7 Boxes (orig. 7 Cajas) [2012]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing

7 Boxes (orig. 7 Cajas) [2012] (screenplay and directed by Juan Carlos Maneglia and Tana Schembori, w. screenplay collaboration by Tito Chamorro) is a critically acclaimed / award winning Paraguayan film (including a nomination for Best Spanish Language Foreign Film at the 27th (2012) Goya awards, Spain's equivalent of the Oscars).  It played (subtitled in English) recently at the 29th (2013) Chicago Latino Film Festival.

The film has also proven to be the most successful movie ever to be made or even shown in Paraguay, attendance having beaten out the previously most popular movie ever to be shown in Paraguay (James Cameron's Titanic [1997]) by nearly 2 to 1, this in a country that's been previously so poor / so marginalized that's made a total of only about 20 movies in its entire history).

My only regret is that the film did was not submitted (representing Paraguay) for consideration for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 85th (2012) Oscars because while it may not have won, IMHO it would have stood a very good chance of making the top five.  (I'm not sure now if it would qualify of this year's (2013) competition.

So what's the film about?  Well it's basically a cross between Slumdog Millionaire [2008] and the Vittorio de Sica classic Bicycle Thieves (orig. Ladri di Biciclette [1948].

The story is about a day in the life of Victor (played Celso Franco) who freelances in the central market in Asunción, Paraguay, transporting goods (for paying patrons) on his wheelbarrow.  The movie begins with Victor's older sister Tamara (played by Nelly Davalos) videocapturing Victor pushing his wheelbarrow using Tamara's coworker Alejandra's (played by Liliana Alvarez) cellphone.  Tamara stops Victor and shows him the phone and the little video that she made of him pushing the wheelbarrow around.  "Isn't this cool?"  she exclaims, showing him then some other features that the phone has.  "Yes, it certainly is.  How much is it?"  "Oh, forget it.  It's my coworker's.  She needs to sell it because she needs the money for when the time comes time for her to deliver.  She's asking 800,000 Guarani (about $120) for it.  Maybe she'd go down to 400,000 Guarani but that's still way beyond our price range."  "Hmm..."

Still the image of the cellphone sticks in Victor's head.  So he goes over to a cell-phone kiosk in the market to price phones.  He knows the attendant Leti (played by Katia Garcia), but the phones she has are all basically of the same price range (300K Guaranis and up) and so out of his reach.  However while he's there, Leti gets a phone call from a friend/relation named Gus (played by Roberto Cardozo) who, among other things, tells her that the guy that he has to deliver his goods didn't show up this time.  So she asks Victor: "Hey do you want a quick delivery job?"  "Sure."  She tells him to go over to Gus' butcher shop and that he'd have a job for him to do.

When Victor comes to Gus' shop, Gus tells him the deal.  He wants him to transport seven boxes from his shop to another at the other end of the market and if he'd do that, he'd receive 600,000 Guarani as payment.  Wow!  (That'd be more than enough for that cellphone).  But Victor is incredulous.  How's he gonna be sure that Gus would really pay him that kind of money.  Gus shows him a $100 bill (which he tells him is worth about 600,000 Guarani).  Then he tears it in two and gives Victor one half.  Gus then tells Victor that when he gets word that Victor's delivered the goods, he could come back for the other half of the $100.  Great!

Victor has Gus' attendants load-up his wheelbarrow with the seven boxes and heads off toward the other end of the vast central market with visions of a nice video capturing cell-phone in his head.  Along the way, Victor meets up with a friend about Victor's age named Liz (played by Lali Gonzalez) telling her of his good fortune. Together they continue then on their mission.

