Young Adult

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

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1625346/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/11mv152.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111207/REVIEWS/111209991

The first thing that viewers should know about Young Adult (directed by Jason Reitman and written by Diablo Cody) is that though, IMHO, the film is excellent, it follows a trend of young adult oriented "comedies" that are both funny and "not really that funny" / "more than just funny." (One thinks of recent "comedies" / "rom/coms" like Love and Other Drugs [2010], The Dilemma [2011], Tyler Perry's Big Happy Family [2011], Something Borrowed [2011], One Day [2011], or 50/50 [2011]).  Sure there's plenty of humor in the film, but the humor's there to keep the audience engaged (and arguably not crying) as some fairly tough stuff is presented in the midst of the laughs.

Both Reitman (Thank You for Not Smoking [2005], Juno [2007], Up in the Air [2009]) and Cody (Juno [2007], Jennifer's Body [2009]) have made careers of humor that is often both funny and pointed.  And there has been a long tradition extending from medieval courts to the films of present day actor Robin Williams (of whom I've been a lifelong fan) where it was left to the "court jester" to bring-up matters (always indirectly and with a smile) which would have been difficult to impossible to talk about otherwise.

So Young Adult falls in this tradition of being both funny and "hey, wait a minute, wasn't this film supposed to be funny?"  And it is perhaps because of the serious aspects of the film that an often serious actress, Charlize Theron (Cider House Rules [1999], Monster [2003]), decided to take it on.

But let's get to the movie ... Young Adult is about late-30 something (no longer so young) former popular girl / high school beauty queen Mavis Gary (played by Charlize Theron) who had long ago left the small town (Mercury, Minnesota) of her youth for the glamour of the "big city" (Minneapolis).

Life in the big city hasn't altogether so glamorous.  True she's "made it" (sort of) as a writer and lives in a high rise condo.  But she lives alone, divorced; her condo's strewn with garbage as it's clear that she's working (as a ghost writer for a "past its prime" young adult romance series) under a great deal of pressure; and when she's not staring at her laptop or listening in on conversations (and picking-up new jargon) among teens/young adults of today (at fast food joints and malls) she's drinking, heavily.  But at least she's not living back home in Mercury, and she (by-and-large rightly) assumes that most of her former kinfolk and classmates remain jealous of her.

So what makes her want to return home?  Well, she gets a seemingly innocuous e-mail from her old high school flame Buddy Slade (played by Patrick Wilson) informing her and the rest of "the gang" that he and his wife, Beth (played by Elizabeth Reaser) just had a baby girl.  After years of not thinking much of her small town past, she decides to go back to Mercury, Minnesota to take back Buddy (even though he is clearly married and with a child) to "save" him from his "awful fate."  Is she nuts?

Much of the movie plays along with the thesis that she is radically self-absorbed and, yes, crazy.

The first person she meets, when she returns home is Matt Freehauf (played by Patton Oswalt) who she does not remember even though they had lockers next to each other through all four years of high school, and he certainly remembers her.  After much prodding she finally remembers, sort of: "Wait, aren't you the hate crime guy?"  He shakes his head somewhat in agreement and reminds her of the story.  During his junior year, he was savagely beaten up by "the jocks" (among them, her friends) because they thought he was gay.  It turned out that he wasn't even gay ("so it wasn't even a hate crime...") but the beating left him half-crippled and all but sexually impotent ever since (yes parents, though this is largely only discussed, the movie is rated appropriately R).

After this embarrassing and painful introduction after years of not having to think much about each other, Matt asks Mavis the obvious question: "What the heck are you doing back in town, now?"  She tells him of her plan.  Matt tells her the obvious: Buddy by all accounts seems happily married and now has a kid.  Matt and his mousy sister Sandra (played by College Wolfe) appear then repeatedly as the story progresses, playing the role of a traditional "Greek Chorus," repeatedly telling Mavis what we, the audience would like to tell her, mostly: "You're nuts, leave Buddy alone."  Of course she does not / can not ...

