Pixels [2015]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C-)  Fr. Dennis (0 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
ChicagoTribune (K. Walsh) review
RogerEbert.com (P. Sobczynski) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review 


Pixels [2015] (directed by Chris Columbus, screenplay by Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling inspired by the short film by Patrick Jean) is honestly an appallingly sexist film.

Yes, it's almost certainly intended (in part) as a "father and 10 year old son" offering, recalling the still necessarily heavily pixelated video games of the early 1980s (when "dad was about 10 years old ...").

But it's also an obviously and stunningly heavy handed (American) Right-Wing fantasy / propaganda piece (seriously, read on), featuring a Republican Chris Christie like President Cooper (played by Kevin James) with a bleached blond morning TV news COOKING SEGMENT running First Lady (played by Jane Krakowski) who stuffs him ...

Pretty much _every single woman_ in the movie is portrayed as "a prize" for the men to win (with President Cooper having already "won" his ...).

Some of these "trophy women" don't even have lines -- Multimillion dollar empire running Martha Stewart (!) as well as a fantasy-warrior "Lady Lisa" (mimed? modeled? strutted? by Ashley Benson) in black high healed boots to the knees, a tight red dress with at least one strap (or else it'd all just fall off ;-) and two Samurai swords -- yup try being a "ninja" in that ;-) -- Why bother your pretty little heads with lines (again, even Martha Stewart), when your "welcoming smiles" / "intense eyes" can "say so much"?

Others, like tennis star Serena Williams and the President's first lady (mentioned above) do have line or two, but are either largely posed in a slinky 1940s-era "jazz queen" dress (Williams) or shown lovingly stuffing her Presidential hubby with cake on a Today Show (or should I say "Fox and Friends") cooking segment.  Yes women, you can win Wimbledon six times (!) or reach a Katie Couric like position on TV, but your main job is still to just "look sultry" and/or "stuff your husband"

Even the most substantial woman character in the film NSA / DARPA scientist Lt Colonel VIOLET (?!) van Patton (played by Michelle Monaghan) is introduced as a recent, elegantly dressed "MILF" er "divorcee" living in a house worthy of the set of Desperate Housewives (We're told that she had been recently dumped by her husband who traded her / her 10 year old son in for his 19 y/o. secretary ...).

The film's lead, Adam Sandler's character Brenner (once, "back in the day" video game prodigy now "Nerd Squad" TV installer), comes to her / her 10 y.o. son's house to install their new 70-80 inch flat screen TV with a gaming pack ... Initially, she dismisses him a loser, he her as a ... snob. 

But it turns out that they have a mutual friend / acquaintance: Chris Cristie-like "(self-deprecating / weight challenged) man of the people" President Cooper (again interpreted by Kevin James).  He had been Brenner's best friend when they were kids (and still "kept in touch") and Violet was one of his Sarah Palin glasses-wearing second-tier "Science advisers" on the National Security Council (she got to sit in the President's Situation Room, but not at the Cabinet's Table ... Again, "know your place people, KNOW YOUR PLACE ...")

Turns out that President Cooper will need BOTH his sexy-"smart-glasses"-wearing science advisor and his once cool / now nerdy BFF 'cause ... By a total fluke, NASA had launched a space probe 1982 to the outer solar system containing a video disk with various snippets of popular culture of the time, INCLUDING snippets of a video-game competition of that time.  ALIENS had intercepted the space probe, MISINTERPRETED the videos it contained, and were now ATTACKING THE EARTH in the form of the pixelated video games -- Galaga, Space Invaders, Centipede, PacMan, Donkey Kong -- that they discovered on the disk.

The President needed EXPERTS on those video games of the past -- late 30/40-something y.o. NERDS (Brenner, as well as others, played by Josh Gad and Peter Dinklage) as well as weapons to destroy them (provided by the sexy-but-also-smart scientist Dr. / Lt. Col. Violet van Patten).  Much ensues ...

Now this need not have been the appallingly sexist film that it was ...  It could have been pretty decent "father and son film."  And Brenner along with sexy-mom Lt. Col. Violet's 10 y.o. son Matty (played by Matt Lintz) do hit it off as do, eventually/inevitably Brenner and his hot (but also smart) mom.

But how can one show this to a 8-to-12 y.o. girl today?   All the heroes are men and the main contributions of all of the women -- BOTH REAL (six-time Wimbledon champion Serena Williams and multimillion dollar empire running Martha Stewart) AND IMAGINED (Dr. / Lt. Col. "Violet van Patton", the "cooking lady" / "First Lady to the President" and the sexy / impossibly impractically dressed "ninja" warrior princess "Lady Lisa") -- are that they can "look sexy" and/or "do domestic things for their men."

Again, how could something like this STILL BE MADE in the United States in 2015?  Zero stars.