Well about 5 minutes after Victor leaves Gus' butcher shop, the original delivery guy, Luis (played by Nico Garcia) shows-up running with his wheelbarrow.  He's apologetic.  He had been delayed at the pharmacy (and viewers will have seen this).  Luis has an 18 month old son with diabetes.  He had been at the pharmacy to get insulin for the child but didn't have the money.  He had tried to explain to the attendant at the pharmacy that while he didn't have the money today (about 300,000 Guarani) he'd certainly have it the next day (after the delivery of Gus' shipment).  Luis even tried to leave his own cellphone with the Pharmacy attendant as collateral.  But the attendant was adamant.  The owner of the pharmacy had a simple rule: No credit for anybody.  People had to pay upfront for their medications, no exceptions.  "But this is a matter of life and death of child." "It's ALWAYS a matter of 'life and death' ..."  So now Luis was late.  But boy did he need to deliver those boxes (or else his 18 month old WOULD DIE ...).  Gus shakes his head "Sorry, you weren't here.  I gave the job to another guy ..."  So Luis leaves Gus' butcher shop desperate to find "the other guy" with Gus' boxes ...

On the way to deliver those boxes, Victor runs into his sister again.  He tells her, "Hey would you believe it, I got a job that could pay for that cellphone!"  "Don't be ridiculous! Where you gonna get that kind of money that quickly?"  "No seriously, all I have to do is deliver these boxes."  He shows Tamara the half a hundred dollar bill and tears it again in half, telling her to give the now quarter of a $100 to her coworker as a downpayment for the cell phone."

RIGHT AFTER HE DOES THIS, SOMEONE COMES OUT OF NOWHERE AND STEALS / RUNS OFF WITH ONE OF THE BOXES!  Victor tries to give chase to the guy but loses him.  When he comes back to his wheelbarrow and the other six, he and Liz spot the rather muscular 20 something Luis with his wheelbarrow bearing down on them.  "Hey I need those boxes!"  They quickly run off with the wheelbarrow and the six remaining boxes finding a place to ditch Luis in the labyrinth of this large central market.  Much then ensues ...

A question could, of course, be asked "What the heck is in these boxes that makes them so valuable to begin with."  The film does give an answer that I'm not going to reveal here except that it's not necessarily what one would expect and yet does make sense...  Nor will I reveal how the story ends except to say that the story is obviously well structured and that what we learn of pretty much all the characters during the course of the story allows one to have at least some sympathy for most of them.

Honestly, what a well structured story / parable and what a great job!  


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The Gold Brooch (orig. Broche de Oro) [2012]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing

The Gold Brooch (orig. Broche de Oro) [2012] (screenplay and directed by Raúl Marchand Sánchez) is a lovely Spanish language / English subtitled family-oriented comedy from Puerto Rico that has enjoyed impressive popular success "on the island" (playing in theaters there now for 7 months and counting since its release in Sept 2012).  The film has recently played as part of the 29th Annual Chicago Latino Film Festival.

The story is about the relationships existing in a multi-generational family in Puerto Rico with the middle class, already moderately successful father, Alberto Medina (played by Carlos Esteban Fonseca) wishing to move his family to Orlando, Florida (the Orlando area becoming very much to Puerto Rican immigrants to the mainland what Miami has become to Cuban immigrants) where he had gotten a promotion even at the cost of disrupting the life of his high school aged son Carlos (played by Luis Omar O'Farrill) who unbeknownst to Alberto has become a rather good surfer, and leaving his own aging father Rafael (played by Jacobo Morales) "solito" (alone) in a nice if somewhat regimented "old folks home" run rather amusingly by the (Catholic) "sisters." 

What to do?  Well a little miffed at the insensitivity of his dad who wanted him to stay at home and pack rather than participate in one last surfing tournament on the coast, Carlos conspires with his grandfather Rafael to take his father Alberto's car, pick-up Rafael along with two of Rafael's domino-playing buddies -- still "playboyish" Pablo Díaz (played by Diego de la Texera) and somewhat "hypochondriac" Anselmo Rodríguez (played by Adrian Garcia) -- and go to the surfing tournament anyway, stopping in the countryside along the way to visit the tierra (land) where Rafael grew up and Carlos' abuela (grandmother) was buried.

