Dark Horse [2011]

MPAA (Unrated, would be PG-13 / R)  Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1690455/
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120620/REVIEWS/120629998
Village Voice review -
http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-06-06/film/dark-horse-todd-solondz/

Dark Horse (written and directed by Todd Solondz [IMDb]) is an darker "indie" take on what may be becoming a world-wide (or Western world phenomenon) of the 30+ year old "man-child" unwilling/unable to "grow-up."  Recent Hollywood films, mostly comedies, that have played with this theme include Knocked Up [2007], Step Brothers [2008] and most recently Ted [2012].  But the same phenomenon also appears in European films including two films that I've recently reviewed here: the Italian comedy Immaturi [2010] about a group of Italian 30-somethings being called back to high school to retake their graduation exit exams, and the half-funny/half-serious Czech/Slovak documentary The Matchmaking Mayor (Nezvatbov) [2011] about a mayor of a small Slovakian town trying to get the town's unmarried/still living at home 30-and even 40-somethings to finally "find someone and just get married." Solondz, independent film-maker that he is, produces a film here that while still often funny, is certainly more cutting/honest than standard Hollywood fare.

Set in "suburban New Jersey," the story's about Abe (played by Jordan Gelber) a 35-year old "older son" still living at home and with a job at his father's small but reasonably successful real estate development firm.  It's obvious that Abe hates his job.  It's equally obvious that he's not particularly good at it.  But both he and his father (played by Christopher Walken) put-up with the arrangement because ... what else, honestly, would/could Abe probably do?

Abe drives a gigantic canary-yellow "H2" Hummer that obviously had to have been bought by his parents' money rather than his own, blasting comically-optimistic and more-or-less obviously no longer age-appropriate Taylor Swift style songs on the stereo while he's behind the wheel, and ... ends up spending most of his evenings playing Backgammon with his still loving mom (played by Mia Farrow).  There's a younger brother Richard (played by Justin Bartha), who as a successful medical doctor living out in California, has lapped Abe so often in the "sibling rivalry of life" that they haven't talked to each other in years.

There are two women in the story that are presented as people who could help Abe out of his years/decades long slide: Miranda (played by Selma Blair) who is single 30-something (his age) who he meets at a wedding but is more or less obviously not particularly interested in him and carries her own baggage, and a secretary Marie (played by Donna Murphy) who seems to be closer to Abe's parents' age but appears to feel sorry for him.

Marie's character becomes interesting for another reason: While she does actually help Abe in the "real life" of the story by completing an assignment given to him by his father that Abe appears utterly unwilling/unable to do, she also tends to appear to Abe in his thoughts and dreams to give him advice.

Marie's role in Abe's psyche becomes more and more interesting as the film progresses because it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish what in the story is "real" and what is "in Abe's mind."  Marie's character swims between both worlds quite freely from very early-on in the story.  The others begin to appear more frequently in sequences that one guesses are playing-out in Abe's mind as the film progresses.

As such, the movie becomes fascinating from a psychological Object Relations Theory sort of a way, the fundamental idea behind the theory being that we don't necessarily relate to the world as it is (or as we are) but according to our projections of it and of ourselves.  In a sense, we can not help but do this since we can only know what we can see/experience.  However, it is then imperative that we interact with the outside world to keep us grounded in at least a reasonably close approximation of reality.  If we don't interact much with the outside world (and for any number of reasons such as introversion, depression or denial) we will come to fill the empty space in our minds with our projections.

Thus it would seem that Abe's life has been one of repeated failure.  Yet, to keep going he has to deny that (And yes, THIS IS BOTH UNDERSTANDABLE AND HORRIBLY SAD).  As such, he drives around in a big yellow Hummer listening to happy Taylor Swift style-music, apparently unconcerned that he's obviously driving around in a "big yellow car" that, at 35, his parents had bought him.  So he's denying his own reality.  As a result, we find him hitting on Miranda who he also doesn't see for who she is and on multiple levels: she's both "way too good for him" and "has her own baggage."  And every so often "Marie" the secretary comes into his head to _try_ to tell him the truth.