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Irrational Man [2015]

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

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

APUM (A. Saez) review*
aVoir-aLire.fr (A. Jourdain) review*

Irrational Man [2015] (written and directed by Woody Allen) is a film that will probably be embraced by die-hard Allen fans even as it will bore and possibly / probably even creep-out others.  It's the third time that he has tread the path of Dostoyevsky's [wikip] [GR] novel Crime and Punishment [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] -- his previous two films on plotting (and largely getting away with) murder have been Crimes and Misdemeanors [1989] and Match Point [2005] -- almost begging / egging viewers to ask _why_?

In his current revisit to the theme, Abe, a thoroughly disillusioned / reduced-to-drink small-time-liberal arts college philosophy professor (played by Joaquin Phillips) finds renewed meaning for his life, when he and a bright-eyed, still somewhat/necessarily naive college student of his named Jill (played by Emma Stone) having met (somewhat at the edge of scandalously) for lunch at a random off-campus diner quite randomly _overhear_ the laments of a mother involved in apparently a rather ugly custody battle with her ex-husband over her / her ex's children.  The mother blames the judge for her troubles who she accuses as being corrupt and a friend of her ex-husband's lawyer.

Without ever questioning the veracity of ANY of this random woman's complaints that she expressed in a conversation that he wasn't even legitimately part of (he and Jill simply overheard her conversation with her friends in the next booth), Abe decides to do her (and the world) a favor by searching out and killing the judge.  He figures, in fact, a la Strangers on a Train [1951], that his murdering the judge would be "a perfect crime" (or perhaps even the perfect execution of a just sentence against a corrupt judge): Abe had no link to the judge and with except for this random conversation _that he simply overheard_ (without anybody else except of his "student friend" Jill knowing).  And he had no connection with any of the judge's colleagues, cases or acquaintances either.   Thus, even if the authorities could figure out that he committed the murder, they could never pin him with a motive.

So Abe sets of then on this mission to kill the judge.  And (still minor spoiler alert) he succeeds:  As a quite intelligent, well educated man, without ever resorting to a traceable computer search, he's able to identify/find the judge at the local court house.  Then ever carefully / from a distance, he patiently learns the judge's routine.  Using the card catalog / indices at the local public library, he researches the best way to quickly, untraceably kill the man -- through spiking the judge's drink with cyanide.

(Note that while being a clever device for a movie, as a former chemist prior to entering into the seminary, I'd argue that THANKFULLY this would almost certainly NOT WORK as portrayed.  As cornered spies / former Nazis have attested, cyanide is effective as a means of a quick and once deployed untreatable path to suicide, but as an untraceable weapon for murder?  No.  The perpetrator would almost certainly kill him/herself with it before reaching his/her intended target.  Alternatively, any "cyanide pill" would leave tell-tale residue).

However, be all this as it may, Abe finds his opportunity to strike, does so and (in the film) kills the man (with the "untraceable" cyanide spiked drink).


Of course, as in the case of the Dostoyevsky novel and Allen's two other films, the rest of the story follows with the central question being: Can one really "get away with the perfect crime?" 

It does become somewhat disconcerting that Allen, whose personal life has clearly not been without blemish  -- he fell in love with and married a step-daughter of his, who was 17 y/o at the time, and has been accused of, but has never been proven to have, sexually abused another even younger daughter of his as well -- would revisit the theme of "getting away with the perfect crime" (albeit murder) three times in his career.   Is he begging to be (finally) caught?  

Or is he trying simply to make thought provoking films that others perhaps don't have the courage to make, precisely because he has been previously accused of / tainted by a crime that he did not commit?  Or, finally, are his films an attempt at redemption?

I do have to say that there is NO FILMMAKER TODAY who's making films where Kant, Kierkegard, Heidegger or Sartre come up _regularly_ as part of the dialogue.  And (perhaps ironically, on more than a few levels...) I can honestly say that OUTSIDE OF THE SEMINARY I can't remember a time in recent decades that I've heard these figures come up in conversation let alone in the movies.  And I do consider that to be an interesting (and again, perhaps telling) loss.

What then would I, as a functionary in a Church that clearly _hasn't_ had a morally clean slate in recent decades, have to say about Allen, a film-maker who _also_ hasn't had a morally clean slate in his personal life but who continues to make movies that do actually ask moral questions that the rest of the culture doesn't seem to want to ask?

I'd suggest a number of things:

First, for all its faults, the (Catholic) Church actually has a more realistic view of the world, as well as a more realistic program _for continuing_ to walk in this world than the society in which we live.  I say this because because we live in a society that first denies the existence of Sin (Evil) in the world, and, then confronted irrefutably with its existence, turns around and denies the possibility of Pardon/Forgiveness as well.  So as a society we have to hang Evildoers, even as we prefer to deny their presence for as long as we can.  In contrast, honestly, the Catholic Church never denied the reality of Sin/Evil existing in the world, even as it does offer IMHO the only realistic means of "going on" in the presence of such Sin/Evil in our midst ... first Naming Evil for what it is but then offering the possibility of Forgiveness/Reconciliation.  As a result, more people actually "get to Live" (Legitimately) in the Catholic Church than Outside of it.

