One Way Ticket to the Moon (orig. Bilet na Księżyc) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Filmweb.pl listing*

Dziennik.pl [P. Czerkawski] review*
Film.onet.pl (D. Romanowska) review*
Film.org.pl (K. Połaski) review*
Film.wp.pl (K. Kasperska) review*
KulisyKultury.pl (K. Łukaszewicz) review*

Hollywood Reporter [N. Young] review

It's 1969 and the "Summer of Love" in One Way Ticket to the Moon (orig. Bilet na Księżyc) [2013] [IMDb] [FW.pl]* (written and directed by Jacek Bromski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) in this often hilarious and inevitably poignant/sad take on Poland's "Summer of '69," seeking to apply a couple of America's counter-cultural classics, Hair [wikip-1968-stagemusical] [wikip-1979 film] [IMDb] and Easy Rider [1969] [IMDb], to Polish Communist-era realities of the time. (The film played recently at the 26th Annual (2014) Polish Film Festival in America held here in Chicago).

And indeed much is "going on."  The Communist Regime has the whole, then NOTORIOUSLY DULL GRAY COUNTRY all decked out in the ALMOST IMPOSSIBLY CHEERFUL "RED AND WHITE" of Poland's national colors, earnestly trying to "generate excitement" about celebrating the upcoming "25th Anniversary of the Founding of the Polish People's Republic," even as every one of its news items on State (Controlled) radio seems to undermine the earnest, studied, faux/forced optimistic Party Line: Early in the film, we hear "State Radio" LEADING its "morning news" with an item announcing that the "Minister of Agriculture" had visited a "cord factory" and "proudly proclaimed" that "there will certainly be enough rope to bind this year's harvest."   Ring the bells folks!  The Party assures us that at least this _ridiculously_ basic need is something that we don't have to worry about (or should we actually?  Why would something so absurdly basic be mentioned on the news at all...?)

Indeed, the Regime faces a real challenge in 'generating excitement' about "25 years of drabness and disappointment" -- Everyone in the story is painfully aware of Poland's painfully embarrassing bad economic story.   "Okay, we lag behind the East Germans, that's 'no surprise,' but why is it that even the Czechoslovaks and the Hungarians are beating our ...?" asks one of character.  Another responds, "Well you know, we Poles have become a nation of schemers.  An East German foreman tells one of his East German workers to come over and tighten a screw.  And he does, come over, and ... tightens the screw.  A Polish foreman tells one of his Polish workers to come over and tighten a screw.  And he comes over and spends a half an hour looking-over the screw, from all angles, scheming to find a way to appear to tighten it without actually doing so.  So EVERYTHING takes a long time, and ... at the end of the day, NOTHING gets done anyway."  (Readers note simply here that this Communist Era Polish reputation for "scheming" was HONESTLY, AN ARTIFACT OF THAT UNNATURAL TIME.  Poland was NOT free but rather a captive "satellite" of the Soviet Union.  In contrast, outside of Poland, both here in the United States and across all of Western Europe, Poles have had a near UNIVERSAL REPUTATION of both HARD WORK and PRIDE IN THAT WORK.  It's honestly hard to imagine the Catholic Church in the United States without the legacy of the extreme generosity of both Polish labor and Polish money, often contributed first by _dirt poor_ immigrants and later by their descendants).

But beyond that, the Regime's Party spin doctors have another problem on their hands:  The whole world, including Poland, seems to be focused on the seminal event about to occur ... America's soon to be launched Apollo 11 and its promised landing on the moon.  The Regime is stuck trying to explain(away) why it's the Americans who are going to be walking on the moon first, and not the Regime's Soviet Communist "big brothers."  Play on that summer's primary focus -- the Apollo ii moon landing -- inspires, of course, this film's title.

But all these "grand" concerns aside -- the upcoming celebration of  Communist Poland's "25 years of mediocrity and failure" or the Apollo moon landings -- 1969 was the summer in which the film's central protagonist Adam Sikora (played by Filip Pławiak [IMDb] [FW.pl]*), having graduated that spring from high school, was ... drafted into the military.

And so the film begins with Adam, having finished his early morning milk deliveries rushing off to the local draft board, where, in its "infinite wisdom" it assigns him, who's lived all his life in a little hamlet in the mountains of the southeastern Poland ... TO THE NAVY and to report "two weeks hence" to a Polish naval base in the northwestern (Baltic Coast) corner of the country.

How long's the assignment? ... three years.  Well that's gonna ... SUCK, given that he has his first, sort-of, girlfriend, Danusia (played with perfectly-calibrated 15-to-16-year-old earnestness by Kaja Walden [IMBb] [FW.pl]*) in his home village, in said SOUTH EASTERN CORNER OF THE COUNTRY.  So he goes over to the shop where she's working that summer to break the news.  He then asks her: "Will you wait for me?"  In perfectly calibrated SHOCK of a 15-to-16-year-old BEING ASKED THIS QUESTION FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME, she answers: "NO!"  Crestfallen, 18-year-old Adam asks "Why?"  "I'm 15-going-on-16 years old, I can't even imagine THREE YEARS FROM NOW." And so it is, shell-shocked Adam realizes that he's probably being dumped for the very first time...

Adam's lack-of-experience / naivete comes to concern his older, thinking of himself as "more worldly" brother Antoni (played again wonderfully by Mateusz Kościukiewicz [IMDb] [FW.pl]*), 22 or 23, who had just finished his three year term of service in the Polish Navy (Apparently, in its infinite wisdom, the Polish People's Army had determined that the nation's "best mariners" come from the mountains of the South Eastern part of the country ;-).  So Antoni decides to accompany his younger brother to his induction in the Polish Navy, hoping to "impart his wisdom" (all the "wisdom" of a 22 or 23 year old...) on his younger brother along the way.

Thus begins an "epic" Easy Rider [1969] [IMDb]-like "road trip" from the mountains of Southeastern Poland to the Poland's Northwestern Baltic coast ... 'CEPT ... THIS IS POLAND OF 1969: Neither Antoni nor Adam have "motor-bikes" to say nothing of a car.  This "road trip" was going to take place "the Soviet-era Socialist way" ... by train, bus and occasionally hitchhiking a ride from a farmer pulling a hay-covered cart with a tractor ;-)

But let's also admit here that no matter where one is, WHEN ONE IS YOUNG, ANY TRIP LIKE THIS ... is going to be EPIC (!)  And so it is ... ;-)

The people that the two meet along the way (and their conversations with them) in this meandering trip that actually takes them longer than Apollo 11's trip to the moon (though in fairness, they did make stops along the way) are ABSOLUTELY PRICELESS.  These include: (1) their encounter/conversation with two young girls their age (coming home from a 3 month training course in "food service") that they meet on the train to Krakow; (2) a barbeque with an "old" (again 22-24 years old ...) "former Navy buddy" of Antoni's now living in the (still) southern mining town of Katowice; and (3) a priceless conversation with a thoroughly corrupt "little man" of a conductor on a "night train" to the coast (this last encounter being certainly a play-on, indeed a "send-up of" the famous Communist-era film Night Train (orig. Pociąg) [1959] that played recently again in the United States as part of the American director Martin Scrocese's Masterpieces of Polish Cinema: [MSP Website] [Culture.pl] series).

The "little man" pettily corrupt conductor tells Antoni who to talk-to / look-up to get themselves "set-up" (with both a hotel and some Communist Era hookers) when they "get to the coast."  (Again folks, think Easy Rider [1969] [IMDb]).

