To Rome with Love [2012]

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

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1859650/
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120627/REVIEWS/120629976

To Rome with Love (written and directed by Woody Allen) continues a series of movies by the film maker set in Europe including Match Point [2005] (London), Scoop [2006] (London), Vicky Cristina Barcelona [2008], Midnight in Parish [2011] and now this one in Rome.

In the United States, Allen's personal failings have caused him damage.  But I remember that even during my seminary days in the mid-1990s, which I spent largely in Rome, he remained positively adored in Europe and perhaps especially in Italy where he's been a fixture at the annual Venice International Film Festival each summer.  As such, his recent "European films" often portray Americans quite badly while waxing almost lyrically about the beauty, sophistication and, often enough, kindness of Europeans.  Perhaps having received enough criticism for his recent portrayals of Americans, To Rome with Love is much softer in this regard.  Indeed, the only "ugly American" in this film is arguably played by Allen himself.

To Rome with Love is structured around four stories which never really intersect but occur concurrently in the city of Rome.

In the first story, an American student, Heyley (played by Allison Pill), lost in Rome gets help from a handsome young Italian lawyer Michelangelo (played by Flavio Parenti [ENG] [IMDb]).  They fall in love and Heyley's parents, Jerry (played by Woody Allen) and Phillis (played by Judy Davis) fly to Rome to meet Michelangelo and his parents. Jerry a recently retired (and not altogether happy about it) classical music stage manager from New York, notices that Michelangelo's father, Giancarlo (played by Fabio Armitiliano [ENG][IMDb]) a humble mortician has a seemingly operatic voice "to die for."  Jerry then can't help himself as he tries to persuade Giancarlo who had never sung professionally to "at least try give it a shot" while the rest of both families try to persuade Jerry to leave it alone.  Much ensues ...

In the second story, John (played by Alec Baldwin) a financially successful but somewhat unfulfilled American architect (he made his fortune and fame designing shopping malls...), who had "back in the day" studied in Rome, takes a walk down "memory lane" during what had been a routine business visit to Rome and runs into Jack (played by Jesse Eisenberg) currently studying architecture and living in the same building and quite possibly the same apartment as John did so many years ago.  Invited up to Jack's apartment, he meets Jack's live-in girl-friend Sally (played by Greta Gerwig) also a student, as well as Sally's best friend Monica (played by Ellen Page) a struggling and all too "interesting" actress who had flown out to stay with them between acting gigs.  Happy as pie to have this opportunity to relive, even if vicariously, a part of his youth, John starts "hanging around" the younger Jack, serving as something of a mentor figure to him, even if Jack hardly ever listens ...

In the third story, a young Italian couple Antonio (played by Alessandro Tiberi [ENG][IMDb]) and Milly (played by Alessandra Mastronardi [ENG][IMDb]) come to Rome from the countryside after having been recently married.  They are to meet some fairly important relatives of Antonio's while they are there with the implication being that Antonio could perhaps get a very good job through one of them, if only they make a good impression.  So wanting to make a good impression with Antonio's relatives, Milly steps out looking for some sort of hairsalon or spa.  Not knowing Rome, she gets hopelessly lost.  Each time she asks for directions, it only gets worse ;-) Anyone who's ever been to Rome would understand.  In the center of the city, none of the streets go straight and the street names change with every street corner.  One of my own first impressions of the city when I first got there was thinking: "I'd hate to be a postman here" :-).  In the meantime, Anna (played by Penelope Cruz) a prostitute comes mistakenly to Antonio's (and Milly's ... but she's away, lost somewhere in Rome..) room telling him "Congratulations! I'm completely paid for and I'm here to fulfill all of your dreams!"  "Paid for by whom?" "Your friends."  "What friends?"  No matter, before they can resolve the matter Antonio's relatives barge in, and not knowing Milly assume that Anna, who when she came into the room had, of course, jumped straight onto the bed, was Milly.  One of the Aunts sniffs, thinking not particularly highly of who she thought Antonio had married.  But Antonio desperate to not ruin his meeting with these important (and apparently quite wealthy) relatives asks Anna to pretend that she's his wife.  Much ensues ... (And don't worry, happy smiling Milly, has her own adventures on the streets of Rome as well as she runs into all kinds of Italian movie stars and so forth ... ;-)

The final story involves Leopoldo (played by Roberto Benigni [ENG][IMDb]) a humble accountant living a nice simple middle class life in Rome with his wife and kids suddenly for no reason at all becomes hounded by Paparazzi photographers and journalists as a celebrity.  Why?  He has no idea.  Much ensues ...