Much comedy, of course, ensues as not only Alberto but also the "Madre Superiora" (played by Marion Pabon) from the old folks home along with the "security guard" Norberto (played by Luis Raul) give chase after them.  Pablo runs into an old-flame Coco Galore (played by Sara Pastor) who it turns out was now running a beach-side watering-hole.  Anselmo, for his part, finds to his (and really everyone's surprise ;-) that he's evoked some kind of irresistible magnetism in Margarita (played by Carmen Nydia Velásquez) another widowed/alone owner of a small eating establishment near Rafael's hometown.  Finally, since this story is largely built around a "surfing tournament," Carlos finds himself in competition not only for a trophy but also for the affections of a sweet local girl named Sofia (played by Maria Coral Otero Soto) who's been the girlfriend of the previous champ Manolo (played by Willie Carrasco) but Manolo had been becoming something of an overbearing jerk...  Together, the "three old guys" (Rafael, Pablo and Enselmo) who really know next to nothing about surfing, but have lots of experience (and let's face it Pablo has probably far more than he should... ;-) with life,women and relationships become happy as "pie to help" Carlos and Sofia straighten things out in their still young lives.

It all makes for a lovely story.  Yes, it all has to come to a tear-filled (if also realistic) resolution.  And then as any good Puerto Rican family drama (or "dramedy") must do, it all ends "under a Flamboyan tree" ;-).

Good job folks, very good job!


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42 [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III) RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars with Expl)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (R. Roeper) reviewAVClub (S. Tobias) review

42 [2013] (screenplay and directed by Brian Helgeland) runs in good part like an good old-fashioned, supremely family oriented baseball movie.  (Both Jackie Robinson [IMDb] and similarly baseball/cinema legend Lou Gehrig [IMDb] would be proud).  As such, some viewers may initially find the film "kinda hokey."  But then on reflection I do believe that the film was _intended_ to be that way.

I say this because I find the film to be intended to be challenging on multiple levels:

On the most obvious level, the film reminds us of a time when blacks (seriously) could not play professional baseball in the United States SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY WERE BLACK.  Today, this seems so utterly foreign to our common experience. However, up until Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey [IMDb] (played superbly in "good ole fashion baseball movie" fashion by Harrison Ford) simply found continuation of that state of affairs to be insane (and FRANKLY AGAINST HIS METHODIST (CHRISTIAN) UPBRINGING) segregation in professional baseball was a reality.  And I know that there will continue to be some white viewers who will resent the film's bringing-up of this rather embarrassing aspect of American history.  After all, the two, Rickey/Robinson, desegregated baseball ONLY AFTER WORLD WAR II.  African American Olympic star Jesse Owens [IMDb] was considered a hero in 1936 for sticking it to the Nazis (and their Aryan race-based delusions) at the Berlin Olympics.  But it took until 3 years after the still SEGREGATED U.S. ARMY along with the Russians on one side and the British on the other CRUSHED NAZI GERMANY in 1945 that an African African baseball player was allowed to swing a bat for an American Major League Baseball team ...

But putting this obvious aspect of the film aside, the film also underlines aspects of 1940s era Baseball that OUGHT TO CHALLENGE and SHAME Professional Sports today as a whole and the individuals (athletes, coaches/managers and owners) as well.  After all, Jackie Robinson [IMDb] (played again superbly for this kind of the film by Chadwick Boseman) was portrayed AS A FAMILY MAN who married his Pasadena, CA hometown sweetheart Rachel (played again superbly for this kind of film by Nicole Beharie).  Imagine a ballplayer TODAY who's portrayed as WITHOUT QUESTION FAITHFUL TO HIS WIFE AND FAMILY.