And let's admit it, what kind of "wisdom" would a 22-year-old "older brother" have to impart on his "more naive" younger brother, other than, well, trying to "get him laid..."?  After an aborted "first attempt," Adam, on his own, manages "to score" with an amiable, a few years older, Polish exotic dancer named Halina/Roxana (played by Anna Przybylska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) IN A SCENE THAT HONESTLY IS VERY, VERY FUNNY: There's Adam, losing his virginity, even as we hear Neil Armstrong on the TV, stepping down from his craft and announcing TO THE WHOLE WORLD: "One small step for (a) man ...." ;-)

Yet if all this SEEMS INCREDIBLY STUPID, ADOLESCENT, SOPHOMORIC, indeed HAIR [wikip-1968-stagemusical] [wikip-1979 film] [IMDb]-like in nature, JUST LIKE IN THE SUDDEN CLOSING SEQUENCE of the FILM VERSION OF HAIR [1979], the current film TAKES A SUDDEN and far more serious turn:

Adam's lying there in Halina's bed, basking in the "momentous glory" of "having gone where..." even as Neil Armstrong was first stepping onto the moon, when a drunk local police officer comes "visiting upon" Halina as well.

Adam steps-up to defend Halina's honor, and since the police officer was piss-drunk, even disarms him.  The drunk local police officer lifts up his hands, and even laughs: "Okay boy, easy, even keep the gun...  But know that tomorrow, I'm coming back for you WITH THE WHOLE LOCAL POLICE FORCE and you're a dead man."

Again, if up to this point the movie, LIKE most of the 1960s era HAIR [wikip-1968-stagemusical] [wikip-1979 film] [IMDb] was above all, just a STUPID SOPHOMORIC ROMP, SUDDENLY ADAM really _has to_ "grow up."   Indeed, he has to flee.  BUT TO WHERE???  HOW???

He does find a solution, the closing credits suggest that the story presented was actually based on a true one. Well, yes, and no.  There were Cold War cases in which Poles (as well as other Central/East Europeans from the Soviet Satellite countries) took similarly drastic measures to get across to the West.  However, the closing credits identifies Adam Sikora as the Polish born father of the German footballer "on the national team" Feliks (or Felix) Sikora.  And this is, as far as I can see, (Google, Wikipedia), this is not true.  But then let's also remember that Milos Forman's film version of Hair [wikip-1968-stagemusical] [wikip-1979 film] [IMDb] ended in a super poignant if grossly manipulative fiction as well.

What then to make of the film?  I did like it.

I had contact with and indeed visited my relatives in Communist era Czechoslovakia throughout the 1970s and 80s.  The first time I heard Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon was on my oldest cousin's stereo in Prague.  He had found a way to buy the record, black iconic "prism cover" and all, on his own over there.  On the flip-side my parents, sister and I, enjoyed the summer of the "Prague Spring" (1968) largely on the beach in Union Pier outside of Chicago largely listening to lovely Czech language covers of the Beatles, Mamas and Papas, etc.  The film version of Milan Kindera's Unbearable Lightness of Being [1988] features (a little anachronistically) Marta Kubišová's Czech language cover of Hey Jude.

So to those who would complain that this film "can not possibly portray a realistic vision of Poland in 1969," having pictures of bell-bottom jeans wearing (admittedly Czech) cousins of mine from the same time, I beg to disagree. 

Then those who'd on the other hand argue that the film unfairly lampoons Communist Era news programming, my sister, various American born cousins of mine and I (all still Czech speaking) can "rolls our eyes" almost completely around in our eye-sockets thanks to the UNBELIEVABLE STUPIDITY OF WHAT PASSED AS NEWS REPORTING COMMUNIST LANDS DURING THAT ERA.   The segment in this film about the "Agricultural Minister visiting the cord factory" (mentioned above) is ABSOLUTELY PRICELESS.  'Cause that's EXACTLY (!) how it was.

I do wish that the director did not play with the truth as much as he did at the end of the film.  But even attempts like Adam's to get across to the West were part of the historical record of the time.  There were desperate people who did have to flee places like Poland during that era.  And how could one do that, again FROM POLAND, when one was SURROUNDED by "Fraternal Brother" States?

Anyway, this film is NEITHER Citizen Kane [1941] nor Ashes and Diamonds [1958].   But it does kinda play like a Polish Easy Rider [1969] or [Hair [1979].

And so in that sense, it did a "pretty good job!"  So "rock on" director Jacek Bromski [IMDb] [FW.pl], "rock on" ;-)


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

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Jack Strong [2014]

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

IMDb listing
Filmweb.pl listing*
KinoTeatr.ru listing*

Film.onet.pl (D. Romanowska) review*
Film.org.pl (K. Połaski) review*
Newsweek.pl (H. Orzechowski) review*
Polityka.pl (Z. Pietrasik) review*
Polska Times (K. Dobroszek) review*

 
Jack Strong [2014] [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [FT.ru]* (screenplay and directed by Władysław Pasikowski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) tells the TRUE STORY of  Ryszard Kukliński [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*(played in the film by Marcin Dorociński [IMDb] [FW.pl]* ) who, working as a trusted aide for the Polish Army General Staff, became perhaps the single most important spy for NATO during the Cold War.  Passing secrets to the CIA between 1972 and 1981, Kukliński, under the code name "Jack Strong" (hence the film's name) became so important an asset that U.S. Carter Administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski (played in the film by Krzysztof Pieczyński [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) came to call him "The First Polish Officer in NATO" ;-).  The film played recently at the 26th Annual (2014) Polish Film Festival in America held here in Chicago.

So how did an officer, obviously trusted within the Polish and by extension even by the Warsaw Pact (read Soviet) military establishment (1) come to be so trusted by the said military establishment? and then (2) how did he come to be so disenchanted with said military establishment that he chose to spy (and so effectively) for "the other side"?

Well, regarding the first question, the film makes prominent note of two assignments Kukliński had early in his CV: (1) He served as a (Polish) military attache in Vietnam where, with apparently some frequency, he encountered (and back then, still competed with) the American CIA, and (2) HE APPARENTLY HELPED PLAN THE WARSAW PACT INVASION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA IN 1968 (something that is rather difficult for my Czech-descended ears to hear.  I was a 4 year old (though already born/living in Chicago) when the Soviets/Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia.  But I remember the news of the invasion _all too well_ ... as it happened on my mother's birthday ... One does not easily forget the faces of one's parents as they realized on that day that they were probably never going to be "going home.")

So then, what made him "change sides?"  Apparently, fear (and fascinatingly, not just by him, but apparently also by a significant number of the other members of the Polish General Staff) that then existent Soviet-Chinese tensions were leading the Soviet Union to plan a preemptive invasion of Western Europe, which would almost certainly result in the "Hiroshima-ization" of Poland.

So how to make contact with the West.  Well apparently Kukliński was _something of a yachtsman_, and so he and _another member_ of the Polish General Staff _sailed a yacht_ from Szczecin to a random port / hamlet on the West German coast from where he sent letters to several U.S. diplomatic missions in Germany requesting contact be made with him back in Poland.  The letters were received and contact was duly established with him at a decided-upon location (by a random "country bus-stop" somewhere outside of Warsaw).

The initial meeting included some missteps on the part of both parties:   Though they had agreed that the CIA officers meeting him would be "identifiable" because one of them "would be holding a newspaper," Kukliński noted to them that (having some experience with encountering American spies like them during his time in Vietnam) that they were so obvious that he could identify them 50-100 meters away ;-).  But the two CIA officials soon dressed him down as well: When Kukliński began his conversation with them by suggesting that he was "part of a group" of a fair number of officers at the Polish General Staff, who had been wanting to make contact with them, the CIA officials' quick response was: "We're NOT interested in making contact with a (presumably amorphous) 'group of officers.'  We're ONLY interested in making contact WITH YOU (who we see here in front of us, and who we expect will then be working with us and be then at least partly accountable to us)."  However, when the conversation eventually/inevitably turned to some sort of "compensation" for his services, the CIA officials were impressed Kukliński told them that he wanted _nothing_ from them, no money for him, NOTHING, zero, nada.  He was not motivated in this way ...