Turning then to Allen.  He's never been convicted of doing anything wrong.  Yet, he's been both accused of a committing terrible crime (sexually abusing his daughter when she was a minor) and he has made three movies now about "getting away with the perfect crime."  Has he (committed "the perfect crime")?  As our society is structured now, we'll never know, because the crime that he's been accused of is both unprovable, and yet the penalty so great, that he'll probably never admit to it, except _perhaps_ on his deathbed.  

Our society needs a generalized Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

In the meantime, I can definitely say that while we are all sinners, we are all greater than simply the sums of our faults, failings and sins.  And Allen with his movies is practically a poster child of this.

Yet, our society has presently has no (secular) means of acting on this reality (of the existence of sin and yet the need to forgive / reconcile in order to go on).  So we watch films like this, and not know (or even be able to know) what to think.


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Mr. Holmes [2015]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB ()  ChiTrib/Minn Star-Trib (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
ChiTrib/Minn Star-Trib (C. Covert) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review  

EyeForFilm.co.uk (A.K. Tikte) review
Sight & Sound (K. Newman) review

Mr. Holmes [2015] (directed by Bill Condon, screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher, characters by Arthur Conan Doyle [Wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb] based on the novel "A slight Trick of Mind" [2005] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Mitch Cullin [GR] [Amzn] [IMDb]) is a lovely if somewhat slow err "gently moving" and certainly more classical "Downton Abbey-esque" revisit to the character of Sherlock Holmes [IMDb] (played as a finally retiring, increasingly frail/forgetful _ninety three_ year old by Ian McKellen).

The film serves as an obvious correction to several attempts in recent years to "reboot" / "comtemporarize" the previously beloved if _perhaps_ becoming "somewhat dated" character (one thinks of the recent "back in the day" but frenetic / highly stylized films starring Robert Downey, Jr as Sherlock Holmes, as well as the TV series Elementary [2012-] [IMDb] set in New York City of today and featuring a female "Joan Watson" played by Lucy Liu).  Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed both the RDJr films and that of the Lucy Liu starring series that I've watched.  But I've _also_ enjoyed this more leisurely paced story that, in its own way, _also_ "moves the ball" with regards to the character (it's based on a novel that was first written/published in 2005):  For this is a story about a once robust / beloved character truly entering into his "sunset years."  It could well be a story about a beloved uncle or grandparent.

And three stories actually play-out in the course of the film:

The first involved simply the aging Sherlock Holmes leaving post-WW II London for the countryside to perhaps spend the last chapter of his life in a lovely, smallish country home in Sussex, (south east of London), with a somewhat bitter or perhaps still somewhat disoriented, widowed-by-the-war housekeeper Mrs Monro (played by Laura Linney) and her energetic 10 y.o. son Roger (played by Milo Parker) who didn't remember much of his dad.  There the 93 y.o. Holmes spent his time "bee keeping" and (trying to do some) writing about his final case, many years back (in pre-War days), which he didn't believe Dr. Watson, long-ago married and having drifted away, didn't capture correctly.  But at 93, Holmes' memory was fading...

Then the second story playing-out was that of the said "last case" involving a young English charter account or barrister named Thomas Kelmot (played in the film by Patrick Kennedy) concerned that his wife Ann (played by Hattie Morahan), depressed after two miscarriages, may be either having an affair or otherwise drifting away from him.  And while the aging Holmes was certain that the case did not end in the way that Watson had written it up (and a subsequent film had dramatised it), he couldn't really remember how it did, in fact, play-out.

Finally there was a third story, about Holmes' recent post-WW II trip to Japan to visit Tamiki Umazaki (played by Hiroyuki Sanada) a Japanese fan of his with whom he had struck-up a correspondence as soon as the End of the War had made it possible again.  Yet _both_ Holmes and Umazaki had their motives for striking-up the correspondence that led to Holmes' visit: Holmes had read that there was a Japanese plant, the nectar of which (nectar collected by bees ...) helped treat increasing "forgetfulness" with age.  Yet his raised as an anglophile Japanese host had his own (poignant) motivation for inviting Holmes to his country once the war ended.

The stories play-out in a nice, gentle, and (as perhaps expected) _at times_ intertwining way.  Those bees play more or less obviously a roll in all three of them.  And at the end of the film, I do believe that most traditional Sherlock Holmes / Downton Abbey-esque fans will probably leave satisfied.

