Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Selma [2014]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review

BET coverage
Ebony coverage
Essence.com coverage
TheSource.com (D. Green) review

ChicagoTribune (M. Philiips) review
RogerEbert.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Rolling Stone (G. Edwards) interview w. director Ava DuVernay
TheSource.com (S. Moscovitz) interview w. director Ava DuVernay


Selma [2014] (directed by Ava DuVernay, screenplay by Paul Webb) arriving in time for the 50th anniversary of the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the second of the two most important pieces of Federal legislation that were passed as a result of the African-American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s-60s (and, yes, perhaps coincidentally / perhaps not ... during the early part of the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration ...) reminds the United States (and the world) what life was like for African Americans in the Deep South of the United States prior to the passage of such legislation that finally allowed African Americans unhindered access, more-or-less, to the ballot box.

I say "more-or-less" because there has been steady if mostly thankfully "rear guard" battling over "voter registration legislation" ever since.  And I do believe that the continued shenanigans are real: As I noted in my review of the recent film Kill the Messenger [2014], the 1980s "crack cocaine crisis" gave white racists in this country an excuse to once again disenfanchise MILLIONS of African American voters by making possession of ANY AMOUNT of "crack cocaine" (but significantly NOT powdered cocaine generally prefered by white people...) to be a "felony" giving States permission to take away their Civil Rights, INCLUDING VOTING RIGHTS, essentially FOREVER.  More than a million African American male "crack convicts" in Florida (not / no longer in jail, but with their voting rights denied them FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES on account of their "felony conviction") or ONE THIRD of the voting age African American male population in the State was not allowed to vote in the 2000 Presidential election, an election that was "decided" by a margin of less than a 1000 votes in Florida...

However, even this apparent "crack" (felon) loophole in the application of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 pales in comparison to unblushing systematic denial of African Americans the right to vote that existed in the Jim Crow South prior to the marches / protests in Selma that made such practices no longer tenable and resulted in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 quite shortly afterwards. 


To the film ...

Much controversy has been made with regards to this film's treatment of Lyndon B. Johnson (played in the film by Tom Wilkinson).  I would suggest to readers here to please read the two interviews of the director Ava DuVernay that I list above.  Apparently, the original screenplay (and probably historically more correctly) portrayed Johnson in far more positive light.  However, the director says in those interviews that she really didn't want to make a movie about a "White Savior" (Johnson...), that in fact, the biggest changes that she made to the script was _to add_ BLACK LOCAL WOMEN to the story like lowly, honest / church-going Selma resident Annie Lee Cooper (eventually played in the film by Oprah Winfrey).  

With regards to Johnson, the director sensed (again IMHO almost certainly correctly) that ultimately the Civil Rights movement was NOT his top priority.  Instead, Johnson's TOP PRIORITY was his hoped-for War on Poverty (which would seek to improve the lives of ALL POOR PEOPLE OF ALL COLORS).  Hence EVEN IF HE WAS SYMPATHETIC (and _I_ certainly believe he was ... Johnson did in a year / two in office what Kennedy seemed incapable of doing in pretty much his entire term ...) the Civil Rights Movement was something of a distraction:  SO ... "let's just get the Civil Rights legislation passed as fast as possible (and be done with it)."

AND LET'S FACE IT ... THAT IS THE HISTORICAL RECORD: The Civil Rights Act (which _didn't_ pass under Kennedy) passed RAPIDLY under Johnson in 1964 and the VOTING RIGHTS ACT again passed RAPIDLY after that in 1965.

So ... after 1965, Johnson had three years to focus on what he really believed was important: The War on Poverty.  (Of course, good will there got eaten-up by the concession(s) that he made to the American Right in ALSO allowing American involvement in the War in Vietnam to proceed...)

Was this "War on Poverty" worth it?  Did it even succeed...? Well, it's almost impossible to imagine TODAY what life would be like for American Seniors if not for Johnson's War on Poverty program Medicare (a health insurance "entitlement program" for Seniors that has honestly helped JUST ABOUT EVERYONE).

And truth be told, even Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr (played in the film by David Oyelowo) in his final years was coming around to the understanding that many / most of America's problems were not simply racial but economic -- for progress for African Americans to go forward, progress for poor whites had to go forward as well.

But be all this as it may, progress for African Americans COULD NOT GO FORWARD without more-or-less unhindered access to the ballot box.  And that then set the stage for the Civil Rights actions in Selma.  And this film ...

And yes, a lot of whites watching this film will certainly wince at seeing white police officers (of then still an ALL WHITE Selma police force) wrapping their batons with barbed wire and beating blacks seeking to peacefully march over a bridge ...

Now the film is also a lot about tactics -- Why put so much focus on what seems to be an insignificant (if county seat) like Selma?  Why simply a march?  Why not retaliation for violence inflicted on the marchers? -- and the result is an appreciation of the mind/thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr and the Southern CHRISTIAN Leadership Conference (my emphasis on Christian) the banner group with which he lead the Civil Rights Movement.  After all, there were alternatives -- the more militant Black Muslim Malcolm X (played briefly in the film by Nigel Thatch), and arguably more purely-legal approaches like that of the NAACP perhaps represented in the film by young "Obama-like" "community organizer" Andrew Young (played by André Holland).

The film's director, Ava DuVernay, noted in one of the interviews (given above) that since she was NOT "from the (rural) South" but rather "from Compton (the inner city), California," her own sympathies growing up were more with Malcolm X and the Black Panthers (an excellent if, all around challenging film about the Black Panther Party called For the Cause [2013] played at the 2013 Chicago Black Harvest Film Festival).

The director wished to underline in her film that the tactics chosen by and Martin Luther King, Jr and the SCLC were NOT merely "pie in the sky" but rooted in practicality and potential for success: "One can't fight tanks with beebee guns," a "violent struggle" could not succeed.  However a morally based struggle appealing to the "better (and in this country CHRISTIAN) angels" of the white majority COULD (and did) SUCCEED.  To the director's credit, she did _underline_ the presence of white clergy / religious in the Selma marches:  I PERSONALLY KNOW MEMBERS OF MY RELIGIOUS ORDER WHO WERE INVOLVED IN THOSE MARCHES OF THE 1960s AND I'M IN GOOD PART A CATHOLIC PRIEST TODAY AS A RESULT OF THEIR EXAMPLE.

So what then to say in a final analysis about the movie.  Did it "diss" Johnson too much?  I honestly don't think so, because I do believe that the director _was right_.  This film needed to be ABOVE ALL ABOUT THE PEOPLE like Annie Lee Cooper (played in the film by Oprah Winfrey) NOT "the big shots..."

