Monte Carlo

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

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1067774/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/11mv075.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110628/REVIEWS/110629976

 It’s the summer, so travelogue movies are “in season,” and I found Monte Carlo (directed and cowritten by Thomas Bezucha and April Blair and others) to be a particularly sweet one.

Grace (played by Selena Gomez), a part time waitress at a diner in a small town on the plains of Texas is graduating from High School.  She had been saving to go to Paris for a trip after graduation, “putting money away in a cookie jar” whenever she could since at least the beginning of her freshman year.  Along the way, she convinced a slightly older co-worker Emma (played by Katie Cassidy) to go with her as well.  The movie begins on graduation day, and they seem to be set. 

At the last minute, Grace’s 21 year-old new step-sister Meg (played by Leighton Meester) is thrown into the mix by their recently married parents, Grace’s mom Pam (played by Andie MacDowell) and Meg’s widowed father Robert (played by Brett Cullen).  Adult or almost-adult chidren of recently remarried parents, the two, Grace and Meg, had clearly not fully accepted their parents’ new arrangement or each other as "sisters."  Added to this college senior Meg really didn’t like waitress Emma.  Both Grace and Meg are not thrilled with their parents’ meddling.  But both parents _insist_, so there... 

Emma has her own little drama to deal with.  Long time boyfriend, Owen (played by Cory Monteith), really doesn’t understand why Emma has to go on this trip to Paris: “All I need is right her in my truck,” he says to her seated next to him in his pickup.  Emma responds that she’s never even been outside of Texas and really would like to go.  So Emma leaves on the trip after having had this fight with Owen.

So there the three go - Grace, Emma and Meg - arriving in Paris together and soon discover that the “value package tour” that they purchased was less than they had hoped for.  In particular, the tour guide, Madame Valerie (played by Valerie Lemecier) seemed obsessed with keeping both “on schedule and on budget.”  So for different reasons all three are aghast – Emma has trouble keeping up with the tour because all she brought for the trip were high heels (for “stylish Paris”).  College student Meg is appalled that the tour group had to sprint through Louvre without so much as stopping at a single painting to catch a breath, much less admire it, and Grace feels embarrassed that “this was all her fault,” that “she booked the worst tour in Paris.”

Their fortunes change however after they are left by the tour group atop the Eiffel Tower.  Emma simply can’t get down the steps of the Eiffel Tower in time.  Trying to get back to their hotel by foot, they get caught in a rain storm.  To get out of the rain, they enter a very posh hotel and ... that’s while they are in the ladies’ room they accidently run into a snotty young English heiress named Cordelia Winthrop Scott who looks like the spitting image of Grace.  (Indeed, Selena Gomez plays Ms Cordelia as well).

Good ole Cordelia is upset that here she is in Parish though her luggage was still somewhere else and all her friends are in Majorca.  In a tiff, Ms Cordelia leaves the hotel presumably to go to Majorca without saying anything to the receptionist even though he was frantically trying to locate her luggage for her.  Anyway, when the Grace, Meg and Emma step out of the bathroom, the receptionist, indeed the whole hotel staff confuse Grace with Ms Cordelia.  And the rest of the story opens from here ...

Much, mostly sweet, happens afterwards...  Yes, the three are jetted off to Monte Carlo (hence the title of the film) on the French Riviera for a charity benefit that Ms Cordelia should have attended.  Ms Cordelia’s luggage also arrives (to Monte Carlo).  So the three young ladies from Texas now get to dress in fine high society clothes.

What makes the movie _nice_, however, is that the movie goes in the direction of The Princess Diaries rather than Sex and the City.  Indeed, the PG rating is _entirely appropriate_ in the film.  All three of the young ladies “find themselves” and “find their direction” as a result of the trip.  And yes, Emma after getting a taste of “high society” finds that she prefers the waitresses instead.  Indeed, she makes up with Owen.  What happens with the other two, Grace and Meg, I’m not going to reveal here except that remembering that this is a story, (and a sweet one at that) they both “find their destinies,” both of those destinies are nice.  And yes, they also find that they do like each other.  What a nice movie! 

Could they have discovered all that on a Eurail pass rather than in haute rich Monte Carlo?  Certainly, but again this is "a fairytale."  And the exaggeration in the story didn’t hurt. 

