Iron Man 3 [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  M. Zoller Seitz (2 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review

Iron Man 3 [2013] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Shane Black along with Drew Pearce based on the Marvel Comics characters and story lines created by Stan Lee [IMDb], Larry Lieber [IMDb], Don Heck [IMDb] and Jack Kirby [IMDb]) continues an IMHO remarkable string of excellent and often honestly thought-provoking and even EDIFYING blockbuster films based on those comics.  Indeed, I find myself at times in awe of the capacity of the films based on the Marvel Comics brand (Spider Man [2], The Hulk, Thor [2], Iron Man, Captain America [2] and together as the Avengers [2] as well as the X-Men [2]) to both entertain and offer adults (both parents and religious ministers working with young people) platforms to discuss with young people the basic moral dilemmas presented in the films/stories.

I do believe that a good part of Marvel Comics' success in this regard has been Stan Lee, et al's decision to make their characters -- comic book characters that they are -- multidimensional or "conflicted." The Hulk (Robert Bruce Banner) has to deal with "anger issues" perhaps even more so than the average person because when he gets angry he turns into a gigantic green ball of fury.   Spider-Man (Peter Parker), nerdy high school kid, suddenly given a super-power as a result of an experiment gone awry struggles to see how he could use that special power now for good.  Thor Odinson may have been the son of a (Norse) God (Odin) but he was forced to learn humility (in the comic, Odin banishes Thor to earth in a wheelchair.  The movie is kinder to him, but still he must learn to be humble).  In the present case, Iron Man (Tony Stark) the (in his youth) playboy son of a Howard Hughes-like weapons contractor/patriot/genius of a father has to learn how to use his talents, money and power again for good -- that is, for GOOD (for "America"/"the world") but also for the good (small g) of the people/friends who've been around him and cared for him as he was "growing up" even as "growing up" for him (like many others of his/my generation) really extended into his 30s and 40s.   I can't help but find the message in all these Marvel Comics stories (in the words of Peter Parker's uncle: "With great power comes great responsibility...") as being OVERWHELMINGLY POSITIVE / EDIFYING and expressed in a language that truly a 10-12 year old could understand and internalize (while even giving adults much to think about ...).

I would also add that "not all comics are equal."  I've had more issues with some of the DC Comics based films because in those comics the emphasis on their superhero/supervillain characters seems to be on the prefix "super."  So DC Comics' "superheroes" are super good (or at least can do no wrong even if they, like Batman, often go above/beyond the law) while their "supervillains" are generally "super Evil," with the only character development there being that a small-time evil character (a small-time thug) gradually becomes a big-time SUPER villain/thug (that's basically the trajectory of the Joker).  Despite this, I actually liked the DC Comics based Dark Night [2008] (above all, for the performances, after all Heath Ledger's Joker was simply incredible ... if incredibly Evil).  But I did not particularly like the rather "popular nietschean" (bordering on "triumph of the will") Green Lantern [2011] and I really disliked Dark Knight Rises [2012] which seemed to me to me either wildly propagandistic or akin to a high schooler's attempt to conflate the Batman comic with Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities in either case a real disappointment but one perhaps becomes more or less inevitable if one makes one's characters either "super good" (or at least super powerful) or "super bad."  In any case, I've found Marvel Comics' more "conflicted" characters far more interesting.

Okay, to the story here.  The film begins with us being told that the story about to play out in the present / recent future actually began with an incident that took place 14 years back, in 1999, when then still irresponsible but definitely super-rich, late 20-something/early 30-something bon vivant Tony Stark (played in the whole film series by Robert Downey, Jr) was partying-up New Years at a Davos-like conference in Switzerland, except he wasn't there to help plan "world monetary policy," or work to "bring an end to malaria," (or even to "fix oil prices...").  He was there really just to party.  And so we see him taking to his hotel room a rather good-looking botanist grad-student named Maya Hansen (played by Rebecca Hall).  She's trying to show him some data and he's more interested in her.  Following closely behind Tony and Maya is another somewhat needy looking but above all, male gradstudent, who also wants to catch the ear of Tony Stark with regards to his project, but Tony isn't interested in him at all.  Tony dismisses the male grad student with a promise that he'll talk to him (on the roof-top of the hotel) sometime the next morning.  Of course, Tony never bothers to show-up on said roof-top the next morning.  Whether Stark purposefully sent that male grad student up to that roof top "to meet with him" that following morning just to make a fool of him (because Stark never showed up) or whether Stark just forgot, it was clear that Tony Stark didn't particularly care ...

