Mr. Turner [2014]

MPAA (R)  ChicagoTribune (4 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B+)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review  

CineVue-Cannes (J. Bleasedale) review (4/5)
CineVeu (C.Williams) review (5/5)
EyeForFilm (R. Mowe) review (4/5)
Independent.co.uk review (5/5)
SlantMagazine (C. Cabin) review (3.5/4)

To be truthful, I was not overly impressed by Mr. Turner [2014] (written and directed by Michael Leigh) a British bio-pic about 19th century artist J.M.W. Turner (played in the film by Timothy Spall).  To be sure, THE CINEMATOGRAPHY was often stunning producing still or lingering panoramic shots that replicate the dewy shimmering tones, often facing into an afternoon sun, of the landscape paintings for which the artist was famous.  Anyone with some experience with a camera would appreciate the difficulty of these kind of shots ... to get the tones just right, remarkable!

But if Mr Turner "had an eye" for the subtleties of light, in other aspects, he was portrayed in the film as a veritable Neanderthal.  As portrayed, he grunted most of his speech, and when he made the occasional sexual advance on some poor woman that he had become fond of (he apparently considered himself "entitled" to that sort of thing...), the portrayal truly left me speechless.  By midway through the movie, I was wondering: "Couldn't they have just put a club in his hands?"  As presented, his "M.O." was just that appalling ;-)

So what to make of a film like this?  The "Masterpiece Theater" / Downton Abbey [2010-] crowd would probably eat this film up.  However, with the exception of some of the often stunning outdoor cinematography, I found myself "rolling my eyes" at Turner's "cave man" demeanor and glancing at my watch (a lot ...) looking forward to the film's eventual end. 

So cinematography aside, this film is certainly not for everyone.



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The Homesman [2014]

MPAA (R) ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 place)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (S. O'Malley) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review  

The Homesman [2014] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Tommy Lee Jones along with Kieran Fitzgerald and Wesley A. Oliver based on the novel by Glendon Swarthout [IMDb]) is something of a subversive / "revisionist" or perhaps "corrective" Western.  (Since there have been _so many_ Westerns made over the years, film-makers (and actors / actresses) do, with due fairness to their crafts, look for fresh approaches to the genre).

So the approach taken in this story was to take a look at the "Old West" from the perspective of the women that went out West -- with their parents, with their husbands, and even with fiances the they barely knew.  Approached from this angle, "the Frontier" wasn't exactly an awesome place to go.

Indeed, the story presented in this film reminds me of the stories recounted to me by our church secretary in a parish that we used to have in Milwaukie, OR (just outside of Portland) where I had served my diaconate.  Having a couple of young daughters, she had gotten involved in the various commemorations of a fairly big anniversary of the Oregon Trail.  One of the insights that she shared from the experience was that _pregnancy_ was one of the main realities for the wives who traversed the Trail with their husbands and families back in the 1840s: Either they were already pregnant when they started the journey or became pregnant during it.  In any case, however, the challenge for people today trying to appreciate the hardships of making the then almost 6 month journey was to imagine doing it, pregnant, sitting in (or when things got really bad, laying in) a wagon that was going albeit slowly but nevertheless up-and-down-and-all-around as it was traversing a well-worn and not particularly well-maintained dirt path that was the Oregon Trail -- from Independence, Missouri all the way to Willamette Valley in Oregon.

The current film set in the rather endless short-grass prairie of Nebraska is largely about three young wives who went crazy out there in the middle of the endless "nowhere" (seriously some of the very evocative and (to make the point) necessarily _depressing_ panoramic shots in the film make the Nebraska of the mid-1800s look like the "sand planet" where "Luke" would have "grown-up" in the first Star Wars [1977] movie).  A fourth woman, Mary Bee Cuddy (played with Oscar Nomination worthiness by Hillary Swank) is tasked by her local Pastor (played by John Lithgow) to take the women back to Iowa where another Pastor friend and his wife would take care of them and perhaps send them back to their original families.  Again, this is not exactly the "American frontier story" that we're generally acquainted with...

Since Mary Bee Cuddy, tough, competent as the rest, perhaps _more competent_ than most of the local men (several of whose wives she was being tasked to "take home to their original families") was nevertheless "a woman" ... she's encouraged to find a man, really _any man_ to serve as a "homesman" (the title of the story) to "help her" with this sad and difficult task.  The ONLY man that she finds who could help her was a small-time drunk / scoundrel, arguably a "sorry excuse for a man" (played in the film, certainly with some delight by the director Tommy Lee Jones himself).

So then, there's the story's set up:  The honest and tough, perhaps tragically "too tough" for her own good Mary Bee Cuddy, sets off with three crazy women in tow and a not altogether sane male drifter who's supposed to "help her" in her task to bring the said "crazy women" back home somewhere "back East" Iowa-way.  Much, often quite sad / sometimes quite poignant ensues ...


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Metro (orig. Метро) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  KN.ru (7.9/10)  KP.ru (85/100)  KT.ru (7.9)  MediaNews.ru (10/10)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

KinoNews.ru listing*   KinoPoisk.ru listing*
Kino-teatr.ru listing*    Kritikanstvo.ru listing*
Megacritic.ru listing*

Variety.com (N. Holdsworth) article
VarietyRussia.com (N. Karcev) review*

Afisha.ru (M. Kuvshinova) review*
Filmz.ru (A. Yushchenko) review*
KinoNews.ru (R. Volohov) review*
Kino-Teatr.ru (A. Filippov) review*
Media-News.ru (Nadin) review*
RusKino.ru (S. Stepnova) review*
Samizdat-Zhurnal.lib.ru (A.O. Valentinovna) review*
UralWeb.ru (O. Petrov) review*


Metro (orig. Метро) [2013] [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*(directed and screenplay cowritten by Anton Megerdichev [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* along with Denis Kuryshev [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* and Viktoriya Evseeva [IMDb] [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*) is a first of its kind "Russian blockbuster / disaster movie" that became something of a point of national pride last year ("Yes we _can_ make a film like this!"  It's honestly worth reading through some of the Russian language reviews listed above.  And this is actually quite easy using the Google Chrome browser in which clicking a single icon that appears in the upper right hand corner of the browser screen produces a relatively good "machine translation" of the text).

The film played at 2013 New York Russian Film Week whose films I've decided to try to find and review here on my blog now.