So good job Ms DuVernay!  Good job!  And if any want to read-up more about the Selma marches, Rev/Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, the Civil Rights Movement, or President Lyndon B. Johnson just do a search on Amazon.  There are plenty of books to read on all of them ;-)



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Sunday, January 11, 2015

Leviathan (orig. Левиафан) [2014]

MPAA (R)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing

KinoNews.ru listing*    KinoPoisk.ru listing*
Kino-teatr.ru listing*     Kritikanstvo.ru listing*
Megacritic.ru listing*

Gazeta.ru (V. Lyaschenko) review*
TheHollywoodReporter.ru (N. Karcev) review*
NovayaGazeta.ru (L. Malyukova) review*
RossiyskayaGazeta.ru (V. Kitchin) review*

ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
Cine Para Leer review*
CineVue (J. Bleasdale) review
EyeForFilm.co.uk (A.W. Murray) review
Slant Magazine (C. Bowen) review
Variety (P. DeBruge) review

Leviathan (orig. Левиафан) [2014]  [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* (directed and cowritten by  Andrey Zvyagintsev [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* along with Oleg Negin [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*) promises to be an absolute darling to Western Liberals.

Yes, the story set in a small picturesque Russian town somewhere on the Arctic coast (and yes, the scenery is often breathtaking) is at least initially about corruption in contemporary Russia:

A lowly fisherman / auto-mechanic named Nicolay (played by Aleksey Serebryakov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) with a simple fisherman's house that he inherited from his father, finds to his horror that the local mayor (played by Roman Madyanov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) has come to covet said house for the only covetable quality that is has -- a view.  So he's decided to use the power of the local government force lowly Nicolay to relinquish said house for an obsenely low price, nominally to allow a "communications center" to be built there (but nobody seriously believes that.  The local mayor just wants to build his own house there).

Now Nicolay isn't completely without friends or resources.  So at the beginning of the film he has his old army buddy, now a hotshot Moscow lawyer, named Dmitri (played by Vladimir Vdovichenkov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) come up to challenge the confiscation of the house.  Dmitri is, in fact, not naive.  He comes up to the town not only with a legal case to defend Nicolay's claim on the property (or at least that he'd be compensated appropriately), but he ALSO comes with a dossier of dirt collected about the Mayor.  To no one's surprise, Dmitri loses the appeal for Nicolay.  HOWEVER Dmitri's dossier on the mayor does grab the mayor's attention.

What to do?  Well, the mayor goes _to the local Orthodox priest_ for advice.  AND THE ADVICE THAT HE GETS FROM SAID PRIEST IS (I'm not kidding): "Don't be such a baby!  All power comes from God, USE IT."   And so WITH THE PRIEST'S MAFIA-LIKE BLESSING, that's what the mayor does: He gets his thugs together, they pay a visit to the lawyer, drive him out of town and ...

Now tragically before being "driven out of town," the lawyer manages to seduce Nicolay's wife Lilya (played by Elena Lyadova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) -- Why would he do that?  Were there not enough women in Moscow to sleep with, and Nicolay was supposed to be his friend ... -- which after he "disappears from the scene" causes continued problems between Nicolay and his wife.  Those problems come to provide the Mayor a final / definitive means to simply get rid of Nicolay.

Wonderful, the director himself has stated that his film was inspired by the Biblical Job and the Thomas Hobbes' treatise Leviathan (a giant sea-monster that actually appears at the end of the Biblical Book of Job but in the Hobbesian conception it also represents the Power of the State).

So what's there to object to?  After all, this is (on the surface) a quite brave denunciation of the state of corruption in Russia today.  HOWEVER, note here that ultimate blame for said corruption doesn't fall on the thuggish mayor of the town, BUT ... ON THE ORTHODOX PRIEST (who arguably was just missing a tail and horns in the film).

So this is just catnip for both Western Liberals and perhaps a remnant of the ATHEIST Russian "Old Guard" still pining for the "Law and Order" that existed back in the "Good Old Days" of the Soviet Gulag.  Hence a film nominally about State corruption nonetheless gets funded by the Russian "Ministry of Culture." ;-)

Hmm... There's even a reference to Pussy Riot in the film.  What's going on here? 

I suppose that the question that the film asks is: To what extent is the Russian Orthodox Church complicit in the corruption that exists in Russian society today? 

HOW CAN AN HONEST WESTERNER POSSIBLY SEEK AN ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION?

Well a search of the term коррупция (corruption)* on the Moscow Patriarchate's official website* indicates quite that the challenge of corruption in contemporary Russian society is certainly not "off the radar" or even somehow a "verboten" subject in the life of the Russian Orthodox Church today.  And this really should not surprise anyone (unless one simply insisted on BEGINNING with the assumption that the Russian Orthodox Church, or the Church in general, Christianity and/or Religion in general simply HAD TO BE "EVIL").

Now how well is the Russian Orthodox Church doing in voicing opposition to corruption in Russian society today?  Well that is a fair question and I simply do not know enough about Russia or the actual workings of the Russian Orthodox Church to answer that.  However, let me offer a suggestion:

While there are fanatical groups like SNAP ("Survivors' Network for those Abused by Priests") in the United States who don't seem to recognize _even the possibility_ of a "good Catholic priest" in the United States today (just those who are "guilty" and those who are in "denial"), the National Catholic Reporter has for decades served as a "watch dog" / independent voice seeking to keep the Catholic Church in the United States honest not only with regard to the various priestly sexual abuse scandals but also with regards to its (obviously) FAR LARGER MISSION, notably to "bring good news to the poor."

There is no reason why such a newspaper of website could not exist (or come to exist, IF IT DOES NOT ALREADY, perhaps if need be OUTSIDE OF RUSSIA) that would seek to keep the Russian Orthodox Church accountable in its role as "the conscience of Russian society."  I have personally known plenty of good (AND EDUCATED) Russian Orthodox believers (My own grandfather was Russian Orthodox).  I simply do not believe that a "(Russian) National Orthodox Reporter" would be impossible to create (if it does not de facto exist already).

Would it be enough?  Well the National Catholic Reporter certainly did not prevent the sexual abuse crimes to occur in the United States.  But it did and does remind everyone willing to listen that there are American Catholics who _do actually believe_ and do actually want a Church that's accountable for its actions here on earth.

The Russian Orthodox Church may be being tempted by the same Devil's Bargain that the Catholic Church in the United States has been tempted by the American Right in these years after the sexual abuse scandals:  "We'll support you on such 'beside the point' matters as 'Gays,' just don't say a word anymore about the Economic Justice (or Corruption)."  The problem with that bargain is, of course, if the Church does not stand for the poor and oppressed then its other "teachings" become _meaningless_.    The Church's Power comes from standing-up for the weak:

You shall not oppress or molest a stranger, for you were once strangers residing in the land of Egypt.  You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely listen to their cry. My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword; then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans.  -- Ex 22:20-23

So one could dismiss this film (and in fact the _provocative_ actions of Pussy Riot) as simply a "diatribe against the (Russian Orthodox) Church"  OR ... one could see it as a challenge to the (Russian Orthodox) Church stand-up and FULFILL its job to TRULY BE "The Nation's Conscience."  It seems obvious to me that the more useful / constructive interpretation would be the second one.


