Season of the Witch

MPAA (PG-13) CNS/USCCB (O) Roger Ebert (2 stars) Fr. Dennis (3 stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0479997/
CNS/USCCB Review -
http://www.usccb.org/movies/s/seasonofthewitch.shtml
Roger Ebert's Review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110105/REVIEWS/110109993

Season of the Witch is a period piece written by Brahi F. Schut and directed by Dominic Sena set during the latter part of the Crusader era and at the beginning of the spread of the bubonic plague. The story is set around the friendship of two crusader knights played by Nicholas Cage and Ron Perlman who at the beginning of the movie love their jobs of killing the enemy at least as much as the Spartans did in the movie 300. However, after 10 years of killing Saracens (Muslims), and often enough, the Saracens’ (Muslims’) women and children, the two had enough. So they desert and head for home. It is then that they run into European cities devastated by the plague.

It is often hard for us to imagine the horror and desperation that the great plague caused the people of Europe. The people were horror stricken and had no idea what caused it or how it spread. Even today, “ancient alien theorists” muse over reports of the time of “demons” appearing at the outskirts of towns and villages and spreading the plague through “mists.” Today we understand that the plague was spread by bacteria carried in the intestines of fleas carried about by rats. It took years for the people of Europe and the rest of the world to figure that out. In the meantime, all kinds of scapegoats were blamed, murdered and/or destroyed in reprisal. Jews were murdered for simply not “fitting in” (and therefore somehow causing the plague). Similarly, “uppity” women (or women who, again, somehow did not fit in or tragically annoyed the wrong/vindictive person/people) were denounced and burnt as witches. The Church even largely destroyed its own churches. The iconoclast controversy which had raged and been settled by Church Council some centuries earlier resurfaced and panicky Church officials literally whitewashed and destroyed a whole era of religious art across Europe out of fear that the images of Jesus, the Holy Family, Angels and Saints were being taken as “idolatry” by a vengeful God punishing the world for its multitude of sins. The panic was near total.

Hence how would one approach making a movie set in this era and why make it at all when it could offend so many people – Muslims, Jews, Feminists, even the Catholic Church itself which has apologized and sought to make amends countless times for these and other sins certainly made often with fervor but also out of ignorance?

Well, the makers of the movie appeared to try to simply put the movie’s characters into the world of that time have them live as closely as possible according to the assumptions that they would have made at the time and invite the audience to join with them. Hence, I do think that the movie does quite successfully allow the audience to see the world of that time from through the eyes of two crusading knights.

If I were Jewish still reeling from the Holocaust that hopefully was the last chapter of an _awful_ two millenia long history of Christian persecution of the Jews, or a Feminist simply _appalled_ by the Medieval trial and burning of _apparently_ "problematic" women as witches, would I want to do this? Probably not. But the exercise is not without some value. And one is invited to enter into a pre-scientific world where much of the technology that exists today was simply unimaginable.

Hence through The Season of the Witch, one gets to appreciate some of the terrors that all people felt back then. When the two returning knights are given the task of providing escort for a priest and assistant taking woman accused of witchcraft (the woman played quite well by Claire Foy) to a distant monastery for trial, they pass through a dark wood, where the party gets attacked by wolves. Today, such a fight would be a mismatch. However back then, a pack of 12-15 wolves fighting two men with swords and a squire armed with a pike had a good chance of winning the fight.

And then anybody annoyed by the supernaturalism of the movie ought to be consistent and definitely avoid movies about demons and possession set in the world today. Afterall, it was in times such as that in which the Crusader knights lived that such things were deemed not only possible but quite common.

So what would be my verdict on this movie? I grew up enjoying Dungeons and Dragons. I have been a lifelong history buff. I can appreciate that all kinds of people could have serious difficulties watching this movie. At the same time, I do appreciate the invitation to walk for 2 hours in the world of the time of the Crusades and Black Plague. I would not want to stay and would certainly not want to return with a lust for killing or hurting anybody. But I do appreciate the possibility of sojourning for those 2 hours with those Crusading knights in a world that otherwise I’d have difficulty imagining. As such I’d recommend the movie to the similarly adventurous but also make the reccomendation with the reservations I give above.