Thus began a fascinating 10 year relationship between him and the CIA (his principal "handler" played by Patrick Wilson [IMDb] [FW.pl]*).  Among the most significant documents that he passed to his handlers were _the exact locations_ of all three of the Warsaw Pact's principal command bunkers in case of war (one outside of Moscow, one in Poland and one in Bulgaria) so that NATO could destroy them "within minutes" of the beginning of hostilities between the Warsaw Pact and NATO.  (Interestingly, the only way that this information could have a deterrent effect to Moscow / Warsaw Pact would be if the Moscow / the Warsaw Pact came to know _that NATO knew_ the locations of these bunkers... ;-).  Then during the Solidarity Era [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*, he was able to _regularly leak_ various Soviet / Warsaw Pact plans of invasion of Poland should Moscow have chosen to "go it alone" rather than have "Poland itself" "take care matters at hand."

Obviously, this caused enormous frustration to the Soviet military command personified in the film by General Victor Kulikov (played in the film by Oleg Maslennikov [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[KT.ru]*) who was in fact the Commander in Chief of the Warsaw Pact  from 1977-1989.  Kulikov came to know that there was a spy within the general staffs of the Warsaw Pact, and eventually that the spy was _probably_ Polish.  But who?  (Interestingly, the film portrays Poland's General Staff as having, certainly, its "internationalist"/Communist loyalists to the mission of the Warsaw Pact, BUT BY AND LARGE, the Polish General Staff was _not_ particularly cooperative in helping the Soviets figure-out who was the spy in their midst.  On the other side of the coin,  Kukliński quickly settled into the truth that he couldn't trust anybody on the Polish General Staff either.  He was truly on his own.

Perhaps the poignant part of the story was the portrayal of Kukliński's "loneliness" in his own family.  His wife Hanna (played by Maja Ostaszewska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) came to be convinced that he was cheating on her, while his sons (played by Józef Pawłowski [IMDb] [FW.pl]* and Piotr Nerlewski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) , particularly during the Solidarity Era [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* spent much of their young adulthood largely dismissing him as a "collaborator" with the nation's hated enemy (the Soviet Union).

Of course, the Soviets and the Communist loyalists within the Polish General Staff were not stupid.  So it would seem, that it would be inevitable that they would close the ring on the "American Spy" in their midst.  Do they?  Well, that's the rest of the movie ;-)

This is one heck of a Cold War story, and except for some inevitable conflations / dramatic flourishes IT IS TRUE.  So it's one heck of a film!  Good job folks!  Good job!


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

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Intersteller [2014]

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

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

Intersteller [2014] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Christopher Nolan along with his brother Jonathan Nolan) is an IMMENSE and quite PRETENTIOUS Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster wannabe of a film apparently made in good part using "retro... and LARGE" 2001: A Space Oddysey [1968] evoking 70 mm film and then using as manipulative (that is, often, POUNDING) a soundtrack as I've witnessed in recent memory to try to "make points" that otherwise apparently would be in danger of being "missed" otherwise.

So other than that what'd ya think of the film? ;-)

Honestly, while 2001: A Space Oddysey [1968] had its "Dawning of the (New) Age of Aquarius" pretensions at least they weren't as narcissistic as those in the current film.  At the end of 2001: A Space Oddysey [1968] it was suggested that as a species (perhaps guided by a mysterious advanced intelligence) we were entering into a "new stage" of Evolution.  In the case of the current film, that "guiding advanced intelligence" was (something of a spoiler alert) US or "super-evolved" 5 dimensional versions of ourselves.  That is WE BECOME OUR OWN GODS.

Wow, I can imagine the Simpsons' Homer saying, "Wow! Pass the popcorn Marge ..."  We are our own Gods??  Even as the film also portrays us, both individually and as a species, as ... a-holes (or in more conventional speak ... more or less obvious sinners).

After all, the film begins sometime in the middle of the 21st century with the world having been largely destroyed by war.  Previous human obsession with technology and scientific advancement having been blamed for said war, the surviving society's preoccupations were with the more mundane tasks of farming and "repopulating" a world heavily damaged by that previous conflict.

Yet, how does one feed even those people who survived, if the climate's changed and farming's become dependent on only a few surviving seed crops, any / all of which could be wiped-out by the next "potato-famine-like" blight?

So apparently a small group of "former NASA scientists and engineers" taking refuge in a former Cold War era missile silo somewhere in, take one's pick, Kansas, Nebraska, perhaps the Dakotas, devise "a plan" to Save Humanity (as a species) ... They're going to look for some place FAR AWAY in some other star system where humanity can be "reseeded" and "grow" anew.

"How the heck could one go there?"  Asks Cooper (played by Matthew McConaughy) a former American test pilot, now, wings-clipped, Midwestern farmer.

"Through a wormhole ... that we've discovered by Saturn," the father and daughter team of former NASA scientist Prof. Brand (played by Michael Caine) and astrophysicist daughter Emilia (played by Anne Hatheway) explain.  That wormhole first appeared just as the conflict on earth seemed to condemn our planet.  "It's as if some higher intelligence has been looking out for us and has offered us this path for us," continues Emilia.  

We're told that in the previous few decades several (largely secret) one manned "Lazarus" missions were sent through the wormhole to its other side, and three of the worlds at which they arrived seemed potentially habitable.  The plan was now to send a new craft, piloted by, you guessed it Cooper, to make a final determination which of the three worlds would be best for humanity to "seed."

"But even if we got to there, and made this determination, how would the rest of humanity follow?"

This is probably one of the more conventionally morally questionable parts of the film.  There's a Plan A and a Plan B (and honestly, neither is particularly good).

Plan A is that under Prof. Brand's leadership, a spaceship capable of carrying 5,000 people will fly through the same wormhole to the new world to be seeded (The rest of humanity?  Well, they'd be SOL...).  Plan A would require a knowledge of gravitational (wormhole creating) propulsion that even in the mid-21st century humanity still did not have.  But Prof. Brand was confident that under his leadership, it would be developed in the (few) decades required for Cooper, et al's mission to complete.  

There was also Plan B ... Cooper's own craft would carry 5,000 fertilized human embryos (and at least one woman ... who turns out to be Prof. Brand's daughter milia).  Emilia would presumably bring to term a number of these embryos, and the rest of the crew would help raise them, and between the "new generation" and the rest of the "stockpiled embryos" they would slowly bring into the new world enough people, with enough genetic-diversity, to repopulate it.

Cooper signs onto the project but ... He has two children Tom (played as a teen by Timothée Chalamet and later as a man by Casey Affleck) and Murph (played as a girl by Mackenzie Foy later as a woman by Jessica Chastain) who're not excited that dad's gonna be away possibly for decades on a spaceflight that doesn't seem to them like a particularly good idea.  Neither is Cooper's father-in-law (played by John Lithgow) who since Cooper's wife had already died (in the war? or periodic famines since?) was going to have to raise Tom and Murph for him.  BUT "THE SPECIES' SURVIVAL" depended on it ...

SO ... soon Cooper and a crew of three others, including Dr. Emilia are launched-out of the silo on a spaceship still made out of "spare parts" from the time of "the war."  After they rendezvous with another larger orbiting craft, presumably assembled again out of past spare parts, they're off to Saturn.  THAT'S ALREADY A TWO YEAR JOURNEY (which they apparently largely sleep/hibernate through).  Once they get to Saturn, they're able to check their telecommunications with home ... and pass then (quite rapidly actually) through the "worm hole" to another part of the universe ... near to where the three previously scouted worlds exist.