A comment then about the screenplay.  Remembering that this is _a story_, I very much enjoyed the tightness of the script.  Throughout the film little things that appeared to be mere details come to have importance later.  Even that the three came from a small town Texas (rather than from a small town in say Ohio or Alabama) made a difference to how a couple of scenes played out.  So viewers, watch for the details and see how the screen writers used them to tie the story together.  I’ve long enjoyed “a good story,” and I found the story telling this movie to be very, very good.  

All in all, I would imagine that this would make for both a nice family movie, especially when a newly “blended family” is trying to come together.  And no, the message _certainly isn't_ that one has to go to “Monte Carlo” (or have a ton of money) to make things work out. Though “going-off on an adventure together" may actually bring a family/new sibblings closer (think of The Incredibles).

And I would also think that this would make for a nice young adult date movie.  Yes, the movie’s a bit corny and the girls would probably enjoy it more than the guys.  But ending with a “happy date” is generally a good thing.  So “going/accepting corny” at times can a good thing as well ;-).


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Bad Teacher [2011]

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (O) Roger Ebert (2 Stars) Fr. Dennis (2 ½ Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1284575/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/11mv072.htm
Roger Ebert’s review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110622/REVIEWS/110629989

The first and most important thing that folks should know about the comedy, Bad Teacher (directed by Jake Kasdan, written by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg), is that it certainly deserves its R-Rating, and its makers would probably consider the Catholic News Service’s “O” (for Offensive) rating as a badge of honor.

I say this because while I would imagine that many/most older teens and especially college students/young adults (some of whom would either be teachers, studying to be teachers or certainly have friends who are teachers or studying to be teachers) as well as older adults (ie parents) would certainly enjoy this movie, there is at least one Something About Mary-like scene in Bad Teacher involving bodily fluids that I certainly would not want to be a parent feeling the need to explain to their 14-15 year old.  So parents, _you are warned_: the R-rating here is absolutely appropriate and no, this would _not_ be a “family movie.” 

So then, why make or review such a movie at all?  Well, because Bad Teacher is often very, very funny.  Why?  Because the makers of this film did try to portray a true “teacher from hell” (awful teacher) and ... most viewers would agree, they probably succeeded ;-).

The movie begins with a small, very small “faculty gathering” at the end of the school year wishing departing 7th grade teacher Elizabeth (Liz) Halsey (played by Cameron Diaz) “all the best” after 1 year of teaching as she leaves John Adams Middle School (JAMS) to get married.  They give her a $37 dollar gift card (“almost $40") to Boston Market.  She thanks them, apologizes for “not being particularly engaged” in her work that year, because,  well “she was planning her wedding ...” and then heads off to the parking lot where she hops into her red Mercedes sports car, burns rubber as she speeds backing-up out of the parking-lot, cutting off a school bus packed with her former students in the process.  She comes home, only to find her rich fiancé (along with his mother) waiting for her to dump her.  Damn ...

Three months later, she’s back teaching 7th grade at JAMS, driving a used red Neon, ready to start the school year ... Has she changed, learned from her experience?  Well, she convinced herself that her fiancé dumped her, not because she was using him for his money, but because her breasts weren’t large enough (if they were large enough, presumably, _he wouldn’t care_ if she was using him for his money ...).

So she decides to get a “boob job.”  When she finds out that this would cost her over $9,000, money that she does not have “on a teacher’s salary,” she gets really mercenary about getting the required money.  No, she doesn’t stoop to (outright) prostitution for it.  But truly anything else goes: Stealing “excess money” collected from the annual “school car wash” which she took responsibility for after finding out how much money it had made the previous year (no doubt, she believed that she “earned” the extra money the carwash made with her taking it over);. taking (extorting?) money from parents by promising special attention and “tutoring if need be” for the kids whose parents, well ...

She was just one _really bad_, utterly self-absorbed person, who actually “chose a career” in a field that most people would consider a “helping profession.”  Why would she have done that?  Certainly, not to actually teach for a living.  She probably went to college with hopes of meeting a (really rich) guy to marry, one who could buy her that red Mercedes convertible to drive.  And she had _almost_ succeeded ... Having failed the first time, "older but retooled" she was hoping get "back in the game."

