Big Hero 6 [2014]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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The Judge [2014]

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So good job folks, good job!


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Citizenfour [2014]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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Nightcrawler [2014]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is one disturbing film.


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Before I Go to Sleep [2014]

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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Fair Play [2014]

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

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

CineEuropa (M. Kudláč) review

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

Variety (A. Simon) review

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


ADDENDA

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

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


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

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Kill the Messenger [2014]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


ADDENDA:

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

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

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


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

M

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

IMDb listing
AsianWiki listing

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

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

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

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

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

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It Follows [2014]

MPAA (R)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing


It Follows [2014] (written and directed by David Robert Mitchell) is an American award-winning low budget "indie" horror film making the rounds in the festival circuit.  It played recently at the 2014 (50th Annual) Chicago International Film Festival and is scheduled to be released to the general public sometime in 2015

The film is about a random, and by appearances generally "nice," 19-year-old suburban girl named Jay (played by Maika Monroe) who "finally" has her first sexual experience with a similarly seemingly nice / good-looking guy named Hugh (played by Jake Weary).  HOWEVER, as she waxes softly and sweetly in the back seat of Hugh's car, parked somewhere secluded by a river-bank or something, about the "wonderfulness" of what they/she had just experienced, she's shocked to find Hugh go to the trunk of his car, and then come after her with a roll of duck/electrical tape to tie her up and take her to another, very different, "secluded" location.

He takes her to a large mostly empty parking garage somewhere, ties her with the above mentioned duct tape to a wheelchair, a piece of her clothing shoved in her mouth so that she wouldn't scream, rolls her out into the middle of said parking garage and ... waits.  For what?

Eventually, a lumbering half dressed, half decayed zombie appears and starts lumbering up the on-ramp toward their floor, and indeed, toward HER.

This is when Hugh, quite desperate and quite emotionally ... explains.  He apologizes to her (tied and gagged, strapped to a wheelchair...), but says that there was nothing he could do (and actually that he's _still_ being something of a "nice guy" here).  He tells Jay, rag still in her mouth, that he's infected her with a sexually transmitted curse that attracts ... zombies.  And that the ONLY way (apparently) to get rid of said curse is to "pass it on" to someone else.  BUT ... if that next person gets killed / eaten by a zombie, those zombies will go back and come after her again.  (This is why, Hugh didn't just leave Jay to her own devices and instead tied her up and had her encounter said zombies in a "controlled location" ... in the middle of a half-empty, out-of-the-way parking garage with him present to explain what is going on....

As soon as she sees said zombie lumbering toward them, toward HER, and Hugh gets his chance to explain what is going on, he sets her free, and ... dutifully drives her home (perhaps, sort of like a "perfect gentleman" again ...).  It's clear though that HE NEEDS HER to know what's going on so that SHE can live long enough to transmit "the curse" to someone else (and hopefully explain TO THAT PERSON what he must do) so that the curse won't go back down to him/them again.

So... here's previously more-or-less "nice" Jay, who's had her first sexual experience at 19, with who she thought was "the perfect guy" and now she's got a sexually transmitted curse, and "the ONLY WAY" to get rid of it is to have sex with someone else, but then with someone smart, perhaps "streetwise" enough to find a way to transfer it to yet another person who'd again be smart/streetwise enough to transfer it again upwards, so that the Curse "never comes back."

So ... poor previously sweet Jay ends up sleeping (all off more-or-less screen) with as many as 6 guys during the course of the film -- (1) with dreamboat Hugh, who gave her the curse, (2) with a neighbor of hers, Greg (played by Daniel Zovatto), who's had a crush on her / and she's had a crush on him, who SEEMS smart enough to know what to do to avoid having the curse come back to her, BUT HE GETS KILLED BY THE ZOMBIES, (3-5) with as many as THREE random guys in a boat who she meets walking along a lake (but only one of got the curse, and he proved too stupid to live much longer after that) and (6) finally with a quite nerdy admirer of hers, Paul (played by Keir Gilchrist), who keeps volunteering to help her, but she keeps looking past him, until ... she runs out of guys.  This nerdy guy, Paul, is not altogether bright and probably would never be able to transfer the curse upwards, BUT ... TOGETHER ... they PERHAPS have a chance of defeating the Zombies.

