Brave [2012]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  Roger Ebert (3 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1217209/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv069.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120620/REVIEWS/120629997

Brave (directed by Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman along with Steve Purcell, all of whom were also involved in the writing of the screenplay along with Irene Mecchi) is a PIXAR production that continues the company's celebrated run of simply outstanding young family oriented animated films.

The story is about Merida (voiced by Kelly MacDonald) a young princess growing up in Scotland at the dawn of time.  Her mother Queen Elinor (voiced by Emma Thompson) is trying to raise in a manner to prepare her for her destiny of becoming "a lady" and, one day, queen of the realm.  Merida, however, prefers much more to be like her dad, King Fergus (voiced by Bill Connolly), being loud and carefree, riding-off on her trusted horse Angus into the forest and glens seeking adventure, becoming _really good_ at shooting her bow and arrow, etc.  Elinor, shaking her head tries repeatedly to bring her daughter down to earth.  All this running around may be wonderful, but not particularly useful for what Merida's gonna do when she grows older.  Perhaps just as frustrating to Elinor was the apparent lack of support on the part of Fergus, her husband after all, who's frankly enjoying hearing Merida talking of her exploits at the dinner table.  Yes, Fergus and Elinor have sons -- triplets -- but they are still way to young to do anything other than cause "terrible two" like mischief around the house/castle.  So Fergus is enjoying listening to Merida talking about her exploits while Elinor's increasingly reduced to shaking her head.

Things come to a head when Queen Elinor announces at the dinner table one night that she had written to all the heads of the major clans of the realm to come over to present their eldest sons so that Merida could become betrothed to one of them and that they had all accepted.   Yes, since Merida's parents were the King/Queen of the realm, it would be Merida's choice as to which of these eldest sons she'd become engaged to.  But it's clear that Merida's _not_ ready to choose anybody at this time (besides, to us viewers, it'd all seem really, really early to be doing this as Merida appeared to be no more than about 10-12 years old at the time).  And the whole affair becomes even more a disaster when it becomes obvious that NONE of the three "eldest sons" (of the three major clans coming over to present them) was particularly impressive.  They're all ... basically "losers." What now?

Well, Merida upset over all this being imposed on her, jumps on her horse and rides off into the forest.  There, by an ancient stone henge somewhere in a clearing in the forest, she comes across these little floating/glowing "willow wisps" that in Gaelic folklore lead one "to one's destiny."  So she follows them and they lead her to a little house where an old woman seems to live.  She seems to be a very crafty lady, having all sorts of little hand-made trinkets on display.  Merida, intrigued by her and her house (or shop?) ... out there in the middle of nowhere ... comes closer.  Talking to the old lady, she realizes who this lady is ... "You're a witch!" she declares.  The old lady, initially responds, "No ... I'm not a witch, I'm a ... woodcarver, see look at all my nice little trinkets and wood carvings, all _very reasonably priced_  ;-)"  However, after Merida keeps pushing the matter, she admits "Yes, I'm a witch..."

But actually Merida's _not_ upset that she's encountered this witch.  Having been led to this house by those willow wisps, she asks the witch: "Can you make me a spell?"  The witch does not want to.  Merida insists: "I need a spell that will change my destiny."  Again, the witch tries to change the subject: "Don't you want to buy any of my lovely wood carvings...?"  Merida (apparently Princess that she is ...) and not wanting to be distracted from what she really wants tells the witch/crafty wood carver:  "Yes, I'LL BUY ALL OF THEM ..."  But she makes clear that she _really wanted_ was that spell to change her destiny.

The witch tries to dissuade her.  She tells her that she's had that kind of request once before, and that it didn't particularly turn-out particularly well.  But after further insistence on the part of Merida she relents and conjures up a little cake that after being consumed would change her destiny.

So Merida takes the cake home with her.  Interestingly, she gives it _to her mother_ Elinor, believing that upon having a piece of that cake, her mother would change.  And she does ... the rest of the story follows... ;-)

My hat off to PIXAR Studios.  Once again, the animation studio has produced a wonderful, wonderful story of surprising depth.  I think of Finding Nemo [2003], Up [2009] and Toy Story 3 [2010].  As in the case of those stories ... you may want to bring some Kleenex.  Honestly, it's a lovely, lovely story worthy of being watched together by pretty much the whole family.


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Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter [2012]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  Roger Ebert (3 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
Roger Ebert's review

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter screenplay written by Seth Grahame-Smith [IMDb] based on his novel by the same name as the film and directed by the Russian-Kazakh-American film director Timur Bekmambetov (Sasha Baron Cohen who randomly, viciously and gratuitously made fun of "Kazakhs" in Borat [2006] eat your heart out ;-) is ... well ... "an experience."  I'm certain that the film is going to be enjoyed by many, generally, younger viewers even as it will probably disturb a great many older ones.