The other faculty are a hoot as well.  There’s Elizabeth’s rival at the school, Amy Squirrel (played by Lucy Punch) who’s also single, also looking for a guy, but who sees her "secret weapon" with regards to both men and her students to be her "downhome cutsiness and creativity" -- “ice breakers," "games," “craft projects,” etc.  Then there’s Russell Gattis (played by Jason Segal) a decent-looking (but not superbly "fit") 30-something “gym teacher,” who’s single but who none of the single women teachers at the school take seriously because, well, he’s a gym teacher.  Instead, both Amy and Liz have their eyes on nerdy but apparently from a rich family “new-meat” history teacher Scott Delacorte (played by Justin Timberlake).  And there’s sweet and also single Lynn Davies (played by Phillis Smith) who again neither Liz nor Amy take seriously because she's, well, "rather large."  Ever-optimistic but out of touch, Principal Wally Snur (played by John Michael Higgins) tries to lead a cheerful ship.  And there are a whole bunch of other bit-part teachers present as well, some of whom organized a pretty awful “lounge rock-band” that plays the local suburban “Best Western” circuit. 

Some of Elizabeth’s seventh graders also have stock personalities of note.  There’s suck-up Sasha Abernathy (played by Kaitlyn Dever), cool girl Chase Rubin-Rossi (played by Kathryn Newton) and chubby Garrett Tiara (played by Matthew J. Evans) who’s in love with Chase and doesn’t have a clue that there’s no way at all that she’s ever going to be interested in him.  Here Liz, tries really, really hard to straighten him out to that fact, no doubt because she saw herself as  Chase when she was in 7th grade as well.

So the cast offers much comic potential and, with often wildly exaggerated crudity, largely delivers.  There’s a scene in which a startled, ever-baked cookie wielding Sasha finds her teacher, Liz, smoking a pipe in her Neon with the windows rolled up in the school parking lot between classes.  Liz answers her stupefied student by lifting up a random piece of paper she quickly finds on the passenger seat of her car, while still trying keep the smoke in her lungs and saying: “Hey, it’s medicinal, I have a prescription, see ...” Would one expect to catch a real teacher smoking pot in the parking lot between classes?  ONE WOULD HOPE NOT.  But then, Liz, is one really, really bad, awful teacher.  And so it goes ... and you get the picture. 

Clearly, Bad Teacher is _not_ for everyone.  It _glories_ in being awful.  Clearly it deserves its R-rating.  It _seeks_ to shock and offend.  As I noted at the start of this review, there is a scene or two that I really would not want to be _either_ parent or teen watching the film together.  That said, it is a very funny film, funny because we would hope it could not possibility be _that_ true.


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Cars 2 [2011]

MPAA (G) CNS/USCCB (A-1) Roger Ebert (3 ½ stars) Fr Dennis (3 stars for technical quality 1 star for message)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1216475/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/11mv073.htm
Roger Ebert’s review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110622/REVIEWS/110629995

Cars 2[2011] (directed by John Lassater and Brad Lewis, screenplay by Ben Queen, story by John Lassater and Brad Lewis again as well as Dan Fogelman) is a PIXAR movie that I went to see with some unease.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve liked a lot of PIXAR movies over the years including Finding Nemo, WALL-E, Up and (grudgingly again) Toy Story 3. 

Why my problem with the Cars (as well as the Toy Story) films?  Well, I just find myself uneasy (and suspicious) watching man-made, commercial (read sellable) objects so personified as they are in such films.  Why doesn’t it bother me to watch talking fish in Finding Nemo or talking barnyard animals in the Shrek series, I do not know.  I also admit that I loved Robin Williams’ Bicentennial Man about a sentient robot who sought to become more and more human, I absolutely loved the dog-collar devices in Up that allowed us to understand what dogs were thinking and I even had little problem with the robot approaching consciousness in WALL-E who discovered that he was lonely.  With his beeps and whistles, WALL-E reminded me a lot of R2D2 of Star Wars. 

