressed his wife Chaz of twenty years.   However, since those surgeries he focused more on his writing and an immensely successful blog.

Readers of my blog will note the obvious (and nearly life-long) respect that I've had for the two.  I've been a fan of the Gene Siskel Film Center which is associated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago attending (and writing about) many of the film programs organized there.   And since the beginning of my blog, where possible, I've always made it a point to provide a link to Roger Ebert's review of whatever film I was reviewing.  I've also found it kinda nice that Roger Ebert was born and raised Catholic and that he would make regular mention of his Catholic roots in his reviews.

We all eventually have to pass-on from this world.  We all hope to leave a positive legacy behind.  I do believe that both Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert have done so admirably well by helping millions of American moviegoers appreciate the story telling ability of films.  Ebert in particular noted one time that "Films can be 'empathy machines' allowing us to appreciate for a moment what it's like to be of another gender, of another race, of another time and place." 

I absolutely agree with that ;-)  Films CAN help us to appreciate that we are all brothers and sisters to year other.

So both Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert belong to eternity now.  As things go, 50 years from now, even most Chicagoans won't know who exactly the two were except for buildings (or film awards or festivals) named after them.  But their legacies will be present in their lingering impact on millions of viewers and readers of their reviews which have helped keep American cinema in particular fundamentally positive and an instrument that brings us together rather than one that would tend toward simply banality, the quick buck or simply  bringing us down.  The two spent their lives quite well!

The Host [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  Roger Ebert (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C+) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Roger Ebert's review
AVClub (T. Robinson) review

The Host [2013] (screenplay and directed by Andrew Nichol based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer [IMDb]) is a teen-oriented "alien invasion" story in which a race of advanced intergalactic largely spiritual if parasitic beings calling themselves "Souls" invades earth by taking over the bodies of people displacing their minds/souls. 

Given the promised metaphysics [2] of this story (after all, how many stories would so unabashedly explore the potentialities of "souls" [2] these days?) I actually looked forward to this film :-).

Though I was somewhat disappointed in that the film IMHO didn't go far enough (even these intergalactic Souls did, alas, have a material component to them that had to be attached to a human brain so that the alien "Soul" could then possess it ... a truly "universal interface" I suppose ;-) ;-), I still enjoyed the film and found it to be a both teen and family friendly diversion that most parents would not find much trouble with.

Indeed, Stephenie Meyer's novel, which was written during the Bush-Cheney era run-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, may have (perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not) offered her readers a very interesting presentation of the central moral problem of any imperialist project: Even if the invading party in an imperialist conflict were to be morally superior to those being invaded (and the Alien "souls" of this story were, generally speaking, morally superior to the human souls that they were displacing: they were, after the invasion, kinder to other souls, treated the environment with greater respect and quickly put an end to all human wars...) those being invaded would still generally prefer to remain in charge of their own destinies even if it meant putting-up with their own (personal/society's) flaws. 

In this story, the displaced human souls/wills/minds (whatever one would wish to call them... I'm going to go with souls for the remainder of this essay) still present in their bodies, but no longer in charge of them, were, needless to say, resentful of the "enlightened" Alien souls that had displaced them. 

This then becomes the central conflict of the story:  Teenage Melanie (voiced/played by Saoirse Ronan) a member of the last free human resistance to the Alien invasion gets captured and an Alien Soul named Wander (also voiced by Saoirse Ronan) is implanted in her.  But (1) teenager Melanie isn't about to give up.  "Nobody's just gonna take over my body ;-)"  and (2) Wanderer soon nicknamed Wanda is actually kinda a "good soul" ;-) who likes Melanie and feels increasingly uncomfortable with having displaced her (Melanie's) own soul in order to control her body.  But where's Wanda supposed to go if she ceases to inhabit Melanie's body?

Then Melanie's soul (still in Melanie's body but no longer in charge of it) convinces Wanderer/Wanda to skip town and find the band of other free humans that Melanie had been part of.  Why?  Well, Melanie, of course, had a boyfriend ;-) named Jared (played by Max Irons) I believe.  And here it all gets REALLY COMPLICATED in a typically teenage sort of way (and in a way that Stephanie Meyer, who is most famous for writing the Twilight Saga, is IMHO absolutely brilliant in presenting ;-):

Melanie likes Jared.  But Wanda, controlling Melanie's body, but wanting to be a "good friend" to Melanie decides to prefer someone else.  But if she kisses the other guy is it Wanda who's kissing him or Melanie? And would/could Jared possibly understand the difference? ;-) ;-) -- From my distance of 30-35 years away from this kind of thinking I JUST LOVED THIS ;-) ;-).

