My Neighbors the Yamadas (orig. Hôhokekyo tonari no Yamada-kun) [1999]

MPAA (PG)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing

My Neighbors the Yamadas (orig. Hôhokekyo tonari no Yamada-kun) [1999] written and directed by Isao Takahata [IMDb] co-founder of the internationally acclaimed Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli [IMDb] being celebrated in a truly remarkable animated film series entitled Castles in the Sky playing at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago this summer (June-Aug 2012), is an award winning anime film based on the Japanese manga-style comic by Japanese cartoonist Hisaichi Ishii [IMDb]. Adapted wonderfully into English by Leo Chu and Eric Garcia for Disney, THIS FILM IS A GEM.

The film is available for purchase through Amazon.com and for rent through Blockbuster's DVD-mail service (Note Blockbuster.com offers a $4.99/DVD 1 week a la carte rent-by-mail service without a need for a subscription).

The film is about the Yamadas, a "typical Japanese family" living in contemporary Japan.  Living together in their suburban/residential house with a small yard are husband Takashi (voiced in the English version by JIM BELUSHI) and wife Matsuko (voiced in the English version by Molly Shannon), Matsuko's mother Shije (voiced in the EV by Tress MacNeille) nearly teenage son Noboru (voiced in the EV by Daryl Sabara) and younger sister Nonoko (voiced in the EV by Liliana Mumy).  They also have a dog who lives in a small dog house in the back yard.

The film begins with approaching teenagehood Noboru wishing out loud that he had different parents.  Mom Matsuko tries to explain to him that if he had different parents, he'd be a different person.  But as is typical of that age (and really of that rhetorical question) it's to "no avail."  Noboru begins the film wishing he had different parents.

So the film then continues as a gigantic flashback to the "very beginning" -- Takashi and Matsuko's wedding -- and continues then through a series of lovely, lovely vignettes to the present day.  (Without it being MUCH of a SPOILER ... I think the Reader here could guess how it all ends up...).

The "wedding reception scene" itself is worth noting however.  This is because it begins with a toast.  A woman (Matsuko's mother?) rises to talk to the newlywed Yamada's future.  And as she begins by saying "As you begin your life's journey together ..." the scene changes from the reception to Takashi and Matsuko dressed as a determined bobsled team in "helmets and all" sprinting together with their sled down a bobsled run (which turns out to be the wedding cake).  A "sports commentator" is heard saying "looks like they're off to a great start! ;-)" as they jump in together into the sled and zoom down the first two layers of the cake ... WHAT A LOVELY IMAGE ;-).  The imagery then changes repeatedly as the woman giving the toast continues ... So 3 minutes into this film with jaw dropped and tear drops forming in my eyes, I was hooked for the rest of the film.

What follows are situations that Americans could immediately relate to -- losing little Nonoko in the store, walking the dog, etc -- all done with a slight Japanese twist.  Note the imagery used in this film to describe the births Noboru and Nonoko ;-).  Storks and cabbage patches are present but also a couple of clearly Japanese images as well ;-).

All in all, in contrast to the other two films of this series that I have seen, Castle in the Sky [1986] and Kiki's Delivery Service [1989], I found this film to be one that would be immediately relateable without any conceivable caution or qualification by virtually all contemporary western families.  Yes, Takashi was some sort of a "manager" (in American-speak a "white collar worker").  So the film portrays a white-collar/suburban experience rather than either a rural or blue-collar/industrial one.  Still the experience presented felt "more real" than that presented by American family-based sitcoms like The Brady Bunch (1969-74) [IMDb], Family Ties (1982-89) [IMDb], The Cosby Show (1984-92) [IMDb] or even According to Jim (2001-2009) [IMDb] (in which Jim Belushi himself had played), all of which traversed much the same ground over the years.  (IMHO by far the best family-oriented American sitcom was the more blue-collarish Everybody Loves Raymond (1995-2005) [IMDb]).  The Yamadas were definitely "white collar."  However, with grandma/the mother-in-law at home, the feel of the humor felt like a cross of According to Jim [IMDb] and Loves Raymond [IMDb] with, of course, various aspects of contemporary life peculiar to Japan thrown in.

