Calculator (orig. Вычислитель / Vychislitel) [2014]

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

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

Film.ru (E. Ukhov) review*
Filmpro.ru (A. Temirdzhanova) review*
Gazeta.ru (D. Slyusarenko) review*
Kino-teatr.ru (D. Karpyuk) review*
Kommersant.ru (L. Maslova) review*
OVideo.ru (Barnidator) review*
RusKino.ru (S. Stepnova) review*


Calculator (orig. Вычислитель) [2014] [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* (directed and screenplay cowritten by Dmitriy Grachev [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* along with Andrey Kutuza [IMDb] [KP.ru]* based on the novel [GR] by Aleksandr Gromov [en.wikip] [ru.wikip]*[GR]*[IMDb] [KP.ru]*) is a recent, relatively low-budget Russian science fiction film (though interestingly filmed in Iceland [IMDb]) that utilizes enough of the conventions of science fiction that American / Western viewers would immediately understand it as belonging to this genre.

I included the film in my 2015 Russian Film Tour an initiative of mine whose aim is to offer Readers here a better sense of the diversity of the film scene in Russia today than one would get if one relied solely on the relatively few Russian films that make it to "art theaters" outside of the country / in the West.  

Set a thousand years in the future,in an initial voice-over, one of the film's principal protagonists, 30-something Christina (played by Anna Chipovskaya [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) tells us, that humanity has expanded into the Cosmos, organizing itself into a "Free World's League."  Yet as she continues her initial explanatory voice-over, it becomes clear that not all that much has changed:  "Security" in the "Free Worlds League" is now being run by an omnipresent, computerized "Total Control" surveillance system and Christiana's being sent to a cold, desolate penal planet called HT-59 for ... having killed her drunk-no-good-violent-cheating husband (we learn later by hitting him over the head with an ashtray ;-).  So ... despite flying all about the Cosmos, people, both socially and individually, have ... remained people.  How's that for a Russian "wet-blanket" of an insight? ;-) 

So, in the film's initial sequence, we watch Christina along with a number of other condemned (for a random assortment of crimes deemed "grave" by the current "powers that be") arrive in an appropriately sleek/futuristic spaceship at the (penal) planet's principal (guard) base.  There they are reminded that since "humanity has advanced beyond the barbarity of the death penalty," they are not going to be executed.  Instead, they're being condemned to live out their days -- basically every man/woman for him / herself -- OUTSIDE the base on the cold, desolate planet.  They are then escorted outside the base, given minimal supplies to divide among themselves, and told that if after an hour-or-two they remain within rifle-range of the base, THEN they would be shot by the guards from their perches at the base -- presumably because it would no longer be considered an execution by the penal authorities but rather a security-action on the part of the base or a suicide on the part of the prisoner(s) in question).  Wonderful ... Siberia or Devil's Island ... 1000 years hence ;-).  

So who were the prisoners?  Well there was Christina, convicted of having killed her husband in a domestic squabble, as well as a motley crew of others: As would often be the case in a totalitarian state where presumably _everybody_ could have been guilty _of something_, the group of condemned included not just violent criminals, quickly "organized" by a hardened mobster thug named Yust Van Borg (played by Vinnie Jones [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*), but _also_ a(n Orthodox) priest named Yan (John) (played by Vladas Bagdonas [IMDb] [KT.ru]*), an assortment of lesser, more petty, crinimals, both male and female, and "a former Presidential Advisor", named Ervin Kann (played by Evgeniy Mironov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*), who had been a designer of the "Total Control System" (had been part of the Regime) but had now somehow fallen into disfavor now with "the President" (Figures like Kann have had a long history of existence in Russia, notably under the Communists, though under Stalin they generally ended up with a bullet in their heads.  In today's Russia, former Oligarch, since fallen into disfavor with Putin,  Mikhail Khordorkov [en.wikip] [ru.wikip]*, could be seen as something of an Ervin Kann figure).

As "a former Presidential Advisor" and one who had been involved "in security," Kann knew something about the penal planet HT-51 as well as the way the "Total Control System" operated.  Yust Van Borg _also_ knew something about both, but obviously only "from the outside" (from stories of other prisoners, etc).

Anyway, early in the film, as the group of prisoners was dumped outside of the guard base and told to quickly make their way "out of firing range" Kann quickly makes a deal with Yust Van Borg for his (relative) freedom.  He (and Christi quickly joins him) would be allowed to break away from Yust Van Borg's group in exchange for taking a significantly smaller portion of the already meager supplies that the group had been given by the base officials before dumping them outside.  Yust Van Borg takes the deal because he figures that Kann / Christi are basically giving-up / committing suicide, while Kann knows that the supplies that they were given weren't nearly enough to ensure survival by anyone anyway.