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Country Strong [2010]

MPAA Rating (PG-13) CNS/USCCB Rating (A-III) Roger Ebert's Review (2 1/2 stars) Fr. Dennis' Review (3 stars)

IMDb Listing - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1555064/
CNS/USCCB Review - http://www.usccb.org/movies/c/countrystrong2011.shtml
Roger Eberts' Review - http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110105/REVIEWS/110109994

The movie Country Strong [2010] is not complicated. It's built around a 40-something country-western Diva coming to the end of her career. The storyline, the characters and even the camerawork are all very simple, at times even cartoonish. But just because the storyline is largely predictable and many of the stadium concert scenes were self-evidently filmed in front of a blue screen and pasted over stock country western concert footage doesn’t disqualify Country Strong from being an entertaining and surprisingly deep movie: I’ve been a lifelong sucker for country music precisely because while, yes, it's often schmaltzy it is also about life.

So in the midst of the simple storyline some big themes and tragedies play out.

The fictional Diva who’s career is nearing its end is named Kelly Canter (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) a 40 something country superstar who’s been in rehab for a number of months after a disastrous performance in Dallas where, stone drunk with a 0.19 alcohol level, she tripped over an electrical cable and fell 10 feet off the stage killing her 5 month old unborn baby in the process. Yes, Kelly was a mess.

Kelly’s producer-husband is James Canter (played by real-life country music superstar and actor Tim McGraw. In real-life, McGraw is married to real-life 40-something year-old country western diva Faith Hill). James Canter has become a slick, hardened country music producer who probably put his job (along with its perks) ahead of his marriage long before Kelly’s incident in Dallas. Nevertheless for a number of possible/probable reasons James appears to have had a tough time forgiving Kelly for that disaster. After all, Kelly’s fall would have certainly hit the couple’s bottom line. Further, producer though he was, his wife Kelly would have certainly been his main client. Now what? And then Kelly’s fall killed what would have been the couple’s only child. A former insurance salesman, James was a man of the world with his feet on the ground. In contrast, Kelly was a "broken angel" who just loved to sing (and loved to be loved) probably never understanding the financial end of what she was doing.

In rehab, Kelly probably messes-up her life further by getting involved with a “young buck” named Beau Hutton (played by Garrett Hedlund) who lives for playing good-ole boy country music in small town bars and honky-tonks by night while working simply as a laborer at the Rehab center by day. This the two have in common – they both love the music. And Kelly becomes something of a mentor figure to Beau even though it's obvious that they were having a sexual relationship while he should have been working and she should have been working on getting better. James comes in one day (at the beginning of the movie) to take Kelly out of Rehab, prematurely as it is, because he’s lined-up a relatively short string of stadium shows that would still salvage her/their careers. He finds Beau in Kelly’s room (Kelly dressed only in a bathrobe). Beau is presented to James as one of her “sponsors.” James lets it go.

It soon becomes clear that James also has put together other plans while Kelly’s been in Rehab. Sure Kelly Canter is going to be the head-liner of this tour, but he’s also found another, much younger, singer named Chiles Stanton who's “a small town prom queen” played superbly by actress Leighton Meister of Gossip Girl fame. Just how the two met, God only knows and why big-time Nashville producer James Canter would pull someone like Chiles to out of thin air to be the warm-up act for his mega-star wife, Kelly Canter, is a further mystery. Obviously, sex was involved but it’s reflective of a sadness and desperation felt by both James Canter and Chiles. Anyway, if Kelly is a “broken angel”, Chiles is a “broken prom queen.” And the scriptwriters leave it to Beau to try to save them both.

To give some respectability to Chiles Stanton’s stature, she given a gig in a small club on Broadway street in Nashville, where it turns out that Beau was supposed to be the head-liner that night. He gets his set but the board outside puts Chiles as the head-liner. Though pissed-off, he goes along. Then Chiles goes-up on stage and freezes. Not wanting to see her “die” like that on stage, Beau comes up on stage with his guitar singing Garth Brooks' "(I've Got) Friends in Low Places" and nods to Chiles to chime in. She does, regains her confidence and proves that she can sing, finishing then the rest of her set.