Where I seem to draw the line, however, is when things that kids (and adults) routinely buy (or have bought for them) suddenly are given super human personalities.  Yes, a kid would give a doll or even action figure some personality as well.  But it would be _the kid_ doing so him or herself, _not_ the company manufacturing (or representing) the toy doing so for them.  With regard to the cars in Cars, they _are_ charming and are given personalities often associated with people who would be driving such cars in real life.  Yet, there is consumerist propaganda here - if you want to be perceived as cool, _buy_ a cool car.  To be sure, there’s _some_ backpedaling here from total crassness of that message.  Mater (voice by Larry the Cable Guy) the “hick” tow-truck is presented as a loveable hero in the Cars movies. (Lightning McQueen (voice by Owen Wilson) is the race car that Mater the humble tow truck keeps in-line and they become best friends in the first Cars movie). Still, I do voice my protest against a series of child-oriented movies (Cars and Toy Story in particular) which have a part of their message saying in effect “the things you own are ‘people’ too.”  No they are not.

Having said all this, what else to I think of Cars 2?  Well, from technical and creative perspectives, the movie is outstanding.  Different styles of cars are given different personalities.  Foreign cars are given foreign accents.  Michael Caine, for instance, voices a “British spy.”  What’s the car representing him?  Well a sleek, silver Triumph Spitfire sports car that one could imagine James Bond driving.  Organized crime-like “thugs” are represented by “loser” cars like the AMC Gremlin, AMC Pacer, the Yugo.  And the evil, bespeckled German scientist (voice by Thomas Kretschmann) is represented by an old East German Trabant (incidently, possibly the worst mass produced car ever made).  Italians are represented by Fiat-500s, Frenchmen by Peugeots, the Queen of England at the end of the movie by a Rolls Royce.  

What’s the movie about?  Well, it’s topical - about fossil fuel vs biofuels.  Again, the movie pedals and backpedals in so many directions during the course of this movie on this topic that by the end it probably doesn’t offend anyone much, except irritating adult viewers with such a crass attempt to, in fact, not offend.   

Would I recommend the movie?  Ok, I’ll go out on a limb.  No.  It’s a well made animated film, as Pixar’s generally are.  But bottom line, the movie’s about consumerism, and even about the fuel that drives our consumerism.  And no, “objects” are not people, and all fuels are _not_ the same.


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My Perestroika

MPAA (unrated) Fr. Dennis (4 stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1557720/

My Perestroika (directed by Robin Hessman) is a remarkable documentary in which five ordinary Muscovites who were all young adults at the time when Soviet Communism collapsed were asked to recall the tumultuous events of their lives from their Soviet childhoods to the present.  Since I was also a young adult at that time, I found the documentary particularly fascinating because all these folks are basically my age, except that they literally grew-up “on the other side of the wall” during the Cold War.

The five -- a businessman (today), a married couple who are both high school history teachers, a musician, and a single mother who’s today an employee of a vending company – all recalled the stilted conformity of their childhoods, when everybody was a pioneer (the Communist version of the scouts) in grade school and a member of the Communist youth organization COMSOMOL in high school.  The young men then all served in the Soviet army and everyone either went to the university or to work, but in any case understood that it was probably to their benefit to join the Communist Party. 

That’s how it was at least until the ascendancy of Gorbachev in 1985.  In 1982 when Leonid Brezhnev died, the five remembered that pioneer groups all over the country play acted funerals for Brezhnev, so that even if the children could not participate in the actual funeral of their leader, they could at least pretend that they were there.  The five also recalled that just like in there are writing or science competitions in grade schools everywhere, in the Soviet Union there were regional propaganda poster competitions in grade school as well.  COMSOMOL projects were remembered as being both somewhat boring but also activities that at least “kept everybody busy.” 

The three men, however (and as far as I could tell, except for the married couple, none were friends or knew each other), all recalled the clear break with the past that came with the early Gorbachev years.  All three men recalled “entering the army while being in one nation, and returning to a completely different one.”  (The phraseology that they used actually sounded very much like that used by U.S. servicemen returning after serving in Vietnam in the mid/late 1960s.  At that time, the United States also seemed to change almost overnight).  One of the men recalled walking through the Arbat (a famous pedestrian district in Moscow) just after finishing his military service in 1987 and seeing youths "dressed as punks, even punks with full mohawks” and the authorities not bothering them.  That had been unheard of previously.  The man who today was a businessman recalled that near the end of his military service in 1985 he had petitioned to join the Communist Party and was refused because the selection committee was worried that upon leaving military service “he may commit a crime” (post traumatic stress?) and that could make the Party look bad.  He noted with some pride/glee that later in 1987 when he was studying economics in the university he was asked to join the Party and then (still smarting from their refusal to accept him 2 years earlier) he told them “to go to hell,” noting that _by then_ "it was okay to say that" ;-).

