Wrath of the Titans [2012]

MPAA (PG-13) CNS/USCCB (A-III) Roger Ebert (2 Stars) Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
Roger Ebert's review
 
Wrath of the Titans (directed by Jonathan Liebesman, story and screenplay by Dan Mazeau and David Leslie Johnson, assisting with the story Greg Berlanti based on the 1981 screenplay Clash of the Titans by Beverley Cross) turned out to be better than I thought.  I say this because I did see the Clash of the Titans [1981] as a young adult and found it pretentious (didn't like it).  Since I didn't like the 1981 movie, I didn't bother to see the 2010 remake (indeed, I wondered why they bothered to make it).  Then reading Roger Ebert's review of the current film only reinforced my skepticism.  But I figured that seeing it on a Monday (my day off) at pre-noon matinee in 2D would probably be worth it, if for no other reason than it would give me a chance to explain what annoyed me about the 1981 movie and therefore the whole series.

Having seen the film, I remained annoyed with the fundamental concept "Gods die when people stop praying to them," but at least from a technical point of view Wrath of the Titans was better than the 1981 Clash of the Titans.  But again, I do wonder what the 3D version would have added besides risking that the effects would look corny again (and of course give the movie business an excuse of charging viewers an extra $4 a head).

Very good, I find the "Gods die when people stop praying to them" concept annoying because they don't really die.  The Greeks venerated as Gods a number of phenomena that seem/seemed largely outside of or only marginally within our control.  These phenomena occur to this day and most of them continue to be largely outside or only with difficulty within our control.   These include natural phenomena such as Storms (Zeus), Storms at Sea (Poseidon) and Earthquakes-Volcanic Activity (Hades) and psychological phenomena such as the Desire for an Orderly and Happy Home-Hearth (Hera), Lust (Aphrodite), Desire for Knowledge-Wisdom (Apollo-Athena), Desire to just 'let go'-'Party' (Dionysus), Arrogance (Hubris) and the Desire to Avenge Injustice (the Furies).

Now it is true that in the past the ancients would sacrifice animals to their various storm Gods (again, the Storm God of Ancient Greece was Zeus) while today we would wonder how that could possibly work.  Yet, Native American tribes as well as others traditionally perform "Rain Dances" and there we begin to be "unsure" whether these "work" or not.  But we generally don't believe anymore that "sacrificing virgins" to a "volcano God" would do much good...

Then when it comes to psychological phenomena, while Christianity would insist that we can master/control our passions, it certainly underscores that this is often a challenge. 

So I find the whole idea of "we can kill Gods by simply not praying to them" as rather arrogant. The various phenomena that the ancients used to respect as manifestations of Gods continue to exist to this day.  To me the more interesting question for me has been "Can our prayers/supplications/sacrifices to God/the Gods be answered?"  And this then enters into the realm of faith.  Go to any Catholic Marian shrine across the world and one would find hundreds upon hundreds of "ex voto" gifts that certainly testify to the giver's belief that Mary or Jesus or another saint interceded in some way to heal somebody, grant a request of some sort or avert some sort of calamity.  And there are Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist shrines across the world that attest to similar miracles being performed in the context of these faiths as well.  My general view has been to preserve a fundamental attitude of humility with regards to all these things.  We simply do not know everything.   Even as we generally don't believe in a three story cosmology any more (The Gods / Elect living in the Sky, we living on Earth, and the Dead / Condemned living below the Earth), we also now talk of alternate dimensions that we generally do not perceive and of both "collective consciousness" and a "collective unconscious."

The Biblical Prophets for instance would often voice the concerns of the "collective unconscious" often to the consternation of both the people and the "powers that be."  When things were going well for the Israelites, the Prophets would caution and preach impending doom.  When things were going badly for the Israelites, the Prophets generally promised eventual restoration and hope.  In both cases, they were preaching a corrective to the immediate experience of the people, in effect giving voice to a collective "shadow" of the society at the time.  Is God or the spiritual realm to be found in our Jungian "shadow" / "collective shadow?" 

All this is to say that one can't just kill Gods so easily ...

Okay, to the film.  Perseus [IMDb] (played by Sam Worthington) half-God/half-man is visited by his father Zeus [IMDb] (played by Liam Neeson) at the beginning of the film with a problem: With people no longer praying to the Olympian Gods as they did in the past, they are weakening.  More to the point, the good that the Gods had done in the past (overthrowing and incarcerating the chaotic Titans of the past) was getting undone.  Further with the general weakening of the Olympian Gods, there was starting to be conflict/insurrection among them.  Specifically, Hades [IMDb](played by Ralph Fiennes) always resentful of his brothers Zeus and Poseidon [IMDb](played by Danny Houston) feeling that he got the worst end of the deal (being consigned to ruling over the underworld and of the dead, while the other two ruled above the earth the seas and skies) was joining together with the ever ambitious Ares [IMDb](played by Edgar Ramirez), like Perseus a son of Zeus (but in contrast to Perseus, fully divine), to use the situation to try to broker a better position for themselves among the other Gods.  They were doing so by threatening to allow the release of the incarcerated Cronus (father of Zeus, Poseidon and Hades) from his underground prison unless their demands for greater esteem were met.  Already the incarcerated Titans were restless and by doing little, occasional demonic Titans were spewing out to the surface through an erupting volcano.

