Spirited Away (orig. Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi) [2001]

MPAA (PG)   Roger Ebert (4 Stars)   Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Roger Ebert review

Spirited Away (orig. Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi) [2001] (written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki [IMDb]) a classic animated film from Japan's famed Studio Ghibli played recently (in both dubbed and subtitled format) in Chicago at the Gene Siskel Film Center as part of its 2013 Studio Ghibli Returns retrospective.  This film along with many of the others being presented in the series can be found / streamed (in dubbed English format) for FREE on watchcartoononline.com.   For readers here interested in East Asian history/comparative mythology, the film's worth the viewing.

The film takes place in the recent past in the context of the Japan's slow economic recovery following its 1990 crash and subsequent "lost decade."  For a number of decades prior to 1990, Japan's economy was one of the best performing/fastest growing in the world.  However as is often the case, this period of growth was followed by a crash.  Apparently (and again as often happens) the growth that Japan experienced in the latter years of this economic expansion had been an unsustainable "bubble" that needed to collapse so that the economy could return to reality.

Very well, the film begins with 10 year old Chihiro (voiced in the English version by Daveigh Chase) sitting in the back of her parents' car as they (voiced in the English version by Michael Chiklis and Lauren Holly respectively) as they drive to their new home.  The economic crisis had forced them to relocate and it it's clear that Chihiro was not particularly happy with it, holding on to a goodbye-card from a friend who she was no longer going to be able to see.  In the card, her friend wrote "I'm going to miss you" and it's clear that she's miss her too.  Knowing that this was not an ideal situation for her, Chihiro's parents nevertheless tell her that moving/change/saying good-bye is "part of life" and assure her that soon enough she's going to make new friends at her new school...

As they approach their new house, still kinda nice in a hilly outlying/suburban subdivision, Chihiro's father "makes a wrong turn."  They find themselves on a dirt rather than paved road, below their new house that they can still see up higher across a meadowed slope.  The father insists that the dirt road must lead-up to it somehow since they are "so close."  So they keep on it.  But the dirt road ends in a somewhat overgrown parking lot and an imposing gate-house that both "looks old" and yet the father quickly recognizes to be "made of plaster" (recent/"fake" yet made to look old).

Though not where they want to be, nevertheless the father finds himself intrigued.  Initially, the mother's somewhat worried that the movers might arrive at their new house before they do, but the father tells her that the movers have a key anyway and could start unloading without them.  The only one who really doesn't want to enter is Chihiro herself who tells her parents, "this place gives me the creeps."   Still dad wants to go in, ma's not opposed and so their kid must follow ...

They enter the gate house, the entrance leading to a tunnel which empties out into a field (though facing in a different direction than that of their house because they no longer see it after they leave the tunnel).  At the other end of the field appears to be what the father identifies as "one of those amusement parks that they were building all over the place in the '90s but were never completed."  So it appears to be a "ghost" amusement park ;-).

Dad still wants to investigate.  So they trudge to the "amusement parky" buildings and then to their surprise ... mom and dad smell food.  Chihiro by now really wants to go home but ma and dad, look for the place where the food's being made and find a stand with all kinds of freshly made food but no one around.  So ma and dad decide to help themselves... 

Chihiro bored, decides to walk-off a bit while ma and dad take food that doesn't really belong to them.  When she returns, apparently she walked around for some time, it's already starting to get dark and she finds that her parents, still at the stand with the food had turned into pigs!  (Apparently, they spent a bit too much time "stuffing themselves at the troth..." ;-).

What to do now?  It's getting dark, they're kinda far from where they've left their car, and besides ma' and dad have "turned into swine" ;-).  Now with it getting dark, the amusement park is starting to lively with all kinds of not particularly nice looking "spirits" arriving/materializing from all over.  Needless to say Chihiro's getting scared....

One of those Spirits, that of a boy, maybe a year or two older then Chihiro comes over to talk to her.  He identifies himself as Haku (voiced in the English version by ) and tells her that she's going to have to hide from the Spirits as they generally don't like human beings and that she's going to have to go down to the amusement park's boiler room and beg for a job because unless she quickly gets a job, it will not go well with her and the Spirits who tend to "consume" those who don't work for them.  Her parents are already converted into pigs and will be eventually eaten.  A similar fate will await her ... unless she gets a job.

So Chihiro then sneaks her way down various steps and corridors until she gets down to the boiler room where she meets a spiderlike boiler operator (with 8 arms all busy pulling levers and such) named Kamajii (voiced in the English version by David Ogden Stiers).  He introduces her to another servant spirit named Lin (voiced in the English version Susan Egan) and instructs her to go see a Woman spirit "on top" named Yubaba (voiced in the English version by Susanne Plechette) who runs the whole amusement park operation.

Chihiro goes up to talk to Yubaba and gets a job, the lousiest possible one -- cleaning up after some really dirty Spirits in the (Japanese) bathhouse of the amusement park.  She also gets the job at the expense of signing away her own name. Yubaba renames her "Sen," but at least little Chihiro has a job, hence "has a purpose" in the ghostly, arguably Hellish "amusement park" and can slowly work on plotting her escape and even on saving her parents who've by then been relocated to the pig pen where the other porkers are fattened up prior to inevitable slaughter to feed the hungry and generally consuming spirits.