To underscore this film's challenge to the both on and off-field moral failings of today's professional sports, a side plot in the film involved Branch Rickey having to have to let go of his manager just before the start of the tumultuous 1948 (Jackie Robinson starting) season on account of pressure on Baseball's commissioner BY THE NATIONAL CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) because the Dodger's manager was having an adulterous affair with a Hollywood starlet.  Honestly, could anybody today imagine a coach or manager of a professional sports team being pressured to resign (or as in the case here, take a year's suspension) for simply having "slept around" with a model or actress?  Today, adultery in Professional Sports is taken as "par for the course."  We've all heard media commentators shaking their heads, perhaps with some sympathy but certainly with resignation, saying of cheated-upon athletes' wives: "Well, you know, SHE MARRIED A BALL PLAYER. (What do you expect?)"  Well in the 1940s, it was still largely expected that ball players and all those associated with Professional Sports would "play by the rules" set for everyone and to be faithful to their wives and kids.  (Yes, I know that Babe Ruth [IMDb] was a legendary womanizer but (1) perhaps he was the single exception who could get away with that behavior at the time ("he was Babe Ruth...") and (2) without a doubt, in that regard, he was considered a bum by the American public.  Certainly the celebrated Yankee considered of much higher moral caliber was Lou Gehrig [IMDb]).

So then this film, which chronicles the struggles of Jackie Robinson [IMDb] and Dodgers' owner Branch Rickey [IMDb] to finally break the racial barrier in professional sports in the United States, ALSO offers a challenge to American sports and society today.   For Jackie Robinson [IMDb] was not portrayed here as merely a "great baseball player."  He was also portrayed as a good man.


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Room 237 [2012]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Chicago SunTimes (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (A-)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
AVClub (N. Murray) review
Chicago SunTimes (J. Emerson) review

Room 237 [2012] (directed by Rodney Ascher) is a truly "mind blowing" nervous-smiling ;-) documentary about folks who've spent a lot of time watching Stanley Kubrick's Jack Nicholson starring horror classic The Shining [1980] (Kubrick's film of course having been a not altogether faithful adaptation of Stephen King's novel by the same name).

The hermeneutic of the interviewees in this documentary is basically this: Stanley Kubrick was a master. Hence Kubrick made no mistakes in The Shining [1980] and truly every single item or aspect in this film was intentional.

Hence the seemingly stock "ooooh, scary" mood-setting throw-away line in Kubrick's film by the "Overlook Hotel's" manager informing Jack Nicholson's character (and viewers) that the hotel was "built on top of an Indian burial ground," was not merely a stock "oooh, scary" mood-setting throw away line but a signal that the film was actually a coded essay about America's genocide of the indigenous American Indian population that's, well LARGELY OVERLOOKED by most Americans today.  How else could one further explain the odd "Calumet Baking Powder" cans (Of all the cans in all the world, why those...?) that show-up somewhat prominently (especially if one's looking for them...) in the scenes filmed in the hotel's pantry.  Then "Calumet" happens to mean "pipe" as in "peace pipe" in Norman French (and the French were probably the most traveled among the Native Americans throughout North America in the early period of European exploration).  Yet American-Europeans came to smoke the "peace pipe" with all kinds of Native American tribes and then proceeded to slaughter them ... Hence why should one be surprised then with the visions of rivers of blood flowing out of the hotel's elevators and down its corridors in the later stages of the movie?

Another interviewee fixed his attention on the apparent prominence of the number "42" in the film.  Now 1942 was the year of the infamous Wansee Conference which set in motion the Nazi Holocaust of Europe's Jews and apparently Stanley Kubrick had long wanted to make a movie about the Nazi Holocaust but never was able figure-out how to go about it (and then Steven Spielberg beat him to the punch with Schindler's List [1993]). Thus those rivers of blood flowing out of the hotel's elevators and down its corridors were (also?) expressive of this horror, the Nazi Holocaust.

My personal favorite theory proposed (and honestly, this one's now burned in my head and I'll want that part of my memory back again soon... ;-) is that the film was Kubrick's coded admission that he was "the Hollywood director" recruited by the American government to fake the imagery broadcast to the world (and to American viewers) of the Apollo moon landings ;-).