Near the end of the movie, we find out why Mavis can not let it go.  And it does make one want to cry and _may_ offer parents a teachable moment with their teens.  TO EXPLAIN, I HAVE TO REVEAL A KEY SPOILER but parents certainly should know and it actually enhances the value of the picture:  It turns out that "back in the day" (I don't remember now whether it was in late High School or College) Buddy had gotten Mavis pregnant.  Yet, three months into her pregnancy, she lost the child to a miscarriage.

Sex is often covered so superficially in the movies and on television, while "Mother Church" has always counseled caution with regard to premature (pre-marital) sexual activity (basically don't do it before marriage).  Here perhaps continuing where they left-off with Juno [2007] (another movie about teenage pregnancy) Reitman and Cody present another scenario that's both easily believable and heartrending: If miscarriage is difficult enough to deal with in the context of a happily married couple, how much more awful, difficult, confused this experience could be for a young woman, or couple, that had entered into the pregnancy outside the context of marriage and/or the maturity generally required to bring a child to term and then to raise him/her?  From my experience as a Catholic Priest in a parish, I can certainly attest to the fact that miscarriage can be a very difficult experience for even a married couple to deal with.

Thus a film that for the first 80% of it follows a "hah, hah, isn't she stupid, self-centered, etc?" trajectory becomes very different at the end. 

So congratulations Reitman and Cody (and Charlize Theron)!  On the other hand, if you were thinking of going to this movie for a "light evening" or "date"  think again.  There really isn't much that is "light" about it by the end.


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Rid of Me

MPAA (R)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

Rid of Me (written and directed by James Westby) is an award winning, well written, well acted gem of an independent film reminding one of why seeing such films can be so much fun.  It played recently at Chicago's Facets Multimedia, and I'd recommend it to young adults and above to look for it when it comes out on DVD.  It's a movie that probably anyone who's ever tried really, really hard to fit in could probably relate to.

Meris Canfield (played by Katie O’Grady) was a sweet young homebody from Irvine, California who probably never had particularly high goals in life. She married a nice, good looking guy named Mitch (played by John Keyser) from Portland, OR who had been studying and was now working in Southern California.  She planned to live happily ever after as a happy home-maker.  What could go wrong?  Well a year and an half into her bliss, Mitch lost his job in Southern California and found a new one working for a friend from high school back in Oregon.  So the two pick-up sticks and move up to Portland.

It was a long, long drive from “sunny southern California” to the “rainy Pacific Northwest.”  Yet, when they arrive at their new apartment, they turn on the lights, and “Surprise!”  There’s the old gang of Mitch’s friends (minus one) wishing him a “Welcome home!”  After extended hugs with each, Mitch introduces Meris to them as “the Wife ...”

It goes down hill from there. At home at her and Mitch's while her husband's at work, she tries making friends with a nice soft-spoken Middle Eastern accented couple named Linda (played by Adrienne Vogel) and Masud (played by Melik Malkasian) with a baby girl (who always seemed to be about to take a nap, napping or just after taking a nap...) living in a nice home down the street.  She hits it off with them quite well.  They even tell her where she could get a small plot of land for free at a nearby community garden where she could start growing things again.  She's smiling from ear to ear. Yet when she tells "the gang" that she met this great couple that was so nice, she's told:  “OMG, is that the couple who’s home the FBI stormed like right after 9/11?  They took the guy, Messhud or something away like for a month for questioning!  Don’t be fooled, just because he doesn’t wear a rag on his head anymore doesn’t mean that he’s not Al Queda.’  Meris runs into soft-spoken, thoroughly western looking Linda and her daughter in the supermarket a few days later ...