Okay, fast forward now to the present (or recent future), a strange vaguely Osama bin Laden looking character calling himself The Manderin (played by Ben Kingsley) starts hijacking television signals/appearing on TV following various explosions presenting himself as "an educator" and making it clear that he wishes "to teach America a lesson."  Okay, except, The Manderin doesn't look at all like the male grad student that Tony Stark blew-off at that conference in Switzerland in 1999.  Who looks kinda like a much better groomed, more mature version of that grad student is a European techno-industrialist named Aldrich Killian (played by Guy Pearce) who comes visiting Stark Enterprises' CEO (and Tony Stark's now girl-friend and since he's realized that he has to start maturing, rock of stability) Pepper Potts (played by Gwyneth Paltrow).  Aldrich tells Pepper that Tony Stark's "never given him the time of day" but that he has been working on a project (regarding brain mapping/chemistry) that could interest Stark Enterprises and since she's the CEO maybe she "could take a look at it ..."  

Well, one of Stark Enterprises' security guards, nick-named "Happy Hogan" (played by Jon Favreau) sees Aldrich and Pepper talking.  He's already somewhat irritated that Aldrich wasn't wearing the security badge that he was supposed to (but just had it in his pocket) but when he sees the two talking he gets even more irritated because he sees the conversation as basically Aldrich hitting on her.  So he calls Tony Stark...

Tony's not particularly concerned (he has other toys/projects on his mind ... that's part of the reason why he made Pepper the CEO so that she would worry about the "big stuff" while he got to play with his gadgets, above all with his Iron Man suit / machines).  So Happy Hogan decides to follow the all-too-well-groomed Aldrich after he leaves Stark Enterprises' facilities.

Hogan follows them to Hollywood in front of Mann's Chinese Theater.  While he's there, there's an explosion and Hogan is wounded.  Soon after the explosion, the Manderin, again looking like a slightly Chinese-accented Osama bin Laden figure (dressed perhaps like a bearded traditional Chinese monk of sorts) again hijacks the world's television signals.  He proceeds to give the world "a lesson" about "Chinese cookies," saying that they are actually an American invention.  So he tells the world that he had decided to destroy another faux Chinese but in reality American creation (Mann's Chinese Theater) to set the record straight.  It seems clear to viewers now that whoever this Manderin is (1) he really, really hates America, and (2) he's crazy...

The next day after visiting his good-natured underling Hogan lying in a coma in the hospital when asked by reporters what he'd do, Tony Stark issues a challenge to "The Manderin, whoever he is," that he'd meet him anywhere he wishes, that he'd beat him and probably kill him "not for patriotism, not for some other high minded motive, but simply for good old fashioned revenge ("you hurt a buddy, now you'll get yours...")  Stark then also (somewhat stupidly) publicly announces to The Manderin (and to the rest of the world) his Malibu address.  And so the Manderin soon pays a visit... the rest of the movie proceeds from there ...

Like the marvel of many of the Marvel Comics stories, this is both a simple story and actually a relatively complex one.  And throughout, we watch Tony struggle with his demons:  He's smart, he's wealthy and as a result at times very powerful.  But he's also at other times quite stupid and has to constantly work on keeping his priorities in order.

Also playing out in this film (and really in the whole Iron Man series) is our own society's struggle to settle on what would be the best/optimal relationship between government and wealthy "captains of industry" like Tony Stark (who is part Howard Hughes, part Bill Gates, part Donald Trump).  Stark often does things better than his friend and U.S. military counterpart Colonel James Rhodes (played by Don Cheatle) or for that matter better than the President.  But Stark, perhaps more like Bill Gates than Donald Trump or our country's various oil men here, thankfully never really pushes the line: Yes he can do a lot of things better than the government, but he also doesn't have to take responsibility for the whole nation.  Rich/powerful as he is, Stark has trouble taking responsibility for his own life, his relationship with Pepper, much less his own firm - whose management he actually outsourced to Pepper.  Could someone like him really take responsibility for the whole nation?  It'd be one heck of a ride ;-)

