Man of Steel [2013]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub.com (I. Vishnevetsky) review

Man of Steel [2013] (directed by Zach Snyder, screenplay by David S. Goyer, story by David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan, based on the Superman [IMDb] [DCComics] character and story of Jerry Siegel [IMDb] and Joe Shuster [IMDb] of DC Comics [Wikip]) is presumably the first installment in a cinematic reboot of the Superhero story. 

Stylistically, the film borrows much from both Zach Snyder's (300 [2006], The Watchmen [2009], Sucker Punch [2011]) and Christopher Nolan's (Bat Man/ "Dark Knight" [2005] [2008] [2012] trilogy as well as Inception [2010]) previous work.  Other stylistic influences would include Riddley Scott's works (Alien [1979+] Series / Prometheus [2012] and Blade Runner [1982]). 

This all makes for a much darker/less colorful, "grittier" conception of the story than the cheerier/campier Superman [1978] [1980] [1983] films starring Christopher Reeve that most viewers of my generation would remember.  However, the darker and even when light is present palider visuals of the film perhaps reflect the darker, less vibrant, still post-9/11 zeitgeist in which we live in.  This allows for an exploration of a variety of angst producing themes (I'm choosing to use the German terms here on purpose) that go beyond the playback of 9/11 and its horrific attendant violent wholesale slaughter of innocents, but also destruction of an entire planet (Krypton from where "Superman" comes) because of mismanagement and greed as well as a society's (again Krypton's) embrace of Science / eugenics /  "social engineering" to a level that resulted in a society where almost no one was even capable of thinking "outside the box" making, once unanticipated problems arose, the society's doom a practically programmed inevitability.  This all makes Man of Steel [2013] not a cheery film but certainly a thought-provoking one.

How does the story here play out?   In the midst of societal collapse on their home planet of Krypton, two scientists, Jor-El [IMDb] (played by Russell Crowe) and Lara Lor-Van [IMDb] (played by Ayelet Zurer) do the "unthinkable" in their society: they conceive and bring to term a child "the old fashioned way" through sexual intercourse and gestation of the child in the mother's womb.  (The film begins by showing Lara Lor-Van [IMDb] giving birth to their son in presumably a lab, with husband, Jor-El [IMDb] helping her through it).

Now why would this be such a "radical act?"  Some background:  According to the story presented, for hundreds of years, Krypton's society was engineering the creation of children in a giant "Genesis Factory." The "Factory" calls to mind conceptually Aldrous Huxley's 1922 novel Brave New World [Wikip] [Amzn] and visually the more recent Matrix [1999] films (as the engineered infants-to-be are shown gestating in sacks in a gigantic tank of presumably amniotic fluid-like ooze connected to a giant kelp/seaweed umbilical cord).  Through this gigantic "hive like" Genesis Factory, infants were produced matching the precise temperaments and capabilities that the society anticipated would be needed when these children grew up.

This all worked well so long as the society functioned within its envisioned parameters.  However, over the course of the previous 100 years (several generations) the society's fuel began to run out.  With an entire society composed of people programmed to think and act only in specific pre-programmed ways, the number of options available to the society to respond to this problem proved limited indeed.  Basically, the society continued to do "more of the same" (extracting its power from its planet's core) to the point that at the beginning of the story here, Krypton's society had literally "hollowed out" its planet's core and the planet was on a course of "implosion," that is, self-Destruction.

Seeing this, Jor-El [IMDb] and Lara Lor-Van [IMDb], the chief scientific consultants to Krypton's government, apparently determined that the whole structure of Krypton's society was programmed to collapse.  Yes, engineering the society's offspring had some theoretical advantages (presumably the needs of the society could be "precisely met.")  However, such engineering had proved incapable of dealing with this existential crisis that the society was now facing.  So the two scientists apparently determined that reintroducing "chance" to reproduction could produce (or could have produced) the offspring necessary to ensure the society's/planet's survival.

Their idea proved too late to save Krypton's society or even its planet.  However, Jor-El [IMDb] and Lara Lor-Van [IMDb] place their infant child (the first Kryptonian child in hundreds of years who was not conceived by any specific programming but instead by love and chance) into a rocket ship and send it hurling into space toward a distant (and by the data that they had on Krypton) compatible planet ... our Earth. 

And so it is that little Kal-El [IMDb] and his craft crash into a field outside of Smallville, Kansas to be found by Jonathan [IMDb] and Martha Kent [IMDb] (played by Kevin Costner and Diane Lane) and the child is raised as their adopted son Clark [IMDb] (played in the film as a child by Cooper Timberline and Dylan Sprayberry and later as an adult by Henry Cavill).

Now growing-up as someone with an exceptional story (at some point in his childhood, his parents do tell him that he arrived from outer space) and exceptional powers is not easy (Krypton apparently had a higher gravity, so Clark Kent [IMDb] finds himself much stronger than people of earth.  He also has x-ray vision as well as apparently an ability to absorb all kinds of other sensory information "all at once" and has to learn, with help of his parents, to "block out" information that he does not need at a given moment to focus on the task at hand).  So Clark [IMDb] grows-up as something of a "special needs" kid and though he is not home-schooled, he's presented as someone who probably would have been a good candidate for such home schooling as though he was (obviously) stronger than anybody else in school, he was so strong that he was afraid to use his strength ... and paradoxically ended up being picked-on and even beaten-up often in school.

Why was Clark [IMDb] being told by his parents to "not strike back" but instead to "take it"?  They were afraid that if it became known that he was exceptional (indeed "super" though that word was studiously avoided throughout much of the film) then it could cause _him_ trouble and even perhaps bring down the whole society (shades of Krypton again?? ;-).  Why?  Well society would not necessarily be able to accept (yet) that we were "not alone" in the universe.  Clark Kent [IMDb] with his special abilities (and the space capsule in which he arrived, when Jonathan Kent [IMDb] kept hidden in the barn) would be a quite literally a "Poster Child" pointing to this reality.

As such, the Clark Kent [IMDb] of this movie, like many heroes in the Comic Book / Super Hero genre spent much of his early life "keeping a low profile," arguably hiding even as he does use his "super powers" especially his strength "for good" as the occasion arose.  (Both sets of his parents would be proud ...)

He comes to be less able "to hide" when intrepid "national security" reporter Lois Lane [IMDb] (played by Amy Adams) from her newspaper, "The Daily Planet," fresh from "reporting on the troops in Afghanistan" comes snooping around a super-secret U.S. Navy dig-site off the coast of Alaska where a gigantic underwater craft had been found frozen in ice.  "So what?  It's probably an old Russian Cold War sub," she asks one of the lieutenants involved in the excavation.  "The only problem, mam, is that the ice in which it was found is 20,000 years old," the lieutenant responds.  Hmmm...

Well, while she's knocking around the dig site, she runs into ... Clark Kent [IMDb].  He had stumbled onto rumors of the dig as well, and had found his way there, taking a job of being a "lowly hand" (and somewhat incompetent one also, if, as the rest of the crew finds out, a really, really strong one ;-) on a commercial fishing vessel (shades of the reality TV series Dangerous Catch [IMDb] ;-). 