Now Mitch and all his friends (male and female) were “jocks” (athletes) in school.  Meris liked to garden and cook.  She becomes an instant embarrassment when they sign her and Mitch onto their softball team.  No worries, "Just cook them a nice gourmet meal, honey.  Show them why I fell in love with you."  Nervous, she burns the main dish and "the gang" decides to order "pizza and beer" instead.  Embarrassed at her failure, she gets drunk and says a few things that she should not have in front of Mitch and his "gang" and she's dug herself into an even deeper hole. The next time "the gang" meets, a new person is invited into the mix ... Mitch’s old (and still single) flame Briann (played by Storm Large)...  Once again, only after extended touchy-feely “hellos” does _someone_ bother to introduce Briann to Meris. ... Mitch tries, sort of, to stand up for Meris (still his wife afterall) but the writing's on the wall.  One day, he comes home, early, and, with tears ... asks for a divorce.  The rest of the movie spools out from there...

Devastated and perhaps just numb with shock, Meris stays in Portland, moves into a 1 room studio apartment with simply a mattress on the floor for a bed and gets a job at neighborhood candy store.  She’s had little previous experience working, but perhaps because she did like to cook, this seemed like a pretty good fit.  Her two coworkers, both her age age are diametric opposites.  One’s a goody two-shoes named Dawn (played by Ritah Parrish) and the other is something of a gothic burnout named Trudy (played by Orianna Hermann) .  Perhaps because she’s so depressed, Meris eventually chooses to hang-out with Trudy, the burnout. 

Much still happens.  Meris keeps running into Mitch and his yuppier, jockish friends, who continue to make her feel like a loser.  But the sun does eventually come up after her long and awful dark night.  She finds a soft-spoken boyfriend who works in a neighboring record store.  Neither is going to make a whole lot of money but they’re both happy.  She also keeps Trudy and most of her gang as friends and even makes peace with Linda and Masud (who she only alienated on account of Mitch and his friends).

Her life becomes very different from anything she had expected it to be.  But between her new friends and her plot in the community garden that she had worked on throughout the film, she’s established roots and appears that she’s going to make it.

I loved this movie.  Parents, do note that the R-rating is fully appropriate.  Though much more is implied than actually shown, Meris’ dark night is very dark (involving some initially rather awkward sex, some drugs, a phase involving a lot of gothic clothing, heavy drinking, and a whole lot of tears).

I suppose what I liked most about this movie is that it reminded me of something that I've already known for some time: If someone is acting rather strange or anti-social (like dressing like a goth, abusing drugs and so forth), there's probably a story behind it...

Biblically, one is reminded of the Geremasene Demoniac who Jesus encountered "in a grave yard," who the people "had tried to chain, but now no one could hold down," who when asked by Jesus who was possessing him answered "Legion" (many things).  While everyone else was scared of him, Jesus had compassion on him, and set him free (Mark 5).

Thanks to this movie, I'll never look at a "goth" or a "punk" the same way again ...


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Shame

MPAA (NC-17) CNS/USCCB () Roger Ebert (4 Stars) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1723811/
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111130/REVIEWS/111139997

Shame (Fox Searchlight, directed and cowritten by Steve McQueen along with Abi Morgan) is a movie that I went to see with some trepidation, not for its rating (NC-17, entirely appropriate, more on that below) since a good number of reviewers (e.g. Roger Ebert above) had made it clear that Shame was a serious movie, but rather because I feared that its subject, sex addiction, would make it susceptible to banality in another way -- a banality of film-maker imposed guilt, yes, shame that could come across as forced.  Having seen the film, I do believe that for the most part, Shame avoided this second potential pitfall very, very well.

First let's deal with the rating, NC-17.  I do believe that the rating was appropriate but not because it showed more nudity than R-rated pictures.  IMHO the film did not show any more skin than a fair number of R-rated movies like The Reader [2008] starring Kate Winslet and David Kross/Ralph Fiennes, or that the film was any more intense / adult themed than say Black Swan [2010] starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, films that gained Kate Winslet an academy award nomination and Natalie Portman a win.  The nudity presented in Shame was certainly de-glamourized, in line certainly with the basic theme of the film which was, afterall, about addiction to sex rather than any kind of romance.  But is making use of glamourized nudity to make a romantic point in a film somehow better/more wholesome than making use of de-glamorized nudity to make another equally intended point in a story?  If nudity has a place at all in film, its deglamorized use here seemed appropriate to the movie's plot/theme. 