Indeed, I would discourage anyone who has an aversion to seeing gore (blood, decapitations, rotting flesh, etc ...) on the screen from seeing this film.  It will simply not be for you.  I would also note that this film isn't exactly "The Apocalypse" either.  Though certainly gory, there's nothing in this film that one would not see at any of number of "haunted houses" that spring-up each year across the United States each year around Halloween-time.  And I do know something of this as I've been responsible for my parish's youth group over the years and have therefore been to a fair number of such "haunted exhibits" during that time ... ;-)

Now how does one even come-up with the idea of "re-imagining" the revered American President Abraham Lincoln [IMDb] as a "vampire hunter?" ;-)  Well, Seth Grahame-Smith caused something of stir a number of years back by publishing a novel called Pride, Prejudice and Zombies, where 90% of the text was Jane Austen's [IMDb] celebrated novel Pride and Prejudice with Seth Grahame-Smith adding the other 10% (including, of course, the zombies).   Overall, the critical reaction to his works has been that of bemusement and grudging admiration.  And the claim has been, and one that I am somewhat willing to believe ... that the addition of "zombies" to Jane Austen's work (and "vampires" to the legacy of Abraham Lincoln) has worked to revitalize interest in both Jane Austen [IMDb] and now Abraham Lincoln [IMDb].

And while I can certainly imagine Seth Grahame-Smith "having beers" with Franz Kafka and Salvador Dalí I do have to admit that on Carl Jung's "deep psychological" / "archetypical level" I kinda get him.

Pride and Prejudice was, after all, in part about class distinctions and, well "pride and prejudices." So re-casting the novel in a manner that brings to fore a "fear" on the part of  "polite society" of late 18th-early 19th century England that it was going to be overwhelmed by terrifying and perhaps not particularly educated/intelligent "new comers" ("zombies"...) actually makes some sense ;-).  Remember that was the time of the American and French Revolutions as well as the Napoleonic Wars.

Similarly the re-casting here of the whole American Civil War as basically a war between human beings from the North fighting blood-sucking vampires from the South (yes, folks, that's the basic premise of the current film...), while certainly loud and arguably _over-the-top_ propagandistic, does make some sense as well.  After all, while a fair number of American Southerners today would not necessarily like the imagery here, the whole American Civil War was largely about a whole lot of poor-white people being convinced to fight and die to protect the right of a far smaller group of rich-white people to own (and do utterly what they willed with) black-people.   So arguably, those "rich white people" were "akin to vampires" feeding on (and sucking the blood out) of _both_ black people and poor white people.

Again, folks like Franz Kafka and Salvador Dalí would understand the analogy completely ... to the consternation/anger of the great dictators and proponents of the totalitarian ideologies of their time.  (Hitler apparently absolutely hated the "degenerate Jew writer" Kafka. And Salvador Dalí was actually thrown out of the Surrealist movement that he was instrumental in founding by left-wing French intellectuals after he painted picture of "Lenin with a fat butt playing a piano.").  One would imagine that a fair number of Southern whites wouldn't necessarily like the sweeping (and ridiculing) imagery of this film.  Nevertheless, slavery and really the racist assumptions underlying it as well as underlying the post-Civil War "Jim Crow" laws and the racist bickering that continues to this day (as well as the once more _race-driven_ obliteration of the Native American populations indigenous to what eventually became the United States by European (white) settlers in both the North and the South) has been the United States' "original sin."  So we may cringe when we see rich Southern "patriots" portrayed as seemingly "hard to kill" yet blood-sucking "vampires."  BUT it's _not_ an image or analogy that "comes out of nowhere."

Okay, to the story...  Seth Grahame-Smith uses a heck of a lot of "imagination" to string together a number of historical facts (and personages) surrounding Abraham Lincoln [IMDb] to recast his story as that of a "vampire hunter."

Abe Lincoln's aversion to slavery is explained as the result of a childhood incident when a he (played by Lux Haney-Jardine) witnesses the capture and deportation from his hometown in Illinois back to the South of a black childhood playmate named Will (played as a child by Curtis Harris).  Lincoln's aversion/hatred for "vampires" is explained by the death of his mother Nancy (played by Robin McLeavy).  She had come forward to try to defend Lincoln's childhood friend.  In retribution, little Abe Lincoln watched a strange man, come to their home a few nights later and _bite_ Nancy in the arm.  She died shortly thereafter of disease (in reality, Lincoln's mother Nancy died when Abe was 8-9 years old of "milk sickness").

In the story, Abe Lincoln grows-up determined to eventually find and kill the man who had bitten his mother (who, in the story, he believed was responsible for her death).  In seeking who he believed to be her mother's killer, Abe Lincoln meets a strange figure named Henry Sturgess (played by Dominic Cooper).  He tells Abe that killing the man who killed his mother would prove much harder than he thought.  Abe does not believe him.  But after shooting his mother's killer, Jack Barts (played by Marton Csokas), in the eye (with a normal lead bullet from his revolver) and finding to his horror that this didn't kill him but just got him angrier, the good old, and still quite naive Abe was willing to listen to Henry.

Henry tells him that Abe's mother's killer was a vampire, that there were many vampires both in the North and at the South, and that the only way to kill a vampire was with silver.  So from now on, Abraham Lincoln would carry silver coated bullets, and (certainly for dramatic effect in the movie...) an _axe_ with a silver coated blade (Abe Lincoln's first job was famously that of an "axeman" or "rail splitter.")  Henry tells him that the life of a "Vampire Slayer" was fraught with danger and that it'd be best if he lived quietly and never married.