Anyway, both Lois [IMDb] and Clark [IMDb] knock about (secretly) the site and he ends up saving her life and in a way that simply does not make sense to her.  Who was that guy who showed-up there, seemed to be investigating the same strange craft as she was, saved her life ... and then disappeared?  She starts to try to investigate him ... The rest of the story follows ...

Twists in the story include that craft frozen in the Arctic ice for 20,000 years was from ... Krypton.  And as soon as it's unfrozen it sends off a beacon signal into space.  Who hears it?  Well other surviving Kryptonians, notably General Zod [IMDb] (played by Michael Shannon) and a party of henchmen/women who had been banished from Krypton in the days just before Krypton imploded for trying to stage a last ditch military coup to try to force Kryptonian government to do something "before all was lost."  Instead, they were captured by still loyal Kryptonian forces and exiled for "treason."  Ironically, on account of their exile, they survived Krypton's destruction. 

When General Zod [IMDb], et al receive the message from the ancient Kryptonian craft that had been frozen on earth for 20,000 years, they head ... to Earth.  This sets off a battle between General Zod [IMDb] and his party on one side and the militaries of Earth on the other as General Zod [IMDb] et al are stll genetically programmed Kryptonian military men/women and patriots who see Earth (in their pre-programmed way) as a place to "rebuild Krypton." 

Much ensues ... and, of course, "mild mannered" Clark Kent [IMDb], who was actually of Kryptonian parents but (1) was conceived freely (without any specific/limiting genetic programming) and (2) was raised by loving Earthling parents ... inevitably gets sucked into the conflict.  Who is he?  What does he want?  Can anyone (both Kryptonian and Earthling "trust him")?  Good ole Kal El / Clark Kent [IMDb], "super hero" that he is, turns out to be the ultimate "free agent."  And yet in the midst of a sudden cataclysmic conflict, he must choose sides.  Guess who he chooses?  And perhaps more importantly, why?

It all makes for a remarkably thought-provoking take on the Superman story.  Really small kids probably won't really understand it, but pre-teens age and above (including said pre-teens' parents) would probably find the film quite interesting and at times fun.

A final word on the visuals:  As is generally my preference, I saw the film in 2D.  However, I get the sense that this film probably would work better in 3D (if the viewer/family in question had the money to see it that way).  I say this because the film seemed rather "pale" throughout and arguably "somewhat out of focus."  The paleness of the imagery may be a stylistic choice on the part of Zach Snyder as his films tend to be "rather Spartan" (those who saw "300" would get the pun ;-) in terms of color.  However, it could also be an artifact of seeing a movie, which was filmed and intended to be seen in 3D, in 2D instead.  Still, I really hate paying the extra $4/ticket to see a film in 3D and I'd understand parents/families reluctant to do so as well...

As such, while conceptually interesting I found the film visually quite a burden to watch, and for me, that's a problem as I do believe that films are supposed to visual stories.  So I can't give it as high a rating as I otherwise would have liked.  I continue to believe that 3D is artistically unnecessary and, above all, a price-gauging technique.


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This is the End [2013]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  RE.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

After one gets past (if one can get past...) the often hard-R crudity of the film (men's genitalia, though surprisingly not women's, are everywhere in this film) as well as, at least in the first 20 minutes or so, all the drugs, This is the End [2013] (screenplay and directed by Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg based on the short film "Jay and Seth vs the Apocalypse" by Jason Stone) is actually, surprisingly, not too bad ;-), IMHO anyway ... ;-).

The film is basically about the question: What would you do if you and most of your friends suddenly found yourselves in the midst of Biblical Apocalypse [TM]?

So Seth Rogan and friend/actor Jay Baruchel visiting Rogan in L.A. from Canada (all the actors in the film play themselves) decide to go to a party being thrown by James Franco at his new house somewhere in Beverly Hills.  Actually, Baruchel isn't all that comfortable with Rogan's new "Hollywood" friends but allows himself to be talked into it. When they get to the Party, it's exactly what they expected and perhaps Baruchel feared: Franco's house is absolutely filled with other young stars, some that they know, others that they did not.  They're all cool, mellow, stoned, many, both male and female quite horny, but most of all, let's face it, quite shallow.  WHAT'S COOL ABOUT THIS FILM IS THAT IT FREELY ADMITS THIS (that they're mostly Shallow [TM]) and EVEN  ADMITS THAT THIS IS ACTUALLY A PROBLEM. I honestly have difficulty putting down a film where the actors themselves largely (if with a smile) put themselves down.

So after some time of dutifully exchanging small-talk with Franco and Jonah Hill that Baruchel finds phony anyway, he excuses himself outside to look for a smoke.  Eventually Rogan follows him, and two walk to a drugstore some blocks away buy said pack of cigarettes.

It's at this point that suddenly the earth starts shaking and strangely enough some people INCLUDING A CATHOLIC PRIEST as well as a YOUNG FATHER AND DAUGHTER are sent-up by blue beams to what appears to be the Heavens, while the earth opened under others, including the crabby lady at the cash register who had just refused let said young father's little girl use the bathroom (even though it was obvious that she really, really had to go) until said father "bought something at the store...," sending these down into the Depths.

What the heck is going on?  Seth, in his ever-smiling, stoned, slacker persona doesn't have a clue.  Baruchel, impressed by the blue beams carrying the Priest and the young Father and Daughter up into Heaven, immediately "understands."

The two rush back to Franco's party amid scarred/buckled roads, flaming landscaping and ruins of houses only to find that the folks at the "rockin' party" incredibly DIDN'T NOTICE A THING.  Well that soon changes as the Earth really starts shaking and most of the guests run out of the house only to have the earth open under them and most of them falling straight into what appears to be a gigantic Lava Pit below.

The only ones left of Franco's party appear to be Franco, Rogan, Baruchel, Hill, Danny McBride and Craig Robinson.  (Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame makes a brief appearance later).  What the heck happened?  And what to do now?

Well they first decide to barricade themselves in Franco's home, still standing, and "wait it out."  But they have almost no food and everything around them is burning.  Then all sorts of strange, powerful and more or less obviously Demonic beasts seem to lurk outside and progressively work to break their way in.

Now what would you do facing this kind of a situation?  That's essentially what the film's about.  And let's face it, the remaining group in this film is a bunch of basically harmless "party heartiers" who never really meant to do Evil and yet were never particularly interested in doing Good either.  (Is the Reader here particularly surprised then to find these people quite literally in Limbo? ;-) ;-)

So this group of basically good natured and often still buzzed slackers finds itself progressively forced to confront some basic questions, notably: Why are we still here? EVERYBODY ELSE seems to be either UPSTAIRS or DOWNSTAIRS.  And what do we need to do to get out of here before the Demons outside finally break down the doors and devour us?