Once they get to the other side of the wormhole, however, the movie really begins.: Yes, there are three worlds to scout on that "other side."  However, they are all kind of far apart, and they have limited fuel.   The "closest" potential world, and perhaps the most promising, is ALSO ORBITING A BLACK-HOLE.  Now besides making travel to there dangerous -- being sucked into a black hole would presumably mean death -- this world was orbiting the black hole with such a speed that time would "begin to change" there.  More to the point, an hour on that world would be experienced as 7 years oudside of it.  YET, that planet SEEMED TO HAVE THE BEST READINGS (lots and lots of water...)

Okay, they go down in a scout craft to that world, and find it ... covered by an not altogether deep ocean.  However, we soon find out why "the ocean" seemed "so shallow":  The tidal forces on this world were SO GREAT that the planet was apparently being traversed, arguably ORBITED by ENORMOUS TIDAL WAVES.  One of them soon hits the craft and though they somehow survive, they're stuck now on the planet "for a few hours" ... but that comes out to be TWENTY THREE YEARS when they get back to their mother craft.

In those twenty three years, of course, much happened "back on earth" ... Grampa died, and both of Cooper's children were now adults, Tom married with children, both quite angry that they haven't heard anything of their dad FOR TWENTY THREE YEARS (was he dead?  They'd almost like to assume so, but they were being assured that he may not be ...

The misadventure on the first planet leads the crew to now have to decide well about what to do with regards to visiting the remaining two worlds, and the question becomes, in any case, "How to return home?"

The film's "resolution" of this question (of how to return home) becomes the most irritating aspect of the film for me.  We're told that a "guiding intelligence" has seemed to help both humanity (and even the crew on this mission).   But what is that "guiding intelligence"?  Some sort of super-advanced civilization?  DARE ONE SAY ... GOD??  (SPOILER ALERT, though I've already mentioned it above) IT'S APPARENTLY US, OR AT LEAST A "SUPER-EVOLVED" (to 5 dimensions) version of US.  

We've somehow made ourselves ... God, even if, through the whole of the film, both individually, and as a species, we've kinda remained a-holes (more or less obvious, egotistical, self-serving sinners ...). 

Sigh, Hollywood obsession with "stardom" taken to its logical extreme?  Yuck.  And thus only a 1/2 a star (for the kinda cool tidal waves... and otherwise supposedly "not green-screened" "other worlds").


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Big Hero 6 [2014]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review  

Big Hero 6 [2014] (directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams, screenplay by Robert L. Baird, Daniel Gerson and Jordon Roberts, story by Don Hall and Jordon Roberts, based on the comic by Duncan Rouleau and Steven T. Seagal) is a "Disney family"-produced "family friendly" animated "superhero" concoction of The Incredibles [2004] vein that, while "light", even "airy" (like the story's most memorable protagonist) will probably please.  (Note that Disney Corp. now owns Pixar, Marvel Comics and has had a collaborative relationship with the famed animation Studio Ghibli overseas in Japan.  The legacies of all three of these entities figure prominently in the film). 

What then to make of an aggressively "crowd pleasing" unabashedly "marshmellow" of a film almost certainly created as much by Disney Corp's marketing people as by its animators?   To some extent, I shake my head in disbelief, but then have to say that, borrowing from Disney World's legendary comercial tag-line, this film's creators did create "The happiest (Pixarish) partly sad (Marvellish) superhero movie on earth" ;-)   And IMHO, even as I continue to shake my head, though smiling from ear-to-ear as I do so, SOMEONE LIKE ME REALLY HAS TO APPLAUD THIS.

And I write this because considering so much of the hate-inculcating (White, preferably English-accented characters Good, All others generally Bad) messaging present in so many of the children's oriented animated released by American studios in recent years [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6], this is the fluffiest, happiest alternative to this quite nasty phenomenon that I've seen since starting my blog four years ago.

For the film, set in a futuristic seaside "San Fran-(T)okyo" complete with a Golden Gate bridge with Asian pagoda-like flourishes, is about a 13-year-old "wiz-kid" named Hiro (voiced by Ryan Potter) who despite obviously being brilliant (he's already completed high school) would prefer to use his technical skills designing robots for "bot fighting" (taking place in some seedy corners of a futuristic looking San Francisco Chinatown).  His older brother Tadashi (voiced by Daniel Henney) convinces him to at least come to his "nerd school" (called the San Fran Institute of Technology) where Hiro gets to meet Tadashi's on-the-surface "nerdy" but actually quite "way cool" lab-mates.

Tadashi's lab-mates are a quite happily (and having previously "been there," - I was a PhD-student in Chemistry prior to entering the seminary - IMHO quite realistically) portrayed emphatically _multiracial_ bunch of fellow engineering students.  They include a darker-skinned, dreadlock wearing South Asian/African mix perhaps Jamaica/Trinidad-originating "laser-saw" specialist nick-named Wasabi (voiced by Damon Wayans, Jr), a more punkish/attitude carrying Asian student nicknamed "Go Go" (voiced by Jamie Chung) who's an expert on magneto-levitation, a sweet Caucasian chemistry/materials expert nicknamed Honey Lemon (voiced by Genesis Rodriguez) and a kindly skate-boarding American slacker (not even a student, but some-kind-of-a hanger-on) named Fred (voiced by T.J. Miller) who the others don't mind because he's harmless and actually comes up with "really cool ideas" / "nicknames" (like some of those above).  No one really knows where Fred's from but he does seem to "have the time to hang around" and again, he's generally fun.

Rounding out the main characters in Hiro and Tadashi's lives are "San Fran coffee-shop" operating "Aunt Cass" (voiced by Maya Rudolf) who's been looking after them since their parents (somewhat mysteriously) died, and Tadashi's Prof, the kindly Dr. Robert Callahan (voiced by James Cromwell).

Floored by the "coolness" of his older-brother's previously seeming "nerdy" friends, Hiro now wants "in" -- to join Tadashi's school -- and Dr. Callahan assures him that if he can come up with "something brilliant" for the school's annual "scientific showcase," then 13-14 or not, he'll be admitted.  So Hiro goes to work ...

While Hiro's working on his "way cool", "totally life as we know it changing" project, we get introduced to Tadashi's project as well -- AN UTTERLY NON-THREATENING INFLATABLE BALLOON SKINNED "Robotic Health Care Assistant" named Baymax (voiced by Scott Adsit) who, walking slowly and talking in a kindly, slow monotone voice, once "called up" _relentlessly_ 'takes care of' whoever he's called-up to take care of, until the person being 'taken care of' says the words: "I'm satisfied with my care," where-upon the giant, fluffy, utterly non-threatening robotic health care assistant _deflates_ and folds himself back into the nice "carrying case" in which he is to be stored until ... the next time he's called-up to take care of someone ;-).

He's a lovely, gentle, life-enhancing robotic assistant -- AND BOY COULD WE USE SEVERAL THOUSAND OF THEM TODAY, PERHAPS, TO SAFELY TREAT ALL THOSE PEOPLE SUFFERING FROM THE EBOLA OUTBREAK THESE DAYS -- but Hiro honestly doesn't know how to understand him.  After all, to Hiro, robots are for fighting, blowing things up, doing all sorts of things that are too dangerous (or violent) to use humans for... and here Baymax is _designed_ to take care of people in as non-threatening a way as possible.

Anyway, Hiro comes up with his "way cool" project, a swarm of micro-bots, which together can be used to create just about anything.  Professor Callahan is impressed and Hiro is admitted to the school.

THEN ... suddenly there's a fire at the lab.  Among those appear to die are ... Professor Callahan ... and Tadashi, who tries to save him.   Grief-stricken, Hiro now doesn't know what to do.  Engineering, doesn't seem fun to him again anymore, now that his older brother, who never hurt a fly, is dead.