Again, a fascinating movie ;-)


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Renoir [2012]

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

IMDb listing
Chicago SunTimes (K. MacMillan) review

Renoir [2012] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Gilles Bourdos along with Jérôme Tonnerre based on work by French cinematographer Jacques Renoir) is a French (English subtitled) biopic / period piece set in 1915 (during World War I) that focuses on the relationship the famed but aging Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (played in the film by Michel Bouquet), his wounded but soon to be returning to the war son Jean Renoir (played in the film by Vincent Rottiers) who later became a famous French and later Hollywood director [IMDb], and the elder Renoir's model and later the younger Renoir's first wife, Andrée Heuschling (played by Christa Theret) who later went by the actress/stage name Catherine Hessling [IMDb].


So much takes place though at a leisurely pace amid the natural beauty of the elder Pierre-August Renoir's farm/retreat outside of the town of Cagnes-Sur-Mer along the coast of Southern France even as the world that they had all known seemed (at least in some sense) to be very much in danger of crumbling due to the War raging to the North. 

Indeed, the War and the attitudes of the two Renoirs toward it seems to be at the center of the film:  Both the elder and the younger Renoirs are resigned to it but approach it in different ways.

The younger, Jean, who entered the war as a cavalry officer and was grievously wounded once, is hurrying to heal so that he could return to fight again (he eventually does, entering the Air Corps which wouldn't require him to have to run much ...).

The older, Pierre-August, who had spent his life painting gentle, rolling, peaceful pictures, even refusing during the whole of his life to use the color black in any of his paintings, accepts the reality of the war and even the possibility of the political destruction of his country.  However, he refused to paint anything other than what he had always painted -- natural beauty ... with an occasional woman, clothed or less so (yes, this is an R-rated film with nudity though no more than what one would expect to see at an Impressionist museum...), occasionally thrown in.  The need for a model then would be the reason for the presence of the young pretty Andrée at Renoir's retreat and really of a whole entourage of other women who Pierre-August often kept on (working in the kitchen or around the house) when they got older so they had a place to stay after their modeling years had come to an end. 

The horror of the War playing out to the North is not at all hidden in the film.  Jean had been grievously wounded in the leg.  We, the viewers, are shown the wound.  We also see Pierre-Auguste's other military aged son, Pierre, come back with a WW I era prosthetic arm, three metal claws and all.  We also see other wounded soldiers, faces burned by flames, gun powder (and worse...), missing limbs, hobbling on crutches along the various roads of the area.  It's all there, in spades really.

What Pierre-Auguste refused to do (what Pablo Picasso would do later) was to paint them.  Instead, he chose to continue to paint fields, flowers and lovely, somewhat rotund (thus cared for, not starving) young and middle aged women, all of which/whom would continue to exist no matter who won the conflict up North.


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Blancanieves [2012]

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

IMDb listing
Roger Ebert's review

Blancanieves [2012] (screenplay and directed by Pablo Berger) is an internationally critically acclaimed and award winning (including 10 Goya Awards, Spain's equivalent of the Oscars) b&w silent screen adaptation  of the Brothers Grimm fairytale Snow White set in and around turn-of-the-20th century Seville, Spain and in the context of that most Iberian of traditions Bull Fighting.  The film comes on the heels of the previous year's internationally critically acclaimed/award winning French b&w silent screen sensation The Artist [2011] as well as two other recent (indeed 2012) American treatments -- Mirror, Mirror [2012] and Snow White and the Huntsman [2012] -- of this particular story.

One could initially ask: what could this film possibly add?  Well simply from a stylistic point of view, it should be clear that Blancanieves [2012] seeks to put itself in a completely different realm of cinema (classic, in league with such masterpieces as Jean Cocteau's post WW-II The Beauty and the Beast (orig. La Belle et la Bête) [1946]) as compared to the far more "popular fare" treatments of the story by the two other films, which in a few years will almost certainly be largely forgotten.