The widowed and still mourning his human wife Io, Perseus, initially just wants to leave his divinity behind, to raise his son Helius [IMDb] (played by John Bell) and support him by the honest trade of fishing, eventually comes to appreciate the direness of the situation (and worried that the Titans were going harm his still part divine son), decides to take the task of defeating the Titan threat once and for all.  Much ensues... Among that which ensues is that Perseus meets and teams-up with Andromeda [IMDb](played by Rosamund Pike) his future wife to (without really "ruining the ending"...) eventually defeat Cronus and the other Titans.

I suppose a redeeming feature in this film was its implication that the "death of the Gods" could result in the undoing of the good that the Gods had done for humanity, specifically the re-release demons (the Titans) that had been successfully tamed/incarcerated by the God in the past.  Various attempts to destroy Religion during the last century most spectacularly by the Communists (and in a different way by the Nazis, who did, indeed try to reinstate a "blood and honor" morality of Germany's barbaric pre-Christian past) did, in fact, make matters worse for humanity, producing the deaths of innocents at previously unheard of levels (think of the Stalin's Terror Famine of the 1930s, the Nazi Holocaust, Mao's Great Leap Forward / Cultural Revolution, and finally the Khmer Rouge's Killing Fields).  So the film does have a more respectful view of religion than perhaps the Clash of the Titans [1981] [2010] did.

Would I recommend the movie? Yea sure, probably to Teens.  Again, I find the "we can kill the Gods" theme somewhat arrogant.  But the film does suggest that "the death the Gods" can have previously unforeseen and negative effects as well.


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Mirror Mirror [2012]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-II) Roger Ebert (2 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1667353/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv038.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120328/REVIEWS/120329977

Mirror Mirror (directed by Tarsem Singh, screenplay by Melissa Wallack and Jason Keller) is a retelling of the Brothers Grimm [IMDb] fairytale Snow White and the Seven Dwarves [IMDb] (Grimm's-text/Eng trans).

The film follows the longstanding tradition of putting traditional fairy tales on the screen and then revisiting them as times and culture/tastes change.  Over the past several years, there have been several such re-tellings/re-imaginings of popular Grimm fairy tales.  These have included Disney's Tangled [2011], the Twilight-feeling Red Riding Hood [2011] (and for good reason as it was directed by Catherine Hardwicke who also directed the original Twilight [2008] film) and even Hanna [2011] which does not recall any particular Grimm Fairy Tale but makes use of a number of such fairy tales' conventions.  Of these fairy tale re-tellings, Mirror Mirror's lightness and nod to the broad cultural shift toward female empowerment makes it closest in spirit to Tangled [2011] or perhaps Enchanted [2007].

Regarding this cultural shift, I've found it almost universal.  Even the otherwise most conservative/traditionalist of parents want their daughters to be happy and to succeed.  IMHO, a beautiful 3 1/2 minute encapsulation of what has happened in the United States over the last generation and what really has happened all around the world can be found in pop/country singer Carrie Underwood's song/video All American Girl [2008]).

This spirit then can be found in this re-telling of the Snow White fairy tale.  First and foremost, Snow (played by Lily Collins) no longer particularly needs Prince Charming (the very regally named "Prince Alcott" in the film and played by Armie Hammer) to "save her."  She does just fine on her own and arguably saves the hunky if not particularly bright prince a few times.

Indeed, the Prince's "hunkiness" makes-up part of the story's retelling.  He is "Prince charming" after all ;-).  And even the Evil Queen/Step-Mother (played WONDERFULLY throughout by Julia Roberts) asks at Prince Alcott at one point (who she's also scheming to marry) to "put a shirt on ... it's just so ... distracting" ;-).  Why didn't the Prince have a shirt on?  Well, he keeps getting attacked and bested by the Dwarfs (quite literally "the little people" ... ;-) whenever he enters the woods, and they keep "taking his clothes" :-).  So he keeps coming back to the castle with just his "long johns" on ;-).

Then, why are the Dwarfs in the woods anyway?  Well they, again literally "the little people," had been literally "marginalized," that is kicked out of the village by the Evil Queen / Step-mother as "undesirable."  So besides being short, the Dwarfs are also multiracial, more blue-collarish ("Half-Pint" played by Mark Povinelli who is otherwise easily as hunky as Prince Alcott if only 3 feet tall...), and at least one of them, "Napoleon" (played by Jordon Prentice), is "gay-ish."  Why would the Dwarves go by names like "Half Pint" and "Napoleon?" Well it was Disney that invented the Dwarfs' names like Happy, Sleepy, Grumpy and so forth in the 1937 classic.  And so there it is ...