James, who only met Beau that morning while pulling his wife out of rehab is impressed and after the show asks Beau to join the tour. Initially, Beau says no saying that “big stadiums are not [his] thing.” But he’s guilted into it as James notes that he actually could help both Chiles and Kelly. And besides wasn’t he one of Kelly’s “sponsors” after all. So Beau says yes.

A few days later, the tour leaves Nashville for Houston, Austin and, finally, Dallas. As described above, the tour has been put together by spit and polish and is hanging together by a thread.

Much of course happens. Many younger musicians and “purists” of all ages and genres would appreciate the movie’s obvious criticism of Big Music. Sure there are the lights and there is the fame, but at what cost? The portrayal of the monstrous pseudo-Fascism of the stadium shows would be something that Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters would certainly appreciate as his album / movie The Wall of nearly 30 years ago made the same point.

One of the joys of country music for its musicians is that one could happily grow old working a day job and just playing/frequenting a few small bars and honky-tonks singing lyrics like “I ain’t no poet, I'm just a drunk with a pen” without ever having to sell one’s own soul.

I _liked_ this movie and I liked its characters (as broken and as cardboard cutouts as they often seemed). But then I’ve always been a sucker for heartfelt but hopelessly schmaltzy lyrics like those above or the “small town prom queen” Chiles’ "Summer Girl" – “I'm just a summer girl, I wear my flip flops. When I let my hair down, that's when the party starts. And who needs a boyfriend, I’ve got my girl friends, and when we get together, the summer never ends.”


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Blue Valentine

MPAA Rating (R) CNS/USCCB Rating (O) Robert Ebert (3 1/2 stars) Fr. Dennis (3 stars)

IMDb listing - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1120985/
USCCB Review -
Roger Ebert's Review - http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110105/REVIEWS/110109996
Onion/AV Club Review - http://www.avclub.com/articles/blue-valentine,49502/

Blue Valentine first caught my attention when the college oriented Onion/AV Club gave the movie a very rare “A” rating. It is an independent / art-house movie, that will nevertheless be certainly nominated in a number of categories (both main actors, screenplay, possibly direction). There is no particular cinematographic reason to _have to see_ this movie on a big screen. So in that sense one _could_ wait until the movie comes out on DVD/BlueRay. On the other hand, the movie does certainly invite discussion. As such, I would recommend young adults or married couples to go out and see this movie _in a group_ to talk about it afterwards.

Like a surprising number of R-rated movies that I’ve seen this year, it definitely deserves its “R,” though NOT only for the obvious, often stupid reasons. Yes, there is sex portrayed in the movie. Indeed, the realism of several of these scenes initially earned the movie a NC-17 rating, which if an NC-17 rating was not a virtual death sentence for a movie, the movie probably would have deserved it. However, the movie's sex scenes are beside the point and if that’s what is going to drive one to see this movie, then one’s going to be rather embarrassed and unhappy through most of it. This is because Blue Valentine is a well-written, well-acted, well-directed movie about a 20 something couple, married five years with a child (which was _a_ but _not the only_ proximate reason for their getting married before a judge to begin with) now at the point break-up. So the sex, even when it was good near the beginning of the couple’s relationship, looked back upon in the context of the unfolding tragedy / train wreck of the present comes across as sad.

The movie is written in a manner which invites the audience to have sympathy for both the characters, Dean (played by Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (played by Michelle Williams).

Dean was a _nice_ guy with some flaws. Notable are two: his lack of education (which may not have been his fault but simply the result of the broken, largely absent family he was dealt when he was young) and his apparent utter lack of ambition (which appeared to be a personal though tragic choice, perhaps driven ironically by the fact that Dean was able to get without all that much effort a wife that he loved along with a daughter then that he adored).

Cindy was a mess when the two first met. She was also from a dysfunctional home with an abusive father, but going to college (studying nursing at a city college with dreams of perhaps making it to med school), hanging by a thread. Her dumb-ass jock, on the wrestling team, boyfriend got her pregnant and then had neither the means nor a clue of how to take responsibility.