YET ... there's the giant inflatable, marsh mellow-looking robotic Baymax, who's still programmed (by Hiro's older brother Tadashi) to "take care of" ... him ;-).  SO NOW THE REAL STORY CAN BEGIN ...

And as in a good "superhero-ish" "comic book-like" story, a number of things come to be revealed in the story that follows, including:  (1) who exactly is this amiable "skate boarding slacker" named Fred who just hangs around the engineering lab (there simply _had to have been_ a "back story" there ;-), and (2) who exactly was Professor Callahan and as well as his "more Evil" seeming (and perhaps Silicon Valley mogul inspired) brother going by the name of Alistair Krei (voiced by Alan Tudyk)?

Anyway, it makes for a lovely and often Pixar-like "poignant" / Marvel Comics-like "superhero" story.  And IMHO it generally works ;-)

If nothing else, honestly, this is a film that EVERYBODY can see without anybody coming to complain "Hey wait a minute, why is 'my kind' being portrayed (yet again) as a villain?" Gotta hand it to Disney, despite all the "shaking one's head" potential traps and cliches, they seem seem to have pulled this thing off.  Good job folks!  Good job! ;-)


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The Judge [2014]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (2 1/2 Star)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review  


The Judge [2014] (directed and story co-conceived by David Dobkin along with Nick Schenk screenplay by Nick Schenk and Bill Dubuque) is a Grisham-like iconic story, IMHO worthy of some serious consideration come Oscar Time, about the complex relationship between Father and Sons.

The film begins focused on Hank Palmer (played by Robert Downey, Jr) a hotshot/arrogant Chicago lawyer who's made his career helping millionaire white-collar criminals beat the rap.  "But does it bother you that you only defend the guilty?" asks a hapless State's Attorney rival.  "I defend the guilty because only the guilty can afford me," is his smart/casual reply.

Of course, the rest of Attorney Hank's life is a mess.  His wife (played by Leighton Meester) apparently got tired of him and began an affair with someone else, something that Hank's clearly been unable to get-his-head-around / forgive. Then, Hank gets a message from his hometown somewhere in southern Indiana that his mother died.  He hasn't been home in 20 years.  But it's mom who died, so ... he decides to fly home, briefly, for the funeral, no need to bring estranged/angry soon-to-be ex-wife AND 10 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER Lauren (played wonderfully throughout the film by Emma Tremblay) along...

The "homecoming" is about as one would expect for an a-hole who hasn't been home for years.  Only sweet, blessedly largely-in-his-own-world, developmentally-challenged younger brother Dale (played again wonderfully by Jeremy Strong) greets him nicely.  Older brother Glen (played by Vincent D'Onofio) notes the obvious "Gee, so you did come.  Where have you been for the last 20 years?"  Bereaved Dad (played again wonderfully by Robert Duvall) a stern but fair local judge basically ignores Hank when he arrives.  When Glen shows Hank to his old room, he finds that Dad's made it into a storage closet ... Apparently not too many "Christmas cards" had been exchanged between Hank and "the folks back home" over the years.

The question, of course, is why.  And, of course, that's the rest of the movie.

Now it turns out that bereaved and aging / no longer altogether healthy Dad comes to need his son when Dad, somewhat confused, gets involved in an accident that takes the life of a person that years before he had sentenced to prison for a notorious crime in the town when Hank was still growing-up.  But I would argue that this _device_ (of Dad and estranged son being forced to "work together") is actually "beside the point."

The real story in this film is the OBVIOUS preference of Dad for the older son Glen over the only-a-few-years-younger-son Hank (Everybody liked / felt sorry for the youngest son Dale).  MOST PARENTS WOULD FIND IT VERY HARD TO ADMIT THAT THEY PREFERRED ONE OF THEIR CHILDREN OVER ANOTHER.  IN THIS FILM, IT IS OBVIOUS that Dad preferred Glen.  And here he was a "stern and fair JUDGE" to boot.  Again, the question becomes WHY?

Fascinatingly, THERE'S AN ANSWER.  And it's an answer that IMHO does makes one think.  I myself am still uncomfortable with it.  After all, WE ALL want our parents to be impartial and love without distinction.  But the Dad's behavior here does come to make sense.  And, of course, that the Dad here is a JUDGE does play into providing an explanation as well (and on multiple levels).

I'm not going to say more here except that this film does offer some very interesting "food for thought" for "adult families" facing some real reconciliation issues. 

Yes, Robert Downey, Jr continues to play "Tony Stark" / "Iron Man" in this film.  Still I do think that he plays _more_ than "just Tony Stark" here.  And he plays his role quite well.  He's definitely NOT a hero in this film.  I also appreciate Leighton Meester's presence, however small, in this film.  Both she and Downey, Jr have some personal experience with difficult family situations and Downey, Jr certainly has experience in facing some tough personal demons.  Those experiences, IMHO, show in the film.

So good job folks, good job!


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Citizenfour [2014]

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

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Cheshire) review
AVClub (D. Ehrlich) review  

Citizenfour [2014] (directed by Laura Poitras [IMDb]) is almost the very definition a landmark documentary.  After all, for about half the film we watch former NSA contractor Edward Snowden actually being interviewed / debriefed by the American, Berlin-residing director Laura Poitras [IMDb] as well as the The Guardian's journalists, the American, Rio de Janeiro-residing Glenn Greenwald [IMDb] and British, UK-residing Ewen MacAskill [IMDb] over the span of a week to ten days in a Hong Kong hotel room.

(Indeed a part of the simultaneously fascinating and disturbing sub-text of the story is the environment in which we find ourselves living in: Here are two two of the most significant investigative reporters of our time, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald, and _both_ have come to feel more comfortable doing their investigative work _abroad_ rather than "from home").

The film begins with the director reading via voice-over the initial e-mails she received, encrypted from an anonymous source, by the name of "citizenfour" promising an unprecedented story about the mind-bending extent of the U.S. NSA's post-9/11 electronic surveillance programs. Ms. Poitras had already been working on a documentary about American intelligence's post-9/11 surveillance of dissenters.  Her project was inspired in part because in the aftermath of the release of her Bush-era documentary, My Country, My Country [2006] about post-Iraq War Iraq, she was put on a "U.S. government watch list" that made travel so hard for her to and about the U.S. that she finally decided to pack-up and move to Berlin (Berlin?  Kinda ironic / iconic, huh...?)

Some of the footage from her unfinished documentary on the monitoring of dissent in the U.S. is presented in the first half hour of the film to provide context for Snowden's subsequent disclosures.

Among the background footage shown in the first hour is a clip of then N.S.A. director Gen. Jack R. Clapper caught telling a bald-faced lie at an earlier 2013 Congressional Hearing in which he was directly asked Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR: "Does the NSA collect any data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans."  Gen. Clapper responded: "No sir.  Not wittingly.  There are perhaps cases when they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly." (The same exchange appears near the beginning (4:37-4:56) of Part II of the PBS Frontline documentary The United States of Secrets [2014] [IMDb]).  Apparently, this public lie was the final straw for Snowden, who knew far better, resulting in the exchange of e-mails between Snowden and Poitras producing the 7-10 debriefing with Snowden in Hong Kong.

The documentary, which then documents this remarkable 7-10 days of history presents both Snowden being interviewed by Greenwald, MacAskill and Poitras and then the initial reactions of both the Obama Administration and the rest of the world's press to the rolling disclosures being published first by Greenwald in The Guardian and then Barton Gelman and Laura Poitras in the Washington Post (Washington Post correspondent Barton Gelman had also been contacted in the months previous by Snowden, but preferred to remain in the States rather than go out to interview him face as did the already overseas residing Greenwald and Poitras).