She also gets occasional help by a masked yet generally sympathetic spirit, that, since he does not talk and never takes off his mask she comes to call "No Face."

Having setup the story, much now ensues ...

The film has been characterized as a late-20th century Alice in Wonderland.  I'd compare it also to the Wizard of Oz [1939] [IMDb] yet expressed in traditional Japanese folklore/imagery.  It's clearly a story of a little girl being forced to "grow-up" more quickly, taking more responsibility for her life (and even for her parents' lives) than perhaps she should.

I found the film fascinating and along with other films presented in the Studio Ghibli retrospective presented at the Gene Siskel Film Center a window into a culture that I otherwise would not have known much about.

I WOULDN'T necessarily recommend the film to young kids.  However, older teens and adults interested in East Asian history/folklore/mythology would probably found the film as fascinating as I did.  And again, the film along with others in the GSFC's retrospective can be found watchcartoononline.com.


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Men in Hope (orig. Muži v Naději) [2011]

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

IMDb listing
CSFD* listing
FDb.cz* listing
Lidovky.cz* (A. Prokopová) review

Men in Hope (orig. Muži v Naději) [2011] [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDb]*(written and directed by Jiří Vejdělek [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDb]*) a smart/current if certainly morally provocative/challenging adult 30-40 something oriented "romantic" comedy (of the vein of the Marilyn Monroe classic The Seven Year Itch [1955] [IMDb] [TCM] that was also provocative/controversial in its time) finished off a remarkable and remarkably well rounded 2013 Czech That Film Tour cosponsored by the Czech Diplomatic Mission in the United States and Staropramen Beer that played recently at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago.  In the course of the past year, the Gene Siskel Film Center has also hosted similar surveys of largely current films from Turkey, Hong Kong and Spain as well as similarly outstanding extended homages to the animated works of Studio Ghibli of Japan [2012] [2013]. 

I have to admit that for thematic reasons, I thought that this film was going to be the most difficult of the film tour to write about here on my blog.  Yet I wished to do so because (1) the film is indeed current, representative of the moral challenges present not only in the C.R. but across a good part of Europe today (and in my time in the seminary in Italy in the 1990s I came across similarly themed and similarly light-hearted Italian films) and (2) after the initial shock: "This film is trying to explore WHAT?" (the film was trying to explore the question: "Can one actually choose to be unfaithful to one's spouse for the sake of one's spouse/marriage?") AS IS ALMOST ALWAYS THE CASE, the comedy inevitably retreats back to safer pastures.  (The film's answer to its question becomes, unsurprisingly and resoundingly "No."  And one thinks of recent American films like the Ashton Kutcher/Natalie Portman vehicle No Strings Attached [2011] and the Justin Timberlake/Mila Kunis vehicle Friends With Benefits [2011] that while intended for younger audiences played a similar day-dreamy / coquettish dance with social convention / the moral order of things before returning by the end back to reality).

Yet the conventions of "romantic comedy" generally require that "all end well," the result here being that "all" needed to "end" at least "kinda well" for the protagonists of the film even after crossing the line of this rather provocative social experiment.  And so it does, to the perhaps rightful consternation of many viewers / social commentators (see the Czech language links - if through Chrome or Google Translate - given above).

One could note here the very different and far more morally decisive conclusion to African American film-maker Tyler Perry's recent movie Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor [2013].  Yet one needs to note here that Tyler Perry's Temptation was a very different kind of film - a drama rather than the adult oriented (intended for 30-40 somethings) romantic comedy (again of the vein of Marylin Monroe's Seven Year Itch [1955] [IMDb]) that we have here.

Still it is doubtful that anyone leaves the current film feeling that any of the film's protagonists came-out particularly vindicated.  The film ended "kinda okay" but (1) the traditional order of things (that adultery is definitely not a good idea...) is vindicated and (2) while none of the film's adulterers were ruined or publicly humiliated, all were certainly chastened, and resolved to very quietly "sin no more."  (Indeed, one thinks here of Jesus' resolution of the crisis involving "The woman caught in the very act of adultery" [John 8:1-11]).

Okay, so how does the film actually go? ;-)

The film begins with content, recently retired, now driving a taxi cab about town as a second job, "man of the world" and serial filanderer Rudolf (played by Bolek Polívka [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDb]*) concerned that his seemingly all-thumbed, increasingly put-upon, increasingly "hen pecked" son-in-law Ondřej (played by Jiří Macháček [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDb]*) is unhappy, and more to the point, that Ondřej's making his (Rudolf's) daughter Alice (played by Petra Hřebíčková [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDb]*) unhappy.