However, the young Lincoln as naive and quiet/to himself as he was, nevertheless seemed to have bigger ambitions.  So he eventually comes to Springfield, Illinois' capital to study to become a lawyer.  There he is shown meeting the _then_ young and vivacious Mary Todd [IMDb] his future wife, as well a young Illinois congressman named Stephen Douglas [IMDb] (played by Alan Tudyk) who became Abraham Lincoln's [IMDb] primary pre-Civil War political rival.  (In the story, Lincoln and Douglas don't merely spar in a series of now famous pre-Civil War debates.  In the first place, they are shown here as competing for Mary Todd's affections. I doubt that there's any historical basis to this but certainly adds drama/romance to the story.  Mary, of course, chooses the quieter and more honest Abe in the end).

As Lincoln is getting himself established in Springfield, his childhood friend Will (played by Anthony Mackie) returns to Illinois as a "Fugitive Slave."  Lincoln resolves to defend him despite the infamous Dred Scott Supreme Court Decision and the Fugitive Slave Act.  This sets Lincoln on a course for getting involved in public political action to the consternation of Henry who would have preferred that he just remain in the shadows quietly "killing vampires." 

All comes to a head, when Lincoln, the candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party is elected President.  The Southern States, of course, secede and the American Civil War begins.  To Lincoln's horror, the vampires take the side of the South and the North's fortunes in the War only change when Lincoln remembers that vampires can be killed with silver.  So according to the story, the North's bullets and cannon balls come to be coated in silver, and from that point on, the North starts winning the war... ;-)

Obviously this is a highly imaginative tale.  But as one realizes what the story describes, I think one can start to understand the connections that writer and film-director are making.

Finally, while I'm not sure that a lot of folks from the Southern United States would particularly appreciate the way the "vampiric South" was being portrayed, I am personally exhausted with people like Southern General Robert E. Lee being portrayed in "heroic terms" in American history.  He went to war to defend an Evil cause (the right of human beings to _own_ other human beings) and I do think that Lincoln was absolutely correct in taking Lee's Plantation (on the other side of the Potomac River from Washington D.C.) and converting it into the gigantic Arlington National Cemetery.

A lot of people in the United States needlessly died in the Civil War before all its people could finally be free:

The Battle Hymn of the Republic

    Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
    He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
    He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
    His truth is marching on.

        Glory, glory, hallelujah!
        Glory, glory, hallelujah!
        Glory, glory, hallelujah!
        His truth is marching on.

    I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
    They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
    I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
    His day is marching on.

        Glory, glory, hallelujah! ...


    In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
    With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
    As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
    While God is marching on.

       Glory, glory, hallelujah! ...


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Taxiphone (orig. El Mektoub) [2010]

Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing


Taxiphone (orig. El Mektoub) directed and co-written by Mohammed Soudani along with Lorenzo Buccella and Quittierie Duhurt is a Swiss and Algerian film (English subtitled) that played recently at the 10th Annual Chicago African Diaspora Film Festival held at Chicago's Facets Multimedia Theater between June 15-21, 2012.

It is about a young unmarried Swiss couple, Oliver (played by Pascuale Aleardi) and Elena (played by Mona Petri) traveling from Algiers, the capital of Algeria in North Africa by the Mediterranean Sea to (yes, to the actual) Timbuktu in the nation of Mali in the middle of the Sahara Desert.  Oliver had been hired to drive a large dump truck there from Algiers.

About 10 minutes into the movie, somewhere in the middle of this journey between Algiers and Timbuktu, the truck seriously overheats and breaks down.  They manage to get the truck towed to a town existing by an Oasis along the route.  But what now?

The only telephone service in the entire town is provided by a single shop (a "mektoub"...) run by Youssouf (played by Sid Ahmed Agoumi) located near the town's central square.  Anybody needing to make a call out of the town needs to go there to place the call.  Needless to say, Youssouf's little "mektoub" becomes a very interesting place.  Everyone from merchants and businessmen to wives with husbands working (illegally) in Europe would come to Youssouf's "mektoub" to place calls.  (Viewers who'd remember the Brazilian film Central Station [1998] would find similarities to this film.  In Central Station, one of the main characters in the movie made her living by operating a small table at the central train station in Rio de Janeiro where illiterate workers who had come to work in Rio de Janeiro from the Brazilian hinterlands would come to dictate letters to her intended for loved ones back home.  In this movie, Taxiphone, the wives/families of loved ones working in Europe would come to Youssouf's shop for the chance to be able to talk to them).

But it's also frustrating.  The phone service does not always work.  People have to be patient.  And the local residents are generally used to this.  Oliver is not.  Trying to find someone to fix the truck or at least to get the parts for the truck proves ... very, very hard.  At one point, Oliver loses his temper with Youssouf telling him: "I'm tired of hearing 'maybe' of 'if Allah wills.'  When are my parts going to arrive?"  Youssouf smiles.  Then after Oliver leaves the shop, he says in exasperation: "I've been living with 'maybe' and 'if Allah wills' all my life, welcome to the Third World ..."  Later Youssouf adds his own frustration about his town's situation: "We used to be a proud people traversing freely a land without borders and no one could touch us.  Today we're reduced to working illegally overseas or selling junk over here."

Indeed, an American viewer could experience this movie as presenting _in real life_ some of the "post-Apocalyptic scenarios" in Hollywood films exemplified, perhaps, by the Mad Max [1979, 1981, 1986] films.  This is the second African film, the other being the Congolese film Viva Riva! [2010], that I've seen in recent years that had this "post Apocalyptic" feel to it.  Now to be clear, the Mad Max films were very violent.  There was NO VIOLENCE AT ALL in this film.  (Viva Riva! had more violence).   Still the Algerian Oasis town in which this story played out was very, very isolated and it felt like it was truly "at the end of the world."