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

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Friday, January 9, 2015

Taken 3 [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  ChiTribune/Variety (1 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (2 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune/Variety (M. Lee) review

Taken 3 [2014] (directed by Olivier Megaton, screenplay by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen) continues, IMHO quite unsatisfactorily, the Taken franchise through its third installment: 

Perhaps it was just that everyone involved in the story, especially lead actor Liam Neeson coming back, _again_ as _retired_, (presumed) _former_ CIA assassin Bryan Mills, seemed tired. (Hey, generally people don't "retire" for nothing ... they retire because they're "gettin' old for this sort of stuff ...");

Perhaps the story was beginning to "run out of places to go." (In the first installment, the story "shot itself out" in Paris, in the second in Istanbul, this time simply "just a few blocks down-the-street from the studio" in (presumably) the "Mills' Southern California");

Or perhaps simply this installment finally "just got sloppy" revealing just how improbable the whole franchise story always was ...

In any case, the story just felt flat, with key characters like Mills' ex-wife Lenore (played by Famke Jansson) being killed off (_she_ won't be coming back again) and the rest of the cast largely going through the motions.

The installment begins, quite endearingly, as the previous ones did (that's part of the franchise's schtick), with the Mills' each trying focus on their "regular lives."  Mills is shown busily trying to buy something for daughter Kim's (played by Maggie Grace) birthday.  She's in college now, apparently living with her boyfriend (worried actually that she may be pregnant), but she's still "his little girl."  So he settles on buying her a big stuffed panda and a bottle of champagne.   Mills' ex (and Kim's mother) is apparently having trouble with her second husband, but is trying "really hard" to make at least that second marriage work, and Mills is as "supportive" as a first (former) husband could be in a situation like that.  He DOESN'T try to "take advantage" but almost certainly he's smiling inside (thinking no doubt "I always knew it wasn't _simply_ me" ;-).  The second husband (played by Dugray Scott) even comes over, early on in the story to ask Mills to "keep out of the(ir) mess."  And Mills, gently, nonthreateningly (in as much as a _former CIA assassin_ could be "nonthreatening") assures him that he _doesn't_ want to get involved.

But becoming involved he must ... as a few days later Mills gets a text from Lenore asking him to stop at some neighborhood coffee shop "get some bagels" and come home to his apartment because, presumably, "she wants to talk."  Well, he gets the bagels, comes home and ... finds Lenore dead, in his bed.

What the heck happened?  He doesn't have a whole lot of time to ponder this because a few seconds later the LAPD is there (called apparently by SOMEBODY ...) yelling at him to "put his hands up."  Still not understanding what had just happened, but expecting that he wasn't gonna be able to figure things out as easily in a police lockup, he (former special forces, a former CIA assassin) decides "to make a run of it" ... does ... and the rest of the installment follows...

Of course, in the course of his running away from the cops (led by a LAPD inspector played by Forrest Whitaker) and later by his slinking / running around Los Angeles, there's _a lot_ of shooting, "glass breaking," and a fair number of "high speed chases."  And of course, (not much of a SPOILER here) ... EVENTUALLY he has to clear his name.

BUT ... while SOMEHOW (and in retrospect, with some embarrassment) these "shoot 'em up / chase scenes" seemed to "work for me" when the story was set in Paris or Istanbul, I FOUND THEM UTTERLY BELIEVABLE NOW THAT THEY WERE SET IN L.A.

Say what?  Don't these kind of scenes play-out in all kinds of Hollywood crime dramas set in Los Angeles?  Yes, but USUALLY these scenes involve chasing a "bad guy," not a "good guy trying to clear his name."

There's a scene in this film with the Police still chasing Mills as their prime suspect in which all kinds of "civilian cars" and even a huge semi-truck are wrecked on a freeway.  I simply can't imagine Mills, EVEN IF INNOCENT OF THE ORIGINAL CRIME (the death of his ex-wife) "WALKING AWAY" INNOCENT after CAUSING SO MUCH CARNAGE _RESISTING / FLEEING ARREST_.  At least SOME of those innocents crushed in some of those cars would have relatives WITH LAWYERS who would sue the LAPD (at minimum) "for compensation" and ASK QUESTIONS about "what the heck was that chase about?"  

Just IMAGINE even one of presumably MANY court cases that would follow that high speed chase:

My client's wife Molly was driving their 18-month year old toddler Jenny (look at my Molly's and my client's wedding pictures ... they got married in Santa Barbara, went to Oahu for their honeymoon ... ) to her mother's before heading off to work (Molly worked second shift at a Bob's Big Boy off of the 210 in Glendale, and look at all the pictures of their little Jenny playing with her little ducky in the bathtub at grandma's ...) when OUT OF NOWHERE THEIR CAR WAS CRUSHED BY A SEMI THAT SPUN OUT OF CONTROL AS A RESULT OF A HIGH SPEED POLICE ACTION with LAPD chasing some "shadowy figure" named Bryan Mills (it's all on the transcripts of the Police Radio of the time) who LAPD now maintains "committed NO CRIME."   My client's beautiful wife and 18-month-old toddler -- again look at all the lovely family pictures  -- ARE DEAD and LAPD and the District Attorney are NOW SAYING that Mills is "innocent."  HUH????   If he didn't resist arrest, my client's wife and kid would be alive today...

So at least this installment in the story seemed to me completely ridiculous (and with some embarrassment, I have to admit now that the two other installments set in Paris and Istanbul pretty much _had to be ridiculous_ as well).

Sigh ... it was a good run ... for a while ...


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Thursday, January 8, 2015

Top Five [2014]

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

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

BET coverage
Ebony coverage
Essence.com interview
TheSource.com coverage

Top Five [2014] (written, directed and starring Chris Rock) is an appropriately R-rated, often quite funny (and in my position often quite frustrating to review) film about "a(n important) day in the life" of Andre Allen (played by Chris Rock), a (black) comedian trying to be taken as _more_ than "just a comedian."  (Arguably, the film covers similar ground as the Michael Keaton starring Birdman [2014] ;-)

So Andre Allen's portrayed in this film as having written, directed and starred in a _deathly serious_ 12 Years a Slave [2013] like Epic called "Upri^se" about Haiti's War for Independence, the largest and most successful Slave Uprising (the slaves _won_) in history since Spartacus or The Exodus.  This "important day in the life" of Allen was the day in which this film was to have been released to the theaters ... But was a film about a vast number of very upset, machete wielding black people putting-down / slaughtering thousands upon thousands of terrified white people really gonna be a "big draw" in the United States today ...? ;-) -- think Apartheid-era Zulu [1964] in reverse ;-)

THIS WAS PART of what 's on Andre's mind on this, very important, day.  The OTHER part was the, a few days hence, the "reality show wedding" that he's consented to do with his reality show star / fiancee' Erica Long (played by Gabrielle Union). 