So, concerned for the sake of his daughter/son-in-law's marriage, Rudolf takes Ondřej to a pool hall one night and over a couple of drinks offers Ondřej some rather surprising and unsolicited advice to resolve his "problem":
      "You have to cheat my son(-in-law).  No woman likes a door-mat (even less a daughter of mine).  Women like a challenge.  So for the sake of your marriage you're going to have to cheat on your wife." ;-)
      "Well thanks very much there dear (father-in-law).  And by the way you know that you're asking me to cheat on your own daughter."
      "Yes.  How do you think I've kept things fresh with Alice's mother (your mother-in-law) Marta (played by Simona Stašová [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDb]*) all these years ... by cheating on her."
      "And does she know?"
      "Whether she does or not, it does not matter.  It's not who one's with but who one comes back to.  And Alice's mom knows that I always come back to her, that I make her happy, that I keep things interesting with her both in and out of the sack, that I always keep her guessing and always, always leave her with a smile on her face."
      "And you know that can not possibly work for me."
      "Well something must..."
      "You know I can't lie ..."
      "Well, we're going to have to work on that ..."

And so then, the premise of the film is set-up.  It turns out that Rudolf wasn't just inviting Ondřej over for a few drinks and give him some odd, uterly unsolicited marital advice.  He's (of course) awaiting a lady, Šarlota (played by Vica Kerekes) a young voluptuous dancer/aerobics instructor transplant to Prague from Slovakia.  "She could be your grand-daughter."  "Yup, but women like that keep me fresh."  After introducing Ondřej (pronounced basically Ondray) to smiling 20-something Šarlota (pronounced Sharlota), Rudolf sort of chases him away asking him to "think about it." Ondřej now knowing more about his father-in-law than he ever really wanted to, kinda winces ... and goes home, arriving home, adding insult to injury, drenched by rain.

But Ondřej's life really was pretty unhappy both in the bedroom with his wife and outside of it.  So a few days later when he, surprise surprise runs into Šarlota on the street and gets past the question: "What would someone like you possibly see in an old dědek (grandpa) like him?" "He's funny, he makes me laugh," he finds it actually pleasant to talk to someone new.  And perhaps some of Rudolf's charm wears-off on him.  So they start talking and find that they hit it off ...

Much, of course, follows.  Yes, Ondřej's confidence does increase from being around someone who hasn't come to dismiss him (yet?) as a loser.  And that new confidence carries itself over to his other relationships, notably with his wife and even with their employees at the restaurant that the two had started sometime back and had been failing.

But of course, there are inevitable repercussions resulting from that kind of "lifestyle."  First, Rudolf himself, after perhaps a long streak of getting away with this, comes to be busted more or less in flagrante.  Then perhaps just as he and his wife are getting over that debacle, other, more or less inevitable things happen in their lives.  Then Ondřej, nice if rather simple guy that he is (or that he was at the beginning of the story) is really not cut out of this kind of complicated life.  So there are some inevitable bombs that await him as well as the story continues ...

So in the end, while the conventions of romantic comedy require that "all end well," the conventions of REALITY also require justice.  And while the film ends with a smile, it'd be hard for ANYBODY to see it as truly a happy ending or that Rudolf's advice to Ondřej at the beginning of the film was particularly good for him.

Yes, it may be nice to day dream sometimes ... but REALITY is REALITY and there really is no free lunch.  And after all is said and done, the film brings us back to earth and reminds us of this quite well.

ADDENDUM:

As is the case of most of the films in the 2013 Czech That Film series, at the time of the writing of this review, this film is available for viewing outside of the Czech Republic for free (quite possibly with the Czech Film Institute's blessing) on YouTube even with English subtitles (click the CC button on the viewer for the subtitles to appear).


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As Cool as I am [2013]

MPAA (R)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing

As Cool as I am [2013] (directed by Max Mayer, screenplay by Virginia Korus Spragg, based on the novel by Pete Fromm) is an appropriately R-rated "coming of age" film (but Parents note that for BOTH better and worse, it is IMHO about much more than about just that).  The film is about a teenage girl named Lucy (played by Sarah Bolger) growing up in a small nondescript town "somewhere out West" in the United States.  It played recently at Facets Multimedia theater here in Chicago.

A key to understanding a good part of the story is its tag-line: "How do you grow up when your parents haven't."  Indeed, Lucy's parents Lainee (played by Claire Danes) and Chuck (played by James Marsden) had her when they themselves were 16-17 and as the story begins Lucy is approaching that age.  So Lucy's initial voice-over sets the stage, suggesting that some long-put off arguments are about to play themselves out.

When Lucy's parents had her, both obviously very young, both with their own back-stories involving still unresolved (and perhaps unresolvable) difficulty and pain -- there's hint Lainee came from a somewhat abusive household and in any case was awash teenage hormones at the time, Chuck had been raised at a (presumably Catholic) orphanage -- they set-about to do (and largely did) the right thing: They got married, Chuck got a job (as a lumberjack, a job that also somewhat conveniently required him to be away from home for extended periods of time) and Lainee stayed home to raise Lucy.

But now Lucy was 15 approaching 16.  Chuck/dad's extended times away from his wife Lainee and daughter Lucy begin to really wear on Lainee, who's now in her early thirties and is probably tired of staring at the walls of their nice if smallish house somewhere near the edge of the nondescript town where they live.  So with Lucy "growing up" or approaching "having grown-up" (though all of us who are adults in the U.S. today would know that at least in our society a 15-16 year old is not anywhere near having grown up...) and perhaps even a little jealous of the opportunities (Life) opening up for Lucy and perhaps having unresolved issues regarding those "teenage hormones" that she had to surpress when she had to _quickly_ "become an adult" after becoming pregnant with Lucy, Lainee decides to get a job.    Said job opens up an entirely new world of opportunity (and temptation...) for Lainee who had been largely "away" from the world since Lucy's birth.