Additionally, there is a fairly graphic (bloody) attempted suicide scene near the end of Shame that would disturb a good number of viewers.  But there was a very graphic / bloody scene in the recent film Limitless [2011] staring Bradley Cooper (obscenely rated PG-13 !!) in which the drug-addicted protagonist of that story was shown as stooping to drinking the blood of a villain he had just killed in hopes of sucking in a "hit" of the drug that he craved.

In my mind, ALL these movies should have been rated NC-17 or to give parents leeway at least be given a "hard-R" rating with said parents being warned that the images/themes presented would not be suitable for (or even comprehensible by) most teens.  I struggle to understand any of these films The Reader [2008], Black Swan [2010] and Limitless [2011] would remain suitable to at least some teens under 17 while Shame would not.  So I am a definite proponent of honesty in ratings and, in particular, a defender of the serious application of the "R-rating."  I found it ridiculous that the Oscar Winning The King's Speech [2010] was rated R (for language) while Limitless [2011] with it's graphic violence and drug addiction thematics was rated PG-13.  And as I write here, I'm not even sure why Shame was rated NC-17 while the above mentioned films were rated either R or below.  But such it is ... and to close the point here, I would simply insist that parents note that the thematics of Shame (as in the case of the other above mentioned films) would be beyond the comprehension of the vast majority of teens.

To the film ... Shame is about a 30 something single man, Brandon Sullivan (played by Michael Fassbender), living and working in Manhattan who's addicted to sex.  He has one night stands, he hires prostitutes, both his computer at work and his laptop at home are filled with porn, he can't even sit in a subway car on his way to work without fantasizing about (and coming onto) a random, reasonably attractive woman sitting across from him in the car.  And all this brings him repeated doses of nearly unbearable shame:  His computer gets pulled by the IT technicians at work on suspicion that _it_ could be the source of viruses plaguing the firm's computer system.  His adult sister Sissy (played by Carey Mulligan) is a mess, but he doesn't really see it and in any case is unable to do anything about it.  He pursues a coworker, Marianne (played by Nicole Beharie), but perhaps because he starts to actually care for her, he finds himself unable (or unwilling) to perform (or otherwise actually express that he cares).  As with any addiction, any joy in the act is lost in the craving for the next "hit" and the happenings of the rest of the world get lost in the struggle to find it and then in the haze when he at last gets it. 

I found the presentation of the addiction quite convincing.  There are only a few lines in the dialogue that I found forced.  One dialogue exchange in particular I would note here: During his first date with Marianne, Brandon says very matter of factly (and quite to her horror) that he simply doesn't believe that marriage or lasting fidelity were "realistic."  The exchange came across to me as the screenwriters ticking off "probable symptoms or attitudes of a sex addict."  I'm not sure that a character like Brandon would be so brazen about holding such a view or even that he would necessarily hold it at all.  I would imagine that a sex addict would be far more conflicted than that, as indeed, Brandon was (see above).

But aside from a few forced lines of dialogue, I found the film quite well done and certainly one presenting the case for the existence of this kind of addiction: Who would be willing to risk the various doses of overwhelming shame associated with such sexual behavior if not an addict?


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Hugo

MPAA (PG) CNS/USCCB (A-II) Roger Ebert (4 Stars) Fr. Dennis (2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0970179/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/11mv145.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111121/REVIEWS/111119982/0/REV%20IEWS

Hugo (directed by Martin Scorsese, screenplay by John Logan, based on the award winning children's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick) seems on first impression likes an odd choice of a project for the legendary director.  But there are two characteristics present in Scorsese's extensive CV that make the 3D children's film Hugo less of a surprise: (1) Martin Scorsese has lived for challenges.  How else to explain taking on (and nailing) films like Taxi Driver [1976], Raging Bull [1980], Last Temptation of Christ [1988], Cape Fear [1991], Gangs of New York [2002] and Shutter Island [2010]? and (2) Scorcese loves biography/history.  How else to explain documentary projects on The Blues [2003], Michael Jackson [2003], Bob Dylan [2005] and George Harrison [2011], bio pics like The Aviator [2004] and Sinatra [announced for 2013] and historical/history inspired pictures like Casino [1995, Gangs of New York [2002] and the like?