As the film progresses the boundary between "outside reality" and "what's in Abe's mind' becomes more and more blurred, leading one both to really "understand" Abe (or the film-maker's understanding of his problem) and to feel sorry for him.

How does it all turn out?  I'm not going to say but it certainly makes for an interesting discussion piece, and the whole story is certainly "more real" if darker/sadder than films like "Knocked Up" or "Ted."

Final note to parents.  The film is remarkably clean, no sex, nudity or violence.  However, the subject matter is such that I doubt that a teenager could really understand this film.  So don't bore them with it.  This is really for the young adult and above crowd to see / talk about ... 

ADDENDA --

Taken in the light above, this film would be interesting to compare with Franz Kafka's famous story "Metamorphosis" about a young man who was dutifully taking care of his parents and younger sister until one morning he "turned into a cockroach."  How can we relate to someone if we've reduced him/her in our minds to being "a cockroach?"

Similarly, it turns out that the Gospel reading for this Sunday (14th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B) was of Jesus coming to preach in his home town of Nazareth and being largely rejected by the townspeople who remembered him as he used to be: a carpenter, the son of Mary, with his "brothers and sisters" (relatives) living there [Mk 6:1-6].  How good are we in accepting that people can change becoming "more" or different than they were (or seemed) before?  Or are we simply calcified in our perceptions of reality and of the people around us?


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Savages [2012]

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

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1615065/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv077.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120704/REVIEWS/120709995
Spanish language press / reviews -
La Jornada (Cuidad de México / Mexico City) [ESP-orig, ENG-trans]
La Opinión (Los Angeles) [ESP-orig, ENG-trans]
Hoy (Chicago) [ESP-orig, ENG-trans]

Savages (directed and cowritten by Oliver Stone along with Shane Salerno and Don Winslow [IMDb] based on Don Winslow's book by the same name) is a very brutal film about the contemporary drug trade.  The film definitely deserves its R rating and while I do understand/appreciate the concept of parental discretion I'd honestly prefer that the film be rated NC-17 because I can't think of a single reason why someone under 17 would have a compelling need to see it.

That said, I would _not_ go so far as to object to the film's being made.  If we honestly believe in freedom, we have to give the artistic community the right to explore topics (and in ways) that we may find disturbing and allow the (fully adult/voting/responsible) members of our society the freedom to reflect on them.  I simply believe in the honest application of our society's age-based (MPAA) movie rating system and then in the right of critical community including that of the Church (note the CNS/USCCB's review) to warn (1) that any given movie may not be "for everyone" and especially not for the young, and (2) that there are some real moral problems with the film or presented in the film.

And that is certainly the case with the film here: The violence of this movie would immediately make the film "not for" a great many potential viewers who would be disturbed by such displays of mayhem (and certainly wouldn't want to _pay_ or otherwise waste their time being arguably assaulted by such displays).  Similarly, the drug use / sexual hedonism portrayed in the film would again offend another whole set of viewers.  And the Church certainly has a right to say the obvious: "This is _not_ the way we believe that God wants us to live.  And the Machiavelian/amoral/cynical values presented in this film are not the values by which we believe that God wants us to follow." 

Still, given that both Winslow and Stone named their book/film "Savages" would suggest that they would agree more (obviously not completely...) with the Church on this than one could initially think.  To name a book/film "Savages" would imply that the writer/film-makers are making a rather strong critical comment about the lives of the characters in their story.  And I do believe that amidst the blood, drug use and otherwise utterly amoral and unreflective hedonism, this opinion is borne out.