To a person, all five enjoyed the new found freedom of Gorbachev’s Glasnost era and beyond, though all noted that with the beginning of the Gorbachev era the economy basically collapsed, that the stores were suddenly empty.  The couple that today teach history in particular enjoyed that particular time (and most of the time since).  During the 1991 attempted coup against Gorbachev the two had responded to Yeltsin’s call to come defend the Russian Parliament Building (the Russian White House).  Even though the wife recalled that at least one of her professors then had called the young crowd that had defended the parliament building at the time as “a drunken mob, ” since she had been there she could not but chafe at that uninformed description recalling it instead in glowing terms as “the purest expression of freedom experienced in Russia until that time.”

What of the years since?  Most recognized the corruption and criminality of the Yeltsin era.  One recalled the Yeltsin era as “a giant pipeline that just sucked Russia’s money out of the country.”  The woman who now works for a vending machine company had apparently landed a rich boyfriend/fiancé at the time, who ended up being murdered along with his driver in an apparent mafia style hit.  In a day she and her daughter “lost everything” from living well to living “literally on the street” with no job, no home, and little future.  Eventually a friend got her the vending machine job that she holds to this day.

Regarding the current Putin era, all but one of the five in the documentary were _proud_ that they _did not_ vote in the last Russian election.  And the woman who worked in the vending machine job voted not for Putin’s candidate Medvedev but for (ultranationalist) Zhirinovsky in what she herself likened to a protest vote (so that I knew that my vote counted).  All were convinced that the last Russian election had been rigged or a foregone conclusion.  All considered “the only real elections” in Russia to have been in the 1990s. 

The two history teachers also chafed at the new Russian history books that were being published by the Putin government, the husband noting that “perhaps there is a place to teach patriotism, perhaps even in school, but our history department will never teach patriotism rather than history again.”  And throwing a frisbee with his son at what appeared to be his family’s dacha (summer cottage), he added that perhaps the internet will ultimately secure Russia’s democratic future.  “With the internet, it’s very difficult to maintain a monopoly on information.  And information is important.  Our young people are smart.  They are all potential hackers.  They know how to bypass any firewall.  I don’t know how to do that.  But our young people do.”  I honestly hope he’s right.

And as one who grew-up “on the other side of the wall” at the same time that they did, I do wish all five of them well.  We too have something to learn of their own “suspicion of unbridled patriotism” as well.  For none of us is without flaws or perfect, but we all do wish to be (and remain) free.

Finally, I deeply appreciate Robin Hessman's presentation of these five remarkable (and ordinary) Muscovites to audiences around the world.  This is documentary film-making at its best.  None of us can travel everywhere.  But through attempts such as this, we get a chance to get to know each other better nonetheless.  Thank you!


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Jesse / Shadows of the Lynching Tree

Fr. Dennis (4 stars)

Official Website


Shadows of the Lynching Tree, a documentary written and directed by Carvin Eison played recently at the African Diaspora International Film Festival at Chicago’s Facet’s Multimedia.  According to Eisen, it is still not a “completed” work, though IMHO (and to the others present at the screening) it is largely complete.  Eison hopes to have it ready for general release by 2012. 

He says that in its final form, the documentary may be renamed as Jesse, to highlight the two Jesses in the principal incident presented in the documentary – Jesse Washington, a 17 year old youth who was lynched (tortured, set-afire and hung) in Waco Texas on May 16, 1915 and Jesse, a 10 year old child taken by his father to the lynching in James Baldwin’s short story Going to Meet the Man in the anthology by the same name available at Amazon.com.