These are all fun and lovely stories to watch as they play out.  A theme throughout all these stories seems to be that of celebrity: What does it mean?  How do people earn it?  Is it worth it?  And so forth.   And I do think that Woody Allen gets it right:  Though Italy does has the reputation of being a celebrity/paparazzi crazed culture, most Italians are like the Giancarlos, Antonios/Millis and Leonardos of this film who even if special, very special or talented are content, indeed, very content to live their lives happily and _simply_ with their families.  What a lovely and often very funny film!


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Goodbye First Love (orig. Un amour de jeunesse) [2011]

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

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1618447/
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120627/REVIEWS/120629974

Goodbye First Love (orig. Un amour de jeunesse), written and directed by Mia Hansen-Løve, is a French language, English subtitled film about ... as the title suggests ... young and (one could ask "is there any other?) tragic love.

Parisians, 15-year old Camille (played by Lola Cretón) and 19-year old Sullivan (played by Sebastian Urzendowsky) are in love.  In the United States, we would look at this relationship far more suspiciously from the get-go, but Subastian is sufficiently "young" (immature seems like too strong a word, though it becomes clear that he is certainly that as well) that one could make him a 17-year-old Senior in High School and her a 15 year old Sophomore and the story would work as well.

Both sets of parents don't think much of it.  Both Camille and Sullivan are still students (in many parts of Europe today, one goes to school basically forever). And yes, they appear to be using "protection" ...  What could go wrong?

Again, _a lot_ of American parents would be shocked by the French parents' blasé attitude.  Yet, I do know from both having once been a teenager myself and having heard plenty of confessions of teenagers over the years that American teenagers are perfectly adept at hopping out of windows at night, when their parents think that they are asleep, to chase after all kinds of dangerous, inappropriate and age inappropriate things.  I also know that American teens do fall in love as well.  Having said all that, however, I have to say that I agree with the American parents who'd scratch their heads and say ... no way.  Consider the film at least in part an indictment actually of the more laissez-faire liberal sections of our own society as well.

Okay.  What could go wrong?  Well lots.  The most obvious is that neither one of these two love-birds is really ready for this kind of relationship.  Sullivan, 19 though he is, is not.  Indeed, even as the two are spending time at her parents' cottage in the idyllic, lush, gently rolling French countryside, alone/together (!), for days (!) ... again, where are the parents??? ... he's telling her that he's going to quit school and go with friends on a back-packing trip to the Andes.  And 15-year-old Camille is _simply to young_ to realize that Sullivan's definitely not the guy to give _her all_ to.  And it's not that Sullivan's evil.  He just doesn't understand what he's getting either (and not just the sex but truly heart-felt devotion) and he's certainly incapable at that age (and really even later on ...) to really accept or appreciate it.  It all comes way _too easily_ ...

So the inevitable happens.  Sullivan goes off with his friends to the Andes.  For a while he still writes back.  Camille has a map up in her bedroom where she marks with stick-pins where he was at the time when he last wrote.  But, inevitably ... the letters stop coming.  What now?   After some time, Camille's dad finally steps up and tells his daughter "You have to turn the page..."

But she's now marked by this failed relationship for a long, long time.

The movie resumes with her in college/grad school some years later.  She's studying to be an architect.  As in the case of another movie that I recently reviewed, Lola Versus [2012],  also about a break-up (though the two in that story were far older: grad students, rather than teenagers), and also largely "Godless" (more on that immediately below) I found Camille's choice of majors (as before I found Lola's choice for her dissertation topic) fascinating.  Camille chooses Architecture.  Hmm.  Even the movie makes the point, Architecture is about building spaces that still need to be filled.   Having had such a disastrous first relationship, she's "building a nest" hoping that someone will one day fill it.