And another cool thing about this film is that some of the members of this cast allow their character personas in this film to END-UP BADLY (devoured or in Hell) while others of course come to "choose wisely" and end up in Heaven.

Truthfully as "crude" as this film is (and again there are a heck of a lot of penises in this film ... and of all kinds of sizes ...) if one can get past that, this is a pretty good and arguably edifying film.

It's the kind of film that one can talk about over a few beers (or yes, Mr Rogan, over a few jays...) and perhaps make some fundamental progress.

Yes, in this life we are asked to fundamentally choose to do Good.  And yes, a lot of our actions (like enjoying a few of those said cold ones or even that jay or two ...) are not necessarily Evil ... but they're NOT NECESSARILY GOOD EITHER.  And when it comes down to it, we're asked to do Good.

So honestly, a surprisingly good job folks!  You've posed for the rest of us a number of rather fundamental questions.  Now can we respond by (1) choosing TO DO BETTER, and (2) dare one dream, progressively lay-off of those things that aren't necessarily GOOD or EVIL but ultimately distract us from DOING GOOD or at least DOING BETTER?


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In the Shadow (orig. Ve Stinu) [2012]

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

IMDb listing
CSFD* listing

In the Shadow (orig. Ve Stínu) [2012] [IMDb] [CSFD]* (directed and cowritten by David Ondráček [IMDb] [CSFD]* along with principal writer Marek Epstein [IMDb] [CSFD]* and Misha Votruba [IMDb]) is an award winning film (including nine 2013 Czech Lions, the Czech equivalent of the Oscars) that played recently at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago as part of the eight city 2013 Czech That Film tour sponsored by the Czech Diplomatic Mission to the United States and Prague's Staropramen Beer (Other European beer companies such as Heineken and Amstel Light have sponsored similar programs ... ;-)

The film is noirish crime story set in Prague of the early 1950s.  The Communists of Czechoslovakia were already entrenched in power, since the post-WW II elections in which they won a plurality and then the Putsch of February 1948 when rather than allow their government fall (as often happens in democratically elected coalition governments), the Communists instead staged a coup d'etat and took complete control.  However, the final stages of the Stalinization process were yet to play out -- notably the final found of show trials where even members of the Communist Party were purged, and "monetary reform" allowing the government to loot what was left of the personal monetary savings of its citizens (the special target was, of course, the previously wealthy, but the "monetary reform" really pauperized everybody).   

So it was in the swirl of rumor circulating impending "monetary reform" that would render savings in the old currency worthless, that a two-bit robbery of a store house of previously confiscated jewels takes place.  (The old currency may become worthless but items of value like gold, jewels, books, artwork, etc, would presumably continue to retain value even with a new currency).  Prague police inspector Hakl (played by Ivan Trojan [IMDb] [CSFD]*) is put on the case to investigate the seemingly petty robbery.

Detective Hakl approaches the matter like any criminal case.  Clues left behind at the crime scene reduce the number of probable suspects.  He asks his partner: "Who do we know who's fat (there was a lot of sweat left at the scene), knows how to pick/pry-open a safe, and may be missing a finger or two (a small prosthetic was dropped at the crime scene)?"  Settling on a possibility, they go to a seedy bar by a rail yard at the edge of town and ask a few questions.  They get a few answers ... and are well on their way to solve a caper that could have easily fit the parameters of a good Mickey Spillane story of that era, 'cept ...


'Cept ... the next morning "State Security" comes in and tells Detective Hakl's boss that they're taking over the case and already have someone in custody, someone named Kirsch (played by Miroslav Krobot [IMDb] [CSFD]*).  Hakl's boss breaks the news to him, "Lay off, State Security's taking this one."  "Why?"  "They see this as far more than just a petty crime, besides they have somebody already."  "Who?"  "Kirsch."  "We both know Kirsch (a petty thief but also a drunk) and he couldn't have possibly have done this crime."  Hakl asks to interview the already incarcerated Kirsch and finds to no surprise that he has an iron clad alibi.  He was out cold in the drunk tank the night of the robbery.  Yes, he had gotten himself in trouble with the law.  Yes, he was kinda shifty.  But he was small, this kind of robbery wasn't his style, and he was a notorious drunk.  HOWEVER, he was ALSO ... a Jew.

And that becomes the "bigger picture" that "State Security" paints.  They even bring in a detective, Zenke (played by Sabastian Koch [IMDb] [CSFD]*) from the newly formed German Democratic Republic (East Germany) to paint a far reaching, international conspiracy of Jewish organizations pilfering unclaimed stocks of gold and other valuables from warehouses in Eastern (Soviet-dominated) Europe left-over from the Nazi era and smuggling them out of the region to help support the newly formed state of Israel.

Okay, let's run down the problems with the conspiracy as proposed by the Communist dominated "State Security": (1) How many "Jewish Organizations" would there have been left in EASTERN EUROPE following the Holocaust / previous Nazi occupation? (2) Even if there were "Jewish Organizations" around to steal said gold/valuables IT WOULD HAVE BEEN ARGUABLY LEGITIMATE as THE NAZIS STOLE ENORMOUS AMOUNTS OF WEALTH FROM THEIR JEWISH VICTIMS DURING THE COURSE OF THE HOLOCAUST.

Now here is where it gets a little interesting: (1) The little and already by then Communist (see above) country of Czechoslovakia played a surprisingly important role in Israel's 1948 War for Independence.  During a cease fire in that war, a large amount of "faulty Czechoslovakian made small arms," made (faulty) for the Germans during the Nazi occupation, were shipped to Israel.  With very minor adjustments those "faulty" weapons proved to be excellent and may have served to assure Israel's survival in that war.  (2) Despite such support of Israel's creation by the emerging Soviet Bloc, Israel ended up aligning itself with the United States (and the emerging Western Bloc) a "betrayal" that the ever-vengeful Stalin never forgot.  Indeed, the last round of purges in the Soviet Union prior to Stalin's death, the "Doctors' Plot" (playing out at exactly the same time as this film), was overtly anti-Semitic.

The "conspiracy" that "State Security" paints with help of the East German detective Zenke and a Soviet "advisor" named Colonel Morozov (played by Sergej Raiter [IMDb] [CSFD]*) whose "presence" makes is more or less obvious that he's the one sent down by Moscow to make sure that things go "according to plan" ... takes place at exactly the time when the last stages of the Stalinization process were being set to happen:

Within a year of after this story would have played out, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, under Soviet Pressure did stage its final, internal Purge.  Rudolf Slánsky (second in command in the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia, and ... Jewish) along with 13 other officials (10 of them Jewish) were arrested and tried for treason (all of whom under torture/duress dutifully Confessed).  Eleven including Slánsky were subsequently executed and the three others given life imprisonment. 

