Sunday, November 22, 2015

Brooklyn [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  ChicagoTribune (3 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (A-)  Fr. Dennis (3 3/4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McCarthy) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (Noel Murray) review  

Brooklyn [2015] (directed by John Crowley, screenplay by Nick Hornby based on the novel [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb] by Colm Tóibín [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) is an excellent, well crafted (Irish/Italian/American 1950s-era) immigrant story that certainly deserves Oscar consideration (best picture, best adapted screenplay, even best actress in a leading role) and it's one of those stories that would fit well at an inter-generational family gathering.

Nice, soft-spoken, late-teen / early-20-something Eilis (played wonderfully by Saoirse Ronan) probably destined grow-up and live-out her life pretty much invisibly in rural County Wexford in Ireland, is offered a break conceived by her older sister Rose (played by Fiona Gascott) that, one guesses, she probably would not have come-up-with on her own: Recognizing that one of them is probably going to have to take care of their widowed mother and as the older sister, that would perhaps be best done by herself, Rose writes a priest friend, Fr. Flood (played again wonderfully by Jim Broadbent) in Brooklyn, New York, to sponsor Eilis, give her a chance to emigrate to the United States and thus "make something of her life."  It's an act of self-sacrifice that many of us today would perhaps not completely understand.  It was Rose who came up with the idea, so why didn't Rose herself ask to be sponsored / "jump on the boat" to flee in hopes of a better life?  Well, that's _how people were_ "back in the day" and _perhaps_ we express self-sacrifice in analogous ways today.

So Eilis leaves Ireland to live, to a certain extent, Rose's dream.  This means, of course, that at least initially, Eilis is not necessarily ready for the whole big, wide world that awaited her as she stepped on the ship that took her across the ocean to the United States and then especially when she arrived in New York.  Yes the kindly, indeed, honestly angelic Fr. Flood, helps her, setting her up with a job in a department store and with a place to stay at a 50s-era young single women's boarding house (the boarding house scenes are _priceless_) run by a no-nonsense church-going matron Mrs. Konoe (played again magnificently by Julie Walters) who's not about to let the young women staying in her house "go bad" due to "giddiness" / temptation under her watch ;-).  Today, a good deal of younger viewers would perhaps "roll their eyes" as they listened to some of Mrs. Kehoe's advice to the 50s-era young women, all basically in their early to mid-20s staying in her house.  On the other hand, today's young people might also note (and with some jealousy) that Mrs. Kehoe _cared_ about "her girls" while today the "landlord / tenant relationship" generally ends (after the background check and deposits have been made...) at simply the question of the rent being paid.

So after some six months of some fairly desperate homesickness (and the passing of her first winter in New York ;-), Eilis finds herself "quite on her feet."  Part of what makes her time more pleasant is that she "finds a guy" AT A CHURCH DANCE ... who, despite it being AN IRISH CHURCH DANCE, turns out to be ITALIAN ;-) ... "AMERICA" ;-) ;-).

Her surprising, Italian beau, Tony (played again magnificently by Emory Cohen) is a soft-spoken, similarly early 20-something plumber, who came to the dance, because ... he simply "liked Irish girls," and it turns out that Eilis, kinda liked him ;-).  Tony had a whole family (parents, brothers and sisters) living in another section of Brooklyn and soon enough she gets to meet them.  Another priceless scene in the film is when Tony's precocious 10-12 year old brother proudly proclaims to Eilis that "We here, in this family, DON'T like 'the Irish'" whereupon rest of the aghast family quickly/loudly tells him to "SHUT UP" ;-), but SMILING, he stands his ground: "NO, IT'S A WELL KNOWN FACT, WE'VE NEVER LIKED THE IRISH ..." well UNTIL NOW ... Eilis' mere gentle smiling presence (at the invitation of now smiling-from-ear-to-ear Tony) "changed things" now and forevermore in that household and TRULY, NOW, THE PROMISED NEW LIFE OPENED UP FOR EILIS...

... 'Cept (this _is_ at least in part "an Irish story" ;-) ... just as Eilis is becoming happy in New York, word comes that older sister Rose ... died, quite suddenly, back in Ireland.

The rest of the movie follows, as much now still has to ensue ... ;-)

Folks, this is honestly a great and largely gentle 1950s-era immigrant story. 