The story envisions the breakdown of one of Moscow's 1930s-era subway tunnels under the Moscow River one fine morning.  The tunnel becomes increasingly flooded with water as the cracks become larger.  With the flow increasingly becoming a torrent, the entire subway system comes to be threatened at one point and even the collapse of a good portion of the city above becomes possible.  The scenario was actually inspired by subway construction / operational mishaps (in 1974 and 1996) in Russian second city St. Petersburg / Leningrad).

Now a good part of what makes a "genre movie" (in this case a disaster movie) interesting is the film's "subtext."  And this film is certainly rich in subtext:

The leak appears on a line built during the 1930s (hence during Stalin era) NEAR a formerly secret "station" and even deviation of the subway line.  Tellingly, the presence of the formerly "secret station" ends up saving some who otherwise would have certainly become victims of the disaster portrayed -- they find a place to hide / flee -- BUT they are saved by the utterly historical accident of the presence of this "once secret bunker."  The case being made FOR Stalin these days in Russia is that STALIN saved Russia from Hitler, but the counterpoint being made, even in Russia, is that he did so largely or even utterly by accident: No matter how abused Russia had been under Stalin it had no other choice but to basically "follow him."  But can someone really be happy that a notoriously violent and abusive husband did actually come to save his wife from being raped by a violent and sadistic stranger? (or perhaps even simply avenged his abused wife's rape by eventually stalking down and killing the sadistic stranger)?  And yet, the violent / abusive husband eventually get / kill the guy.  And the wife, (Mother) Russia, got to live... In the film, some of the characters get to survive the depicted subway disaster simply as a result of a Stalin-era "accident."

However, contemporary debate about the Stalin Era is not by no means the only subtext in the film: The subway collapse in the movie is blamed on "uncontrolled construction" above-ground during the more recent POST-COMMUNIST ERA which is to have altered ground water flows and soil characteristics in unforeseen / unstudied and hence unknown ways.  And THIS IS a current concern / fear in Russia today -- that a great deal of what goes on in Russia today is uncontrolled / unregulated (basically who has money to bribe can do just about anything) and hence THE CONSEQUENCES of such uncontrolled / unregulated actions are largely UNKNOWABLE.   And honestly not knowing that even basic things are "the way they should be" can be pretty frightening. 

But beyond these "big issue" subtexts present in the film a more personal drama plays out in a complex arguably double love triangle between several of the film's main characters:

A modern traveling "career woman" Irina (played by Svetlana Khodchenkova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) is married to a "good" if perhaps somewhat "boring" ER-doctor named Garin (played by Sergei Puskepalis [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) who's still _choosing_ to work at a Moscow PUBLIC HOSPITAL.  But she ALSO has a hot "bysnessman" lover named Konstantinof (played by Anatoliy Belyy [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*).

While "modern feminist (caricature)" Irina is not portrayed well at all, together with Garin she has a cute-as-a-button daughter named Ksyusha (played by Anfisa Vistingauzen [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) over whose affections Garin (Irina's husband) and Konstantinof (Irina's lover) really battle.

The presence of the cute-as-a-button daughter and then, yes, a cute-as-a-button lap-dog that little Ksyusha becomes concerned about and repeatedly saves throughout the film are actually very cute adaptations-of and concessions-to traditional Soviet/Russian cinematic "kitsch" ;-).  What's a good Soviet era / Russian "family friendly film" WITHOUT a "cute-as-a-button kid" and then even a dog? ;-) BUT AGAIN, THESE STOCK CHARACTERS ARE  HONESTLY _NICE_.

So as the disaster film plays-out, the question throughout is "who is Irina (well we're kinda stuck with her...) but 'more importantly' who is cute-as-a-button Ksyusha going to end up with?  And, realistically, the answer to that question actually still involves who Irina the 'problematic / fallen mom' ends-up choosing as well:  Is Irina simply going to stay with her hot "getting to be richer than God" lover living in a glass-and-steel modern Moscow high-rise?  Or is she going to choose to come back to her more boring "doctor who still wants to do good" husband living in her / her husband's ... "different kind of high rise" but one that they (and other more regular Moscovites) can afford ...?

So yes, "much plays out" and yes, it somehow involves "an accident on the Moscow Metro" one day ;-) ;-)

Honestly, this is a very interesting and often quite entertaining "disaster film."  Now could Irina's character have been portrayed a little more kindly?  Still ... what a film!

ADDENDUM:

My parents' Communist-Era Czech roots require me to note a scene in the film that almost certainly had to be made ironically (or certainly would have made many "eyes roll"):
 
Yes, the husband Garin is portrayed as a "good guy." But the film-makers do "lay it on thick."  Early in the film, we see a _very grateful_ mother of a patient who he had just saved "SPONTANEOUSLY / OUT OF THE GOODNESS OF HER HEART" _giving him_ a BIG BOTTLE OF SOME KIND OF (PRESUMABLY EXPENSIVE) ALCOHOL for "saving her son."  He tells the grateful mother that he does not drink, but "so as not to hurt her feelings" he ... ACCEPTS THE "GIFT" ANYWAY ... OH PLEASE ... ANYONE of a COMMUNIST ERA EXTRACTION KNOWS A BRIBE WHEN HE/SHE SEES ONE ... IN THE PROPER ORDER, SHE'D COME WITH THE BIG BOTTLE OF EXPENSIVE ALCOHOL FIRST ... AND THEN (PERHAPS) HER SON WOULD HAVE BEEN SAVED...)


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  ChicagoSunTimes (2 Stars)  RE.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoSunTimes (C. Puig) review
RE.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review

The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death [2015] (directed by Tom Harper, screenplay by Jon Croker, story by Jon Croker and Susan Hill) is IMHO a basically safe and appropriately rated PG-13 "scary movie" that "the family" could go see together.

Set during the "Blitz" of early 1941, when London and most of England's cities were being bombed by the Nazis and therefore the cities' children were being evacuated, two teachers, one older a Mrs Jean Hogg (played by Helen McCrory) the wife of a British Officer, the other young, a Miss Eve Perkins (played by Phoebe Fox), are tasked with leading a group of children who have nowhere else to a refuge / school set-up for them by the British government.

So where did the government decide to send this poor group of child evacuees and their adult caretakers?  TO THE SAME CREEPY SEASIDE HOUSE of the first Woman in Black [2012] movie.  Yikes!