Who?  Well the movie does continue on for some time and there are several candidates.  There's a, once more, rather inappropriately older Architecture professor Lorenz (played by Magne-Håvard Brekke) and there's Sullivan who some years after his famous trip to the Andes appears back in her life.

But it seems more or less obvious to me that she's honestly looking for something more.  And and though the movie _does not say it_ that "something more" is _probably_ God.  Both St. Augustine and, of all things, the Woopy Goldberg film Sister Act [1992] make basically the same point:  "Our hearts will remain restless until they find their rest in you" (from St. Augustine's Confessions) and when we hear the ridiculously overblown love songs of the 1950s-60s like "I will follow him" it should be clear that no one deserves that kind of devotion except possibly God (from Sister Act [1992]). 
 
Again, the film does not make this religious point.  But whether it intends to or not, it leads one right to the door step.  Otherwise, if the movie continued ... we'd be watching Camille flail around _all her life_ ...


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Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2215285/

Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection, written, directed and staring in no less than three roles Tyler Perry [IMDb], presents his take on the 4 year old financial crisis that our country finds itself in (the worst since the Great Depression) through the eyes of his increasingly famous character, the no nonsense Madea [IMDb] (played by Tyler Perry).

The movie begins with conscientious George Needleman (played by Eugene Levy) an accountant at a New York investment firm, who's found himself doing surprisingly well at his job in recent years, once again "putting his job first," and traveling from his spacious New York suburban home down to the city on a Saturday "to do some paperwork" rather than "go to the game" of his amiable but somewhat chubby and not particularly athletic son Howie (played by Devan Leos).  Indeed, as he leaves home, his probably inappropriately young for his age second wife Kate (played by Denise Richards) and 15 year old daughter from his first marriage Cindy (played by Danielle Campbell) are both (though for somewhat differing reasons) angry at him for "once again abandoning the family" to go back to work.  Sigh ... but at least he's doing "good work" and he's doing it actually "for the family ... if they only knew."

Well, he comes to the office and finds EVERYBODY there shredding everything in sight.  What happened?  George's boss tells him ... "I've never really told you, but what we've been doing here is running a gigantic Ponzi scheme for the last five years, and the Feds are coming to shut us down." "But how could that be?  I've been CFO here for the last 5 years.  Shouldn't I have noticed something?"  "That's great!  That's why we've always loved you!  Could you say that louder and into my microphone please?"  (He does).  Turns out that George Needleman was promoted way above his capacity over those last several years, PRECISELY so that he could be the company's fall-guy when the scheme was uncovered.

Switch to Altanta.  Heavy-set recently retired Madea is carrying a few bags of groceries out of the store when she's attacked by a young masked "thug" (who has no idea what he's up against) demanding that she give him her money.  She answers "No way!  Now I'm going to tell you son, do yourself a favor, GO GET A JOB!" "But I have a gun!" "Son, I spent years and years working to finally get this Social Security to be (spits to the side) on a 'fixed income.'  So there's no way I'm gonna give it to a puny thug like you with a puny gun.  Get yourself a job!" "This is my last warning!" "No, this is my last warning!"  Much then ensues over the next couple of minutes.  In the end, the masked thug scared for his life gives up.  And he's revealed to be Madea's own nephew Jake (played by Romeo Matthew).  What the heck just happened?

Well, Jake, Madea's nephew and son of a Baptist Minister, Pastor Nelson (played by John Amos), had been entrusted by his church to invest the church's money wisely so that it could pay-off its mortgage faster.  Where did Jake put the money?  Well in the best mutual fund that he could find ... the one run by Needleman's firm, the one that turned out to be a Ponzi scheme.  So Jake, who had previous encounters with the law, and had been so grateful to his father and his father's church to be given "another chance" had lost all the church's money and was scared to death what they'd do to him, and more to the point that the news would "just crush" his dad.  Yes, the Bernie Madoff scandal that came to fore (and was also an elaborate Ponzi scheme) hurt a lot of charities and churches that trusted Bernie Madoff's firm with their money.