The key disclosures were that of the NSA's routine monitoring of "metadata" from ALL PHONE CALLS and electronic communications via VIRTUALLY ALL major American telecommunications companies like Verizon, ATT, Sprint, etc (as reported by Greenwald and MacAskill's articles [1] [2]) and the NSA's mining via the PRISM program of VIRTUALLY ALL information stored on / passing through VIRTUALLY ALL major internet services like Facebook, Yahoo, Google, AOL, etc (as reported by Gelman and Poitras' WP article).

The shock of Snowden's disclosures centered ON THE EXTENT of the surveillance / monitoring.  Instead of "a few bad apples" being monitored, Snowden's disclosures made clear that VIRTUALLY EVERYONE'S ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION, if perhaps initially "anonymously" was being monitored by the NSA.

Note that the PBS Frontline documentary The United States of Secrets (Part II) [2014] [IMDb] noted that internet services like Google and Facebook ALREADY MINED ALL POSTINGS, EMAILS and SEARCHES for "Advertising Potential."  However, it noted that the NSA has become essentially ONE OF THEIR "CLIENTS." 

In the final analysis, the Snowden's disclosures have made it clear _to everyone_ what already most of us have suspected for a while: Our privacy is basically gone.

Talking about the film with a friend of mine afterwards, he put it this way: "We basically live today in an electronic East Germany.  We simply have to assume that EVERYTHING that we share electronically WITH ANYONE is being mined."  Perhaps "some of the motives" of "some of those doing the mining" are "benign" -- they just want an edge to sell us something -- but we can never be absolutely sure of who all is doing the mining and why.

As such, this has got to be one of the most remarkable "you are there" films ever made about one of the most important stories of our time.


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Nightcrawler [2014]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (M. D'Angelo) review

Nightcrawler [2014] (written and directed by Dan Gilroy) is a very timely if very disturbing mash-up of Taxi Driver [1976] and Network [1976] that will almost certainly earn the film's lead-actor Jake Gyllenhaal an Oscar Nomination come award season.

In the film, Gyllenhaal plays a troubled if perhaps utterly sincere 20-something loner named Louis Bloom perhaps suffering of some degree of autism spectrum disorder.  Living / struggling / making-do _alone_ in the megapolis that is Los Angeles today, with apparently no connection with anyone (at least DeNiro's character in Taxi Driver [1976] was shown in that film writing a letter to his parents...), ALL that the (perhaps) pitiable and (certainly) troubled Louis wants to do is to SUCCEED IN SOMETHING with the necessarily limited "skill set" that he's been given.

So we are introduced to the Louis in the film IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT, FOG SWIRLING ABOUT, FIRST _stealing_ some chain-linked fence from _some scrap-yard_ SOMEWHERE in the vastness of L.A., THEN _selling_ the stolen 50-100 lbs of chain linked fence to (presumably another) scrap-metal dealer, and FINALLY asking the scrap-metal dealer FOR A JOB, telling him, among other things, that he's MOTIVATED and A QUICK LEARNER.  Almost in disbelief, the scrap metal dealer tells him "Louis, I'll never hire you... (why? you may ask...) because I DON'T HIRE THIEVES."  Louis, who's probably been down this "Road of Rejection" before, shrugs-off this latest one without much emotion.  Instead, he just walks to his car, starts the engine, and ... heads off ... into the Damp, Foggy, DARKNESS ... basically to Nowhere.

En route ... (to nowhere...) ...  Fate seems to finally lend a "helping hand."  As he's driving along the largely empty concrete artery of one of L.A.'s vast freeways, he comes across an accident.  A car's crashed into an embankment.  Two police cars are stopped at either side.  A woman is crying out from inside the car.  The two police officers are feverishly trying to pull her out of the car as the engine under the hood is beginning to smoke and then catches fire.  IN THE MIDST OF THIS, A TELEVISION VAN COMES OUT OF NOWHERE, SCREECHING TO A STOP. Out jumps a bearded man with a video camera who films the two police officers _as they succeed_ in pulling the screaming woman out of the car just moments before it inevitably explodes.  Soon the bearded man, who turns out to be a freelance videographer named Joe Loder (played in the film by Bill Paxton), is talking to someone he has on speed-dial, negotiating a price for the video he just captured.

Jobless, directionless, but focused and sincere, Louis sees him do all this.  So he comes up to him and asks what he was doing (Joe answers that he and his partner/driver drive about Los Angeles every night, monitoring the police radio to fall upon scenes such as this which they then film and sell to the early television news shows in LA).  How much do they make?  (Enough to have a pretty sophisticated van outfitted with some pretty sophisticated gear along with some pretty sophisticated professional looking cameras).  Is he looking for perhaps to hire someone?  (No).  Sigh.  But how does one get into a business such as this?  (Well, get yourself a video camera and a police scanner).  And so ... the very next morning ... Louis does.  The rest of the movie ensues...

It turns out that Louis is "a natural" for this sort of "work."   Always more "focused on task at hand" than "empathetic" he walks into crime and accident scenes with a "clear vision" that comes to stun even the most veteran of bottom feeders like good-ole-pro Joe.  

THEN WITH FINALLY A MARKETABLE PRODUCT IN HAND he becomes "A NATURAL" IN THE "BUSINESS END" of this line of work AS WELL, as the somewhat desperate TV News producer Nina Romina (played by Rene Russo) soon comes to find out.  She's introduced to us as the producer of the lowest rated early television news program in the L.A. market, hence quite desperate to get those ratings up.  So when Louis comes to her with some of the (if nothing else...) _most viscerally gripping_ "news footage" imaginable -- again, he's able to walk over bodies, EVEN MOVE BODIES to "frame a better shot" without any moral qualms -- not only does she buy his stuff to help her show's ratings, but she soon becomes dependent on it.  FOR HIS PART, Louis soon realizes THAT FOR ONCE IN HIS LIFE HE HAS THE UPPER HAND.  And so he soon presses his advantage in ways that NO ONE in his/her right mind would ever do (or ever tolerate) ... But HE's COMING UP WITH THE STUFF that's KEEPING HER ... IN HER JOB ...

Soon Louis comes to look for "an assistant," to "ride shot-gun" with him to help him with "navigating" as he careens across Los Angeles at night, trying to be first at one or another accident or crime scene.  He settles on a similarly desperate homeless guy his age named Rick (played by Riz Ahmed) who he treats as badly as everybody else had previously treated him even though he seems to believe that he's actually serving as a "mentor figure" to Rick: "Remember Rick, nothing comes for free.  It's all up to you.  You have to prove _to me_ every day that you're worthy of working for me."  (To some extent, Louis is right, of course. But then, Louis is nuts ...).

So does one have to be(come) a (perhaps) part-autistic SOCIOPATH to "succeed" in the cut-throat world of today?  That's ultimately what the film asks.  Of course, the answer is hopefully no.  Still, for his part, Louis, honestly doesn't believe that he's doing anything wrong.  As his "business" "grows", he tells his increasing number of employees: "Remember, I'm not asking you to do ANYTHING that I MYSELF would not do."  And as throughout the whole of the film, he's UTTERLY, TERRIFYINGLY, SINCERE.

This is one disturbing film.


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Before I Go to Sleep [2014]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
ChicagoTribune/Variety (G. Lodge) review
RE.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review


Before I Go to Sleep [2014] (directed and screenplay by Rowan Joffe based on the novel by S.J. Watson [IMDb]) tries really hard to be a Hitchcockian "amnesia" film.  Does it succeed?   While that determination would have to be up to each viewer/reader, I can attest that the attempt is certainly sincere.