More interestingly, arguably Blancanieves [2012] builds on the success of The Artist [2011], and "moves the ball" as it were. The Artist [2011] excellent though it was, was, above all, a nostalgia piece being at least as much about the "b&w silent screen era of cinema" itself as about telling a particular story (in the b&w silent screen idiom).  In contrast, IMHO Blancanieves [2012] actually seeks to tell a story choosing then to do so using the b&w silent screen medium.  Will the b&w silent screen medium prove suited to tell other stories in the future?  The answer obviously lies in the creativity and resourcefulness of cinematic artists.

So what is Blancanieves [2012] about?  The film seeks to follow the story of Grimm's Snow White story (Blancanieves means Snow White in Castilian Spanish) while placing the story in the context of turn of the 20th century Spanish bull-fighting.

The film begins with heroic, widely celebrated bullfighter Don Antonio Villarta (played by Daniel Giménez Cacho) praying before a classically Spanish statue of Our Lady of Sorrows, seven swords in her heart [cf. Luke 2:35 "And you yourself (Mary) a sword will pierce so that the hearts of many will be revealed" reflecting my own (Servite) Order's devotion to the Seven Sorrows of Mary] prior to entering into Seville's famous bull ring to take-up the challenge of taking-down 7 bulls in the course of the afternoon.

Don Antonio's wife, Carmen (played by Inma Cuesta) a former flamenco dancer (another classically Spanish archetype) now expecting their first child is (along with her mother) in the audience.

Don Antonio has no trouble defeating the first five bulls and seems to be about to slay the sixth, nicknamed Lucifer, when something goes wrong.  For a split second he's distracted (for actually a very contemporary reason, but it works for the time in question as well) and instead of slaying the bull (Lucifer), the bull gores him.  Horrified, Carmen, in the crowd faints.

After the stunned attendants on the field chase the bull away, Don Antonio is taken quickly to the hospital named again for Our Lady of Sorrows (which when one thinks about it, is actually a terrible name for a hospital ... ;-) ... the name actually would work better for a counseling center / memorial chapel.  One would probably prefer to go to a hospital called Our Lady of Perpetual Help.  But then this is a Spanish story / tragedy and the Spanish speaking world has also been known historically for its rather graphic depictions of Jesus crucified and very large/thorny crowns of thorns).

Carmen (who goes into in labor after she faints) is taken to the hospital as well.

Don Antonio is saved though paralyzed as a result of his injuries, while Carmen dies after giving birth to their daughter Carmencita.  In shock from his own injuries and the loss of his wife, Don Antonio can not bear to even take a look at the little newborn when she's brought to him.  Carmencita (played as a child by Sofia Oria) is thus raised for the first part of her life by her grandmother (Carmen's mother) while Don Antonio recovers and eventually marries his scheming nurse named Encarna (played by Maribel Verdú).

When Carmencita's grandmother dies suddenly (presumably of a heart attack after doing a flamenco dance) at Carmencita's first communion party, Carmencita is taken to her father, who's holed-up in a country estate named "Monte Olvido" (The Mountain of Forgetting / Abandonment), run now (presumably using Don Antonio's money) by Encarna (now to become Carmencita's wicked step-mother).  Indeed, in this part of the film, Carmencita's existence more resembles Cinderella's than Snow White's as she's forced to live in the basement of the estate, does all the hard chores of the house (even though she's only 7-8 years old) and she's never ever allowed to go to the second floor, where Don Antonio is holed-up, and probably doesn't even know that his daughter is now living below.

Eventually fate lends a hand through Carmencita's wandering pet chicken, who plays a role akin to the dog in The Artist [2011].  So Carmencita finds her way to the second floor (chasing after said wandering amiable chicken) and finds her father (paralyzed in a wheelchair) there.  While Don Antonio initially didn't even realize that his daughter was now living in the same compound as he, he's quickly able to put it together:  Carmencita looks kinda like her mother, already seems to be quite good at flamenco, and when she picks-up the toreador's cape there by Don Antonio's stuff recalling his glory days, she proves to be a natural.  Don Antonio, who's had no one to talk to for a very long time, teaches her a trick or two of the trade, even though, at this point, it's just for fun as Carmencita was both a girl (Toreadors were traditionally men and Spain was traditionally a very Macho country) and still "just a kid" (only about 8-9).