I am positive that some people will not like some of the re-imagining done in this film.  But there is a fascinating and indeed FUN logic to it.  (I also liked the insight in the recent Red Riding Hood movie about the grandmother in that story.  Why would "grandma live in the woods, far from the village" in that story?  Well, according to that movie, she was kind of an "out there" new agey, half-witchy, wierdo ;-).

So I get the "dwarf" Napoleon.  Remember that some 5% of any population (except apparently in Iran ... ;-) is gay.  Pretty much every adult knows, works with, or otherwise is friends with someone or even a bunch of folks who are gay.  Again, times have changed and the gays not only in the United States but throughout the whole world are rightfully refusing to remain "in the closet" or (in the metaphor of this film) "marginalized, out in the woods" anymore.

Further, the marginalized often end up being the most creative in society.  So one could complain "Why are these previously marginalized, indeed, often invisible people appearing now in so many of our films?"  Well, welcome to our actual world/society.

And this then meshes quite well with the scene that I personally found most irritating in the film: At the end of the film, Snow's father, the King (played by Sean Bean), comes back after "many years away" and marries-off Snow and the Prince.  In doing so, he says "By the power vested in me, by ... me <laughs> ... I pronounce you ..."  Thirty years ago, the King's character would have said "By the power vested in me by God ..."  Now one could get upset about this (and initially I was ;-) but then one needs to consider that the director, Tarsem Singh, is of Indian descent.  It'd be a lot to force someone of Indian descent to apply "traditional Western/Christian terminology" to the film that he's making when he himself is not of Western/Christian extraction.

So we live in a pluralistic society and in a pluralistic world.  And with that we do have to accept language will often be different from what we'd prefer.  But we also gain much by accepting the gifts of others.  In the case of this film, Tarsem Singh gives viewers a true "Bollywood ending" with an extravagant happy dance number involving pretty much the whole cast at the end.

Would I recommend the film to others?  Sure. It's cute, it's nice and it is of our times.

The presence of the "gayish" dwarf Napoleon may irritate some.  But my sense is that virtually all families in the United States are dealing with (and yes accepting) homosexual siblings, cousins, nephews, coworkers, friends etc already.  And Napoleon is merely among the other previously marginalized "little people" in the film who were "chased out of the village and into the woods by the Evil Queen" because he/they were "different."  So yes, it may be irritating to some.  But then, imagine if you were one of the "marginalized" in the past (gay or "merely" of the wrong skin color/ethnicity ...).

Inclusion is a "Sign of the Times."  At times it may seem like a real challenge.  On the other hand it also protects us.  If we truly believe that we all come from the same Creator and hence are brothers and sisters to each other, then it becomes harder to exclude/marginalize _us_ as well.  For there are always plenty of folks who would like to "push us aside"/marginalize _us_ and for any number of reasons: too big, too short, too skinny, too fat, too this way, too that way ... But (if we believe) God remains the Father of us all.


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October Baby [2011]

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

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1720182/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv034.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120321/REVIEWS/120329992


October Baby (directed by Andrew and Jon Erwin, story by Andrew and Jon Erwin as well as Cecil Stokes, screenplay by Jon Erwin and Theresa Preston) is an excellent and remarkably sensitive movie about the extremely divisive issue of abortion.

Given the subject matter and that the film takes a proLife if hand outstretched for eventual reconciliation stance, it may not be easy for many viewers to find the movie playing in many metropolitan areas.  Though living in Chicago, the 3rd largest city in the United States, I had to go to the suburbs of NW Indiana to see it ... Rottentomatoes.com reports that the film opened in 390 theaters nationwide, grossed $1.9 million in its first weekend making it #8 box office with a respectable $4.4k/screen average, all quite good for a film that many certainly would have preferred have deep-sixed.

What's the film about?  College freshman, 19-year-old Hannah (played by Rachel Hendrix) collapses on stage during a school play.  Her fainting like this had not happened to her in some years but apparently the pressure of the play as well as college had exacerbated previous health issues which had been numerous since she had been born very prematurely.  At a meeting with her doctor (played by Lance Nichols) a longtime family friend, Hannah's parents Jacob (played by John Schneider) and Grace (played by Jennifer Price) reveal to her why, in fact, she was born so prematurely and had suffered so many earlier health problems -- she had been born prematurely as a result of an interrupted abortion procedure.

How could that be?  Later in the film, Hannah, talking to Mary (played by Jasmine Guy), the nurse who had signed her birth certificate finds from Mary what had happened.  Hannah's mother had come to the abortion clinic where Mary had worked to get an abortion.  But just as the procedure began, she had second thoughts, asked that the procedure be stopped and then ran out of the clinic.  The next day, she came back saying that she's ready now.  Yet, Mary noticed that she was now in the first stages of labor.  So she ran her to the hospital, where she gave birth to twins -- a boy, who was already missing an arm and then Hannah who was intact.  Both, however were very, very premature.  The mother, we find out her name was Cindy (played by Shari Rigby) who did not want them, abandoned them in the hospital and continued on then with her life.

