MPAA (NR) Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)
IMdb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1102140/
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120919/REVIEWS/120919981
Liberal Arts (written / directed by and starring Josh Radner) is a lovely film about college life though it must be said it largely takes the perspective of someone approaching middle age looking back.
At the beginning of the film, we meet Jesse Fisher (played by Josh Radnor) a mid-30 something New Yorker and former liberal arts major who's not exactly "living the dream." Yes, he does have a job, copy-writing for ad agency or public relations firm. But he's also getting divorced and that gets him an apartment, yes "still in Manhattan," but one that requires him to go to the laundramat to wash his clothes ...
Sitting in a book store, in a new shirt that he had to buy because someone had run off with his laundry, feeling kinda down, Jesse gets a phone call from Professor Peter Hoberg (played by Richard Jenkins) an old professor friend of his from the "small liberal arts college way out in Ohio" where he had gone to school. Professor Hoberg was retiring and he needed somebody to say a few nice words ("to lie" ;-) about him and the kindly old Prof thought that "no one could lie better [about him] than Jesse." So he invites Jesse to come over for his retirement party. Having nothing better to do Jesse accepts the invite as he jokingly puts it from his "second all time favorite professor." ;-)
A few weeks later, in a rental car (no one in one's right mind, unless one was super-rich would own a car in Manhattan because ... where the heck could you afford to park it?) Jesse arrives at his sweet little alma mater, and ... the experience ... energizes him. Yes, he knows he no longer belongs there ... but ... he can relate _exactly_ to the 19 year olds that passing all around him.
Yes, he meets a bright-eyed optimistic student there named Zippy (played by Elizabeth Olsen) who's a daughter of some other friends of the retiring Prof. Hoberg who are also attending the party. And yes the two initially "hit it off" and much of the film that follows is about "will he or not ..." But he also meets a couple of other students including the bookish, brooding Dean (played by John Magaro) who may have been "kinda like" but perhaps even more bookish, brooding than Jesse when he was at school, and Nat (played by Zac Efron) who's something of a "stoner" but above all happy and probably very much _unlike_ Jesse when he had been at school.
Much lovely nostalgia (and the putting of nostalgia in its proper place...) ensues. Among other things, Jesse meets his "all time favorite professor," Romantics Prof. Judith Fairfield (played by Allison Janney) ... and learns a thing or two.
I have to admit that I loved this movie, and as has been the case so often as a result of this blog, I've come to love it all the more as a result of sitting down and writing about it.
YET ... even though I think that Zippy's character was very well drawn and perhaps a lot of young women could learn something from her, I do think the film remains one that takes the perspective of "the alum" over
"the student."
Still for most of us college is a time in our lives that is 4-5 years (My time was actually much longer more like 15 between college, grad school and back to the seminary...). But then we have then decades upon decades, the rest of our lives ... to reminisce ;-).
And you know what? That can be kinda nice ;-). Good job Mr Radnor!
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Reviews of current films written by Fr. Dennis Zdenek Kriz, OSM of St. Philip Benizi Parish, Fullerton, CA
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
The Master [2012]
MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (O) Roger Ebert (2 1/2 Stars) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)
IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1560747/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv107.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120919/REVIEWS/120919984
The Master (written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson) I found to be a rather sad/depressing film. Rumored to be vaguely based on the life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, I left the theater after watching the movie thinking of the film's Hubbard-like character Lancaster Dodd (played superbly by Phillip Seymour Hoffman) as being "kinda charismatic." But I left feeling rather depressed about the times in which he was living (in the United States / U.K. in the first decade following WW II).
It has become all-but a cliche' to portray the late 1940s-early 1950s in the U.S. as being a _very repressed and rigid time_. One thinks of films like The Majestic [2001], The Hours [2002], Revolutionary Road [2008]. In such a time, I could imagine that someone like L.Ron Hubbard / Lancaster Dodd, on the one hand "coming from the elite" on the other living at its edge, coming around talking about past lives and alien races could capture an audience of otherwise stiff and troubled people -- stiff like Lancaster's wife Peggy (played masterfully by Amy Adams) and troubled like vet/alcoholic Freddy Quell (played by Joaquin Phoenix) who could have walked out of a John Steinbeck novel after having served as an extra in From Here to Eternity [1953]. In such a milieu Hubbard/Dodd would come across as a folksy/semi-intellectual "breath of fresh air," and yes would probably attract some rich patrons like "Mildred Drummond" (played by Patty McCormack) even if "he was just making it up as he went along..." as Dodd's son Val (played by Jesse Plemons) was more or less able to discern.
Yet, even if Dodd was a charlatan he did appear to give people hope/purpose in a time still traumatized by war and really only awakening to its potential. We live in a very different time than the late 1940s-50s and honestly probably a better / happier one.
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1560747/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv107.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120919/REVIEWS/120919984
The Master (written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson) I found to be a rather sad/depressing film. Rumored to be vaguely based on the life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, I left the theater after watching the movie thinking of the film's Hubbard-like character Lancaster Dodd (played superbly by Phillip Seymour Hoffman) as being "kinda charismatic." But I left feeling rather depressed about the times in which he was living (in the United States / U.K. in the first decade following WW II).
It has become all-but a cliche' to portray the late 1940s-early 1950s in the U.S. as being a _very repressed and rigid time_. One thinks of films like The Majestic [2001], The Hours [2002], Revolutionary Road [2008]. In such a time, I could imagine that someone like L.Ron Hubbard / Lancaster Dodd, on the one hand "coming from the elite" on the other living at its edge, coming around talking about past lives and alien races could capture an audience of otherwise stiff and troubled people -- stiff like Lancaster's wife Peggy (played masterfully by Amy Adams) and troubled like vet/alcoholic Freddy Quell (played by Joaquin Phoenix) who could have walked out of a John Steinbeck novel after having served as an extra in From Here to Eternity [1953]. In such a milieu Hubbard/Dodd would come across as a folksy/semi-intellectual "breath of fresh air," and yes would probably attract some rich patrons like "Mildred Drummond" (played by Patty McCormack) even if "he was just making it up as he went along..." as Dodd's son Val (played by Jesse Plemons) was more or less able to discern.
Yet, even if Dodd was a charlatan he did appear to give people hope/purpose in a time still traumatized by war and really only awakening to its potential. We live in a very different time than the late 1940s-50s and honestly probably a better / happier one.