Okay, it turns out that another nephew of Madea's, Brian (played by Tyler Perry) an assistant federal prosecutor in Atlanta is put in charge of investigating Needleman's firm on behalf of a number of the churches and charities that lost their investments on account of that firm's malfeasance.  Prosecutors also understand that the firm possibly working as a front for the mob.  So when he talks to the very nervous/distraught Needleman, he realizes that he has to offer him and his family protection.  How?  By hiding them with Madea and her husband.  Who'd think of looking for a timid white-collar accountant and his family (all from New York) "in the hood" in Atlanta?  Much ensues ... ;-)

Of course everything turns out well.  Among the many things that are very nice about this film  -- Denise Richard's character Kate turns out to be more than just a "trophy wife" but a really nice person, Madea in her trademark way is able to knock some sense into the kids and make them more appreciate their parents -- is how Jake's father's Baptist Church is portrayed in the film and the Needleman family's relationship with it.  They don't mock it.  Instead, they go there and meet a lot of very nice people (yes, who are in great part AFRICAN AMERICAN / BLACK).  And indeed, Needleman finds how to "connect the dots" in his firm's Ponzi scheme while once being at one of their services.

This is the third Tyler Perry [IMDb] movie that I've reviewed on this blog.  And I do have to say that I've liked what I've seen.  In this film again, he is "kind/merciful" to the "big shots."  Indeed, Tyler Perry himself in real life is media mogul.  But he is also unflinching in showing the effect of malfeasance of some of the "big shots" on a lot of "smaller people" who had depended on them.

In one scene in the film, Asst Federal Prosecutor Brian is going through with Needleman some of the charities that Needleman's firm had hurt: "Look, these are charities that had been building wells in Africa, vaccinating kids, providing community services for the elderly and youth otherwise at risk.  You hurt them by, what you say, 'not paying attention.'  You're gonna have to help me, help make this right..."

Good job Tyler Perry, good job ...

Protektor [2009]

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

IMDb listing

CSFD listing - [CZ-orig, ENG-trans]

Protektor [CSFD, Eng-Trans] directed by Marek Najbrt [CSFD, Eng-Trans], screenplay by Robert  Geisler [CSFD, Eng-Trans], Benjamin Tucek and Marek Najbrt [CSFD, Eng-Trans], winner of 8 Czech Lions [Eng-Trans] (the Czech equivalent of the American Academy Awards) played recently at the  Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago as part of the 2012 New Czech Films Tour organized by the Czech Film Center and the Czech Consulates in Chicago and New York.  (The tour promises to visit 8 major cities in the United States including New York, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Chicago, Portland, Washington D.C. and Seattle).

The current film is about the traumatic "Protectorate" era of Czech history, that is, about the years of Nazi occupation of the country from 1938/39-1945. Now foreign occupation would always be traumatic.  However, the specific circumstances of the Nazi occupation of the Czech part of Czechoslovakia were sufficiently unique to make the experience its own particular Hell.  I also know something of that particular Hell because both my parents, who were born in Prague in the early 1930s, lived through it.

FIRST "SOME BACKGROUND" ...  The first and most important thing to know in regards to the Nazi destruction and occupation of Czechoslovakia, is the Nazis actually took-over the country without a fight and then in two stages in the year leading-up to the formal outbreak of World War II.  Now how does one lose one's country without a fight and in two excruciating stages?

Well, in the first stage, Hitler brought Europe the edge of war over the majority ethnic German "frontier" (Sudeten) sections of Czechoslovakia.  Desperate to avoid war, the French and the British signed away those sections of Czechoslovakia (without Czechoslovakian participation in the negotiations...) to Nazi Germany in the notorious 1938 Munich Pact.  Horrified that if it refused the demands of the major European powers Czechoslovakia would actually be blamed for plunging Europe into the Second World War and knowing that without the assistance of France/England there was almost no chance of winning such a war, the Czechoslovakian government acceded to the European powers' demands knowing well that the rest of the country would become totally at the mercy of the Nazi regime. 