How could one possibly concoct this kind of theory?  WELL, Stanley Kubrick made 2001: A Space Oddysey [1968] (a year before Apollo 11's landing on the moon ... ;-).  By near universal acclamation, Kubrick's cinematography of the SPACE SCENES and EVEN THE MOON SCENES was simply OUTSTANDING.  SO ... IF ONE WERE TO FAKE THE MOON LANDINGS, then Kubrick (and his 2001 team) would have been THE OBVIOUS PEOPLE TO GO TO.  Indeed, PERHAPS "2001" was commissioned to serve as "the dry run" for this massive government conspiracy...

Okay, how does this relate to Kubrick's The Shining [1980]?  Well the Hotel has this mysterious Room 237.  (In Stephen King's original novel it was Room 217 but it was oddly changed to 237 in the movie. Honestly, I now ask why? ;-).  This is the room into which Jack Nicholson's character gets Corrupted and passes into Hell.  (That's where he gets seduced first by a naked woman and then finds to his horror that the naked woman starts to decay/fall-apart in his arms).  Initially Danny, Jack Nicholson's character's kid, isn't allowed into that room.  It's strangely forbidden.  He asks an amiable African American staff member about the room, and is told "not to go there."  THEN ONE TIME when he's playing in the corridor outside the room, the door is suddenly open. DANNY GETS UP and walks toward the room. What does Danny have on?  A sweater with A REPLICA OF APOLLO 11 STITCHED ON IT.

Now the number 237.  What possibly could it mean?  Well the average distance between the earth and the moon is apparently 237,000 miles.  As Danny approaches the door, the room key is in the door.  The camera focuses on the hotel room key on which is written "Room No. 237."  "What are the only words that can be spelled out of those letters?  Room and MOON. So Room 237 is the Moon Room."

Finally, the coup de grace (or still more likely ... "slight of hand") that makes the "moon conspiracy theory" more palatable comes with the interviewee promoting this theory declaring: "I'm not saying that we didn't go to the moon in 1969 or land on the moon in 1969.  I'm just saying that the images that we saw of the moon landings were faked" (and presumably made on the set of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Oddysey [1968]).

What makes this "moon conspiracy theory" SO SEDUCTIVE to me NOW is that IF I WERE TO PICK A HOLLYWOOD DIRECTOR TO "FAKE THE MOON LANDINGS" I'd now probably pick Stanley Kubrick because I'VE BEEN REMINDED OF THE AWESOME JOB the he did with "2001" ;-) ;-)

So, in truth, even if it's all nonsense, I have to say that I just loved this movie ;-).  Not all cinema is linear.  Whether or not Kubrik's The Shining [1980] is as "coded" as the interviewees in this documentary suggest, I have no doubt that it's at least partly "coded" (That's why serious film-makers make horror movies.  There's always "something" underneath).  Then this "documentary" itself is certainly intended at least in part to be FUN.  It's intended to make viewers scratch their heads, laugh nervously and ask themselves: "No, that can't be!  Dear Mother of God that can't be." ;-)

Andy Kaufman er "Tony Clifton" (about whom another lifelong iconoclast/jokester Milos Forman [IMDb] made his film MAN ON THE MOON [1999] ;-) must be laughing ... that's if he's not dead ;-).


ADDENDUM (4/10/2013 ;-):

A quite comprehensive presentation and rebuttal of the argument that the Apollo landings were faked can be found on the wikipedia article on the subject.