But the reality show wedding IS "a few days hence" (though at the end of the day he has to "drop by" a (scripted?) "reality show bachelor party" - with friends / comedians Adam Sandler, Jerry Seinfeld and Whoopi Goldberg expected "to be present").  IMMEDIATELY before him was an interview with New York Times whose reviewer had previously HATED Allen's STUPID but INCREDIBLY SUCCESSFUL Allen in a head-to-toes-bear-suit "Hammy the Bear Superhero / Comedy" films.

To Allen's relief, the NYT reporter who steps out of the cab to meet him was not the 50+ year old white-anglo-male-patrician blowhard that he expected but a young/earnest African-American reporter named "Chelsey Brown" (still a very anglo name, but less threatening ... played by Rosario Dawson).  She asks if she could "shadow him" for the rest of the day so that she could write her piece about him at the end.  Having no particular reason to reject someone who was both attractive and seemed to be someone who probably would give him a fair-shake, Andre consents to this "shadowing-style interview."

The rest of the movie ... that (as per rogerebert.com reviewer Susan Wloszczyna) _does_ feel A LOT like the "Before Midnight" series of films (great insight there!) ... ensues.

The banter / conversation between the two, often more sexually graphic than it needed to be (again, the R-rating is certainly deserved as are the CNS/USCCB reviewer's concerns), is nevertheless often very, very good and both of the characters seem quite real.  But then, what exactly is "reality" here?

"Chelsey" turns out to be a young, hustling African American woman (of Latin American, hence Catholic heritage), a once teenage now still unwed mother and recovering alcoholic, who's still having all kinds of trouble with men, writing (quite successfully actually) for all kinds of magazines (amusingly from "Cosmo" to "the NYT" ;-) though under _all kinds of pen-names_.  (When was _she_ going to be able to "step-out" into the world under HER OWN IDENTITY?)

Allen began his life "in the projects" (there's a scene where his dad shakes him down for money) who had succeeded in first becoming a stand-up comedian, then a comedic actor (even if he had to _cover his own face_ to do so ...) and now was trying _really hard_ to become a serious actor even as he's getting married to a "reality show" star WHO HE ACTUALLY DID FEEL SOMETHING-FOR BECAUSE SHE _DID_ ACTUALLY HELP GIVE HIM DIRECTION EARLIER IN HIS LIFE WHEN HE WAS "LOST".

So portrayed is an intriguing and often quite honest-looking, multi-dimensional "mess" and truth be told, a story whose elements are not altogether far from what one continues to hear in the Confessional ;-).

So while I do wish that some of the dialogue and _some of the situations_ were "a little bit cleaner," nevertheless I do think that the film is quite good and deserving of many of the critical accolades that it has received.  So over all, good job folks, good job!

And I'd like to END BY THANKING Rosario Dawson for first _keeping her stage name_ ROSARIO and then allowing her character in this film to remain Catholic.  Yes, her character still had some "issues" (don't we all...).  BUT IT WAS NICE TO SEE that in her character's quite orderly (4 years in AA) apartment a Crucifix and a statue of Mary in places where one would expect them to be in a nice orderly Catholic home of today.  This may seem like "a little detail," but I certainly caught it AND APPRECIATED IT.  So again, good job there Rosario, good job! 


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Wednesday, January 7, 2015

The Gambler [2014]

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

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

Anyone who's played a little Blackjack in his/her life (HOPEFULLY for FAR, FAR LOWER STAKES THAN IN THIS FILM) will find the opening sequence in The Gambler [2014] (directed by Rupert Wyatt, screenplay by William Monahan based on the screenplay for the 1974 film by James Toback) PAINFUL:

Still looking somewhat rich, if disheveled, 30-something Jim Bennett (played by a surprising and impressive Mark Wahlberg) walks into a late night seaside Southern California illegal gambling establishment with a wad of big bills, asks for several tens of thousands of dollars of chips, gets them, proceeds to a blackjack table, places a $10,000 chip on the table and ... wins.  Then, HE KEEPS THE $10,000 there along with his $10,000 winnings and plays again ... and ... wins again.  Then keeping his bet and his winnings on the table again (now up to $40,000 (!)) ... and ... dealer looking toward his supervisor for advice (who nods to give the okay) ... plays again ... and ... wins again.  KEEPING NOW $80,000 on the table he asks to play again ... gets his cards and ... loses it all.  A few hands later, he's LOST EVERYTHING that he's come to the Establishment with.

OMG ... this guy is insane.  There's NO "SYSTEM" to his playing.  HE JUST "PLAYS" UNTIL HE LOSES _EVERYTHING_.

And to make the point, after insulting a smiling, immaculately dressed, shaking-his-head (at Bennett's recklessness) African-American loan-shark named Neville Baraka (played by Michael Kenneth Williams) and after being reminded by the illegal gambling establishment's owner "Lee" (played with magnificent understated "east Asian mafia fashion" by Alvin Ing) that Bennett owes the Establishment $240K and "someday" (soon ...) he's gonna have to pay that back, Bennett goes back to said still smiling, still-shaking-his-head loan-shark to loan him $50,000.  Now grinning-from-ear-to-ear over the insanity of it all, Baraka explains to him that he'd expect full payment plus 2 points ($20,000) in a week.  Bennett agrees, takes the $50,000 and proceeds to lose those $50,000 IN  EXACTLY THE SAME WAY THAT HE LOST THE $50K that he walked-in with.

Honestly WT(F) ??   Honestly, WHO PLAYS LIKE THIS?  An "ADDICT"?   No, someone with a death wish.  But why?

Well that's the rest of the film.

Now (of course) there are people (enablers??) who despite hating him / fearing him / fearing what his "problem/predicament" could DO TO THEM remain ARGUABLY FASCINATED by him (or just want to "help" him) -- his mother (played by Jessica Lange), a student of his (played by Brie Larson) and a THIRD "underworld figure" (played by John Goodman).

But can one really help someone who seems to be dead set on dying (and apparently insisting on doing so in "dramatic fashion")?  The police know a similar phenomenon quite well: "Suicide by cop..."