Upon arrival, almost everybody who can asks the same question: "Isn't there ANY OTHER PLACE that you could send us?"  And it's not just that the house is incredibly creepy looking with its overgrown vines and gardens.  But the house is surrounded by a tidal bog in which a child had already famously (or infamously) drowned (the child's death forming the back-story of why the house was thought by local townspeople to be haunted in the first place).  So the location was not exactly safe.  BUT all those in authority keep repeating: "There _is_ no place to move all of you to." (The group comprised the two teachers as well as a dozen or so children).  So they're stuck.

Well that could not be good ... and it wasn't.  Because the house _was_ haunted by "the woman in black" who we got to know from the first movie.

Now why was she haunting the place?   Did I mention that there was a child who drowned in the bogg surrounding the place?  She was the child's mother.  The child was born already under somewhat "scandalous circumstances."  The mother was already deemed "of questionable reason" even before the child drowned ... and then he did.  So, it could be said that the mother did not take her child's death "well."

And from that point forward (as we learned in the first installment), the house was not exactly the best place for young children OR for the people responsible for taking care of them.

Now it turns out that that one of the children in the group, Edward (played by Oakley Pendercast) had recently lost his parents in an air-raid, a piece of information that presumably a ghost (living largely on "the other side") could know and since ghost in question, "The Woman in Black," was not necessarily an Evil ghost but one "with a chip on her shoulder" (feeling that she wasn't respected appropriately in this life) ONE COULD EXPECT that the ghost would take a _perhaps sincere_ but _not exactly helpful_ (or appropriate) PROTECTIVE INTEREST in poor Edward.

So when Edward, still somewhat "shell shocked" by the sudden / tragic deaths of his parents, starts to get picked-on (not terribly picked-on but picked-on nonetheless) by other not altogether comprehending kids (THEY'RE KIDS AFTER ALL ...) well THIS UNSTABLE "GHOST WITH UNRESOLVED ISSUES" decides to "get involved" ...

And so, much necessarily ensues ...

Now it turns out that there are _several other characters_ in this story (living) who ALSO have "unresolved issues."  These include Edward, again simply devastated over the loss of his parents.  But they also include the younger teacher Eve, who we learn had a child taken away from her when she was young (she was found pregnant as a teenager and so after she had given birth the child had been promptly taken away from her for adoption).  There was also a British Airman named Harry Burnstow (played by Jeremy Irvine) who Eve and the group met on the train from London to this creepy seaside house, who was also heading in that same direction to re-unite with his unit after being briefly hospitalized after his plane had been shot down (It turns out that his three other crew mates all died in the ensuing crash following the plane's being shot down.  He was the only survivor AND HE FELT VERY GUILTY ABOUT THAT ...).

So there's a lot going on in this story with number of people with either "deep dark secrets" and/or friends / loved ones "on the other side." AND then there's this ghost, who _isn't_ necessarily EVIL but is certainly TORMENTED and perhaps CRAZY _brought_ into the midst of it all ;-).

So this is story, IMHO, _not_ about "a Demon" though CERTAINLY NOT about "Casper the Friendly Ghost."  Instead, it's about a ghost who's both powerful and "troubled."  The person was troubled in life and now remains troubled, indeed, _stuck_ in death.

Sigh, poor ghost ... but again ... much then has to play out ... and it does ... ;-)


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Guardians of the Galaxy [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Guardians of the Galaxy [2014] (directed and cowritten by James Gunn along with Nicole Perlman, inspired by the Marvel Comics comic book series [MarvU] [wikip 1969 2008] of the same name).  Of the Marvel comic book characters / series put on the big-screen to date, this is probably the most "out there" err "ambitious"  Indeed, initially, I chose to "put this one aside", contributing what I would have spent on the film to our Parish's "To Teach Who Christ Is" campaign ;-).  However, the film has proven to be wildly successful, indeed 2014's top grossing Hollywood film, making $332 million according to boxofficemojo.com.  So as the year has come to an end, it's hard for a reviewer like me to continue to "set aside" this film.

Indeed, part of the reason why I began writing reviews has been to raise-up and analyze films that _other critics_ have dissed or dismissed but have proven to be wildly popular nonetheless.  So I've happily written about / analyzed (favorably for the most part) films like the toy-based Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon [2011], and the video-game based Underworld: Awakening [2012] and Resident Evil: Retribution [2012] ;-) because I do believe that WILDLY popular films such as these have to speak to viewers on some deeper level than one would normally / superficially expect.

So how could the current film, Guardians of the Galaxy [2014], "speak to viewers" on a "deeper level" than one would initially expect?  The film is about Peter Quill (played briefly as a child by  Wyatt Oleff and later as an adult by Chris Pratt) who, in the 1970s, almost immediately after the death of his mother to cancer is "abducted by space aliens" (with only the clothes on his back and amusingly a 70s era "walkman") and transported into a world, universe WILDLY DIFFERENT than he (or we) was/were previously accustomed.

Okay the death of a parent or, more mundanely, the break-up of one's family can be WILDLY DISORIENTING to a child.  Note that I was at the border of such tragedy in my own family as my mother came down with and not-too-much-later died also of cancer as I was graduating from college.  So while far being older than Peter in the film when he lost his mother, I was still quite young and I can _personally attest_ to the experience being WILDLY DISORIENTING. 

However, putting the wildly disorienting experience of the death of a parent or the breakup of one's family aside -- consider ALSO that another recent film, here the Oscar caliber Wild [2014] is also about young woman played who lost her mother when she was young --  ALL OF US and especially the young are finding ourselves in a far more diverse / disorienting time than in times of recent past.  A number of years ago, a CNN report put it succinctly this way: In the United States, today's Seniors and their grandchildren live in two very different countries.  This is because some 90% of Seniors in the U.S. today remain white, while approaching 1/2 the nation's children especially in the younger grades are no longer white.  Now both African Americans and Hispanics tend to be Christian (Hispanics in large majority Catholic).  However, Asians and Middle Easterners are often, even generally, not.  The result is that American children (and even their parents) are living in a country / world far more dynamic / diverse than their grandparents and great-grandparents.  And that can be BOTH "disorienting" and experienced as COOL.