Like or not, Hollywood or perhaps its technology masters like Sony have decided to force the film industry and eventually all American (and probably the world's) TVs to go "3D."  So present in Hugo is certainly a master like Martin Scorsese playing with the cinematic possibilities of this technology.  To this date the recent 3D technology has been most often used in films directed to children.  So why not try making a really good even ground breaking children's film especially if the children's film has strong element of history and even cinematic history behind it?   I'm positive, if nothing else, that Hugo will be up for Academy Awards this year for cinematography, direction and art direction.  So from a technical and even artistic point of view Hugo will certainly be regarded as a masterpiece.  But what about the story?

Well the story isn't bad either.  It's based on an award winning children's book that seems a good part Dickens (David Copperfield, Oliver Twist) with a dash of Victor Hugo (Les Miserables).  The main character is a 10-12 year old orphan named Hugo Cabret (played by Asa Butterfield) who lives hidden among the clock-works of Paris' central railroad station in the early 1930s.  Hugo's orphan status and the location of the film even evokes thoughts of the renowned Brazilian film and tearjerker Central Station [1998].  Orphan-Hugo is persecuted by a Javert-like Station-inspector (played by Sasha Baron Cohen) and a crotchety old owner of the "toy booth" at said station.  The toy booth owner, Georges Melies (played by Ben Kingsley) is upset that Hugo keeps stealing his toys.  But Hugo isn't stealing the toys maliciously or even to play with them.  He's stealing them for parts.  Why?  Well that's a good part of the story.

When store owner Melies finally catches Hugo, he seems needlessly harsh to him.  But his harshness toward Hugo catches the eye his grand-daughter Isabelle (played by Chloe Grace Moretz).  She's the same age as Hugo but (as is often the case at that age) somewhat taller and perhaps more mature than him.  She befriends Hugo who up unto that point had lost just about everybody in his life.  The two, largely on the impulse of book reading Isabelle, set-off on an "adventure" that only two twelve-year-olds could go on.  In the midst of this adventure, they slowly realize that Isabelle's grandfather was not always the broken and bitter old man running that tiny toy shop in the train station.  Instead when he was younger, he was a magician and later a film-maker a maker of wonderful/fantastic films.  What happened?  Why did he retire to such a small hovel in a train station making his living selling mechanical toys?  Well go to the movie ...

Therefore even though it is largely presented through kids' eyes, the movie is not really a kids' movie.  At minimum it is a serious kids' movie of a Charles Dickens vein.  So parents take note: I don't think anyone under10-12 years of age will really understand this film.  And some kids it may find it very depressing because it is about various kinds of brokenness and a need to gently/compassionately fix people who were broken.

Now the idea that "broken people" should be "fixed" may surprise a fair amount of adults in the United States today because our prevailing orthodoxy seems to be that people "shouldn't be in the business of fixing others."  But when one experiences the truly heart-wrenching stories of the various characters in this story (including that of the Jarvert-like Inspector) compassionate/gentle "fixing" is in order.  Otherwise, we consign the broken people of this world to irrelevance, not only terribly hurting them by our actively chosen passivity but diminishing the whole world which would never benefit from their (lost) gifts.

So this technically exemplary but commercial 3D monstrosity ends up telling a very good and even poignant story.  But the questions to Industry then ought to be: Was the 3D technology really necessary to tell this story?  How much was the telling of the story "improved" by the 3D technology?  And if not by much, why is the world (from its artists/directors to its consumers) being forced to buy-into expensive technology that doesn't really improve film's story-telling capacity?