Dean in this context actually comes across as pretty good. A high school drop-out, he first met Cindy while working as a hauler for a moving company. The two met while Cindy was visiting grandmother at an assisted living facility. Dean was there helping to move an elderly veteran from the veteran’s decrepit home to a room near that of Cindy’s grandmother. It was a chance encounter, but Dean fell in love. Talking her up when Dean ran into her by her grandmother’s room, he left Cindy an unsolicited card with his number at the moving company where he worked. Cindy, with many balls in the air -- an angry/abusive father at home, beloved grandmother in an assisted-living facility, and now worried that her dumb-assed boyfriend (did I call him dumb-assed again?) might have gotten her pregnant -- “didn’t call back.” So after some weeks, Dean decided to go back to the assisted living facility, ostensibly to “check-up” on the vet that he helped move. (There was a sincerity there however, because Dean did, in fact, try really hard to make the vet’s new room as “homey” as possible when the movers moved him there. Dean _did_ seem to have a “big heart” in this way). Anyway, Dean talked up Cindy’s grandmother and asked her if she could put-in a good word for him. She did and Dean/Cindy also ran into each other at the assisted living facility again.

Dean was funny and kind at a time when Cindy was _really, really vulnerable_. In the course of the weeks that followed, she confirmed that she was pregnant. She confessed this to Dean, telling him that Dean almost certainly was not the father (in those mixed up weeks in between, she let herself be “swept away” by him as well...). DEAN DID NOT CARE. He loved her anyway. Deans kindness/dumb love allowed her to keep the baby, leave her home with some dignity and get married. She was able then to finish her degree.

But in the movie it's five years later now. She’s now a nurse, a good one, seeing a future. He loves simply painting walls for his job and coming home to his wife and kid. She sees and wants so much more. He’s happy exactly where he is and simply can’t understand why/how things could have changed.

I can’t help it, but I love / feel sorry for them both ... Did he take advantage of her? Yes. Did she take advantage of him? Yes. Did either do so maliciously? I don’t think so. Are there things that can be learned, discussed and reflected upon as a result of this movie? OMG, yes.

Three separate BIBLICAL passages come to my mind here:

“O Lord, if you should mark our guilt, who could survive?” – Psalm 130:3

Cindy came to resent Dean for his lack of ambition, but honestly, if we just focused on each other’s shortcomings and flaws, we’d all destroy each other. And Dean frankly saved her when she was in need.

“My heart is not proud, O LORD, nor haughty my eyes; I do not concern myself with great matters or things beyond my grasp.” – Ps 131:1

It seems to me that Dean’s perhaps biggest transgression was simply that he “aimed too high.” Yes, he was lucky. He found a damsel in distress, who if she wasn’t in distress would have probably never paid him mind. He saved her. But now she was no longer in distress, and no longer needed him.

“[Replying to the Saducees’ cynical / trick question about a woman who had been married to each of seven brothers who each died leaving her with a child] Jesus replied: ‘You are misled because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection [people] neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in heaven.’” (Matt 23:29-30)

This passage really did strike me as I watched this movie. Yes, I get it, he wanted her to remain _his_ wife, and she _didn’t_ want to remain his wife. But honestly, why couldn’t they just remain friends? He did a lot for her. But also, if he truly loved her, why wouldn’t he just let her go? They lived through a lot together. Yes, there was (obviously) their past sexual relationship, yes at least initially, she would probably leave him in the dust economically and probably "replace him" sexually (should she choose to pursue that) rather easily. But they did share a lot together and he _did help her_. After the "haha-ing" of "I made it without you" and the initial resentment of "being left/dumped," is it really impossible that they could reconcile (come to good terms) with each other as "angels" to each other or in our speak as "friends" at least not hating / resenting / looking down on each other anymore? Afterall, there is all that history (beyond the possessiveness of the sex).

Maybe the divorce crisis that we've seen over these last several decades across the Christian world is the result of us coming actually closer the image described by Jesus in the passage above where everybody would come to be, above all, equal and respected and where everyone's primary relationship would come to be with the God who created and loved them all as a loving parent (perhaps like Cindy's grandmother or that old vet who Dean helped move) and simply wished them well.