So this sets up a really uncomfortable dynamic in which both Ma' and daughter are acting like teenagers, when daughter Lucy could have really used a Mom.

What about Dad?  He's not portrayed as evil either.  There's no suggestion that he's been unfaithful to Lainee when he's away doing his lumberjack thing.  It's just that "being away" enabled him to not have to deal with the reality that he has to be a father/husband for more than a week or two at a time between extended forest cutting "gigs up North" (presumably in the Pacific Northwest, Canada or even Alaska).

So Lucy finds herself navigating her mid-teenage years (15-16) largely on her own.  Her support system?  Her childhood best-friend Kenny (played by Thomas Mann), yes two rather clinical improvised visits to Planned Parenthood though in neither case for an abortion (Parents again take note...), and the apparently soothing/ordering Presence of a cooking show host on the cable Food Channel.  (Lucy takes up the basically/certainly salutory hobby of "gourmet cooking.")  Much remains to ensue and begin to be resolved ...

Wow ... so what would a "representative of the Catholic Church" have to say about that? ;-)

Well, a good part of why I like going to Facets Multimedia Theater in Chicago and why I chose to review this film, as perhaps provocative as the story is, is that like so many of the films shown at Facets, THE STORY IS INTELLIGENT.  And at its best the Catholic Church (it's been around for 2000 years after all ;-), it doesn't seek to run away from difficult reality.  Instead it tries to proclaim the Good News of God's Solidarity (God being "with us" [Matt 1:23, Matt 28:20]) in the midst of often difficult and painful reality (in the midst of a "valley of tears").

The Second Vatican Council's Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World [1965] began with the words: The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the [people] of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts. For theirs is a community composed of  [people]. United in Christ, they are led by the Holy Spirit in their journey to the Kingdom of their Father and they have welcomed the news of salvation which is meant for [everyone]. That is why this community realizes that it is truly linked with [humanity] and its history by the deepest of bonds (GS #1).

From my years serving as a Catholic Priest (and even before that when I was discerning whether or not to enter into the Servite formation program) I have known for certain that life is often very hard and the circumstances of all three of the central characters in this story are familiar to me.  And while I understand the somewhat snickering "subversive joy" present in comparing God [TM] to the soothing/ordering "presence" of a random "cooking show host on the Food Channel," I would simply respond that it honestly isn't the same.

For I can definitely say that life is often difficult whether one believes in God or not.  But IMHO it is so much easier to bear if one does come to believe that there is a Loving God who bears it _with us_ and promises, if not in this world then in the next, to set things right.  Without God, the pain remains in any case.  With God, there's always hope... (1 Cor 13:13)


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An Oversimplification of Her Beauty [2012]

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

IMDb listing

An Oversimplification of Her Beauty [2012] (written and directed by African American director Terrence Nance) is an experimental film about relationships that played recently at Facets multimedia in Chicago.  The concept is actually very simple and funny and is built around a short film that he had made earlier called How Would You Feel? [2010].

The concept goes as follows.  During the opening credits, we observe a young African American man lugging onto the subway a couple of constituent parts of what we soon find would become a bed.  Since he lives in New York and seems to be living something of a bohemian/artistic lifestyle and has no car, this is how he has to bring things to his rather small, again rather bohemian style flat -- by himself and in parts.  No problem, like Figaro, he's putting together a bed.  Why?  Well, we're told by the narrator (who proves to be very important in this film) that earlier in the day, he had gotten a message from a young woman who he's enjoyed company with that she'd be available to come over see him later that evening.  From the looks of it, it would seem that whatever his hopes may have been for the evening, that he'd probably not bed together in time anyway.  Nevertheless, when he comes home with those two rather larger constituent parts of what would soon (or at least one day...) become bed, he receives a message from this young woman of interest that she too had just arrived home after a long day of work and has decided not to come over to enjoy his company that evening after all.  At that point, the narrator asks the audience: "How would you feel?"

At that point, we see someone hitting the stop button on a VCR and then the rewind button.  And the story starts over again.  And we're given some more information, notably that said young African American man, artistic type had gotten up rather late to go to work, that having taken some shorts with his daily morning routine, and running the last part of his way to work, he did manage to make it to work on time.  We're then informed that he received the happy message from his young woman of interest informing him that after work she'd like to come over to his place to enjoy his company (hence his desire to leave work to quickly try to put together a bed) only to find out that when he did come home that he received another message from said woman of interest that she too had come home after a long day of work and had decided to not come over that evening after all.  And we're asked once more: "Given all that you now know would you feel?"

Once again, we're shown the stop button on the VCR being hit, the rewind button being hit.  And the story starting over once more.  This time we're told the same sequence as before, his getting up relatively late to get to work, his rush to get out of his flat and to work that morning.  Only now we're shown what he actually does for work: He actually simply plays a musical instrument of sorts, alone, by a fountain in some park somewhere in New York.  (Perhaps there still was a need to rush to get there by a certain time, but it doesn't feel anymore like a "real job" ... yet this is, actually, how he makes his money).  The rest of the narrative sequence continues (the young woman of interest first calls him that she'd like to come over after work, then calls him after work that she's had a long day and has decided not to come over after all.  And we're asked once more: "Given all that you know, how would you feel?"

