House at the End of the Street [2012]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review

House at the End of the Street (directed by Mark Donderai, screenplay by David Loucka, story by Jonathan Mostow) is a rather good "horror story" of the Hitchcockian mold.

Recently divorced Sarah (played by Elizabeth Shue), a nurse, and her teenage daughter Elissa (played by Jennifer Lawrence) move to a very nice spacious rental at the "edge of the woods," indeed at the edge of a State Park, near the "end of the street" in some suburban or upstate New York town.  The geography is important.  Bad things tend to happen "at the edge of town/civilization."  Perhaps even a somewhat "political" statement is being made here because we're told that "the edge of the woods" is actually "the edge of a State Park," hence "government owned" and in some American circles today, "government," _any_ "government" is equated with chaos, evil, sinister intent, etc.  So Sarah and Elissa are moving "to the edge of all that is good in this world."

Now the house is rather large for what a nurse could normally afford.  However, this particular house is something of a bargain because of what happened at the neighboring house, the true "house at the end of the street."  A couple of years ago, the very troubled teenage daughter of the family that lived there had brutally murdered her parents and then ran off into those woods at the edge of the street and never came back.  It was assumed that she somehow drowned in a nearby (again, presumably  public) "reservoir."  In any case, her body had never been recovered.

We're told that the townspeople, especially those who lived near the house where this awful event took place were, above all, upset because it "drove down their property values."  So here, presumably stereotypical "yuppie Republicans" were upset not so much that something deeply tragic had happened nearby, but rather that it hurt their pocketbooks.  (I find analyzing the "subtext" in horror films to always be "quite fun" ;-).  In any case, the sordid tragedy that happened in that "house at the end of the street" is presumably the main reason why Sarah and her teenage daughter could afford to rent the place next door...

To their surprise and to Sarah's horror soon after moving-in, the two discover that "the house at the end of the street" is _not_ abandoned.  Instead, the son of the murdered parents lived there now.  The son, named Ryan (played by Max Theriot) himself had something of a troubled past.  We're told that he had been sent to live with his aunt a number of years prior to the daughter's (his sister's) subsequent murder of the parents.  Now an adult, he chose to quietly live there in the house following the deaths of his parents and presumed death of his sister even if the townspeople and especially its young people really hated Ryan on account of his/his family's sordid past.

Into this local drama, of course, enter the recently divorced Sarah and her daughter Elissa, who are completely from out of town and who moved there only because Sarah got a job at a nearby hospital.  Elissa in particular enters the story nursing anger/resentment over the failed relationship of her parents.  Sarah on the other hand is working through the anger over having been more or less obviously betrayed and/or mistreated (in any number of ways) by her former husband.

These two, perhaps inevitable, stews of resentments come to clash over their perceptions of their new neighbor, Ryan.  Elissa sees a victim, who was arguably mistreated by his parents in some unspecified way even before their murder, and now is being horribly mistreated by the townspeople including many of her classmates in her new school.  Sarah who had been "burned" (mistreated/betrayed/both?) by her former husband sees Ryan as simply an unexpected and certainly unwanted danger to her and especially to her still "young/naive" daughter.

Who turns out to be right?  Well see the movie ;-)

I found the movie to be surprisingly good, and (as is often the case) even better after sitting down to write about it.  It certainly won't win any Oscars, and I didn't (and wouldn't necessarily want to) pay full price for it.  But I would imagine that it would make for a pretty good older teen / young adult date movie, or something to definitely bring home and watch at home when it becomes a rental.

I don't think that the film is suited for the very young (you pretty much would have to be at least a teenager to understand its dynamics) but I do think that the PG-13 rating is appropriate.


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Looper [2012]

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

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1276104/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/12mv116.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120926/REVIEWS/120929993

Looper (written and directed by Rian Johnson) is a characteristically dark but rather compelling science fiction movie that uses the concept of time travel to invite viewers to reflect on the consequences of actions (and of our actions).  As a Catholic reviewer, I do have warn readers here that the resolution of the story is legitimately unsettling and a fair question could be asked: "shouldn't there have been another way?"   To say more than this would result in giving too much away, but Catholic readers who do see the movie (especially of my age and older) would immediately understand why the film's resolution would pose some problems.

But let's to the story ... Sometime around 2044 time-travel was invented.  However, it was immediately declared illegal presumably because of its sinister possibilities.  But as is often the case, outlawing something only puts that something into the hands of outlaws.  So, the mafia of the future (circa 2074) finds a way to use this technology to dispose of people to get rid of.

The mafia does so by sending the people it wants eliminated thirty years into the past to a specific location at a specific time, where a hit man (called a "Looper") is waiting for the victim and quickly dispatches him.  Indeed so efficient is the process that the well prepared Looper comes to the site with a a time piece, a gun and a fairly large sheet of canvas laid out at exactly the location (in a cornfield) where the victim would materialize.  After shooting and killing the victim, the Looper would simply wrap the victim up in the canvas sheet throw the wrapped-up body into his truck and take them to an incinerator for complete disposal. 

Occasionally, the mafia would send the Looper back 30 years in time to be eliminated by his younger self.  This was called "closing the loop."  The young Loopers would then realize that they have exactly 30 years to live.  What happens if the younger self does not kill the older self?  Well that's what the movie is about.