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Saturday, November 21, 2015

Warsaw by Night [2015]

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

IMDb listing
FilmPolski.pl listing*
FilmWeb.pl listing*

Gazeta.pl (M. Kuprowski) review*
naEkranie.pl (A. Mitrowska) review*
oNet.pl (M. Steciak) review*
Paradoks.net.pl (M. Piatkowska) review*
PlasterLodzki.pl (I. Kociełkiewicz) review*
Politika.pl (J. Wróblewski) review*
QultQultury.pl (M. Sielska) review*
Senior.pl (K. Krajewska) review*
Wyborcza.pl (I. Szymańska) review*


Warsaw at Night [2015] [IMDb] [FP.pl]*[FW.pl]* (directed by Natalia Koryncka-Gruz [IMDb] [FP.pl]*[FW.pl]*, screenplay Marek Modzelewski [IMDb] [FP.pl]*[FW.pl]*) is a cross between Sex in the City [wikip] [IMDb] and Crash [2004] [wikip] [IMDb] / The Polish Film School [wikip] [Culture.pl] [MSPresents] that played recently at the 2015 (27th annual) Polish Film Festival in America here in Chicago.

The resulting mix certainly produced a better, more serious, and certainly inclusive product than Sex in the City [wikip] [IMDb] (which featured basically upper middle-class women in their 30s / 40s basically "living the dream" in NYC today).  In contrast, the current film tells the stories of four contemporary Polish women of varying ages, classes / backgrounds and expectations who happen to simply pass through the restroom of a quite trendy club in the center of Warsaw at roughly the same time one evening.  These include:

Iga (played by Izabela Kuna [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) an artist in her 30s-40s who's out with her sister who recently discovered that her husband has been cheating on her with a significantly younger woman;

Helena (played by Stanisława Celińska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) in her 60s, who on her birthday, can not but recall (and this time search out) her perhaps amiable if certainly loutish ex-husband who left her 35 years before;

Then there is 20-something Maya (played by Roma Gąsiorowska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) who does look the part in the trendy-club, perhaps _too much_, as the man she strikes-up a conversation with and eventually picks-up initially thinks she's a prostitute. It turns out that would have been "fine by him" as he wasn't looking for anything particularly "complicated" for the night, but which does, somewhat, confuse her.

Finally, there's a blue-haired teenager from the Provinces, Renata (played by Marta Mazurek [IMDb] [FW.pl]*), who's been dragged to Warsaw by her mother, in the midst of a divorce and who, in the spirit of Blue is the Warmest Color [2014] takes advantage of being stuck there with her mom (visiting her mom's friends) to sneak-out with her mom's friend's teenage son to seek-out some somewhat older teen or young adult with whom she apparently had a brief lesbian fling "out there in the Provinces" during the summer.

In each case, past love's proven to be a disappointment.  It was noted by some of the Polish critics above that while certainly the variety of protagonists in the story makes the film somewhat more compelling than it could been (again, think of the rich, mostly problem-free women of Sex in the City [wikip] [IMDb]) all the women in the story appeared to be focused on (and tormented by) "romantic love" as if there was no other means of fulfillment for the various women in the film.  One critic asked: "Have we entered the 21st century yet?"*

It's a good point, but then a film like Crash [2004] [wikip] [IMDb] was built around a single concern (race) as well.   Still, I would agree that it would have served the film better if the women's characters in the film were more developed aspirationally.  But, I do wish to commend the film for at least trying to widen the circle of women protagonists present in a story.


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

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Friday, November 20, 2015

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part 2 [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review


The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part 2 [2015] (directed by Francis Lawrence, screenplay by Peter Craig and Danny Strong based on the novel by Suzanne Collins [IMDb]) is the final cinematic installment of Collins' Hunger Games [wikip] [Amzn] trilogy.  The first three installments The Hunger Games [2012], The Hunger Games: Catching Fire [2013] and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part 1 [2014] were reviewed on this blog earlier.

As with the previous cinematic adaptations of the Harry Potter and Twilight book series, the film-makers here have decided to split the final book in the series into two parts, making the cinematic adaptation of Collins' original trilogy comprise ... four films.  However, perhaps more than in the other adaptations the splitting of the series final book into two movies made more sense here, as the focus of this fourth installment was indeed "the final battle," the lead-up to it having been covered in the third.  "Armageddon," perhaps really deserves its own chapter.

The Regime of the Evil / Fascist President Snow (played by Donald Sutherland) whose reach was by the end of the third installment diminished to, barely, the outer suburbs of "The Capital," was not going to go down without a fight, its Army having been largely defeated but its Propaganda apparatus ever "Gloriously" still intact.