I do believe that this second possible response to the diversity (and its possibilities) that we're experiencing as COOL is reflected in the WILDLY POPULAR SCI-FI EXPRESSIONS a Cosmos absolutely brimming with almost infinite diversity / possibility.  One thinks of the phenomenal popularity of: (1) the 1960s original Star Trek television series, (2) the 1970s-80s original Star Wars trilogy (the early space alien filled "bar scene" etched into the minds of an entire generation of viewers), (3) the 1970s-80s era Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, which in only somewhat more staid / conventional form (radio then prose) expressed the wild diversity already present in the American/Marvel comic books like, in fact, the original Guardians of the Galaxy, and (4) the 1990s-2000s Men in Black films.  All of these Pop Cultural expressions have simply GLORIED in the infinite possibility of the Cosmos before us only a tiny portion of which we ever experience, let alone, understand.

Add to this the pop-cultural popularity of Erich von Däniken's "Chariots of the Gods?" inspired "Ancient Alien" [IMDb] phenomenon (which fascinatingly seeks, among other things, to bring "unity to religion(s)" by (re)labeling ALL GODS of ALL RELIGIONS to be previously "mis-understood" / "mis-interpreted" SPACE ALIENS), IT SHOULDN'T BE SURPRISING _AT ALL_ that a film like the current one, about a "terran" who was "abducted by space aliens" at "an early age," was (probably) initially "disoriented" by the experience BUT HAS SINCE "ADAPTED" AND IS NOW WILDLY ENJOYING THE POSSIBILITIES ... would prove to be PHENOMENALLY SUCCESSFUL:

ALL OF US TODAY to one extent or another are basically the film's "terran" hero "Peter Quill" ...

The plot doesn't matter.  The story just glories in infinite possibility.  And it's fun.  Peter's companions include an talking / intelligent raccoon named Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a genetically engineered / sentient and locomotive TREE named Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), a similarly genetically-altered woman (supposedly to :make her into a weapon") named Gamora (played by Zoe Saldana) and a blue-collarish generally red-faced "space tough" named Drax (played by Dave Bautista).  Together this motley, indeed quite ad hoc crew ... set out to (somehow) "protect the Galaxy" from celestial megalomaniacs / evil doers like Ronan (played by Lee Pace) whose Power (and monstrously Evil designs) we could only imagine. 

In a world that seems to be constantly shape-shifting and changing Peter Quill who's "found peace" and even _delight_ in all this change / diversity becomes a very interesting character indeed ;-).


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A Long and Happy Life (orig. Долгая счастливая жизнь) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  KN.ru (1/10)  KP.ru (8/10)  CV.com (4/5)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

KinoNews.ru listing*
KinoPoisk.ru listing*
Kino-teatr.ru listing*

Afischa.ru (R. Kulanin) review*
Ruskino.ru (S. Stepnova) review*

CineVue (P. Gamble) review
Variety (L. Felperin) review

A Long and Happy Life (orig. Долгая счастливая жизнь) [2013] [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*(directed and cowritten by Boris Khlebnikov [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KP.ru]* [KT.ru]* along with Alexander Rodionov [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*) is the kind of Soviet, err Russian, movie that tends to find its way to the United States / the West.

Indeed, the film dutifully played and won a "special mention" (an award with a rather "ambiguous" to "polyvalent" meaning to say the least ...) at the 2013 Chicago International Film Festival.  For my part, after reading the plot summary offered by organizers of said 2013 Chicago International Film Festival promising a "somber socialist realist" film, I dutifully MADE IT A POINT then OF AVOIDING THE FILM preferring to screen something (really almost anything ...) that promised to be less ideological / bombastic ... ;-).

But the film did play among happier / more interesting Russian films at the 2013 New York Russian Film Week whose films I've decided to try to find and review now.  So in the interest of providing here _an honest survey_ of contemporary Russian film, I decided to view and review this film now.  (I would note here that as of my writing of this review, the film got exactly ONE VOTE on the Russian youth oriented KinoNews.ru website and that ONE VOTE gave it a 1/10 ;-).  Thus to even young Russian viewers, this film "Guardians of the Galaxy" was not ;-).

To be fair, this was _not_ an _awful movie_.  Indeed, much of its thematics could be seen as similar to a classic 1940s-1950s era American Western: A lone young man, Alexander Sergeivich or Sasha (played quite well by Aleksandr Yatsenko [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*) in a small "frontier town" (apparently several hundred miles East of St. Petersburg nestled on the banks of a lovely Siberian River amidst rolling hills covered by lovely leaves-gently-turning-yellow (it's early autumn...) birch and evergreen forest) decides (with encouragement from his workers at a local cooperative if no longer collective farm) to try to face-down a shadowy cabal of corrupt local public officials fronting for unnamed and even shadowier "Bysness" interests.  [In a typical American Western, a lone young man, often a cowboy, would stand-up to face-down a cabal of corrupt local officials / "law"men paid-off by / fronting for one-or-another powerful railroad, mining interest or rancher...].   

But since this was a Russian movie as opposed to an American one, things could not possibly go well.  Egged on to take this rather brave stand arguably against his own interests -- he didn't know what / who exactly he was up against, but could certainly sense that he was probably going to lose, AND said "bysness interests" were at least _initially_ happy to just "pay him off" so that he would just leave without making a fuss -- his worker friends ALL INITIALLY "standing behind him" PEAL-OFF one after another: One takes the farm's tractor as "compensation" for his "investment" in the "cooperative."  Another, the loudest, most militant of the bunch, "listens to his wife" whose brother finds him a nice/safe "lumber job up in Karelia."

SO IN THE END, it's basically him, with a not exactly "air tight" legal claim to the land that the "bysness interests" want to take away from him, against not just said "bysness interests" but also the full force of the "local authorities" (already presumably long paid-off by the "bysness interests").

So does one keep "standing tall" or is this "Russian Ruby Ridge" scenario just gonna end up like a "Russian Alamo" ... and would there be ANYONE who would care ...?

Sigh, this is a film in which Russian old-style Stalinists come-out looking like American "Stars and Bars" survivalists ...