As awful as lynchings (the summary executions of mostly black men by mobs of white people throughout the United States during the 100 years between the end of the American Civil War in 1865 and the collapse of the Jim Crow Laws of the still Segregationist South in the 1960s with the Civil Rights movement) were, the special horror of these “events” was their often “carnival nature.”  WHITES TOOK THEIR KIDS TO THESE EVENTS.  THEY SMILED, ATE ICE CREAM (as documented by pictures of that era) WHILE BLACKS WERE TORTURED SET AFIRE AND KILLED.  Often the crime for which the blacks were tortured and murdered in this way was “sexual” in nature – a black man having sex with a white woman.  Often this was presented as rape.  But whether this was actually the case, and today it is generally understood that these cases generally _didn’t_ involve rape (but simply intermingling of black men and white women), the black men were tortured and strung-up just the same.  And often enough, there was no “intermingling” at all, but a black person, male or female, simply became perceived as “uppity” in the local community and had to be “shown a lesson.”

Eisen notes in the documentary that in more recent times, the hanging noose may have simply been replaced by bullets, like those which cut down Martin Luther King, Jr in 1968 and, yes, like President Barrack Obama has been threatened with ever since declaring his intention to run for President and since winning his office.

Yes, Jesse / In the Shadows of the Lynching Tree is a dark, deeply disturbing documentary that makes one wince everytime one sees a white kid captured in photographs of that time playing, smiling, and yes, eating ice cream on “lynchin’ day.”  But I do deeply agree with the movie's director, Eisen that we’re not going to be able to talk honestly about America’s past (or _present_) without asking ourselves what drove this or drives hatred toward people like Barrack Obama today.  Is it simply that many of us continue to believe in one way or another that “black people ought to stay in their place?”


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The Art of Getting By

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

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1645080/
CNS/USCCB review -
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110615/REVIEWS/110619993

The Art of Getting By (written and directed by Gavin Wiesen) is a gentle teen oriented movie that would be my current candidate for this year’s “surprise movie of the summer.”  It’s still early, so there may be other “surprising movies” that will be released this summer, but it’s hard to imagine a movie of this kind topping this movie this year.  I only hope that The Art of Getting By will not be forgotten come Oscar time because IMHO, Wiesen deserves a screen-play and perhaps even a directing nomination for this effort.  It may be too much to ask for Freddie Highmore and Emma Roberts playing the two teen protagonists in the film to similarly get nominations, but I found their performances to be dead on/excellent as well.

Okay, what’s this movie about?  Entering his high school senior year, George Zinavoy (played by Freddie Highmore) discovers that “he’s going to die sometime.”  No he’s not facing any immediate ailment, neither does he feel particularly sick.  He’s just discovered his mortality – as only a teenager could – and it depresses him.  “What’s the point ... of doing anything?” spending his days doodling, quite creatively actually, all over his high school textbooks.  Trigonometry teacher, Mrs Grimes (played by Ann Dowd) smells a dodge and reports him to Principal Martinson (played by Blair Underwood) who gives him a lecture.  English literature teacher, Ms Herman (played by Alicia Silverstone) tries to get him to engage him.  Art teacher (played by Jarlath Conroy) has seen such attitude before and basically ignores him in his funk.  At some point Principal Martinson suggests that George pay special attention on “careeer day” to Dustin (played by Michael Angarano) a graduate of the school, who’s become an artist.  Dustin about 10 years older than George takes him under his wing, sort of, but it’s clear from the outset that Dustin doesn’t exactly have things figured out much either. 

It’s also clear that there’s some trouble at home, with mom, Vivian, (played by Rita Wilson) concerned about George’s future and stepdad Jack Sargent (played by Sam Robards) “trying” as well, but not too much (as George isn’t exactly his kid anyway ...).

Who _does_ come to provide “light” to George’s darkness is Sally (played by Emma Roberts) a much more outgoing and quite attractive high school senior, who George inadvertently/ backhandedly “saves” one afternoon.  Standing on the rooftop patio of the upscale school, somewhere in Manhattan, staring out into the nothingness of the horizon, he’s not exactly doing much.  Emma’s up there as well, facing another direction, smoking a cigarette.  A teacher comes up, smells the cigarette, and says “Hey, who’s smoking up here?” (It’s obviously against the rules).  Sally quickly puts out her cigarette and tosses it away.  George, depressed “rebel” that he is, actually pulls out a cigarette and lights it .  Sally doesn’t get it, neither does the teacher.  But the only one holding a lit cigarette is George.  So George “takes the fall.” 