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Dredd 3D [2012]
MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (O) Fr. Dennis (1 1/2 Stars)
IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1343727/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv110.htm
Dredd [2012] (directed by Pete Travis, screenplay by Alex Garland) is based rather violent British comic Judge Dredd created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra. Set in a post-Apocalyptic United States where a single crime-ridden urban wasteland extends from Boston to Washington D.C., the premise of both the Judge Dredd comic and current film is that desperate civil authorities, in as much as they continue to exist, have created a group called "the Judges" (Dredd being one of them) who have been given the power to arrest, sentence and even execute law-breakers on the spot.
Of course both in the comic and in the current film, the state of the post-Apocalyptic society is presented as being so depraved/chaotic as to justify such measures:
In the current film, Judge Dredd (played by Karl Urban) and a rookie named Anderson (played by Olivia Thirlby) with special psychic powers are sent to investigate a "mass killing" at a giant 200 story layer-upon-layer of graffiti covered all-concrete tenement complex named "The Peach Gardens" (How's that for a truly Hellish place with an Orwellian name?). When the two get there, they find that a grotesquely scarred ex-prostitute named Ma-Ma (played by Lena Headley) who after having taken horrible vengeance on her former pimp and having taken over the largest gang in the complex had ordered the hit as part of a vertical turf war going on in the complex (each of the major gangs in the complex controls various floors in this 200 story vertical hell hole). Needless to say, much brutal killing (heck in the film's more expensive versions, you can even watch the mayhem in all its blood splattering glory "in 3D") ensues...
PARENTS TAKE NOTE that from the description above, it should be clear that this film fully justifies its (hard) "R" rating and I would imagine that any video game based on this film would probably a similar "M" rating as well. Basically, the film is _not_ for "your 8-10 year old" ... and I honestly can't imagine any desperate reason why any under-aged teen would "need" to see this film or play the game.
That said, the film "does tell a story" and while I don't see any particular reason why even an adult would want to spend a particularly long time focused on this kind of story line (we are formed by what we choose to spend our energies on), I wouldn't want to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to ban, protest or complain about a story, comic, film or video game like this. Yes, it's pretty grotesque stuff. But after naming it for what it is (pretty grotesque...), and averting others as to what they'd be in for if they went to see it, I'd honestly just presume to go onto something more positive...
IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1343727/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv110.htm
Dredd [2012] (directed by Pete Travis, screenplay by Alex Garland) is based rather violent British comic Judge Dredd created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra. Set in a post-Apocalyptic United States where a single crime-ridden urban wasteland extends from Boston to Washington D.C., the premise of both the Judge Dredd comic and current film is that desperate civil authorities, in as much as they continue to exist, have created a group called "the Judges" (Dredd being one of them) who have been given the power to arrest, sentence and even execute law-breakers on the spot.
Of course both in the comic and in the current film, the state of the post-Apocalyptic society is presented as being so depraved/chaotic as to justify such measures:
In the current film, Judge Dredd (played by Karl Urban) and a rookie named Anderson (played by Olivia Thirlby) with special psychic powers are sent to investigate a "mass killing" at a giant 200 story layer-upon-layer of graffiti covered all-concrete tenement complex named "The Peach Gardens" (How's that for a truly Hellish place with an Orwellian name?). When the two get there, they find that a grotesquely scarred ex-prostitute named Ma-Ma (played by Lena Headley) who after having taken horrible vengeance on her former pimp and having taken over the largest gang in the complex had ordered the hit as part of a vertical turf war going on in the complex (each of the major gangs in the complex controls various floors in this 200 story vertical hell hole). Needless to say, much brutal killing (heck in the film's more expensive versions, you can even watch the mayhem in all its blood splattering glory "in 3D") ensues...
PARENTS TAKE NOTE that from the description above, it should be clear that this film fully justifies its (hard) "R" rating and I would imagine that any video game based on this film would probably a similar "M" rating as well. Basically, the film is _not_ for "your 8-10 year old" ... and I honestly can't imagine any desperate reason why any under-aged teen would "need" to see this film or play the game.
That said, the film "does tell a story" and while I don't see any particular reason why even an adult would want to spend a particularly long time focused on this kind of story line (we are formed by what we choose to spend our energies on), I wouldn't want to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to ban, protest or complain about a story, comic, film or video game like this. Yes, it's pretty grotesque stuff. But after naming it for what it is (pretty grotesque...), and averting others as to what they'd be in for if they went to see it, I'd honestly just presume to go onto something more positive...
Friday, September 21, 2012
End of Watch [2012]
MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (O) Roger Ebert (4 Stars) Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)
IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1855199/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv112.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120919/REVIEWS/120919985
End of Watch (written and directed by David Ayer) is an Oscar caliber "gritty police drama" filmed entirely using "non professional" video equipment (mounted squad car cams, hand helds, pin cams, security cams, etc) that give the film an often "in your face" "YOU are THERE" feel that _works_ so stunningly well that the film ought to get nominations for (honestly) let's see ... Best Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Editing (!) as well as Best Actor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Best Supporting Actor (Michael Peña).
The film is about two LAPD officers, Brian Taylor (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (played by Michael Peña), who serve as partners in one of the roughest districts of Los Angeles -- South Central. Brian is portrayed as being something of a "video nut." The other officers find this to various degrees annoying. Some complain that it's "unprofessional" / "against LAPD policy." Others, including his own partner Mike just kinda find it stupid but basically go along. (Both Brian and Mike often simply wear small black SAN-card "pin cams" which capture the video that we see).
Annoying and arguably dangerous this would probably be to the police officers in real life, THE EFFECT IS JUST INCREDIBLE FOR THE VIEWERS OF THIS FILM. We honestly get to feel like we're _right there_ in the squad-car with the officers as they "B.S." though most of their shifts. We also get to be _right there_ with the two police officers as they go about their policing duties, responding to calls, investigating complaints, and yes breaking down a few doors, throwing and receiving a few punches / and occasionally exchanging gun-fire in the course of arresting assorted bad-guys / thugs / gang-members.
But between such action they also talk. Mike is married to Gabby (played by Natalie Martinez) his one and only / high school sweetheart. Brian begins the film as single but finds and gets increasingly involved with a girl-friend, Janet (played by Anna Kendrick), who (mild spoiler alert ...) he eventually marries. SINCE I WORK IN A CATHOLIC PARISH at the SOUTH EASTERN EDGE OF CHICAGO that is loaded with city workers including nearly 100 police officers and their families, I can attest that the DIALOGUE IN THESE SCENES IS COMPLETELY REALISTIC. My hat off honestly to writer/director David Ayer and the cast for pulling it off.