Of course it all gets resolved AND in a manner characteristic of Stephenie Meyer's novels: the seemingly irreconcilable are able to find a way to reconcile.  In this case, the space invader and the invaded do find a way to become true and equal friends.  How this resolution is able to take place, I'm not going to tell you.  (Read the book or see the movie ;-).

Now I know that much of this story is really, really schlocky.  But in its own way, I find it brilliant as well.  And it honestly reminds me of my own younger years when EVERYTHING seemed far more dramatic than it becomes as one grows older.  Good job again Ms. Meyer!  Very good job!


<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

Tyler Perry's Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  Chicago SunTimes (1 Star)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
Chicago SunTimes (P. Sobczynski) review

Tyler Perry's Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor [2013] (written and directed by Tyler Perry) is a well-made African-American oriented film (and Tyler Perry is, of course, an African-American film maker) with a strong moral message -- DON'T CHEAT.  The film is slick, modern, and runs very much like the famous morality films Fatal Attraction [1987] and War of the Roses [1989] only that the central character (the one being tempted) is not played by Michael Douglas but is rather an African American character named Judith (played by Jurnee Smolett-Bell). 

The film begins at a run down, government run, probably "pro-bono" counseling service presumably in Washington D.C., where a rather poor young white couple has come for "marriage counseling."  The young husband doesn't know what's going on, but certainly wants to save his marriage.  The wife just feels that "it's over."  Upset and dispondent, the husband gets up and leaves.  The woman taking more time is stopped by the counselor who asks, "What's really going on?"  The young woman confesses to her, "He really deserves someone better than me."  Not buying it, the counselor a serious looking African American woman in her forties asks the young woman a la Danny DeVito's role in War of the Roses [1989], "Can I tell you a story?"  The young woman says yes.  And thus the counselor begins telling the story of Judith...

Judith was an African American woman born somewhere down South raised by her very Christian devoted mother (played by Ella Joyce).  Ma' was strict but kept her basically on the right path.  Judith's grades were good.  Though ma' never much liked Judith's childhood sweetheart Brice, she kept Judith and Brice honest (and probably scared ... ;-) throughout their teenage years, and finally when Judith (and Brice) were truly old enough, she consented to them getting married, which they did either during or shortly after college. 

The story resumes with the two, Judith (played by Jurnee Smolett-Bell) and Brice (played by Lance Gross) living as a young wide-eyed-happy recently married couple living in a nice small apartment in Washington D.C.  Each had "starter jobs" in their degree fields.  Brice found himself working in a small independent pharmacy, Judith with an MS in Counseling (and having dreams of opening up her own Marriage Counseling practice) working for now as an "in house" psychologist/advisor for a somewhat pretentious Washington D.C. "Match Making Service" run by a 40-something woman named Janice (played by Vanessa Williams). 

Indeed, Judith initially looked down on the place where she worked, suspecting it to be, at the end of the day, a higher-end Escort Service for older men even it pretended perhaps even hoped to be better than that.  Still it was a job ... and eventually Judith hoped to make enough money to be able to open up her own _honest_ marriage counseling practice.

Enter the Snake..., Harley (played by Robbie Jones), a rich African American entrepreneur, who according to Judith's more up-on-the-gossip/worldly coworker Ava (played by Kim Kardashian) made it big by inventing a somewhat slicker, more hip-hoppier version Facebook.  He comes to Janice's Service as a potential investor / social media partner.  Janice having liked Judith's previous work with improving her Service's questionaires asks Judith to work with Harley to see how the Service could further benefit from partnering with Harley's social media outlet.   Of course Harley, who's used to getting what he wants, decides that he wants the very married but previously rather sheltered (and also rather ambitious) Judith.   Much ensues ...

Of course, eventually Judith falls (otherwise there wouldn't be a story...).  What's perhaps interesting is the point at which she falls and how Harley finally gets to her.  Then once Judith falls, the film follows a trajectory similar to Michael Douglas' Fatal Attraction [1987].  Basically, the worst possible scenario plays out...

Now I don't quite understand the "hate" that many critics have given this film.  It's obvious that the film is intended to be a morality tale.  And I honestly don't see ANY DIFFERENCE in the story's setup or its playing-out from its white cousins -- Fatal Attraction [1987] and War of the Roses [1989] -- that I've already mentioned above.  If anything, the Tyler Perry's story is slicker and more updated to our time.

Now Parents, I would say that the film is not intended for kids or even for young teens even if its nudity (none at all) and violence (some but clearly more implied than shown) quotients are sufficiently low for the film to qualify for its PG-13 rating.   However, I just don't think that most kids or even teens would find the film particularly interesting, though young adults and younger married couples would probably enjoy AND UNDERSTAND it far more. For the film's message is both very simple and yet very professionally delivered: DON'T CHEAT.  And IMHO that's a message worth hearing.


<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>