It's a gentle tale ... even if one is wondering throughout, who's "gonna get stung" and how ... So good job folks, good gentle job ;-)


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Ardor [2014]

MPAA (UR would be R)  ChiTrib/Variety (2 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (2 1/2 Stars) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
FilmAffinity.com/es listing*
CineNacional.com listing*
CriticasDePeliculas.com listing*

Clarin.com (P.O. Scholz) review*
ElDia.com.ar (A. Castañeda) review*
LaNacion.com.ar (D. Batlle) review*
LeerCine.com.ar (S. Garcia) review*
Pandora-Magazine (M.J. Diaz-Maroto) review*
ProyectorFantasma.com.ar (M. Santillan) review*
TeLam.com.ar (P. Pécora) review*
Vos (R. Koza) review*

aVoir-aLire (G. Crespo) review*
CinemaObscura.com (T. Grégoire) review*
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
Slant Magazine (C. Lund) review
The Hollywood Reporter (D. Rooney) review
Variety (P. Debruge) review

Ardor [2014] [IMDb] [FAes]*[CN]* (written and directed by Pablo Fendrik [IMDb] [FAes]*[CN]*) an Argentinian-Brazilian coproduction (with also Mexican and French support) set in the tropical jungle forest of Northwestern Argentina uses the conventions of the classic "Western" to tell its story.  While this may seem surprising at first, I do believe it works pretty well:

A small Argentinian "homesteader" (played by Chico Díaz [IMDb] [FAes]*) who's worked hard to buy his little plot of land and has set-up his little subsistence farm (making a little tobacco on the side) with his daughter Vania (played by Alice Braga [IMDb] [FAes]*[CN]*) finds himself threatened by three toughs (played by Claudio Tolcachir [IMDb] [FAes]*[CN]*, Julián Tello [IMDb] [FAes]*[CN]* and Jorge Sesán [IMDb] [FAes]* [CN]*) sent out by some agro-business concern that wants to buy-out the small time farmers, raze the rest of the forest and set-up sort of a industrial scale cattle ranch / alfalfa business.  (The quintessential North American Western would have a small town or rancher threatened by some corrupt big time ranger, mining interest or some railroad).

In their defense, arrives a mysterious forest dweller (played by Gael García Bernal [IMDb] [FAes]* [CN]*) who uses his acquired knowledge of the land (forest) to (minor spoiler alert) beat-back/defeat these minions of the faceless / distant corporate interest that wants to destroy this family and their land. (In a quintessential Western, a mysterious "cowboy" / "gunslinger" again, "one with the land" arrives to beat back / defeat the minions sent on behalf of the faceless / distant corporate interest (railroad, big time rancher, mining interest) on behalf of the threatened family / small town). 

So I do believe that the Western metaphor works and Viewers get to enjoy often spectacularly beautiful jungle scenery as the story plays itself out.   (Note to Readers:  There have actually been several quite excellent recent films made around the world that have tried to apply the conventions of the Western to local circumstances.  These have included the Austrian "Alpine Western" Dark Valley (orig. Das Finstere Tal) [2014] set in the "high Alps" of the late 19th century, and the contemporary Russian tale of one man trying to stand-up to corruption in a sleepy Siberian town today in A Long and Happy Life (orig. Долгая счастливая жизнь) [2013]).

I also think that Gael García Bernal [IMDb] [FAes]* [CN]* and Alice Braga [IMDb] [FAes]*[CN]* play probably the hottest Hispanic couple in a film like this since Antonio Benderas [IMDb] [FAes] and Salma Hayek [IMDb] [FAes] played similar roles in El Mariacchi [1992] /  Desperado [1995] (where the setting was a previously sleepy desert Mexican town and the faceless corporate interest were Mexican drug lords).

Finally, the battles that have gone on in that Amazon rain forest have truly had a "Wild West character" (with the big-time / corporate interests doing most of the killing).   Two famous cases of the murders of activists defending the small-time subsistence farmers / inhabitants of the Amazon against the big time ranchers / corporate interests have been that of Chico Mendez (organizer of the seringueros/rubber tappers of Acre) in 1988 and Sr. Dorothy Stang, S.N.D. in 2005.

My religious order, the Servants of Mary, knew and worked with Chico Mendes personally.  In 2007, it published a book about the stories of a lot of the small time people (both indigenous and of European descent) who live and work in the Amazon.  I helped translate the book and it is available in English at: The Amazonia that We Do Not Know (2012).  Honestly, some of the stories recounted there could help Readers appreciate the current film here.

So honestly folks, good job!


ADDENDUM: This film which is currently (7/20/2015) playing the art-house circuit in the United States (including playing at Facets Multimedia here in Chicago) is also available on various streaming platforms including Amazon Online Video.


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

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Ant-Man [2015]

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

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

Ant-Man [2015] (directed by Peyton Reed, story and screenplay cowritten by Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish along with Adam McCay and Paul Rudd based on the comic [wikip] [MCUniv] by by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby) surprised me, and perhaps I should have known better.  I initially thought last year's Guardians of the Galaxy [2014], was going to be "one too many trips to the well," and I thought the same of the current film.  YET ... I have to say that I left impressed ;-).

LIKE, last year's Guardians of the Galaxy [2014], the current film, Ant-Man [2015], is directed at a younger, pre-teen, perhaps 6-10 y/o, crowd.