Both groups, Yust Van Borg's larger group, and Kann / Christi then begin a trek (1) outside of firing range of the Base, and (2) toward a set of largely fabled Islands nick-named "The Isles of Happiness" where if they reach them, they could live-out their lives in relative peace.  But it's a long way across a marshy, cold, largely desolate planet, and much inevitably ensues ...

It's a pretty good story filmed in the black volcanic rock strewn wastes of northern Iceland [IMDb] and one that American / Western movie-fans would immediately recognize as following the conventions of classic contemporary science fiction.  I recently found the film, utilizing Russian website megacritic.ru.

The film is relatively widely available, albeit in Russian, on the internet.  English subtitles, machine translated from a set of Romanian (! ;-) subtitles can be found on the opensubtitles.org website.

Not a bad film!

* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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Moms / Mamy (orig. мамы) [2012]

MPAA (PG)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

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

Gazeta.ru (S. Sinyakou) review*
KinoAfisha.ru (O. Egerova) review*
KinoNews.ru (R. Volohov) review*
Kino-Teatr.ru (M. Milian) review*
OVideo.ru (V. Kavalevich) review*
OVideo.ru (A. Trunov) review*
RusKino.ru (S. Stepnova) review*
UralWeb.ru (O. Petrov) review*
Volgograd.ru (R. Aprelev) review*
VsiSumi.com (A.Prikazchik) review*

Moms / Mamy (orig. мамы) [2012] [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* is a FUN Russian family comedy built around the celebration of Mothers' Day (err, International Women's Day, March 8) in Russia with which I chose TO BEGIN my 2015 Russian Film Tour an initiative of mine whose aim is to offer Readers here a better sense of the diversity of the film scene in Russia today than one would get if one relied solely on the relatively few Russian films that make it to "art theaters" outside of the country / in the West.

Intertwining the stories of eight mothers (and their children/loved ones) across Russia on that day, American / Western viewers would find the film's structure to be similar to light recent Hollywood holiday-themed productions such as Valentine's Day [2010] and New Year's Eve [2011].  As in the case of those Hollywood productions, the (Russian) film spawned two (Russian) sequels: Happy New Years Moms! (orig. С Новым годом, мамы!) [2012] [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* and Moms 3 (orig. мамы 3) [2014] IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* ... to similar (Russian) critical exasperation ;-) as that which greeted the New Year's Eve sequel to the fresher/more successful Valentine's Day film in the States.

Russian films of this sort, while both common and popular in Russia -- just look-up some of the reviews listed above, machine translation if not altogether satisfying is no longer horrible using the Chrome browser / translate.google.com -- are often _not_ particularly easy to find in the West.  YET I DO BELIEVE IT IS IMPORTANT FOR AMERICANS / WESTERNERS TO SEE THEM  or AT LEAST TO KNOW OF THEM.  Why?  Because the ONLY Russian films that find their way to the United States tend to be PONDEROUS "EPICS" that I do believe reinforce a A VERY PROBLEMATIC American stereotype of Russians as a backward, often filth-covered, utterly incomprehensible and above all _humorless_ people ... hence worthy of enduring MISTRUST and arguably HATE.  I recently reviewed one such PONDEROUS Russian "epic" Hard to be a God [2013], which while CERTAINLY AN ACHIEVEMENT -- the poor Russian director worked on this/his "sci-fi" epic for 18 years including 6 years of filming, before DYING before completing the work in the final editing phase -- PLAYED "HOOK, LINE AND SINKER" INTO THAT "utterly humorless, filth-covered people" STEREOTYPE.

So after seeing and reviewing that film and even talking to a number of the people at the Gene Siskel Film Center (generally sympathetic to my complaints, but arguing "What can we do? We can show only what's available.  There are distributors to deal with, etc ...") I went online looking for recent Russian films that were both "UNEXPECTED" (from an American/Western point of view) and  LIGHT.

Of the various Russian Film Databases that I generally list at the top of my reviews (of Russian films), MegaCritic.ru IMHO proves to be the most useful in this regard because it can sort films according, year, genre, nation of origin and POPULARITY.  In this way, I first discovered Moms (orig. мамы) [2012].

Then, Russian films, probably pirated..., are actually quite easy to find (IN RUSSIAN) online.  The difficulty is finding subtitles for them.  For Moms (orig. мамы) [2012], I found a SERBIAN .srt (subtitle) file (! ;-) using the opensubtitles.org website.  After downloading the Serbian .srt file, it proved not particularly difficult to (machine translate) the file using translate.google.com to create an (machine translated) ENGLISH .srt (subtitle) file.  Yes, the translations are often "imperfect" (LOL ;-), but they're much better than nothing ;-).  Then with a Russian version of the film and English subtitles created this way, I was able to see the film.