Five months later, summarily summoned to Berlin one evening and threatened with the annihilation of the Czech capital Prague at dawn, the elderly and by-then nominal Czechoslovakian president Hacha once again acceded to the Nazis' demands to march-in and take the rest of the country. 

The Slovakian part of the country was split-off and made into a a puppet state.  The Czech part was directly occupied, but since "occupation" sounds so Evil, the Nazis declared it to be a "Protectorate" instead: "The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia".  The era of this Nazi "Protectorate" began what became a 50 year period where the Czechs repeatedly found themselves having to bend to the will of two great powers, first to that of Nazi Germany to the North and West and later to that of Soviet Russia to the East.  And yes, it was a truly awful time.

So how does a people survive such fundamental assaults on its dignity?  Not easily.  The celebrated Czech response was that of _bending to the immediate demands_ of the "powers that be" in hopes of preserving at least some internal dignity by _never_ actually _conceding completely_.  It was, in effect, a game of "moving the goal posts," if always backwards, but at least "extending the game."  And though the Czechs would not necessarily be known to be the most church going of peoples, most Czechs would understand and _many_ would actually use the language of the Gospels to explain the reasoning ... "Render onto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's ..." [Mk 12:13-17]. 

This approach, whether _organized_ (in as much as "competent oppositional authority" could exist either in exile as it did during the Nazi era or inside the country as it became organized under the banner of Charter 77 during the latter stages of the Communist era) or _unorganized_ in the form of ad hoc opposition by the general populace to its oppressors, was, of course, _enormously ambiguous_.

On the "positive" side, the occupiers found that they could _never_ really count on the Czechs.  And there are truly countless examples big and small of how the Czechs played/defied/ignored their occupiers during both the Nazi and Soviet eras. During the Soviet era, Czechoslovakia came to be famously called by truly everybody (often _derisively_ by everybody) a "nation of radishes" (red on the outside, white on the inside).  And the current film actually begins with a quote by Adolf Hitler: "The Czechs may give the appearance of having their backs bent, but that's only because they're still pedaling." 

Indeed, while the Nazis did take their country without a fight, the Czechs did, in turn, take down (assassinate) by far the highest ranking member of the Nazi regime to die during the entire Second World War,  the Nazis' #3 man Reinhard Heydrich (who was serving then as the Czechs' "Reichsprotector," hence the Czechs' enemy #1).  And remarkably, the Czech paratroopers who were dropped into the country from the Czechoslovak government in exile in England to knock him off _got just him_.  No one else was even wounded in the assassination.  The Nazi reprisals that followed were characteristically appalling (the entire village of Lidice was destroyed, the men executed, the women deported to concentration camps, the children sent to "the Reich" to be adopted by German families, and in separate actions all across the country as many as 10,000 Czechs were murdered by the SS in reprisal).  But the Czechs themselves, "just got their man."  

On the other more negative side of the coin, this national survival strategy produced a nation of half-collaborators where just about _everyone_ was at least "partly wet" (namočený) and there were very few true heroes (though would-be heroes tended to have very short public lives / life-expectancies...)

So then, this history forms the context of the movie.  And the challenge that it seeks to meet is finding a way to talk honestly about that era, which was both horribly traumatic and one in which almost _no one_ but _a few of the dead_ could be honestly portrayed in heroic terms.   How do the film-makers do here?  Well you decide...

TO THE FILM ... The movie begins in the summer of 1938.  Prague, the capital, is portrayed as the Czechs like to remember it -- a vibrant, multicultural city, full of life, at the cutting edge of its time -- the Paris of Central Europe.  In this city of Prague in the late 1930s live the two principal protagonists of the story:  Hana Vrbatová (played by Jana Plodková [CSFD][Eng-Trans]), Jewish, is a young rising star in the Czech film industry of its time and her husband, Emil Vrbata (played by Marek Daniel [CSFD][Eng-Trans]) who is a junior producer working for the news division Czechoslovak Radio.