Further, the film (and presumably the book) mashes two trends in the contemporary drug trade, still largely illegal, that ought to give a lot of people some pause: (1) There has been a brutal drug war taking place for the past six years south of the border in Mexican that may not necessarily make the English-language press in the United States on a daily basis, but certainly is present in the Spanish-language press (Telemundo [ENG-Trans] , Univision [Eng-Trans], La Opinion (Los Angeles, CA) [ENG-Trans], Hoy-Chicago [ENG-Trans]). (2) There has been a trend in recent years to cultivate "genetically enhanced" marijuana domestically in the United States under the guise of producing it for "medical" needs.  This domestically grown "boutique" marijuana tends to have a much higher THC content (making it much more potent) and hence is considered far superior to more conventionally grown varieties trafficked into the U.S. by the drug cartels.

The book/movie present the scenario in which a Mexican drug cartel led by Elena "The Madrina" (played by Salma Hayek) and her henchmen Lado (played by Benicio del Toro) and Alex (played by Dermián Bichir) "take interest" in a highly rated "boutique marijuana" being produced by two Southern California natives Ben (played by Aaron Johnson) and Chon (played by Taylor Kitsch), the two having been friends since childhood.

Ben who had been a double major at UC Berkeley in business and botany was the technical "guru" in the operation.  Chon, an ex-Navy SEAL who had served tours of duty in both Iraq and Afghanistan, provided collection/enforcement and protection services as needed.  He also brought back from Afghanistan seeds from an already potent strain of marijuana which Ben improved upon to make their ultra-profitable product.  At the beginning of the story, the two were running their still small-scale but highly profitable operation from their cliff-side Laguna Beach villa with their girl friend "O" (for Ophelia played by Black Lively), which "they shared."

Their whole lifestyle, from living-off of a still largely illegal trade, dependent always on at least some violence (hence why Chon, the ex-Navy SEAL was part of the equation...) to living it up in a cliff-side villa in Laguna Beach outside of L.A. built so obviously to scream their material success (and making them all the more dependent making lots of money to maintain their style of living) to Ben / Chon's "sharing" of "O" in again such a loud/screaming way without any regard to any kind of morality or consequence ... all would be from the Catholic/Christian perspective absolutely appalling.  (And interestingly enough even the Mexican drug dealers, as vicious as they were, are shown to honestly find the lifestyle of the American trio to be "savage" in its own way).  But until the Mexican cartel comes knocking, the trio in its own eyes is "living the dream:"  They were young, rich, attractive, messing-around in every which way ... they seem to have Life by the throat.

But the Mexican drug cartel does come knocking... And the party soon changes.  Why would they be interested in a "boutique" operation like theirs?  Well, as Dennis (played by John Travolta) a DEA agent. who Ben and Chon payoff to keep any legal trouble away, explains "Consider the Drug Cartel to be 'WalMart' and you two 'Ben and [Chon]'s.'  They just want to expand their 'product line' and be able to sell 'Ben and [Chon]'s' in 'Aisle 3' of their store."

And actually when Alex and Lado first meet with Ben and Chon they try to make their offer as "business like" as they can ("You two continue to get 80% of the profits over the first 3 years while you train our people in your operation ...").  It's just that as far as the Cartel was concerned, their offer was meant as one that Ben and Chon "could not refuse..."  When they try, the rest of the movie un-spools from there ...

So there is actually a moral message in the story (amidst the haze of drugs, violence and general immorality) ... one that all of us probably could understand and perhaps, even have some experience with (though hopefully on a "smaller scale"): When one is playing with something that is "Outside the Reservation" (that is, Evil in some way), one generally doesn't even know how it all turn around to bite one ... and in ways that one could hardly imagine.

Those three living it up in their cliff-side Laguna Beach house with their "boutique" marijuana business didn't have a clue of what they were in for...


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Long Live the Family! (orig. Rodina je Základ Státu) [2011]

Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

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

Long Live the Family! (orig. Rodina je Základ Státu) [CSFD, ENG-trans] written and directed by Robert Sedláček [CSFD, Eng-Trans] and one that had been nominated for 8 Czech Critics' Awards, is the last of a series of films that 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).  Set in the contemporary Czech Republic, its thematics would probably immediately resonate with viewers across the post-Communist countries of the former Soviet bloc and perhaps give viewers from the countries of last year's "Arab Spring" an idea of what to look forward to.