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My Week With Marilyn

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (A-III) Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1655420/
CNS/USCCB review - 
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/11mv147.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111121/REVIEWS/111129994

My Week With Marilyn (Weinstein Co, directed by Simon Curtis, screenplay by Adrian Hodges based on the books by Colin Clark) was probably intended to be better than it turned out to be and will probably still get Michelle Williams a Best Actress in a Leading Role nomination and _possible win_ at the Oscars this year and perhaps earn a few other nominations (for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay).  It's worth seeing, even in the movie theaters.  The movie is more than "just another Marilyn movie."  It's just, eh ..., I do believe that it could have been better.  On the other hand, even the surprisingly mediocre vibe that the movie evokes, may have been _intended_.  Because it's fundamental theme appeared to be about "limtations."

The movie was built around Colin Clark's (played by Eddie Redmayne) experience in the late 1950s of working as a relatively minor production assistant to legendary stage actor (Sir) Lawrence Olivier (played by Kenneth Branah) who was not only seeking to make his permanent his mark as a screen actor but also trying to make an inroad into directing.  In order to make a splash as a director, Lawrence Olivier had hired the already by then world-renowned American screen goddess, Marilyn Monroe (played in the current movie by Michelle Williams) to co-star with him in a movie called The Prince and the Showgirl [1957].  Of course things wouldn't turn out as Sir Lawrence Olivier had hoped.  And this then makes the stuff of the movie.

What didn't turn out?  Well Sir Lawrence Olivier was a _great_ stage actor who turned out to be a really good/great screen actor.  But a director?  Then Marilyn Monroe was above all a _really good looking_ actress who also did have some innate ability of presenting herself really, really well to an audience.  But was she a _great_ actress?  Then there were others around the two.  Lawrence Olivier's wife Vivian Leigh (played by Julie Ormand) the legendary star of Gone With The Wind [1938] and Streetcar Named Desire [1951] becomes something of a jealous basket-case around the younger and if nothing else uber-sexy Marilyn who Vivian's husband Olivier had cast for _his_ movie.  And Marilyn's husband (#3), the legendary playwright Arthur Miller (played by Dougray Scott) was learning what it's like to be married a very sexy but also tremendously insecure Marilyn Monroe.

So if the recent film J. Edgar (about the life of U.S. FBI founding director J. Edgar Hoover) appeared ultimately to be a character study about power and the kind of pressures/circumstances/upbringing that could drive a person to crave it, My Week With Marilyn appears to be a character study about insecurity and dealing with/accepting limitations.

Lawrence Olivier in particular was shocked to find that Marilyn Monroe really did travel with an entourage, including personal acting coach Paula Stasberg (played by Zoe Wanamaker) and personal agent/handler Milton Greene (played by Dominic Cooper).  Olivier great naturally gifted stage actor that he was (and insecure about his attempt to be a director), simply didn't understand why Monroe would need a personal acting coach.  Why can't Marilyn just read (and _make her own_) the lines off the page?  Well, Marilyn _could not_.  And besides, Marilyn was finding success (and perhaps the _only_ way she could find success as an actress) using the then _new_ Method Acting approach becoming popular in the United States.

And so it goes.  Marilyn, popular sex bomb and reasonably good actress that she was, was a basket case.  Sir Lawrence Olivier was finding his own limitations.  All the younger to middle-aged women around the set didn't know what to make of Marilyn and felt threatened by her.  These included, above mentioned Vivian Leigh, but also young seamstress Lucy (played by Emma Watson) from the wardrobe department, who in other circumstances would have made a natural friend/girl friend to Colin Clarke telling the story.   And the older/wiser men in Marilyn's life, notably husband Arthur Miller and boss Olivier, didn't really know how to manage things either.  On set, the only ones who seem to do well with her are some of the older women including her above mentioned acting coach and older actress Sybil Thorndike (played admirably by Judy Dench) And yet, off-set, the people just loved her.  Fascinating.