At the beginning of the story, it's Hana's star that's rising faster than Emil's and he feels rather threatened whenever he visits the studio and has to interact with Hana's studio coworkers and friends.  Indeed, Hana's older co-star Fantl (played by Jiři Ornest [CSFD][Eng-Trans]), also Jewish, tries to warn Hana that the curtain for "people like them" is about to fall and _to join him_ in getting out of the country while she still can.  Naive, and wishing to be loyal to her husband, she chooses to stay.

Emil too, sees indications that the curtain is falling.  He was sent, after all, by Czechoslovak radio to the frontier to cover the Nazi occupation of the Czech borderlands (Sudetenland) at the end of the Sudeten crisis.  Franta (played by Martin Myšička [CSFD][Eng-Trans]) the radio news broadcaster for whom Emil works is very blunt about significance of the loss of the frontier.  Still, Emil does not really comprehend.

Six months later, the Nazis roll into Prague to take over the rest of the country.   With the Nazi occupation, Hana's career is, of course, over.  Indeed within a few months, as a Jew, she can't even enter into a movie theater anymore.  Indeed, as the movie notes, within a few months, the only public spaces that Jews were allowed to congregate in Prague were in its (Jewish) cemeteries.  What now?

Well, Emil actually gets promoted.  The radio personality, Franta, who had been a Czech patriot and simply could not "adapt" (parrot the Nazi occupiers' line), is fired (and shortly thereafter arrested ...).  The new _German_ director of the formerly Czechoslovak broadcast service (played by Matthias Brandt), who directly tells his Czech subordinates that he will now be supervising as a National Socialist (a member of the Nazi party), actually _chooses_ Emil to replace Franta. 

Why?  Well, when he meets with Emil privately he tells him: "You have a Jewish wife, don't you?"  That is, the new Director knew that he could control Emil: So long as Emil toed the line, Emil's wife Hana would be "safe" (assuming, of course, that Hana herself "would know her place" -- basically never be seen).

So Emil's career now arguably skyrockets, while Hana is forced to become ever more "invisible" while being forced to be grateful to her husband for "Protecting" her.  How long, honestly, can that last?

The rest of the movie follows.  The film becomes then an exploration of a radically unequal relationship that can be understood on multiple levels.  And in the crucible of Nazi occupation, of course, there was very little room for error.

A truly _excellent film_ again, on many levels.

Ted [2012]

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

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637725/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv074.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120627/REVIEWS/120629973

Ted (directed and cowritten by Seth MacFarlane along with Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild) is one of those films that reminds one of the reality that in a free society, "the arts" (and I do use the term very, very loosely here ;-) and religion/morality are going to find themselves at times in independent spheres / "different worlds."  Yes, religion certainly has every right to comment on the arts as the CNS/USCCB does on its website, and I am doing here).  But there will be times when the "artist" will tell the religionist "to just go to Hell."   There will be times that the religionist will have a point in his/her criticism of the artist's work, most notably if the artist's work advocates some sort of violence against someone or some other group or advocates some sort of fundamental selfishness or crime.  But _in a free society_, there will also be times when the artist (and the general society) will tell the religionist to "lighten up" or simply gleefully ignore him/her.

Such then is the case here with Ted  Yes, the film is crude and often in truly imaginative ways:  One of the opening scenes of the movie has Ted (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) the film's miraculously "living" teddy bear talkin' trash (in a Bostonian err Bah-stone-ian accent) and "doing a bong" with his life-long but now "grown-up" 35-year-old human best friend John (played by Mark Wahlberg).  With this scene, the film both intentionally and effortlessly "swan dives" into a CNS/USCCB "O" (morally offensive) rating ... only 2-3 minutes into the film.  But it's clear as day that the cast and crew of the film would wear that "O" rating as a badge of honor.