The movie begins with Libor Pokorný (played by Igor Chmela [CSFD][Eng-trans]) a young 30-something former middle-level bank executive sitting, somewhat shell-shocked, with a bag with "some of his personal belongings" at his side in the lobby of the banking interest where he worked until that morning.  Police investigators (played by Martin Finger [CSFD][Eng-trans] and Monika Fingerová [CSFD][Eng-trans]) tying-up the loose-ends of their apparently successful raid on the offices of Libor's bank, take their time in coming-over to talk him.

When they do come over to talk, they remind him that they now have no less than 50 documents with his signature on them detailing various shady dealings of that firm and that he's looking at some very serious jail time.  He responds "Well, that's of course your interpretation."  They, of course, continue, telling him that all things considered he was still a relatively "small fish" and who they are really looking to nail are the people that he used to work for (and the ones who had just fired him / fed him to them...).  Would he be willing to work with them to get his former bosses?  Libor answers "I'll have to think about it."  They give him 24 hours and let him go home, reminding him that his former company car has been confiscated (he'll have to take the bus ...) and, of course, his company cell phone has been disconnected as well (shades of the Wall Street drama Margin Call [2011] of last year).  He doesn't particularly care about the cell phone, pulling out the company's SIM card and placing his own in the phone as soon as he gets out the door.  Still he's gonna have to explain what just happened to his family when he gets home ...

Libor arrives at home sometime later.  He and his wife Iva (played by Eva Vrbaková [CSFD][Eng-trans]) and two children Lukáš (played by Albert Mikšík) and Tina (played by Kristýna Tomicková) both of grade-school age, live in a recently spruced-up Bohemian village located somewhere at the outskirts of Prague.  Their modern looking house with a big picture window facing the nice, verdant, gently rolling countryside, still fits nicely from an aesthetic point of view with the other houses of the village. But it's clear that the 21st century has made it to this village that -- with its nicely restored medieval Church set upon a hill overlooking it -- has been around for the better part of a millenium.

How to explain what just happened to him "at work?"  Well, he takes his time.  Indeed, initially he avoids the subject completely.  Instead, he tells his wife and kids that he needs to step-out, goes to a bar, buys a bottle of Tequila and a big orange (limes apparently are rather rare in the Czech Republic, the sweeter and bigger oranges apparently make more sense) and goes up the hill, sets himself on a bench in front of that nice restored church and proceeds to drink himself silly.

But, of course, he can't stay "up there" and away from his family forever.  Eventually, he has to come down and face the music (sort of...).  And so, he eventually makes it home, but not before giving rest of the village/neighbors plenty to start gossiping about over the next few days.  Iva, a stay-at-home mom (but one who like Libor, had a college degree.  They were both initially trained as school teachers apparently), demands to know what's wrong.  He tells her at this point that lost his job.  Sigh / fine... they go to sleep.

The next day, when Libor wakes up with the inevitable hang-over, he asks Iva to pack the kids and that he wants to take the family on a short vacation.  But it's October, they have school.  No matter.  Libor explains that during the last several years, he's rarely been home.  Having lost his job now and being "somewhat disoriented" by it all, he just wants them to get out of town for short while so that he can regain his bearings and spend some time with them.  Okay, Iva and Libor pack up the kids and head for Moravia in the eastern part of the Czech Republic (where apparently Libor and Iva had originally been from ... originally they were _not_ from Prague).  It also obviously helps Libor that they "get out of town" a few hours before the police investigators come to his home to get a final word from him of whether or not he's going to cooperate with them in their investigation of his former bosses, or barring that ... to arrest him.