So while I understand that since this movie is not exactly easily available to most American families (one really would have to go onto Amazon or Blockbuster.com to buy or rent the film) and I would imagine that it would be similarly challenging to find in Europe or Latin America, I would say that if you did find the film ... most families would probably enjoy it.  And the experience could help us to appreciate that (so long as we live near a mjor urban center these days...) our experiences aren't altogether that different from each other. We're all human beings with families which, for better or worse, Love us ;-).


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Elena (orig. Елена) [2011]

MPAA (Unrated)  Roger Ebert (3 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1925421/
Roger Ebert's Review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120711/REVIEWS/120719993
KinoNews.ru - [Russ. Orig] [Eng Trans]

Elena (orig. Елена) [KinoNews.ru][Eng Trans] directed and co-written by Andrey Zvyagintsev [KinoNews.ru][Eng Trans] along with Oleg Negin [KinoNews.ru][Eng Trans] is a 2011 Russian film that has received acclaim both inside and outside Russia, winning 4 Nikas (the Russian Equivalent of the Oscars) and 4 Golden Eagles (the Russian equivalent of the Golden Globes) as well as awards at that 2011 Cannes Film Festival and the Asia Pacific Screen Awards and one nomination at the 2011 European Film Awards.

The film is about Elena (played by Nadezhda Markina [KinoNews.ru][Eng Trans]) a retired nurse who had a few years previous married Vladimir (played by Andrey Smirnov [KinoNews.ru][Eng Trans]) a retired and very wealthy Moscow business-man.  They had met a number of years before when Vladimir had found himself in the hospital with a burst appendix.  Elena had helped nurse him to health.  Vladimir had apparently thought himself in need of a live-in nurse afterwards and decided get one by marrying Elena.  Vladimir's wealth seemed an attractive factor for Elena as well.  Pragmatism rather than love seems to have motivated both of them.

Both Elena and Vladimir have problematic adult children from previous marriages.  Elena's son Sergei (played by Alexey Rosin) lives with his family at the edge of Moscow in a dilapidated housing complex of the style built throughout the Eastern bloc during the Communist era.  To underscore the point, the housing complex appears to be next to a number of huge, rusting, yet still operating cooling towers normally associated with nuclear power plants ... Yet, Sergei isn't even working in that nearby power plant.  Instead, he appears to be unemployed, spending his time drinking an occasional beer, knocking-up his wife (they seem to be expecting a third child, which for Russia appears to be a lot, especially if they live in a very small flat) and playing video-games with his similarly unimpressive teenage son, Sasha, who's growing-up to be "just like dad."

Vladimir, in turn, has a burnt-out and quite angry daughter, Katerina (played by Elena Lyadova [KinoNews.ru][Eng Trans]) in her late-20s/early-30s who "went the way of her mother ... a hedonist."  Apparently, Vladimir had used his money to basically purchase a different kind of wife when he was younger, who gave him this largely ingrate daughter who had lived it up when she was younger.   Marvelous...

The movie is driven by what's awaiting Sergei's son (Elena's grandson) Sasha.  He's approaching maturity (in the U.S., high school graduation age).  Yet his grades have been awful.  Elena and Sergei fear that he's going to be drafted.  Sergei tells Elena "Just look at him.  He's exactly the kind of guy their going to draft and send straight down to Ossetia after basic training." (Ossetia is the disputed territory between Russia and country of Georgia in the Caucasus).  American viewers would understand the situation because the Russian military today appears to operate under almost exactly principles (at least with regards to conscription) as the United States did during the Vietnam War era: those who could get into universities are able to get deferments, those who could not (or are forced to leave college) become eligible for the draft with the attendant shenanigans and corruption that such a situation produces.  Elena decides to ask Vladimir for "some help."  The rest of the movie ensues ...