This is obviously not the most morally uplifting film, of course.  But _somewhere_ in the film's "horrific" imagery is actually something of a moral message: Sex with "dreamboat Hugh" proved to be far more consequential/problematic than poor Jay ever imagined.  Then after going though a whole line of "cooler" guys who turned out to be "useless" anyway, she finally turns to the nerdy guy who's loved/worshiped her all along and TOGETHER (rather than "wham, bam ... good luck ...") they set out to deal with "the Zombies."  

In any case, it's probably the most original horror movie to come out in a while AND ... THERE'S NO (!) "lost footage" in this film.  Thankfully, we may be done with THAT horror-story telling device.


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Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) [2014]

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

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

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) [2014] (directed and screenplay co-written by Alejandro González Iñárritu along with Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris and Armando Bo) is a "fargin' good" film about "Riggan Thompson," a Michael Keaton-like character (played by Michael Keaton ;-) who had made his mark/fortune, some 20 years back, playing a winged Superhero named "Birdman" in three blockbuster films. (While having been a very talented comedic actor prior to starring in the first two blockbuster Batman [1989, 1992] movies, those two "Superhero" films largely defined Michael Keaton's career as well ... until ... possibly ... now ;-).

So ... after living 20 years on "Birdman money," Riggan decides, for reasons not entirely clear, to dump much of the rest of his money into an über-serious / über-intimate stage adaptation of an über-serious / über-intimate short story by Raymond Carver entitled, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.  Apparently having been previously dismissed by "serious critics" as "a Super-Hero acting lightweight," the consequently über-defensive Riggan himself _wrote_ the said über-weighty stage-adaptation of Raymond Carver's über-seriously titled _short story_ and ... was planning to direct it and star in it -- on Broadway no less -- to prove said critics WRONG!

That's if he can get the dang cast ... through rehearsals.  The cast's only four people - two women, another male and him.  How hard could THAT be?  There's them plus another couple of significant others hanging about the set -- an ex-wife who's actually, if mostly shaking her head, somewhat supportive, and a daughter (played by Emma Stone) just out of rehab who _hates him_ though, of course, not exactly sure WHY she hates him, 'cept that she DOES ;-)   

It _hasn't_ been easy ... two weeks before opening, A BIG METAL HOOK drops down "from above" and clunks Riggan's male costar in the head, knocking him out of commission (and threatening a subsequent lawsuit).

What to do?  Well, Lesley (played by Naomi Watts), one of the two female leads in the play, tells Riggan that she could have a replacement for him.  Who on such short notice?  Well, he's HER BOYFRIEND, Mike (played by Edward Norton), an über-talented (but also über-problematic) Broadway "Method" actor.  He's GOOD.  But then if he's so good, why would he "be free" to play the role on such short notice? Well, did I mention that he was ALSO "problematic?"

So Mike "I am MY ROLE" steps-in with TRULY APPALLING CONFIDENCE and is soon arguing with Riggan over the point of many of Riggan's crafted out of "I'll show them"/love/desperation but in any case WRITING-SCHOOL-(AMATEUR)-LEVEL lines/dialogues in the play ;-)  

Sigh ... "Just put this thing out of its misery," Riggan's "BIRDMAN" voice (in his head) taunts him:  "BE WHO YOU ARE!  SOAR!  BIRDMAN !"

But poor Riggan is going to PROVE that he CAN be a "REAL ACTOR" ... Much, often hilarious, ensues.

I just loved this film!  But then, I've loved Michael Keaton since his film Johnny Dangerously [1984] ("It's a fargin' good film, you iceholes!" ;-).  And the film's just a blast to watch.  Other reviewers have commented on the fantastically long shots made in this film, and it's clever stitched together editing.  It also shows that director Alejandro González Iñárritu can do more than just really, really weighty films like Amores Perros [2000], Babel [2006], Biutiful [2010] and, of course, Gravity [2013] ;-). Look for this film to receive all kinds of nominations come Awards / Oscar season!