I found the movie fascinating because in my surprisingly not altogether different line of work (being a public figure, and most notably preaching) some of the pressures that Marilyn and the other "famous" people in the film faced felt surprisingly familiar.  All of us preachers/priests too have our "fans."  All of us definitely have our limitations.  How does one navigate them _even in the small arena_ of a parish (or perhaps a blog)? ;-).  I felt a lot of pity for Marilyn (or my generation's equivalent who also met a tragic end, Michael Jackson).  The pressures, shown actually quite well in this film, _must have been awful_.

Parents, the movie is appropriately rated R.  It is, after all, about Marilyn Monroe.  There is some fleeting back-side nudity and there are occasional references to off-screen sexual activity (both adulterous and non).  But above all, I don't think that a child or teenager would really understand the movie anyway.  So parents keep the kids at home and see the movie on a "date night."  It really is quite good, even though I do feel that it could have been better.


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The Muppets

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
Roger Ebert's review

The Muppets (Disney, directed by James Bobin, characters by Jim Henson, screenplay by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller) is probably one of the least "ideological" of a depressingly large number of ideological "kids" movies made this year.

On the Right there was Diary of a Wimpy Kid II: Rodrick's Rules, the gawd-awful Hop, and Hoodwinked Too (all of which cast/accented the "good" people as Anglos/Americans and the bad/problematic people as foreigners) and possibly Mars Needs Moms (which became almost an Orwellian "Animal Farm" style parable against radical feminism).

On the Left would be the recent Happy Feet II that IMHO continued to be needlessly heavy-handed about global warming. 

Still arguably left of center but at least gentler were Rio and Rango, which both had environmental themes.  But in the case of Rio made by Brazilian-born Carlos Saldanha there was a reminder that the people of Brazil (like the little street kid Fernando) are important too and not just its birds and trees.  And Rango ultimately seemed like a clever cartoon remake of the "hardboiled L.A./conspiracy" classic Chinatown [1974].  Then there was Cars II whose consumerist message "cars are people too" I honestly just don't like.  (NO "cars" are _not_ people.  They are definitely _things_.  I have a similar criticism though less adamant of Pixar's Toy Story series).

The Muppets would certainly fall on the left of center scale by making the story's chief villain an "oil baron" named Tex Richman (voice by Chris Cooper) who wanted to buy the Muppets' Theater in Hollywood to tear it down and _drill for oil_ under it.  But at least The Muppets were goofy enough (a la the Disney classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit [1988]) to make it obvious that they weren't all that serious.  Here I'd add that those reading my blog would certainly suspect/expect that I'd not be a huge fan of "oil barons." On the other hand, I would definitely understand and defend to the end that THEY, "oil barons," are "people too."  So I just wish that The Muppets' makers would have chosen to go the route of Mike Myers/Austin Powers' "Dr. Evil" or Steven Carrell's "Gru" of Despicable Me [2010] where the villains didn't carry any heavy-handed ideological baggage and there were attempts actually to explain _why_ the villains became the way they were. 

So while I fully expected to be writing glowing recommendations for truly great animated children's films like The Incredibles [2004], Up [2009], How to Train Your Dragon [2009], Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs [2009], and, yes, Despicable Me [2010], this year has been a real disappointment to me when it comes to children's movies.

Still I do believe that The Muppets in their goofiness and inspired play of the human boy friend/girl friend couple Gary (played by the film's co-writer Jason Segal) and Mary (played by Amy Adams of Disney's Enchanted/Giselle fame) were better than most of the children's movies of this year.

To the plot ... Gary, grows-up with best friend Walter (voiced by Peter Linz) in Small Town somewhere in the American Midwest.  When they were kids, they were peas in a pod.  But as they grow-up their differences begin to show.  Gary after-all is human and Walter, well, is a Muppet.  Still Walter could not have a better friend than Gary, who sticks by him through thick and thin, and even makes a decision to take Walter along with him on his and Mary's trip to Los Angeles.  Gary is going on the trip with Mary because he wants to propose to her, while Walter thinks that they're going on the trip so that they could (finally) see the Muppet Theater, Museum and so forth.  So problems inevitably ensue between Walter (Gary's BFF) and Mary (Gary's girlfriend and soon, as both Gary and Mary hope ... if all goes well, wife ...).