Ant-Man's [2015] about Scott Lang [MCUniv] (played in the film by Paul Rudd) a former Bay Area / Silicon Valley electric engineer/computer-wiz/hacker, who spent time in jail for ripping-off credit card companies of ill-gotten gains, returning them (electronically) to the consumers who were (in his eyes) being shaken-down by them.

The film begins with him leaving prison.  Swearing off his former "Robin Hood" antics of "defending the little people" against the "(corporate) predators of the world," he nonetheless finds that he can't get a job, WHICH IS A PROBLEM, because WHILE HE WAS IN JAIL, his wife Maggie (played by Judy Greer) divorced him, marrying instead, straight arrow SFPD Officer Paxton (played by Bobby Cannavale) who's going to be honest good-example father-figure to Scott and Maggie's 6-7 y/o daughter Cassie (played by Abby Ryder Fortson).  Indeed, unless Scott can get a job, apartment and starts paying child-support, he's not gonna be able to much of cute-as-a-button Maggie at all.  But how's he gonna get back on his feet / do all that when EVEN A BASKIN' ROBBINS ICE-CREAM SHOP won't hire him? ;-)

Well, as much as Scott hates the idea, his former cell-mate Luis (played by Michael Peña) finds him a "breaking and entering" (burglary) "job" that his "housekeeper cousin" discovered.  "I'm done with crime," protests Scott, but with no other way to make some money, he gives in.  And so Scott, along with Luis' rather sorry "out of their depth" crew composed of Luis himself (Mexican) driving, slavic sounding "computer geek" Kurt (played by David Dastmalchian) and African American Dale (played by T.I.) who I'm not sure what he does but he's there, decide to do the job -- breaking into a rather upscale San Francisco house who's owner was away, with a large safe in the basement.

Yet, after the breaking into the house and then two door of the safe, all without being caught, all that Scott finds behind the second door of the safe is ... a strange, astronaut looking suit.  Just his luck: All that work, all that risk, for ... a stupid strange-looking suit.

Well, of course that suit had to do something ... it was the means by which Dr. Hank M. Pym [MCUniv] (played in the film quite well by Michael Douglas) was able to reduce and-or enlarge "the space between the atoms" of the wearer.  So put on the suit, press a button and ... the wearer becomes reduced to the size of an ant ... press the button again and the wearer returns to his/her normal size.

And Dr. Pym actually set Scott up, through Luis' cousin / Luis, purposefully staging the circumstances of the break-in of his own house as something of "an audition" for Scott.  Why?  Because Dr. Pym, who used to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. [wikip] [MCUniv] before he became disenchanted with the whole business of "protecting the world from Evil Doers" (because it was becoming so hard to distinguish "the good guys" from "the bad"), had "a bigger job"for him -- A former colleague of his, Darren Cross (played by Corey Stroll) was rumored to have finally reproduced the serum that made "ant-suit" work and, of course, needed to be stopped.  That involved breaking into Darren Cross' quite secure Silicon Valley company compound and destroying, completely, all his research.  Only someone like Scott who knew how to both break-and-enter, as well as hack, could do such a job successfully ... So despite Dr. Pim's daughter Hope's (played by Evangeline Lilly) initial misgivings (she thought she could do the job more easily ... she's known her father and his work all her life, etc), Scott / Ant-Man takes the job, and much ensues ...

Part of what ensues is not merely Scott being able to reduce himself to the size of an ant by means of Dr. Pym's Ant-Man suit, but also, through means of a kind of telepathic transponder that Dr. Pym ALSO invented, Scott being able to COMMUNICATE WITH ANTS, tell them what to do, make them "work with him" in remarkable "ant-like" ways.

It all makes for a fascinating adventure, and the climactic scene involving a battle between Scott/Ant-Man and Darren Cross (wearing his "Yellow Jacket" suit ;-) takes place on the train-set and among the other toys in 6-7 year old of Cassie's room even as she and "step-dad" Paxton watch it all play out ;-)

Yes, it is a fun story for the little ones ... even as it could actually scare the daylights out of adults as they start to imagine the chaos can become possible with the development of "nanotechnology" 

Honestly, a surprising film on a number of levels ;-)


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Trainwreck [2015]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McCarthy) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review  

Trainwreck [2015] (directed by Judd Apatow, screenplay by Amy Schumer) is a well-written and very well-acted / directed romantic comedy that yes is exaggerated / crude (parents the R-rating is certainly deserved) but is certainly one that is full-of-heart in ways that other perhaps safer / cleaner comedies are often not.

As in the case of her show on the Comedy Central network Inside Amy Schumer [2013-], Amy Schumer plays a fictionalized persona, "Amy", that's clearly exaggerated for laughs -- a late 20-something boozer, smoker, and one who's had _so many sexual partners_ that clearly "the thrill is gone."  Not that she doesn't still kinda like sex, it's just that by this point, she knows _exactly, exactly, exactly_ what she wants and once it's done, it's "Ay, GEEE... listen, I / you need to be going, I have a LOOONNG DAY tomorrow, and <patronizing smile> I have to get some sleep.  It was nice, really, but ... good bye."