And IMHO it was definitely worth it ... because this was a LOVELY and often very funny Russian story about the celebration of Russian Mothers' Day (err, International Women's Day and some of the characters in the film were truly well-conceived producing a film that proved unsurprisingly to be multiple sequel-worthy "hit" in Russia, and one which Americans / Westerners really ought to know about.

So what were some of the characters / stories in the film?

Well, the film began with the story of an anchorwoman (played wonderfully by Anastasiya Zavorotnyuk [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) of a early morning news program for a local TV station "Oryol/Eagle TV" out in the regional city of Oryol, pop. 317,000, a couple hundred miles SSW of Moscow and about 100 miles NE from the border with Ukraine (Note that "orel/oryol" means "eagle" in Russian).

Oryol is the capital of Oryol Oblast with a total population of about 786,000 and WW II buffs may recognize Oryol's name as it that was a significant regional city not altogether far from Kursk (the site of the 1943 battle which finally irrevocably turned the course of WW II on the Eastern Front).  To give Americans a frame of reference, Oryol's population is somewhat more than Amarillo, TX, Baton Rouge, LA and Birmingham, AL (which are around 200,000) and somewhat less than Colorado Springs, CO, Minneapolis, MN, Omaha, NE and Wichita, KS (which are around 400,000).

Anyway, people don't necessarily _dream_ of being the "early morning news anchor" at a TV station in _any_ of these places.  And yet, it is a job, and this anchorwoman (as a woman...) was doing her level-best to be _professional_ about it, even if everybody else was still asleep, including her camera-man who kept dosing off during her broadcast and the late-night staff that left her to work with the previous day's notes (she begins her broadcast not even realizing that it was Mother's Day...).

As she's interviewing some unfortunate local government official (played again wonderfully by Andrey Fedortsov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) who, like her, was of sufficiently unimportant rank to be sent by his higher-ups to get up and be interviewed on the local TV station at such an ungodly hour, she's delighted to see that there's _someone_ "calling on the line."

She interrupts the good-natured if half-asleep and not particularly important government official who's dutifully (and still somewhat enthusiastically) rambling-on about whatever his still-no-doubt-sleeping higher-ups had sent him to the station to talk about, to say "we have a caller."

BUT WHO IS THE CALLER?  It's her 12-14 year old son (played by Sergey Pokhodaev [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*), who's calling in to complain: "Ma' did you take my keys again?"  (She did).  Flustered, she tells him (on the air ...) "Just go to school son, I'll be home before you get back," where upon he reminds her, "But mom, it's a national holiday" ("Mother's Day") so there is no school.  (She herself forgot, and the NOTES !$#% she was left with by the previous night's staff didn't say anything about this either).  More flustered now (and thanking the Heavens that NO ONE IS WATCHING ANYWAY ;-) she tells him then to "just stay home" and "entertain himself" until she gets back, where upon, of course, the 12-14 year old son, kinda rolls his eyes.  What can he do?

WHAT HE DOES DO ... is send his mother an e-mail -- while she's still interviewing the good-natured, if still-half-asleep flunky of a government official -- wishing her a Happy Mother's Day.  She again, interrupts the government official, announcing: "We have an e-mail here" and as she reads the e-mail out on the air, she realizes that it's from her son ... wishing her a Happy Mother's Day ... AND SHE BEGINS TO CRY ... ;-).

She leaves the government official on air for a moment, telling him "just continue on talking" ... and then comes back, STILL CRYING, WITH A PHOTO ALBUM ... and starts showing the still talking, still good natured, government official (as well as a the TV audience) pictures of her son, when he was a baby, when he was 18 months old, when he "kicked his first soccer ball" and so forth.  NOW IT'S THE SON who's THANKING GOD that "NO ONE IS WATCHING THE PROGRAM" :-) ;-).

But of course there is ... It turns out that there is a TV exec from Moscow (played by Igor Vernik [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) just getting out of bed and still dressed in "South Park" character emblazoned boxer shorts ;-), who's in Oryel visiting his own mother for Mother's Day, who sees this lovely regional TV announcer showing pictures of her boy on regional TV and ... has "an idea for a new show" ... ;-)

How can one NOT LIKE that story? ;-) ;-)

And there are 7 others:

There's one about a lovely family that's "gift challenged" ;-).  They are all nice people, but have no idea what would be an appropriate gift for their lovely mother.  So they wake her up (she played again wonderfully by Marina Golub [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*), they make her breakfast and then announce ... that they got her a ticket to go ... skydiving ;-).  Apparently, the son (played by Ivan Dobronravov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) was a local, again in some regional city somewhere, skydiving instructor.  She protests: "But all I wanted was a crock-pot" ;-).  The dad / her husband (played with wonderful, sincere cluelessness by Fyodor Dobronravov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) answers: "Honey, we can get you a crock-pot anytime.  This is something that you'll be able to remember your whole life.  10-20 years from now, your grandchildren will be saying 'We have one cool grandma'" and their smiling 10 year old daughter (played by Polina Stremousova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) appears to agree ... much has to play-out ... ;-)