Hannah's parents, Baptist, who had just suffered a miscarriage of twins, saw a posting on a Catholic church bulletin board about the 10 day-old twins born in another if nearby state and immediately decided to adopt them.  The boy, who they named Jonathan, died shortly thereafter.  However, Hannah did make it even if she did need a number of hip surgeries as a child, suffered with occasional epileptic seizures throughout childhood and continued to need an inhaler due to problems with her lungs.  Was the world better for her being present in the world?  The viewer would obviously say yes.  However, Hannah herself had her doubts.

So the film, that does come to involve a "road trip" from her home city to Mobile, Alabama and later to nearby New Orleans, where she finds that her birth-mother Cindy now works as a fairly successful lawyer, becomes a film about self-discovery, discerning values [TM] and ultimately about feeling "wanted."

As such, while about an extreme case -- abortion -- like other films about extreme cases (the films Beginners and more recently Being Flynn come to mind) October Baby is thematically about much more than that.  And the film does offer a hand of reconciliation to "the other side" though, yes, with a pointed "catch."

The film, with some beautiful scenery in it, is a plea to reflect on all of society's values: "What profits a man (or woman) to become 'successful' (in this case a lawyer), if it comes at the cost of sacrificing one's own children?"  Yes, there's forgiveness at the end of the road, yes it was/is all complicated. But at the end of the day, it is a question about values that enter into the equation long before arriving at the abortion clinic -- Is "success" really worth killing for?

And, yes, I do absolutely agree -- EVERY LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL.


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Jeff, Who Lives at Home [2011]

MPAA (R)  Roger Ebert (3 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1588334/
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120314/REVIEWS/120319991

Jeff, Who Lives at Home (written and directed by Jay and Mark Duplass) is a generally light, often funny and often very human comedy about two grown brothers, Jeff (played by Jason Segal) and Pat (played by Ed Helms) and their mom, Sharon (played by Susan Sarandon), none of whom ever really recovered from the death of their father/husband many years/decades earlier.

Jeff never really grew up.  As the title declares, Jeff, approaching or even passing age 30, still "lives at home," in the basement.  Pat, though married, to Linda (played by Judy Greer), also hasn't really grown-up and as we quickly observe has more or less obvious problems in his marriage.  Finally, even though there's reference to Sharon having had a number of relationships in earlier years following the death of her husband's, at 50+ she's finding herself increasingly worried that time for that has passed.  Further, she's not blind to and is clearly unhappy with the emotional stuntedness of both of her sons.  She confesses to Carol, a coworker (played by Rae Dawn Chong) that she finds herself "hating" her sons.  "When did that happen?" she asks, "They used to be so cute..."

The story takes place over the course of a single day, mom's (Sharon's) birthday.  Jeff's getting up, late as usual.  The phone rings.  On the phone there's a voice demanding to talk to "Kevin."  Somewhat confused, Jeff answers, "There's no Kevin living here..." The caller hangs up.  But then Jeff in his naivete no doubt "helped" by years of smoking marijuana (Parents definitely take note ...) asks himself "What if there are no wrong numbers? What if every phone call that we receive we're supposed to receive."  He pulls out his bong..., does a couple of hits and then starts playing with the letters in the name Kevin, searching for a potential message in the name....

Soon however mom calls, from work..., asking Jeff to just get dressed, take the money that she left for him on the kitchen table, go to a hardware store, buy some glue and finally fix wooden shutter on the venetian blind that's been broken for some time.  And she asks him to do this "as a present to her" for her birthday.  Mildly irritated -- after all he has a "Kevin mystery" to solve :-) -- Jeff gets dressed, takes the $10 left for him on the kitchen table, heads off to the bus stop (of course...) to take the bus to the hardware store to get the glue.  Much ensues ...

What follows is generally a light comedy of errors as well as (as the reader/viewer would surely guess) a reflection on our "interconnectedness." 

HOWEVER, there is an aspect of the film that some more conservative Catholics/Christians will not like, in good part because it comes rather "out of left field" (unexpectedly).  I don't know how to approach the subject without revealing a fairly key event in the trajectory of the story other than having warned readers in this way (that some more conservative readers will not like it), I recommend that those who don't want reviews to reveal too much about the film to stop reading here (with parents just noting the drug use mentioned above).

SPOILER ALERT FROM THIS POINT ONWARD.  As the film progresses, it becomes clear that Sharon (the mother) is very, very lonely.  Yet, this day because it is her birthday, she starts getting rather flirtatious e-mails over the company server and someone throws a paper airplane into her cubicle.  When she opens up the paper airplane, it opens up into a picture of a flower.  So she gets all excited about the possibility of there being a "secret admirer" among her co-workers.  Then to some initial horror, she finds that her "secret admirer" is her best friend at the office / confidante Carol and, further to her initial horror/discomfort it becomes clear that Carol meant her flirtations seriously/sincerely.  So a movie about "interconnectedness" now becomes a movie at least in part about age 50+ lesbianism.

