Horrible Bosses [2011]

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (O) Roger Ebert (3 ½ stars) Fr Dennis (2 ½ stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
Roger Ebert’s review


Horrible Bosses (directed by Seth Gordon and cowritten by Michael Markowitz, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein) is a dark appropriately R-rated comedy which indulges the fantasy of “knocking off” an irritating or overbearing boss.

Three friends, Nick Hendricks (played by Jason Bateman), Dale Arbus (played by Charlie Day) and Kurt Buckman (played by Jason Sukeikis) each find themselves in unbearable work situations. 

Nick, a “suit” in some kind of an accounting firm works for Dave Harken (played by Kevin Spacey) a sadistic man who’s willing to fire the firm’s head of maintenance when he catches Nick in a lie.  The surveillance cam had time-stamped Nick’s entry into the office at 8:02:35 AM one morning and Dave asks Nick about this, he replies that he “couldn’t have been more than a minute late.” “So the clock on the surveillance cam must be wrong, and must have been wrong for a very long time." Dave reaches for the phone to call in the head maintenance man to fire him.  Nick unwilling to see an innocent man fired over this confesses that “he may have been two to two and a half minutes late.”  This is the kind of stuff you’d imagine under Stalin or Saddam Hussein...

Dale finds himself a dental assistant for a very horny Dr. Julia Harris, D.D.S. (played by Jennifer Aniston) who tells Dale that unless he sleeps with her, she’ll tell his fiancé that he’s sleeping with her.  This actually sounds a lot like the story of Joseph in Genesis where Joseph ends up in a dungeon after refusing to sleep with his Egyptian master’s wife.  Since he refused to do so, she denounced him for attempting to do so ... (Genesis 39:1-23).  Why would Dale put up with this extortion?  Well, found himself “registered for life” on a _sex offender list_ for “publicly exposing himself on a playground.”  Awful, huh?  Well, he was caught by a police officer urinating on a tree after midnight one night as he was coming home from a bar located next to the playground... "It's all a terrible 'zoning error'" he protests to his two friends, who find Dale's tragic story worthy of endless ribbing at Dale's expense.  Being a “registered sex offender” _no one_ but someone like Dr. Harris would hire Dale.

Kurt was happy working as an accountant for a small chemical company, until the founder, Jack Pelitt (played by Donald Sutherland) died suddenly of a heart attack, leaving the firm to his coke-head son, Bobby Pelitt (played by Colin Farrell) bent on driving the firm into the ground, killing a whole lot of innocent workers in all kinds of third world countries in the process. 

So the three would meet frequently in a bar, talking of their woes, and the idea enters their heads (a la Raskolnikov in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment) that the world would be a whole lot better if these three parasitic/evil doer bosses were dead.

But how to do so?  Well they first try to hire a hit man.  They ask the assistant on Nick’s Onstar-like GPS service for his Toyota Prius to “find them a bar in the seediest part of town.”  Indian accented “George” (voice by Brian George) actually named Atmanand but nobody could pronounce his name, so that’s why he went by “George” tells them that their service doesn’t list bars by “crime density.”  Nevertheless, he finds them an appropriate dive, where after a few “missteps” they find a man with an “Unspeakable first name” (at least on this blog ;-) Jones (played by Jamie Foxx) who says that he’ll help them for five grand given to him in a briefcase.  Actually he asks initially for far more, but he’s a terrible negotiator ;-) The three agree.

The next day they meet “Unspeakable name” Jones with their five grand in a brief case, which Kurt notes is “far larger” than the stack of 20 dollar bills equaling five thousand dollars required ;-).  “Unspeakable name” Jones then tells them that he _won’t_ kill the three bosses (because he “did a dime of hard time” for a crime already) but he would serve as a “consultant” for them.  Nick questions whether the advice he gives them is really worth the five grand.  But they are too nice to ask for the money back.  Later the three find out that “Unspeakable name” Jones did 10 years for getting caught with a video camera “pirating” the film Snow Falling on Cedars a beautiful and very, very sad _art film_ that was the exact opposite of anything that a hard core criminal _should have done 10 years for_ ;-).

By this point, I think one would probably have a feeling of the sense of the humor present in this movie.  Yes, it is crude, but the protagonists in this movie are all basically decent schmucks.  Do they succeed in murdering their three evil bosses?  I think you can guess.  And remember that this is a Hollywood comedy, so it all ends both satisfactorily and well. 

Why review a movie like this?  Well, as long as there have been bosses, there have been lousy ones.  In fact, since _work_ like _family_ has been part of human experience since the beginning, it should not be surprising that there are actually plenty of “evil boss” stories in the Bible as well:

I mentioned one above (the story of Joseph being blackmailed by his Egyptian master’s wife).  There was also Jacob’s step father Laban, who was a con-man from whom Jacob had to finally run away.  And then there was “the psycho” Saul, the first King of Israel, who was initially David’s “boss."  Saul was “moody,” that’s why David was hired by Saul’s court, to soothe him with his music (1 Sam 16:14-23).  And Saul, later became so jealous of David’s military successes that he wanted David dead.  In a famous passage, however, David and his compatriots once came upon Saul in his sleep and one of David's friends even asked David for permission to kill Saul in revenge, "God has delivered your enemy into your grasp this day. Let me nail him to the ground with one thrust of the spear; I will not need a second thrust!" (1 Sam 26:8).  David being a good guy, turns down the favor.