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Starbuck [2011]

MPAA (R)  Chicago SunTimes (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
Chicago SunTimes (S. Boone) review
AVClub (S. Tobias) review

Starbuck [2011] (directed and cowritten by Ken Scott along with Martin Petit) is a likable, arguably très courant French-Canadian (English subtitled) comedy about a Montreal residing serial screw-up David Wozniak (played by Patrick Huard).  Likable enough, a son within a very hard-working Polish immigrant family, he never really fit in.  As such, in his mid/late 40s, still single, living in a dive of a flat, perpetually owing money all over town, the only job that his walrus-mustached Lech Walesa looking father (played by Igor Ovadis) and brothers trust him with is simply driving their family's meat-packing business' delivery truck around town.  And he seems to even screw that job up.  (At one point, his father reminds him on the phone: "Son, you have the easiest job that we could possibly give you.  All you have to do is pick-up our meat and then deliver it.  And you can't seem to get even that right.")  Sigh ... one suspects that the little "hydroponically grown marijuana business" that David's been trying to set-up in his apartment to help pay off his debts is not probably going fly either ... ;-)

Into this life of serial, indeed going on decades long disappointment/failure comes further news.  Some twenty years back trying even then to augment his income, David was selling his sperm to a local fertility clinic under the pseudonym "Starbuck."  Well, his sperm turned out to be remarkably potent (successful ;-).  A court appointed official comes to the door of his apartment, and averting his eyes from having to acknowledge the presence of all those not particularly verdant marijuana plants that David has setup about his flat... :-), hands him a court document informing him that there's a class action suit being filed against him and the fertility clinic by some 130 of the over 500 offspring of his sperm demanding that the confidentiality agreement that allowed him to give all that sperm under a pseudonym be suspended and that the offspring be allowed to learn the identity of their father, David ;-).

What the heck to do?   Well David goes to his lawyer friend, mind you not a particularly successful lawyer friend ;-) (played by Antoine Bertrand) for advice and agrees to have his lawyer friend defend him, presumably "pro bono" because, well, where's David gonna find the money anyway ...? ;-).  For his part, David's friend takes the case because, quite frankly, "pro bono" though it may be, David has actually provided him the biggest break to make a name for himself in years and perhaps HE could finally make his own mother proud ;-).

Much ensues, and the film becomes quite touching as David, inevitably becomes first interested in all those offspring that he discovers that he has and then tries discreetly to try to help them as a good father would.

There's actually also a lovely conversation somewhere near the end of the film, as of course, it tends toward an inevitable reckoning, between David and his own father.  David's father lets him in on a secret: "Do you know why I've always loved you despite all of your screw-ups?  You've given me a chance to do for you what my own father never had a chance to do for me.  When I left Warsaw for Canada, my father gave me $10 and a blessing.  THAT'S ALL THAT HE COULD DO FOR ME and I knew that it positively crushed him to not be able to do more.  With all of your screw-ups, you've given me the opportunity to become the father that my father wished he could have been for me."  (This was honestly a surprisingly touching scene even if it certainly must have been difficult for David/"Starbuck" to also accept). 

Now there is an obviously "prophetic" side to this film that is NOT all smiles/laughs.  There are probably a whole bunch of "Starbucks" around the world with dozens to hundreds of offspring each, a fair fraction of which would have a legitimate yearning to know who their biological father was even if their biological father had been simply a donor of sperm.  Note here that in the film only about a quarter to a third of the children created with David's sperm wanted to learn his identity.  For the others it presumably wasn't all that important.  Still a quarter to a third is a quarter to a third and in this film that amounted to over 130 people.  Conceiving children using sperm from a sperm bank carries with it this problem for at least a fair fraction of children conceived in this manner.

But then the children do exist and plenty have reached adulthood.  What then to do?  Here this film offers with a certain French Canadian and perhaps even Polish gentleness (note that both of these places have been and at one, Poland, remains very Catholic) a lovely and gentle solution (IMHO borne in fair part out of that family oriented Catholic past) -- acceptance/blessing.  Would David/"Starbuck" be so "free" in selling his sperm as he was when he was in his 20s now that he's realized that he's become the biological father of over 500 children of which at least 130 wanted to have at least some kind of minimal relationship with him?  Probably not.  (And yes, by Catholic teaching, the whole situation is clearly a mess from the get-go.  Just consider how David/"Starbuck" was able to "make available" all that sperm...).  But here they are.  What else honestly can one do except "open one's arms _really wide_ ..." (And for its part, the Church baptizes everybody no matter how they were conceived as long as they or if they are minors their parents consent to it.  A person's mere existence in any stage of life -- from the moment of conception (fertilized human egg) to natural death -- is taken as proof that they were willed and therefore loved by God).   