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Big Eyes [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB ()  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (1 Star w. Expl.)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (S. O'Malley) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review


Big Eyes [2014] (directed by Tim Burton, screenplay by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaczewski) is an "art film" (in more ways than one ;-) that I really expected to like far, far more than I did:

The film's about a quintessentially "middle American" couple (from 1950s largely SUBURBAN California to boot -- from "the edge of the city to the edge of the desert" was the range of their day-to-day experience) that embarrassed the Art [TM] world (again, in more than a few ways ;-).  And then the film's about the dutiful 1950s-era wife yet (DESPITE that role's otherwise CRUSHING LIMITATIONS in that era) the couple's TRUE artist (if in a kitsch sort of way ... her art featured one MOURNFUL BIG-EYED ORPHAN AFTER ANOTHER ;-) Margaret Keane (played with wonderful Oscar nomination-worthy _unsuredness_ by Amy Adams, you just want to give the woman a hug... ;-) finally standing-up to her appallingly artistically untalented (but one heck/Hell of a (self)-promoting) scoundrel of a husband Walter (played with magnificent / again bordering on kitsch delight by Christoph Waltz).  This would "American Gothic" (if it was painted by Andy Warhol ;-) who actually apparently delighted in Keane's work gleefully noting the obvious: "It can't be that bad IF SO MANY PEOPLE LIKE IT." ;-)

So why the heck did I not like the film so much?  Its utterly unnecessary pot-shot against the Catholic Church:

To explain (MILD SPOILER ALERT -- though this is already revealed in the film's trailer): Though having presented himself to Margaret as an artist himself (painting "street scenes of Paris" "from memory..."), at a critical point in the film, TO MAKE A SALE -- Walter's there, she's not -- he takes credit for one of Margaret's "orphan pictures."  He explains to her afterwards: "You signed it Keane.  I'm a Keane, you're a Keane, what's the difference?  We sold the picture."

There is a difference of course.  And Margaret immediately feels that something is stolen from her.  BUT then Walter adds: "Besides, nobody buys 'women art' ..."  Again, she's not really convinced, replying: "What about Georgia O'Keefe?" (and she's right).  HOWEVER, even though she gives the right answer, SHE STILL HAS BEEN FORMED (FROM CHILDHOOD) TO "LISTEN TO HER HUSBAND"  And so she does ... BUT there's STILL the INNER TURMOIL OF THE LIE.

So what to do?  SHE GOES TO CONFESSION about it.  And this is my problem with the film.  After explaining the situation to the Priest, that her husband is taking credit for her paintings and that she's had to reprimand her own daughter for failing to go along with the lie (something that she tells the priest she's not comfortable with) THE PRIEST RESPONDS TO HER: "The husband is the head of the household, I suggest that you go along with his judgement."

I find the CATHOLIC priest's response there VERY, VERY DOUBTFUL.  SURE, JUST LIKE IN MAINLINE PROTESTANTISM OF THE TIME (to say nothing of the "Bible Believing Baptists, etc" where there wouldn't have been a question at all), THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OF THE TIME WOULD HAVE BEEN CERTAINLY "Patriarchical."

HOWEVER, MUCH MORE WAS GOING ON IN MARGARET'S CONFESSION THAN "Roles of Husband and Wife":

In the 1950s, the Catholic Church in the United States was, hands-down, a Church with BLUE COLLAR ROOTS.  Most Catholic priests at the time would have come from the same blue collar families as the parishioners AND WOULD NOT HAVE GIVEN A DAMN ABOUT PROTECTING "FAMILY REPUTATION" AND SO FORTH.  The priest would have heard FRAUD in Margaret's Confession (and for the motive of Margaret / Walter trying to live "in a more uppity manner" than the rest of "the people of God" ...) AND THUS WOULD HAVE, 9/10, told Margaret to END THE FRAUD.  He would not have cared about her sensitivities as a "snobby artiste" ... He would have cared that the two were trying to "live higher on the hog" than BOTH she and her husband had a right to.

So the film's an otherwise lovely and fascinating story about Art, Class, Kitsch, changing roles of husband and wife.  But it adds to the story a stupid / lazy pot-shot at the Catholic Church.  (Folks, there would be PLENTY OF THINGS TO CRITICIZE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH and even THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OF THAT TIME, BUT THIS WOULD NOT BE ONE OF THEM ...)

So ... 1 star (and it's a shame, because I otherwise LOVED this movie ;-)


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Me Too! (orig. я тоже хочу) [2012]

MPAA (UR would be R)  GQ.ru (8.0/10)  KN.ru (8.5/10)  KT.ru (4.3/10)  OV.ru (3.8/5)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

KinoNews.ru listing*  KinoPoisk.ru listing*
Kino-teatr.ru listing*  Megacritic.ru listing*

Afischa.ru (A. Sotnikova) review*
Gazeta.ru (V. Lyaschenko) review*
GQ.ru (L. Smolin) review*
KinoAfisha.ru (S. Ternovski) review*
OVideo.ru (V. Kavalevich) review*
The-Village.ru (M. Chemodanov) review*
Trud.ru (L. Pavlyuchik) review*
Vasdosodug.ru (I. Gireiev) review*

Cine-Vue (J. Bleasdale) review
Eye For Film (M. Pattison) review
Kino-Zeit.de (B. Behn) review*

Me Too! (orig. я тоже хочу) [2012] [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* (written, directed and costarring Aleksey Balabanov [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KP.ru]* [KT.ru]*) is a rather "uncomplicated" Russian pop-cultural "apocalyptic story" (hence a mix of New Age and good-ole-fashioned Russian Orthodoxy) about a car load of "regular folk" Russians who set-off from St. Petersburg to the outlying countryside in search of the remains of a Russian Orthodox church whose bell-tower as a result of a "hushed up" mini-Chernobyl-like nuclear accident some years back is rumored to have become some sort of a conduit/portal to a "land of perpetual happiness."

The film played last year at the 2013 New York Russian Film Week.  I've chosen to look the film up, view it and review it here because I've grown tired (and even somewhat scared of the implications of) a very stilted one-dimensional portrayal of Russia / Russians today (a portrayal that ironically BOTH the current Putin government in Russia AND the West seem TO WANT TO PROPAGATE). 