Yet even though the principal protagonists in this film are so well crafted and so likable that many viewers would probably just to "hang with them" for more time than that allotted for a movie, alas this is a film. So there is a story that plays out and needs to get resolved by the film's end.
I'm actually _not_ going to tell readers anything about the story that plays itself out in the course of the film except (1) that it does play itself out quite violently by the end and (2) the scenario we watch play out is _probably_ one that's already on the radar of strategic planners within law enforcement in the United States today and one that would probably keep a few of them awake at night at times. Like the rest of the film, the story that plays out is a pretty darn realistic (and problematic/worrisome) one.
NOW A FEW WORDS OF CAUTION TO PARENTS: This is a legitimately R-rated movie, above all on account of its often graphic violence. So please don't take your preteens to this movie. I would imagine that quite a few of them would be rather shaken. Then with teens, parents use your discretion. That's why it's rated R.
But also then A SPECIAL NOTE OF CAUTION TO PARENTS IN LAW ENFORCEMENT: The police officers in this film are shown as having families. And yes, SOME OF THE POLICE OFFICERS DON'T MAKE IT (are shown being killed) in this film. I would imagine that this could be quite traumatic for a pre-teen (or even a more sensitive teen) with a parent in law enforcement to watch. My sense is that that most parents who work in law enforcement would immediately know what I'm talking about here. I'm saying here that this movie could be a rough one for kids with one or more parents working in law enforcement.
That said, this is honestly a GREAT police drama and I fully expect that this will be recognized come "award season" (at least in the nominations phase) in January.
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1855199/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv112.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120919/REVIEWS/120919985
End of Watch (written and directed by David Ayer) is an Oscar caliber "gritty police drama" filmed entirely using "non professional" video equipment (mounted squad car cams, hand helds, pin cams, security cams, etc) that give the film an often "in your face" "YOU are THERE" feel that _works_ so stunningly well that the film ought to get nominations for (honestly) let's see ... Best Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Editing (!) as well as Best Actor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Best Supporting Actor (Michael Peña).
The film is about two LAPD officers, Brian Taylor (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (played by Michael Peña), who serve as partners in one of the roughest districts of Los Angeles -- South Central. Brian is portrayed as being something of a "video nut." The other officers find this to various degrees annoying. Some complain that it's "unprofessional" / "against LAPD policy." Others, including his own partner Mike just kinda find it stupid but basically go along. (Both Brian and Mike often simply wear small black SAN-card "pin cams" which capture the video that we see).
Annoying and arguably dangerous this would probably be to the police officers in real life, THE EFFECT IS JUST INCREDIBLE FOR THE VIEWERS OF THIS FILM. We honestly get to feel like we're _right there_ in the squad-car with the officers as they "B.S." though most of their shifts. We also get to be _right there_ with the two police officers as they go about their policing duties, responding to calls, investigating complaints, and yes breaking down a few doors, throwing and receiving a few punches / and occasionally exchanging gun-fire in the course of arresting assorted bad-guys / thugs / gang-members.
But between such action they also talk. Mike is married to Gabby (played by Natalie Martinez) his one and only / high school sweetheart. Brian begins the film as single but finds and gets increasingly involved with a girl-friend, Janet (played by Anna Kendrick), who (mild spoiler alert ...) he eventually marries. SINCE I WORK IN A CATHOLIC PARISH at the SOUTH EASTERN EDGE OF CHICAGO that is loaded with city workers including nearly 100 police officers and their families, I can attest that the DIALOGUE IN THESE SCENES IS COMPLETELY REALISTIC. My hat off honestly to writer/director David Ayer and the cast for pulling it off.
Yet even though the principal protagonists in this film are so well crafted and so likable that many viewers would probably just to "hang with them" for more time than that allotted for a movie, alas this is a film. So there is a story that plays out and needs to get resolved by the film's end.
I'm actually _not_ going to tell readers anything about the story that plays itself out in the course of the film except (1) that it does play itself out quite violently by the end and (2) the scenario we watch play out is _probably_ one that's already on the radar of strategic planners within law enforcement in the United States today and one that would probably keep a few of them awake at night at times. Like the rest of the film, the story that plays out is a pretty darn realistic (and problematic/worrisome) one.
NOW A FEW WORDS OF CAUTION TO PARENTS: This is a legitimately R-rated movie, above all on account of its often graphic violence. So please don't take your preteens to this movie. I would imagine that quite a few of them would be rather shaken. Then with teens, parents use your discretion. That's why it's rated R.
But also then A SPECIAL NOTE OF CAUTION TO PARENTS IN LAW ENFORCEMENT: The police officers in this film are shown as having families. And yes, SOME OF THE POLICE OFFICERS DON'T MAKE IT (are shown being killed) in this film. I would imagine that this could be quite traumatic for a pre-teen (or even a more sensitive teen) with a parent in law enforcement to watch. My sense is that that most parents who work in law enforcement would immediately know what I'm talking about here. I'm saying here that this movie could be a rough one for kids with one or more parents working in law enforcement.
That said, this is honestly a GREAT police drama and I fully expect that this will be recognized come "award season" (at least in the nominations phase) in January.
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
Trouble with the Curve [2012]
MPAA (PG-13) CNS/USCCB (A-III) Roger Ebert (3 Stars) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)
IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2083383/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv111.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120919/REVIEWS/120919983
Trouble with the Curve (directed by Robert Lorenz, screenplay by Randy Brown) is a lazy, softball of a movie that I'm positive that "old timers" would like, but probably would also make for a pretty good date movie (it's relaxing, probably won't cause too many fights afterwards and even offers young couples some insights into what to hang their budding relationships on).
Set in the American South East, Gus (played by Clint Eastwood) has been a talent scout of the Atlanta Braves for decades. He's become so good at his job that he could tell how a player he's scouting is doing in hitting a ball against a particular pitch based on simply the sound made when he makes contact with the ball with his bat. It's probably good that Gus has learned to do that because with age he's coming down with macular degeneration and hence, if left untreated, going blind. But since he's a typically stubborn old crow..., you get the picture ...