Yet, she is NOT evil.  Indeed, a truly redeeming aspect of the film is her relationship with her (similarly in HIS DAY, horn-dog / drunk of a) father (played by Colin Quinn).  But he's now older, indeed "in a home" and dependent on his two daughters, Amy and Kim (also played wonderfully by Brie Larson) for care.  Here, Amy, the otherwise drunk / partying "irresponsible one," does most of the heavy lifting while, younger sister Kim, pregnant and with a (blended) family of her own, mostly complains how much her dad's nursing home care costs... I know cases almost exactly like this in my own life / work / ministry.

Further, when (minor SPOILER ALERT ...) her dad does die, Amy gives a remarkably funny yet POIGNANT eulogy to him that, I, as one who's performed some 300 funerals in my work as a priest simply have to appreciate: "My dad was a piece of work.  Probably everybody here was insulted at least once or twice by him during their lives.  Come on, raise your hand if you've been put down or insulted by him during his life (everyone raises their hand).  Yet, most of us loved him anyway.  Again raise your hand, if you loved this man (again everyone raises their hand.  And I find this completely believably true)."  And from there she continues ...

But this is a rom-com and so not really about her relationship with her father (though it was GREAT that this aspect of her character was shown and developed in the film).

Instead, the film becomes about her somewhat unlikely relationship with ... a nice guy, Aaron (played by Bill Hader), a sports-doctor (admittedly mostly to professional athletes), who she meets when she (whose character "knows nothing of sports") is sent to interview him for a piece for the über-glossy Maxim-style "men's magazine" with possibly the worst name ever -- it's called S'Nuff --  by her utlra-hip a-personality boss (played by Tilda Swinton).  His life was supposed to wreak of testosterone, glamour (and the folks at S'Nuff could hope ... PERHAPS EVEN SCANDAL), and instead ... he's just a nice guy, fixing knees of superstar athletes like Lebron James [IMDb] (who plays a fictionalized version of himself) ... so that they could make a lot of regular people ... "happy" ... "build community," etc.

Again, A WONDERFUL ASPECT OF THIS FILM IS that ALMOST NOBODY is portrayed in the way that one would think that they are.  Amy, promiscuous to the point of boredom / drunk, HAS A HEART.  Dr. Aaron Collins, glamorous sports doctor to the rich and famous IS SURPRISINGLY UNCOMPLICATED / NICE.  Lebron James, superstar athlete, who could have been really arrogant IS ALSO NICE, concerned for his friend, Aaron.  Amy's dad, a jerk for a good part of his life, IS MUCH MORE THAN A JERK.  And the list goes on ...

It's a surprising film.  Yes, it's R-rated, and no 10, 12, 14 or 15 year old really "needs" to see it.  But it's NOT a bad movie for a 20+ year old to see.  Because a lot of times the way we judge / dismiss people is really not fair.

Anyway, good job Amy, et al, (surprisingly ;-) good job ;-).


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Dark World (orig. Темный мир / Temnyy Mir) [2010]

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

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

Afisha.ru (P. Favorov) review*
Filmz.ru (A. Yushchenko) review*
Gazeta.ru (X. Rozhdestvenskaya) review*
Kino.ru (A. Strelkov) review*
KinoKadr.ru (R. Korneev) review*
KinoNews.ru (D. Zhigalov) review*
Kino-Teatr.ru (Leonid Marantidi) review*
MyJane.ru (L. Lavrushina) review*
NewIzv.ru (V. Matizen) review*
NewsLab.ru (S. Mezenov) review*
ProfiCinema.ru (I. Perun) review*
RusKino.ru (S. Stepnova) review*
Tramvision.ru (E. Chekulaeva) review*
Vedomosti.ru (O. Zintsov) review*

Note (April 30, 2020): this film is available w English subtitles on Vimeo.com.

Dark World (orig. Темный мир / Temnyy Mir) [2010] [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* (directed by Anton Megerdichev [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*, screenplay by Aleksey Sidorov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* and Aleksandr Dorbinyan [IMDb] [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*) is a spectacularly good (and fun) Russian young-adult oriented film that I included in my 2015 Russian Film Tour that would be immediately recognizable to American/Western audiences as a conflation of some of the the conventions of a 1980s-era "mad slasher" film ("a group of rambunctious college students go for a weekend to ... and ...") with the more recent more developed heroine-driven Twilight / Beautiful Creatures / Mortal Instruments genre.

Add then a little LOTR / Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon [2000] magic / fight scenes (the presence of the "Eastern stuff" is fascinating BUT Russia is "Eastern Europe / EURASIA" after all ;-), some pretty cool/fascinating and arguably subversive "X-Files-style" conspiracy stuff, and a LOT of Russian (Eurasian, specifically Finno-Ugric) folklore ... and this becomes one honestly fascinating "soup" for both magic / horror-anticipating young adults and "pop culture" folklorists / enthusiasts to see.