Most of the two hours that follow in this fourth installment portray a Battle that offers today's (perhaps thankfully) largely uninitiated teenagers / young adults the opportunity to learn / experience something of some of most Epic / Desperate battles of the recent, tragically already Modern, past: The 1942 Battle of Stalingrad (combat in the midst of a sea of _ever the same_ fortress-like / concrete apartment/tenement buildings, every last one of which having been booby-trapped), The 1944 Warsaw Uprising (the desperate fighting moving down into the tunnels and sewers of the city) and The 1945 Final Battle of Berlin (with the falling Regime, even in its final gasps, reporting on the Final Battle as "a contest" utilizing "sport terminology").   And even the final battle sequence at the the gate of the Presidential Palace evoked the 1989 final collapse of the Regime of Romanian Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu on the steps of his "Hunger Games for real" monstrous concrete Presidential Palace in Romania's capital Bucharest.

Indeed, Viewers leaving the film (and after watching the entire series) could leave with a greater appreciation of the complexities of getting rid of entrenched if certainly Evil Regimes like those of Saddam Hussein (or of Hosni Mubarak) of recent memory or today's Bashir Al-Assad (or perhaps even Vladimir Putin).  All these Regimes involve(d) more than "just one man" who benefit(ed) from the Regime, above all, in Status.  And then "the Rebellion(s)" against them are/were not necessarily led by people who are/were completely "honest and true."  In the story-at-hand, the intentions of the Rebellion's Leader, Alma Coin (played by Julianne Moore), are never entirely clear, and those of Snow's Regime's (former) Propaganda Chief / indeed "Hunger Games" DESIGNER turned at the end of the second installment REBEL Propaganda Chief, the Plutarch Heavensbee (played still by Phillip Seymour Hoffmann) are even more difficult to discern.

The series' heroine, the lowly, but destined/raised-up "to do great things," Mary-like (cf. Lk 1:26-38 and especially Lk. 1:46-56) Katniss Everdeen (played ever magnificently by Jennifer Lawrence) is constantly challenged throughout the series, to "do the right thing(s)" even as she becomes increasingly aware that she's being manipulated by everybody for presumably their own ends.

The result is, IMHO, an honestly well crafted teen / young-adult oriented story that can actually help today's teens / young adults navigate (and to be skeptical of) the bombardment of media (often propaganda) messaging that we're all subjected to today.

Overall, a very good, if somewhat depressing and certainly sobering job!


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Thursday, November 19, 2015

The Night Before [2015]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB ()  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (0 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review  


The Night Before [2015] (directed by screenplay cowritten by Jonathan Levine along with Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir and Evan Goldberg) features a stoned Seth Rogan playing a Jewish character named "Isaac" going to the Christmas Midnight Mass after dropping LSD with his Catholic girlfriend and throwing up in the main aisle during the Mass.  Perhaps in the sequel, he can come stoned and vomit during a nephew / niece's Bar/Bat Mitzvah as well ... or perhaps at a cousin's graduation or at a beloved grandma's 80th birthday.  The possibilities for an attention craving narcissist really are quite endless ...  Zero stars.


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Wednesday, November 18, 2015

The 33 [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C) Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing

ChileVision.cl (I. Passalacqua) review*
Clarin.com (H. Bilbao) review*
ElMostrador.cl (J. Parra) review*
LaNacion.com (W. Venagas) review*
LaTribuna.cl (L.A. Ramiro-Reyes) review*

Univision.com review* coverage*
Telemundo.com coverage*

CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (B. Mercer) review 

The 33 [2015] (directed by Patricia Riggen, screenplay by Mikko Alanne, Craig Borten and Michael Thomas, screenstory by José Rivera, based on the book [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Héctor Tobar [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) tells the story of the 2010 mining accident at the San José Mine out in the Altacama Desert near Copiapó, Chile.

On Aug 5, 2010, the 120 year old mine, perhaps weakened by a earthquake in the region some months back, suffered a major collapse with a rock twice the size of the Empire State Building crashing through its center trapping 33 miners in "a safety room" 2300 ft below the surface but now with communications severed and no way out.

What to do?   Well the clearly previously not particularly "safety concerned" (only ONE exit out of the mine???) / financially strapped company running the mine had no serious resources for mounting a serious rescue attempt.  It would have probably settled for feeling TERRIBLY EMBARRASSED and POSSIBLY ASHAMED over the loss of the miners, but ... "mining's a dangerous occupation, right?"