Well, eventually Encarna catches wind of Carmencita's having found her father upstairs (where Carmencita had been forbidden to go) and that the two were enjoying each other's company far more than she enjoyed either of them.  So (as a wicked person after all...) she can't bear the two enjoying each other's company that much.  So she asks a trusted servant (and lover?) to take good-old Carmencita out into the woods some distance off the estate and to kill her.  The servant can't bring himself to do so.  So Carmencita escapes...

This is when Fate lends another hand ... and Carmencita finds herself being picked-up and rescued by a traveling circus act calling itself "The Bullfighting Dwarfs" (dwarfs that would bull-fight, but, of course only calves...).  The rest of the film ensues ...

Obviously, eventually Carmencita grows-up with these dwarfs, and thus their act eventually becomes "The Toreadora and the 7 Bullfighting Dwarfs" and eventually they make it to the famed Plaza de Toros back in Seville.  There, an older but still very much wicked Encarna, who had figured out who this surprising and increasingly famous Toreadora had to be ... comes to visit her ... with an apple ...

Does the story work?  What do you think?  I honestly think it does, and certainly a good part of the film's charm is that it was made in the b&w silent screen style with generally only vintage (piano) music playing in the background.  Does the bullfighting in the story get old?  IMHO, it could, but there's enough variation to keep it fresh: (1) We see "the pro" at the beginning, (2) we see the little Carmencita playing with here dad, (3) we see the Dwarfs Bull Fighting against Calves and (4) we see the grown Carmencita taking on "a real bull" by the end ...

So this is a surprising movie folks and it reminds us of the storytelling possibilities available these days.  And yes it does make me wonder if between Blancanieves [2012] and The Artist [2011] preceding it, we're actually witnessing the beginning of a revival of this long thought dead (b&w silent screen) art form.  Can more be done with with it?  Who honestly knows?  A year ago, I would have thought The Artist [2011] would have been a one shot deal.  Now I'm no longer sure ;-).

And as a Servite priest, I can not but appreciate the film's repeated allusions to my (Servite) Order's Principal Patroness Our Lady of Sorrows (USA Province).

In any case great job folks, great job!


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La Playa D.C. [2012]

MPAA (UR would be R)   Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

La Playa D.C. [2012] (written and directed by Juan Andrés Arango Garcia) is a simple yet well crafted Afro-Colombian film playing Apr 26-May 3, 2013 at Facets Multimedia Theater in Chicago.  It's about an Afro-Colombian teenager named Tomás (played by Luis Carlos Guevara) whose family had recently migrated from the countryside to the slums at the outskirts of Bogota.  Why?  There'd be plenty of reasons: poverty/ongoing violence in the countryside, the death of (abandonment by) the father of the family, etc.  In any case, the family felt compelled to move, and as expected the move proved to be difficult.

With the father out of the picture, the mother had entered into a relationship with a Bogota local, a security guard with whom the children, above all, the story's central protagonist, teenage Tomás, had difficulty. Indeed, the conflict had proven so great that the film pretty much begins with the mother's new man giving her an ultimatum: Either Tomás leaves home or he's gonna leave her.  The mother with a new baby (presumably with her new man) and with few options, reluctantly asks Tomás to leave.

Tomás packs up his things (in what would be a single school backpack) and heads out.  He does have an older brother who lives on his own, in a single room (with simple mat for a bed) further in town.  The older brother talks to his landlady, explains to her the situation (above all that Tomás is a relation and not a potential lover), they make an arrangement and Tomás now has a roof over his head.

Much of what follows is about Tomás figuring out a way to make a livelihood.  Fortunately he did have a small talent/skill: he liked/knew how to draw.  Now normally that skill and a few bits of change would get you a cup of coffee... However, Tomás had the sense to turn that small skill into something that could make some money: he decided to try to become a barber offering to shave those those little pictures/designs that he'd draw into peoples hair for a small fee.  Even for this, however, he still needed to make some money -- to buy a few razor blades and then a set of electrical clippers.  Tomás made a deal with a somewhat more established barber and seemed to be on his way to make enough money to buy the electric clippers that the more established barber had lent him.