Still there's a lot going on in the world of this Oasis town in the middle of the Desert that perhaps would be missed if we were interested in simply "getting from here to there."  And this then becomes the meat of the film.

Here it becomes obvious that while both Oliver and Elena were obviously of the adventurous sort, the two approached their journey from Algiers to Timbuktu very differently.  Oliver was really driven by "the bottom line," arguably almost a "mercenary instinct."  He was being paid to drive a truck from Algiers to Timbuktu and that was what he was going to do.  Since he was so concerned about getting the truck working again, he probably had some sort of an investment riding on it.  As such, his being stuck at this Oasis in the middle of Algeria's desert was a unmitigated disaster.

Elena, on the other hand, was traveling with Oliver for the adventure of it.  She didn't know anything about trucks.  So when it broke down, she wasn't overly concerned about it.  Indeed, it wouldn't help a single bit more if she was concerned about it.  All she could do is to offer Oliver "a shoulder to cry-on" (and if one's honest, initially "a bit more...") every so often when he got frustrated.  But the truck wasn't going to get fixed by her.  HOWEVER, while Oliver spent his energy trying to get the truck fixed, Elena got to "explore," and not so much "geographically" the town and its surroundings, but instead explore/become interested in the people and their way of life.

To this end, of learning about the culture, both Elena (and Oliver) had some useful skills.  Being Swiss, they spoke three languages -- French, German and Italian.  Indeed, one gets the sense that if Oliver did not speak French, the whole opportunity of driving a truck from French/Arabic speaking Algiers to French/Arabic speaking Mali (presumably for some profit) would not have even come up.  And since many/most people in Algeria speak both French and Arabic, the search for parts to fix the truck was not and out-and-out impossibility.  But here Elena comes to really shine.  Most of those residents from the town who had gone to Europe to work were working in France, Italy or Germany.  Indeed Elena's knowledge of Italian helped her help a wife of one of these workers communicate with one of his bosses in Italy when she got a message that he had gotten hurt in some way.  As a result of her interest/helpfulness, the women in the town come to adopt her.

And this becomes all the more interesting as a lot of those women who adopted Elena as one of their own wore headscarves (and therefore one would expect them to be rather "conservative").  But this was also taking place in Algeria.  Some of the women _did not_ wear headscarves and presumably ALL/MOST of them had relatives who did not.  Indeed, one of the women that Elena meets had a head-scarfless cousin who was returning/visiting from (as it was presented, almost) "hippie liberal Algiers."  In any case, it's another reminder to us here in the West that the Moslem world is far more diverse/complex than at times we may assume that it is.

Finally, someone like me, a Catholic priest, certainly would notice the "lifestyle arrangement" of the unmarried central couple in the story, Elena and Oliver.  And here I would honestly note that it should not surprise _anyone_ what more or less obviously happens to this couple as the story plays out.  It would seem that they had been together only for "the adventure" of it all (symbolized by their "driving a truck through Africa").  And while things went well, they were happy together.  When "the truck broke down" however ... well ... and why would anybody be surprised?

So theirs was a "lifestyle choice" that wasn't exactly thought-through.  Now we could choose to live life in a manner that is "not thought through" / "not serious" but at some point ... one has to say that kind of "lifestyle choice" becomes rather shallow.   We're called to be more than merely "shallow..."

Still, what a well-done and thought-provoking film regardless!


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Leaving (orig. Odcházení) [2011]

Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1464251/
CSFD listing - [CZ, ENG-Trans]

Leaving (orig. Odcházení) [CSFD, Eng-Trans], which played recently at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago as part of an eight U.S. city "2012 New Czech Films Tour" sponsored by the Czech government, was written and directed by the late Czech President Václav Havel in retirement in the last year before his death.  Based on his stage-play by the same name it is on many levels a truly unique film.

First of all, I don't think that any former President of any nation has ever written and directed a film.  Second, this wasn't Nero or "Saddam Hussein" writing/directing a movie.  Instead, this film was made by someone who had been a legitimate avant-guard playwright turned dissident who had, after leading his nation to freedom and serving out his terms then as its President, happily returned to his original craft to write this play (available in English translation on Amazon) and then took the opportunity to make it into a film (under his own direction) before he died.  Noting the uniqueness of this project, the official release notes to the film quote Havel explaining his motivations:  "A stage play is something of a 1/2 finished work that the playwright offers to theatrical companies, which then put their own mark on the work as they put it on stage.  And the playwright ought to be fine with this or else turn to writing novels instead of stage plays.  However, after many decades of having my plays staged this way, I felt the desire to finally take the opportunity to interpret myself.  Additionally, [making this stage play] into a movie gives me a certain amount of satisfaction.  This because originally and really throughout my whole life. I've really wanted to be a film-maker.  Now perhaps I get the opportunity to fulfill this dream."