The movie is quite dark.  None of the characters in this picture are portrayed in a particularly good light.  As such, one could understand why a fair number of Russians have complained over the post-Communist years that "Russian movies are not what they used to be."  (Soviet-era films used to be basically propaganda films ... where 'bad' things generally only happened in places outside of Russia/the Soviet bloc or were caused by Communism's opponents).  So while critically acclaimed both inside and outside of Russia, this film is characteristic of currents in contemporary Russian cinema that would have more in common with American directors like Oliver Stone and Martin Scorsese than someone like Steven Spielberg.

Don't get me wrong, I did like the movie.  I think it shows an obvious and exemplary seriousness / critical eye within the contemporary Russian artistic community.  I just hope that in coming years some "lighter" Russian films also make it to the United States rather than just "dark" ones such as this one. 

I would simply note that one of the web-sites for movies that I've come to enjoy since starting my blog is the Russian youth oriented KinoNews.ru [Eng-trans].  (Note: I do know some Russian, but I for a quick look I generally run it through google.translate.com and then if the translation doesn't make sense, I go back to better parse the original Russian).  If it's obvious that Russian young people liked The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo [Eng-Trans], Mark Fassbender as "Magneto" in X-Men: First Class [Eng-Trans], and voted Mila Kunis (of Ukrainian ancestry) as the "sexiest actress" in 2012, (for the whole list check -- KinoNews Awards 2012 / Eng-Trans) it'd be nice if over time some more popular/youth oriented films from Russia would make it to the United States as well.  Otherwise, we in the United States will remain with a largely propagandized view of Russia and Russians, that movies like Elena (orig. Елена) [KinoNews.ru][Eng Trans] (if this is all of Russia that we are able to see) inadvertently end-up supporting.  And that would be a shame.


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Ice Age: Continental Drift [2012]

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

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1667889/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv080.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120711/REVIEWS/120719995

Ice Age: Continental Drift (directed by Steve Martino and Mike Thurmeier, written by Michael Berg and Jason Fuchs) continues the highly successful Ice Age animated film franchise, and the film provides exactly what one would expect from this new installment in the series.

Most of the actors who've voiced characters in the past are back again.  So Manny the Mammoth continues to be voiced by Ray Romano; Ellie, his Mammoth wife, continues to be voiced by Queen Latifah, Diego the Saber Toothed Tiger continues to be voiced by Denis Leary, and John Leguizamo continues to voice Sid, the loveable if somewhat out of it Giant Sloth.   Peaches (voiced by Keke Palmer), Manny and Ellie's daughter Mammoth returns as well.  Finally Scrat, the acorn-obsessed saber-toothed squirrel, voiced (in as much as it is voiced) by Chris Wedge, continues to have an always funny and surprisingly important role in the story.

Additionally, a fair number of new characters are introduced.  These include:

Ethan (voiced by Aubrey Graham) a "cool" teenage Mammoth who Peaches finds adorable, along with Ethan's often "attitude driven" posse composed of  Steffie (voiced by Nicki Minaj) and Katie (voiced by Heather Morris) both also teenage Mammoths. and Louis (voiced by Josh Gad) a soft-spoken and (needless to say, diminutive) Hedgehog who had been Peaches' best childhood friend and has a deep crush on her.

Then, after the _sudden appearance_ of a fault-line (normally these things take place in glacial geologic time, but appear in this movie very, very _rapidly_) and Manny, Diego and Sid and Sid's seemingly crazy Granny (voiced by Wanda Sikes) find themselves separated from the rest of the group floating on an iceberg, they come to encounter a "rag tag band" of "pirate" mammals, led by Captian Gutt (voiced by Peter Dinklage) a gigantopithacus (a now extinct ape) and including Shira (voiced by Jennifer Lopez) a saber toothed snow cat who serves as his first mate; Flynn (voiced by Nick Frost) a not all-to-bright elephant seal, and Gupta (voiced by Kunnal Nayar) a bengali badger who because of the black and white markings on his pelt often ends up (after scampering up a pole and biting into it when he reaches the top) serving as the pirate band's flag; among others.