So stories of ‘bad bosses’ and dealing with ‘bad bosses’ has been part of our tradition since the very beginning. 

Then regarding the crudity of this story, just take a look at some of the stories in the Book of Judges, notably the story of Ehud the Assassin, who killed the _really fat_ King of Moab (Judges 3:12-22) or the Jael, the Israelite woman who lured the enemy general Sisera into her tent only to drive a stake into his head when he was asleep (Judges 4:17-22).

Finally, while I do have to say that the first Hangover movie (a movie that was actually far cruder than Horrible Bosses) did indeed make me blush (and I didn't see the second one), I do have to add that _a truly remarkable and diverse number of parishioners_ at my current parish in Chicago did with total sincerity express to me how much they liked that movie (The Hangover) and recommended it to me.  One could be distressed by this or even appalled.  But one could _also_ recognize that there must have been something about that movie (and I suspect this one) that really appeals to people.  And that appeal can not be simply negative.

Ultimately, Horrible Bosses is an “escapist fantasy,” born of the experience of knowing that there are some really bad bosses out there.  Additionally, the economy’s lousy now and people have to put up with perhaps more nonsense at work than when times were better.   So I think that this is part of the reason why this film was made and why it "works" now.

I found the movie reasonably funny.  The three schmucks plus their unspeakably named mentor (who turns out to be something of a schmuck as well) are all endearing.  Their bosses are all presented as "evil" and “deserve badness” to rain down upon them.  But the movie certainly isn't for everyone.  The R-rating is fully justified and I wouldn’t recommend the movie to people who really don’t like crudity or bad language.


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Beginners [2011]

MPAA (R)  Roger Ebert (3 1/2 stars)  Dennis (3 stars)

IMDb listing
Roger Ebert’s review

Beginners (written and directed by Mike Mills) tells a story, semi-autobiographical, of a young man whose father “came out” as gay shortly after the death of the father’s wife (the young man’s mother).  While obviously the circumstances of this story are rather specific (certainly not everyone’s dad comes out as gay after the death of one’s mother), I do believe that pretty much everyone who’s lost a parent could relate, particularly those who lost a parent during their teen or young adult years.

My mother died when I was 24 and my dad was 55.  And both my 20 year old sister and I had to deal with some “surprises” (which looking back _now_, 25 years later, seem not all that surprising after all) with regard to our dad, who was clearly “not quite ready to die yet” and was searching for new life.  So at the time when my sister and I were supposed to be the ones doing the dating and building our lives, suddenly there was our dad doing the same thing.  Yes, it was awkward.  Yes, there were (and arguably still are) some resentments.  But what the heck to do?  In traditional Hindu society, supposedly the wife of the deceased husband was thrown onto the funeral pyre with him (but apparently never the other way around).  But that’s not contemporary tradition, not even in India.  And it seems rather cruel to try to beat down one’s own dad with a hammer with the cry, “No, this is supposed to be _my time_!” 

So one “processes,” “ponders all these things in one's heart,” comes to realize that God is often far more original and surprising with regards to all of our lives than any of us would imagine on our own and one hopefully comes to forgive one’s parent for doing probably what we would have done as well in similar circumstances.  [To finish this aside: Some years after my mother died, my dad remarried (also to a widow) and the two been happily married since.  And what "took some time to get used to," turned out to be, honestly, a very nice blessing].

But I certainly could relate with Mike’s character, named Oliver (and played by Ewan McGregor), a graphic artist in his 30s, single, not particularly successful in his dating life, who, already mourning the death of his mother was "surprised" his dad, Hal, (played by Christopher Plummer) when he told him a few months later that he is gay that he’s been gay all his life even if he always loved his mother and that in these closing years of his life he’d _really like_ to die not just “theoretically gay.” 

A few months later, dad Hal, finds a lover, Andy (played by Goran Visnjic) who’s Oliver’s age and it just doesn’t seem fair. Oliver shares this (and many other things) with his terrier dog, who because he’s a dog and can not talk, basically shrugs.  Fortunately, a woman, Anna (played by Melanie Laurant) does enter into Oliver’s life somewhere in there as well.  But it’s not easy.  None of it is.

Eventually, some years later, Hal comes down with cancer as well.  And Oliver chooses wisely.  Indeed, in all of the relational pain (and there is pain here) Oliver _chooses_ to be kind.  What a wonderful story!

Now a final warning to many readers here:  The one aspect of this movie that proved painful for me as a Catholic Christian to endure was a number of fairly painful, arguably ignorant slights / putdowns of Christianity made throughout the movie.  There’s a good part of me that “gets it” and doesn’t expect much better.  After all, the Catholic Church officially considers homosexuality a “disordered condition” and homosexual acts to be intrinsically sinful and there are Catholic and Protestant Christian groups that go even further in their denunciations of both homosexuality and homosexuals.  So if we make it clear (or our leaders/institutions make it clear) that we don’t particularly like or respect gays, why should we expect to be treated better?  Still one can hope that one day this mutual sniping will come to an end.