Those who had loved this man (and I, American-born but of Czech parents, had worn a "Free Vaclav Havel" t-shirt for years while I was in grad school in Los Angeles in the 1980s) would clearly appreciate the definite "swansong" feel to the film.  Here in this movie, we have a permanent record of at least one of Havel's plays made in the way that he wanted it to be made.  And IMHO, it is classic Havel:

Part Anton Chekhov's Cherry Orchard, part Shakespeare's King Lear, a smidgen Friedrich Durrenmatt's The Physicists, and part Federico Felini's 8 1/2, it is about a departing "great man" Chancellor Vilém Rieger (played by Jozef Abrham [CSFD, Eng-trans]) who along with his family and entourage doesn't really know what comes next.  They are all still staying at a government-owned villa (Americans think of something like Camp David outside of Washington DC) somewhere outside of the capital and sense that they are probably going to have to leave but truth be said, they'd "kinda like to stay."

As outgoing Chancellor, Reiger is still receiving adulation/interest from fans and journalists.  At the beginning of the story, two journalists from the tabloid "Fuj" (translated best as "Yuck") come over to interview him.  And even though they are now just from a tabloid, Rieger gets a chance to still wax eloquent about "Freedom" and "the central importance of keeping the Human Person at the center of all political decisions."  But interviewer is inexperienced and he and the tabloid's photographer were sent there mostly to just take pictures...

Then Reiger sees a vision of a beautiful young woman, Bea Weissenmütelhofová (played by Barbora Seidlová [CSFD, Eng-Trans]), in a red dress walking across the pool in the garden to him to ask for an autograph.  Reiger's long-time companion and still striking 40-something Irena (played by Dagmar Veškrnová-Havlová [CSFD, Eng-Trans]) snifs, telling her partner, "Funny how you always find time to 'help' these beautiful young grad-students and funny how the only people who seem to be writing dissertations about you are young women, not one guy that I can remember ..." (Note that Dagmar Veškrnová-Havlová [CSFD, Eng-Trans] was actually Havel's wife ... ;-).

Sniveling two-faced Victor (played by Oldrich Kaiser [CSFD, Eng-Trans]) , the secretary to Reiger's secretary informs Reiger that the new Chancellor Vlastik Klein (played by Jaroslav Dušek) wants to come over to the villa to talk about Reiger's future.  When Klein arrives, his rhetoric sounds a lot like Vaclav Havel's chief nemisis during his presidency, the hardline Thatcherite Vaclav Klaus.  But he's dressed more like Vladimir Putin.  In any case, Klein is equivocal ... he wants some kind of deal from Reiger ...

In the meantime, Reiger's older daughter Vlasta (played by Tatiana Vilhemová [CSFD, Eng-Trans]) and her very odd-looking boyfriend, Albino, offer to "take-in" her father should he have to leave the villa but come with a contract asking for "certain concessions" (stuff from the villa?) before they agree.  Reiger's younger daughter Zuzana (played by Ivana Uhlírová [CSFD, Eng-Trans]) just walks around the villa's gardens with headphones on, talking to her friends via skype with her smartphone.  As unconcerned as she appears, she always seems to know everything that's going to happen before anybody else does ... ;-)

Much of course happens.  Does outgoing Chancellor Reiger and his family / entourage get to stay at the villa?  What does the new Chancellor Klein want from him?  What about Reiger's family and Reiger's long-time companion?  Will they make a successful transition from "being important" to being 'less so?"

It all makes for an interesting story.  And the film certainly does express both Vaclav Havel's whit as well his concerns about the future, notably that rhetoric about "Freedom" and the "Necessary Centrality of the Human Person" can really start to sound hollow after a while ... especially when the people using such slogans (Klaus?  Putin?) start intermixing such paeans with slogans from far more sinister times.


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Lola Versus [2012]

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

IMDb listing
Roger Ebert's review

Lola Versus (directed and co-written by Daryl Wein along with Zoe Lister Jones who also costars in the film) is an _excellent_ young-adult oriented "indie" film set in Manhattan.  Lola (played masterfully by Greta Gerwig) is 29.  Both she and her boyfriend Luke (played by Joel Kinnaman) with whom she is living with  already for some time are grad students.  She's working toward her Doctorate in Literature, he's getting a Masters in Fine Arts.  Two scenes into the movie, after having had sex back home at the apartment one night (yes parents, this film is really _not_ intended for youngsters...) Luke gets out a ring and proposes.  She happily accepts.

The next several months, Lola along with her best friend Alice (played by Zoe Lister Jones) and Lola's mother (played by Debra Winger) sets about planning the wedding.  Yes, this a contemporary story, so Luke is certainly involved in sending invites helping to decide on caterers, etc.  But it's still, above all, Lola, her best friend and mom doing most of the running.  Well three weeks before the wedding, Lola comes home one afternoon and sees Luke sitting slumped stone-faced in a chair.  She asks, "Luke, is there something wrong?  You look like you just had a stroke."  Luke's had no stroke.  He's breaking-up.  BOOM.

The next scene, some days later while Lola lies still half comatose (from shock) on a couch, has Lola's ma' along with her dad (played by Bill Pullman) at ma's side arguing over the phone with Luke's mother (who we never see), telling her: "Listen, this was supposed to be a destination wedding.  There's no way that she or my husband and I are going to refund the invited guests' plane tickets when it was your son who chose to ruin my daughter's life 3 weeks before what was supposed to be their wedding..."

And of course it's not just the immediate scrambling and embarrassment of informing the various guests caterers, services, etc that the wedding is off.  There's much more going on than just that.  Lola and Luke had been together for a long time.  There are relationships with mutual friends that have to be renegotiated Alice (okay, she'd almost certainly fall into Lola's camp) and another fairly important friend Henry (played by Hamish Linklater) who both Lola and Luke knew like "forever."