Fortunately there are people who love him. There's Pete Klein (played by John Goodman) the head of scouting for the Braves (his immediate boss) and his daughter Mickey (played by Amy Adams). Michey's a young, on the verge of becoming a really successful lawyer in Atlanta, who has still a fair amount of pent-up "father-daughter" issues. But despite her fair amounts of previous disappointments with her dad (in her own words) she still has "a dysfunctional concern for him that he be okay." (I am certain that a fair younger of younger women in their 20s-30s could relate...).
Perhaps things could have remained in their stable if dysfunctional pattern indefinitely if Gus' contract were not coming-up for renewal in 3 months. Like many a' old timer, Gus is not talking to anyone that his vision is failing, but Pete knows that "something is not right." As his boss, Pete also knows that there's a younger guy in the Braves' organization, who's doing scouting through using computers to crunch baseball statistics and who's gunning for Gus' job. (Yes, this film plays as sort of the "old timers' counterpoint" to last year's Moneyball [2011] which was about how the Oakland A's were able to use computers to keep track of statistics so well that they were able to field a winning team in spite of being one in one of the country's "smallest markets" and having the lowest budget in major league baseball. But "a computer can't hear the sound that the bat makes when a player is hitting a curve ball ..." And yes, I would imagine that so long as "old timers" / people in general buy more movie tickets than computers or robots, movies like Trouble with the Curve will _always_ remain more popular than movies like Moneyball [2011]... ;-)
So Pete calls-up Gus' daughter Mickey and asks for help. Gus has been asked to scout-out a young new sensation, Bo Gentry (played by Joe Massingill) out in the hinterlands of North Carolina and if he screws this up, Pete tells Mickey that he's gonna have to let Gus go. Now Mickey's trying to "make partner" at her law firm and there's _also_ someone gunning for her promotion. Still and perhaps frustratingly to a lot of younger and middle aged women out there, Mickey rolls her eyes and slams the file she has in her hand against the desk, but then gets up, asks her somewhat confounded bosses for a few days of vacation time, goes home, packs her laptop into her suitcase and flies out to North Carolina to help her dad. And ... when she gets there, dad of course, initially denies that he needs any such "help." Sigh... But she's there now and it turns out that Pete was right. Her dad does need some help, and as time goes on Gus "sees" this as well. Much of course ensues ...
Among that which ensues is that among the other scouts out there in North Carolina following this young sensation is a new young scout named Johnny (played by Justin Timberlake) who's representing the Boston Red Sox. Johnny was a washed-up pitcher who Gus had initially recruited for his Atlanta Braves, who had played for them for a couple of years before having been traded to the Red Sox. The Red Sox organization then had decided to use him in a way that he wasn't suited for (as a middle relief pitcher). As a result, his rotator cuff in his pitching arm was soon ground up and ... bye bye career. STILL, the Boston Red Sox were kind enough to give him a chance at being a scout for them (that's why he was out there in North Carolina) and he too still had plans ... hoping to score a slot as a radio announcer for the Sox, that's if he didn't screw this assignment up. (Yes, the subtext of this film appears to be about how companies / organizations treat their individual members and the conflict between treating their individual members humanely as people with hopes and dreams as opposed to simply considering their statistics / performance).
Somewhat predictably, despite initial reservations on her part, Mickey and Johnny hit it off. Yes, Mickey is better educated. On the other hand, both Mickey and perhaps the viewers start to see that _her_ story is actually quite similar to his, and that yes, in the end WE ALL DEPEND ON THE KINDNESS OF OTHERS.
It all becomes a somewhat schmaltzy movie ... but readers will know that I often like schmalz (Country Strong [2010] was one of my favorite movies of that year).
And I would submit that Trouble with the Curve is a remarkably good "schmalzy movie" that will probably satisfy _both_ "the old timers" and "young couples" seeking to put together a good "founding story" (How did you folks meet? What do you see in him/her?) to hang their relationship on.
So over all folks good job. This is not a particularly taxing movie to watch. But it works ;-)
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2083383/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv111.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120919/REVIEWS/120919983
Trouble with the Curve (directed by Robert Lorenz, screenplay by Randy Brown) is a lazy, softball of a movie that I'm positive that "old timers" would like, but probably would also make for a pretty good date movie (it's relaxing, probably won't cause too many fights afterwards and even offers young couples some insights into what to hang their budding relationships on).
Set in the American South East, Gus (played by Clint Eastwood) has been a talent scout of the Atlanta Braves for decades. He's become so good at his job that he could tell how a player he's scouting is doing in hitting a ball against a particular pitch based on simply the sound made when he makes contact with the ball with his bat. It's probably good that Gus has learned to do that because with age he's coming down with macular degeneration and hence, if left untreated, going blind. But since he's a typically stubborn old crow..., you get the picture ...
Fortunately there are people who love him. There's Pete Klein (played by John Goodman) the head of scouting for the Braves (his immediate boss) and his daughter Mickey (played by Amy Adams). Michey's a young, on the verge of becoming a really successful lawyer in Atlanta, who has still a fair amount of pent-up "father-daughter" issues. But despite her fair amounts of previous disappointments with her dad (in her own words) she still has "a dysfunctional concern for him that he be okay." (I am certain that a fair younger of younger women in their 20s-30s could relate...).
Perhaps things could have remained in their stable if dysfunctional pattern indefinitely if Gus' contract were not coming-up for renewal in 3 months. Like many a' old timer, Gus is not talking to anyone that his vision is failing, but Pete knows that "something is not right." As his boss, Pete also knows that there's a younger guy in the Braves' organization, who's doing scouting through using computers to crunch baseball statistics and who's gunning for Gus' job. (Yes, this film plays as sort of the "old timers' counterpoint" to last year's Moneyball [2011] which was about how the Oakland A's were able to use computers to keep track of statistics so well that they were able to field a winning team in spite of being one in one of the country's "smallest markets" and having the lowest budget in major league baseball. But "a computer can't hear the sound that the bat makes when a player is hitting a curve ball ..." And yes, I would imagine that so long as "old timers" / people in general buy more movie tickets than computers or robots, movies like Trouble with the Curve will _always_ remain more popular than movies like Moneyball [2011]... ;-)
So Pete calls-up Gus' daughter Mickey and asks for help. Gus has been asked to scout-out a young new sensation, Bo Gentry (played by Joe Massingill) out in the hinterlands of North Carolina and if he screws this up, Pete tells Mickey that he's gonna have to let Gus go. Now Mickey's trying to "make partner" at her law firm and there's _also_ someone gunning for her promotion. Still and perhaps frustratingly to a lot of younger and middle aged women out there, Mickey rolls her eyes and slams the file she has in her hand against the desk, but then gets up, asks her somewhat confounded bosses for a few days of vacation time, goes home, packs her laptop into her suitcase and flies out to North Carolina to help her dad. And ... when she gets there, dad of course, initially denies that he needs any such "help." Sigh... But she's there now and it turns out that Pete was right. Her dad does need some help, and as time goes on Gus "sees" this as well. Much of course ensues ...