All would be wonderful (or at least more manageable) if not for Tomás having a younger brother, honestly no more than 10-12 years old, who had become addicted to Colombia's equivalent of crack cocaine.  At first, Tomás along with the rest of his family (including his mother who had thrown him out of her house) had been simply looking for this younger member of the family who had disappeared into the streets of Bogota soon after Tomás thrown out of the house.  Since Tomás had that skill of being able to draw, he even created some simple "missing child" posters that he put-up with moderate success around the neighborhood (some of the shopkeepers weren't too keen these "missing child" posters near their stores (they tended to depress people or make the neighborhood appear more dangerous than they would have liked it to appear).

But when Tomás finds his brother, new problems arise.  After all, Tomás' younger brother is addicted to drugs which cost money, money that really no one in Tomás' family had.  So here's Tomás trying to hustle up enough business with his borrowed clippers and a few razors cutting/shaving designs into people's hair hoping to eventually save enough money to buy those clippers from the good man who had lent them to him.  IN THE MEANTIME there's his younger brother consuming more crack than he could pay for ... with thugs (not particularly big thugs but enough of them) beginning to circle 'round Tomás to try to shake him down for the money that his younger brother owed.  What a nightmare... Eventually something has to give, and it does ...

La Playa D.C. is a sad but obviously poignant glimpse into the struggles of a simple afro-Colombian family living at the edge (margins) of a big city in Colombia today.  It's also a reminder how drug addiction, already a problem when a family has some means, becomes an almost unbearable burden (and certainly life and death struggle) when one's family is poor.  All in all a very good if very sad film.


ADDENDUM - My religious order, the Servants of Mary, has its own experience working in Latin America (Brazil) with families already facing marginalization and difficult circumstances struggling on top of that with drug addiction at the home.  Here's a link to a chapter on the subject from the book produced by the Brazilian Servites on The Amazonia We Do Not Know (2006). 

 
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Mud [2012]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (J. Emerson) review

Mud [2012] (written and directed by Jeff Nichols) is a small well acted/crafted "indie" style film set in a small random hamlet in Arkansas along the banks of the (Great) Mississippi River.  As such, "small in scope" as the film may be, it immediately evokes the grandeur of  "Old Man River" and the legacy of America's greatest story teller, Mark Twain.

Does the film live up to such "Great Potentialities" if not "Expectations?"  Well Mark Twain / Huck Finn it is not, indeed, can not be, but IMHO the film's both small/intimate enough and its thematics universal enough to do quite well.  And certainly the film is worthy of the interests of actor Matthew McConaughey who can definitely ham-it-up in crowd-pleasing / blockbuster fare like Magic Mike [2012] or Ghosts of Girlfriends Past [2009] but also appears interested in taking on roles in IMHO far more interesting "Southern Noir"-ish projects such as in Bernie [2012], Killer Joe [2012] (a film that I do believe "crossed the line" but at least there was "a line to cross" ... ) and The Paperboy [2012].

The current film centers on two 14 year old boys, Ellis (played by Tye Sheridan) and his best friend nick-named "Neckbone" (played by Jacob Lofland) from said small hamlet who are growing-up with their parents/kin, living in houseboats perched along the River (hence the River necessarily plays a BIG role in their lives).  One day, while exploring along the river on their little motorboat, the two encounter a drifter (played by Matthew McConaughey). When asked by the boys for his name, the drifter introduces himself as Mud.  He's been sleeping in a boat that due to a previous flood is holed-up in a tree on a random island along the Mississippi.  Looking at him with one pair of clothing and small convenience store plastic bag of groceries to his name, one of the two 14 year-olds mutters under his breath "Bum."  "Excuse me, I'm a hobo.  Presently, I may be homeless but I work and pay for my keep!"  Indeed, one day, as the two boys progressively begin to trust / befriend the curious Mud, he has a cooler of already gutted and cut-up fish for them to take back to town to sell for him...

Okay, so what's a guy in his late 20s-early 30s doing living in a boat holed-up in the tree on some random island along the Mississippi River somewhere in Arkansas?   Well, there's obviously a story and the story's obviously, at least in part, rather seamy and not particularly great for 14 year olds to hear.  On the other hand, they're 14 and as long as they keep some distance from said "bum/hobo" named Mud, they get to learn a little about life ... life that they themselves, living in houseboats at the edge of a small Arkansas town along the Mississippi River, are already living somewhat "on the margins." 