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Zookeeper

MPAA (PG) CNS/USCCB (A-III) Roger Ebert (3 stars) Fr Dennis (3 stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1222817/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/11mv078.htm
Roger Ebert’s review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110706/REVIEWS/110709990

Zookeeper (directed by Frank Coraci, screenplay Nick Bakay, Rock Rueben and others including the film's star Kevin James) is a kid friendly mash-up of (R-rated) Forgetting Sarah Marshall and (PG-rated) Night at the Museum set at the Zoo.

The film begins with Griffin Keyes (played by Kevin James) setting-up a dream wedding proposal to his girl friend Stephanie (played by Leslie Gibb) – they’re riding on horseback on the beach as it nears sunset.  Stephanie spots an odd wine bottle sticking out of the sand.  Inside it is a note, as she finishes reading the note, beginning Griffin’s proposal she turns around and there’s Griffin on his knee finishing the proposal, “would you marry me?”  It’s all lovely, but Stephanie, who looks (and in the movie actually becomes) a super-model, believes that she can do better than a zookeeper.  So she answers “no.”  How embarrassing. 

Folks, if you’ve _ever_ been dumped or otherwise had your heart radically crushed in some way, remember this scene.  It will put a smile on your face ;-).  There the two are, riding off on one horse together into the sunset with Stephanie berating him about how unbelievably stupid he was to think that she’d ever marry a “mere zookeeper,” and all he can say “Honey, I may have ordered some Mariachis so just ignore them as we pass by, and please ignore the fireworks (heart shaped, exploding above them) as well."  Yes, that has _got to be_ the most gut-wrenchingly awful/funny dumping scene in American film since Woody Allen’s 1970s-era Bananas where Allen had his girlfriend in the movie breaking-up with him saying “Honey, it’s not that I’m not attracted to you. I’m _not_, but that’s not it...” :-) 

So crushed, Griffin Keyes goes back to the zoo where he’s loved by the animals and respected by much of the staff, including, above all, by zoo vet, Kate (played by Rosario Dawson)

 The movie resumes five years later.  Griffin’s  brother Dave (played by Nat Faxon) is getting married.  Griffin throws a pre-wedding party for him at the zoo.  Dave, who operates an exotic car shop is rich, though not necessarily the most up on social graces.  His knockout fiancé Robin (played by Steffania de la Cruz) though doesn’t seem to mind.  I’m not sure whether it was Dave or Robin, but one of them invited Stephanie to the party, not realizing that this may fluster Griffin.  It does, but they do start talking.  In the course of the conversation while clearly indicating that she’s still not interested in someone who’s just a zoo-keeper, she indicates that she’s in the midst of a muddled relationship with a man who would have seemed to be utterly perfect for her, Gale (played by Joe Rogan).  Gale was rich, a tri-athlete and (turned out to be) a great ballroom dancer.  But he’s also kind of a, well, a-hole (sorry folks for the “R-rated terminology” for a PG-rated movie but “jerk” just doesn’t cut it).  So Griffin realizes that Stephanie “is in play.”

Will Griffin “sell his soul” to get the girl of his dreams?  He realizes that Stephanie wants him to quit the zoo.  He also knows that his brother Dave would give him a job at his car dealership if only he’d ask.  The animals (who we find a la Night at the Museum can talk and are voiced by the likes of Nick Nolte, Silvester Stalone, Adam Sandler, Maya Rudolph and Cher) get all worried that Griffin’s gonna dump the zoo for Stephanie, so they all try to help him get Stephanie without having to leave the job, giving all sorts of heart-felt “mating advice” that, well, works for them but...  Griffin even enlists zoo vet Kate to help him get closer to Stephanie by going with him as his date to his brother’s wedding.  Much ensues.  And yes, he get’s his chance.  What’s it gonna be?  The super-model Stephanie or comely in her own right vet Kate and the animals?  You get the picture.

I have to admit, I enjoyed this picture.  I found Kevin James played a _great_ lovable schmuck who in the end, of course, does “choose well.”  It’s kind of a hokey story.  But I’m kind of a sucker for them.  And the talking animals were fun.  They were a little crude but in a “cub scout camping trip” sort of a way.  So I do think the movie’s safe for kids.

One last thing, something that Americans my age (who were teens in the 1970s) would appreciate.  Yes, this film was set in Boston.  If you see the movie, you’ll understand. ;-)


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Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB () Roger Ebert (3 Stars) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1787777/
USCCB review -
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110628/REVIEWS/110629979 
 
Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times (R rated for occasional language, directed and co-written by Andrew Rossi as well as Kate Novack) is a documentary about how the nation’s flagship newspaper, The New York Times, is seeking to cope with and respond effectively to the challenges posed by the “new media” of the internet. 

The challenges are plenty and many deal with revenue.  Why should companies buy ad space in the New York Times when they can have their own easily accessible websites on the web or advertise on countless other people’s web pages via services like Google?  Why should people pay the New York Times for a classified ad listing when they can post such ads for free on Craigslist?  Why should people pay for a subscription to the New York Times or buy a copy at a newsstand when they can (or could) read the New York Times (or their favorite columnists) for free on the web?  