Then there's a tough guy boxer (played by Mikhail Porechenkov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) enforcer for the local, well, "powers that be" (mafya...), WHO GREW-UP IN AN ORPHANAGE (never had a mother) ... who starts getting phone calls on his cell-phone that day from an older, somewhat confused grandmotherly woman (played by Yekaterina Vasilyeva [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) asking for her son Kolya. "I'm not Kolya!" he keeps telling her, but she keeps calling.  So there he is, IN A MEAT LOCKER, ABOUT TO BEAT-UP SOMEONE WHO "OWES THE BOSS" MONEY, when she calls AGAIN ($#!).  She needs Kolya, to her help her with some plumbing.  At this point he's tired and having extracted at least some money from the guy he had, hands-tied up to a meat hook, to "make the boss happy" decides that he'll try to help the poor, somewhat confused lady.  After all, he may not be Kolya, and he never had a mother, but ... he did have "some skills and some connections" to fix whatever "needed to be fixed" for her ... ;-)

Then there's some SUPER BUSY, high powered, big shot Moscow exec (played wonderfully by Sergey Bezrukov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*).  When he "comes to the office" that day, his super-efficient / perfectly-for-her-position drop-dead beautiful administrative assistant (played again, perfectly for the role by Elena Korikova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) has "all his gifts" ready for the day (it is "International Women's Day" after all).  So she's arranged gifts to be sent out: (1) to his two ex-wives, (2) for his four current mistresses, (3) six gifts for "the second bench" ;-), and then (4) random gifts then for other "potential future prospects."  He looks at them, approves, tells her to send them out and ... then tells her that _he's_ taking the rest of the day off.  (Honestly, "where's HER GIFT?" ... ;-).  BUT ... he has a place to visit ... which (spoiler here) ends up sending him on a much better course than it would originally seem.

There are two sets of stories about children of divorce.  One is actually very interesting because the boy (played by Semyon Treskunov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) is from a rich family.  His dad (Yuriy (Gosha) Kutsenko [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) is a record producer, his mom (Kseniya Buravskaya [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) apparently an artist, and he talks to his guard (played by Sergey Badyuk [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) who's a "former paratrooper" who left his own family after coming back from the service because he felt he was "too messed up to be a good father."  The boy tells the depressed guard that his daughter would probably prefer a "messed up dad" to none at all ...

And there's a silly/funny story about a tough "under-cover anti-narcotics FSB agent" (played by Dmitriy Dyuzhev [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) who "learned all that is really important" from his school teacher mom (played by Liya Akhedzhakova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) ... who's actually learned all that SHE NEEDS TO KNOW about "his way of life" ... "watching TV" ;-)

Finally, there's a perfectionist father (played by ), who's really tough on his son (played by ), but then softens up to his no longer perfect (gettting older ...) mother (played by ).

It all makes for some VERY INTERESTING REFLECTIONS ON MOTHERHOOD, FAMILY and VALUES in general.  And it's sweet ... and it comes from our once decades-long enemy (and perhaps soon to be enemy once more ...) ... Russia.

So folks, you don't need to hear it from me: but good job, honestly good job. 


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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Terminator Genisys [2015]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review  

Terminator Genisys [2015] (directed by Alan Taylor, screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier based on the characters created by James Cameron and Gale Ann Hurd) is the fifth installment in the Terminator story/franchise.

The series throughout has gloried in appropriating Biblical / Christian concepts and recasting them in IMHO often fascinating / thought-provoking ways.

The basic story line was outlined in the first Terminator [1984] film (which came out when I was a college student).  In that film, both a "Monstrous" mechanical "Terminator" (played by young Arnold Schwarzenegger) and an "Angelic" (though human) warrior figure named Kyle Reese (played in the original film by Michael Biehn) were sent back from the Future to Los Angeles of 1984 to find a lowly waitress named Sarah Conner (played in the original film by Linda Hamilton), note Sarah's "Biblical name."  The monstrous mechanical "Terminator" (as fierce as ANY DRAGON, like that of the 12th Chapter of the Book of Revelation) was sent back to FIND AND KILL Sarah Conner, while the "Angelic" Kyle Reese was sent to PROTECT HER by her Son, John Conner (note the initials "J.C.").  Why?  Because, Sarah's son, John ("J.C.") Conner would grow up to SAVE HUMANITY in an Apocalyptic battle with interconnected sentient machinery which, born of human arrogance, that is, Sin, had decided (in a "monstrous nanosecond") to destroy Humanity, its unpredictable maker.  (Readers note here that my thesis paper at the end of my seminary years was based On the Marian Imagery of the Terminator (1996)).  