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Ouija [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C-)  Fr. Dennis (1 Star)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune/Variety (J. Chang) review
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (K. Rife) review

Ouija [2014] (directed and cowritten by Stiles White along with Juliet Snowden) is a film that I could not bring myself to see because (1) it is about divination, something that Catholic Church does have issues with (CCC 2115-17), and (2) it's basically a two hour advertisement for the Hasbro-trademarked version of a "divination board" which one could actually easily make for free -- my dad's generation "back in the 1940s" and "in the old country" (today's Czech Republic) would simply use a small mirror on a flat surface, on which they themselves wrote out the letters, to do the same thing as Hasbro's Ouija board does -- without needing to buy the game board from anybody.

Now what's wrong with "Divination?"  Well, my favorite cautionary tale about divination comes from a somewhat amusing story in the Bible ;-): The poor King Saul, facing an impending battle with the Philistines and afraid that the Prophet Samuel was right, that God had withdrawn his blessing from him (in favor of David), goes to "the Witch of Endor" to summon the deceased prophet Samuel "from the beyond."  Well, she succeeds in doing so.  What does the deceased Samuel tell Saul?  That, yes, Saul's going to lose the battle with the Philistines and that he and all his sons will all die in that battle (1 Sam 28). Now THAT was ONE HECK OF A "FORTUNE COOKIE" :-). 

Anyway, since having first heard story when I was, something like 10 years old, I've always loved that story: There ARE some things that one would just not want to know ;-) especially if there would be nothing that one could do to change one's destiny.  

Then the whole purpose of the Quija board exercise is to conjure up some entity "from the beyond."  Well, it should be rather clear that even if one could conjure something up like that, one would _not_ have the faintest idea of what that entity would be.  Hence, the exercise is either pointless or dangerous ... and it could even simply deliver one bad news. 

So then the film ... it presents a story about a bunch of teens who find their using of a Ouija board to be a rather harrowing experience ... Well, if proved "uneventful," it wouldn't make for much of a story, would it? 

So there it is ... and why I chose not to spend money to see it ;-)


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The Kindergarten Teacher (orig. Haganenet) [2014]

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

IMDb listing

MUBI (D. Kasman) review


The Kindergarten Teacher (orig. Haganenet) [2014] (written and directed by Nadav Lapid) may begin as an unassuming, diminutive ("indie style") Israeli film.  But don't let that fool you.  By the end, the film certainly "packs a punch."  (The film played recently at the 2014 (50th Annual) Chicago International Film Festival).

The film's about ... a kindergarten teacher, Nira (played by Sarit Larry), 40 something, married to a kindly, unassuming engineer (played by Lior Raz).  Together they have two grown children, a daughter who's living with her boyfriend in the States and a son who's currently serving in the Israeli Army.  While both husband and wife would seem to be fundamentally gentle people, there's a sense that both are going through an "empty nest" adjustment: the kids are basically grown, what now?

Well, besides her continuing work with little kids as said kindergarten teacher, Nira's joined a poetry writer's club, filled with people both her age (and younger...) who basically give each other mutual support in their writing efforts (but don't become too good, 'cause then one or another in the group will become jealous and try to bring you back down a peg or two ;-).  (Seriously, I enjoyed "writers' club" scenes in this film very, very much, reminding me very much of similar scenes in the much higher budget (and IMHO excellent) Hollywood film Wonder Boys [2000] which was also about "emerging" and otherwise "struggling writers.")

Now Nira has no particular ambitions of "making it" as a poet.  It's just something that has come to interest her, something that she explains to another had been lacking in her far more spartan upbringing (Israel of the 1950s-60s was something of a modern day Sparta...), and well, probably something that "got her out of the house" so that she wouldn't have to deal as much with her husband, who, now that the kids were largely gone, she'd have to probably talk to more than she'd want to, in this new and uncertain point in their lives ...

Okay, enter A FIVE YEAR OLD, Yoav Pollak (played by Avi Schnaidman) a child, whose behavior FROM A DETACHED DISTANCE could suggest that he was at least mildly Autistic (he'd kinda go into a trance every so often, beginning to walk back-and-forth or somewhat rapidly in a circle), and, AGAIN while ONLY FIVE, was becoming a child of divorce (his mother had left his workaholic restauranteur father for, again, "an American").  And Nira becomes fixated on him, FIVE YEAR OLD, Yoav.