What follows is a chronicle of a nice, improvised "family vacation."  They visit Velehard [CZ, Eng-Trans], the first recorded "capital" in the Slavic world (the director of this film as well as the leads are all from Moravia [CZ, Eng-Trans]) and the site of the first mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius [CZ, Eng-Trans], who brought Christianity to the Slavs (the Cyrillic alphabet, which they created as a result of their Evangelization efforts to the Slavs bears St. Cyril's name).  Libor tells his 10-12 year old son that he worked on the archeological digs around the town when he was in college.  Libor and Iva also run into old college friends, Lenka and Jiří (played by Šimona Babčáková [CSFD][Eng-trans] and Jiří Vyorálek [CSFD][Eng-trans] respectively) and reminisce. 

Needless to say, none of this "time with family and old friends" can prevent the inevitable.  The police investigators are on their trail.  They have phones tapped, and not just of Libor and Iva but also of colleagues from Libor's work.  They're also watching Libor/Iva's credit cards for possible purchases.  And once they figure out that the two are somewhere near Velehrad, all the traffic and otherwise public surveillance cameras in the area, as rural as the region is, are put in their service to find them.  When the police investigators do catch them, at a moderately priced resort "closing down for the season" just across the border in Slovakia, the only question that they have is "If you were going to run, why Slovakia, why not the Seychelles or some place (far away) like that?"

And its left to the viewers to answer that question for themselves.

Again, I do think that a lot of people from Central and Eastern Europe (from countries of the former Soviet Bloc) could probably relate to this film and probably even understand Libor and Iva's behavior in those closing days before the axe finally fell.  Were they "running" at all?

As a final note, I would think that this film would work very well with other recent films from the former Soviet Bloc, including the award winning Polish film Chrzest [2010] and the English/Russian documentary My Perestroika [2011].  The transition from Communism to the post-Communist world has not been an easy one.  And yes, one of the biggest problems that all these populations have faced (and are still facing) is that of corruption and the mafia violence that attends it.


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People Like Us [2012]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
Roger Ebert's review
People Like Us (directed and cowritten by Alex Kurtzman along with Roberto Orci and Jodi Lambert and declaring at the end of its opening credits that the film's "inspired by real events") is a rather dark and perhaps appropriately unflinching look at the excesses of the "1960s and beyond Hollywood lifestyle." 

The movie begins by introducing viewers to Sam (played by Chris Pine) a fast-talking late 20-something / early 30-something commodities broker living and working in New York, hence about far away from Hollywood/Los Angeles as he could move without actually leaving the United States.  However, as far away physically as he may now find himself from where he grew-up, it soon becomes clear that internally he's struggling with a lot of demons from his childhood.  In debt up to his eye-balls, his fast talking and shady business dealing is getting him in trouble with both his boss and with the Feds.  5-10 minutes into the movie, coming home from a disastrous day at work where his boss informed him that the firm's probably going feed him to the sharks of the Federal Trade Commission after botching a needlessly risky business deal in the name of the firm, Sam is greeted by his serious live-in girl friend, Hannah (played Olivia Wilde), talking on the phone (for the first time?) to his mother Lilian (played in the film by Michelle Pfiffer).  Sam's mother was calling to inform him that his father, Jerry, who had been once a big-time Hollywood record producer, had died.  Responding to Hannah, Sam starts telling her: "Great, tell her I'm sorry, but I don't want to go (to the funeral...)."  Instead, Hannah tells Sam's mother still on the phone: "We'll fly out tommorrow ..."

So desperate to not have to go (and also he did have "other things on his mind ...") Sam tries to fake that he forgot his ID at the airport.  But it's to no avail.  Coming back to the car, Hannah "finds" his wallet in the car's glove compartment.  They missed their original flight, but (with extra expense no doubt ...) they find a flight to Los Angeles to arrive at Lilian's/Jerry's (Sam's childhood) home apparently somewhere "up there" in the Hollywood Hills overlooking L.A.  Jerry had been a successful record producer after all...

The initial greetings are icy.  It's obvious that Sam hasn't been home in years.  Lilian makes it a point of telling the two that this is the first time that she's meeting (or perhaps having even heard of) Hannah.  Still, even if it's the first time that she's meeting her, it's also more or less clear that she probably likes (or would like) Hannah more than her own son.  Wow, what the heck happened in this family?