Also at the end of the story presented in the film, the much rumored "monetary reform" takes place effectively robbing the country's citizens of all their monetary wealth.  Note the contradiction: Detective Hakl is being stymied by "State Security" in his investigation of an arguably petty crime (which "State Security" wants to gin-up to conspiratorial, indeed, treasonous levels) even as the Communist Government is plotting to rip-off the monetary wealth of every single citizen in the country.  And of course, against such a massive State sponsored crime there is little that an individual or small family can do except find a way to "prepare" and "adapt."  Hearing the persistent rumors of the coming "monetary reform," inspector Hakl's wife Jitka (played by Soňa Norisová [IMDb] [CSFD]*)  suggested a rather simple plan to protect their (very tiny) family savings.  But could she get her somewhat stubborn husband (a gruff, "old school" but honest cop) to listen?

Finally, the East German detective Zenke has a story as well ...

In a key scene near the end of the film, when Hakl becomes absolutely convinced that the whole conspiracy theory being forced on him and his department by "State Security" was a fraud he has it out with the East German detective at his apartment.  At the center was a discussion about Hakl's little boy.  Hakl asks the East German detective: "What good is a father to his son if he's afraid to stand up for the truth?"  Zenke, who at this point doesn't deny that his whole presence in this matter is a fraud (Remember, he has a story as well... which by this time the viewer would understand) responds: "What good is a father to his son if he ends up dead?"

THE VERY NEXT SHOT is that of the statue of ST. WENCESLAS on WENCESLAS SQUARE IN PRAGUE.  St. Wenceslas, the first Christian leader of the Czech people was a martyr, killed by his own brother, for refusing to do what the brother's (still pagan) faction wanted him to do, which would have put the whole people at risk.  Arguably there would be no Czech nation or Czech people today if not for St. Wenceslas dying then (more than 1000 years ago) for his people.  So there is indeed value in dying for what is right ...

The film ends with a dedication "to all those who died quietly in the shadows (the film's title) for the country in defense of what was right."  Understanding that climactic scene and the closing dedication makes one want to cry ...

Finally, I believe that this film could work well for American viewers (and even other European viewers) to see in conjunction with a recent (and also award winning) Italian film Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy (orig. Romanzo di una Strage) [2012] because this would help American viewers appreciate why Europeans are so much more cynical when it comes to "big power meddling."  The Italian film, about a real incident in 1969 is also about the frustration of justice and arguably the martyrdom of an honest police inspector who comes to realize that the roots of the crime that he was initially tasked to "solve" extended beyond the reach of even his own country and arguably sat in the lap of the Super Power in whose "camp" his country, arguably a client state, belonged.  A lot of ugly things and dirty tricks took place across Europe during the Cold War.

ADDENDUM - People ask me at times "I'd be interested in seeing this film but how the heck do I find it?"  Well a fair number of the European films eventually become available for purchase (if often in Region-2 format) through Amazon.com where the current film, In the Shadow (orig. Ve Stinu) [2012] is already listed though still unavailable for purchase.  Note that Region-2 DVDs can be viewed on one's computer after installing such free-ware programs as passkey-lite).


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The Internship [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (L)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J.P. McCarthy) review
RogerEbert.com (S. O'Malley) review
AVClub.com (A.A. Dowd) review

The Internship [2013] (directed by Shawn Levy, screenplay by Jered Stern and Vince Vaugn, story by Vince Vaugn) is a nice, fast talking, feel good, screwball comedy about the value of perseverance and good humor in the face of hard economic times.  My guess is that Abbott and Costello [IMDb] would approve ;-).  In fairness, the film hasn't gotten best of critical receptions, getting a mere 33% on rottentomato.com's tomatometer from the critics (though as often is the case, a much more favorable audience score).

I found myself, to my surprise, liking the film, and indeed surprised how much I liked it.  After all, various critics were writing that the film was "just a gigantic product placement ad for Google," that it was needlessly crude (Note to parents, I get why the film is rated PG-13 as if it were rated R it'd be a relatively "mild one."  Still, having seen the film a second time, I would agree that there are scenes in the film that are needlessly crude) and that a fair amount of the scenes in the film were "stupid."   Hello, this is a fast-talking screwball comedy, of course there are scenes that are going to be over the top "stupid."  If there weren't, I'd want my money back.

Indeed, I found the heartfelt "I got nothin', but I'm gonna try anyway" attitude of the film's lead characters Billy McMahon (played by Vince Vaugn) and Nick Campbell (played by Owen Wilson) two long-time salesmen, partners, approaching 50 who suddenly find themselves unemployed positively inspiring.

We meet the two just before reality hits them like a 2x4 right between the eyes.  They're sales reps for a -- okay they should have seen this coming -- always probably kinda shifty "luxury watch distributor."  They're trying to schmooze one of their biggest clients at at an expensive restaurant, only to be told by the client himself, that their own company, the watch distributor, had gone out of business.  Why?  Well, as their former boss (owner) of the now defunct "luxury watch distribution business" (played by John Goodman) who ran his business out of a trailer in an industrial park located somewhere, okay let's say "Encino, CA" in Southern California broke the news to them: "Who buys a watch anymore?"  "Lots of people."  "Who?  Everybody uses their smartphone for that now."  "Okay, maybe some young hotshots use cellphones for that now, but most people still use watches."  "Edna, my 70 year old secretary, what time is it?"  Edna, pulling an iPhone out of her purse, responding, "It's 10:35."  Point made...

So now our two approaching 50 something heroes are out of work.  After spending the night "googling" for jobs on the internet, even at one point running a search for "Jobs for people with no skills" ... Billy hits upon the crazy, "out of the box" idea: "Why not try to get a job working for Google itself?" ;-).

And once Billy gets that brainstorm, sure enough, he's up and running again.  With a few keystrokes, he finds out that there's a internship program (unpaid to be sure) ... but an interview proved not too hard to arrange.  The only thing is that the interview would be done "online."  He doesn't have a webcam.  No problem, he arranges it so that he and his former partner Nick do the interview AT A LOCAL PUBLIC LIBRARY chasing away 4th graders from the computer as they do it ... with some bemused but intrigued 20-something interviewers from Google.   If nothing else, Billy and Nick prove to be folks who "think outside the box..." ;-).  Indeed, their age and their _obvious lack of computer programming skills_ actually prove to be pluses to the recruiters at Google because they represent "a new kind of diversity" ;-).  And let's face it, since the gig's _unpaid_ Google risks nothing by inviting them into their internship program.

Much, of course, ensues ... and honestly, I found myself repeatedly in awe, at the gentleness and positiveness of the film's message.  Initially Billy and Nick seem to be "pastel colored fish completely out of water" on bright primary colored campus filled with other interns and even Google supervisors everyone of whom could have been one their kids.  What could these two late 40-something, pushing-on-50 salesmen who've been hustling all their entire lives for their keep offer these young supremely competent techies?  Well it's actually obvious: life experience, optimism and yes, thinking on one's feet and never ever giving-up.  Finally, Billy and Nick were "real world people," reminding everyone by their mere presence that "an app is only good if people want to / can... use it."  So they proved surprisingly good "team members" to techies who knew how to code but could use help elsewhere.