This all said, there's ANOTHER MORE "STRUCTURAL" DILEMMA: This is a "Hollywood movie" after all and "Hollywood" prefers that its films "end well."  So what does Hollywood / the filmmakers do with a story like this?  Do the filmmakers THEMSELVES pull their lead character out of his predicament ... or ... do they allow the film to run its more natural / inevitable course a la Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas [1995]

I'm not going to tell you ;-) ... but in any case this is a film that DEMANDS to be discussed after it's over.  And in that sense, Great job!


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Tuesday, January 6, 2015

The Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari (orig. небесные жены луговых мари) [2012]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

KinoNews.ru listing*   KinoPoisk.ru listing*
Kino-teatr.ru listing*    Kritikanstvo.ru listing*

E-Kazan.ru coverage*  Filmz.ru interview with director*

MariUver.ru (S. Nikitin) review*

Argumenty-i-Fakty (A. Rogova) review* (5/10)
Argumenty-i-Fatky (M. Mamona) review* (8/10)
Kino-teatr.ru (E. Tkachev) review*
Pravda.ru (A. Evseev) review*
RIA-Novosti.ru (G. Olkhovoy) review*
RusKino.ru (S. Stepnova) review* (8/10)
Vedomosti.ru (O. Zintsov) review*

CineVue (P. Gamble) review (3/5)
EastEurFilmBulletin (M. Pfeifer) review
EyeForFilm.co.uk (A. Robertson) review (4/5)
Sound on Sight (R. Dickie) review

The Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari (orig. небесные жены луговых мари) [2012] [IMDb] [en.wikip] [ru.wikip]*[KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* (directed by Aleksey Fedorchenko [IMDb] [en.wikip] [ru.wikip]*[KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* screenplay by Denis Osokin  [IMDb] [ru.wikip]*[KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* based his book [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by the same name) is EXACTLY the kind of "indie" / "insurgent" (in the best sense of the word) film that I largely created my blog to help make better known to the world.

The film did play some of the festival circuit in 2013 including the 2013 New York Film Week (whose films for the sake of "better understanding among nations" I've decided to look-up and review here) before returning back into obscurity.  I do actually hope that blogs like this one will keep at least the filmmaker and author as well as the Mari [en.wikip] people's folk-tales and practices (which make up the subject matter of much of their works) in the "collective consciousness" of the world because I do believe that their work is important and THE MARI CAN HELP ALL OF US, ESPECIALLY THOSE OF US OF (ANY) EUROPEAN DESCENT BETTER UNDERSTAND OURSELVES AND WHERE WE CAME FROM.

I write this because, the Meadow Maris (to distinguish them from the Mountain and Eastern Maris ;-) a Finno-Ugric people (hence related to the Finns/Estonians and Hungarians but lets not forget the Moldavs or Karelians either :-) still live-in and call-home the central Volga / Ural region (in a Russian administrative region called Mari-El [en.wikip] [ru.wikip] ) that was (probably) the Finno-Ugric peoples' original home.    

Further, the Maris are often called now "The Last Authentic Pagans of Europe" (the current film shows some of the characters praying / lighting candles at various traditional birch tree shrines) and hence knowing of / understanding their traditional beliefs / practices can help all people of European descent better know our (or their) own roots as well. 

This is not the first collaboration between filmmaker Aleksey Fedorchenko [IMDb] [en.wikip] [ru.wikip]*[KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* and Denis Osokin  [IMDb] [ru.wikip]*[KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* both apparently from the region.  Previously, they had collaborated on a film called Silent Souls (orig. Овсянки) [2010] [IMDb] [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* which featured some of the funerary traditions of the Mari people.  The current film is about some of the Meadow Maris' beliefs and somewhat (to us) odd if generally simply quite "earthy" practices regarding fertility / sexuality.

However, it should be noted that the form that the film-maker / writer use here to inform the viewer of these traditional Mari beliefs and practices is NOT that of a strict documentary.  (Actually, an excellent if far-more-formal-in-structure documentary about beliefs and practices of the Mari is a 20 minute English language documentary segment produced by Russian Television entitled "Europe's Last Pagans" available on both its website and the Maris' own YouTube channel).   Instead, the filmmaker / writer express the Maris' traditional beliefs / practices in the course of the playing out of a drama (as in the case of Silent Souls (orig. Овсянки) [2010] [IMDb] [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*) and/or the dramatization of the Maris' own folktales (as in the case of the current film).  The effect is certainly a livelier (and more authentic/lived-out-in-practice) presentation.
 

Now in fairness it should be noted here that "small" indigenous peoples all across the globe have during the course of history found themselves under various pressures to assimilate to the dominant or even occupying nation / culture.

The case of the Maris is no different.  From the time of the Czars, through the Soviet Era ("progressive" and "internationalist" in ideology but "if we're all 'internationalists' why hold on to one's 'particular culture...' especially if it is 'traditional' (meaning) 'backward'..."), to the era of the current Russian Federation (or "Federation"), the Maris have been under similar pressure to "Russify."

So the recent (apparently ethnic Russian) leader of the "Republic of Mari El" has apparently closed a number of Mari language newspapers in the region [en.wikip].  But then films like this are made and a Mari-run websites like MariUver and even Mari-run YouTube channels are created as well. 

Being an ethnic minority in a larger country is always a challenge, everywhere.  But the case of the Maris actually helps us to appreciate the value of respecting the _continued life_ and _vitality_ of indigenous peoples like the Mari.  THEY CAN HELP US UNDERSTAND WHO WE ARE AND WHERE WE CAME FROM.

GREAT FILM!  And I do hope that filmmaker Aleksey Fedorchenko [IMDb] and writer Denis Osokin  [IMDb] get to travel far-and-wide with their future works and that writer Denis Osokin's [GR] works get translated into English soon.


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

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Sunday, January 4, 2015

Mr. Turner [2014]

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

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review  

CineVue-Cannes (J. Bleasedale) review (4/5)
CineVeu (C.Williams) review (5/5)
EyeForFilm (R. Mowe) review (4/5)
Independent.co.uk review (5/5)
SlantMagazine (C. Cabin) review (3.5/4)

To be truthful, I was not overly impressed by Mr. Turner [2014] (written and directed by Michael Leigh) a British bio-pic about 19th century artist J.M.W. Turner (played in the film by Timothy Spall).  To be sure, THE CINEMATOGRAPHY was often stunning producing still or lingering panoramic shots that replicate the dewy shimmering tones, often facing into an afternoon sun, of the landscape paintings for which the artist was famous.  Anyone with some experience with a camera would appreciate the difficulty of these kind of shots ... to get the tones just right, remarkable!