Finally, during their the course of their adventures, the four -- Manny, Diego, Sid and Granny -- come across an island of adorable, not-particularly-bright-looking, but then (as a group) surprisingly clever Hyraxes [IMDb] (voiced in as much as they are voiced by Alexa Kahn).

With a cast of characters like this, needless to say ... "much ensues."

I found the movie to be certainly entertaining.  As with just about all the children's movies these days, the film is available in 3D.  This time because of scheduling reasons, I found myself forced to see the film in 3D and have to say that it was quite good.  As always, however, I would tell parents there's _no absolute need_ to see it in such a way, and that I certainly do appreciate that the $4 extra per ticket to see the film in 3D could be a deal breaker for a family.  So if you can, catch the film in 2D, you won't miss all that much.  But I would say that if you find yourselves forced to see the film in 3D as I did, you could do worse than seeing this one in such a way.  Again, the 3D in this film is quite good.

So all in all, while this is certainly not a particularly profound movie, it does work.  And the film, which is after all, about the earth's land-masses splitting-up into continents (the reason given in the film for this happening is, as always, hilarious ... ;-), does have something to offer to viewers of all ages (kids, teens, parents).  So all in all, I do believe that it makes for a nice "family film."


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Castle in the Sky (orig. Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta) [1986]

MPAA (PG)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing


Castle in the Sky (orig. Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta) [1986] written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki [IMDb] is the flagship movie of a remarkable animated film series entitled Castles in the Sky playing at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago this summer (June-Aug 2012).  The series celebrates the works of the famed Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli [IMDb], which last year celebrated the 25th anniversary of the release its first feature film, which was none other than  Castle in the Sky (orig. Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta) [1986].

In the years / decades following, Studio Ghibli [IMDb] has received accolades of praise the world-over for the beauty of its animation, considered at the very-top of the Japanese anime style. Indeed, so impressed was Disney, the American children's animation giant, that it has purchased the international distribution rights to most Studio Ghibli [IMDb] films including all of its most recent ones.  (Readers of this blog could recall The Secret World of Arrietty (orig. Kari-gurashi no Arietti) [2010] one of Studio Ghibli's [IMDb] most recent films passed through theaters here in the United States last winter).

In the United States, most of the films of the series (dubbed into English by American actors, in good part thanks to Studio Ghibli [IMDb] alliance with Disney) are available for purchase through Amazon.com and for rent through Blockbuster's DVD-mail service (Note Blockbuster.com offers a $4.99/DVD 1 week rent-by-mail service without a need for a subscription).  As such, while it may be difficult for readers of this blog to find time to see these films, they can look the films up through either of these two services and watch them at home.  Certainly, animation / film lovers in general would find the films worth looking-up and renting. 

However, I would offer Parents (from the United States and perhaps Europe) the following caution:  Note where this series is being shown (at the Gene Siskel Film Center which is affiliated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a scholarly venue) and that except for films like The Secret World of Arrietty [2010] most of these films have been relatively hard to find in the United States, this despite Disney's control of the distribution rights.  I believe that this is because Studio Ghibli [IMDb] began as an animation studio with its target audience being Japanese.  Only with time has the Studio's focus become (or it has become more adept at reaching) a more global audience.  As such, I would recommend to adults/parents to see/rent one or two of the Studio Ghibli [IMDb] films before showing them to your kids. 