The story repeats itself about three of four more times, each time adding some new aspect to the story, each time arguably changing how one feels about the story and its two central characters.

I just thought that it was a blast ;-).  This is clearly not a film "for everyone" ;-), but I just loved its humor and found it similarly amusing that good ole Facets Multimedia theater, small as it is, was actually quite packed mostly with young African American women who similarly smiled, giggled and laughed throughout most of the film.

Anyway, the film is a reminder to us of how simple yet effective a story, even a screen story can be ;-).


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Signál [2012]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CSFD listing
FDB.cz listing

Signál [2012] [IMDB][CSFD]*[FDB]* (directed by Tomáš Řehořek [IMDb][CSFD]*[FDB]*, screenplay by Marek Epstein [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) which played recently at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago as part of the 2013 Czech That Film Tour (cosponsored by the Czech Rep.'s Diplomatic Mission in the United States and Prague's Staropramen Beer) fills a perhaps inevitable but ever pleasant/entertaining and often insightful spot in any Slavic film festival or tour -- the film about "village life."

On this blog, I've previously reviewed Russian Reserve (orig. Русский заповедник) [2010] (Russia, 2012 Chicago Peace on Earth Film Festival), The House (orig. Dom/Dům) [2011] (Slovakia/C.R. 2012 Chicago European Union Film Festival), The Matchmaking Mayor (orig. Nesvatbov) [2010] (Slovakia/C.R. 2012 Czech Film Tour), Father, Son and Holy Cow (orig. Święta Krowa) [2011] (Poland/Germany, 2012 Chicago Polish Film Festival in America) and if time would have worked out, I would have seen one or two other such films at the 2011 Chicago Polish Film Festival as well...).

Why such a film is perhaps inevitable in any Slavic Film Festival or Tour is because even if most Slavic peoples are primarily urban now, village life remains part and parcel of the Slavic psyche/imagination.  "Scratch a Russian and you'll find a peasant."  Poland literally means "Land of Fields" Polák literally means "Man/One from the Fields." And across the Slavic world, even if one normally lives in the city, "going to the country" is what one does in the summer, especially on weekends. 

But, of course, most people in Slavic lands now live in the city.  So those who actually live in the villages year round are often looked-down upon.  Both in Poland and in the Czech Republic a country-dweller is often called a "Buran" which means "Hick" with the same pejorative connotations.

So this then forms the background of this comedy called Signál [2012].  Two college students, Filoš (played by Vojtěch Dyk [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) a music/voice major and Kája (played by Kryštof Hádek [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) a physics major who at the end of the summer is scheduled to begin graduate studies at the CERN laboratories in Switzerland (Note that I have a distant Czech cousin who's a physicist who finds himself regularly visiting CERN as well) spend their summer traveling around the Czech countryside putting-on a prank: They find villages which still don't have cell-phone service for lack of a signal and then enter said villages impersonating representatives of a cell-phone company looking for sites to put-up cell-phone towers, promising the owners of the land on which the cell phone tower would be built a non-inconsequential annual payment for the use of their land.  The villagers eager for some extra income would then house / feed them and perhaps offer them a modest bribe for special consideration.

So the two had spent most of their summer this way, amiably B.S.ing similarly amiable "country folk" happily eating their food, crashing on couches in theirs attics and, yes (since they are young after all...) flirting and occasionally sleeping with their daughters / other womenfolk.  Then after spending a week or two walking around (with appropriate "seriousness" ...) the countryside surrounding the village with an electronic gadget that would harken back to the divining rods of dowsers, who in ages past would similarly traverse the countryside identifying auspicious places to dig wells or perhaps even look for mineral deposits (Even as late as the late-1950s my paternal grandfather invited a dowser over to help him find a good place to dig a well), the two would solemnly declare to a town meeting of the village in question that they had taken their measurements, that they would now report their back to their headquarters where the final decision as to the location of the new cell tower would be made , and then they ... skip town ;-)

Now why would the two have the time or desire to put on such a scam?  Well higher-education in the C.R. as across most of Europe remains generally merit based.  That is, so long a student is accepted into a university program and maintains a requisite grade-point average, the education given is paid-for by the state.  ON THE OTHER HAND, like across much of Europe, there aren't a lot of jobs for young people both while they are studying and afterwards.  Then consider that if one accepts the premise of a few paragraphs above that most city-dwellers in Slavic lands tend to gravitate toward the country during summer time, this further depletes the need for any "seasonal work" in the cities during the summer.  Indeed, since Communist times, one of the few sources of extra income that college-aged Czechs would have during the summer would be to take on a "brigada" (lit. join a brigade) to help with farm work and especially with the harvest.  Indeed, near the beginning of the film, one of the two adventuring/scamming university students, Kája, is heard calling his somewhat incredulous mother from a village where he is staying (using a payphone because, said village still doesn't have cell-phone access...) to tell her that he is "still" on one of those brigadas.