The film's central protagonist, Christine (played by Nicole Kidman), wakes-up each morning in terror and confusion having forgotten everything that had happened the day, and indeed over the last 15 years, before. 

The man who she wakes-up next to calmly introduces himself (he's done this before...) to her as Ben (played by Colin Firth), her husband.  He explains to her that (1) she had an accident some 10 years back, (2) as a result of her accident, she's lost her ability to retain new memories and (3) she wakes-up each morning with the last 15 years erased from her memory, believing that she's still in her mid-20s even if she's now 40. 

He has some pictures of him, her and the two of them together up for for her in their bathroom, so that she can at least remember who the two are but little else.  After giving her this daily morning debriefing, he kisses her goodbye, leaves her (presumably confident that she won't hurt herself) in their house and calmly goes off to work as a chemistry teacher in a nearby secondary school.  She's left, each day, staring at the windows, furniture, and pictures of her, Ben and them together, struggling (but try as she might, failing...) to remember anything else at all

Now it turns out that she really did have that accident/incident 15 years ago that really did destroy her ability to keep new longer term memories.  As a result, her case had been studied by various neuro-psychologists at the time and though apparently none had been able to help her in the past, one of these neuro-psychologists a Dr. Nasch (played by Mark Strong) decides to look her up and try to help her anew. 

Each morning, after her husband leaves for said chemistry job, Dr. Nasch calls Christine's home, reintroduces himself to her, and tells her go back to her wardrobe and find a shoebox at the bottom of it where he's had her place a digital camera that he had given to her some time previous (with an appropriately large "flashcard" memory) and where he has her record (for recall) "a video diary" so that she could come to remember at least some of the events of the previous day(s) and thus (re)acquire a new kind of long term memory. 

Each day, she's surprised to receive the phone call from Dr. Nasch, but each day she's surprised to find that she really has that digital camera with her recorded on it, giving herself instructions about what she's learned during the previous day(s), and above all, what she's learned about her past.

'Cause, obviously there's something wrong ... Each day, when Christine wakes up, the only person she encounters is Ben, who, while kindly/nice, leaves her with _nothing else to think about_ EXCEPT, him, her and their apparent relationship together.  Where did she come from?  Did she have friends?  Who were her parents?  What did she do / study / dream, prior to her accident?  When she does ask (occasionally) Ben these things after he comes from work, he does answer her questions.  But he does so with an attitude of, "You're not going to remember any of this tomorrow anyway.  So I'm sorry if I don't seem all that forthcoming until you come to me to ask me these things on occasion.  We've been down these little paths of inquiry of yours various times before."

He says all this quite calmly, quite soberly, quite somberly, and even quite convincingly.  So both she (and we, the viewers) would largely want to believe him.  After all, remember what HE'S gone through here as well.  YET ... isn't it odd that the only pictures in that house are of him, her and them together.  And even that the medical doctor is apparently calling her "on the sly..." to remind her of that digital camera he's given her to keep in the shoebox at the bottom of her wardrobe.

Obviously, much needs to ensue (and, yes readers/viewers, much does ensue ...) but to say more would get into various levels of spoiling the story for you.  So I'm going to leave it here.

Is it a great story?  I don't know.  But IMHO it's not a bad one.  And it does invite one to place oneself into the shoes of every one of the characters in the story.  What would you do if you found yourself in this situation (or had a loved one who found him/herself in this situation)?

As such, I found it to be a rather thought provoking (and perhaps subsequent discussion provoking film).


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Fair Play [2014]

MPAA (UR would be R)  ČervenýKoberec.cz (3 1/2 Stars)  iDnes.cz (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CSFD.cz listing*
FDB.cz listing*

CineEuropa (M. Kudláč) review

ČervenýKoberec.cz (J. Kábrt) review*
iDnes.cz (M. Spáčilová) review*
Respekt.cz (K. Fila) review*

Variety (A. Simon) review

Lidovky.cz (H. Petrželková) interview with director*


Fair Play [2014] [IMDb] [CSFD]* [FDB]* (directed and screenplay cowritten by Andrea Sedláčková [IMDb] [CSFD]* [FDB]* along with Irena Hejdová [IMDb] [CSFD]* [FDB]*) is a Czech, Slovak and GERMAN co-production that played recently at the 2014 (50th Annual) Chicago International Film Festival.

The film, a historical drama, is about a fictionalized 1980s (Communist Era) Czechoslovakian athlete, Anna (played by Judit Bárdos [IMDb] [CSFD]* [FDB]*) who, along with her teammates is doped with a performance enhancing steroid-based cocktail, in Czech called "Stromba," at least _initially_ without her/their knowledge, to thus "render greater glory" to the then Communist System in the run-up to the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games (Some viewers/readers here would recall that the Communist bloc ended up boycotting those games, held in the U.S.A., ANYWAY.  So the whole exercise was futile ... But the "sports doctors" posing here more properly as "witch doctors" were being asked to get the athletes "ready" ANYWAY). 

Now how would Anna and her team-mates initially "not know" that they were being doped in this way?  Well (1) they were young (Anna would have been in her late teens, early 20s); (2) they were proud that they were already athletic enough to "make the grade" to be selected for the state-sponsored national athletic training program, and the said national athletic training program already had a scientific/professional almost science-fictiony / "space program" feel to it (besides coaches there were all sorts of trainers, sports doctors and other therapists always hovering about); and (3) they were already receiving regular "vitamin injections" as part of the nutritional regimen of their program.

So the "simple change" from one set of injections to another would not draw a great deal of initial notice by the athletes themselves -- except for (1) sensing a new level of defensiveness / evasiveness on the part of the coaches and sports doctors, when one or another of the athletes would ask questions that would seem otherwise quite reasonable:

Q: "What's the new concoction supposed to do?"
A: "It'll increase your muscle density, making you stronger and faster, and in a way that _nothing else in sports medicine_ can deliver."  Hmm...

Q: "Why am I being asked to sign special forms now that I didn't have to in the past"
A: "Well, you've been _selected_ to participate in something very special here, my dear.  YOU SHOULD BE PROUD OF HAVING RECEIVED THIS HONOR, and WE KNOW THAT you'll make OUR WHOLE COUNTRY proud."

Q: "What if I refuse to take the new injections?"
A: "Well, YOU'LL HAVE TO LEAVE THE TEAM, something that will certainly be a great disappointment to us AND TO THE WHOLE COUNTRY, as we and THE WHOLE COUNTRY have already _invested a great deal of money and resources_ into your training/preparation"

and (2) beginning to experience the multitude of steroid-based side-effects:  the sudden experience of various abdominal pains when one had no previous history of such things in the past; the predictable appearance chest and facial hair that would certainly terrify most young women; a noticeable spike in the number of tendon injuries among one's team-mates.


OKAY, you find that your coaches and doctors ARE PROBABLY MESSING WITH YOUR BODY IN A WAY THAT MAKES YOU REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE.  WHAT DO YOU DO?

Well, folks, that's the rest of the film.  What do you do?  Czechoslovakia was NOT a free country in the 1980s.  And even Anna's own mother (played wonderfully by Aňa Geislerová [IMDb] [CSFD]* [FDB]*) WHO HATED THE REGIME encouraged Anna to continue to take the "Stromba."  WHY??  "Just shut up, keep your head low, qualify and then you'll be able to get out of the country and YOU'LL FINALLY BE ABLE TO BE FREE."

Of course, though, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic along with the rest of the Communist Bloc ended up boycotting the 1984 Los Angeles Games ANYWAY ...

It all makes for a fascinating movie about how DEFENDERS / PROPONENTS of an INSECURE / PARANOID IDEOLOGY can come to MESS WITH THEIR MOST VULNERABLE (HERE ITS YOUNG) for the sake of "PROVING" that SAID IDEOLOGY is "better" than it really is.