So this film may both amuse and pleasantly surprise a fair number of Western readers here because the film's setup honestly is like the beginning of a send-up / joke: a Bandit (played by Aleksander Mosin [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*), a Musician (played by Oleg Garkusha [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*), an Alcoholic friend of the two (played by Yuriy Matveev [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*), the Alcoholic''s Father (played by  [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*),  and a Prostitute (played by Alisa Shitikova [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*) get into a car and head-off to "a militarily cordoned-off area" somewhere "outside of town" (St. Petersburg) where it's rumored that there is the above mentioned bell-tower that many have come to believe MAY TRANSPORT SOME PEOPLE to a "Land of Perputual Happiness" ...  and much in the course of the 80 minute film ensues ;-)

Since it's a rather motley group of people in said Lada (a Russian "every man" sort of car), the film's certainly not particularly "PC."  The Bandit is, well, kinda an a-hole (though he doesn't necessarily think of himself as that way ... ;-) as is the Alcoholic.  The Musician is so artistically "avant-garde" that the "unschooled" would arguably say that he can't sing ;-).  The quite plain-looking Prostitute is of the "heart of gold" variety (she's doing it just because her mother's ill and the family needs the money).  And the elderly father doesn't say much at all.  And yet, when each of them hears of this rumored ruined bell tower that could transport them to "The Land of Perpetual Happiness" everyone of them naturally says: "Hey, me too! I wanna go too" (hence the title of the film).

Anyway, the film is honestly "a blast" ;-) ... and may actually surprise many Westerners who may honestly be convinced that Russians can't laugh or don't have a worthwhile sense of humor at all.

So this is a great little film folks that can help to quickly dissuade people of such opinions.


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Unbroken [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Star)  RE.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (K. Uhlich) review

Unbroken [2014] (directed by Angelina Jolie, screenplay by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Richard LaGravenese and William Nicholson, based on the biography by Laura Hillenbrand) tells the war-time story of Louis Zamperini born of Italian-immigrant parents, raised in Torrance, California grew up to be an Olympic athlete representing the United States as a middle distance runner in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and then served as an airman (bombardier) in the U.S.A.A.F. in the Pacific Theater before his plane, an early B-24, crashed due to mechanical failure in middle of the Pacific Ocean (apparently 800 miles south of Oahu).  And that's where Zamperini's story (and the film) really begins.

Zamperini (played as an adult by Jack O'Connell and in occasional flashbacks as a child by C.J. Valleroy) survived the plane's ditching in the Pacific along with two of his crew mates -- Cup (played by Jay Courtney) and Phil (played by Domnhall Gleeson).  Together, they drifted in an army-issue yellow inflatable life-raft for 45 days (Phil died after 30), eating raw fish, drinking occasional rain water, fighting off sharks with their paddles and jumping back into the sea occasionally to evade occasional strafing runs by Japanese aircraft.  Finally, they were picked-up ... by the Japanese and  tortured first "for information" (they had little) out on some Japanese held island somewhere in the Pacific and then "for fun" / "because they could be" after they were transported back to the Japanese home islands to spend the rest of the War there as POWs.

Zamperini's story thus was a very painful one throughout this several-years-long chapter of his life.  The film invites viewers to ask themselves what they would do:

His "celebrity" as a "former Olympic athlete" both helped and hurt him during his captivity.  A low ranking Japanese officer named Watanabe, nicknamed by the POWs as "The Bird" (played quite bravely by contemporary Japanese pop-star Takamasa Ishihara [en.wikip] [ja.wikip]* [IMDB]) a self-loathing, born-privileged "loser with a stick" took particular pleasure beating-up / otherwise humiliating Zamperini, who as a former Olympic athlete had already achieved a level of _Greatness_ that no matter how many blows "The Bird" could afflict on him during his captivity no one could take away.  On the hand, Zamperini was offered RELIEF FROM ALL OF THIS SUFFERING IF ONLY ... he consented to work for Radio Tokyo ON BEHALF OF THE JAPANESE.  The Temptation was REAL ... as were the Consequences to which-ever-way he decided to go.  He _chose_ to _continue to endure_ the awful and utterly random (utterly beyond his control) BEATINGS rather than BETRAY HIS COUNTRY ... Honestly that was one tough SELF-SACRIFICING decision).

After the War, he had another decision to make (covered in the film only by a few panels of explanatory titles): Could he forgive this enemy that TORTURED HIM and KILLED SO MANY OF HIS FRIENDS / FELLOW POWs?  Born Italian-American, he was therefore born/raised Catholic.  However, the book has it that it was his wife and Evangelist Billy Graham who changed his heart in the post-war years to begin a completely new chapter in his life: HE WENT BACK TO JAPAN as a born-again Christian.  In 1950, he went to the Sugamo Prison in Tokyo which housed many of Japan's War Criminals and publicly FORGAVE everyone of the prisoners there who stepped forward to acknowledge that they knew him during _his captivity_ during the war.  (Subsequently, he even reached out to Watanabe, who had successfully evaded capture as a War Criminal after the war, but "The Bird" refused to meet him).

In any case, Louis Zamperini's is one heck of a story, and one that deserves praise here (even if his Catholicism in his post-WW II years could be something of a question mark): We are asked by God / Jesus to forgive.  How well are we all doing with that?


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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The Geographer Drank His Globe Away (orig. Географ Глобус Пропил) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be R)  afisha.ru (4/5 Stars)  KN.ru (7.2/10)  KP.ru (7.6/10)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing

KinoNews.ru listing*
KinoPoisk.ru listing*
Kino-teatr.ru listing*

afisha.ru (B. Milovidov) review*
KinoNews.ru (T. Fedotova) review*
Newlookmedia.ru (А. Mazhaev) review*
Pravda.ru (A. Enseev) review*
Zavtra.ru (A. Belokurova) review*

The Geographer Drank His Globe Away (orig. Географ Глобус Пропил) [2013] [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* (directed and screenplay cowritten by Aleksandr Veledinskiy [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* [ru.wikip]* along with Rauf Kubayev [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]* and Valeriy Todorovskiy [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KP.ru]* based on the novel [GR]* [ru.wikip]* by Alexei V. Ivanov [en.wikip] [ru.wikip]* [IMDb]) is an EXCELLENT RUSSIAN FILM which won five 2014 Nika Awards (Russia's equivalent of the Oscars) [IMDb] [en.wikip] including for best picture, best director, best actor and best actress and was nominated for three others.