The next day, Sam gets a message from Jerry's old friend and lawyer to meet him at some non-descript diner/restaurant somewhere in Los Angeles.  It's not fancy but it's not a dive.  It's clear that Sam remembered where it was.  There Jerry's lawyer tells Sam what's in Jerry's will:  The house will remain with Sam's mom.  Sam will get Jerry's rather extensive LP record collection "oh boy ... just the kind of gift to give a son who hates his father for being obviously over-involved in his recording work..." and then gives Sam a small brown leather pouch.  "Wonderful ... and I get his shaving kit too!"  The lawyer leaves.  Sam still sitting in the booth at the restaurant opens the small leather pouch and finds that there is $150,000 in cash in that pouch along with a one sentence note: "Sam take this money and give it to Josh, who lives at <and the address of an apartment is given>."

Now remember, that Sam is in debt to his eyeballs.  A $150,000 could make a lot of his immediate problems go away and he has no idea who this Josh is.  STILL, and here the movie begins to turn around ... Sam decides to find this Josh.  And when he does find out who Josh is, he finds that Josh IS HIS NEPHEW (played by Michael Hall D'Addorio), the SON OF A HALF-SISTER Frankie (played by Elizabeth Banks) who up until this point _he never knew existed_.

The rest of the film spools out from there.  When Sam does meet Frankie, he finds that she _also_ is terribly angry at her father for having completely abandoned them when she was eight.  Up until that time Jerry had at least visited her and her mother regularly.  Then suddenly he was gone and gone forever.  What the heck happened?

Yes, it all gets resolved by film's end.  Yes, there's a lot of pain, involving all the living characters in this story, that has to be processed before film's end. 

I suppose, to be honest, I was and remained rather confused by the title "People Like Us" through the whole movie and even afterwards.  After all, most of us aren't children of record producers.  And most of our parents didn't necessarily have two families.  HOWEVER, I would agree that a lot of our families have had secrets.  And actually, by the end of the film, Sam, who doesn't come across as a particularly sympathetic character in the initial stages of the film, does become a pretty good guy.

After all, for all the trouble that Sam himself had in his own life, Sam did _choose_ to do the right thing in that key scene where he was staring at $150,000 in cash and decide to look for the person that his father had asked him to.  And actually the father, Jerry, for all his apparent flaws, and one who certainly must have known how much his son hated him, still showed an enormous amount of confidence in his son to do the right thing when asked.

As a result, I would hope, that faced with a choice like Sam's, that _we_ would choose to be "people like Sam" or even "people like Jerry." Remarkable isn't it?  We can all learn from each other and our experiences.


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The Amazing Spider-Man [2012]

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

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0948470/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv076.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120628/REVIEWS/120629969

The Amazing Spider-Man (directed by Marc Webb, story and screenplay by James Vanderbilt along with Alvin Sargent and Steve Kloves based on Marvel comics' Spider-Man [Wiki] created by Stan Lee [IMDb] and Steve Ditko [IMDb]) starts a big screen reboot of the Spider-Man story only 10 years after the beginning of the last big-screen telling of the story.  And one could ask the fair enough question: why?

I'd chalk-up the impatience to retell the story to a number of reasons: (1) The enormous popularity of Super-hero movies, and even the enormous popularity of specifically of the previous (less than 10 years old) Spider-Man cycle, (2) advances in technology.  This new version was released in 3D.  While I saw the movie in 2D (it's cheaper) and thought that the 2D version worked just fine, I do believe that the Spider-Man story -- after all it involves Spider-Man swinging from building to building up and down and all around a CGI version of Manhattan -- lends itself to some rather awesome use of 3D.  So spending the extra $4/ticket to see it in 3D could be worth the price.  (3) Shot public attention spans.  The previous Spider-Man big-screen film series may be less than 10 years old, but it does honestly feel like it was ages ago.  It doesn't help that then 20-something actors Toby Maguire and Kirsten Dunst who starred in the earlier series of films are now both rather serious 30-something actors, making that earlier series seem even "older" than it actually is.   These factors certainly contributed to encouraging studio execs to consider investing a new big-screen retelling of the "Spider Man" story.