From that point onward, Sally finds George interesting enough to make a friend.  It helps, actually, that depressed as he is, he appears to be the only guy in the school who doesn’t seem to be interested in hitting on her. 

Sally has her own problems.  Her randy, well kept, still bombshell-looking late-30-something early-40-something mother, Charlotte (played by Elizabeth Reaser) seems to be dressed one nightgown or another throughout the whole of the movie and far more adept at giving advice on how to get over a hang-over than most – parents or teens – would be comfortable with.  Sally had been a “tag-along” to her mother’s upscale affairs for most of her life.  I suppose one could give Charlotte some credit – she _could_ have dumped Sally off at “grandma’s” long ago.  Instead, Charlotte kept Sally around as part of her life, perhaps like a prized Persian cat or otherwise pet with a pedigree. 

Most of Sally’s other friends are dollar-sign in the eyes seeing strivers as well.  So good-ole depressed George is actually a breath of fresh air for her as well.

So then, this is the set-up to a teenage angst/growing up movie easily of the caliber of The Breakfast Club or Dead Poets’ Society.

Parents should be warned that while the language is not bad and, no, the two teenage protagonists _don’t_ sleep together (given the above description of her mother, one could understand why Sally wouldn’t be particularly interested in jumping into the sack with her only real friend, and George is, well, George, throughout most of the movie ...).  There is however, typically teenage sexual banter that may make some parents uncomfortable.  I’m not sure if most teens below the upper grades of high school would get this movie much less kids below their teenage years.

Still for juniors and seniors in high school as well as for the college aged, I would think that The Art of Getting By would be a really great, easily relatable movie.


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Arugbá

MPAA (unrated)  Fr. Dennis (4 stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592232/
Official Website -
http://www.mainframemovies.tv/arugba/

Arugbá (written and directed by Tunde Kelani) a Yoruba language film with English subtitles from Nigeria played recently at the 9th Annual Chicago African Diaspora International Film Festival held at Facets’ Multimedia in Chicago between June 17-23, 2011.

As I’ve written here before with regards to the widely regarded South Korean movie Shi (meaning Poetry) and the recent Egyptian film Sheherazade tell me a Story, one of the joys of going to the movies is that for the price of admission (or rental) one can travel to widely varied places and times.  If then, a film comes along which is written, directed and produced elsewhere, it’s all the more remarkable/authentic.  This is because it comes from the time, culture and place where it was made with the people of that time, culture and place (or at least the director coming from that time, culture and place) telling their own story.  Such is the case with the acclaimed movie Arugbá coming from Nigeria, which earned 9 nominations at the 5th African Movie Academy Awards in 2009.

Arugbá takes place in a provincial town in contemporary Nigeria.  Whatever else the law may or may not have said or whether or not a nominally elected government existed, the town is presented as being run by a local “king.”  This fact, reminded one that “kings” and “chiefs”/“nobility” everywhere had their roots in basically mafia-like structures.  What made a “king,” “chief” or “nobleman?”  Such a person was/is simply the strongest/street-smart person around.  In the Godfather movies, these people were called “Dons.”  In Arugbá, they are called “kings” and their advisors “chiefs.”

In the case of this story, the “king’s” name was Adejare (played by Peter Badedo), and yes, he lived in the biggest house in the neighborhood, held court in his living room, often holding a traditional staff/scepter in his hand and sitting in a rather comfortable chair.  His advisers kept tabs on what’s going on in the neighborhood and reported to the king.  The system was financed through extortion/corruption.  There was no particular need to "bang heads" too often, except if someone for some reason suddenly decided not to make the customary payoff or a “chief” suddenly became too greedy and didn’t properly report/share his extortion earnings with the "king."  (Both kinds of incidents happen during the course of the film).  In the movie, no one really questioned the system.  It was simply ingrained in the people of the town, even though everyone, _including the king_, was fascinated with Barack Obama’s campaign and election in the United States.  Still no one asked, “Hey, who exactly ever elected our king?”