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Gulliver's Travels

MPAA (PG) CNS/USCCB (O) Roger Ebert (3 stars) Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1320261/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.usccb.org/movies/g/gullivers-travels.shtml
Roger Ebert's Review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101222/REVIEWS/101229992
Onion/AV Club Review -
http://www.avclub.com/articles/gullivers-travels,49429/

Jack Black’s new release Gulliver’s Travels is a movie intended for an audience of 10 year old boys. If one understands this then one will probably enjoy the movie for what it is. If one expects more of the movie then one will be disappointed and certainly plenty of critics have felt disappointed. Why?

I would explain the matter in this way. Most American adults will remember Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels from their English Lit classes that they took in high school. Most who read the book in this context will probably remember it fondly because, good God, it’s so much better and so much easier to read than Thomas Hardy’s Tess of D’Urbervilles.

Among those who read Gulliver’s Travels, there will be those who appreciated the political humor in it. Most of us would have no idea who the “Whigs” and “Tories” were in England at the time of Jonathan Swift or what they stood for, but would still appreciate the humor in Swift’s portrayal of the Lilliput King’s wearing a high heeled shoe and a low heeled shoe to placate the “High Heel” and “Low Heel” parties of Lilliput and that the “Sovereign’s limp” was seen as a “sublime sign of compromise” by his subjects. Today, we would call that “a sign of bipartisanship.”

Yes, Jonathan Swift _can_ be read in that way. It can be fun for older teens and adults to read it in that way. (I loved Jonathan Swift when I read him in English Lit). It is, indeed, the way that Jonathan Swift probably would have intended to be read. If you don’t remember this kind of satire in Jonathan Swift’s book when you read it in school as a teenager please go to the public library or to Amazon, get the book and READ IT AGAIN. It really is a fun book.

But the _primary_ thing that most of us will remember of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver’s Travels is simply that Gulliver found himself first in Lilliput a land inhabited by tiny people no more than about 5-6 inches tall and later (if one read that far) traveling to another land (named Brobdingnag) where Gulliver became the tiny person in the midst of giants.

This largely “dumbed down” version is what Jack Black is providing. There ARE critics who expected more. The college oriented Onion/AV Club gave the movie a D-. Harsh ;-). I disagree, but I understand. But then just buy Jonathan Swift’s original and read it for yourself, and accept Black’s dumbed down version for what it is: a nice fun movie with actually a good message for the kids.

Now surprisingly the CNS/USCCB critic would dispute even that there is a good message in the movie for kids and gives the movie an “O” (morally offensive) rating. I simply don’t get the CNS/USCCB’s critic here at all, unless he simply doesn’t understand the mind of a 10 year old.

Yes, Gulliver (played by Jack Black) is introduced as a slacker (and, yes, actor Jack Black has traveled that path before). OK, but he changes during the course of the movie and changes in a way that a 10 year old could understand.

In this story, Black’s Gulliver has worked in the mail room of a magazine publisher in New York for 10 years without much desire to move-up to a better job. But he does seem to have a crush on the woman who’s the “travel editor” at the magazine. Egged-on by a new employee in the mail-room, rather than asking her on a date (which, come-on would not have been realistic at that point anyway) _he lies to her_ and says that he travels and writes. She says, “okay, show me what you can do.” Since he really didn’t travel or write, he copies (plagiarizes) two articles from the internet and tries to pass them off as his own. The editor is “impressed” and saying “Gee, and the articles are so remarkable, written in such different styles...” She gives him an assignment then to write about a trip to the Bermuda Triangle.

That assignment gets him lost in Lilliput. In the meantime she finds out that he plagiarized those two articles and leaves a message on his phone to that effect. That’s the last message that he gets on the “titanic orb” that the Lilliputians found by his wrecked craft.