Is the film rather unrealistic?  Is it, indeed, kinda corny?  YES.  But it is also, IMHO, honestly very very funny.  And in as much as Google and the other top tech companies actually do try to think "outside the box" in this way (like taking  taking a chance two recently unemployed middle-aged salesmen with no computer programing experience and include them in their "internship program") I can see why they'd be at the top of the game.  Interns cost Google, et al, little and if they prove that they can produce something intangible previously missed by the organization, from Google/et al's  perspective, why not?  And it offers those trying to enter the job market as well as those sidelined by unemployment a chance to prove themselves (or prove themselves again). 

And yes, there are plenty of dangers in the shifting of the economy in the direction of leaning more and more on the labor of essentially unpaid interns.  The Nick character in this film is actually rather correct when he initially calls internship program presented in the film essentially a "techie Hunger Games [2012]."

Still with a youth unemployment rate stuck in the twenty percentiles and large amount of long-term unemployed among those in their 40s and 50s, from the perspective of the unemployed/underemployed taking chances, thinking outside the box and remaining optimistic in face of much evidence to the contrary is honestly pretty solid advice.

And in hard times, a good laugh doesn't hurt either.  Again Abbott and Costello [IMDb] would understand ;-).

Finally, I've focused above on the story and the performances of Vince Vaugn and Owen Wilson.  However, a performances of the younger "googlers" (those already working for google) and "nooglers" (the interns ;-) were also very, very funny including the performances of: 

Aasif Mandvi playing Chetti (the one responsible for the internship program and chooses to run it with all the intensity and often laugh-out-loud "straight man" humorlessness of the "drill sergeant" of the Officer and a Gentleman [1982]) vein;

Rose Byrne playing Dana (the attractive and super-competent 30-something google manager who becomes the love interest for Nick (Owen Wilson's character). She's great at her job but at the cost of a lot of life experience.  At first, she doesn't give Nick the time of day but he catches her attention when he promises her "10 years of bad date experience in just one evening" ;-) -- and then effortlessly (and always with a smile) delivers ;-).  Honestly, the dinner is one of the funniest scenes in the film: Nick, flirts with with the waitress (asking and getting her phone number ;-), admonishes Dana on "her weight" (weight? she could be a supermodel ;-) taking the opportunity to steal both her desert and her wine (telling her then, "They're divine..." ;-), and finally hands Dana the check.  "Wow, that must be at least 5 years of bad dates right there!"  "Hey, I'm just getting started" ;-);

Josh Brener playing Lyle (the also ever optimistic but really nerdy google manager who comes to be responsible for the team of misfits that Vince Vaugn's and Owen Wilson's characters inevitably get placed on as none of the other, much younger interns wanted to be placed on a team "with two dinosaurs;" 

And finally Billy and Nick's team misfit team members themselves: Stewart (played by Dylan O'Brien) who spends the first half of the movie surfing on his smart-phone convinced that everything is going to end up badly anyway; Yo-yo Santos (played by Tobit Raphael) a home schooled computer prodigy whose mother played a way more important role in his life than she ever should have ("Were you beaten up a lot in school?"  "I was home schooled by my mother," "Were you beaten up a lot by your mother in home school?" ;-) and punished himself by plucking at his eyebrows when he was bad; and the ever cheerful, in theory "worldly" Neha (played by Tiya Sircar), but also one who thus far spent a lot more time looking at what was playing on a computer screen than what was playing/going-on in the real world.  It becomes obvious then, how Billy and Nick could come to contribute "to the team" and how a team like this could (despite initial reservations) actually come together and even succeed.

So all in all, a pretty good film ;-)


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The Purge [2013]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  RE.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Abrams) review
AVClub.com (I. Vishnevetsky) review

The Purge [2013] (written and directed by James DeMonaco) is a "SciFi-ish" and certainly dystopian film about a United States of the "near future" (of the 2020s), which has decided that it has so many problems with violence and perhaps even providing social services for those in need that it has decided to allow for an annual 12-hour "Purge" in which crime in any and all its forms is "decriminalized" and all emergency services are suspended.  This allows for essentially an annual 12-hour "human hunting season" that its proponents say "allows people to vent their naturally violent instincts" and more practically "culls the herd" a bit, allowing for a more easily manageable remaining 364.5 days of the year.

Yes, the premise of the film is appalling, but that is, of course, the point: Can humanity as a whole or human beings as individuals indulge in truly "anything goes" for a short almost "medically prescribed" period and then somehow "return to normal" again after that?  The film then offers a "thought experiment" in which this 12-hour Purge scenario is allowed to play out.

The focus of the film is on one upper-middle class nuclear family living in a nice, ahem... "gated community" and is made up of Ma, Pa, and two teenage kids (played by Lena Headey, Ethan Hawke, Adelaide Kane and Max Burkholder respectively).  Living in said, eminently secure environment, the family is rather unaffected by the way American society has changed from even today to the film's "early 2020s."  The family's successfully "adapted" to the demands of the times.  Indeed, arguably through a purely pragmatic reading of the "Signs of the Times," the family has arguably "made a killing" ;-).  While never actually partaking the "annual hunt," Pa's become a very successful salesman of, you guessed it, "home security equipment."

However, "success" in such a utterly Darwinistic world carries with it its own dangers.  We're given a rather obvious hint of this as Ma, returning from the store (to make sure that the family has all that it needs at home for the coming 12-hours of annual mayhem) talks to a neighbor (played by Arija Bareikis) and is reminded by said neighbor that she and the other neighbors in their lovely/tranquil gated community "could not help but notice the LARGE / beautiful addition" that they've been able to make to their home "after selling the rest of us all that security equipment."  So in the world of the film, even "success" can carry with it new dangers.

Much of course ensues.  There is, of course, much to dislike in this film (which again, is, of course, its point). Some viewers will perhaps notice that the film plays out actually much like a "Zombie film" only there is no physical virus or otherwise medical excuse to blame a large part of the population to have turned, if "only for 12 hours," into murderous monsters.  At the film's base is actually a rather emphatic (and arguably anti-Freudian) statement: Civilization depends on restraining our baser, animalistic instincts rather than indulging them.

Finally a note to Parents: I do believe that the film is appropriately R-rated.  While the film is basically a "zombie invasion movie" without any zombifying virus offered as its cause (any hence not any worse / more violent than other such "zombie" movies), nevertheless the film has some fairly violent scenes of mayhem that parents ought to consider before deciding whether they'd want their teens to see such a film.  The PG-13 rating doesn't require parental consent, R does ... And I do think that the violent scenes in the film are such that parental discussion with their teens prior to giving them permission to see the movie (or denying permission as the parent may wish) is appropriate.


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We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks [2013]

MPAA (R)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks [2013] (directed by Alex Gibney) is a somewhat uneven, though given the circumstances IMHO a rather admirable documentary about perhaps the most controversial website to have thusfar existed - wikileaks.org.

I confess that I've had a lifelong preference for openness.  Back in 1989, I was one of the primary instigators in the creation of the USENET newsgroup "soc.rights.human" which had a similar mission in the pre-World-Wide-Web days: Anyone from anywhere who wanted to post anything about a possible human rights violation could do so there.