So do the makers of this new film succeed?  I think that they basically do, but I do believe that the success of this film is going to depend on what audiences think of the actors playing this film's two principal characters: the awkward high school teenager Peter Parker [IMdb] / Spider-Man [IMDb] (played in this film by Andrew Garfield) and his similarly teenage love interest Gwen Stacy [IMDb] (played here by Emma Stone).  It turns out that actor Andrew Garfield is actually almost 30 as well.  So playing the part of a teenager may initially seem like something of a stretch.  Yet both he and Emma Stone play-up the "awkward teenage" chemistry between them so well that they do convince and arguably _better_ than Maguire and Dunst did in the previous series.

On the other side of the coin, I do believe that Martin Sheen's playing of Peter Parker's Uncle Ben [IMDb], (Peter having lost his parents when he was young) was a bit over the top in this new telling of the story and was not nearly as good as Cliff Robertson's playing of the character 10 years ago.  Readers of my blog would know that really like Martin Sheen (a Hollywood actor who hasn't been shy of his Catholic faith).  I also think I understand why he'd want to play the Uncle Ben character.  Indeed, Robertson's playing of the Uncle Ben character in the film 10 years ago so impressed me that I've been a fan of the films based on Marvel Comics [Wiki] ever since.  For comics though they are, I've found Marvel Comics in particular often carry within them some very good moral messages.  Ten years ago, Robertson's Uncle Ben tried to teach Peter Parker that "with great power comes great responsibility."  Toby Maguire's Peter Parker took this message so to heart that he struggled with the question of whether he should pursue a relationship with Kirsten Dunst's Gwen Stacy or whether he should choose to _not get involved_ with her and devote himself instead to his "greater mission" of protecting the citizens of his city (New York) from crime.  Where in today's culture does one have any character at all struggling with the question of _choosing celibacy_  for a greater good??  I honestly found that aspect of Peter Parker's / Spider Man's story positively remarkable and think that I understand then why someone like Martin Sheen would want to play the role of the mentor figure Uncle Ben in that story.  Still, I do believe that Robertson did a better job with the role 10 years ago.

I also do believe that Sally Field does a reasonable but ultimately impressive job at playing Uncle Ben's wife, Aunt May [IMDb] (the script didn't appear to give Field much to do with her character).

IMHO, the supporting actor who shines in this film is Dennis Leary who plays Gwen's rather protective dad, Captain George Stacy [IMDb] of NYPD.

Perhaps most disappointing to me, however, in the film was it's chief villain, Dr. Curt Conners [IMDb] (played by Rhys Irans).  This may not be the result of poor acting acting on his part, however, but rather the result of some surprisingly lackluster choices made by the film-makers regarding wardrobing and CGI.

Now one would think that after spending so much money on the computer generated skyscrapers and Spider-Man swinging from building to building with his webs, that the film-makers would spend the money to make Spider-Man and then Dr. Conners (after he turns into "Lizard Man") look really, really good.  Instead, Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man costume looks like something one could buy at any "two-bit dollar store" around Halloween time in the United States (Okay, the film shows him "sewing the mask" together himself in his room at home one evening, and he's supposedly a high school boy, who presumably wouldn't know how to sew.  But it still looks terrible).  And the in his sequences as a lizard, Dr. Conners looks terrible as well.