What to do now?  In part, propagandists/extremists on both sides will feel thoroughly "validated" by the film's unexpected turn of events.  More activist gays ("We're here, we're queer, deal with it...") could applaud the film's bravery, while those ardently opposed to any kind of accommodation with what they perceive as a "Gay agenda," could feel that this film _proves_ the validity of their greatest concern: That gays/lesbians will not be content with living out their lifestyle within the community of  those openly gay but seek to "evangelize" everybody, even obviously straight people, coercing them to get involved in relationships (or reject and therefore cause pain to manipulative gay acquaintances) that they would more or less obviously not freely choose.  In the film while initially recoiling at horror to Carol's come-on, Sharon rather quickly becomes "more open to it."  Whether this reflects reality, I'd let the reader/viewer decide, my only adding that Sharon's reaction in the film is, of course, dictated by the demands of the filmmakers/script ...

My own opinion in the matter could be summarized by these two points:  First, I think the situation actually illustrates somewhat well the Catholic Church's fundamental position on homosexuality, that it's a disordered condition.  Over the last few decades plenty of us, myself included, have not particularly liked the pejorative connotation that the word "disordered" carries.  I would suggest difficult condition could be better.  Indeed, Vatican's Declaration on homosexually after labeling it a "disordered condition" continues declaring that most homosexuals experience their condition "as a cross."  Hence difficult could be a far better adjective to use than disordered.  Further, since most studies indicate that only a small percentage of people are actually homosexual, rejection, already difficult for anybody becomes even more common / a burden for gays than for straights.  And yet, if one truly believes and respects freedom of conscience/choice, one has to respect the sincere heterosexual letting down the homosexual with the words, "I'm sorry, but I really am not that way."

My second concern would be this.  I'm finding the trend toward sexualizing friendship in film / culture annoying/dangerous.  How many women have wanted over these past decades to be treated by men as friends rather than sex objects?  The scene played out between Sharon and Carol sexualizes what Sharon had previously treasured as a friendship (and here not even between her and a man, but her and another woman).  Where or when does it stop?  Today, after a serious of profoundly disturbing scandals (that obviously the Catholic Church has been involved in) any kind of sexual relationship between an adult and a minor is considered as perverse by society.  Yet, if we continue the trend of sexualizing human relationships, will sexualized relationships between adults and minors come to be seen as okay, indeed inevitable, in the future?

The Catholic Church, while not denying the power of the sex drive, calling it Lust in times past, nevertheless defends the right of people to consider themselves as more than merely sexual beings.  Yes, "male and female God created them" [Gen 1:28].  But we are more than just this.

In this light, I would invite readers to read John Paul II's two Apostolic Letters On the Dignity and Vocation of Women (Mulieris Dignitatem) [1988] and On the Person and Mission of Saint Joseph in the Life of Christ and the Church (Redemptoris Custos) [1989], as they are reflections on the dignity and vocations of men and women extending beyond the realm of the merely sexual.  Yes, the sexual aspect of our human nature is important but it can not be allowed to be all defining.

 Returning then to the film, I found, Jeff, Who Lives at Home to often be very good, but it does take unsuspecting viewers down a path that they did not necessarily bargain for when they entered the theater.  Thus viewers ought to be warned.  Beyond the film's surprising "philosophical turn" regarding homosexuality, parents ought to be warned (as above) at the film's open portrayal of drug use.

Still despite these rather large "strikes" against it, the "interconnectedness theme" as well as the characters' dealing (even many years/decades later) with the effect of the loss of a parent/spouse makes the film worthy of adult consideration/reflection.  Just come to the film prepared for all that it is about...


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The Hunger Games [2012]

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

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392170/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv036.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120320/REVIEWS/120319986

The Hunger Games, directed and cowritten by Gary Ross along with Suzanne Collins [IMDb] and Billy Ray is based on a recent young adult novel The Hunger Games (first published in 2008) written as the first part of a highly successful trilogy by Suzanne Collins.  The story is set at least 100 years into the future in a North America that for reasons unclear had been transformed into a single totalitarian state divided into 12 and possibly 13 districts still seething after a failed rebellion some 75 years before.  As a result of the rebellion, the regime of Panam as the new country is called, demands a yearly tribute of a young man and a young woman from each District to compete in a "Reality Show meets Gladiator Contest to the Death" called "The Hunger Games" whose spectacle keeps the Districts both transfixed and in line.

Since, needless to say, few volunteer for a competition in which only one has only a 1 in 24 chance of coming out alive, "contestants" are generally picked by a lottery called a "Reaping" held in each district by delegates sent out to each District from the Capitol.  The lottery is "weighted" apparently based on both clout and troublesome behavior.  Well connected people have less chance of being picked while young people who themselves (or their families) have been in trouble with the authorities find themselves with proportionally more chances of being picked.