The idea wasn't completely original.  I had been inspired to propose the creation of this USENET newsgroup after following what was being posted by Chinese students in the U.S. and Western Europe on the already existing USENET newsgroup soc.culture.china.  Being a son of Czech immigrants and named after an uncle who had been jailed by the Communists in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s, I proposed to the USENET community (then basically computer programmers and computer sci majors working at universities and other research institution across the western world) that a generalized USENET newsgroup entitled soc.rights.human be created so that all people concerned about human rights in various parts of the world would have a place to news about human rights abuses.  And so it was, after following the USENET procedures for creating a newsgroup (there had to be at least 100 people on the USENET in favor of creating the group and, in fact, there needed to be 100 people more in favor of creating the group than there were opposed to it).  After making the appropriate appeals over a couple of months, tabulating the votes and followed by a couple of days of embarrassed inaction by the good people at CERN who were back then responsible for creating such groups for the USENET ... voila' soc.rights.human (or s.r.h. for short) came online about October, 1989 -- just before the Fall of the Berlin Wall ;-) 

The one thing that s.r.h. could not offer was absolute anonymity (though there were various nominally anonymous posting services available at the time ... and back then it seemed easier to create a more or less random/anonymous e-mail address).  On the other hand, soc.rights.human was truly "open source."  There were no "gatekeepers" (no moderators in USENET-speak) hence no problematic figures like wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Today, soc.rights.human is buried among thousands upon thousands of other USENET newsgroups and conspiracy theorists of all stripes have more or less taken the group over.  So today the signal to noise ratio is very, very low indeed.  (Though having checked the group just now, there are serious postings about human rights controversies in Burma and Nepal/Tibet as well as Israel/Palestine on soc.rights.human. as well.  It's not all "scientology," "the feds are brainwashing us via radiowaves" etc... That there are still a fair amount legitimate postings about human rights issues being made onto the group is kinda nice to see ;-)

However, the truly heady time for s.r.h. was in the months and years immediately after its founding, between the Fall of 1989 (when the Berlin Wall came down) and the Summer of 1991 (when the last-ditch Soviet Coup occurred).  One of the proudest moments of my life (again, I was one of the original founders of s.r.h.) was when in the midst of the Soviet Coup, while I was still a grad student at U.S.C. in Los Angeles, I telephoned the L.A. office of Amnesty International to ask them if they knew about all that was being posted on s.r.h. at the time (computer programmers from all over Soviet Union had figured out how to post on s.r.h. and were posting more or less real-time news about what was happening all over the Soviet Union on the group).  The person on the phone responded, "Oh sure we know about s.r.h.  We're reading the same posts right here in our office."

Since then I've more or less assumed that s.r.h. has outlived its purpose (though I mention above, perhaps not ;-).  In any case, I would recommend to anyone reading this article who's concerned about human rights issues or has information about human rights abuses to try to report human rights violations directly to Amnesty International (amnesty.org or even send them along (on an appropriately secure/anonymous cell phone....) on twitter with the appropriate #, like #Syria ...).  Still if s.r.h. remains useful to you (and it may honestly be!), please use that means as well.

Given that quite reputable organizations like Amnesty International exist and they are now generally computer savvy, I don't necessarily understand the need today for a separate organization called "wikileaks."  Yes, wikileaks promised to be a more generalized site for "whistle blowers" and did promise absolute anonymity.  However, to be honest, even at its best, wikileaks could offer no more than what a reputable organization (like Amnesty International) or a reputable investigative periodical could offer (like The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel on which wikileaks ended up depending anyway...).  And at its "less than best," wikileaks became the inevitable target of the Goliaths of this world, who IMHO have just eaten Assange's tiny organization for lunch.

So then the current documentary We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks [2013], while also generally sympathetic, chronicles the rise and the inevitable demise of wikileaks (or at least wikileaks1.0) And honestly folks, if there is to be a wikileaks 2.0, then please "reach out" to an organization like Amnesty International.  This is because the "universal whistle-blower" cause that wikileaks has tried to embark on doesn't really need hackers (except perhaps as actual whistle-blowers).  Instead, the cause needs LAWYERS (to protect the whistle-blowers) and that's what Amnesty International (which was FOUNDED BY concerned/activist LAWYERS) can provide.

Okay, what then about the rise and demise of wikileaks?  Well, the documentary presents wikileaks founder Julain Assange as an activist computer hacker from Australia.  The beginning of the documentary suggests that he (or a group affiliated with him) may have put a computer worm into the American Space Shuttle's computers to protest the highly controversial launch of the plutonium powered Galileo space probe.  The launch went fine and the Galileo space probe subsequently flew on to orbit and study Jupiter.  However, the concern was that if the launch itself went badly (and remember the Space Shuttle Challenger did explode and disintegrate on launch) then a fair amount of Florida and even the eastern seaboard of the United States could have been contaminated by "plutonium raining down from the sky" as a result of the disintegration of the Galileo space probe as well.

It was out of this hacker-activist background then that Julian Assange arose to found wikileaks, promising absolute anonymity to whistle-blowers of all kinds.  The documentary then points out that wikileaks did have initial success, exposing corruption and bad dealings within Iceland's banking system after Iceland's banks had suddenly collapsed near the beginning of the 2008 world-wide financial crisis.  It was at this time that Assange was becoming something of an international "rock star" and especially in Scandinavia for his site's success in exposing that corruption existing in Iceland.

This, of course, became "small potatoes" to what perhaps inevitably came next: A troubled American PFC named Bradley Manning, who somehow managed to get through basic training but was then deemed unfit to serve in a combat unit and so was assigned as an "intelligence analyst" at an utterly non-descript base outside of Baghdad began to freak-out as he was reading U.S. intelligence cables that he had access to.  Having been something of a "computer geek" in High School back in Oklahoma, Manning gravitated to the hacker-created wikileaks whistle-blowing site.  Eventually, he passed a staggering number of classified files (over 700,000 of them including some 200,000 U.S. State Department cables) on a stick-drive or two, to wikileaks.

It would seem that even Assange was staggered by the sheer number of files that were handed to his fledgling organization by Manning.  As a result, he did act with some responsibility.  He reached-out to The Guardian, NY Times and Der Spiegel).  The documentary claims that he even reached out to the U.S. Defense Department asking for help to try to clean the documents of sensitive names, etc, prior to their publication on wikileaks.  The U.S. Defense Department chose (perhaps understandably ... after all the whole episode was enormously embarrassing to the institution) to refuse.   What did happen with each of several "file dumps" onto wikileaks (after assistance of the three mentioned periodicals) was a coordinated media counter assault by the U.S. government on the person/reputation of Julian Assange.  He was portrayed as as an unhinged and rather scary freak.  (The documentary notes that the NY Times, et al were easily as complicit as Assange and wikileaks in releasing the various documents.  However, the U.S. government appeared to choose to target Assange)

It turns out that Assange had some skeletons in his closet, notably accusations by two women in Sweden of sexual impropriety from back in the days of his almost "rock-star-like" popularity in Scandinavia.  Ball-players and Rock-stars get into this kind of trouble all the time (no doubt in good part due to the corrosive effects on good judgement of the adulation they find themselves receiving - treated like "Gods" they start to think that they _are_ "Gods").   However, whereas ball-players and rock-stars making poor decisions generally pay for them monetarily and occasionally with jail time, Assange has found himself in a whole different level of trouble.   There are some really pissed off folks at the U.S. State and Defense Departments ...