But if Mr Turner "had an eye" for the subtleties of light, in other aspects, he was portrayed in the film as a veritable Neanderthal.  As portrayed, he grunted most of his speech, and when he made the occasional sexual advance on some poor woman that he had become fond of (he apparently considered himself "entitled" to that sort of thing...), the portrayal truly left me speechless.  By midway through the movie, I was wondering: "Couldn't they have just put a club in his hands?"  As presented, his "M.O." was just that appalling ;-)

So what to make of a film like this?  The "Masterpiece Theater" / Downton Abbey [2010-] crowd would probably eat this film up.  However, with the exception of some of the often stunning outdoor cinematography, I found myself "rolling my eyes" at Turner's "cave man" demeanor and glancing at my watch (a lot ...) looking forward to the film's eventual end. 

So cinematography aside, this film is certainly not for everyone.



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The Homesman [2014]

MPAA (R) ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 place)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (S. O'Malley) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review  

The Homesman [2014] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Tommy Lee Jones along with Kieran Fitzgerald and Wesley A. Oliver based on the novel by Glendon Swarthout [IMDb]) is something of a subversive / "revisionist" or perhaps "corrective" Western.  (Since there have been _so many_ Westerns made over the years, film-makers (and actors / actresses) do, with due fairness to their crafts, look for fresh approaches to the genre).

So the approach taken in this story was to take a look at the "Old West" from the perspective of the women that went out West -- with their parents, with their husbands, and even with fiances the they barely knew.  Approached from this angle, "the Frontier" wasn't exactly an awesome place to go.

Indeed, the story presented in this film reminds me of the stories recounted to me by our church secretary in a parish that we used to have in Milwaukie, OR (just outside of Portland) where I had served my diaconate.  Having a couple of young daughters, she had gotten involved in the various commemorations of a fairly big anniversary of the Oregon Trail.  One of the insights that she shared from the experience was that _pregnancy_ was one of the main realities for the wives who traversed the Trail with their husbands and families back in the 1840s: Either they were already pregnant when they started the journey or became pregnant during it.  In any case, however, the challenge for people today trying to appreciate the hardships of making the then almost 6 month journey was to imagine doing it, pregnant, sitting in (or when things got really bad, laying in) a wagon that was going albeit slowly but nevertheless up-and-down-and-all-around as it was traversing a well-worn and not particularly well-maintained dirt path that was the Oregon Trail -- from Independence, Missouri all the way to Willamette Valley in Oregon.

The current film set in the rather endless short-grass prairie of Nebraska is largely about three young wives who went crazy out there in the middle of the endless "nowhere" (seriously some of the very evocative and (to make the point) necessarily _depressing_ panoramic shots in the film make the Nebraska of the mid-1800s look like the "sand planet" where "Luke" would have "grown-up" in the first Star Wars [1977] movie).  A fourth woman, Mary Bee Cuddy (played with Oscar Nomination worthiness by Hillary Swank) is tasked by her local Pastor (played by John Lithgow) to take the women back to Iowa where another Pastor friend and his wife would take care of them and perhaps send them back to their original families.  Again, this is not exactly the "American frontier story" that we're generally acquainted with...

Since Mary Bee Cuddy, tough, competent as the rest, perhaps _more competent_ than most of the local men (several of whose wives she was being tasked to "take home to their original families") was nevertheless "a woman" ... she's encouraged to find a man, really _any man_ to serve as a "homesman" (the title of the story) to "help her" with this sad and difficult task.  The ONLY man that she finds who could help her was a small-time drunk / scoundrel, arguably a "sorry excuse for a man" (played in the film, certainly with some delight by the director Tommy Lee Jones himself).

So then, there's the story's set up:  The honest and tough, perhaps tragically "too tough" for her own good Mary Bee Cuddy, sets off with three crazy women in tow and a not altogether sane male drifter who's supposed to "help her" in her task to bring the said "crazy women" back home somewhere "back East" Iowa-way.  Much, often quite sad / sometimes quite poignant ensues ...


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Saturday, January 3, 2015

Metro (orig. Метро) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  KN.ru (7.9/10)  KP.ru (85/100)  KT.ru (7.9)  MediaNews.ru (10/10)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

KinoNews.ru listing*   KinoPoisk.ru listing*
Kino-teatr.ru listing*    Kritikanstvo.ru listing*
Megacritic.ru listing*

Variety.com (N. Holdsworth) article
VarietyRussia.com (N. Karcev) review*

Afisha.ru (M. Kuvshinova) review*
Filmz.ru (A. Yushchenko) review*
KinoNews.ru (R. Volohov) review*
Kino-Teatr.ru (A. Filippov) review*
Media-News.ru (Nadin) review*
RusKino.ru (S. Stepnova) review*
Samizdat-Zhurnal.lib.ru (A.O. Valentinovna) review*
UralWeb.ru (O. Petrov) review*


Metro (orig. Метро) [2013] [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*(directed and screenplay cowritten by Anton Megerdichev [IMDb] [KN.ru]* [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* along with Denis Kuryshev [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* and Viktoriya Evseeva [IMDb] [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*) is a first of its kind "Russian blockbuster / disaster movie" that became something of a point of national pride last year ("Yes we _can_ make a film like this!"  It's honestly worth reading through some of the Russian language reviews listed above.  And this is actually quite easy using the Google Chrome browser in which clicking a single icon that appears in the upper right hand corner of the browser screen produces a relatively good "machine translation" of the text).

The film played at 2013 New York Russian Film Week whose films I've decided to try to find and review here on my blog now.

The story envisions the breakdown of one of Moscow's 1930s-era subway tunnels under the Moscow River one fine morning.  The tunnel becomes increasingly flooded with water as the cracks become larger.  With the flow increasingly becoming a torrent, the entire subway system comes to be threatened at one point and even the collapse of a good portion of the city above becomes possible.  The scenario was actually inspired by subway construction / operational mishaps (in 1974 and 1996) in Russian second city St. Petersburg / Leningrad).

Now a good part of what makes a "genre movie" (in this case a disaster movie) interesting is the film's "subtext."  And this film is certainly rich in subtext:

The leak appears on a line built during the 1930s (hence during Stalin era) NEAR a formerly secret "station" and even deviation of the subway line.  Tellingly, the presence of the formerly "secret station" ends up saving some who otherwise would have certainly become victims of the disaster portrayed -- they find a place to hide / flee -- BUT they are saved by the utterly historical accident of the presence of this "once secret bunker."  The case being made FOR Stalin these days in Russia is that STALIN saved Russia from Hitler, but the counterpoint being made, even in Russia, is that he did so largely or even utterly by accident: No matter how abused Russia had been under Stalin it had no other choice but to basically "follow him."  But can someone really be happy that a notoriously violent and abusive husband did actually come to save his wife from being raped by a violent and sadistic stranger? (or perhaps even simply avenged his abused wife's rape by eventually stalking down and killing the sadistic stranger)?  And yet, the violent / abusive husband eventually get / kill the guy.  And the wife, (Mother) Russia, got to live... In the film, some of the characters get to survive the depicted subway disaster simply as a result of a Stalin-era "accident."