What then is someone like me to say or do with a film like this?  Well, in good part, one could note the rating (R -- and yes, Parents, the film definitely deserves it) and then concede "that's life."  The film is NOT intended for kids.  It is crude, it is stupid, it is certainly "not for everybody."  But after noting all this, the film does "have a point" that's actually a good one, and is actually expressed in language that one who may need to hear the point being made would understand.

I say this because the film is about a "man-boy" John Bennett (as noted above played by Mark Wahlberg), who _may_ have had some difficulties as a kid (don't most ... if one searches for them) but is now 35, hence "grown-up."  Indeed, he has a lovely girl friend, Lori Collins (played by Mila Kunis) of four years.  But actually he _can't_ seem to "grow up."  Ted, that walking-trash talking "teddy bear" from his childhood is THE SYMBOL of his inability to actually step-up and become a man.

And one thing that this film does a great job with (something that perhaps _a lot_ of John Bennetts in this world don't necessarily realize) is that it shows what LORI is dealing with.  SHE has friends/coworkers (and even a lecherous boss at work) and SHE finds herself having to defend JOHN to them (who all think that John's a "going nowhere" loser).  One could say that "it's none of their business, who Lori dates."  And that's partially true, but isn't it a lot easier to be dating someone who one _can_ present to friends/co-workers and actually be proud of? ... John's happy but perpetuately stoned face, going no-where job, and "teddy bear" don't give Lori much to be proud of ...

So that's then the central conflict of the movie in a nutshell.  And honestly, the situation described (yes, in exaggerated terms ... NO ONE has a "talking" or even "trash talking" teddybear) is real.  There are a lot of people who "don't want to grow-up..."

So if one puts aside the "trash talk" (and more ... but all still, basically "atmospherics" ...) the film is actually pretty serious, even as it is funny.  And may actually "speak the language" of folks who need to hear it ;-).


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Seeking a Friend for the End of the World [2012]

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

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1307068/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv070.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120620/REVIEWS/120629993

In truth, I had not expected to like Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (written and directed by Lorene Scafaria) as much as I did.  Indeed, I only saw it on the Monday after the weekend of its release.  However, already our brother in our community had told me that he had seen it over the weekend and that he had liked it.  So I came to the film at least open to be surprised.  And I was ;-)

The film is fundamentally about a middle-aged insurance saleman named "Dodge" (played by Steve Carrell).  As the movie opens, Dodge and his wife are sitting in their car on a lazy summer's evening somewhere in New York City across from a park.  They are listening to the announcer on the radio give the grim news that "Space shuttle Deliverance, sent aloft on a mission to deflect the 30-mile in diameter asteroid that was heading for earth, was destroyed by a debris field as it approached the asteroid, and with it ended humanity's last hope of saving itself from annihilation which is expected to impact the earth in three weeks."  Having finished giving the grim news, the announcer tries to cheer-up his listeners saying: "But don't worry, we'll be playing all your favorite classic rock hits here on ... until the astroid does."  Upon hearing the devastating news, Dodge's wife opens car door on her side and runs off into the darkness of the park, never to be seen (by either Dodge or the audience) again.  And so it goes ...

The next portion of the film chronicles the various more or less expected reactions of civilization/humanity to the catastrophic news.  A lot of people stop going to work, many basic services therefore collapse.  For many, basic morality collapses as well.  There's a lot of looting, a lot of promiscuity.  An aquantaince of Dodge tells him, "Ever since the news, I've been sleeping with a different woman every night, sometimes with several woman at the same time.  This 'end of the world sex' with no consequences, no fear of commitment or disease is the best thing that's ever happened to me."  Indeed, a mutual friend of Dodge and his wife tries to seduce Dodge as well: "What does it matter now?"  And indeed, that becomes the central question of the film: If you knew that the world was going to end, how would you act?  What would become your priorities?

Indeed, the film proceeds rather predictably until a pivotal scene 2/3 into the movie occurs:  Dodge and the other principal character in the movie, his neighbor named  "Penny" (played by Keira Knightly) encounter a large group of people silently assembling by a beach to be presumably baptized by a priest-like man dressed in an alb and a stole.  No words were said in the entire scene, but not the message was, IMHO, unmistakable.