So Assange perhaps finds himself correct in becoming "paranoid."  He's currently hold-up at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Ecuador's government, often corrupt itself, having given him asylum in this way.  The coup de grace in his paranoia appears to have been that he tried to force the other volunteers and employees at wikileaks to sign a legally binding non-disclosure agreement ;-).  Gee, if the founder of wikileaks, found good reason to require his employees and volunteers to sign "non-disclosure agreements" perhaps the good folks at the U.S. State Department and Armed Forces would have good reason sanction "leaking" classified information as well ...

 This then appears to be the fundamental thesis of the documentary: Assange, cocky-idealist though he may have been and Bradley Manning, troubled as he appears to have been, were simply and utterly "out of their league," when suddenly faced with a file dump of 700,000+ of classified American documents.

As the documentary's best interviewee, Gen. Michael Hayden, former head of both the CIA and NSA noted: diplomacy is impossible without some concessions made for secrecy.  How much?  That becomes debatable.  But at least some secrecy in diplomatic communications, for instance, is absolutely necessary.  With regard to Manning, he noted that in the 200 year history of the U.S. military there have been "some really stupid PFCs."  It just happened to be that Manning found himself with post-9/11era access to millions of classified documents that previously would not have been available to him.  "Prior to 9/11 access to classified documents was made on a 'need to know' basis.  After 9/11 [in hopes of fostering better communications between intelligence agencies allowing them to better 'connect the dots'] virtually all documents of a given classification level were available to all intelligence personel with that classification level ..."  And with regards to Assange, Gen Hayden maintained that he's no more or less guilty (or only marginally more guilty) in this matter than the editor of the New York Times.

And so there it is: a tiny organization of anarchist leaning computer hackers found itself wildly "out of its depth" when faced with that enormous dump of 700,000+ classified American documents.  And even the U.S. government has found itself wildly embarrassed by a not-altogether-thought-through post-9/11 decision regarding classified material ...

We live in "interesting" indeed sometimes quite scary times ...


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Before Midnight [2013]

MPAA (R)  RE.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (A)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
RE.com (P. Villaça) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Before Midnight [2013] (directed and cowritten by Richard Linklater along with the film's costars Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpi, characters by Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan) is the third installment (once every nine years) of a lovely (though also honest) romance/soap that allows viewers to follow the lives of two people, one an American named Jesse (played by Ethan Hawke) the other a French woman (at least in part of Hungarian ancestry) named Celine (played by Julie Delpi).

In the first installment named Before Sunrise [1995], the two met as young 20-somethings (as college students / recent graduates) on the train between Budapest and Vienna during the summer of presumably 1994 or 95.  Jesse was flying back to the States out of Vienna the next day, Celine was heading back to her studies at the Sorbonne in Paris after having visited her grandmother in Hungary.  Having made acquaintance in the train and then chatted away together quite happily in the meal-car for a good portion of the trip, when they arrive at the train station in Vienna Jesse takes a chance (young guys reading this take note, life rewards the brave ... ;-) and asking Celine if she'd like to get off the train and spend the evening walking around Vienna with him.  Since her passage to Paris was valid on any train and since their conversation had been fun, she agrees and they have truly a magical evening together, walking around, eating, drinking, and yes ... having sex together (outdoors in a park after finishing bottle of red wine, now lying at their side) at the end.  The next morning, saying goodbye on a platform at the Vienna train station, they choose not to exchange addresses/e-mails etc (because that would be "boring" and lead to eventual dissipation of magic of their time together) but promise that they'd meet six months hence (in December) on the same day and same time at the same spot at the Vienna train station to continue their time together.  And if it doesn't work out, well ... at least they had shared that previous night.

The second installment named Before Sunset [2004] takes place nine years later, in Paris.  Jesse's become a writer since and is on a book tour peddling his book about ... you guessed it, the magical night that the book's protagonist had spent with a young Parisian woman who he had met on a train traveling between Budapest and Vienna nine years before, with the two ending their night together with the promise of meeting at the same place at the same time six months hence.  And guess who shows up at the book signing ... Celine.  They strike-up a conversation and since Jesse had a couple of hours before he had to head to the airport to fly back to New York, they spend the afternoon chatting as they walk through the streets and cafes of Paris.

But it's been nine years.  So that's a lot of water under the Danube, Seine or Hudson.  Jesse's now a writer, Celine an activist of some sort working for a Paris-based NGO.  More to the point, the two didn't meet back in Vienna six months after their encounter in the summer of '94.  It turns out that Jesse had actually borrowed money from his dad and flown out there but Celine was actually at the funeral of her Hungarian grandmother (in Budapest, nearby but obviously not near enough...) on that very day at that very time.  Sigh ... This then sets up the rest of the story.  Let's face it, it's been 9 years.  So Jesse's married, with a 5 year old kid.  His wife is his old college girlfriend, with whom he went out, broke-up with, went out again, eventually got her pregnant ... and they got married. (Yes, this is something of a plot device to make the rest of this chapter of the story possible).  Celine for her part, has had several boyfriends, but nothing ever really stuck.  Her current boyfriend, a photojournalist, is attractive in good part because he's generally away (He provides her with the opportunity of telling others that she has a boyfriend without him actually being around).  But here they are, nine years after that magical night together Vienna, both having remembered that night quite fondly, he in a "second choice" marriage (but a marriage _with a kid_ nonetheless), she having had a number of blaise' relationships with nothing really sticking... and they're IN PARIS ...

So they walk around.  He keeps pushing back the time that he really needs to start heading to the airport.  They stop at her apartment.  He asks her to play "one of the stupid songs" that she's says she's written for the guitar.  She does.  It's lovely.  But then she says, "You know who I really like is an American jazz singer who sings out here in Paris..."  She proceeds to do a nice, sultry imitation of the American jazz singer's voice ... and finally, looking at the enraptured Jesse staring at her, brings this second chapter of their story to its end saying, "I have a feeling, you're not going to get on that plane ..."