Then, of course, there are Lola and Luke's studies.  While there's _some_ flexibility in terms of pacing as one works for one's Doctorate, it's not a process that can be meandered through indefinitely.  Further studying for a Doctorate is HARD.  And how can one FOCUS when all this relational upheaval is going on?

Finally, after being together _for so long_  is "over" really "over"?  Wow, I really felt awful for Lola, and really for everybody in this story because it was SO WELL PLAYED OUT and SO OBVIOUSLY PAINFUL.

When Lola presents her proposal for her doctorate (again she's working for a PhD in Literature) -- it's to be on the presence of SILENCE in Literature.  She tells her board: "People don't necessarily appreciate the power of commas and pauses in poetry") --  I just wanted to cry.  (Actually, I'd suspect that there would be a lot more on such a topic in the scholarly literature than the film-maker would have realized, BUT what a _utterly perfect_ dissertation topic for someone who's both studying literature and had just gone through an upheaval like this in her life!

Much of course happens...

Lola Versus is the second movie in several months that I've seen Greta Gerwig in (the first being Damsels in Distress [2011]).  And I honestly have been impressed by both her performances.  I also have to say that I was impressed with the direction, writing and editing in this film.  The dialogue was crisp, every scene had a point.  Just wonderful film-making the telling of the story.  So good job Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister Jones and really the rest of the cast.  This will certainly be a film that you all could be proud of.

FINALLY being a Catholic priest, I really can not end this review of this movie without mentioning (the lack there of) something that is obviously very dear to my heart.  That is, I simply have to mention that the film, despite dealing with some FUNDAMENTAL challenges in the lives of young adults does not make ANY reference at all religion or God.  (Okay, Lola was tangentially "interested in astrology" and "took a yoga class," but honestly that was it....)

Here I want to say to young adults that I actually "get" this and really on multiple levels.

For instance, on the most understanding of levels (and something that a lot of religionists would do well to appreciate as well), I do understand very well that the United States is a diverse place and that this diversity becomes more and more evident among the young (The younger the age group in the United States the "less white" and less traditionally "Judeo Christian" it becomes).  Further, this film was written and made in New York certainly the most diverse city in the United States and one of the most diverse in the world.  Finally, the film was about (and largely FOR) a college/grad-school set (audience), which is even more diverse than the general population or that of New York.  (People from all over the world come to study in the United States).

SO it'd really be asking a lot that this film (made by and for this milieu of college/grad-school aged people) have a particularly strong focus on any particular religion.  And I say this _not simply_ because a fair number of the young adult viewers of this would probably be Jewish rather than Catholic/Christian, BUT BECAUSE A FAIR NUMBER OF THE VIEWERS WOULD NOT BE "JUDEO-CHRISTIAN" AT ALL, but rather HINDU (from India), BUDDHIST (from Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan or China) or MUSLIM (from places as diverse as Iran/Iraq, Morocco and Pakistan where, contrary to perhaps popular belief in the United States, most educated Muslims are _not_ exactly "Taliban").  So I "get" even the practical "soft pedaling" of religion in the portrayal of the day-to-day life of young adults today.

I also understand that there would certainly be an aspect of "young adult bravado" playing here.  Young adults in their 20s be they like the characters in this film, this film's makers or young adults in general are famously "unconvinced" that even their parents have all that much "wisdom" to offer (Our parents generally get wiser as we get older ;-) ;-).  I understand this because I was a young adult once too ;-) ;-) and my dad became so much wiser in my 30s and now in my 40s than when I was in my 20s ;-) ;-).  And if we discount our parents in this way when we are young, it should not be surprising that we largely discount our religion (that often stands even behind them) at that time as well.

HOWEVER, be all this as it may, knowing a thing or two about suffering as well (we all do in some way when we are young) and fully admitting that _some people_ can get through all life's difficulties "by their own bootstraps" or simply "with Friends" without ever needing God or religion, I DO HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT IT IS SO MUCH EASIER to get through those difficult parts of life believing that God is somehow at our sides.  This is NOT to have God "casting flaming boulders" on the "Lukes" or otherwise "problematic people" in our lives, but to simply feel Someone (God) knows our pain and that SOMEHOW it will all turn out for the best in the end (and frankly, perhaps not even in this life or this world, but at SOME FINAL TIME).

I found Lola's choice for her dissertation topic fascinating -- researching the role of SILENCE, "commas/pauses" in literature -- because almost immediately I saw this as what IN OTHER TIMES was self-evidently called a "search for God:"  Jacob famously "wrestled with God" ALONE IN THE DESERT "one night," when NO ONE ELSE COULD POSSIBLY HEAR HIM (Gen 32:23-33).  Elijah encountered God NOT in "storms or earthquakes" but in a _whisper_ literally "A SILENT SOUND" (1 Kings 19:11-13).  Then in Catholic spirituality, St. John of the Cross wrote an entire book around his poem "Dark Night of the Soul" a phrase that has been so evocative that THE PHRASE (if _not_ necessarily the book) resonates with untold millions to this day.  I've long laughed that the 1970s-80s British Rock group Supertramp's "Logical Song" basically described "A Dark Night of the Soul" as well. 