Between what Mud himself tells them, and what they hear over time from others, the boys (as well as the viewers) piece together the (Mud's) story: There's a young woman involved, Juniper (played by Resse Witherspoon).  There's also a recluse/distant relation of Mud's, a retired former Marine sharpshooter named Tom Blankenship (played by Sam Shepard) who actually lives somewhat close to Ellis' family if "across the channel" (already on an island).  He knows Mud and has been "looking after him" if at a distance since Mud's teenage years and (for reasons unclear / I don't entirely remember anymore... ;-) the breakup of Mud's family.

Ex-marine sniper (and literally "uncle Tom" ;-) Blankenship thinks Mud's girlfriend has been "nothing but trouble."  He explains to the boys that Mud's been in love with her for years and that Juniper "kinda loves him back."  But then "she's flighty" hanging out with the biggest dregs of society (probably part of the reason she kinda likes Mud as well ...) and then depends on Mud to come along and "save her" from the mess that she's created.

Well, the last time when Mud came to clean-up a Mess that Juniper created, he ended-up killing a young man of Mud's / Juniper's age, a man whose father holds grudges.  Hence Mud's living in a "tree house boat" on a non-descript island along the Mississippi being helped by two 14 year olds, because he's wanted for murdering a well-connected a-h... who was hitting on a young woman who can't decide whether or not she loves Mud (or could love Mud) anyway.

What a murky/muddy Mess ... ;-).  Anyway, dead a-h...'s father has bounty hunters out looking for Mud and staking-out Juniper's residence as well.  Something has to give ... And, of course, it does.   The rest of the movie ensues ...

What a simple and yet great story about life-lessons and growing up!  True, this is not exactly a story for girls/young women as they not necessarily portrayed well in this story even if Ellis' mother Mary Lee (played by Sarah Paulson) is portrayed quite nicely/positively.  Still it's not necessarily a bad lesson for either boys or girls to least: Just because you like/are attracted somebody doesn't make them a good person.  At times, you have to step back and look at them for what they really are.

So I just found this film to be great.  It reminds us that a good story doesn't need a high budget / great special effects to sell.  In the tradition of the great story-teller Mark Twain, a good story can sell itself ... 


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Pain and Gain [2013]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  S. Adams (2 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (1 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Adams) review

Pain and Gain [2013] (directed by Michael Bay, screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely based on the magazine reporting on the case in question of Pete Collins) is about such a searingly crass (but unbelievably true) crime story that it probably justifies making some kind of film about it.  Yet the violence (again often boneheadedly executed) does get to such hard-R levels that the film is definitely not for the squeamish.

The film, set in the mid-1990s, is about Miami body builder, South Florida trendy fitness gym trainer Daniel Lugo (played in the film by Mark Wahlberg) who had always lived by a "no gain without pain" weightlifting ethos.  As a result, Danny gets sick of hearing a scrawny, balding, 60ish, not even close to benching his weight, 1/2 Colombian 1/2 Jewish businessman client of his, named Victor Kershaw (played by Tony Shalhoub) bragging about all the money, hot cars, hot boats and hot women he has.

After going to one of those those "Get Rich by Sheer Will" motivational seminars headlined by "Johnny Wu" (played hilariously by Ken Jeong), Danny decides that he's a "Doer" rather than a "Don't-er," and comes up with a "3 fingered plan" -- (1) come up with an idea, (2) execute (DO) IT and (3) "F-U all you suckers /  live life rich afterwards!" -- to (1) kidnap said Victor Kershaw, (2) get him to sign away ALL OF HIS MONEY (cars, homes and boats...) to him and (3) dispose of Victor. 

To help him kidnap Victor, Danny assembles a small crew, including himself and fellow gym-trainers Adrian Doorbal (played by Anthony Mackie) who needs some extra cash because his constant steroid use has finally made his (blank...) inoperative (given him E.D...), and a reasonably good-hearted but not even close to (or even in the same neighborhood as) "the sharpest tool in the shed," buff former ex-con named Paul Doyle (played by Dwayne Johnson).  Much, often involving stunning ineptitude, ensues...