However, contemporary debate about the Stalin Era is not by no means the only subtext in the film: The subway collapse in the movie is blamed on "uncontrolled construction" above-ground during the more recent POST-COMMUNIST ERA which is to have altered ground water flows and soil characteristics in unforeseen / unstudied and hence unknown ways.  And THIS IS a current concern / fear in Russia today -- that a great deal of what goes on in Russia today is uncontrolled / unregulated (basically who has money to bribe can do just about anything) and hence THE CONSEQUENCES of such uncontrolled / unregulated actions are largely UNKNOWABLE.   And honestly not knowing that even basic things are "the way they should be" can be pretty frightening. 

But beyond these "big issue" subtexts present in the film a more personal drama plays out in a complex arguably double love triangle between several of the film's main characters:

A modern traveling "career woman" Irina (played by Svetlana Khodchenkova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) is married to a "good" if perhaps somewhat "boring" ER-doctor named Garin (played by Sergei Puskepalis [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) who's still _choosing_ to work at a Moscow PUBLIC HOSPITAL.  But she ALSO has a hot "bysnessman" lover named Konstantinof (played by Anatoliy Belyy [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*).

While "modern feminist (caricature)" Irina is not portrayed well at all, together with Garin she has a cute-as-a-button daughter named Ksyusha (played by Anfisa Vistingauzen [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) over whose affections Garin (Irina's husband) and Konstantinof (Irina's lover) really battle.

The presence of the cute-as-a-button daughter and then, yes, a cute-as-a-button lap-dog that little Ksyusha becomes concerned about and repeatedly saves throughout the film are actually very cute adaptations-of and concessions-to traditional Soviet/Russian cinematic "kitsch" ;-).  What's a good Soviet era / Russian "family friendly film" WITHOUT a "cute-as-a-button kid" and then even a dog? ;-) BUT AGAIN, THESE STOCK CHARACTERS ARE  HONESTLY _NICE_.

So as the disaster film plays-out, the question throughout is "who is Irina (well we're kinda stuck with her...) but 'more importantly' who is cute-as-a-button Ksyusha going to end up with?  And, realistically, the answer to that question actually still involves who Irina the 'problematic / fallen mom' ends-up choosing as well:  Is Irina simply going to stay with her hot "getting to be richer than God" lover living in a glass-and-steel modern Moscow high-rise?  Or is she going to choose to come back to her more boring "doctor who still wants to do good" husband living in her / her husband's ... "different kind of high rise" but one that they (and other more regular Moscovites) can afford ...?

So yes, "much plays out" and yes, it somehow involves "an accident on the Moscow Metro" one day ;-) ;-)

Honestly, this is a very interesting and often quite entertaining "disaster film."  Now could Irina's character have been portrayed a little more kindly?  Still ... what a film!

ADDENDUM:

My parents' Communist-Era Czech roots require me to note a scene in the film that almost certainly had to be made ironically (or certainly would have made many "eyes roll"):
 
Yes, the husband Garin is portrayed as a "good guy." But the film-makers do "lay it on thick."  Early in the film, we see a _very grateful_ mother of a patient who he had just saved "SPONTANEOUSLY / OUT OF THE GOODNESS OF HER HEART" _giving him_ a BIG BOTTLE OF SOME KIND OF (PRESUMABLY EXPENSIVE) ALCOHOL for "saving her son."  He tells the grateful mother that he does not drink, but "so as not to hurt her feelings" he ... ACCEPTS THE "GIFT" ANYWAY ... OH PLEASE ... ANYONE of a COMMUNIST ERA EXTRACTION KNOWS A BRIBE WHEN HE/SHE SEES ONE ... IN THE PROPER ORDER, SHE'D COME WITH THE BIG BOTTLE OF EXPENSIVE ALCOHOL FIRST ... AND THEN (PERHAPS) HER SON WOULD HAVE BEEN SAVED...)


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

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Friday, January 2, 2015

The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  ChicagoSunTimes (2 Stars)  RE.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoSunTimes (C. Puig) review
RE.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review

The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death [2015] (directed by Tom Harper, screenplay by Jon Croker, story by Jon Croker and Susan Hill) is IMHO a basically safe and appropriately rated PG-13 "scary movie" that "the family" could go see together.

Set during the "Blitz" of early 1941, when London and most of England's cities were being bombed by the Nazis and therefore the cities' children were being evacuated, two teachers, one older a Mrs Jean Hogg (played by Helen McCrory) the wife of a British Officer, the other young, a Miss Eve Perkins (played by Phoebe Fox), are tasked with leading a group of children who have nowhere else to a refuge / school set-up for them by the British government.

So where did the government decide to send this poor group of child evacuees and their adult caretakers?  TO THE SAME CREEPY SEASIDE HOUSE of the first Woman in Black [2012] movie.  Yikes!

Upon arrival, almost everybody who can asks the same question: "Isn't there ANY OTHER PLACE that you could send us?"  And it's not just that the house is incredibly creepy looking with its overgrown vines and gardens.  But the house is surrounded by a tidal bog in which a child had already famously (or infamously) drowned (the child's death forming the back-story of why the house was thought by local townspeople to be haunted in the first place).  So the location was not exactly safe.  BUT all those in authority keep repeating: "There _is_ no place to move all of you to." (The group comprised the two teachers as well as a dozen or so children).  So they're stuck.

Well that could not be good ... and it wasn't.  Because the house _was_ haunted by "the woman in black" who we got to know from the first movie.

Now why was she haunting the place?   Did I mention that there was a child who drowned in the bogg surrounding the place?  She was the child's mother.  The child was born already under somewhat "scandalous circumstances."  The mother was already deemed "of questionable reason" even before the child drowned ... and then he did.  So, it could be said that the mother did not take her child's death "well."

And from that point forward (as we learned in the first installment), the house was not exactly the best place for young children OR for the people responsible for taking care of them.

Now it turns out that that one of the children in the group, Edward (played by Oakley Pendercast) had recently lost his parents in an air-raid, a piece of information that presumably a ghost (living largely on "the other side") could know and since ghost in question, "The Woman in Black," was not necessarily an Evil ghost but one "with a chip on her shoulder" (feeling that she wasn't respected appropriately in this life) ONE COULD EXPECT that the ghost would take a _perhaps sincere_ but _not exactly helpful_ (or appropriate) PROTECTIVE INTEREST in poor Edward.

So when Edward, still somewhat "shell shocked" by the sudden / tragic deaths of his parents, starts to get picked-on (not terribly picked-on but picked-on nonetheless) by other not altogether comprehending kids (THEY'RE KIDS AFTER ALL ...) well THIS UNSTABLE "GHOST WITH UNRESOLVED ISSUES" decides to "get involved" ...