So honestly WHILE I DON'T WANT TO CHANGE NOT A SINGLE "COMMA" in this wonderful film, I would like to say to the readers of this column about this film that if _you_ find yourselves in situations like Lola in this film, don't be afraid to reach out to God in those times.  It's a _lot_ easier to get through those difficult parts of life with God at our sides.

Indeed, I do believe that for folks like St. Paul, God's presence to us "through it all" (even death) was the most fundamental message of Jesus' Resurrection and therefore the Gospel:  "If God is with us, who can be against us ... For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom 8:31, 37-39)


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That's My Boy [2012]

MPAA (R)  Michael Phillips (0 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
Michael Phillips' review

Ok, leading-up to this weekend, I honestly didn't expect to go see the Adam Sandler vehicle That's My Boy (directed by Sean Anders and screenplay by David Caspe).  Like many other movie-goers, I've found that I can generally take only so much of his humor, which is usually very, very stupid and generally crude.  And honestly, this movie is certainly stupid and crude.  HOWEVER, with it being Fathers' Day weekend, the film having a "Father's Day" theme to it (albeit portraying Adam Sandler playing a particularly awful father) and knowing that men/fathers haven't exactly had an easy time of it over the last generation or two, I decided to give it a shot.

Now, parents, honestly PLEASE DON'T take little kids to this movie!   The film DEFINITELY earns its R-rating.  The list of (thankfully generally off-screen) transgressions in the film is very long and in a "Hall of Shame" sense "impressive."  However, since the transgressions are generally _so over the top/exaggerated_ it is clear they are intended for effect: Yes, Adam Sandler's character, Donny, was a loser.  In the story, Donny knocked-up his teacher in 8th grade (played by Eva Amurri Martino when young and by Susan Sarandon in the present day) who subsequently was sent to prison, leaving Donny (actually initially Donny's dad, but when he turned 18, Donny) to take care of the child, who Donny (who was like 13 years old at the time the child was born) named "Han Solo" after the "really cool character in Star Wars" (played in those films by Harrison Ford).

Needless to say, this was not an "ideal arrangement" and soon as Donny's boy (Han) turned 18, Han (played as an adult by Andy Samburg) _left home_ changed his name to Todd and tried to start his life anew.  And actually he did quite well, majoring apparently in Math (his mother had actually been a Math Teacher, and Donny if not for so messing-up his own life had been actually shown talent in math as well...).

Eventually Han (now Todd) landed a job at a Wall Street firm, found a gorgeous girl, Jamie (played by Leighton Meester) that he was going to marry.  What could go wrong?

Well dad (Donny) who had resigned himself to the fact that his boy Han/Todd was going to be out his life for good, finds that he needs to come-up with some very quick money or else he's going to go to jail.  So on the weekend on which his estranged son Todd's WEDDING was going to be held, Donny suddenly shows-up at his doorstep (and it's not even his son's doorstep but the doorstep of his son's boss' beautiful Cape Cod estate (where the wedding was going to be held) in self-evident (though _also_ initially _unclear_) need of help.  Good God, much ensues ...

Again, this movie _is_ crude.  But honestly what a story it tells ... My hat off to Adam, and my hat off to Leighton Meester (of "Gossip Girl" fame, who's had to deal with "disappointing/problematic parents" for real in own life and who first caught my attention as someone who really could become a serious talent in Country Strong [2011].  The current film is, of course, impossibly exaggerated.  But many, many people and families _also_ have to deal with seemingly impossible situations.  So honestly, good job folks (as well as to Andy Samburg, whose role was actually and clearly more important in this than Meester's though Meester's background so well resonates with the problematics played out in the film).

Once again, parents PLEASE DON'T take a kid who's "10 years old" to this film.  This is a movie that deserves its R-rating.  Still, for even a teenager in the latter years of high school, where there would be issues of "disappointment with parents" at home, this would an _excellent_ (and funny) film to see.  And it MAY BE a good film to see as "father/older teenage son", "parents/older teens" together.


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Rock of Ages [2012]

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

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1336608/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv068.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120613/REVIEWS/120619993

It didn't take altogether long, maybe 10 minutes into Rock of Ages (directed by Adam Shankman, screenplay by Justin Theroux, Chris D'Arienzo and Adam Loeb based the stageplay musical by Chris D'Arienzo) for me to realize what I'd be up against in writing review for this film.  

Parents, while this movie is rated PG-13 and I doubt that a lot of you would necessarily want to be sit through this movie with your teens as they watch it, _at minimum_ the film should require "a discussion at home" and I honestly believe that an R-rating or even NC-17 rating would be more appropriate.  I say this because, at minimum, there are multiple scenes in which one or another young woman bends down on her knees before a guy and starts undoing his pants..., and I simply can't imagine ANY REASON why a high school kid (or younger ...) ought to see that without knowledge (and at minimum comment) by his/her parents.  This kind of stuff does annoy me: If one's going to make an adult oriented movie, then just rate it appropriately (An R-rating would allow teens to see the movie WITH CONSENT OF THEIR PARENTS).  To play games with the ratings is at minimum childish and at worst it is misguided/evil.  At minimum, the film-makers will be contributing to a new epidemic of herpes and quite possibly worse.   And were those "bending down and unbuttoning his pants" scenes somehow "necessary" to the plot?  Of course not ... So unless the film-makers have made investments in some new herpes medications, I can't imagine any possible reason for including them in the film.  But there we are ...