One _could_ say, produce a product that’s simply incomparable in quality, limit free access and people will still buy it.  But there are other challenges.  Page One considered the phenomenon Wikileaks, noting that Wikileaks came on the scene by simply posting (on YouTube) a highly provocative, leaked classified video that it had received of a problematic U.S. combat operation in Iraq.  The NYT journalists noted several problems with the video, notably that two versions of the video were posted by Wikileaks on YouTube.  The first was the raw, unedited version (38 minutes long - so it presumably had to be cut-up into several 10-15 minute segments as per YouTube policy).  The second version was an “edited version” that was actually more provocative than the first, because it focused on the killing of a number of seemingly unarmed Iraqi men while editing out evidence present in the raw version that one of those men _may_ have been carrying an rocket-propelled grenade. 

The Wikileaks incident described above highlighted both the promise and the problems present in “citizen/activist journalism.”  (Indeed, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was asked in a phone interview shown in the documentary if he considered himself more of a "journalist" or more of an "actrivist.  He chose the "activist" label. “Citizen journalism” is prone to amateur mistakes while activists tend to seek to _actively_ portray a particular slant or point of view.  The editing out of the visual evidence that _one of a group of men_ killed in this attack _may_ have been carrying an RPG could have been an _amateur mistake_ or a conscious _activist_ decision to slant the story.  The incident could showcase the continued need for a professional journalistic class (or a “priesthood” as it were) to _mediate_ the raw data into coherent and honest reporting.  It was noted that some time later, when Wikileaks received a huge cache of classified U.S. documents, Wikileaks itself decided to go to the New York Times, The Guardian (of England) and Der Spiegel (of Germany) to ask for help in filtering the information in such a way that its contents could be released without directly endangering any American lives.  So even Wikileaks founder Julian Assange apparently understood the value of having a credible mediating agency like the New York Times filtering and organizing the data to produce a coherent and honest product.

However, the difficulties in maintaining the reputation of producing a coherent and honest product were highlighted in the case of NYT reporter Judy Miller, whose articles about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction during the months leading up to the Iraq War were seen as instrumental in mobilizing Congress and public opinion to support the war.  Judy Miller was depending on classified information that she was receiving from her intelligence sources.  The New York Times has since been roundly criticized for not exercising due diligence in making sure that she (and the Times) were not being scammed.  A particularly revolting scene in the documentary was a clip of then Vice-President Dick Cheney referring to Judy Miller’s articles _from the New York Times_ (a newspaper that’s normally anathema to the American Right) to justify the march to war: “There’s a report (even) in New York Times today ...” What I found so revolting about that segment is that Judy Miller was being fed her information by the same “pro war” faction within the U.S. intelligence community of which Dick Cheney was part.  (I’m not saying that Dick Cheney _ordered_ someone to leak cherry-picked intelligence to Judy Miller, but someone was doing so and this certainly this manipulated leaaders and public opinion to support the G.W. Bush Administration's call for war in Iraq).  The Judy Miller case serves as a painful example of how even the New York Times occasionally gets bamboozled, a reality that somewhat undermines  its “need for a journalistic priestly class” reason for its continued existence: Sure “amateurs” often get fooled but so does (occasionally) the New York Times.

The New York Times is also portrayed as seeking to make peace and even to partially coopt some of the new media phenomena by hiring younger, new media savy reporters like Brian Stelter (who began his writing career by running a highly successful blog) to its media desk department.  The Times would also deploy their highly articulate, if somewhat crochety and certainly more traditional media reporter David Carr to various conferences and public forums to defend the continued relevance of the New York Times.  In a particularly funny line in the film (which also shows up in its trailer), refering to the happily blogging and twittering Stetler, Carr notes that he has nightmares that “[Stelter] is actually a robot built in the basement of the New York Times for the purpose of destroying me.”  Carr, however, becomes the central figure in this documentary, tirelessly defending the Times and other traditional newspapers, noting in one conference that “internet aggregators” (sites which collect links to various stories) would have almost nothing to aggregate if not for the content porduced by those traditional news outlets.

The New York Times is portrayed as flirting with the possibility of moving towards an “NPR business model" perhaps seeking a number of foundations to help underline its mission.  It also is portrayed as anamored with the potential of eReaders like Apple’s iPad (note here, that I often read and _enjoy reading_ the New York Times through my Kindle that I received as a birthday present a couple of years ago from my dad).

Finally, the documentary makers give ample time to David Carr’s righteous disgust with rival Tribune Company chairman Sam Zell’s approach to seek to further “commercialize” traditional newspapers.  Sam Zell’s philosophy has been to respond to the current financial/existential challenges to traditional media by challenging his papers to “give the people what they want.”A clip shown in the documentary has Sam Zell even suggesting that perhaps newspapers “should include a porn section.”   The documentary makes ample note that a few years after taking over it was Sam Zell's Tribune Company (which owns among other newspapers, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times) that had to file for bankruptcy protection and not the New York Times.

So this documentary offers much to think about regarding the challenges facing traditional news outlets and asks the audience to contemplate a world without entities like the New York Times.  Ultimately Page One does not offer any clear solutions.  What it does do is show a managing staff at the New York Times aware of the stakes involved and with reasonably competence and openness to also the positive of this era seeking to make sure that the New York Times do not simply crash and die.  I’d like to add here, that if the New York Times would become a kind of  NPR in the future, I would certainly be willing to contribute to it if that ultimately ensures its survival.