There also appears to be a minimum age at which a child becomes entered into the lottery.  Indeed, Katniss Everdeen (played by Jennifer Lawrence) from back-woods District #12 (which looks like Appalachia from before LBJ's Great Society) finds herself actually volunteering for the contest after, to her horror, her little sister Primrose (played by Willow Shields) who had just become eligible for the lottery got selected.  Rather than have to watch her little sister be lead to certain slaughter, Katniss who knew a thing about hunting (with a bow and arrow no less) volunteers to take her place.  The other unlucky person to be selected was baker's son Peeta Mellark (played by Josh Hutcherson) and took his selection as a virtual death sentence.

What follows in the story is reality television driven to its worst possible conclusion and then on several levels:

First, despite the fact that the Hunger Games was an annual contest to the death in which only 1 in 24 contestants, "the winner," could come out alive, the Regime (and depressingly, the larger society) choose to pretend that it is a Pageant.  The "contestants" who are soon going to be killing each other are introduced to the larger society through a series of televised spectacles.  They're dressed in stylish clothes (each supposedly representing the "dress and customs" of the Districts from which they came) and process into a cheering stadium of onlookers on stylized motorized chariots.  Later they're each interviewed a la television talk show host who seeks to produce superficially compelling "back stories" for each of the contestants.  The "contestants" from each district are also given a "team" to coach them.  Katniss' and Peeta's head coach/mentor is Haymitch Abernathy (played by Woody Harrelson) the only other constant from District #12 ever to win the contest.  Needless to say, he initially comes across as completely insane (from Post Traumatic Stress...) as a result of surviving (er "winning") said contest.  He does sober-up and become more useful as the story continues as he starts to see that his "contestants" this year, especially Katniss, had a serious chance of "winning" (er "surviving") as well.  Finally, each of the "contestants" is given opportunity to in someway "impress" (brown-nose) potential "sponsors," who become key in the subsequent contest as "sponsors" could purchase potentially life-saving equipment (sometimes as basic as matches to light a fire) for the contestants and deliver said equipment to them.

Then when the contest actually begins, the contestants are dumped in a large "wilderness arena" which is nevertheless riddled with cameras like in The Truman Show [1998] so that the television audience to watch the action.  Play by play is naturally offered, and if the contestants prove insufficiently involved in the bloodletting, they are prodded by various means to get more involved.  Much somewhat sanitized violent bloodletting ensues... (Parents take note... I do believe that the film is suitable for high school students, but for those much younger than that, I really don't see a point.  The film would be way too violent for pre-teens and I just don't think pre-teens would understand the story in any case).

Objections.  I understand and largely agree with the story's/film's condemnation of savage competition.  Already with regards to the recent film The Warrior [2011], I noted that the great tragedy portrayed in that film was that two brothers each with compelling stories both deserved to win but that only one could do so.  In The Hunger Games, there were 24 contestants, most unwilling, forced to compete in a competition in which only one could survive.  I find such competition shockingly appalling and fundamentally immoral.  We are, after all, supposed to all be God's Children and hence all deserving of Life (as well as Liberty and yes Happiness.  Perhaps to the surprise of many, both the American Founding Fathers and the Catholic Church had/have this right).

My principal objection to the scenario is that in author Collin's world of the future there appeared to be no religion left to oppose this annual ritual of murder.  Yes, according to the story the 12 Districts did revolt against the central authority of Panam and indeed that is why the Hunger Games were supposedly instituted.

However, I'd find it hard to believe that there would be no Christians/Catholics left (in Appalachia no less) to oppose (even to their own deaths) this crazy Gladiator-like spectacle.  After all, the first Christians opposed the same kind of bloodletting in ancient Rome (and went to their deaths opposing it, being times even 'fed to the lions' for sport).  There is simply no way that I'd put-up with such a horror and I honestly do not believe that I'd be alone.  Killing people for sport on TV?  Simply no way, while there's still even a small band of Christians or Catholics left.

So while I do think that the story is compelling, I don't buy the scenario: Catholicism/Christianity would simply have to be completely wiped-out for something like this to take place because there is no way that the Church/Christianity would allow such a contest to take place no matter how popular such a contest could perhaps be.


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The Christening (orig. Chrzest) [2010]

Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1674050/

Filmweb.pl listing (PL orig, ENG trans)

The Christening (orig. Chrzest) [IMDb] [FPL] [ENG trans]directed by Marcin Wrona [IMDb] [FPL][ENG trans] and written by Dariusz Glazer, Grzegorz Jankowski and Grazyna Trela is an excellent if supremely sad Polish film set in contemporary Poland which played recently at the 15th Annual European Union Film Festival being held at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago throughout March, 2012.