Gulliver, a life-long slacker now finds himself a giant among these tiny Lilliputians. They also don’t quite understand how or why he arrived on their shores. The temptation is great. He lies about his background, making himself the President of Manhattan. He also presents himself as the hero of all kinds of stories (Star Wars, Leonardo di Caprio’s version of the Titanic, etc). Eventually, of course the contradictions of his lies come crashing in on him AND BOTH HE AND HIS LILLIPUTIAN FRIENDS PAY FOR HIS LIES.

In a scene that any 8-10 year old would understand, Jack Black’s Gulliver comes to realize that his lies have hurt people that he cared about AND THAT THESE PEOPLE WOULD HAVE A TOUGH TIME TRUSTING HIM BECAUSE OF HIS PREVIOUS LIES. Gulliver comes to save the Lilliputian king who finds himself imprisoned by enemies in part because previously he trusted Gulliver’s apparent invincibility too much. The king tells Gulliver “Everything you’ve ever told us since you’ve come here has been lies. Why should we trust you now?” Jack Black’s Gulliver begins by answering in typical slack fashion “Hey man, my word is my ... bond ... (then stops realizing the problem) ... uh ... (and continues) ... this time.”

This is a great scene and with a message that I believe that ANY 8-10 year old would understand: IF YOU LIE, PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT WILL STOP TRUSTING YOU.

I write this because the CNS/USCCB critic writes that Black’s Gulliver’s Travels sends the message to little kids that lying and plagiarizing is okay. NO IT DOESN’T.

Jack Black’s Gulliver PAYS for his lying and plagiarizing. In each case, it becomes clear to him that he’s lost the trust of people he cares about. He realizes that he wants those people’s trust. So he apologizes / makes amends. Yes, he wins the girl (the editor) at the end (AFTER MAKING AMENDS). So what? What’s the alternative, that he gets flogged for his past sins? Black’s Gulliver realizes that he’s hurt people by his lying/plagiarizing (by his sins). He makes amends and everyone lives happily ever after. Sounds kinda like what we try to teach our kids and preach on Sundays (or have we _stopped_ believing "in the forgiveness of sins?")

And yes, there’s a scene where the King’s palace is on fire. Gulliver’s a giant. The people beg Gulliver to do something. He needs a lot of water, there isn’t a lot of time. He comes up with an idea. He even warns them, “You’re not gonna like this.” The people beg him to do whatever he needs to do anyway. We see a gigantic pair of trousers drop on the buildings by the burning palace, and ... he puts out the fire ... ;-)

Again, was the CNS/USCCB critic ever a cub scout or 10 years old?

Unless you were offended by the description of the scene above (and some might be), I would recommend this movie to families with younger (8-12 year old) kids. I’d also recommend to adults who may not have read the book to read it for themselves. It’s a good story.

One last thing. This movie is out in 3D. However, there's no screaming reason to have to see _this movie_ in 3D as it works perfectly well in 2D. Save your money there.


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Somewhere [2010]

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB () Roger Ebert (4 stars) Fr. Dennis (4 stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1421051/
CNS/USCCB Review -
Roger Ebert's Review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101221/REVIEWS/101229995

Somewhere [2010] is another art-house film that’s getting buzz these days, largely due to its having been written and directed by Sofia Coppola, the daughter of famed director Francis Ford Coppola. This is not Sofia Coppola’s writing/directorial debut. She’s had some successes, winning the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the comedy Lost in Translation (2003) starring Bill Murray and Scarlet Johansson a movie that was also nominated that year for Best Picture. She’s also had some relative flops, Marie Antoinette (2006), even though that movie did win an Oscar for best Costume Design. Somewhere definitely plays to her strengths of writing and directing off-beat comedy.

Somewhere asks the question, what do you do if you reach all your personal goals rather early in life and reach them in spades? Steven Dorff plays a late-30 to early-40 something Hollywood action star named Johnny Marco who finds himself successful perhaps beyond his wildest dreams, perhaps even without having exerted a great deal of effort, but wondering what now?