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Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon [2011]

MPAA (PG-13) CNS/USCCB (A-III) Roger Ebert (1 Star) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
Roger Ebert’s review

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon [2011] (directed by Michael Bay and written by Ehren Kruger) is the third and most ambitious movie based on the Transformer toy line first conceived in Japan and in the early 1980s and sold there by the Japanese toy manufacturer Takara and brought to the United States by Hasbro when it bought U.S. distribution rights in 1984. 

The basic concept behind the Transformer toy line was that each toy was a “two in one.”  In one state, the toy looked like a robotic “action figure.”  But when properly “folded together” (manipulated), the robot would “transform” into something else – a vehicle, an insect, a prehistoric animal, etc.

Guessing at the possible sources of inspiration for the toy line is rather fun: 

The Transformer toy line came out a short time after the Rubik’s cube craze, which was introduced to the world as a 3-dimensional transformational puzzle in 1980.  In the 30 years since its introduction, over 350 million Rubik’s cubes have been sold, making it the best selling toy of all time. That toy-makers around the world would seek to find their own ways to capitalize on the joy/intrigue/delight evoked by playing with this toy would not be surprising.  While obviously easier to successfully manipulate than the Rubik’s cube, the Transformer toys do produce a certain delight resulting from the successful transformation of a toy “that’s a robot” into “something else” and back again.

Then there could also be several long standing/”traditional” cultural reasons and as well as a number of more modern ones as to why the Transformer toys originally came out of Japan:

An East Asian country, Japanese culture is permeated by Buddhism (Zen Buddhism in particular). A central tenet of Buddhism is that of samsara; that is, that _nothing is stationary_, that life (and indeed all things) are continually changing. Toys that are capable of changing shape from one state to another and back again actually express this concept quite well.

Then the Japanese have been famous for the art of Origami or paper-folding in which a humble two-dimensional sheet of paper is folded and transformed into all kinds of marvelous shapes.

In more recent times, in the post-WW II years, Japan became famous for its Godzilla movies in which various monsters were seen as materializing as a result of human negligence or evil to wreak havoc on humanity.  Godzilla was portrayed as a giant lizard that materialized in the sea as a result of nuclear radiation.  The Smog Monster materialized from and fed on pollution.  These monsters would fight it out over Tokyo, while humanity, the creator of these monsters, found itself largely at their mercy.  (This description of the 1950s era Godzilla movies starts to sound actually a lot like the plots of the current Transformer movies.  More on that below ;-). 

Finally in the 1980s, Japan was basking in its post-WW II scientific-technological miracle.  The Transformers were essentially cool shape-shifting “robots” which both fostered pride in Japan’s technological progress and arguably served to encourage Japanese youngsters into continuing this technological march forward.  I say this because there are actually intriguing physical and mathematical concepts embedded in both the Rubik’s cube and the Transformer toys which make them not only "cool" but arguably formative/educational:

For as one proceeds from studying the simplest of atoms to studying ever heavier atoms (with more electrons, hence more orbital shells) and then from the simplest of molecules (like water) to ever more complex organic molecules (like carbohydrates, proteins or enzymes), to make sense of them, quantum mechanics becomes increasingly a discipline which seeks to identify and exploit the symmetries and degrees of freedom present in the more complex structures. 

A casual observer may not see a Transformer toy as basically _a kids’ representation of an enzyme_ but the concept that allows a toy transform from that robot into a a sports car (or into an F-15 fighter plane or into a mushroom or daisy) is _essentially the same operating concept_ by which an enzyme turns “on” and “off” – in one configuration an enzyme is “off” in another it is “on.”  What makes transformation from the “off” state to the “on” state possible are “joints” (carbon atoms in organic molecules).  Each “joint” (or "node") brings with it a number of degrees of freedom (a joint being able to twist a portion of a molecule in one direction or another).  

Then a just like a bug or a car (or a human form for that matter) can be classified by the number of planes and points of symmetry present within it, complex organic molecules can be classified in the same way.  And a complex organic molecule _can_ conceivably fold-in on itself or expand outward., just like a transformer toy can convert from a closed shape (like that of a bug, car, etc) into its expanded form (which in the transformer toy would usually be a robot).  The study of symmetry in mathematics is called group theory and really is quite elegant.

So there is a lot embedded (or "going on") in these Transformer toys!

Now having created a line of toys in which “robots” are able to be converted into “something else,” the need arose for its Japanese manufacturer Takara (and U.S. distributor Hasbro) to come-up with a “back story” explaining “why” these shape-shifting robots would exist. 

Already two kinds of Transformers toys were developed Autobots that were robots that transformed into essentially benign objects, and Decepticons that transformed into more malevolent objects (like weapons, tanks, military aircraft, etc). 

So the basic story presented Marvel Comics' Transformer comic book series, that became an animated television series and served as inspiration for the more recent Transformer movies, including this current one was that of a battle between evil Decepticons and the more peace-loving (in current American ideological speak “more freedom loving” but it’s basically the same thing – because peace is largely rooted in an ethic of “live let live” so long as it does not hurt anybody) Autobots.