This is not to say that the films are flawed in some way.  Instead the issue would be that even when dubbed (and Disney makes sure that the films are dubbed well) the early films are (unsurprisingly) "Japanese."  As such the films, especially the early ones like Castle in the Sky [1986] and another, Kiki's Delivery Service (orig. Majo no takkyûbin) [1989] about which I hope to write later, were made based on cultural assumptions that Japanese film-makers took for granted that to American/Western viewers would seem a little strange (because they don't meet cultural assumptions that American/Westerners would take for granted).  Such is the nature of culture.  One often doesn't even appreciate the cultural assumptions that we take for granted until we are exposed to something outside our culture.

What am I talking about? 

For instance, it would seem that the Japanese have a far more positive (even eco-friendly) view of technology than Americans/Europeans do.  In Castle in the Sky [1986], a lost floating city of Lapita (hidden from our view by a veil of thunderstorm clouds) continues to be maintained by robots long after the lost civilization's people have largely disappeared to the benefit of the city's plants and animals who consider the robots to be their guardians/friends.

Similarly, Studio Ghibli's film makers appear to equate magic with knowledge/technology/engineering, magic being simply portrayed as "knowledge/technology/engineering of another kind."  In Castle in the Sky [1986], the floating city of Lapita is kept aloft by means of a large "etherium" crystal. And the residents of Lapita especially its elite were adept in other kinds of "magic" which seems to involve the manipulation of nature in some way to suit the purposes of the magic user (or the larger society into whose service the magic-users' skills are/were employed).  In effect, on Lapita magic-users appeared to have been simply "engineers of another sort."  Compare/contrast this view of magic to western conceptions where conceptions of magic have generally been polemicized. 

Finally, since the Studio Ghibli films often involve stories in which both magic and technology interact, the times/settings in which the stories take place could seem initially rather strange: Both Castle in the Sky [1986] and Kiki's Delivery Service [1989] appear to take pace in "Europe" (sort of).  The architecture of the buildings appear to be such that it would fit into a "sort of Europe" and the facial characteristics of the animated characters could pass for either Asian or Caucasian.  Finally, both of these movies appear to take place "at the turn of the 20th century."  So the technology, from airships to the robots, as well as the dress/uniforms of the soldiers/public officials, all seem to be from that particular era, which is both "long gone" and "not so long gone" and hence an era in which both magic and technology could conceivably exist together.  Fascinating, isn't it?  In a sense, both Castle in the Sky [1986] and Kiki's Delivery Service [1989] appear to exist in the world that appears on the banknotes of today's Euros (which famously have been drawn in ways so as to elicit the sense of "Europeness" without being particularly specific about it -- and perhaps avoiding arguments among the European Union's nations as a result).

These then would all be, IMHO, fascinating characteristics of the Studio Ghibli films like Castle in the Sky [1986] and Kiki's Delivery Service [1989].  However, I think that a lot of Catholic readers of this blog would probably appreciate why I would suggest that parents perhaps see a movie or two of the Ghibli series before bringing them home and "showing them to the kids." Again, it's not that the movies are "evil" or "flawed" some way.  Instead, they are, above all, disorienting/surprising at least initially.  And parents may not want to be initially "surprized"/"disoriented" in such a way in front of their kids.

So then what is Castle in the Sky [1986] about?  It is about a young girl Sheeta (voiced by Anna Paquin in the 2003 Disney version) who is a descendant of the lost city of Lapita.  She had been given a crystal as an heirloom by her grandmother when she was little (and she was taught by her grandmother in some of the most rudimentary "ways of her people of the past" even though Sheeta no longer would have any idea of where exactly her people would have lived).

Sheeta finds herself being pursued by both pirates and the armed forces (dressed for in uniforms that look vaguely like that of Bismark's Germany) for reasons that she initially does not understand.  It turns out that they are after that crystal of course, which both the pirates and the armed forces believe would be a key to finding this rumored city that as of yet had never really been found.

In the course of her adventures she literally "drops out of the sky" and into the life of a little boy named Pazo (voiced by James Van der Beek in the 2003 Disney version) who immediately has an inkling of where she might be from: His father had been a pilot and had taken a picture of a floating city that no one had ever seen before and no one has ever seen since.  Pazo explains to Sheeta that his father had died in disgrace, having been ridiculed for looking for spending the rest of his life looking for that floating city that no one, credible, had ever seen.