Chapter three is the current film, Before Midnight [2013].  It's again nine years later and to film-makers/actors credit, the film begins squarely acknowledging the consequences resulting from the way the previous film had ended: This third film begins at an airport in Greece.  Jesse is putting his 14 year old son by his first wife, Hank (played by Seamus Davey Fitzpatrick), on the plane to fly back home to his mother in Chicago.  Hank had been able to spend two weeks with Jesse, Celine and their twin nine year old daughters Ella and Nina (played by Jennifer and Charlotte Prior respectively) on their vacation in Greece, but then had to go back.  For the sake of his kid (and perhaps out of respect for the pain that he had caused his wife by leaving her for Celine), Jesse's being kind in his words about his ex to his son.  But the son who is also being both kind and matter-of-fact as a fourteen year old from a broken marriage who nevertheless loves both of his parents would be ... reminds Jesse in the conversation that they have in front of the security check-point prior to Hank having to go to the gate to depart for Chicago of the obvious ... Jesse's ex-wife just hates him (to this day) for what he did to her and their son.

We're later reminded (and actually repeatedly...) by Celine of what she thought of Jesse's first wife and the hell that she had put them through during and after the divorce.  Apparently, Jesse's ex-wife had really taken him to the cleaners (well he did dump her for Celine...) and even if they had stayed in the States, which they did not, Jesse would have gotten only twice a month visitation rights (and two weeks in the summer) with Hank.  Then Celine got pregnant with the twins and wanted to go back to France to be near her mother through the pregnancy.  So the twins were born there and, voila' that's where they stayed afterwards.

So after dropping Hank off at the airport (and knowing that the 14-year-old was going to have to make at least one connection somewhere before getting on a flight that would take him the rest of the way back to Chicago), on the drive back to the nice vacation villa that Jesse-Celine, et al were sharing with friends on the Grecian coast, Jesse articulates partly (but partly not so partly...) in a rhetorical sense a desire to find some way to see more of his son again: "He's 14, he's just starting high school.  In four years he'll be done and that whole part of his life will be over.  And you don't get those years back..."

But Celine, who's been working all these years in various NGOs and had just been offered a non-inconsequential managerial job in a French governmental relief organization, makes it clear that she's about to give that opportunity up to go to ... "Chicago" ;-).

[Folks I write out of Chicago, and while Chicago isn't America's Paris, one could think of Chicago as America's Prague.  It is a beautiful city, the architectural capital of the United States.  It is a significant player in the art community.  Until recently largest annual art expo in the United States and even the Western hemisphere (with hundreds of galleries from all over the world represented) was held here (and may again return).  When it comes to performing arts, the two most significant film critics in the United States (Siskel and Ebert) wrote out Chicago, this is where Broadway tests its theatrical productions prior to putting them on in New York, and generations now of SNL comedians began here at Chicago's Second City Comedy Club.  Finally, while I do understand that it was "Rio de Janeiro's time" for the Olympics, by dissing Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics, the Prada/Christian Dior wearing both titled and entitled Mafia that runs the IOC (it's kinda amusing for Americans to realize that Chicago's Mayor Daley may have been too much of a "boy scout" when it came with his dealings with the IOC.  Even the Mormons of Salt Lake City knew better who they were dealing with ;-) did the world's tourists a huge disfavor by dissing us.  Our beaches along Lake Michigan (an inland FRESHWATER SEA) alone are an experience to behold: No icky salt to stick to your designer bikinis here folks.  And the water, in summer never as cold as the Pacific Ocean off the coast of LA, by August is ... just divine ;-)  Anyway, Celine you could do much worse than Chicago ... and who exactly do those NGO's that you've been working for seek to "help?" And do the people you "help" realize that you think of them as living in "hell holes?"]

Be all this as it may, Celine really doesn't want to go back to the "Chicago" of her imagination.  And so there it is.  And Celine even warns Jesse near the beginning of the film after he expressed his sighing desire that he'd like to find some way to spend more time with his son during the next few years, telling him: "This is how couples begin to break up.  Grudging compromises are made, resentments build ..."

And so the rest of the movie revolves around the question: "Can this relationship last?"  It began magically, was consummated (for real) rather scandalously and not without consequences.  Now can it last?  The dialogue often quite pained / angry is again, like in the previous two films, excellent.  It all makes for one heck of a film for folks in their forties...

How does it turn out?  Well go see the film ... ;-)


As a final note, what then would "The Church" say about this story?  After all, there are several more or less obvious "transgressions" in the couple's now three part story, some rather "gleefully" made...

Well anyone who's been in Pastoral ministry for any length of time would know that most, if not all couples, young and old, "have their stories."  And part of those stories are all kinds of disappointments and betrayals.  The question becomes, what do we do with them?  Do we dwell on the pain?

I also admit here that I find myself sympathizing more with Jesse more than Celine in this film.  Yes, it's probably partly because "I'm a man," perhaps even in part because I'm "a functionary with 'some power' in a Patriarchical Institution that clothes itself in the Blessing/Power of God."

But I have to admit that Celine's repeated comments about 'Chicago' (see above) kinda pissed me off ... and may reflect a kind of expectation of entitlement -- "I'm a Parisian.  Granted I'm the daughter of at least one Hungarian immigrant [Note that I who write this review am the Chicago-born child of two Czech immigrants and also had a beloved grandmother living in Prague who we used to visit as well as other relatives in the C.R. who we continue to be in relationship with ... and yes, thanks to the fall of the Berlin Wall and Central Europe's subsequent economic rise, sometimes our Czech relatives come here now, yes even to 'Chicago,' even as we continue to go there to Prague as we can...] but I (Celine) grew-up in 'Paris' and therefore I deserve to live in the elitist aura of said Paris even as I insist on striving for and holding important positions in organizations, both governmental and non, seeking to help poor sops living in 'Third World hell holes...'" -- That in my experience is both unrealistic and arguably misguided.  I personally would not want to be "helped" by people who did not respect me ... But honestly, as I write this, Celine's "arrogance" can also be seen as simply "part of the script ..." (In the other films, she's IMHO a far more sympathetic character).

Anyway, with or without God (and I continue to be convinced that life is much easier _with_ God than _without_ ...) all couples and indeed all people have to sort our their priorities.  And one would imagine that a couple with the means that Jesse and Celine clearly had could find a solution to their problem: "Chicago" or "Celine's dream job."  Off the top of my head ... Jesse a writer who traveled on book tours no doubt would be traveling from Paris to publishers in New York with some frequency (and Chicago is $250 and 2 hours by air from New York ...).  Further as a metropolis of 8-10 million, the third largest in the U.S. behind only New York and Los Angeles, as elsewhere largely college educated, there are actually "a book store or two" in Chicago to visit (on said book tours) and even a University or two (U of Chicago [!], Northwestern, even UIC as well as the Catholic universities of De Paul and Loyola at Chicago) as well.  So Jesse could probably find a way to "drop by" to visit his son a few times a year, even as Celine and their daughters lived on happily in Paris completely free (if they insisted...)  from the possibility that they could _also_ become fans of "da Bears" and "da Bulls" by virtue of having a half-brother/step-son living in the States... ;-) Where there's good will, a lot can be done, where there is not, all becomes really, really painful and hard ...

In any case though, even if at times this film is hard to watch due to the arguing ... the issues are real and certainly thought provoking that most couples by the time they reach their 30s or 40s would understand.  Good if at times painful job! ;-)


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