The film played at the 2013 New York Russian Film Week.  Since contemporary Russian films rarely play in Chicago, and those that do IMHO often play into the propagandistic interests of BOTH Putin's current government AND that of the West (both seem to WANT Russia to appear re-enamored or even obsessed with bombastic, often highly allegorical Soviet Era even Stalinistic aesthetics), I have considered for a while now to look-up and review the films shown at that Festival in New York.  While reading Peter Pomerantsev's perhaps quite excellent and certainly quite damning book Nothing is Real and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia (2014) (neither I nor most Americans honestly have an alternate frame of reference to be able to argue with him), I found this "perhaps one sunny day" project perhaps a bit more urgent.  (Pomerantsev was rather prominently featured in an interview on the PBS Newshour [1] [2] recently, so his book will probably carry a fair amount of weight among "the people who actually make decisions" in the U.S. and by extension in the West).  

My sense is that Pomerantsev is probably largely on target (my parents were Czechoslovakian immigrants, after all, who fled that country to the U.S. during the Communist Era...).  However, I do honestly believe that the cause of "better understanding between peoples/nations" and FRANKLY EVEN THE CAUSE OF WORLD PEACE would be greatly served if Americans (and Westerners in general) were to come to realize that Russians are people who ALSO deal with "day to day" problems AND _at least at times_ SMILE.  Since a number of the films shown at the 2013 New York Russian Film Week were COMEDIES or otherwise _little_ "average Joe dramas" I thought that giving publicity to some of these films COULD HELP CHANGE ATTITUDES and AGAIN FRANKLY HELP TO EITHER PREVENT ANOTHER COLD WAR OR AT LEAST MAKE IT LESS COLD.

So with this goal in mind, I set-off to first find and then review a representative portion of the films shown at that already admittedly small 2013 New York Russian Film Festival.  And the first film that I saw of the series was this one, the 5 Nika Award winning personalist drama called The Geographer Drank His Globe Away (orig. Географ Глобус Пропил) [2013] [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*.

The story is set in and around the industrial city of Perm [en.wikip] [ru.wikip]* near the European side foothills of the Ural Mountains [en.wikip] [ru.wikip]* on the banks of the picturesque Kama River [en.wikip] [ru.wikip]* a major tributary of the Volga [en.wikip] [ru.wikip]* (Perm's American "sister city" is quite interestingly/evocatively Louisville, Kentucky, itself located a little downriver from the western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains on the banks of Ohio River a major tributary to the Mississippi).  The film's about a "washed-up" late-30 something / early 40-something former university teacher named Viktor Slushkin (played award-worthily in often funny yet ever-understated fashion by Konstantin Khabenskiy [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*: Readers think here of Liam Neeson playing Jeff Bridges' role in The Big Lebowski [1998] ;-).

Never having finished his PhD (in Biology), perhaps/probably because of drinking (though the drinking could have been both a cause and an effect of his downward slide), he's spent the better part of the last 10 years drifting through (and losing) increasingly pitiable jobs across much of the region, finally bringing him home to Perm [en.wikip] [ru.wikip]* where he had grown-up.  There upon his return he ends-up landing a job as a "Geography teacher" at the local high school (secondary school).  "Biology, Geography, it's all the same," declares the _male_ 'director of the school' while the (probably far more competent than both of them) _female_ assistant director/principal clenches her teeth, roles her eyes and responds as calmly as she can: "Well, YOU are the Director (Principal) after all ..."

Having "landed a job" that he's _not_ completely embarrassed about, Victor (actually kind of an ironic name ... evoking "victory") can "complete the journey home" and return to his wife and kid (shades of The Odyssey or even James Joyce's Ulysses).  His wife Nadya (her name actually meaning "hope" played again with magnificent _disappointment_ by Elena Lyadova [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*) a former (university) student of his, who he had "bagged" (and "knocked-up" ... they have said 8 to 10 year old girl together) when he was still "a catch" ... now, of course, hates him.  The three have a random apartment in a random 10-20 story tenement building (though at least it "has a nice view, facing the river...") somewhere in town and the first words of Nadya in the movie is that it's embarrassing that they still don't have a car.

Spotting Victor smoking a cigarette on his balcony (while his wife's putting out the laundry to dry ...)  contemplating the river or simply just enjoying a brief moment of peace, his best friend Butkin (played with cheerful cluelessness/innocence by Aleksandr Robak [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*) calls him up on his cell phone.  Victor answering, Butkin cheerfully tells him "Look toward your left!" Victor of course looks the wrong way, "No your other left!"  Turning the right way, Victor sees a little roundish figure of a man standing on a balcony a few floors _lower_ of another apartment of another random tenement building happily waving toward him calling out, loudly, both over the phone and across the snow covered green: "Victor, it's good to see you back!  When'd you come home?"

And soon, Butkin's over at Victor's with a flower for the wife/family and a bottle of who-knows-what to share with Victor, et al, and Nadya, just rolls her eyes wondering "Will the newly returned joys never cease ..." ;-).

ISN'T THIS A WONDERFUL SET-UP FOR A STORY?

Okay, Victor knows as much about "geography" as he can remember from WHEN HE WAS A BORED, UNMOTIVATED (or more positively "CARE-FREE") HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT ... AND ... WHAT SUBSEQUENT LIFE EXPERIENCE HAS TAUGHT HIM.  So he's SIMULTANEOUSLY a TERRIBLE (GEOGRAPHY) TEACHER ... and actually ... a pretty good one.

Of his largely unmotivated class, two students become key: Ovechkin (Ilya Ilinyh [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*... there's actually a famous NHL playing Russian hockey player now named Ovechkin ;-) who could have been Viktor (Slushkin) when he was 16 years old and more problematically Masha (played again wonderfully with wide-eyed teenage hormone-driven sincerity by Anfisa Chernykh [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*) who "falls in love with him" and who if he would have still been 16 years old, he probably would have loved to have fallen-in-love with as well.  But alas, Viktor (Slushkin)'s some 40 years old, with a wife who he's failed and kid who he loves and doesn't want to fail as well.

So how to _NAVIGATE_ this lovely, sad, very human mess of a life? 

After his wife tells him to "find a mistress" because she honestly doesn't feel anything for him any more, it is HE actually who lets her enter into a fling (and all concerned hope something more ...) with his best friend Butkin (His ever-cheerfulness does eventually melt Nadya's scowl into a smile).  For his part, Viktor does initially pursue a "hot German teacher" Kira (played by Evgenia Brik [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KT.ru]*).  But when he does arrive at a point where he really could succeed, he starts to have second thoughts.  "So you're going to become a monk?" Kira asks him.  "No, not all the saints were monks," never particularly or certainly explicitly religious he responds.  He's just honestly apparently come to the realization that this wasn't right (even though he was actually happy to see his wife finally _somewhat happy_, if not with him, then at least with his happier-go-lucky best friend).