Anyway, the film takes place near the end of the summer as the two enter the last village that they are going to scam in this way.  They drive-up in their van (with a magnetic temporary decal identifying it as belonging to some official sounding alphabet soup acronym-ed cell-phone company), change into their still very much student looking suits (but hey, they're wearing at least suit-coat and tie) and with a projector, they enter village's local pub to give their spiel (pitch).  They go through the usual, saying that they represent this very serious sounding alphabet soup acronym-ed telecom company, that they are here to survey sites to extend their company's coverage to their picturesque little village and ... that the owner of the property on which the new cell tower would be built would get 5,000 annually from the telecom company for their troubles.  PERHAPS because the villagers didn't seem particularly impressed by the pitch or the sum offered, or PERHAPS because it was simply the end of the summer (the last time that they would try to pull this scam off for the summer...), Filoš adds "I  naturally mean 5,000 Euros" (not 5,000 Czech crowns, the Czech Rep. perhaps with aspirations of becoming of a new Switzerland (some would say "with delusions of becoming another Switzerland ;-), is one of the few states in the E.U. which has never chosen to get on the Euro.  Though still largely pegged-to but independent of the Euro, the exchange rate as about 20 Kč / Euro).

Well the prospect of getting an extra income of 5,000 Euro a year, catches the attention of the villagers and for the first time the two start getting showered by some similarly serious bribes.  Mr. Pilka (played by Karel Roden [IMDB] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) probably already the richest man in the village saw the potential extra income from the cell tower as a means to finally give him the capital to restart the saw mill/lumber business that his family once had (his last name actually means "little saw.").  The late-teenage daughter Verunka (played by Eva Josefíková [IMDB] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) of the pub owner Staněk (played by Bolek Polivka [IMDB] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) saw the potential revenue as helping her widowed father get out of debt (and possibly helping her get on with her life as she hoped to go onto nursing school).  The mayor, Medek (played by Norbert Lichý [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]*), sees the potential new income as a means to finally allow the village pay for some of the amenities that their "sister village" in Austria has long had (new sidewalks, a library, a nice fountain in the center of town).  He confesses to the two young scam-artists that he's tired of being embarrassed by "those Tyrolese" whose village is always a few steps ahead of them.  Even the town's gypsy bus-driver Mato (played by Viliam Čonka [IMDB] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) gets into the action perhaps hoping that he could also use the money quit his job or get out of town.

Only the village hermit Prokeš (played by Jiří Menzel [IMDB] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) who lives in a house at the edge of town and refuses to have even electricity is unimpressed.  But as is often case (my paternal grandmother's village had a very similar figure with a very similar story ;-), village hermit though he is, Prokeš is no dummy.  A former physicist, he returned back to his village in the 1950s after being refused by the Communist authorities of the time the go-ahead on the construction of a particle accelerator that he tells faux cell-tower salesman/actual physics student Kája the Canadians built soon afterwards.  Throughout the two college students' stay, he repeatedly engages the two in technical conversations about the cell tower to the increasing worry of Kája who feels he's onto them. Kája soon proves both scared of him and intrigued by him (as Kája's going to be going to CERN at the end of the summer, the site of the famous Hadron particle accelerator).  Kája tells Filoš that there's no way that they're going to be able to pull this prank, which has turned into a potentially punishable scam off.

For his part Filoš is initially too distracted chasing after first the inn-keeper's daughter Verunka and then Pilka's rather neglected and (as we find later, abused) wife (played by Kateřina Winterová [IMDB] [CSFD]*[FDB]*) even as the various bribes start coming in.

Now how to just get out of town?  Well initially, they try to do what they've done in the other villages that they've pulled this prank on over the summer:  After dutifully walking about the village and its surrounding fields and countryside with their very serious looking instrument, they announce to the villagers that they've taken their measurements and are going to send the results to HQ.  "And?" ask the villagers.  "Well, HQ will decide."  But this time, each of the villagers has put some serious money down on the result going their way.  They don't appear to be willing to accept the line.  Filoš then grasps at a second straw: "Truth be told, we've found that EVERYONE ONE OF YOU would have a suitable site for the tower."  "And?" respond the villagers.  "Well, you've been so nice to us, all of you, that we feel that we really can't decide." ;-)

What now?  Two scammers throw the question back to the villagers.  They decide to "race for it" the next day riding motor-scooters up to a hilltop ruin of a castle nearby.  "PERFECT," the two tell them and then request that they could stay with the village hermit (who lives at the edge of town) that night (hoping to get away).  Well the next day, the villagers get on their motor scooters to race to the ruin of the nearby castle, while the two hope to run out of town in the opposite direction.  But the two find that the villagers had removed the tires from their truck 'for safe keeping' and the motorbike that they find has little gas... in the meantime, the villagers race up the nearby hilltop castle ... and what do they find already being built there? ;-) ;-)

Pissed off, they race back down to catch the two scoundrels.  Much still ensues as the two had been forced to try to flee without their truck (which the villagers had put on blocks) and then, surprise ... even the bribe money that they had received is ... gone.  Who had it?  If the two scoundrels didn't have it?  Then who?  And how much did everybody give these two clowns anyway? ;-) 

So everybody finds that they have mud on their faces ;-)  And much still has to be resolved.  And it is, and as a good story, it all ends well ;-).