Among that which ensues is that among the other scouts out there in North Carolina following this young sensation is a new young scout named Johnny (played by Justin Timberlake) who's representing the Boston Red Sox. Johnny was a washed-up pitcher who Gus had initially recruited for his Atlanta Braves, who had played for them for a couple of years before having been traded to the Red Sox. The Red Sox organization then had decided to use him in a way that he wasn't suited for (as a middle relief pitcher). As a result, his rotator cuff in his pitching arm was soon ground up and ... bye bye career. STILL, the Boston Red Sox were kind enough to give him a chance at being a scout for them (that's why he was out there in North Carolina) and he too still had plans ... hoping to score a slot as a radio announcer for the Sox, that's if he didn't screw this assignment up. (Yes, the subtext of this film appears to be about how companies / organizations treat their individual members and the conflict between treating their individual members humanely as people with hopes and dreams as opposed to simply considering their statistics / performance).
Somewhat predictably, despite initial reservations on her part, Mickey and Johnny hit it off. Yes, Mickey is better educated. On the other hand, both Mickey and perhaps the viewers start to see that _her_ story is actually quite similar to his, and that yes, in the end WE ALL DEPEND ON THE KINDNESS OF OTHERS.
It all becomes a somewhat schmaltzy movie ... but readers will know that I often like schmalz (Country Strong [2010] was one of my favorite movies of that year).
And I would submit that Trouble with the Curve is a remarkably good "schmalzy movie" that will probably satisfy _both_ "the old timers" and "young couples" seeking to put together a good "founding story" (How did you folks meet? What do you see in him/her?) to hang their relationship on.
So over all folks good job. This is not a particularly taxing movie to watch. But it works ;-)
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Thursday, September 20, 2012
Band of Sisters [2012]
MPAA (NR) Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)
IMDb listing
Official Site
Band of Sisters [2012] (directed by Mary Fishman) is an excellent and timely documentary that recently had its world premiere at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago. It is about the main current of Catholic religious sisters in the United States since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. In recent years, both Catholic women's religious congregations in the United States in general as well as their principal umbrella group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), have been investigated by the Vatican for both quality of life and doctrinal concerns.
The process and attendant controversies have been playing themselves out and have been thankfully well documented, from the publication of the initial decrees (Cong. to Inst. for Cons. Life, to the creation of an official website for the "Apostolic Visitation of Women Religious in the United States" (apostolicvisitation.org) to IMHO the honestly indispensable "watchdog coverage" of independent Catholic news sources like the National Catholic Reporter (honestly folks, a lot of more traditionalist folks may not like the NCR, even calling it at times "The National Catholic Inquirer" but it has served for decades by helping to keep our Church officials honest, because no one and I mean no one wants to end up on the front page of the NCR because the good folks at CNN and 60 Minutes to say nothing of SNAP read the NCR ;-), to more traditionalist papers like the National Catholic Register (sort of the more traditionalist faction's NCR), to the LCWR itself.
Alas, the final report of the "apostolic visitation by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated life has not been published (though probably for good reason as it would involve specifics of individual communities). However A Doctrinal Assessment of the LCWR was published by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith this year. Discussion over implementation of the reports' recommendations continues.
In all this, the American Catholic religious sisters have not taken the inquiries "sitting down." Instead, approaching the situation with characteristic politeness but conviction have maintained their truths. To a significant extent, this film, Band of Sisters [2012] articulating to the Church and to the world who America's Catholic religious sisters have been over these past 50 years and what the Church and the world stands to lose if they come to be crushed. And I do think it is an eye opener for Catholics and perhaps especially non-Catholics who may harbor petty and largely uninformed opinions about both the Catholic Church in general and Catholic religious sisters in particular.
"The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts. For theirs is a community composed of [people]. United in Christ, they are led by the Holy Spirit in their journey to the Kingdom of their Father and they have welcomed the news of salvation which is meant for every [one]. That is why this community realizes that it is truly linked with [humanity] and its history by the deepest of bonds." [Vatican II - Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes - #1]. With these words the Council's Bishops began the closing document of the Second Vatican Council. It was an invitation for all the world's Catholics but especially its leaders and its teachers to put themselves in solidarity with the rest of the world and ESPECIALLY with "the least among us" (Matthew 25:40).
This was a call that was perhaps most enthusiastically embraced by the Catholic world's religious sisters. Why? As one of the Sisters featured in this documentary put it: "When I was young and discerning my vocation in life, I loved Jesus and I wanted to be perfect. And in the mid-1960s for a young Catholic woman who loved Jesus and wanted to be perfect, there was only one place to go ... into the Convent."
But what did perfection mean in the years immediately after the Council. Look to the quote above, it meant OBVIOUSLY standing with the poor. The testimonies of easily over half the sisters in this documentary point to this obvious conclusion. Whether they were from the Sisters of Charity, Mercy or Providence the conclusion was the same: "Our Foundresses built schools, hospitals, shelters for the poor. Who are the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized today?" That's why Sisters Pat Murphy and JoAnn Persch get-up week in and week out every Friday often before dawn to stand often in freezing temperatures outside the Broadview Detention Center outside of Chicago, IL to pray the Rosary on behalf of the undocumented aliens detained and deported from there. That's why the Sisters of Mercy inspired by their Foundress Mother Catherine McAuley provide some 40,000 people around the country who'd otherwise be homeless quality low income housing. That's why not satisfied with simply providing "charity" but asking the larger question of "Why?" Dominican Sister Carol Colston along with both male and female Catholic religious founded the Catholic Social Justice lobby NETWORK so that the interests of the poor would not simply and forever remain buried by the interests of corporate lobbyists of Washington's K-Street. That's why Sister of Providence Kathleen Desautels founder of Chicago's 8th Day Center horrified by the 1980 rape, torture and murder of three American sisters - Dorothy Kazel, Marua Clarke and Ita Ford - and one catholic layworker - Jean Donovan at the hands of an El Salvadoran death squad also helped organized SOA Watch, which monitors and annually protests the activities of the "School of the Americas" of the U.S. Military, where American instructors provided training to Latin America military officers in "enhanced interrogation" and "counter insurgency" techniques (often torture...). Many of these same "techniques" have subsequently come to be used by U.S. personnel in facilities like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay ...