So despite "almost" getting away with it all ... they don't.  Victor, survives his ordeal, hires a private-eye (played by Ed Harris) after Miami police, after seeing his Colombian background don't want much to do with his case ... and the three get caught, two of which Daniel and Adrian, finally getting the death penalty for their crimes (no kidding and by the end, they've racked-up enough of a list that by law they've more than crossed the threshhold...), while Paul, a good if stupid, stupid soul, gets 15-years and a life of forever saying that he's really, really, yes, really sorry.

If one isn't reminded -- at the beginning, in a key point in the middle and at the end of the story -- that this film really is based on a true story, one would simply not believe it.

Finally, I would say that along with the recent film Spring Breakers [2012], the film does remind viewers in a stark, indeed searing, sort of way, that "money isn't everything."  But are we so utterly stoned/desensitized as as society that we have to be reminded of this in such an utterly unforgettable sort of way?


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The Big Wedding [2013]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O) I. Vishnevetsky (1 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (0 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (I. Vishnevetsky) review

It's approaching wedding season in the U.S., so "wedding" themed movies are to be expected.  However, honestly, unless your own wedding/marriage proved a disaster (over 1/2 the marriages in the United States end in divorce, and though domestic violence is at times a reason (and a justifiable one - if one beats or otherwise truly abuses one's spouse one obviously doesn't know what a marriage is supposed to be), the vast majority of the times divorce comes when one or the other party convinces themselves that their partner is simply a disappointment in one way or another - or just plain getting old - and convinces oneself that one could still "trade up" somehow) I wouldn't recommend  The Big Wedding [2013] (written and directed by Justin Zackham) to anybody.

Particularly galling to someone like me is that the families in the film are supposed to be Catholic, not random religion, but CATHOLIC.  Okay, one of the families is racist.  Are there racists in the Catholic Church?   I can with ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE BASED ON MY PASTORAL MINISTRY SAY _YES_.  NO DOUBT, NONE.  There CERTAINLY ARE racists in the Catholic Church in this country AND A FAIR NUMBER OF THEM (certainly not all but far more than one really ought to be at all comfortable with).  But having said that, it gets "complicated": 

For one, half the Catholics in the United States are now Hispanic.  Add to those non-white Catholics, Catholics from Asia -- the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, a non-inconsequential number of Catholics from India and from the Middle East (Lebanon, Iraq, even more recently Syria), then Catholics from Africa (the Congo, much of West Africa), the Caribbean (Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba as well as from some of the smaller islands) and then African American Catholics with family roots in Louisiana (which actually was the only predominantly Catholic slave state in 'the Old South') ... the substantial majority of Catholics in the United States are NO LONGER WHITE. 

Then let's go through what the Protestant majority in this country has called the various Catholic immigrant groups that have come to this fair land over its history:  The Irish were "drunks," the Italians were "crooks," the Poles (there isn't a building of consequence standing in Chicago that wasn't built largely by Poles) were "stupid," and, of course, the Hispanics coming over the Rio Grande or on boats from Cuba and Haiti are "crooks" (okay the Cubans are generally anti-communists, so we put a flag in their hands first and then call them "drug dealing crooks") as well.  That's why we have to build a wall between us and our southern borders.  Oh, yes, and young Hispanic women, like "Alejandro's sister" in this film are _also_ "sluts."

Add to this that while there are actually quite a few prominent Catholic-Jewish interfaith couples in America today, I can think of EXACTLY ZERO prominent Protestant-Jewish couples today.  Why?  My sense is that lived-out Catholicism is actually far closer to Judaism than Protestantism is to either: Catholicism is NOT MERELY theology/doctrine.  Like Judaism, Catholicism is a way of life. There are seasons, there are feast days, there are traditions and there are ALWAYS opportunities to celebrate key milestones in the lives of the (individual) faithful in the context (and with the blessing) of the Church. 

So Mr. Zachham, who my friend is being a racist?

And I honestly find it hard to believe that Robert DeNiro, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, Katherine Heigl, Amanda Seyfreid and Robin Williams (who I've liked for most of my life) would associate themselves with such a blatantly racist anti-Catholic picture such as this.


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