The opening sequence sets the mood. One sees a curve in a road on a flat plain apparently somewhere out in the Mohave Desert outside of Los Angeles. One hears the rev of a sports car approaching. It’s a black Farrari. The driver slows down, turns, shifts, the engine revs as he speeds up and disappears. You hear the car engine quiet as the driver apparently approaches another turn, shift, and then hear the rev of the engine as he accelerates again. You hear the sequence again, and the black Farrari appears on the screen again after what appears to be a rather short circle. You hear the car engine relax again as the driver (off screen) turns the car again, shifts and accelerates, soon appearing on the screen once more, and the same 10-15 second cycle repeats two more times. Finally the driver, Johnny Marco, stops his car and gets out to perhaps take a new view of the same desert terrain that he’s driving around in circles for some time now. Not a word has been spoken, but the scene sets the tone for the rest of the film.

There are a lot of telling, poignant scenes with few to no words being said in this movie as Sofia Coppola lets her camera tell the story.

Johnny Marco is so bored that in one of the early scenes of the movie he’s hired a pair of blonde 19 year old pole dancers come to his rented suite in a relatively famous Hollywood retreat for the stars. Dressed in tight pink short-skirted outfits, they try to perform a rather cheesy “synchronized routine” on the poles that they brought with them. They do their routine to a song called “Who’s your hero?” Johnny falls asleep during their dance. The twins don’t seem to mind. Smiling as sweetly as they did through the whole of their performance, they disassemble their poles, put them into their tote bags and go home.

Perhaps embarrassed that he fell asleep on them, Marco invites the twins over a second time a few days later. This time they are dressed in checkered green, white and brown (plaid?) string bikinis. They’re smiling and pole dancing away again and Johnny Marco is straining really hard to stay awake for them this time. When they are done, he invites one of them over to his bed for a kiss. Of course, he gets her name wrong. She comes over for the kiss anyway, but blows a small bubble from the bubble gum that she’s been chewing into his face. Was she irritated, being playful or just vacuous? Regardless or perhaps feeling rejected, he crashes asleep again.

He wakes up to another blonde, who turns out to be his 11 year old daughter (played by Elle Fanning), signing her name on his cast. His ex had brought her over. One realizes that he’s apparently broken his arm some time earlier. Yet his 11 year old daughter is the very first to sign the cast.

The ex tells him that she’s going away for a couple of days and so to take care of daughter while she’s gone. Marco asks the 11 year old what she wants to do. The ex reminds Marco that the 11 year old has a figure skating lesson that afternoon. Marco takes her to the lesson. The 11 year old skates happily on the ice. She’s not bad but it's clear that she's not exactly "Olympic caliber." Does Marco realize that his blonde 11 year old daughter had about the same amount of talent as those 19 year old pole dancers he had in his room before? Does he realize that those pole dancers were smiling as sweetly as his 11 year old was smiling now? Does he get it, that _his_ eleven year old could be dancing in the hotel room of a 40 year old 8 years from now?

This is a remarkable, gentle yet articulate movie.

One more vignette. During the course of the movie, Marco is invited to Italy to receive yet another film award. The ex is gone again, so he has to take his 11 year old along. They are lodged in a 5 star Italian hotel of one’s dreams with their suite having its own private adjoining indoor swimming pool. The pool is exquisite, mosaics and classical statues adorn its sides. Yet, as soon as the 11 year old jumps into the pool, it is clear that it is _too small_. She can only take two strokes before she reaches the other side. Marco tries to help her, giving her suggestions of what to do to keep from becoming bored – hold your breath, now swim the distance of the pool underwater – but to no avail. The pool is just too small. Back in Hollywood, the two go to the outdoor pool of the resident hotel where Marco is staying and lie down on the run-of-the-mill aluminum and plastic cots beside the pool, sunglasses on, face skyward and the scene extends out to infinity.

It is clear that what gives happiness to the 11 year old and life to her father _through her_ are things that are available to everyone.

Somewhere is a shoe-in for a nomination for best original screenplay at the Academy Awards and Sofia Coppola could get a nomination for best director as well.