Why did Pazo believe believe that Sheeta was from there?  Well, she did "fall out of the sky?"  And yet, when she fell, she came to fall gently so that she was unhurt when she hit the ground.  How could that be?  Eventually, the two figure out that the crystal she wore around her neck had something to do with it.  Of course with both pirates and the armed forces after Sheeta (and soon Pazo) much ensues ...

I found Castle in the Sky [1986] an to be an interesting and as far as I could find, original story written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki [IMDb], one of Studio Ghibli [IMDb] founders.  I found the film (and indeed the whole film series being shown at the Gene Siskel Film Center) offering me a window into a culture, that of Japan, that I would not have seen in quite the same way before.  As such I do believe that both the film and the whole film series would definitely be worthy of the film / animated film lover's time.


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Beasts of the Southern Wild [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  Roger Ebert (4 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2125435/
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120704/REVIEWS/120709994

Beasts of the Southern Wild (directed and cowritten by Behn Zeitlin along with Lucy Alibar) is a critically acclaimed / award-winning contemporary fable about a young girl nicknamed Hushpuppy (played by Quvenzhané Wallis) and her father (played by Dwight Henry) living in the Bayou region of Louisiana. 

It's a subsistence life but not without its joys.  Snippets of  the Bayou (Cajun / poor African-American Louisiana Creole as opposed to "High" more white dominated "New Orleans" Creole) culture are shown but more to "give flavor" to the story than to document anything.  (Behn Zeitlin is apparently a "contemporary folklorist." For better and for worse, this background clearly shows in the film).

This way of life, lived after all, at or near sea-level (the specific place where Hushpuppy, her father and their friends live is called "The Bathtub" in the film) is threatened by storms/pollution and global warming.  These dangers come to be epitomized by giant mammals frozen in the ice of (presumably) Antarctica that are thawed during the course of the story and eventually come charging across the otherwise newly flooded terrain of "the Bathtub" marshlands/islands that Hushpuppy and her father had called home.

This all can start to come across as rather pretentious and the using snippets of people and their culture in a way that makes them "besides the point" in the service of "a larger cause" that is perhaps more questionable than they themselves and their immediate problems are, is problematic to me here.

Don't get me wrong.  I know something about "river people culture," having visited our Servite Mission in Acre, Brazil three times and leading a group there once.  I've also been fascinated by stories of how some fugitive African slaves in both Brazil [Port-orig, Eng-trans] and in the United States after fleeing their captors created communities in both the Amazon region of Brazil and in the Bayou regions of the United States.  There's a book called by Kenneth Porter called The Black Seminoles about the history of Bayou living African American refugees in the pre-Civil War era.  Having been to our Servite mission in Brazil, I also have an appreciation of both the life in Acre (Xapuri, Sena Madureira) and of the wholesale destruction of the rain forest there.  At my previous assignment, at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church down in Kissimmee, FL, I also learned some Haitian Creole (as about 5-10% of the parish was Haitian-American whose contribution to the parish's life greatly exceeded that).  And when I left that parish to come to where I'm currently stationed (in Chicago), I spent a number of days down in New Orleans and later in the Bayou region of Louisiana looking-up some of the African American communites where Louisiana Creole would still be spoken.  So I'm neither environmentally nor culturally insensitive nor am I approaching this film as a complete dis-or-uninterested neophyte.

Indeed, my concern is that a film like this will be "consumed" by "liberal" viewers in a way that will get them to ritually "nod up and down" about "the dangers of global warming" without seeing the film as an invitation to go down to Louisiana and actually try to encounter / interact with the culture being described in the film.  Brazil is, unfortunately very far away from the United States.  But Louisiana certainly is not.

So lets keep the mythological beasts "on ice" and focus on and appreciate the people please.


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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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