Mid-late 20-something Michal (played by Wojciech Zielinski [IMDb][FPL][ENG-trans]) seems to have made it.  He has a successful (glass) business, lives in a high rise apartment in a modern section of town at apparently the outskirts of Warsaw.  He's married to a beautiful, young wife Magda (played by Natalia Rybicka [IMDb][FPL][ENG-trans]) who loves him.  Together they have a newborn son who they're getting baptized.  Michal's invited his childhood friend Janek (played by Tomasz Schuchardt [IMDb][FPL][ENG trans]), who's just finishing up military service, to be his newborn son's godfather.  When Janek arrives, Michal takes him to the roof of the apartment complex where he is living and with pride points in every direction saying that his glass windows are in every building around.

By all appearances, this should be a happy time.  But of course it is not ... because it becomes progressively evident that Michal's life is _still_ just a "house of cards." Soon, as in a terrible nightmare everything starts to fall apart.

An American viewer may really be shocked by the film's trajectory:  How could one make a movie where by midway through the film all that's left for the viewer to wonder is whether the movie is going to end "merely moderately terribly" or "full throttle 'dear God will this really end in the worst possible way' terribly?"

But then this film comes from Poland (folks, welcome to Eastern Europe...), where even when World War II or the Communist era are no longer present or even referenced directly, the psychic scars clearly remain. 

Before returning to the story, a few words here should be said about the technical quality of the film which I believe is superlative.  Much if not all of the movie is filmed with handheld cameras.  But the handhelds appear to be used with purpose.  When the camera is "unsteady" it's because the characters themselves are "unsteady."  Then there's a scene where a character appears to be looking around trying to get his bearings.  The camera mimicking his point of view is _also_ jerking and the image it's recording is also blurred until it does settle on something and both the character and the camera have found focus.

Then kudos to the editors of this film.  This is a film where every single scene comes to fit into the story, even the beginning two scenes that initially seem to have only tangential importance to the story.  Arguably they become key.  

The film is then largely set in a concrete and glass highrise subdivision presumably at the edge of Warsaw.  These kind of subdivisions (though of a much blander variety) were infamous during the Communist era.  Even if this one appeared to be a 'newer' one, with "more glass / less concrete" it still gave off the impression of cold.  Even Michal's and Magda's apartment, modern as it appeared with its white walls, glass and stainless steel, was still strikingly empty of almost any kind of furniture and decor.  The outsides and walls of these buildings were now spotlessly clean and with all the glass far more open than before.  However, inside the apartments remained largely hollow.  Even the Church where eventually the Christening (Baptism) takes place was white, glassy and spacious.  While there were more people in that scene (and the one following at the reception) because naturally members of both Michal's and Magda's families were invited/came to the Baptism, the space again felt half-heartedly empty.  It was only at the small reception afterwards that available space seemed finally to be full -- with relatives, a musician playing a cello (never the happiest of instruments...), food and waitresses.  All this obviously "sets a mood," and makes a statement perhaps about "modern life" or the "modern ideal" (in Poland) today.  And yet, as I mention above, that ideal clearly unravels as the film progresses.

Finally and returning somewhat back to the story, I found some some very strong resonances in The Christening to some American films of both distant and recent past.  The Godfather [1972] is perhaps the most obvious.  After all, both of these films are built (perhaps surprisingly) around the Christian/Catholic Sacrament of Baptism.  Streetcar Named Desire [1951] is another film that comes to mind.  I always thought of the Kowalski character in that play/film to be something of a caricature of a young Polish man (and a rather negative one at that).  Yet, Janek in this film could be Kowalski's cousin or nephew and is not being portrayed in a clearly negative way.  Indeed, arguably Janek's character takes on characteristics of another character played by Marlon Brando (who played Kowalski in the Streetcar), that of  "coulda been somebody" boxer Terry Malloy in On the Water Front [1954], Terry Malloy having to have to "step up" in a gut-wrenching crisis after much time of being dismissed as literally a "nobody."  Thematically, The Deer Hunter [1978] also comes to mind because while both films invoked sacraments (rites of passage) that are supposed to be happy occasions, in both cases these passages appear to be toward darkness and tragedy rather than toward happiness and a more normal adulthood.  Finally, Inception [2010] comes to mind because The Christening does have the feel of a dream "falling apart."  In Inception, dreams only fell apart as the characters within them discovered that they were walking in a dream world.  In The Christening, the whole movie feels like the nightmare of someone not fully believing that (after perhaps years of struggle) he's actually succeeded.  Instead, he finds himself trapped in/by his past and his whole world progressively crashes around him. 
  
There is really much more to say about this film, especially about its Godfather [1972] resonances.  But I fear that if I were to push that further, I'd give away too much of the story.  I would like to leave the reader here with the opinion that this is a very intelligent film, that it is very very sad, and (I do have to warn parents on this) it is at times very, very violent.  Will the makers of this film as well as the lead actors/actresses gain greater notoriety/fame in the future?  I do not know, but I do think that all of them were truly excellent in this very, very sad film.