But reflection on and pursuit of "perfection" soon took another post-Vatican II turn. The fifth chapter of Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium was entitled "The Universal Call to Holiness in the Church." So it ceased to be the _specific_ role of Catholic religious, male or female, to "seek perfection" -- ALL Catholics were called to perfection (Holiness) regardless of their state of life. So "vocations" (to priestly and religious life) have declined since the Second Vatican Council and in the years immediately following the Council and many, many Catholic priests and religious left their previous religious / priestly vocation. At the same time, the question of why women could not be ordained to the ministerial priesthood (or for that matter to the Episcopate, where to anyone who knows how to read a hierarchical flow-chart, the Church's institutional power resides) became more or less inevitable.
The Second Vatican Council did, in fact, point to a source of authority that exists beyond the hierarchy and really even beyond the Church to which the Church, in fact, seeks to conform. "The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power." (Second Vatican Council, Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae, #1). Indeed, if we truly believe that Jesus is the "the Way, the Truth and the Life" (John 14:6) and seek to "conform ourselves to Christ" (and therefore to the Truth) then this requires even the hierarchy to seek to convince not merely through the exercise of power ("Accept this because we say so ...") but through appealing to arguments which convince by the virtue that they are, in fact, True. Let us indeed remember that the Catholic Church has long (arguably _always_) maintained that ultimately there can be no serious conflict between Faith and Reason (Catechism of the Catholic Church #159).
The argument over Authority and Truth that plays itself out with question of women's ordination where the various decrees that have come down from the hierarchy on this question over the past years have simply become _necessary_ articles of faith to Catholic faithful (because if one doesn't ascent to them, one finds oneself outside communion with the Catholic Church) and yet remain thoroughly _unconvincing_ to both the young and to those outside the Catholic Church (The young simply _don't understand_ why a woman could be an astronaut, a CEO, a teacher of theology, even a Prime Minister or President but _not_ a Catholic Priest or Bishop) actually goes beyond this question. Women today find themselves at the bottom of the human hierarchy in the Catholic Church's present conception, presently not even allowed to normally discuss the Scriptures in the context of the Mass (even if they teach Scripture at truly _all levels_ in the classroom). Why is it surprising then that many Catholic religious women would find themselves more in solidarity with the rest of Creation then perhaps the higher rungs of the human hierarchy? These sisters are arguably hierarchical neighbors to the rest of Creation after all and perhaps feel the rest of Creation's pain and marginalization in a way those "higher up" do not.
Then when one considers that America's Catholic women religious have been school teachers, nurses/doctors, directors of schools/Universities and CEOs hospitals and hence among the most educated people in this country, it should be clear that Catholic women religious can not be credibly "talked down to." There is a reason why the mainstream of Catholic religious sisters in this country have arrived at the place that they have arrived. And this film shows very well, how and why America's religious sisters have become who they are.
So in the end, given that within both the Catholic hierarchy and within the Catholic women's religious congregations are intelligent, well educated and sincere believers, I do believe that the Holy Spirit will intervene and out of this crisis something good and new will arise. But in any case, I do believe that this film articulates quite eloquently what the mainstream of America's Catholic religious sisters have been doing over the last 50 years and why it would be a tragedy if their voices were simply to disappear.
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
IMDb listing
Official Site
Band of Sisters [2012] (directed by Mary Fishman) is an excellent and timely documentary that recently had its world premiere at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago. It is about the main current of Catholic religious sisters in the United States since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. In recent years, both Catholic women's religious congregations in the United States in general as well as their principal umbrella group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), have been investigated by the Vatican for both quality of life and doctrinal concerns.
The process and attendant controversies have been playing themselves out and have been thankfully well documented, from the publication of the initial decrees (Cong. to Inst. for Cons. Life, to the creation of an official website for the "Apostolic Visitation of Women Religious in the United States" (apostolicvisitation.org) to IMHO the honestly indispensable "watchdog coverage" of independent Catholic news sources like the National Catholic Reporter (honestly folks, a lot of more traditionalist folks may not like the NCR, even calling it at times "The National Catholic Inquirer" but it has served for decades by helping to keep our Church officials honest, because no one and I mean no one wants to end up on the front page of the NCR because the good folks at CNN and 60 Minutes to say nothing of SNAP read the NCR ;-), to more traditionalist papers like the National Catholic Register (sort of the more traditionalist faction's NCR), to the LCWR itself.
Alas, the final report of the "apostolic visitation by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated life has not been published (though probably for good reason as it would involve specifics of individual communities). However A Doctrinal Assessment of the LCWR was published by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith this year. Discussion over implementation of the reports' recommendations continues.
In all this, the American Catholic religious sisters have not taken the inquiries "sitting down." Instead, approaching the situation with characteristic politeness but conviction have maintained their truths. To a significant extent, this film, Band of Sisters [2012] articulating to the Church and to the world who America's Catholic religious sisters have been over these past 50 years and what the Church and the world stands to lose if they come to be crushed. And I do think it is an eye opener for Catholics and perhaps especially non-Catholics who may harbor petty and largely uninformed opinions about both the Catholic Church in general and Catholic religious sisters in particular.
"The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts. For theirs is a community composed of [people]. United in Christ, they are led by the Holy Spirit in their journey to the Kingdom of their Father and they have welcomed the news of salvation which is meant for every [one]. That is why this community realizes that it is truly linked with [humanity] and its history by the deepest of bonds." [Vatican II - Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes - #1]. With these words the Council's Bishops began the closing document of the Second Vatican Council. It was an invitation for all the world's Catholics but especially its leaders and its teachers to put themselves in solidarity with the rest of the world and ESPECIALLY with "the least among us" (Matthew 25:40).
This was a call that was perhaps most enthusiastically embraced by the Catholic world's religious sisters. Why? As one of the Sisters featured in this documentary put it: "When I was young and discerning my vocation in life, I loved Jesus and I wanted to be perfect. And in the mid-1960s for a young Catholic woman who loved Jesus and wanted to be perfect, there was only one place to go ... into the Convent."