In the story, a group of Russian college students (presumably from Saint Petersburg, though the famous edifice of Moscow State University is shown at the film's end) go with their philology/cultural anthropology professor (played by Vladimir Nosik [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) on a trip to the deep woods of (nearer to Saint Petersburg than to Moscow) Karelia on an "folkloric" (ethnographic) expedition.

The scenery itself is spectacular, filmed largely in and around Ruskeala Mountain Park outside of the town of Sortovala in Karelia.  To get to their destination, the student group first travels by train, then by bus, and finally for some time by foot through a deep ever-misty, moss covered forest, arriving at a woodland hut of an old, indeed ancient-looking but definitely impression-making woman (played wonderfully by Tatyana Kuznetsova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) ever dressed in white, with her auburn hair ever braided and under a veil with a snow-white husky (her familiar?) at her side.  Folks, if one is serious about doing cultural anthropology, this is EXACTLY the kind of person that one would seek-out to talk to.  So good job Professor Sergey Rudolfovich!

However, we're talking about a student trip here.  So ... :-)

... Well, there's this red-haired Goth girl named Marina (played by Svetlana Ivanova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*).  She's kind of a loner, likes to freak-out her room-mates with loud headbanging music and weird gothic looking art, and while not terrible as an athlete (apparently all the students have to play at least some kind of intramural sport) it's clear that she doesn't really give a damn.  AS A GOTH, folklore / mythology would kinda be her thing (so she's in the right class / on the right trip).   Yet, AS A GOTH, she can't really show that she's particularly "interested" in that either ... (it kinda sucks being _intentionally_ moody ;-).

Now what (or more to the point WHO) she's really into (and yes it's kinda a contradiction, but SHE'S YOUNG / IN COLLEGE, so she can still be a PILE OF CONTRADICTIONS ;-) is "a really hot guy" on campus, named Artur (played by Ilya Alekseev [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*).

... Now Artur objectively HOT as he is, and while not entirely ill disposed to a pretty "exotic" / in her own right HOT-looking red-headed "Goth" classmate like Marina who's into him, HAS THIS DROP-DEAD GORGEOUS "Model Material" (in the U.S. we would say CHEERLEADER CLASS") BLONDE named Vika (played by Mariya Kozhevnikova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) "hanging on him" as well.   So ... what's Artur supposed to do?  Here he has these TWO beautiful, both arguably "higher maintenance" (in their own ways) young women interested in him -- one perhaps "deeper" / "a little more exotic", the other, drop-dead gorgeous with a "Vogue magazine looks" interested in him.   Ah ... it's awesome being awesome ;-)  And "ripped" as he is, he's probably the school's star hockey player as well...

Well ... so there they are at this woodland hut, after dinner.  Marina decides to "step outside for a bit," sits herself down on a lovely rock some 50 feet from the cabin, overlooking a beautiful mountain stream ... in the moonlight ... and ... Artur, rip-muscled and shirtless, "comes by." They start chit-chatting, then making-out, then ...

"HEY! What you doing there!" the old lady in white, coming out the door with a pale of water from the evening's dishes calls out, more than a little-irritated that she's run into two half-naked city-slicker college students making-out 50 feet from her otherwise pristine fair-tale home, admittedly illuminated by shimmering moonlight as the mountain stream rippled down the cascade behind them with ever present mist gliding all around them.  Yes, this would have been one magical place to ...

Anyway, interrupted there by the old lady, with jealous drop-dead gorgeous Vika rushing-out two steps behind her ... Marina, embarrassed, gathers herself together, straightens herself out a bit, and then runs-off into the woods to catch her breath ... and cry.  Shirtless yet ever awesome, Artur, like a stag trapped between two gorgeous headlights, Vika throwing daggers at him with her eyes and Marina running off into the forest to cry, doesn't know what to do.  So he just stays there, shirtless but in the moonlight, perhaps a bit confused but still looking awesome ... while the class "good guy" / nerd (in Russian they dismissively call him "a botanist" as in studying for a hard but utterly irrelevant degree) Kostya (played by Ivan Zhidkov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*), "Nikon digital SLR"-like camera ever around his neck, runs out after Marina ... to see if she's alright.

Kostya soon catches up with her, and of course she's not entirely alright, but as they walk / talk, she progressively "gets better" ... But then the find that they walked quite a ways ... and ... begin to see that they are lost.

Though initially all discombobulated, "Were they about to do what we think they were about to do?" after a while, the rest of the group settles down at the cabin.  But when Kostya and Marina don't seem to be coming back, they start getting worried, now about them.  So ... after a while, they all go out as a party to look for them, good-natured Prof included (ever smiling, though he's had a busy day / evening, no doubt spending the past 1/2 hour apologizing to the still possibly pagan or perhaps now Christian but certainly rather conservative old lady at whose home they are all staing, for his two randy :city-slicker" charges who apparently were going to go at it, there right, in front of her doorstep ... "Well you know, hormones ...").