From that point onward, the tone of the movie changes and indeed "Dodge" changes.  Previous to that scene, "Dodge" had first felt sorry for himself because his wife had left him, all the other women in his life had left him, indeed his father had arguably left him and his mother when he was young.  Indeed, up until this point, he decided to spend his remaining days on earth in an end of life "quest" to see if he could meet-up with a former high school girl friend of his, who (after his wife having left him) he now remembered as having been "the love of [his] life."

After the baptismal scene, however, his focus changes.  Instead of continuing his search for the long-lost girlfriend, he decides to search out his long estranged father, Frank (played by Martin Sheen).  Finding him, (and it proved _not_ particularly hard to find him, arguably he knew _exactly_ where he was all the time) both he and his father are revealed to have legitimate complaints: "Why did you leave us?"  "Why didn't you ever, even when you turned an adult, search me out?"  Both realize that they both had reasons to ask the other for forgiveness.  AND EVEN WITH THE CLOCK "TICKING" THEY FOUND THAT THERE WAS "STILL TIME" TO DO SO.  Indeed, _after the reconciliation_ in a scene that puts tears in my eyes now as I recall it, at _dinner_ Dodge's father (again named "Frank") lifts up a glass and in face of a world crashing to its end in less than 2 weeks time, makes a toast "To the beginning of the world."

How does the film end?  Well, I'm not going to tell you, except that I do believe that it fits the direction of the movie and completes its point.  WHAT A GREAT MOVIE and WHAT A GREAT DEFENSE of CHOOSING TO DO GOOD even in the face of no perceivable advantage in doing so.

Over the years, I've come to like Steve Carrell's movies.  He has repeatedly chosen to play "small" decent people who chose to be good rather than seek "greater-ness."  Then I've had _enormous respect_ for Martin Sheen (Though I never met him, I've come to think of him "St. Martin of Los Angeles." It has a nice ring to it ;-) since my days of living and studying in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s-early 1990s.  It's good to see even Keira Knightly of "Pirates of the Caribbean" fame "choosing well" as well.  GOOD JOB FOLKS, and good job Lorene Scafaria too!  God bless you all!


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Abdias do Nascimento [2011]

Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing -

Abdias do Nascimento [Eng Trans] (written and directed by Aida Marques) is a documentary (in Portuguese w. English subtitles) about the life of Abdias do Nascimento [PT, Eng Trans] (official website, Eng Trans) which played recently at the 10th Annual Chicago African Diaspora Film Festival held at Chicago's Facets Multimedia Theater between June 15-21, 2012.

Abdias do Nascimento who died in 2011 at the age of 97 was a unflagging and imaginative leader of the Afro-Brazilian community in Brazil.

Tired of watching even black roles being played in Brazilian theaters by white actors (in black face), in 1944 he led the creation of the Teatro Experimental do Negro (Black Experimental Theater) [PT-Orig, Eng Trans] in Rio de Janeiro.  Similarly tired of watching the works of black artists largely ignored by Brazilian society, in 1950 he led the creation of the Museu de Arte Negra (Museum of Black Art) [PT-Orig 1, 2, Eng-Trans 1, 2].  He pushed the point further (and ruffled some feathers) when in 1955 he helped organize an artistic competition sponsored by the newly formed museum around the theme of "The Black Christ."  (I'd love to find some images from that competition...).

Needless to say, that kind of activism can eventually get one into trouble.  So in 1968, with the consolidation of the military dictatorship in Brazil [PT, Eng Trans] he had to flee the country.  After Brazil returned to civilian rule Abdias was eventually able to return to his country and was elected twice to serve as a deputy (representative) in the Brazilian Federal Legislature and served even as a Senator.

All in all, I found the documentary about Abdias do Nascimento fascinating and I do think that much can be learned from his example of utilizing the arts to promote justice and human dignity.


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