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The Rabbit Hole

MPAA (PG-13) CNS/USCCB () Rober Ebert (3 1/2 stars) Fr. Dennis (3 stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0935075/
CNS/USCCB Review -
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101222/REVIEWS/101229994

I do believe that movies about death and dying need to be taken at a distance. Those immediately effected by tragedy need both respectful presence and space for them to slowly regain their bearings. However, movies such as The Rabbit Hole can be good for those a few steps away from those immediately grieving the tragic loss of a loved one. In the case of The Rabbit Hole, the couple in question is grieving the sudden loss of their small child. He child had run into the street after their dog and was hit by car driven by a teenager who didn’t see the child coming.

Using a both a family and a support group setting, the movie quite respectfully portrays a wide array of possible initial responses and conflicts that can occur with the sudden loss of a small child. Some will lean on their faith, while others will go the other direction and blame God for some time. Some will want to start cleaning out the house of the toys, clothes and other reminders. Others will want to keep _everything the same_ for a while. Some will come to yearn for lost intimacy from their spouse, others will simply not be ready for some time.

Anyone who has gone through anything like a loss like this will understand, but please _don’t_ try to push this movie on someone who has recently lost a loved one. The Rabbit Hole like most other movies of this genre is more for the people a few steps away from the tragedy to help them better understand the thoughts, feelings and conflicts occurring within those closer to the tragedy.

The screenplay for The Rabbit Hole was written by David Lindsay-Abaire who also wrote the stage play by the same name. The movie is directed by John Cameron Mitchell. The grieving couple is played by Nicole Kidman (Becca) and Aaron Eckhart (Howie). Strong primary supporting roles are played by Dianne Wiest (as Becca’s mom), Tammy Blanchard (as Becca’s sister) as well as Sandra Oh (as a leader of the grief support group that Becca and Howie attend), Miles Teller (as Jason, the teen who accidently killed Danny, Becca and Howie’s child), as well as others playing lesser roles of various friends and family.

As noted above, The Rabbit Hole was originally written for as a stage play. Thus while the primary roles were certainly played excellently by Kidman, Eckhart, Wiest, Blanchard and Oh, the script and direction are probably the most important here. There is deserved talk of Kidman being nominated by the Academy for Best Actress for her role. The other actors as well as director did a good job, but probably won’t receive much immediate recognition for their work here as I don't believe the film was able to completely shed its "stage feel." Still the fact that the movie was made will probably guarantee that this stage play will circulate throughout the English speaking world (and in translation perhaps beyond) for some time to come. It's a good and powerful story.


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The American

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (L) Roger Ebert (4 stars) Fr. Dennis (4 stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1440728/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.usccb.org/movies/a/theamerican.shtml
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100831/REVIEWS/100839999/1023

Recently released on DVD.

The American is one of a number of movies that I consider among the 2010's best but came out before I started this blog.

It is both a “quiet” and “dark” movie with some very nice panoramas of the Abruzzo region of Italy. Thus it is the type of movie that really would be best enjoyed on the big screen of a movie house. However, I could imagine it would work reasonably well on a nice HD TV with the lights dimmed and not much noise to help one focus on the screen.

There isn’t much dialogue in this movie as it is about Jack, a skilled, professional assassin played by George Clooney, who needless to say doesn’t talk much about his work. Indeed, The American is based on the novel by Martin Booth tellingly entitled “A Very Private Gentleman” and just about the only thing that a bystander could possibly surmise about Jack (by vestiges of an accent and _perhaps_ hints in his dress/demeanor) was that he was "probably an American.”

So it’s a very lonely life reduced to focusing on the mechanics of one's work, getting the parts together to assemble the “made to order” weapon for the particular job assigned, and then calibrating it to make sure it works. About the only people that Jack talks to in this movie are to his boss (who's simply a voice on the phone), his latest client's representative (played by Dutch actess Thekla Reuten) who does meet him personally, the town priest (played by Italian actor Paolo Bonacelli) who knows pretty much everybody in town and so notices him even as Jack otherwise successfully leads a life invisible to most others, and finally to a prostitute (played by Italian actress Violante Placido) who Jack pays not merely for the requisite sex but clearly and above all for intimacy. This is an understated story with a very little "u".

I would rate the adapted screenplay, direction (by Dutch director Anton Corbijn) and cinematography among the best of this year. I’d also give George Clooney a nod for a “Best Actor” nomination for his role.


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