The rest of the subsequent Terminator series continued with explorations of the relationships between (1) Humanity and Computers / Machinery and (2) Humanity and (Super) Humanity, that is, something approaching Divinity: Would a person arriving from the future to a previous age be perceived by people of that previous age to be at minimum "angelic" / "superhuman" or perhaps even "Divine"?  Could a super-intelligent, super-capable machine or perhaps an "machine enhanced person" begin to appear "Superhuman to Divine"?

The current film certainly continues to explore these questions as well as some of the paradoxes of time travel (If one were to go back in time to change an event in the past, could one, "poof," just destroy one's own future existence, or would one continue to exist then in the "new present" ;-)

In any case, in the current film near the end of the climactic battle with the machines, Kyle Reese (played now by Jai Courtney) is sent by John Conner (played by Jason Clarke) back to 1984 to find / save Sarah Conner (played now by Emilia Clarke) as in the first movie ... BUT ... the circumstances of Sarah (and really of the world) have been changed by the time traveling interventions that have occurred in the intervening movies (YES dear readers, keeping track of the effects of time traveling thoughout the film-series is enough to make your heads spin ;-).  Indeed, an Arnold Schwarzenegger-playing cyborg is a now "Guardian" PROTECTING Sarah Conner rather than seeking to destroy her (something that poor Kyle Reese, who's spent his whole life battling machines, had a difficult time wrapping his head around).

Still the basic goal of Reese / Sarah Conner (by now very well informed about the future battle with technology) is to find the point in which the Machines would lash out at Humanity (Judgement Day) and STOP IT.

That day turns out to be in 2017, when a new GeniSys ("Killer") Ap is supposedly going to be lauched which promised to "seemlessly link together all the gadgets of the world" to form a universal (or at least world-wide) "SkyNet."

So Kyle Reese and Sarah Conner have to then jump from 1984 to 2017 to stop this ... and ... much then ensues... ;-)

AMONG that which ensues is an exploration of a new "interesting quasi theological question" (in the context of the whole Terminator storyline / franchise): If John Conner, born of a human mother (and of an "angelic" human father from the future ...) could be understood as a (Christ-like) "Savior figure" for humanity, what would an "anti-John Conner" look like and how would he come to be (created/conceived)?

Anyway, all the "Apocalyptic" violence aside (something that has also been part-and-parcel of the whole Terminator franchise...), I continued to enjoy some of the more thought provoking aspects of the story ;-)


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Krásno [2014]

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

IMDb listing
CSFD listing*
FDB.cz listing*

Aktuálne.cz (J. Gregor) review*
ČervenýKoberec.cz (J. Kábrt) review*
Česká Televize (M. Šobr) review*
iDnes.cz (M. Spáčilová) review*
Lidovky.cz (M. Kabát) review*

Krásno [2014] [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]* (directed and cowritten by Ondřej Sokol [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]* along with Martin Finger [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]* and Petr Vydra [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) closes-out the 2015 Czech That Film Tour organized by the Czech Foreign Ministry / Ministry of Culture, which makes its stop this month (June, 2015) at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago.

The film is a smart (perhaps too "smart" for its own good) noirish dark comedy that borrows/applies the conventions of similar American / Western films -- influences would range from The Hangover [2009] / Pain and Gain [2013] to Martin McDonagh's In Bruges [2009] / Seven Psychopaths [2012], to the Coen Brothers' Fargo [1996] to the Humphrey Bogart "Noir just before it came to be called Noir" classic The Maltese Falcon [1941] -- to spin a very contemporary Czech story.  The effect though may have been to produce a film that was more provocative than intended ;-).

The story is about two quite well-off, approaching 40, hence no longer entirely young men, Adam (played by Ondřej Sokol [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) and Michal (played by Martin Finger [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) coming back, after some (not a huge amount, but some) years, presumably from Prague to the (NOT tiny but still quite provincial) town of their birth, Šumperk (in German it used to be called Mährisch Schönberg) in the Olomouc region of northern Moravia in the Czech Republic.

It's clear that that the two disdained going back.  True the region was nominally BEAUTIFUL (the film's title "Krásno" arguably means "beautiful" in Czech), but both appear to find the town's nominal beauty kitsch / quaint and, more to the point, below its facade, FAKE.  In the Czech dialogue of the film, the word "krásno" (or one or another derivative) appears with some frequency and almost always in the context of using something "lovely" to hide / cover-over some kind of ugliness.