But that is really just the most childish, stupid (and frankly, utterly needless) problem with the film.  The larger problem concerns what I recently wrote about in my recent review of the kids' movie Madagascar 3, that American film-makers (both on the Right and on the Left) seem to assume that they _need_ to include "villains" in their stories.  And while Rock of Ages does in good part lampooning the otherwise wild excesses of the "Rock God" era of the 1980s (that characterization alone ought to give a serious believing Catholic/Christian pause, as NO ONE short of God ought to receive the kind of adulation given to Rock Stars at that time, or Ball Players or Movie Stars, political figures like Hitler, Stalin, Peron, Quadafi or Assad before or since), it was clear from about 5-10 minutes into this movie that the "villains du jour" were going to be "Conservative Christians." 

These Conservative Christian "villains" in the current story are led in the story by the 40-something Patricia Whitmore (played by Catherine Zeta Jones) wife of a _somewhat_ surprisingly (to non-Los Angelinos) conservative mayor of Los Angeles, Mike Whitmore (played by Bryan Cranston). [Note to non-Los Angelinos both "red" and "blue" -- the mayor of Los Angeles from 1993-2001 was Republican Richard Riordan, which wouldn't surprise ANYONE once one stops and realizes that to be a mayor of any major city in the world requires that one balance many competing forces, not the least of which, of course, is business.  An excellent if somewhat controversial book on "the making of Los Angeles" is Mike Davis' City of Quartz (Amazon) ...] 

Returning to the story ... Now there is clearly _some_ historical truth to the film's presenting of Conservative Christians as opponents to "Rock and Roll."  HOWEVER, ANY Catholic/Christian born pretty much ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD since the end of World War II would know that this history has _never been_ the whole story or practice.  Otherwise, tens of millions of us Catholics/Christians in the United States and hundreds of millions of us across the globe would have to somehow get rid of our record albums/CDs (if anyone still actually as LPs ;-) and/or erase good chunks of the memories on our i-pods / mp3 players.  And I for one have no interest at all in getting rid of my "Pink Floyd" or "Creedence tapes" ;-) ;-) to submit to some a tired, half-baked narrative that was, at best, only partly true.  And I doubt any practicing Catholic here at Annunciata or frankly anywhere else would want to do that either.

Consider simply, that in the late 1980s when I was a grad student studying at USC in Los Angeles, both Eddie Van Halen and his wife, actress, Valerie Bertinelli (both Catholic ... ;-) spent an afternoon happily at the USC Catholic Center to get a respite from the crush of the fans/paparazzi that awaited them at L.A.'s Shrine Auditorium a block or two away where the Grammy Awards were being held that year.  Then REO Speedwagon and Styx (both huge bands in the late 1970s-1980s) were from the "ethnic" parts of Chicago.  At least some of these people were Catholic and it's simply unfair/wrong to assume that _all of them_ (even to this day) would have lost their faith.  Even Rock Stars are _more_ than merely "Rock Stars."  Finally, the parish where I'm stationed at, Annunciata on Chicago's South East Side, has come to be known for its annual Annunciata Fest which hosts a fair number of really good "up and coming" 2nd and 3rd tier bands.  The bands that play here may not be great now, but 5-10 years from now?  Who knows?  And I'm positive that the experiences of musicians from REO Speedwagon and/or Styx would have been similar.

So then the film presents a false and stupid battle.  Yes, there will always be extremists in both the United States and across the world who'll want to "ban" "Rock and Roll."  On the other hand, there will always be extremists who'll think it perfectly okay / normal, to "bite the head off of a live bat" as rocker Ozzy Osborne apparently did back in the early 1980s (when I was going to college).  And there will be young people who will be hurt and/or even die as a result of some of the excesses of the "rock and roll" culture.

So then, what to make of the rest of the film?  If it was Rated-R or even perhaps NC-17 (thus bravely choosing to be an honest movie) and it shelved the needless "fight" with "Conservative Christians" the film still could have been a very nice "nostalgia piece" perhaps even musical about Sherrie Christian (played by talented singer/dancer Julianne Hough) arriving to LA from Oklahoma meeting Drew Boley (played by Diego Boneta) "from South Detroit" at a bar on LA's Sunset Strip called "The Bourbon."  (Yes, Sherrie's name and Drew's coming from "South Detroit" come from a song by the 1980s rock group Journey called "Don't Stop Believing" and the The Doors started at real bar on the Sunset Strip called The Whiskey).   And the rest of the cast, the stoned/lost/searching Rock God "Stacey Jaxx" (played masterfully by Tom Cruise and modeled after Axel Rose of Guns 'N Roses and perhaps Jim Morrison of The Doors) as well as the Rolling Stone reporter Constance (Malin Akerman), the slimy agent/record producer Paul Gill (played by Paul Giamatti) and the Bourbon's owner Dennis DuPree (played by Alec Baldwin) and his sidekick/assistant Lonny (played by Russell Brand) could have all remained in a less "we want to play childish games with the censors and needlessly bash 'conservative Christians'" version of the story.  It would have worked AND FRANKLY WOULD HAVE WORKED BETTER than this confused version. 

But it seems that Hollywood screenwriters seem to continue to believe that they need villains in their stories (preferably of a straw-man variety) and the Rock and Roll culture appears to remain fundamentally childish.

Honestly folks, this film would have been much better if you just went for an R-rated (or even NC-17 rated) picture and frankly "grew-up" ;-).


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