What happened IMHO recalls Jesus' saying about our responsibility to "the least among us" in  Matthew 25 "when did we see you ...?" That is, the young Chilean Mining Minister Lawrence Golborne (played in the film by Rodrigo Santoro) decided to go the mine a few days after the accident.  Then _having seen_ the families, notably María Segovia (played in the film by Juliette Binoche) one of the miners' wives, he _simply couldn't bring himself_ to just "walk away" and let their loved ones die.  He calls the Chilean President Piñera (played in the film by Bob Gunton) who perhaps with initial reluctance (perhaps _nothing_ really could be done) _decides to risk_ a good portion of his political capital to make it A CHILEAN NATIONAL PRIORITY to get to the miners.

President Piñera then recruits André Sougarret (played in the film by Gabriel Byrne) Chile's foremost drilling expert and gives him essentially carte blanche, ANYTHING HE NEEDS, to reach the miners, who, despite everything now beginning to happen above, _could have been dead_ anyway.   Soon there were nine drills boring down from the surface toward the "safety room" where the hope was that the miners, if they were still alive, would have congregated.  It took 16 days, from the mine's initial collapse for a drill to reach said room ... and ... the rest of the movie follows.

Obviously, since the story was an international phenomenon when it happened, it's not too much of a SPOILER to note that the 33 did, in fact, survive.  HOW, I'd rather not get into here (go see the movie...).  But it is certainly a remarkable story of both ENDURANCE and COOPERATION.  Those 33 MINERS HAD TO SHARE RATIONS THAT ASSUMED A RESCUE IN 3 DAYS, and they were down in that mine for 16 days before anybody knew that they were even still alive.  Even afterwards it still took much longer to get them out (though supplies could start to be sent down to them).       

Of course, among those 33 there were plenty of stories.   One of the miners had been about to retire.  In fact, the film begins a few days before the mining disaster at this miner's retirement party.  At the other end of the experience spectrum is a recently hired "Bolivian" whose initially picked-on (mostly out of jest) because, well, he's ... Bolivian (working in "more developed", "whiter...." Chile).  There was another miner who prior to finding himself trapped underground in the mine had been juggling a double-life between his wife and a mistress (and with him becoming an object of international attention had to start to come to grips with the reality that now truly "THE WHOLE WORLD" knew of his rather embarrassing "story" ...).  There was the charismatic leader of the group, "super" Mario Sepúlveda (played by Antonio Banderas) who did hold the "33 together" during those 16 days when honestly none of them could know (but everybody still hoped) that first a rescue was going to be mounted and then reach them.  Finally there are other colorful goofballs among the miners including one who, yes, was something of a Chilean "Elvis impersonator" ;-).

Some of the (North American) reviewers above complained that the cast of characters, was well, "too big."  BUT THEN THERE WERE THIRTY THREE MINERS in this story (plus their families above ground, and then various important figures in the rescue operation).  So, clearly ... this was not a "Lone Ranger" kind of tale ...

And yet it was a good one ... and, in fact, a celebration of the reality that everyone of those 33 who were saved (and their loved ones) had their stories too and not just "the important people."

So great job folks!  Great job!


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

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Tuesday, November 17, 2015

A Town Called Brzostek [2014]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Official website

About the Town of Brzostek
Sztetl.org.pl article about the town [EN] [PL]*
Wikipedia article about the town [EN] [PL]*

Related Articles on the Rededication of Brzostek's Jewish Cemetery
Times of Israel (C. Webber) article
New Jersey Jewish News (J. Ginsberg) article
Dziennik Polski (P. Franczak) article*


A Town Called Brzostek [2014] (written and directed by Simon Target) is a truly lovely English Language / Polish subtitled documentary that played recently at the 2015 (27th annual) Polish Film Festival in America here in Chicago.

The film's about the recent rededication of the Jewish cemetery in the town of Brzostek in south-eastern Poland largely on initiative of former Oxford University professor Jonathan Webber whose family, Jewish, had roots in the region.  Indeed, one of the main points of the film was that 85% of the world's Jewish families have roots in Poland and yet almost universally those roots are remembered very negatively.

Yet all three of the families, one from Australia, one from Paris, France and one from the States who came back to Brzostek found themselves surprised at the welcome that they received.  Some 80% of the town, since WW II, entirely Polish, came to the Jewish cemetery's rededication, including the town's parish priest, who participated in the ceremony.  

Prior to World War II, 1/3 of the town's residents were Jewish.  Jonathan Webber noted that when the town responded to an initiative of the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw to celebrate the United States 150th Birthday, the giant "birthday card," signed by all the town's school children clearly indicated that the town's school was integrated with children with traditionally Polish and Jewish names thoroughly / randomly dispersed throughout the card.   The town at that time was thoroughly Polish / Jewish.