Living with this kind of "day-to-day disconnect" was presented in the film as occurring in many other areas of life.  It became clear, for instance, that this traditional culture valued women’s virginity before marriage.  Indeed, the movie in good part revolved around a traditional festival in the town in which an Arugbá (a ceremonial virgin) from the town played a vital role.  On the other hand, it was made clear in the movie that it was very hard for women pursuing any kind of education to maintain their virginity through the course of their studies because the men of the town considered unmarried women fair game to simply take (and therefore rape).  Here there was more opposition to the status quo by young women, who tended to stick together, organize themselves into all women’s clubs and so forth.  But it was clear just how difficult it was to protect themselves.

The story’s primary protagonist Adetutu (played by Bukola Awoyemi) was a university student, hence obviously bright and already quite educated, but also of some years.  It was clear that in that society it was favored for women marry early (while their virginity could not be questioned).  But this also meant that most women had only minimal education.  So one could imagine the relative surprise in the town when Adetutu arrived to sign-up to play the role of the Arugba in the town’s festival _even though she was of university age_.  The “chief” responsible for the festival’s planning didn’t believe her and later neither did the “king.”  But she was wishing to prove a point, if with great difficulty, indeed many points, in a culture that would have liked very much to find excuse to dismiss a still young (but older than most of the young mothers/wives) but educated woman as “useless.”  And yes, she did have a sincere love interest, Makinwa (played by Segun Adefila).  He wanted to join her all female dance troupe (again, that’s how the young unmarried women organized to keep themselves safe).  But she had to keep at a distance so that she could both (immediately) have the role of the Arugba in the traditional festival and (later) finish her studies prior to getting married. 

Finally the attitude of fatalism played out in the movie with regard to AIDS.  A NGO came to the town to setup an AIDS testing clinic and treatment center.  The king and the chiefs didn’t mind as long as they got their cut.  But the big problem was that many people didn’t want to get tested.  Indeed, many died as a result of AIDS without ever knowing that they had it.  A particularly touching if somewhat inevitable story in the midst of the film (given the sexual behavior of the men described above) was that of a woman who had been a virgin when she had gotten married (at a very young age) and remained completely faithful to her husband throughout her marriage.  Despite this, she found that she was HIV infected through the promiscuity of her husband. 

Still, in the midst of so much denial and political apathy, the beauty, _color_ and richness of the culture was also presented in the film.  Even the poorest of people dressed in wonderfully colored clothes.  The music was beautiful and intricately choreographed dance so much part of the soul that it seemed all but effortless. And as dysfunctional as the government was portrayed, the society functioned and given that expectations were very low, it arguably flourished.  Most people were portrayed, almost certainly truthfully, as being basically happy most of the time.  And yet present was the repeated theme of societal apathy and resignation in face of endemic corruption and social ills (especially with regard to the treatment of women).   

Finally, a some words on how Christianity was portrayed in the movie.  Christians appeared twice in the movie.  The first time, at the beginning of the movie a somewhat crazed (understood by bystanders to be despondent) Nigerian came to the local square with a Bible in hand, preaching a fire and brimstone to whoever would listen: “Repent, for judgement is at hand.”  Most of the people appeared to dismiss him as being crazy, but at least one woman noted that he was simply despondent since his wife had left him for a rich man in Lagos (the capital).  The second time that Christians appeared was somewhere in the second half of the movie.  In this case, a missionary couple arrived in the town, and asked for permission to build a church.  As with the NGO asking to build an AIDS clinic in town, neither the “king” nor the “chiefs” had a problem with the missionaries building a new church in town, as long as they used “approved builders” (as long as they got a cut...).  From the expressions of the missionary couple as one of the chiefs negotiated the deal them, it would seem that they “didn’t have a clue” as to how the town (or society) worked.  And that is something that Christians and missionaries perhaps ought to take note of – each society has its ways of doing things (for good and ill).  It behooves missionaries to learn how the society works as well as both the society's positive and negative values and then, yes, uphold the good and challenge the bad.  

All in all, I found Arugbá to be outstanding film, well deserving its acclaim and its nine African Movie Academy Awards nominations and I was happy to have been able to see it here at the Chicago African Diaspora Film Festival this year.


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