And with his under-motivated students he finally makes a deal:  He would take those who "ace" their final exam on a several day rafting trip down the Kama River (upstream from town) to prove to them that "geography can be fun."  That sets up a very nice and very scenically drop-dead beautiful last 45 minutes of the film.

What of the 16 year old, wide-eyed, not knowing what she's doing, but "in love" (with him) Masha?  Well, PERHAPS MILD SPOILER ALERT, Viktor manages to bring her down to reality.  When ON THE RAFTING TRIP she professes her love to him: "I can't live without you," as a 40 year old (who's actually gone down this path before, albeit with a college student, his wife, who he's subsequently profoundly failed / disappointed) he responds: "OH PLEASE, I'm NOT with DYING FOR.  And you're NOT worth GOING TO JAIL for."  And yes, she's "crest fallen" but ... of course, "she gets over it" ;-)

THIS IS A LOVELY, LOVELY BITTER-SWEET FILM about a (Russian) man who, yes, has made mistakes (and yes, HAS PAID FOR SAID MISTAKES) ... BUT HAS DECIDED TO TRY TO BE A GOOD MAN NONETHELESS.

I began calling the film a "personalist" film.  It's a term that may seem strange to many American ears.  But I chose it purposefully here.  This is because PERSONALISM was very much what this film was about -- the capacity of an individual PERSON to make (good and bad) moral decisions.  Personalism was very much at the center of Pope John Paul II's (now St. John Paul II's) theology (his first book was called "The Acting Person") and this philosophy / theology was certainly informed by the philosophical / theological currents of his part of the world and HIS philosophy/theology in turn has influenced said philosophical / theological currents of his part the world as well.  (While Poles and Russians may not much like each other, they DO read and watch each other's stuff ;-).  So I DON'T THINK the "personalism" in the John Paul II-ian sense was that much of an accident here.   Even if the Russian writer of the book or Russian director of the movie never actually read any of John Paul II's writings, the philosophy / theology of his writings would be very much "in the religious / philosophical environment" of the entire region. 

In any case, this was really an excellent (and perhaps to Westerners initially surprising) Russian film that is WORTHY of "looking up."  Great job folks, honestly great job!


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

<< 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! :-) >>

Into the Woods [2014]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RE.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review

Into the Woods [2014] (directed by Rob Marshall, screenplay by James Lapine [IMDb], based on the stage musical by Stephen Sondheim [IMDb] and James Lapine [IMDb] which combines a number of Grimm's Fairytales into generally pleasing "soup") makes for a rather safe family-oriented movie to go see this "Holiday season."  I write "Holiday" rather than "Christmas Season" because the film is certainly (and certainly intentionally) a "religion-free zone."  On the other hand, this is a film that will certainly offend almost no one.  Hence, it's SAFE but also ... FUN.

Certainly Meryl Streep must have had a blast playing the story's Witch, who, since she was cursed (for reason(s) unclear) by her mother to "lifelong ugliness" turned around and cursed her neighbors' home inhabited by a lovely, mild-mannered "Baker" couple played by James Corden and Emily Blunt rendering the couple childless.  Mind you, the "Witch" had nothing in particular against the "Baker couple."  It was just that _her life_ was "cursed," so why shouldn't theirs be as well ;-/. 

So ... near the beginning of the film, Witch cheerfully tells them (again, she doesn't have any particular resentment against them ...) what THEY need to do TO HELP HER remove the curse that was PLACED ON HER, and ... in return she'd then cheerfully remove the curse AGAINST THEM.  (In truth, the story's kinda about "cheerful" "Fairytale blackmail" or even "Fairytale terrorism" ... The Witch was unhappy and so long as she was unhappy the lovely / innocent people next door were rendered unhappy as well...)

What did they have to do?  They had to bring to the Witch four items: A cape "as red as blood," a cow "as white as milk," hair "as yellow as corn," and a shoe "as pure as gold."  Since their village was "small" they had to leave their little village "INTO THE WOODS" to search / find these items. 

And .... in those "woods" (strange, outside of their normal day-to-day experience) ... they run into ... hmmm ... Little Red Riding Hood (played amusingly by Lila Crawford), a little boy named Jack (played by Daniel Huttlestone) taking his mother's cow to market, long/blonde haired Rapunzel (played by Mackenzie Mauzy) locked-up in a lonely tower, and a not particularly "decisive" Cinderella (played by Anna Kendrick) who has a hard time deciding if she really wants to become Prince Charming's (played by Chris Pine) wife (It turns out later that her intuitive cautiousness was quite justified ... ;-)

So ... "the ingredients" are all there, but nothing is that easy:   It turns out Little Red Riding Hood's kinda a brat ;-), Jack wants to be paid, Repunzel has need for that hair, and Cinderella, poor Cinderella, has the above mentioned affliction of not being able to make-up her mind.  So ... much has to ensue ... and it does.  And even after everything would seem to be resolved, well ... there's at least one more act to go ;-).

So ... this is a pleasant and often quite funny revisiting of some of the Grimm's Fairytales that many/most of us would remember from our younger days.  Probably the show-stopper tune in the film is "Agony" sung by Cinderella's Prince Charming and Rapunzel's beau (played by Billy Magnusen) complaining how "difficult" it is to be a "privileged prince" ;-).  Then Meryl Streep's unhappy but quite powerful witch has fun "unhelpfully" appearing and disappearing again throughout the story, "helping" to make the other characters in the story "unhappy" because, well, she's unhappy.  Many of us have friends, neighbors and/or relatives like that ;-). 

So ... while this movie could have been released pretty much any time during the year, it's NOT A BAD ONE to go to now if the relatives are over (especially with little ones) and you don't know quite what to do with them anymore ;-).

I'd also add that part of the film's charm is that though it is a movie, set often outdoors, it's quite "stagey" (and IMHO _intentionally_ so).  So I'm sure that plenty of high school drama coaches will be scratching their heads as they watch the film, saying to themselves "Hey, WE could do this.  And wouldn't this musical be a blast to put on stage at our school in a year or two...."

So all in all, one can't really go wrong with this film.  Good job folks, good job ;-)


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