And so, much necessarily ensues ...

Now it turns out that there are _several other characters_ in this story (living) who ALSO have "unresolved issues."  These include Edward, again simply devastated over the loss of his parents.  But they also include the younger teacher Eve, who we learn had a child taken away from her when she was young (she was found pregnant as a teenager and so after she had given birth the child had been promptly taken away from her for adoption).  There was also a British Airman named Harry Burnstow (played by Jeremy Irvine) who Eve and the group met on the train from London to this creepy seaside house, who was also heading in that same direction to re-unite with his unit after being briefly hospitalized after his plane had been shot down (It turns out that his three other crew mates all died in the ensuing crash following the plane's being shot down.  He was the only survivor AND HE FELT VERY GUILTY ABOUT THAT ...).

So there's a lot going on in this story with number of people with either "deep dark secrets" and/or friends / loved ones "on the other side." AND then there's this ghost, who _isn't_ necessarily EVIL but is certainly TORMENTED and perhaps CRAZY _brought_ into the midst of it all ;-).

So this is story, IMHO, _not_ about "a Demon" though CERTAINLY NOT about "Casper the Friendly Ghost."  Instead, it's about a ghost who's both powerful and "troubled."  The person was troubled in life and now remains troubled, indeed, _stuck_ in death.

Sigh, poor ghost ... but again ... much then has to play out ... and it does ... ;-)


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Thursday, January 1, 2015

Guardians of the Galaxy [2014]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Guardians of the Galaxy [2014] (directed and cowritten by James Gunn along with Nicole Perlman, inspired by the Marvel Comics comic book series [MarvU] [wikip 1969 2008] of the same name).  Of the Marvel comic book characters / series put on the big-screen to date, this is probably the most "out there" err "ambitious"  Indeed, initially, I chose to "put this one aside", contributing what I would have spent on the film to our Parish's "To Teach Who Christ Is" campaign ;-).  However, the film has proven to be wildly successful, indeed 2014's top grossing Hollywood film, making $332 million according to boxofficemojo.com.  So as the year has come to an end, it's hard for a reviewer like me to continue to "set aside" this film.

Indeed, part of the reason why I began writing reviews has been to raise-up and analyze films that _other critics_ have dissed or dismissed but have proven to be wildly popular nonetheless.  So I've happily written about / analyzed (favorably for the most part) films like the toy-based Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon [2011], and the video-game based Underworld: Awakening [2012] and Resident Evil: Retribution [2012] ;-) because I do believe that WILDLY popular films such as these have to speak to viewers on some deeper level than one would normally / superficially expect.

So how could the current film, Guardians of the Galaxy [2014], "speak to viewers" on a "deeper level" than one would initially expect?  The film is about Peter Quill (played briefly as a child by  Wyatt Oleff and later as an adult by Chris Pratt) who, in the 1970s, almost immediately after the death of his mother to cancer is "abducted by space aliens" (with only the clothes on his back and amusingly a 70s era "walkman") and transported into a world, universe WILDLY DIFFERENT than he (or we) was/were previously accustomed.

Okay the death of a parent or, more mundanely, the break-up of one's family can be WILDLY DISORIENTING to a child.  Note that I was at the border of such tragedy in my own family as my mother came down with and not-too-much-later died also of cancer as I was graduating from college.  So while far being older than Peter in the film when he lost his mother, I was still quite young and I can _personally attest_ to the experience being WILDLY DISORIENTING. 

However, putting the wildly disorienting experience of the death of a parent or the breakup of one's family aside -- consider ALSO that another recent film, here the Oscar caliber Wild [2014] is also about young woman played who lost her mother when she was young --  ALL OF US and especially the young are finding ourselves in a far more diverse / disorienting time than in times of recent past.  A number of years ago, a CNN report put it succinctly this way: In the United States, today's Seniors and their grandchildren live in two very different countries.  This is because some 90% of Seniors in the U.S. today remain white, while approaching 1/2 the nation's children especially in the younger grades are no longer white.  Now both African Americans and Hispanics tend to be Christian (Hispanics in large majority Catholic).  However, Asians and Middle Easterners are often, even generally, not.  The result is that American children (and even their parents) are living in a country / world far more dynamic / diverse than their grandparents and great-grandparents.  And that can be BOTH "disorienting" and experienced as COOL.

I do believe that this second possible response to the diversity (and its possibilities) that we're experiencing as COOL is reflected in the WILDLY POPULAR SCI-FI EXPRESSIONS a Cosmos absolutely brimming with almost infinite diversity / possibility.  One thinks of the phenomenal popularity of: (1) the 1960s original Star Trek television series, (2) the 1970s-80s original Star Wars trilogy (the early space alien filled "bar scene" etched into the minds of an entire generation of viewers), (3) the 1970s-80s era Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, which in only somewhat more staid / conventional form (radio then prose) expressed the wild diversity already present in the American/Marvel comic books like, in fact, the original Guardians of the Galaxy, and (4) the 1990s-2000s Men in Black films.  All of these Pop Cultural expressions have simply GLORIED in the infinite possibility of the Cosmos before us only a tiny portion of which we ever experience, let alone, understand.

Add to this the pop-cultural popularity of Erich von Däniken's "Chariots of the Gods?" inspired "Ancient Alien" [IMDb] phenomenon (which fascinatingly seeks, among other things, to bring "unity to religion(s)" by (re)labeling ALL GODS of ALL RELIGIONS to be previously "mis-understood" / "mis-interpreted" SPACE ALIENS), IT SHOULDN'T BE SURPRISING _AT ALL_ that a film like the current one, about a "terran" who was "abducted by space aliens" at "an early age," was (probably) initially "disoriented" by the experience BUT HAS SINCE "ADAPTED" AND IS NOW WILDLY ENJOYING THE POSSIBILITIES ... would prove to be PHENOMENALLY SUCCESSFUL:

ALL OF US TODAY to one extent or another are basically the film's "terran" hero "Peter Quill" ...

The plot doesn't matter.  The story just glories in infinite possibility.  And it's fun.  Peter's companions include an talking / intelligent raccoon named Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a genetically engineered / sentient and locomotive TREE named Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), a similarly genetically-altered woman (supposedly to :make her into a weapon") named Gamora (played by Zoe Saldana) and a blue-collarish generally red-faced "space tough" named Drax (played by Dave Bautista).  Together this motley, indeed quite ad hoc crew ... set out to (somehow) "protect the Galaxy" from celestial megalomaniacs / evil doers like Ronan (played by Lee Pace) whose Power (and monstrously Evil designs) we could only imagine. 

In a world that seems to be constantly shape-shifting and changing Peter Quill who's "found peace" and even _delight_ in all this change / diversity becomes a very interesting character indeed ;-).


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