ADDENDA

An excellent English language recent documentary on the former East German athletic doping program is the PBS's Secrets of the Dead: Doping for Gold [2008] episode available for streaming free on the PBS's website.

Additionally, a recent there has been a critically acclaimed GERMAN documentary You Will Not Lose (orig. Einzelkämpfer) [2013] on the matter as well (Interview with former GDR athlete and director of the documentary Sandra Kaudelka).


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

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Kill the Messenger [2014]

MPAA (R)  ChicagoTribune/Variety (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune/Variety (A. Barker) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review  

Kill the Messenger [2014] (directed by Michael Cuesta, screenplay by Peter Landesman based on the books Dark Alliance by Gary Webb [IMDb] and Kill the Messenger by Nick Schou [IMDb]) tells the story of San Jose Mercury-News reporter Gary Webb [IMDb] (played in the film by Jeremy Renner) who reporting on some of the trials of various mid-level California drug traffickers walked into an investigative journalists' dream / conspiracy of a lifetime:

It turned out that some of the key government informants against some of these mid-level California drug traffickers worked for the CIA and had been involved _in protecting_ some of these same mid-level drug traffickers from prosecution in the 1980s because these drug-traffickers were moving "bargain priced" cocaine that was being converted to _crack cocaine_ which _due to its "bargain price"_ EXPLODED then onto the drug scene in AFRICAN-AMERICAN GHETTOS ALL ACROSS THE U.S., AND (yes, there's an and) THE PROFITS FROM THE SALES OF THIS DIRT-CHEAP CRACK COCAINE WERE BEING USED TO FINANCE THE CIA SUPPORTED CONTRAS (IN NICARAGUA).

I warned you, this was ONE HECK OF A CONSPIRACY, originally reported by Gary Webb in a three part series printed in the San Jose Mercury-News between August 18-20, 1996 and is available in full (on the Libertarian-leaning / anti-Drug War website "NarcoNews.com"). 

For those too young to remember the Contra War / Controversies of the 1980s, the then Reagan Administration was basing a good part of its strategy in fighting the expansion of Communism in Central America on supporting the "Contra" rebels fighting the pro-Soviet Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, the Sandinistas having successfully overthrown the decades-old pro-U.S. Samosa family dictatorship there in 1979 under then U.S. President Jimmy Carter.  The then Democratic Party dominated U.S. Congress, however, refused to fund the Contras.  So the Reagan Administration / C.I.A. and affiliated right-wing groups looked for all sorts of "creative" ways to fund the  Contras without using U.S. taxpayer money to do it.  

The most (in)famous scandal of the time in this regard was the Iran-Contra Affair, in which the U.S. supplied Iran (at that time in the midst of a deadly war with neighboring Iraq) with U.S. weaponry IN PART in return for release of U.S. hostages held by Iran-supported Shia groups in Lebanon AND IN PART FOR MONEY which _technically not_ from U.S. taxpayers was then used to finance the Contras.   At subsequent Congressional hearings, U.S. Col. Oliver North working on President Reagan's National Security Council Staff, (in)famously called this scheme "a neat idea."

Getting hundreds of thousands to millions of African-American youths addicted to crack cocaine and turning around and JAILING AS FELONS said hundreds of thousands to millions of African American youths for everything from competing drug-gang shoot-outs TO SIMPLE POSSESSION and SUBSEQUENTLY DENYING HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF THEM (AS "FELONS") THE RIGHT TO VOTE EVER AGAIN would have seemed like ONE HELL OF AN IDEA for SOUTHERN RIGHT-WING RACISTS still smarting from their loss of their past power to deny Blacks the right to vote throughout the South thanks to the passage of the Johnson Era 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Consider simply that G.W. Bush "won" the 2000 election by a few hundred votes in Florida WHILE THERE WERE OVER A MILLION OF _PETTY_ "FELONS" IN FLORIDA DENIED THE RIGHT TO VOTE _FOR LIFE_ FOR SIMPLY BEING ARRESTED WITH A ROCK OR TWO (PLANTED?) IN THEIR POCKET. 

Imagine what this country could have been like WITHOUT the G.W. Bush Presidency:

(1) A BALANCED FEDERAL BUDGET and PERHAPS EVEN A COMPLETELY PAID DOWN FEDERAL DEBT (we were ON TRACK FOR THAT at the end of the Clinton Administration),

(2) NO 9/11 -- (!!) -- The Bush Adminstration was simply not concerned about terrorism until those planes crashed into the WTC and the Pentagon.  Instead, they were focused on missile defense against North Korea, and a still secret "energy task force" that could have very well plotted the division of oil spoils a "post-invasion" Iraq.  By contrast, the Clinton / Gore Administration did take their National Security advisors seriously with regard to terrorism and did break-up a fairly major plot on the homeland around the turn of the Millenium.

In any case, we'll never know what could have happened because hundreds of thousands of African Americans who could have voted in Florida (and would have certainly voted for Gore rather than G.W. Bush) were not allowed to vote because they were "Convicted Felons" even if their convictions were for possession of trivial amounts of (even _planted_) crack cocaine.  

Again, selling AFRICAN AMERICAN YOUTHS cut-rate "crack cocaine" and using the funds to finance the Contras was ONE HELL OF AN "NEAT" IDEA ...

And Gary Webb, who stumbled onto this story, was eventually destroyed for writing it, and even died, somewhat mysteriously, in 2004 -- of suicide WITH TWO BULLETS IN HIS HEAD (possible, but ...)

Anyway, enjoy look the film up and read.  Again, Webb's whole original expose is available here.


ADDENDA:

Excellent articles about how the Felony "loophole" has been used to deny millions of (mostly people of color) the right to vote in the U.S. and especially Florida can be found here:

Susan Greenbaum, Restore Voting Rights to Ex-Felons, Aljazeera America, Feb 14, 2014

Did Florida's Felon Disenfranchisement Laws Cause Al Gore from Losing the 2000 Election? (procon.com)


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A Dream of Iron (orig. Cheol-ae-kum) [2013]

M

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

IMDb listing
AsianWiki listing

A Dream of Iron (orig. Cheol-ae-kum) [2013] [IMDb] [AW] (written and directed by Kelvin Kyung Kun Park [IMDb] [AW]) is a South Korean documentary reflection which played recently at the 2014 (50th Annual) Chicago International Film Festival.

The thesis of the often striking visual (documentary) reflection was that while cave drawings in South Korea dating back 30,000-40,000 years indicate that Korea's first inhabitants venerated whales (the largest beings around) as de facto "gods," they soon came to master (kill) them.  Today, we arguably venerate even more enormous beings (in the form of truly GIGANTIC ships and super-tankers, often built at South Korea's Hyundai shipbuilding works).  But by building them, we actually "Master" them as well.  So by "venerating" "our Gods" do we actually "consume" them and thus destroy their divinity?

It makes for a fascinating visual (and at times auditory) reflection.  One of the more striking comparisons made is, in fact, auditory -- as the whale songs _can sound_ like the traditional humming of Buddhist chants, which in turn _can sound_ like the noises made by GIANT hydraulic machines. 

In the end, the film arguably declares that we ourselves, at least as "Man," if not as "people" (who in comparison to both the whales and the giant ships that we build may look like ants), are the True Gods of our times.

I don't necessarily agree with the film's thesis (it's rather Idolatrous, with a Capital "I")  But the visuals are, in fact, striking and worthy of those found in the films of Ron Fricke and Mark Madigson who've previously brought us some truly Wondrous visual reflections on arguably religious themes such as Chronos [1985], Baraka [1992] and most recently Samsara [2012] (reviewed here).
 

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