It's a goofy story, touching on some fairly important issues in the contemporary C.R., including, of course, corruption.  But it ends also with a smile.  And pretty much everybody wins.

The film ends with a cheerful big-bandy number called "Čekám na Signál" ("Waiting for a Signal") sung by Vojtěch Dyk [IMDb] [CSFD]*[FDB]* who played the music major in the film ;-).  It all makes for a very, very fun ride.  Good job!  Dobre jste to odehrály ;-)


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The Lone Ranger [2013]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (1 Star)  ChicagoSunTimes (1 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Chicago Sun-Times (R. Roeper) review 
Chicago Tribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review

In our often rather ideologically polarized times, one's opinion of the certainly "reimagined" and perhaps at times "reinvented" The Lone Ranger [2013] (directed by Gore Verbinski, screenplay/story by Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio based on the beloved American icon The Lone Ranger of radio / golden era of television days) will probably depend one's answers to a few questions: (1) Do you know what Tonto means in Spanish? ;-), (2) Do you believe that rich, powerful white men are always good?

If one knows what "tonto" means in Spanish then, John Read/Lone Ranger's (played by Armie Hammer's) companion Tonto (played IMHO surprisingly well by Johnny Depp in his characteristic deadpan style) is hilarious.  (In this film, we get to find out what even the people of his own tribe thought of him ;-).  If one doesn't know what "tonto" means, well ... one would have missed a good part of the film ;-).  Now why would a Comanche Indian carry a Spanish nickname?  Well, why would an actual/historical Apache chief carry the Spanish name Geronimo (Spanish for Jerome)?

Then while this film wouldn't do particularly well at any Rush Limbaugh sponsored film festival, railroad barons like the film's chief villain Cole (played by Tom Wilkinson) were not particularly liked in their own time.  They didn't earn the title "Robber Barons" from both their Irish immigrant railroad workers (generally nobody even bothered to ask, or even knew how to ask..., the Chinese immigrant railroad workers of what they thought of them ...) and white plains settlers for nothing.  The railroad workers found that they were paid miserably for backbreaking/dangerous work and even the settlers found that it really didn't matter how much grain they planted/harvested, because the money that they made was going to be sucked-up by the railroads anyway.  (And again, nobody even cared what the Native Americans thought of the railroads that they built over what used to be their land and pretty much brought an end to their way of life).  So, yes, this film is largely about what many on the Right today would decry as "Class warfare..." resulting in rather predictable differences in opinion today.

Now the Left has added its own tendacious/ideological goofiness to the film.  In this film, we first meet John Read, the future Lone Ranger, sitting on a train heading West in the midst of a group of psalm/hymn-singing Presbyterians (Christians).  One of the ladies asks him if he'd like to join them.  He lifts up his black-bound volume of John Locke's "Two Treatises of Government" and responds "this is my Bible."  Yeah, right ... Perhaps that'd be possible in Boston, Thomas Jefferson's Monticello or Philadelphia of the 1780s, but on the American Wild West frontier of the 1870s, I would find that response very, very doubtful.  To put it another way, John Read even before becoming "the Lone Ranger" would have been really, really "unique."

What then to say about the film?  Well, a lot of the background, I've already set above.  The story takes place in the late 1860s / early 1870s in the context of the construction of the first Transcontinental Railroad.  So one has the Railroad / Railroad Workers, the Indians, the Settlers, Bandits, the (U.S.) Cavalry out there to provide the first/most basic presence of "civilizing" (or "colonizing" ...) Order and the embrionic presence of a future more regular policing force in the form of the (Texas) Rangers.  (Texas?  Yup, the geography of the film is rather fluid, though the boundaries of the time were somewhat fluid as well.  The Republic of Texas entered the United States in the 1840s larger than the state of Texas is today).

In the film, John Read's brother Dan (played by James Badge Dale) is a Texas Ranger, who upon John's arrival out West "deputizes" him.  (Hence we learn how John Read becomes a "Ranger" to begin with ... What's left is to find out how/why he becomes "The Lone Ranger..." and that of course becomes the rest of the story...)

Is the story realistic?  Well, were a lot of the stories from "The Old West" realistic?  The ingredients to making a good, captivating story are present.  And as in any Legend, bits of the story are based on historical truth, tweaked, often tweaked _a lot_, to make a good story.  In this regard, the film compares quite well to The Mask of Zorro [1998] (which starred Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones) which uses many of the same Old-Westish elements to put together a wonderfully entertaining "alternative" history to the origins of California.

Will you like it?  Well, even a survey of reviewers indicates that older/more established reviewers didn't like it.  Younger, less established ones did.  Go figure ... ;-)


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Despicable Me 2 [2013]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-I)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (1 Star)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
RogerEbert.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

I'd like to begin here by paying tribute to (arguably eulogize) the first Despicable Me [2010] movie.  I loved that film.  I saw it as part of a series of outstanding childrens' films including Finding Nemo [2003], The Incredibles [2004], Wall-E [2008], Up [2009], How to Train Your Dragon [2010] even Happy Feet [2006] (which I didn't particularly like but our teenage/Hispanic evening receptionist at the time just loved it along with her entire family).