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Immaturi [2011]

Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Wikipedia listing - (Ital. orig, Eng. trans)

Immaturi (The Immature) directed and written by Paolo Genovese with some help from Marco Alessi as a script consultant, is a typically light/gentle Italian comedy that played recently at the 15th annual European Union Film Festival being held at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago during the month of March.

The premise is somewhat improbable -- 20 years after passing the state mandated final exam to graduate out from high school, officials retract the results of a single class 25 students from Rome as a result of the admission of one student that he/she cheated.  So all 25 have to take the test again, 20 years later at age 40 rather than at 20 ;-).

As silly/improbable as the premise initially may seem, however, it plays on a fairly common experience of dreaming of finding oneself back in school and being asked to complete some unexpected assignment or pass some unexpected test.  Indeed, one of the main characters in the film notes near the beginning of the story that the situation felt "exactly like a recurring nightmarish dream that [he'd] been having ever since graduating from school."  Many film-critics and psychologists alike have compared/contrasted the experiences of film watching (in quiet and in the dark) to dreaming.  So the audience is invited through the characters in the story to indulge in an experience which, while unrealistic, is nonetheless relatable.

The first thing that the characters in the story discover that the experience of being forced to take a test over, 20 years after taking it the first time, isn't necessarily a bad one.  It gives them an excuse to "reconnect" in a way that they hadn't in years.  Indeed, a group of eight of them who had been friends in high school come back to form their study group of old.

The second thing that the audience discovers and long before the characters in the story do ;-) is that though these characters had graduated some 20 years ago, most of them hadn't really grown-up yet.  Almost all of them remained in some way "immature."  There's Piero (played by Luca Bizzarri [IMDb]) who plays a late night radio talkshow host who is lying to his girlfriend Cinzia (played by Giulia Michelini [IMDb]) telling her he's married and with a small child so that he could keep a distance from her and keep things 'uncomplicated' ;-).  There's Giorgio (played by Raoul Bova [IMDb]) who's a child psychologist living with his longtime girlfriend Marta (played by Luisa Ranieri [IMDb]).  Their parents have all but given-up on their ever getting married, but now Marta finds herself pregnant and Giorgio finds his perfect and utterly predictable world threatened by the unknown.  There's Lorenzo (played by Ricky Memphis [IMDb]) who was the smartest of the group, but always something of a "nerd."  At 40, he still lives with his parents. Mamma (played by Giovanna Ralli) is content to have her son "safe at home" but Papa Luigi (played by Maurizio Mattioli) just doesn't get his son's utter lack of initiative.  There's Francesca (played by Ambra Angiolini [IMDb]) who's now the head chef at a busy Roman restaurant but also going daily to a 12-step group dealing with a compulsive sex addiction.  There's Luisa (played by Barbora Bubolova [IMDb]) a single mom who works as in the marketing department of an Italian processed food company.  In a sense she's "modern" but since works for, clearly uses and arguably "believes" in "processed food" (rather than cooking more "from scratch") this apparently makes her something of an infantile heretic in Italian society.  Even her precocious little daughter doesn't really respect her in this area ("But ma, teacher said that I'm supposed to bring a homemade cake to school ..." ;-).  There's Virgilio (played by Paolo Kessisoglu [IMDb]) who's married but ... cheating.  And he has some unfinished business with Giorgio and Giorgio's old flame from high school, Eleonora (played by Anita Caprioli [IMDb]).  Eleonora lives now in Milan and shows up only near the end of the movie, just a day or two before the test.  Still, her little role even after she arrives on the scene becomes important as well.

Much of course happens.  Most, in fact, "grow" as a result of the experience of reconnecting and studying again to take the high school graduation exam (far more demanding than what is generally expected of American high schoolers).  Most of the characters also enjoy being at least psychologically "back in high school" again.  One, Giorgio, takes it a little further, flirting by exchanging "messagini" (texting) with a current high school girl going by the nick-name Crudelia (played by Nadir Casselli).  In grand tradition of Italian cinema however, when the two do meet, it's then that Giorgio comes to his senses telling her: "It takes a 20 year old to remind you that you're approaching 40" and then falls back to acting as something of a father figure to her afterwards.

It was all very interesting and all very, very "light."  Indeed, it may surprise American viewers how "light" / "gentile" Italian comedies often are.  Everybody is generally well-dressed ("bella figura" you know ;-) but "the gritty streets of the neighborhood" so much a part of movies about Italian immigrants in the States don't seem to be much part of Italian films today (and don't seem have been part of Italian films for a long time).  Instead, there seem to be a lot of films celebrating vita (life), famiglia (family), amicizia (friendship) and so forth.

And actually, I'm not necessarily complaining.  It's actually quite nice to watch a film where pretty much everybody is smiling most of the time, people who seem happy even if at times they are sad.  It's kinda nice!


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