And let's face it, there'd be A LOT OF HORROR / AWFULNESS to find "beneath the surface" of "quiant, lovely provincial" Šumperk [en.wikip] [cs.wikip] [de.wikip] BEGINNING with the Czechified name of "Šumperk" itself:

Though historically part of the Lands of the Czech Crown (the Czechlands) -- Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia -- prior to Czech(oslovak) independence in 1918, the town of Mährisch Schönberg (Šumperk) was almost entirely populated with ethnic (SUDETEN) GERMANS with a significant JEWISH minority.  The Czech population, small prior to Czechoslovak independence, increased in the interwar period because the town was a fairly significant borderland railroad junction and the Czechoslovak government needed the trains to run through the region reliably (with Czech workers).  Enter the War: the town along with the surrounding region was annexed to Nazi Germany as part of the infamous 1938 Munich Pact.  DURING THE WAR, the previous Jewish population in the region was largely exterminated in the Nazi Holocaust (and the ethnic Czechs would have been expelled).  Then AFTER THE WAR the Czechs returned and armed with the Beneš Decrees promptly EXPELLED ALL THE ETHNIC GERMANS, repopulating this "picturesque town" (and others just like it) with Czechs and Slovaks not only from Czechoslovakia proper but also with Czechs resettled from Western Ukraine (the Russians had taken those lands from the Poles...) and Slovaks from Romania.  Add then a sizable number of GREEK (Communist) refugees from the post-WW II Greek Civil War and Roma (Gypsies) from all over the country, ALL TO MAKE THE "PICTURESQUE TOWN" NOT _SEEM_ SO VACANT.  Now why would it be VACANT?  Because MOST OF ITS ORIGINAL RESIDENTS -- BOTH JEWISH AND GERMAN were either DEAD or otherwise EXPELLED.

So ... what a "lovely town" ... "beautiful it is, really ..."

'Cept, neither of the approaching 40-year-olds, Adam and Michal, returning back to the town were at all that concerned about the monumentally awful history of the town in which they grew-up.  Instead, what they hated about the town was that it had seemed "SO BORING."

Now WHY would it be so?  Just think about it for a minute: What would ANYONE of any AUTHORITY from parents to local government ("back in the day" Communist) officials "talk about" when these two were growing up? ... When 9/10 people living there (including they themselves) were LIVING ON OTHER PEOPLE'S PROPERTY, IN OTHER PEOPLE'S HOMES, EVEN USING OTHER PEOPLE'S DISHES, LINENS and FURNITURE as their own.  Of course the town's going to be BORING ... NO ONE is going to be talking ABOUT ANYTHING ... substantial.

So the two had fled the town as soon as they could for far more excitement, elsewhere, in Prague.  Now they were returning for reasons for which one often returns home even if one doesn't particularly want to: family matters. 

'Cept those family matters were not particularly "pretty either."  Michal's father was dying, but Michal was convinced that his father and his current wife Blanka (played by Jana Pehrová-Krausová [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) had somehow a hand in his psychologically troubled mother's death some years back: She had been in and out of psychiatric institutions for years, but despite having Blanca as a mistress, Michal's father had never divorced her.  Then Michal's mother had been found, drowned at a boating pier by a (lovely) local reservoir.  But she also showed signs of possibly being strangled.  But perhaps she tried to hang herself first, and when that didn't work, went out to the reservoir to drown herself ... or ... maybe "she was helped / pushed / etc."  In any case, Blanca moved into Michal's father's flat quite soon after her death...  Now, some years later, Michal's dad was dying (of cancer) as well.

Michal's coming back home, because "that's what you do, when one of your parents is ill" but he has very little to say to his dying dad and even less to say to his dad's second wife.  Adam has even less interest to return to a town that he really disdained, but is coming along because "that's what you do, when your friend is in a tough time" to support Michal.  Much, sometimes funny / increasingly not, ensues ...

But isn't it all so krásno (beautiful) here ... where "nothing ever happens"?


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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Ted 2 [2015]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review


There are a fair number of things that I can say with absolute certainty about Ted 2 [2015] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Seth Macfarlane along with Alan Sulkin and Wellesey Wild) -- (1) the film's NOT going to win any Academy Awards Nominations this year, and (2) like its predecessor Ted [2012], it will gleefully get an "O" (morally offensive) rating from the CNS/USCCB media office.

Yes, the R-RATING is RICHLY, indeed WILDLY DESERVED.  Why?  PARENTS TAKE NOTE: If your kid didn't know what a "bong" was or how to "give a BJ" before seeing the film, your kid will DEFINITELY KNOW AFTERWARDS.  So parents, would you want your 10 year-old or 12 year-old to know _those kind of things_ already?  Hence, the film's R-(not without parental consent) rating ...