Indeed, part of the reason why I started this blog in the fall of 2010 (in the months following the summer-time releases of the first Despicable Me [2010] and How to Train Your Dragon [2010]) was that I was expecting to be writing some very positive reviews about the children's movies that are coming out.  Let's face it, Catholics/religious folks are generally skeptical of Hollywood and so I was expecting to be writing: "Don't put Hollywood unnecessarily down, there's some very nice stuff and especially for kids being produced these days by our movie people."

Instead, I've found myself having created my blog AFTER THE END of that lovely and perhaps innocent era of recent children's animated films.  For today it's more or less obviously become another battleground of our "culture wars."  AND FOLKS, IT'S NOT PRETTY.  There has been an obvious, hammer-over-the-head NATIVISM / RACISM pervading MANY / MOST "children's films" made since 2010:

(1) "The Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series might as well be called "Diary of a WASPY Kid" because THE ONLY NON-WHITE kid in the entire series is a RICH INDIAN KID who all the other (WHITE) kids make fun of. (No Blacks, no Hispanics, no East Asians, just one Indian kid who it's "okay" to pick on ... I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP ...)

(2) The film Hop [2011], screenplay by "Cinco" Paul (though there is absolutely NOTHING Hispanic about him) has a Anglo-American "slacker" teenager from L.A. joining forces with English-accented "Easter Bunnies" to keep "uppity" HISPANIC accented "peeps"/"Easter chicks" led by HECTOR the "ringleader/foreman" of the "Easter chick proletariat" in their place.  Seriously again, I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP ...

(3) Hoodwinked Too [2011] - has an ALL Anglo/English Accented "Happy Ending Agency" (a fairy tale C.I.A. ...) keeping the fairy-tale world safe from A VERITABLE MOB of VARIOUSLY ACCENTED VILLANS (a Russian accented witch named Verushka, three Hispanic accented pigs bent on wreaking vengeance against an English accented "Big Bad Wolf" (since turned "good guy") for having "blown their house down."  Each time the three stage guerrilla style attacks on said "former-Big Bad Wolf" they cry out "Viva los Puercos!" (AGAIN, I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP ...) and even German accented "Hansel and Grettel" who turn out to be the true super-villains of the story ...

(4) In Cars 2 [2011], Larry the Cable Guy's pickup and Owen Wilson's American sports car (Lighting McQueen) join forces with Michael Caine's BRITISH SPORTS CAR (Finn McMissile) to fight a CRIME SINDICATE of ugly "loser" non-Anglo-American cars (Italian Fiats, Former East German Trabants and Former Yugoslav Yugos) that want to somehow undermine the proper status of things (AGAIN, I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP ...)

And now this film Despicable Me 2 [2013] (directed by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, screenplay by Ken Daurio and NON-HISPANIC with a Hispanic sounding name Cinco Paul) sequel to the beloved first movie only here in the NEW MOVIE the formerly-evil and still RUSSIAN ACCENTED Gru (voiced by Steve Carrell) fights the STILL EVIL, STILL HISPANIC ACCENTED "El Macho" with "personal hygeine issues" (voiced by Benjamin Bratt.  Apparently Al Pacino who was originally slated to play Eduardo/El Macho's role walked away from the role ... Good for you Al Pacino!).

And who are the "good folks" in the current story?  YOU GUESSED IT, an ALL Anglo/American "Anti Villain League" with Anglo-American accented agent Lucy (voiced by Kristen Wiig) and its Kings-English accented head, Sir Ramsbottom (voiced by ).  To be fair, both the Minions and even Gru have fun with Sir Ramsbottom's name ... but the point is that ONCE AGAIN the all "Good Folks" are Anglo and all the "non-Good Folks" (even Russian Accented Gru himself) are non-Anglo ...

Then add that "El Macho's" very suave/debonair son Antonio (voiced by Moises Arias) first "woos" and then DUMPS Margo (voiced by Miranda Cosgrove) oldest of the cute-as-a-button three little girls that Gru's taken care of since the first movie.  But then aren't ALL HISPANIC BOYS love 'em and leave 'em "Latin Lovers..."???

So how can I, who in my "day job" have worked since my Ordination in largely/predominantly HISPANIC parishes, possibly LET THIS KIND OF EVIL MESSAGING GO?

In my current parish, 75% of the kids attending our school are _cute as a button_ Hispanic kids.  In the CCD program, this rises to nearly 90% (AGAIN ALL GOOD KIDS!).  The Anglo kids are _also_ cute/good.  But look at the numbers.  How can I recommend a film like this that makes fun of the families of 75-90% of the kids in my parish?  How?

Then consider Hollywood's stupidity in all of this:  The majority of Americans under 17 years of age AREN'T EVEN WHITE ANYMORE.  By its OWN STUPID RACISM it's disqualifying itself from its own future audience!  And is a message of Anglo-American supremacy exactly helping it in markets outside of the U.S.?  It's all really, really dumb.

And it's sad, because OTHERWISE the film would be very, very cute.  The Minions are absolutely adorable and the addition of the Kristen Wiig character was great as well.

But why then throw all that CUTENESS away to deliver a STUPIDLY NATIVIST/RACIST MESSAGE.  Why? 


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