But what did perfection mean in the years immediately after the Council. Look to the quote above, it meant OBVIOUSLY standing with the poor. The testimonies of easily over half the sisters in this documentary point to this obvious conclusion. Whether they were from the Sisters of Charity, Mercy or Providence the conclusion was the same: "Our Foundresses built schools, hospitals, shelters for the poor. Who are the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized today?" That's why Sisters Pat Murphy and JoAnn Persch get-up week in and week out every Friday often before dawn to stand often in freezing temperatures outside the Broadview Detention Center outside of Chicago, IL to pray the Rosary on behalf of the undocumented aliens detained and deported from there. That's why the Sisters of Mercy inspired by their Foundress Mother Catherine McAuley provide some 40,000 people around the country who'd otherwise be homeless quality low income housing. That's why not satisfied with simply providing "charity" but asking the larger question of "Why?" Dominican Sister Carol Colston along with both male and female Catholic religious founded the Catholic Social Justice lobby NETWORK so that the interests of the poor would not simply and forever remain buried by the interests of corporate lobbyists of Washington's K-Street. That's why Sister of Providence Kathleen Desautels founder of Chicago's 8th Day Center horrified by the 1980 rape, torture and murder of three American sisters - Dorothy Kazel, Marua Clarke and Ita Ford - and one catholic layworker - Jean Donovan at the hands of an El Salvadoran death squad also helped organized SOA Watch, which monitors and annually protests the activities of the "School of the Americas" of the U.S. Military, where American instructors provided training to Latin America military officers in "enhanced interrogation" and "counter insurgency" techniques (often torture...). Many of these same "techniques" have subsequently come to be used by U.S. personnel in facilities like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay ...
But reflection on and pursuit of "perfection" soon took another post-Vatican II turn. The fifth chapter of Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium was entitled "The Universal Call to Holiness in the Church." So it ceased to be the _specific_ role of Catholic religious, male or female, to "seek perfection" -- ALL Catholics were called to perfection (Holiness) regardless of their state of life. So "vocations" (to priestly and religious life) have declined since the Second Vatican Council and in the years immediately following the Council and many, many Catholic priests and religious left their previous religious / priestly vocation. At the same time, the question of why women could not be ordained to the ministerial priesthood (or for that matter to the Episcopate, where to anyone who knows how to read a hierarchical flow-chart, the Church's institutional power resides) became more or less inevitable.
The Second Vatican Council did, in fact, point to a source of authority that exists beyond the hierarchy and really even beyond the Church to which the Church, in fact, seeks to conform. "The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power." (Second Vatican Council, Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae, #1). Indeed, if we truly believe that Jesus is the "the Way, the Truth and the Life" (John 14:6) and seek to "conform ourselves to Christ" (and therefore to the Truth) then this requires even the hierarchy to seek to convince not merely through the exercise of power ("Accept this because we say so ...") but through appealing to arguments which convince by the virtue that they are, in fact, True. Let us indeed remember that the Catholic Church has long (arguably _always_) maintained that ultimately there can be no serious conflict between Faith and Reason (Catechism of the Catholic Church #159).
The argument over Authority and Truth that plays itself out with question of women's ordination where the various decrees that have come down from the hierarchy on this question over the past years have simply become _necessary_ articles of faith to Catholic faithful (because if one doesn't ascent to them, one finds oneself outside communion with the Catholic Church) and yet remain thoroughly _unconvincing_ to both the young and to those outside the Catholic Church (The young simply _don't understand_ why a woman could be an astronaut, a CEO, a teacher of theology, even a Prime Minister or President but _not_ a Catholic Priest or Bishop) actually goes beyond this question. Women today find themselves at the bottom of the human hierarchy in the Catholic Church's present conception, presently not even allowed to normally discuss the Scriptures in the context of the Mass (even if they teach Scripture at truly _all levels_ in the classroom). Why is it surprising then that many Catholic religious women would find themselves more in solidarity with the rest of Creation then perhaps the higher rungs of the human hierarchy? These sisters are arguably hierarchical neighbors to the rest of Creation after all and perhaps feel the rest of Creation's pain and marginalization in a way those "higher up" do not.
Then when one considers that America's Catholic women religious have been school teachers, nurses/doctors, directors of schools/Universities and CEOs hospitals and hence among the most educated people in this country, it should be clear that Catholic women religious can not be credibly "talked down to." There is a reason why the mainstream of Catholic religious sisters in this country have arrived at the place that they have arrived. And this film shows very well, how and why America's religious sisters have become who they are.
So in the end, given that within both the Catholic hierarchy and within the Catholic women's religious congregations are intelligent, well educated and sincere believers, I do believe that the Holy Spirit will intervene and out of this crisis something good and new will arise. But in any case, I do believe that this film articulates quite eloquently what the mainstream of America's Catholic religious sisters have been doing over the last 50 years and why it would be a tragedy if their voices were simply to disappear.
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Honey (orig. Bal) [2010]
MPAA (Unrated / would be PG-13) Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)
IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1571724/
Honey (orig. Bal) [2010] (directed and cowritten by Semih Kaplanoglu along with Orçun Köksal) is an award-wining, gentle movie from Turkey (subtitled) that played recently as part of a film series entitled Landscapes: A Tour of Recent Turkish Cinema which was organized by Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center and is playing there throughout the month of September, 2012. I have been repeatedly impressed by the various programs that the Film Center, affiliated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago itself somewhat legendary in this city, has offered. Having known over the course of my life a non-inconsequential number of Turks (and honestly always impressed by their kindness), and knowing something of Turkey's emerging/reemerging role in the world as a true bridge between Europe/The West and the Middle East, I browsed through the Film Center's program and identified several films that I thought would be interesting to see (and hopefully will fit within the time constraints of my "day job" ;-). The first of these films was this one.
Honey (orig. Bal) [2010] is about a 6 year old boy named Yosuf (played by Bora Altas) and his father Yakup (played by Erdal Besikçioglu) and mother Zehra (played by Tülin Özen). Together they live at the outskirts of a small village in the mountains of Rize Province in Turkey. There, they have a small, mostly subsistence farm. Besides raising chickens and other farm animals, they have a field or grove where they raise plants for tea, and along with other men from the village Yakup is also a traditional bee-keeper.