Famed sci-fi/horror fiction writer Stephen King in his book The Danse Macabre on such writing/screenwriting mentioned that the most difficult part of making a sci-fi/horror movie work is making the monsters look realistic.  He noted the dreaded and deflating "zipper effect" on a film (if the audience spots "the zipper" running along the back of "King Kong's" costume).  There doesn't seem to be any "zipper" running along Dr. Conner's back when he is "lizard" form.  On the other hand, the CGI that's being used to make him appear like a lizard is IMHO surprisingly awful, especially when one thinks of the amount of money that's generally spent on CGI driven films.  And I just found that really disappointing and for a movie like this almost unforgivable.

Okay, so how does this story work?  How does Peter Parker turn into "Spider Man" and Dr. Curt Conners into a Lizard?  First, remember that this is a story that comes from an early 1960s era COMIC BOOK intended for young boys.  But even Comic Books and 1950s-early 1960s era Sci-Fi films have to give plausible explanations for rather extraordinary situations.  And the explanation given in this film runs closely to that originally given in the Comic, that is, Peter Parker becomes "Spider Man" on account of a "science experiment gone awry."  In this film, Parker gets bitten by a genetically altered spider which injects "spider DNA" into his body making Parker acquire characteristics of spiders.

That genetic engineering research on spiders was being conducted by, none other than Dr. Curt Conners, who had been a friend/colleague of Peter Parker's father.  Peter Parker's parents died, mysteriously, when Peter was very young (hence why it was left to Peter's uncle/aunt to raise him) and it is assumed that they died for some reason connected to Conners' / Peter Parker's dad's research.  Peter Parker was exposed to the genetically engineered spider because as a gifted if somewhat nerdy high school teenager, he (along with Gwen) interned at Conner's / Peter Parker's dad's genetic engineering firm, Oscorp, headquartered in "Oscorp Tower" in lower Manhattan.  Conners and Peter Parker's dad had been working of crossing the DNA of other species with that of human beings to give them new and beneficial characteristics.  Spiders are extremely strong and agile.  Hence, when Peter Parker is accidently bitten by the genetically altered spider in Oscorp's lab one day, he acquires those characteristics.

However, Dr. Conners is working on other projects, specifically one that would mix DNA from lizards with human DNA, allowing humans to regenerate lost limbs like lizards do.   Indeed, Dr. Conners has a particular interest in the lizard research because he had lost, again under mysterious circumstances, one of his arms.  He'd like to, one day, be able to grow it back.  But as a scientist, he tends to be cautious.  He follows the protocols -- First one designs a particular drug or treatment.  Then one runs computer simulations to test the drug's/treatment's effectiveness,  Then one conducts animal trials to makes sure that it actually works on small animals.  Eventually one conducts human trials.  Only then does one make the drug/treatment available for general (or still limited/prescription) use.

It turns out, however, that Dr. Conners has a foreign financial backer who is not nearly that patient.  In the current film, his name is Rajit Rattha (played by Irrfan Kahn) (IMHO, it's somewhat unfortunate that Dr. Conner's "unscrupulous"/"impatient" foreign backer is presented so prominently as someone who is both "foreign" and of decidedly "brown" complexion...).  Rajit steals some of Conner's lizard DNA containing swrum and heads off toward a New York "Veterans' Hospital" to threatening to conduct his own tests _now_ rather than wait for Dr. Conners to follow the proper procedures.  To speed-up the process (and hunt down the "Evil" unscrupulous foreign backer) and save those innocent veterans on whom the inscrupulous Rajit was going to experiement, Dr. Conners injects _himself_ with the lizard DNA containing serum.  Well, Dr. Conners finds that his lost limb rapidly "grows back."  HOWEVER, much more happens to him than that ... the rest of the story ensues ...

All in all, this this new Spider-Man reboot more or less works.  Again, the chemistry between Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker and Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy works very well.  And the 3D effects of watching Peter Parker/Spider Man swinging from building to building _probably_ works well as well (again, out of principle, I saw the movie in 2D rather than 3D).  But I can't bring myself to be particularly excited about the overall product.  Some of the performances in the film are good, others are not.  And even the CGI is mixed quality.  So it's not a decidedly terrible Spider-Man [IMDb], but its certainly not a great one.


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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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