Joe (played by Joseph Gordon-Lewitt) is a Looper living in 2044.  How does he feel about his job?  We don't really know.  In a voice-over near the beginning of the film we hear from Joe that "Loopers don't generally think things through."  On the other hand, Joe does seem to have plans.  After going out to his appointed cornfield at the appointed time, immediately shooting the victim who materializes before him, wrapping him up in the tarp which he had meticulously placed over the exact site where the victim materializes, and throwing the body wrapped in the tarp into the back of his pickup truck, he goes to a diner, where he orders a meal and practices his French.  Apparently shooting people materializing in his present from the future is not all that he aspires for...

After getting a sense of Joe's routine, we the viewers are informed that apparently a new mafia boss in the future, known simply as "The Rain Maker," is apparently on a vendetta against the Loopers.  So suddenly a lot of them are finding their older selves being sent back to Joe's present to be expired.  Now some of the Loopers don't seem to care (because they feel assured of 30 years of more life).   A friend of Joe's, also a Looper, named Seth (played by Paul Dano) gets freaked out by the implication of killing his own older self and finds he can't do it.  However, the mafia won't tolerate "loose ends" and so Seth and his older self (played by Frank Brennan) end really, really badly that only reconciliation of time travel paradoxes could adequately portray (Yes, Parents take note ... Seth's and his older self's ends are quite gruesome...).

Still shaken by the death of his friend, Joe finds his own self materialize at the appointed place and time before him, and is unable to shoot him either.  It's not so much that he wasn't willing to do so it, but that the Older Joe (played by Bruce Willis) materializes ready to quickly defend himself.  (Remember that Joe "thought things through" a bit more than the other Loopers....)   And the Old Joe came back to 2044 with a mission.  He was going to find and kill that mafia "Rain Maker" as a boy so that he doesn't grow-up to harm either him or Joe's wife in the future, named Summer Qing (played by Qing Xu).

Old Joe comes back knowing that "The Rainmaker" was born in a specific hospital on a certain day.  It had been 10 years since the birth of the child in question and three boys had been born in that hospital on that day.  However with help of his wife Joe had done his research.  He came back to 2044 knowing where each of those three 10 year old boys were living.  And he came back to kill them all believing that this would change both his destiny and that of his wife.  But to save himself and his wife, the Older Joe would have to kill three little boys.  And of course those three boys have mothers who love them.

This then is the paradox that the younger Joe faces, does he help his older self save himself and his wife (who the younger Joe had not yet even met) or does he help a single mother named Sara (played by Emily Blunt) protect her son?   

He finds a solution.  Again, I did find it problematic and I suspect that many people would find it problematic as well.  Still it does make you think.  What would you do? 

Parents, this film is an appropriately R-rated movie for its violence and occasional nudity / hooker sexuality.  One can also wonder why the future is so often portrayed in such adark way where the men are generally assassins and the women generally hookers.  In any case, though the film does "make you think" it's definitely not "for the little ones."


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Hotel Transylvania [2012]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB listing

Hotel Transylvania (directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, screenplay by Peter Bayhman and Robert Smigel, story by Todd Durham and Dan and Kevin Hageman) is an animated parable about exclusion, reconciliation and ... finding a way to positively/happily move on.

Dracula (voiced by Adam Sandler) a vampire, having lost his wife to a mob of angry villagers terrified of him, retreats to the woods with his and his wife's infant daughter Mavis into the words where he uses his fortune (he is a count after all) to build a retreat called "Hotel Transylvania" intended _exlusively_ for "monsters" who could go there and "to be themselves."  The hotel becomes  very popular place for the "excluded" -- Frankenstein (voiced by Kevin James) and his wife Eunice (voiced by Fran Deschner), Wayne and Wanda Werewolf (voiced by Steven Buscemi and Molly Shannon) and their brood werewolf cubs (they are "animals" after all ...), Griffin the Invisible Man (voiced by David Spade) and assorted zombies (often working as "staff" ... :-).  But it _also_ becomes a very isolated and lonely place for Mavis (voiced by Selena Gomez) as she approaches her "teenage" 118th birthday ;-).

What to do?  Dracula tries to protect his daughter as best he can from the evil threat of bigoted humans who he believes hate them.  But one day, a bumbling "Euro-traveling" human named Jonathan (voiced by Andy Samberg) finds the hotel and finds it kinda cool!  Wasn't he scared of the zombies protecting the perimeter?  Of course not, he found them quaint.  And worse, at 19-20 he's the same age in "human years" as Mavis.  Much ensues ... ;-).

Parents, this is a lovely story for pretty much everyone except possibly the smallest of children.  The monsters are scared of the humans and think that they are evil.  But it's been 100-200 years since the Gothic novels about Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman were written.  And today's humans kinda find them cool and kinda would want them to be part of their lives.  So what to do?  What to do? 

Honestly, it makes for a lovely, lovely and _hopeful_ children's story!

Finally, parents, like many recently released animated films, this film has been released in both 3D and 2D.  IMHO the 3D continues to _not_ be necessary to appreciate the story (I saw the film happily in 2D) though I would imagine that the 3D would probably be quite good as there are scenes in this animated picture that would appear to me would probably have looked really, really cool in 3D.  HOWEVER, I still continue to believe that 3D films are being made primarily to give the studios an excuse to charge an additional $3-4/ticket.  And I wish to tell parents here that the 2D version worked just fine ;-).


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Liberal Arts [2012]

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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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.


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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...

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.


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