Viewers of the Transformer movies may be confused or even appalled by the fact that people are largely “side characters” in the drama of this battle between the Autobots and Decepticons.  

But one could look at the comic book series, children’s animated series or the more recent films with the following perspectives that _could_ make sense of the matter:

First, consider this epic battle between the Autobots and Decepticons to be analogous to the battles between Godzilla and the Smog Monster in the 1950s-era Godzilla movies.  Indeed, in this current movie, Transformers 3, Chicago becomes the hapless, suffering Tokyo of those 1950s movies.  We get to watch and perhaps marvel at the destruction wreaked on the city (I’m a Chicagoan actually ;-) by forces largely beyond our control.

Second, there is a “Clash of the Gods” aspect to the Autobot vs Decepticon story.  The Transformers are presented as an alien race of intelligent mechanical beings from a planet Cybertron far more advanced than us that extends its rivalry/battle _to our world_ as well.  Indeed, much of the current movie, Transformers 3, centers on the efforts of humanity (and various representative individuals within our human community) to “manage” (and perhaps exploit) this conflict between these two forces which are much more powerful than us.

Finally, I do find interesting the trend in American sci-fi movies present since at least the movie Independence Day (1996) and continuing to this release (as well as of the release of another such movie recently, called Battle: Los Angeles), that America seem intent now on _inventing_ “alien invasion” scenarios so that we could continue to feel like “underdogs,” when _in reality_ we have by far the strongest armed forces in the world and currently spend more on them than the rest of the world combined.  There is a logic behind our level of military spending and the world could become a far more chaotic place (at least initially) if we chose to draw down our military’s size.  However, I do think it is worth noting that we seem to be finding the need to _invent_ “aliens” to fight because there aren’t too many enemies _on this earth_ that could really challenge our Abrams tanks, cruise missiles, and drone and stealth aircraft.

So then, what to say about the actual film?

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon is not Dostoyevski.  It’s a screen adaptation of a story that first appeared as a comic book, which itself was created to give a ‘back-story’ to a ‘really cool line of toys’ that needed a reason to exist.  As such, the dialogue in Transformers 3 is something that you’d expect more in a graphic novel than from Shakespeare (but then the Bard wasn’t exactly enlisted to write this screen play).  The dialogue is sparce, arguably Spartan/Laconic, but evocative.  A 10 year old will understand what’s going on.  

Main characters include Sam Witwicky (played Shia LaBeouf) who returns from the previous Transformer movies and plays the role of an “any man.”  He knows the Transformers from his previous encounters with them (he’s friends with the Autobots, knows the dangers presented by the Decepticons) but as an “any man” he is “a nobody,” who isn’t taken seriously by either the government, notably by Charlotte Mearing (played by Frances McDormand) who heads a US government intelligence agency in charge of managing the U.S. government’s relationship with the Autobots, or really anybody of note.  He begins the story,  as someone "with talent but _unemployed_."

There’s Sam’s love interest Carly (played by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) who replaces Mikaela Banes (played by Megan Fox) in the previous Transformer movies.  Carly’s a photo-model and though she loves Sam, she’d also wish that he’d finally succeed in becoming the more important, more respected person that she believes that he could be.  (Present in many of the superhero comic books is an element of male “wish fulfillment,” that of an “average guy” not being actually an “average guy” bur being rather “super” in some way, and there being some very attractive woman who both likes him despite him being average but also wishes that he succeed in “stepping-up” and becoming the “awesome person” worthy of her affections). 

There are also Sam’s parents Ron (played by Kevin Dunn) and Judy (played by Julie White) who love their son but _also_ wish that he finally make something of himself.

There’s the villain, Dylan (played by Patrick Dempsey) who’s a rich industrialist who also is hot for Carly and who meddles in the conflict between the Autobots and Decepticons, saying at one point to Sam, “As my dad told me, 'if it’s _not your war_, just make sure you get on the side that’s going to win.'” 

And finally there are the Transformers.  There’s the good Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) leader of the exiled Autobots, there’s Megatron (voiced by Hugo Weaving) leader of the malevolent Decepticons and Sentinel Prime (voiced by Leonard Nimoy of former Star Trek original series fame) who was the leader of the Autobots until he and his space craft were lost trying to escape the Autobots’ home planet during the course of the climatic battle there between the the Decepticons and Autobots. 

The crash of Sentinel Prime’s crippled spacecraft “on the dark side of the moon” is presented as the true motivation for the U.S.-space race to the moon in the 1960s and sets-up the story of Transformers 3: The Dark of the Moon.

What happens?  Well, if you wish to know go see the movie.  Much happens.  In the course of “much happening,” Chicago (like Tokyo of the Godzilla movies) is largely flattened.  I think most will guess who wins in the end ...;-)

Would I recommend this movie?  Sure.  It’s probably not for the smallest of kids.  There is a lot of glass breaking, skyscraper stomping violence in movie, but as is typical of current PG-13 fare, it has virtually no blood or gore.

Again, I personally have some problems with the “alien invasion” films _of our day_ and would ask people who see the movie to reflect on (and hopefully come to reject) the “propagandistic” aspect of such films.  But having then articulated these concerns, I’m a realist.  This is a typical American summer-time movie and it obviously gives some delight to mostly younger and middle aged audiences who remember movies like this of the past.