Traditional bee-keeping in that part of Turkey involves searching out and planting hives high among the trees of the surrounding forests and then returning to harvest the honey that the hives produce. (I found the way of live described in the movie remarkably similar to that of the rubber-tapping Seringueros of Acre, Brazil where my religious Order, the Friar Servants of Mary have operated a Mission since the 1920s have been involved in organizing them and protecting their way of life in face of the rapid destruction of the Amazonian rain-forest. One of the heroes (and martyrs) of the Brazilian Seringuero movement was Chico Mendes a layperson who our Brazilian Servites knew very, very well).
Returning to the traditional bee-keeping method presented in this film ... It is clear that though gentle, eminently _sustainable_ it is also quite dangerous. One has to climb those trees to put up those hives. Then, even though the bee keepers would use smoke to distract the bees and wear much of the same gear as beekeepers in the West to protect themselves from bee stings, the harvesting of the honey necessarily happens up in those trees. So it's not the easiest way to make a living or earn some additional income. But this is something that many of the men of this region have known how to do for a very long time and so it is considered to be part of their way of life. Indeed, Yakup would take his son along on some of his honey harvesting journeys into the forest.
At the same time, the trappings of 20th-21st century civilization has certainly reached this part of Turkey as well. The family does use a wood-burning stove for cooking and heat, but it does have electricity and even a fairly large modern refrigerator. Yosuf also goes to a school in the town (where he doesn't necessarily do all that well, but he is a student).
The family is also devoutly and gently Muslim. At the beginning of the day, Jakup has his son read aloud an entry from an almanac which ends always ends with saying attributed to the Prophet Mohammed from the Hadith. There's also a scene showing Josuf watching with admiration his father, Jakup, gently getting-up early in the morning to do his (pre-dawn) morning prayers.
So theirs not necessarily an easy life living at the outskirts of a village itself in the mountains of northern Turkey, but it appears to be lovely one. (I would add that the mist-filled cinematography of this film is absolutely beautiful).
Then one morning, Yakup along with a few of the men from the village set-out to go on a several days long excursion into the woods to check-up on their hives... and the rest of the movie follows.
No nothing scandalous happens but I think that the Reader will probably put together the dots. This film follows in the tradition of a long line of gentle, yet eminently sad depictions of life of common people often with little children. Ladri di Bicicletti [1948], Nuovo Cinema Paradiso [1988], Kolja [1996], Central Station (orig. Central do Brasil) [1998] all come to mind and certainly this film, Honey (orig. Bal) [2010], deserves to be in their company. It's a lovely film (and in the United States it appears available on DVD at Netflix and Blockbuster.com). But definitely bring some kleenex.
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1571724/
Honey (orig. Bal) [2010] (directed and cowritten by Semih Kaplanoglu along with Orçun Köksal) is an award-wining, gentle movie from Turkey (subtitled) that played recently as part of a film series entitled Landscapes: A Tour of Recent Turkish Cinema which was organized by Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center and is playing there throughout the month of September, 2012. I have been repeatedly impressed by the various programs that the Film Center, affiliated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago itself somewhat legendary in this city, has offered. Having known over the course of my life a non-inconsequential number of Turks (and honestly always impressed by their kindness), and knowing something of Turkey's emerging/reemerging role in the world as a true bridge between Europe/The West and the Middle East, I browsed through the Film Center's program and identified several films that I thought would be interesting to see (and hopefully will fit within the time constraints of my "day job" ;-). The first of these films was this one.
Honey (orig. Bal) [2010] is about a 6 year old boy named Yosuf (played by Bora Altas) and his father Yakup (played by Erdal Besikçioglu) and mother Zehra (played by Tülin Özen). Together they live at the outskirts of a small village in the mountains of Rize Province in Turkey. There, they have a small, mostly subsistence farm. Besides raising chickens and other farm animals, they have a field or grove where they raise plants for tea, and along with other men from the village Yakup is also a traditional bee-keeper.
Traditional bee-keeping in that part of Turkey involves searching out and planting hives high among the trees of the surrounding forests and then returning to harvest the honey that the hives produce. (I found the way of live described in the movie remarkably similar to that of the rubber-tapping Seringueros of Acre, Brazil where my religious Order, the Friar Servants of Mary have operated a Mission since the 1920s have been involved in organizing them and protecting their way of life in face of the rapid destruction of the Amazonian rain-forest. One of the heroes (and martyrs) of the Brazilian Seringuero movement was Chico Mendes a layperson who our Brazilian Servites knew very, very well).
Returning to the traditional bee-keeping method presented in this film ... It is clear that though gentle, eminently _sustainable_ it is also quite dangerous. One has to climb those trees to put up those hives. Then, even though the bee keepers would use smoke to distract the bees and wear much of the same gear as beekeepers in the West to protect themselves from bee stings, the harvesting of the honey necessarily happens up in those trees. So it's not the easiest way to make a living or earn some additional income. But this is something that many of the men of this region have known how to do for a very long time and so it is considered to be part of their way of life. Indeed, Yakup would take his son along on some of his honey harvesting journeys into the forest.
At the same time, the trappings of 20th-21st century civilization has certainly reached this part of Turkey as well. The family does use a wood-burning stove for cooking and heat, but it does have electricity and even a fairly large modern refrigerator. Yosuf also goes to a school in the town (where he doesn't necessarily do all that well, but he is a student).
The family is also devoutly and gently Muslim. At the beginning of the day, Jakup has his son read aloud an entry from an almanac which ends always ends with saying attributed to the Prophet Mohammed from the Hadith. There's also a scene showing Josuf watching with admiration his father, Jakup, gently getting-up early in the morning to do his (pre-dawn) morning prayers.
So theirs not necessarily an easy life living at the outskirts of a village itself in the mountains of northern Turkey, but it appears to be lovely one. (I would add that the mist-filled cinematography of this film is absolutely beautiful).
Then one morning, Yakup along with a few of the men from the village set-out to go on a several days long excursion into the woods to check-up on their hives... and the rest of the movie follows.
No nothing scandalous happens but I think that the Reader will probably put together the dots. This film follows in the tradition of a long line of gentle, yet eminently sad depictions of life of common people often with little children. Ladri di Bicicletti [1948], Nuovo Cinema Paradiso [1988], Kolja [1996], Central Station (orig. Central do Brasil) [1998] all come to mind and certainly this film, Honey (orig. Bal) [2010], deserves to be in their company. It's a lovely film (and in the United States it appears available on DVD at Netflix and Blockbuster.com). But definitely bring some kleenex.
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