Things get even more complicated when to Walter's terrible disappointment, the three arrive at Hollywood's Muppet Museum/Theater and find it dilapidated and about to be sold to above mentioned villain "oil man" Tex Richman.  This sets off an adventure as the three first seek to find Kermit the Frog (voiced by Steve Whitmore) and then the rest of the Muppet gang to try to save the Muppet Theater/Museum.

Much of course ensues, often very, very funny ;-).  But in the midst of this an exasperated Mary also decides to put her foot down: "Gary, are you a man or a muppet?"  And Gary has to decide.

This becomes a very nice movie about both respecting friends _and_ understanding that in the end, one's spouse (if one wants to ever find a spouse) has to come-out ahead of them.

So it turns out to be a great and zany story.  I just wish they didn't have to _needlessly_ bring "Big Oil" into the tale at all ...


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The Descendants

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  Roger Ebert (4 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 3/4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review

Roger Ebert's review

The Descendants (Fox Searchlight, directed and screenplay co-written by Alexander Payne along with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmins), is a film that will probably irritate some who may not be able to get past it being a (fictional) story about a Hawaiian lawyer and leading member of a very old Hawaiian family, Matt King (played by George Clooney) who finds himself (as well as his two daughters) in a sudden and unexpected crisis -- the critical injury of his wife Elizabeth (played by Patricia Hastie) in a jet-ski/speed boating accident -- at the beginning of the film.

Yes, Matt King and his family were rather wealthy.  Yes, they lived in Hawaii, paradise.  But perhaps most viewers will give him and his family the benefit of the doubt, when in the beginning voice-over setting-up the story, George Clooney/Matt King declares that given the circumstances that he and his family now found themselves in: "F-Paradise."  Yes, the family's money did give them a few more options that would not be available to most others.  But move around the chess pieces a little, tweak the situation a bit and these could be circumstances that many/most families in the United States or even across the globe could find themselves in..

As such, this family drama is certainly one of the best American films of the year and will almost certainly find itself nominated for a host of nominations for the annual Oscar Academy Awards.  These would include (in a field of 10) an almost certain nomination for Best Picture, an almost certain nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role (George Clooney), an almost certain nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay (Alexander Payne, et al) and possible nominations for Best Director (Alexander Payne) and even Best Supporting Actress (Shailene Woodley) for her role as Matt/Elizabeth King's teenage daughter Alex.

Other performances to note were that of Amara Miller who played Matt and Elizabeth's other (7 year old) daughter as well as that of Nick Krause who played Alex's both "out there, but ..." teenage boyfriend Sid.   Miller is probably too young to get serious consideration for a nomination and Krause, while outstanding, had a role probably too peripheral to get a nod for a Best Supporting Actor nomination.  Robert Forster and Barbara L. Southern playing Elizabeth's parents Scott and Alice "Tutu" Thorson were excellent as well, if again, their characters play more at the edges of the story. And still others at the story's edges step-up and nail their roles as well.  Yes, this film had a great, well directed ensemble cast.

I'd like to say more about the film, but I think I'd truly "spoil" it if I said much more.  There is a key wrinkle that the trailer to the movie already adds: It's Matt/Elizabeth's daughter Alex who tells Matt (her father) that Elizabeth (his wife/her mother) that Elizabeth was cheating on him before the accident.  With this revelation, the crisis that the family faces has been fully set up.  I will say that the characters, all of them, were well portrayed and all of the main participants in the story, including possibly _the audience_ do grow.

Parents should note that the language often used by all three of the minors is often quite bad (hence the MPAA's R-rating).  A lot of "f-bombs" are dropped.  But given the circumstances and the way the story plays out, the bad language feels both real and appropriate.  I just found it to be a very well written, well directed and well acted story fully deserving some recognition at Oscar time.


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