Irving Wallach who came to the re-dedication ceremony from Australia met Taddeusz (a now man in his late 70s) who was the grandson of Maria Jałowiec who hid Wallach's mother (then a teenager) for 18 months in her barn after the SS, in 1942, came into town, called the town's Jewish community to assemble in the town's square and then led the all to a forest outside of town where they were all shot. (Wallach's mother had been able to break away from the group and run for her life away from where it was being led).  Taddeusz, who was only 8 at the time, knew that his grandmother was hiding her as well as another young Jewish woman (who had also managed to run away from her death) in their barn, and yet _kept the secret for the entire time that they were there_, this despite their own house having been used by the SS as a command center for several weeks at some point during the course of the war.

The French family was surprised to find the mill that their family how owned just outside of town, though no longer operating, still in good condition, one of the family members saying somewhat sadly, "I wish this place was closer to Paris" (where they now lived).

The re-dedication ceremonies did include a visit to the mass grave where the vast majority of the town's Jewish community had been murdered, the commemoration there attended again by the town's Catholic priest as well as another priest from a neighboring village.  The ceremonies concluded with a town potluck where the town's mothers basically cooked every single dish that was present in a recently published regional Jewish cookbook and the town's school kids (now all Catholic or at least non Jewish) put on a concert for the attendees playing Jewish regional folksongs including, of course, Hava Nagila.

This was a surprising (and honestly _very nice_) film.  The screening at the PFFA here in Chicago, attended by the film's director Simon Target, was again very well attended and was certainly one of the most interesting / compelling of this year's offerings at the ever excellent (and honestly ever surprising) Polish Film Festival of America.

Great job / congratulations to all! 


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

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Monday, November 16, 2015

Karbala [2015]

MPAA (UR would be R)

IMDb listing
FP.pl listing*
FW.pl listing*

DziennikLodzki (D. Pawłowski) review*
Filmoznawcy.pl (S. Płatek) review*
GlosWielkopolski.pl (C. Łakomy) review*
Nieobiektiwny.pl review*
Wyborcza.pl (J. Szczerba) review*

Karbala [2015] [IMDb] [FW.pl]* (written and co-directed by Krzysztof Łukaszewicz [IMDb] [FP.pl]*[FW.pl]* along with Justyna Kapuścińska [IMDb] [FP.pl]* and Marcin Łomnicki [IMDb] [FP.pl]* accompanied by the recent memoirs Karbala [GR]* by Piotr Głuchowski [GR]* / Marcin Górka [GR]* and Karbala: Raport z Obrony City Hall [GR] by Grzegorz Kaliciak [GR]) is probably the most compelling film that played at the recent 2015 (27th annual) Polish Film Festival in America here in Chicago that I WAS UNABLE TO SEE.  Both screenings of the film rapidly sold-out and an added third screening proved to fall on an evening that I could not attend (sigh ... but that's life, one can't see _everything_ ;-).  Perhaps I'll see it sometime in the coming months  as the more popular films from the festival often replay during the year.  However, since the subject matter of the film is quite compelling (and one that most Readers here would probably not know about), I thought to write about the film here anyway.

My all accounts a Polish "Hollywood-esque" recent "war film," it's about a small detachment of about 80 Polish-Bulgarian soldiers assigned by the US/Coalition Forces after the 2003 Iraq War to the Shiite holy city of Karbala.  In April, 2004, this Polish-Bulgarian detachment successfully fended-off a three day attack / siege of Karbala's city hall* by some 5,000 Sadr's Mahdi Army militia fighters without losing a single anyone of its own.  Officially assigned to the city to "help train" its police officers, the actual circumstances of the battle that the soldiers of this detachment found themselves fighting was kept under wraps on official order of secrecy for ten years.  Only after the publication of the above mentioned memoirs has the story of this battle, the largest that Poland's army has participated in since World War II, become progressively known.

From technical and story-points of view, the film hasn't received universal acclaim from the Polish critics given above (as war films often suffer from a lack of development of characters, etc) but the consensus opinion is that the film was of a reasonably high quality "Not Riddley Scott's Black Hawk Down [2001], but then its budget was also not comparable," summarized one of the reviewers, "but certainly not to be ashamed of either.... and the tattered flag flying still over city hall at the end of the film was a Polish one, not an American one.  Something to be proud of."  Something to be proud of, indeed ;-).

Anyway, sounds like a very interesting film.


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

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