So now _the whole party_, Marina and Kostya, and then the rest of the group, Prof included, were out there in the moss covered woods, at night, ever present mist, swiring all about.  So this could not be good ... And it soon, wasn't ...

Out there, at night, in the misty, shimmering moonlight, Marina and Kostya come to what appears to be an ancient cemetery, with some kind of a woodland chapel beside it.  'Cept the cemetery seems to be so old that the grave markers don't seem to be Christian and the chapel itself seems to be of a pagan or at least syncretic stripe.  When they enter and look around, Marina falls through the rotting floor ... into a subterranean level opens into a cave, which now clearly seems to be some sort of a ancient pagan shrine, with all sorts of petroglyphs painted on the walls.

As Marina walks along the looking for a way back up, Kostya drops down to her level to try to help her get out as well.  He's astounded by the petroglyphs and starts snapping pictures left and right.  Marina then enters a chamber in which at its center is seated the mummy of some ancient warrior (woman?) with a spear and shield in her hands.  Startled, Marina trips, crashes into the mummy.  And as she falls to the ground, the mummy falling-upon her appears to breathe on her whereupon Marina passes out.  Kostya, with his trusty camera in hand, captured it all on video.  But of course he doesn't save her from passing out.

What now?  Placing the passed out, and otherwise now strangely sickly looking Marina on the shield, he starts to drag her out, and starts to call out for help.  The rest of the group, not too far behind them, arriving at the ancient cemetery hears him, and in quick order (Artur, after all, is "ripped") get Marina out of the chapel, carrying her out on that shield.

But she's still passed out, so they need to call for help.  Now mind you, this is summer and they're located in Karelia, north of St. Petersburg, so if it was ever really dark, light would come soon.  The question was to simply get her to a clearing and have the good natured Prof Sergey Rudlofovich to call on his satellite phone for help.  They get her to a clearing ... he calls for help ... help arrives ...

'Cept ... the "help" that arrives with a BLACK HELICOPTER, with these black uniformed skin-heady "special forces" types jumping out of it.  RUSSIAN they are, BUT they DON'T exactly look like regular "Russian Army."  Who the heck are they?  And are they there really to help?  No ... having intercepted the Prof's call for help, and having heard "pagan chapel," "mummy" and "shield," they called "up the(ir) command" and were ordered by their HIGHER-UP to GET THE SHIELD. 

The rest of the film follows ... ;-)

Now again, who were they?  Well their "higher up" becomes a wonderfully drawn character.  Nominally, he was Alexander (played by Sergey Ugryumov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) and even a Russian government official, the Minister of Mining or something or another.  Indeed, when HE arrives on the scene after his special forces men in black uniforms with their black helicopters took custody of the shield (along with this group of cultural anthropology students...) one of the students, perhaps, "the nerd" Kostya exclaims: "Hey aren't you ... the Minister of ..." to which Alexander answers, "Yes, yes, I do that as a hobby ..."  No, Alexander's more than just a random government minister in a random Russian government existing in a random Epoch of time.  Alexander is actually a 2500 year old Uralic wizard named Ylto Vallo who has spent the better part of those 2500 years _looking for that shield_ because the soul of his father a grand wizard of his tribe was trapped within the labyrinth imprinted on its (the shield's) face.  He was trapped there as a consequence of a battle between his people and that of the Finnic warrior witch whose mummy they had stumbled upon.

Well he now has the shield, but he needs the precise incantation to set him free.  Learning that when Marina literally stumbled upon the mummy of that warrior witch, the witch apparently "breathed on her" (causing her to pass out), he becomes convinced that she'd "know the magic words."  But ... she doesn't ... or else it's hazy.

What she needs to do is _become a witch_ to come to understand what she was told.  Well, how would one _become a Finnic witch_ in the current day?? 

Well, "the old lady ever dressed in white with her snow white dog as a familiar" that they had met COULD HELP.  And ... she does ... but she tells her/them ... "Look, I'm just a guardian here, you really need to find the 'witches of the lake'" and then points them in the general direction of where, if they are (Marina is) worthy, she could find them ...

Much, in often spectacularly beautiful / imposing scenery still ensues ...

And then all the while the question becomes: Is it REALLY "a good idea" to liberate the soul of a wizard trapped in a shield for 2500 years, when the wizard's son, doesn't seem to exactly be a "prince of goodness and light"?  He operates a secret army out of a secret  Bond Villain / Area-51 like compound out there in the Karelian wilds with his disciplined skin-heady troops in black special forces-like uniforms flying black helicopters after all ...

Anyway, it all makes for one heck of a story, and ... like the Twilight Saga, produced two sequels ;-)

HOW TO FIND THE FILM?  The film as well as the two sequels are all quite easily available, in Russian, on the internet and the English subtitles for them can be found on the subs.com.ru website.

Folks, especially young adults, this is one spectacularly good / fun contemporary Russian "Twilight Saga-ish" story, well worth the effort to find ;-)


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

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