So why see / review a film like this at all?  Well, (1) I do believe that I could very safely "bet the collection" that easily half the parish will gleefully, smiling-from-ear-to-ear see the movie (though hopefully NOT with the youngest of kids...).   I do "know our people" ;-) and as long as the kids stayed at home -- NO the film would NOT be an "AYO / youth group activity" ;-) -- I'd probably happily join them ;-); (2) LIKE its predecessor, Ted [2012], the film IS OFTEN VERY FUNNY and (3) even in the midst of often stunningly stupid jokes actually tells some fairly good cautionary stuff:

Case(s) and point:

(1) We're told fairly early in the film that Teddy-bear Ted's (voiced by Seth Macfarlane) best human friend forever John (played by Mark Wahlberg), who had apparently married his love interest in the first movie (played then by Mila Kunis) is now divorced.  Poor Mila ... (not appearing in the current film).  Anyway, Ted discovers that John, depressed, is now addicted to porn.  He tells John, "OMG, you have to get rid of this stuff"  "Yes, yes, I'll erase it all."  "But that's not going to do it, we have to take a hammer to your laptop." They do.  But then how to get rid of the pieces?  "We're going to have to bury them in the bottom of Boston Harbor ..." Ted suggests.  And so a sequence follows showing both Walhberg AND TED in scuba gear burying a white plastic trash bag with the pieces of John's old laptop in the sea bed of Boston Harbor ... ;-).  YES, PORN'S A PROBLEM ... and YES, HOW DO YOU GET RID OF IT (completely, without much of a trace) FROM YOUR COMPUTER ONCE IT'S THERE ... ? ;-)

(2) The current film begins with the magically living Teddy-bear Ted getting married to a sweet / heart of gold (but ex-hooker) named Tami-Lynn (played by Jessica Barth).  A year into their marriage, they "run into problems."  To save it, they decide to have a kid, never mind that Ted, well can't (he's a FREAKIN' STUFFED though MAGICALLY LIVING / TALKING TEDDY BEAR ...) .  Anyway, after "exploring" various "means" of getting a sperm donor, they're told another hard lesson: Due to Tami-Lynn's previous hard-living lifestyle ... she can't have kids anyway.  (YES FOLKS, "hard living" does have UNINTENTIONAL / UN-THOUGHT-THROUGH CONSEQUENCES...).

So after realizing that they can't have children, the two decide to adopt.  And that's where they realize that they have a whole other level of problems.  They're told that "technically" Ted's not even a human being.  Well, yeah ... And that's where the film really begins, the film (3) becomes a parable about all sorts of past practices of discrimination, against blacks, women and gays ...

Recently graduated (from "loser" / notorious "party school" A.S.U. ;-) Samantha L. Jackson (played by Amanda Seyfried), yes "Sam L. Jackson",  becomes their lawyer ...

Much often quite funny, indeed jaw-dropping ("Did they just say that?") hilarious ensues ...

So the film, as the first, continues to be both a really DUMB sophomoric movie and one that's NOT altogether dumb.  What it certainly is however, is "NOT for the kids ..." ;-)


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Njinga Queen of Angola (orig. Njinga Rainha de Angola) [2013]

MPAA (NR would be PG-13/R)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
AdoroCinema.com listing*

Jornal Angolano de Letras e Artes (A. Quicunga) review*
C7nema.net (R. Nunes) review*
Diario de Noticias.pt (R.P. Tendinha) review*
Jornal Brasil Online review*

RaisNezaBoneza.no (R.N. Boneza) review 


Njinga Queen of Angola (orig. Njinga Rainha de Angola) [2013] [IMDb] [AC]* (directed by Sérgio Graciano [IMDb] [AC]* written by Joana Jorge [IMDb]) is an excellent, high quality (Portuguese language / here English subtitled) Angolan historical epic set in the late 1500s-early 1600s in what is today the Southwest African nation of Angola as the Portuguese, and most gallingly Portuguese slave traders, began to increasingly encroach on the traditional kingdoms of the region.

The film played recently as part of the 2015 (13th annual) Chicago African Diaspora Film Festival organized by ArtMattan and hosted by Facets Multimedia in Chicago.

In the film, Ngola (King) Kiluanje (played by Álvaro Miguel [IMDb]) of the then Southwest African kingdom of Ndongo [en.wikip] [pt.wikip]* the father of film's title character Njinga Mbande [en.wikip] [pt.wikip]*(played in the film by former 2008 Miss Angola beauty queen Lesliana Pereira [pt.wkip]*[IMDb] [AC]) is mortally wounded in battle against the Portuguese after refusing concessions, again above all involving the slave trade, being imposed on him by them.

The question becomes who's going to succeed Ngola Kiluanje?  The logical successor would be his son Mbande (played by Jaime Joaquim [IMDb] [AC]).  Alternatively, there's his illegitimate son Njali (played by Miguel Hurst [IMDb] [AC]) and then there is Njinga, who, though a woman, many (elders and otherwise) in the court considered the most capable anyway.

What to do, and above all for the sake of the Kingdom?  Well, that's bulk of the film ...