Anyway, I found the movie very interesting and honestly very nice.  I would also say that while a Hollywood remake of this film is already in the works that this French Canadian original is excellent and Patrick Huard's performance as the David/Starbuck (as well as Igor Ovadis's performance as his dad) were positively inspired.  There is a gentleness to this film that will be challenging to replicate.


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The Sapphires [2012]

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

IMDb listing
ChicagoSunTimes (N. Minow) review

The Sapphires [2012] (directed by Wayne Blair, screenplay by Tony Briggs [IMDb] and Keith Thompson based on the 2004 stage play by the same name by Tony Briggs [IMDb]) is a nice/feel good, critically acclaimed / award winning film about a First Australian (Aborigine) "girls group" that sang for American (and presumably also Australian) troops in Vietnam during the height of the Vietnam War. 

Viewers will find shades of other 1960s era "girl group" inspired stories like Sparkle (1976) [IMDb] (remake 2012 [IMDb]), Dream Girls [2006 IMDb] / and the Commitments [1991 IMDb] present in the story.  However, the story behind The Sapphires [2012] is inspired by the true adventures of Tony Brigg's mother Laurel Robinson and aunt Lois Peeler who really did tour South Vietnam in 1968 singing soul music with a New Zealander (Maori) band playing for the troops in the midst of the war [1] [2].  The film then touches on universal themes of the promise/hopefulness of youth in the midst of radical fallenness (inherited racial strife and, indeed, war). 

Indeed, one just wants to cry when one realizes that for the young women in this film (and for many of the soldiers around them) this was arguably the best/most exciting time of their lives even as they traveled with armed escort or by army helicopter from one base/gig to another with RPGs, tracer bullets and mortars flying and blowing-up all around them.  And this wasn't even close to "their war" -- they weren't Vietnamese, they weren't Americans, and even the Australians (who did provide troops during the conflict) didn't really consider them "Australians" (or even people) but rather "Aboriginals" who we're told at the beginning of the film were considered by original Australian Constitution to be simply part of Australia's natural "flora and fauna."

And yet, one can not help but appreciate how for a bunch of young wide-eyed late teen, early 20 year olds (played so well by Gail Mailman, Jessica Mauboy, Shari Sebbens and Miranda Tapsell) who grew-up "on the reservation" in the Australian Outback singing Aboriginee church songs and American Loretta Lynn country-western tunes, would find this adventure in Saigon and its environs now singing Aretha Franklin / Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye songs to similarly young, full of life, yet also "far, far away from home" American soldiers (often from oppressed minorities as well) to be positively "the time of their lives."  It's a great if, if one thinks about it, tear filling story.  The presence in the story of their "discoverer"/small-time manager (played by Chris O'Dowd) is perhaps a salute to The Commitments [1991] and multilevel reminder of the universality of the experience being described (there have been plenty of poor whites who've been marginalized/mistreated over the generations and certainly a huge part of the success of the 1960s Motown sound was that it spoke to EVERYBODY who was young). 

Finally, The Sapphires [2012] reminds the viewer of the inspiration that the African American Civil Rights movement has had on the civil rights movements of "darker skinned" peoples across the globe.  This film dealt with the struggles of Australia's "First Australians" to gain respect in a land that was frankly theirs prior to the arrival of Europeans.  Recently, I saw another film, a Czech, Slovak and Romani collaboration called Gypsy (orig. Cigán) [2011] about Europe's indigenous dark-skinned minority (the Romas/Gypsies) whose civil rights / dignity movement is finally gaining some traction.  We can honestly ask ourselves why such an utterly random characteristic like skin pigmentation could have been allowed to cause such great division and suffering across our globe and our world's history.  It honestly does not make sense.  And yet so many people, often young people, have been destroyed over the generations on account of it.