True, when Yoav would go into the above described trance, he'd, quite amazingly, come to articulate what appeared to be _remarkably good_ "free form poetry" ... BUT ... HE'S FIVE YEARS OLD.  Honestly, it doesn't appear that he understands what he's doing (AND AT FIVE ... I'm sorry, from a distance, it seems so obvious ... HOW COULD HE?)

But poor Nira, who as introduced above, is also having some "empty nest" issues, becomes convinced that he's some sort of a Mozart-like genius and progressively becomes MORE AND MORE INVOLVED IN THIS POOR KID'S LIFE ... to the point that (without MUCH OF A SPOILER) it can't possibly end well.

In any case, the film becomes a fascinating, and actually quite gentle / compassion-seeking presentation of HOW A TEACHER (WHO OBVIOUSLY SHOULD KNOW BETTER) could get (YUCK...) "involved" with a minor in a way that's OBVIOUSLY INAPPROPRIATE / HARMFUL TO THE CHILD ... but, well, she was going through some "unresolved" (yet comprehensible, IF CAUGHT IN TIME) issues of her own.

In anycase, it all made for another quite brave and certainly thought / (perhaps) discussion provoking film.  Good job CIFF, Good job!



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My Old Lady [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune/Variety (A. Barker) review
RE.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (M. D'Angelo) review


My Old Lady [2014] (written and directed by Israel Horovitz based on his own stage play of the same name) tells a scathing if at times funny story (as is often the case in life, the alternative is to cry...) of multi-layered family dysfunction.  The layers get revealed as the story plays-out, so it's a challenge to write about this film without revealing (spoiling) too much.

The film begins with 50-something New Yorker Matthias Gold (played by Kevin Kline) somewhat happily strolling down the streets of Paris eventually ending at a building in a quite nice residential section of town.  He knocks.  No one answers.  So he chooses to enter (with some force) anyway.  That seems strange, but we soon find-out why he was behaving this way.  Apparently, he inherited the building.

However, inside the building, he finds to _his_ surprise a tenant, Mathilde Girard (played by Maggie Smith), 92 years-old, who by having sold the building to Matthias' father _at a discount_ decades ago by a truly odd but fascinating convention of French real estate law called a viager, must be allowed to live-out her days in the home until she dies.  Indeed, as part of the viager deal, she was entitled to a monthly stipend paid by the owner to boot. 

Seeing Mathilde there in the building and hearing, from her, what her presence meant to him (and to his plans), leaves Matthias quite crest-fallen / crushed.  Why?  He had been something of a loser most of his life, a failed writer with three failed marriages "one for each unpublished book" that he had written.  He told Mathilde that all he inherited from his quite wealthy but aloof father was "a couple of French language books" and _this building_, that the rest of his father's fortune went to some obscure "French charity."  So he told Mathilde that he had hoped to sell the building, quite fast, converting its value into cash, and leave.  Now her presence put a wrench in what had been a rather simple plan.

Mathilde doesn't help matters for either of them (though she knows that she can't be thrown out, and indeed, as long as Matthias "owns" the place, HE actually will have to pay her as she continues to live there) by telling Matthias, that she's known "of him" from his father (the previous owner), and that she's frankly surprised to find "someone who's accomplished _so little_ in life _by his age_ (as he)."  


At that, Matthias, who's hated his father for his self-centeredness and philandering for most of his life (Matthias' father had left him and his mother in an awful state when he was young), decides that he's going to find a way to sell the home, even if at a necessary (again viager) discount to just get rid of it and get on with his life.

But things get even more complicated when Matthias discovers that Mathilde has a daughter, Chloé Girard (played by Kristin Scott Thomas) about Matthias' age living with her as well.  Now Matthias would owe nothing to Chloé as the viager contract was made between Mathilde and the owner of the building.  However, Chloé who ALSO hasn't amounted to much in life knew well that she'd be out on the street WITH NOTHING as soon as Mathilde died.  Her presence made Matthias' plan to just sell the place and get out seem even uglier.

Now why would Matthias' father bequeath to Matthias (who after all hated him) _this house_ with so many complications with it (and then, so little else...)?   Well that's of course the rest of the story, and it's a pretty good one. 

And the film does make for a great discussion piece for "Adult families" where there's been _a lot_ of intergenerational resentment and pain.


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