Njinga proves to be a very adept / wise politician.  She remains in good terms with both of her brothers.  Further, she goes to and negotiates with the Portuguese a treaty on behalf of her brother.  Discovering that it would be to her and her kingdom's advantage if she became a Christian, she gets baptized, taking the Portuguese governor's wife as her Godmother and even taking on her Godmother's name, Ana de Soaza, as her Christian name.

After her brothers' deaths, she becomes Queen of Ndongo [en.wikip] [pt.wikip]* and even of a neighboring kingdom Matamba [en.wikip] [pt.wikip]*.  Then discovering that another European power, the Dutch, were also seeking to make inroads (at the expense of the Portuguese) in the region, SHE PLAYS THEM AGAINST EACH OTHER to her advantage, SUCCEEDING in acheiving FULL INDEPENDENCE of her two kingdoms from the Europeans (not having to pay tribute to either European power) during the remainder of her reign ;-).

Njinga's [en.wikip] [pt.wikip]* was truly a quite remarkable story, and I'm happy that today's Angola  made a very nice / high quality film to tell it.  Good job folks, good job!




 * Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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The Face of an Angel [2015]

MPAA (R)  RE.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  The Guardian (1 Star)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review
The Guardian (P. Bradshaw) review
Slant Magazine (C. Dillard) review

The Face of an Angel [2015] (directed by Michael Winterbottom screenplay by Paul Viragh based on the book Angel Face [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Barbie Latza Nadeau [GR] [Amzn]) is a (fictionalized) film about a European born/accented Hollywood screenwriter/director named Thomas (played by Daniel Brühl) sent by a London-based production company to Siena, Italy to research a (fictionalized) sensational murder of an English college student named Elizabeth Pryce (played by Sai Bennett) which paralleled the circumstances of the actual sensational murder of English college student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy on the night of Oct 31-Nov 1, 2007 (Halloween).  

When Thomas arrives at the airport in Italy, he is picked up by American-(or English) ex-pat journalist Simone Forde (played by Kate Beckinsale).  Among her gigs were writing for various American publications out of Italy, including Newsweek and The Daily Beast.  And in the film, she's presented as having written a book entitled "The Face of an Angel" about the murder.  Forde's character is modeled after Barbie Latza Nadeau [GR] [Amzn], an expat journalist based in Italy who has written for Newsweek / The Daily Beast and who wrote the book Angel Face [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] on the Meredith Kercher case. 

Simone's first piece of advice to the arriving / no doubt still jetlagged Thomas is to "fictionalize" the story as "there is truth about this case that can only be written in a fictionalized style."  Va bene, so Thomas and Simone drive off to Siena investigate the fictionalized murder of Elizabeth Pryce (modeled after the actual murder of Meredith Kercher which took place in Perugia) the story of which, in a tip of the hat to Dante's descent into Hell in The Inferno, Thomas eventually decides to set in Florence ;-).

Yes there comes to be a Dantean Descent into Hell / Alice in Wonderland "looking glass" quality to the story that follows.  Among the cabal of paparazzi / journalists / bloggers following the "retrial" of American college student Jessica Fuller (played by Genevieve Gaunt and modeled after actual American college student Amanda Knox first implicated then exonerated in Meredith Kercher's murder) for the murder of Elizabeth Pryce are:

(1) the above mentioned Simone Forde, the American-(or English) expat writing for Newsweek / The Daily Beast;

(2) a Nancy Grace-inspired character named Sarah (played by Sara Stewart) who's been paid a fortune by Jessica Fuller's family to plead her case in the media;

(3) a British tabloid journalist, Joe (played by John Hopkins), whose "great coup" in the reporting on the Pryce murder was getting his hands on and then publishing salacious extracts of Jessica Fuller's diary;

and (4) a really creepy local Italian blogger named Francesco (played by Corrado Invernizzi) who also (we discover as the story progresses) owned a good portion of the rentable (including student) properties in Siena, and who frankly seemed to know way-too-much about the story than he should have.

Again, a true descent into journalistic Hell ...

To try to make sense of the case, and even the student ("partying") culture of today's Siena, Thomas eventually solicits the aide of a Beatrician "guide" in the form of an amiable English college student / barmaid-waitress named Melanie (played by Cara Delevingne). 

Much, often strange / obscured by a drug-induced haze ensues ...

In the end, does the film offer anything new particularly insightful about the tragic murder of Meredith Kercher on that fateful All Hollows Eve of 2007 in Perugia? 

I actually do think the film says a lot ... above all that beyond all the complexities / contradictions in the case ... at the end of the day A MURDER OF A YOUNG ENGLISH WOMAN OCCURRED.  Who did it?  Well ...


And perhaps, that's the horror of it all. 

All in all, IMHO a pretty good rendering of a story that is very difficult to tell.


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