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The Place Beyond the Pines [2013]

MPAA (R)  ChicagoSunTimes (4 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Chicago SunTimes (R. Roeper) review

The Place Beyond the Pines [2013] (directed and cowritten by Derek Cienfrance along with Ben Coccio) is a well if heavily structured story in three parts about consequences, consequences of actions and situations that are perhaps beyond the characters in the story's control, but consequences nonetheless.  The obvious structure of the story may initially bother some viewers even if the parts do ultimately add-up to produce a final rather poignant/powerful result.   Yes, folks this is an "indie film" even if it has a star-studded cast, the result being that culminates in an ending that's very different (and on several levels) from what one generally expects from "Hollywood" fare.

The story is set in (upstate) Schenectady, New York.  Part I of the story centers on a bleached blond small-time motorcycle stuntman named Luke (played by Ryan Gosling).  As part of a carnival troupe, he's been on a circuit and has arrived in Schenectady after a one year absence.  After performing an intricate if utterly meaningless stunt -- he and two other motorcyclist stunt-drivers ride their bikes in a necessarily synchronized yet also quite random manner inside a small 15-20 foot (5-7 m) diameter perforated steel globe to the amazement of onlookers -- he runs into a young local woman named Romina (played by Eva Mendes) who he had met when the carnival had been in town a year before.  He also finds to his surprise that she's had a boy, his, since their last meeting that one gets the sense had probably been a one night stand.

Romina actually doesn't expect anything from Luke.  Indeed, she's already assembled a life (support system) without him.  She has a job as a waitress, a boyfriend named Kofi (played by Mahershala Ali) who appears more than willing to raise "baby Jason" as his own, and she also has her mother (played by Olga Merediz).

Luke, however, feels guilty and responsible.  He tells Romina that his own father had never stuck around when he young.  So he summarily quits his carnie job and decides to stay in Schenectady to try to provide for the kid (and, dare he hope ... perhaps even for Romina).

But where can someone like Luke find a means to support himself, let alone a possible wife and child, in a town in which he knows next to nobody (and the one person he knows, Romina, would, truth be told, prefer that just leave and continue his past life as a carnie stunt-rider)?  So it's pretty much inevitable that he gets involved in crime...

Enter Part II of the story, centering on a rather strange young cop named Avery (played by Bradley Cooper).   Avery was from an upper middle-class background, his father being a judge.  Yet after finishing law school and passing the bar, Avery had decided to leave the more or less obvious direction that his life had been heading-in to become a beat cop in his hometown of Schenectady.  He too had a young son named AJ, and a wife named Jennifer (played by Rose Byrne).  Jennifer didn't really understand why her husband had made the radical change in direction that he did, but was willing to accept it (for a while) perhaps hoping that his joining the police force rather than pursuing a career as a lawyer was "just a phase."

Well the small time criminal Luke and the small town beat-cop Avery eventually run into each other ... and the result of their encounter changes both of their lives (often in not immediately obvious ways) and of everyone around them.

The final repercussions of their encounter extend into the late high school years of their two sons Jason (now played Dane DeHaan) and AJ (now played by Emory Cohen).  This forms Part III of the story.  After all, the two high schoolers were both "from Schenectady" even if from "very different parts of town."  And since those late high school years are rather formative years in the lives of people, the effects of Luke's and Avery's presumably extend even beyond...

Indeed, by the end of the movie the viewer is tempted to reflect back to the initial scene in the film which featured those three carnival stunt drivers riding their motorcycles around in that seemingly random yet also supremely synchronized fashion inside that small steel globe (cage).   Now what if one of those three drivers crashed...?

Again, this classically "indie film" is definitely not typical "Hollywood" fare ...


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