Finally some words about the 3D in this movie:  While a 2D version of this movie exists and is playing in theaters, it seemed to me particularly hard to find the 2D version playing at a convenient time.  As with current most 3D movies, the 3D is _largely unnecessary_.  Rather it serves primarily as an excuse to extort a few extra dollars from movie goers (and to eventually force television viewers to buy expensive 3D televisions which are now entering the market).

Here I do hope that between Japan, China, the EU and the United States, one or another of these economic powers will come to see what is going on here -- an attempt by electronics manufacturers to eventually force the world’s consumers to buy new largely unnecessary, _fatigue causing_ (and perhaps even unhealthy) television technology -- and that one or more of these economic powers will use its regulatory power to stop this needless and exploitative trend on the part of television manufacturers.

There is simply no reason other than jacking-up ticket priced today and forcing consumers to buy 3D televisions in the future for movies like this to be(1) made and (2) _primarily_ distributed in 3D.


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Larry Crowne

MPAA (PG-13) CNS/USCCB (A-III) Roger Ebert (2 stars) Fr Dennis (2 ½ Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1583420/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/11mv076.htm
Roger Ebert’s review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110628/REVIEWS/110629975

Larry Crowne (directed and co-written by Tom Hanks along with Nia Vardalos of My Big Fat Greek Wedding fame) is a gentle movie about a gentle man, Larry Crowne (played by Tom Hanks) who gets downsized by a big-box retail chain (in the movie called Umart) despite being a longtime exemplary employee because he never went to college (instead, he had 20 years in the Navy right out of high school).  Without some college education, by company policy Larry could never be promoted, so the company let him go.  (I simply don’t understand the logic, because Larry didn’t appear to be looking for a promotion being happy where he was.  But there it is, and this kind of corporate logic is unfortunately going to hurt an awful lot of people in the coming years.  First, there are people like Larry Crowne who since time immemorial have held _and succeeded_ in jobs involving great responsibility without having a college degree (and where are people who are good, honest, hardworking but simply may not be bright enough to get a college degree supposed to go?) and second, is it really in society’s interest to have highly educated employees sorting clothes and stacking boxes at “Umarts?”)

However, Larry’s sudden and yes “painful” downsizing sets up the rest of the story.  He finds that without some college he can’t get a job in retail elsewhere.  He has a house and a SUV like car and isn’t sure how he’s going to pay it all.  To be sure, he’d probably have a Navy pension and would be eligible for unemployment compensation for some time.  Still, like millions of others in his shoes, the job loss was going to cause him problems.

So Larry decides to go take some courses at the local community college.  Realizing that he can’t bleed money into his SUV’s gas tank any more, he buys his neighbor’s motor scooter.  And in a gentle way, he makes new friends, notably with a 20-something student named Talia (played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and later with one of his teachers, Mercedes Tainot (played by Julia Roberts). 

To be sure, I found the developing romance between Larry and Ms Tainot (becoming Merci at some point) to be the most difficult part to accept in the whole movie. 

And to the movie’s “pc” (?) credit, the romance _isn’t_ “consummated” in any way during the course of Larry’s semester as Ms Tainot’s student, and isn’t really consummated by the end of the film either.  But I did find _this whole aspect of the movie_ burdensome from the beginning.  I do believe it would have been better to have had Larry meet some 40-something single/divorced woman (perhaps even played by Nia Vardalos, or perhaps having her play the role of the teacher leaving Roberts with the role of the love interest).  This student would certainly _also_ have "a story" but I'd just find it better to go that route than go the route of the “student - teacher” relationship.  

Yes, Ms Tainot _did have her own story_ and her own marital problems that were interesting in their own right – Tainot’s husband, Dean Tainot (played by Bryan Cranston) “working at home” while she was teaching classes at the community college, was falling ever deeper into internet porn addiction.  And she herself was drinking ever more heavily, coming home each evening to her large kitchen blender, ice, rum and daiquiri mix.  All this was well portrayed. 

But the romance between Larry / Ms Tainot felt suspiciously like male “wish fulfillment” again, and in a movie that otherwise is so beautifully gentle, low-key – hey, I’m a priest, ‘low key’ and ‘gentleness’ (and the occasional Barney Miller style ‘walk-in’ ;-) make-up parish life most days – I found it a shame that the screen-writers (Hanks / Vardalos) decided on taking the movie in such a needlessly “Hollywood” direction.

Still, I generally liked the movie.  I just wish that it had avoided that “romance” which in my mind was needlessly problematic.

Finally and certainly far more positively, all kinds of the bit characters in this movie definitely deserve mention.  Larry’s neighbors Lamar (played by Cedric the Entertainer) and his wife were great as were the “slightly megalomaniacal”  economics professor Dr. Matsutani (played by George Takei) and Talia’s somewhat jealous “biker” err “motor-scooter riding” boyfriend Dell Gordo (played by Wilmer Valderamma).  Nia Vardalos also does an “audio cameo” as the voice of Ms Tainot’s GPS device.

All in all, this was not a bad movie, just that, in my mind, it could have been a better one if they had stayed away from the teacher-student romance theme and thus added one more character to the story.


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Monte Carlo

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

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1067774/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/11mv075.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110628/REVIEWS/110629976

 It’s the summer, so travelogue movies are “in season,” and I found Monte Carlo (directed and cowritten by Thomas Bezucha and April Blair and others) to be a particularly sweet one.

Grace (played by Selena Gomez), a part time waitress at a diner in a small town on the plains of Texas is graduating from High School.  She had been saving to go to Paris for a trip after graduation, “putting money away in a cookie jar” whenever she could since at least the beginning of her freshman year.  Along the way, she convinced a slightly older co-worker Emma (played by Katie Cassidy) to go with her as well.  The movie begins on graduation day, and they seem to be set. 

At the last minute, Grace’s 21 year-old new step-sister Meg (played by Leighton Meester) is thrown into the mix by their recently married parents, Grace’s mom Pam (played by Andie MacDowell) and Meg’s widowed father Robert (played by Brett Cullen).  Adult or almost-adult chidren of recently remarried parents, the two, Grace and Meg, had clearly not fully accepted their parents’ new arrangement or each other as "sisters."  Added to this college senior Meg really didn’t like waitress Emma.  Both Grace and Meg are not thrilled with their parents’ meddling.  But both parents _insist_, so there... 

Emma has her own little drama to deal with.  Long time boyfriend, Owen (played by Cory Monteith), really doesn’t understand why Emma has to go on this trip to Paris: “All I need is right her in my truck,” he says to her seated next to him in his pickup.  Emma responds that she’s never even been outside of Texas and really would like to go.  So Emma leaves on the trip after having had this fight with Owen.

So there the three go - Grace, Emma and Meg - arriving in Paris together and soon discover that the “value package tour” that they purchased was less than they had hoped for.  In particular, the tour guide, Madame Valerie (played by Valerie Lemecier) seemed obsessed with keeping both “on schedule and on budget.”  So for different reasons all three are aghast – Emma has trouble keeping up with the tour because all she brought for the trip were high heels (for “stylish Paris”).  College student Meg is appalled that the tour group had to sprint through Louvre without so much as stopping at a single painting to catch a breath, much less admire it, and Grace feels embarrassed that “this was all her fault,” that “she booked the worst tour in Paris.”

Their fortunes change however after they are left by the tour group atop the Eiffel Tower.  Emma simply can’t get down the steps of the Eiffel Tower in time.  Trying to get back to their hotel by foot, they get caught in a rain storm.  To get out of the rain, they enter a very posh hotel and ... that’s while they are in the ladies’ room they accidently run into a snotty young English heiress named Cordelia Winthrop Scott who looks like the spitting image of Grace.  (Indeed, Selena Gomez plays Ms Cordelia as well).

Good ole Cordelia is upset that here she is in Parish though her luggage was still somewhere else and all her friends are in Majorca.  In a tiff, Ms Cordelia leaves the hotel presumably to go to Majorca without saying anything to the receptionist even though he was frantically trying to locate her luggage for her.  Anyway, when the Grace, Meg and Emma step out of the bathroom, the receptionist, indeed the whole hotel staff confuse Grace with Ms Cordelia.  And the rest of the story opens from here ...

Much, mostly sweet, happens afterwards...  Yes, the three are jetted off to Monte Carlo (hence the title of the film) on the French Riviera for a charity benefit that Ms Cordelia should have attended.  Ms Cordelia’s luggage also arrives (to Monte Carlo).  So the three young ladies from Texas now get to dress in fine high society clothes.

What makes the movie _nice_, however, is that the movie goes in the direction of The Princess Diaries rather than Sex and the City.  Indeed, the PG rating is _entirely appropriate_ in the film.  All three of the young ladies “find themselves” and “find their direction” as a result of the trip.  And yes, Emma after getting a taste of “high society” finds that she prefers the waitresses instead.  Indeed, she makes up with Owen.  What happens with the other two, Grace and Meg, I’m not going to reveal here except that remembering that this is a story, (and a sweet one at that) they both “find their destinies,” both of those destinies are nice.  And yes, they also find that they do like each other.  What a nice movie! 

Could they have discovered all that on a Eurail pass rather than in haute rich Monte Carlo?  Certainly, but again this is "a fairytale."  And the exaggeration in the story didn’t hurt. 

A comment then about the screenplay.  Remembering that this is _a story_, I very much enjoyed the tightness of the script.  Throughout the film little things that appeared to be mere details come to have importance later.  Even that the three came from a small town Texas (rather than from a small town in say Ohio or Alabama) made a difference to how a couple of scenes played out.  So viewers, watch for the details and see how the screen writers used them to tie the story together.  I’ve long enjoyed “a good story,” and I found the story telling this movie to be very, very good.  

All in all, I would imagine that this would make for both a nice family movie, especially when a newly “blended family” is trying to come together.  And no, the message _certainly isn't_ that one has to go to “Monte Carlo” (or have a ton of money) to make things work out. Though “going-off on an adventure together" may actually bring a family/new sibblings closer (think of The Incredibles).

And I would also think that this would make for a nice young adult date movie.  Yes, the movie’s a bit corny and the girls would probably enjoy it more than the guys.  But ending with a “happy date” is generally a good thing.  So “going/accepting corny” at times can a good thing as well ;-).


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