Fr. Dennis at the Movies

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Gravity [2013]

MPAA (PG-13) CNS/USCCB (A-III) ChiTribune (3 1/2 Stars) RE.com (4 Stars) AVClub (B+) Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
Chicago Tribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller-Seitz) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Gravity [2013] (directed and cowritten by Alfonso Cuarón along with Jonás Cuarón) in the present day about a routine near-earth space mission that goes horribly awry is certainly one of the best films of 2013 and ought to garner a slew of Academy Award nominations come Oscar time including Best Film, Best Direction, Best Original Screenplay (!), Best Cinematography (!) and almost certainly a Best Actress in a Leading Role (!!) nomination for Sandra Bullock who probably gives her best (and most serious) performance of her life in this film.

The film begins with three astronauts -- mission specialist Ryan Stone (played by Sandra Bullock), career astronaut Matt Kowalski (played by George Clooney) and another international mission specialist named Shariff (voiced by Paul Sharma) -- on a seemingly routine space walk outside of an American space shuttle performing a maintenance/upgrading mission on the Hubble Telescope. Then they get word from Mission Control (voiced by Ed Harris) first unconcerned then increasingly alarmed about a Russian space-missile test to destroy one of its own satellites that had just taken place in another part of near Earth space that had spiraled out of control: Yes, the Russian missile had blown-up its intended target, but the result debris field had crashed into other near earth orbiting satellites destroying/dismembering them as well producing a wild, cascading and increasingly chaotic/expanding cloud of space shrapnel threatening everything in its path, including the said, staid Space Shuttle with HT in tow and its crew.

The three are thus summarily ordered to stop what they are doing and begin immediately the process of returning back to their craft. Ryan Stone, though still suffering from motion sickness (its been her first time in space) still wants to get "her boards" into the Hubble Telescope. After all, she's been training and waiting A LONG TIME to put these circuit boards into the telescope and to just stop NOW (!) doesn't make sense to her. But, of course, one of those boards is now taking its time to power-up ...

A few moments later it does not matter, the debris field of space shrapnel arrives to shred the Hubble and put holes into the Space shuttle, apparently killing poor-ole Shariff and sending the newbie mission specialist Ryan Stone as well as veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (at least wearing a jet pack) hurling off into ... empty Space.

OMG ... what now? Well vet Matt Kowalski is able to retrieve the hurling/spinning Ryan Stone with his trusty ole jet pack and then set them off in the direction of the relatively nearby International Space Station. But they're not exactly carrying a lot of oxygen with them as theirs had supposed to have been a _routine space walk mission_ taking place just outside a happily well-functioning space shuttle (now destroyed). What to do? What the heck to do?

What follows is a both visually AND ABOVE ALL PSYCHOLOGICALLY STUNNING SURVIVAL STORY. And remember the two main characters in this story are "tech people." They're practical. And yet they are thrown here into truly terrifying chaos. And in this horrifying chaos Ryan comes to realize that facing imminent, horrific and seemingly utterly random/meaningless Death that it'd actually be A REALLY GOOD TIME TO _PRAY_ (!). And yet, practical as she has been all her life (and probably brought up to be that way) NO ONE EVER TAUGHT HER HOW TO PRAY. WOW!

And though this movie is thankfully tight/short (only 96 minutes long) ... at this point there's still about 20-30 minutes to go!

This is just an incredible film. It is chock full of horrifying and utterly impersonal action as only "space shrapnel," hurling about in a both terrifying and yet utterly Newtonian (mechanistic) manner crashing through spaceships (and astronauts...), could provide. But the action is also beside the point. This film is ultimately a crash course about Meaning. And wow, what a crash course it is!

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Saturday, October 12, 2013

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 [2013]

MPAA (PG) CNS/USCCB (A-II) ChiTrib (3 Stars) RE.com (2.5 Stars) AVClub (C) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune.com (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 [2013] (directed by Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn, characters by Judi and Ron Barrett, story by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Erica Rivinova, screenplay by John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein and Erica Rivinoya) continues and arguably deepens the amiable story begun in the 2009 first cinematic installment of this franchise even as it also arguably muddles its message.

At the end of the first film, the nerdy and starry-eyed wannabe child-inventor Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) growing-up on a remote island somewhere in the Atlantic and the son of a humble sardine fisherman (voiced by James Caan) had succeeded in taming his "Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator" (FLDSMDFR for short ;-). Flint had designed the contraption to convert simple water into all kinds of kid-friendly/exciting food (in contrast to the sardines that everyone in the town had been accustomed to eating). However, his machine had gone amuck in that first episode, having been carried into the clouds in a balloon. The FLDSMDFR then produced such meteorological horrors as spaghetti tornadoes and torrents of cheeseburger and jelly bean rain ;-). Being able to first find and then "bring down to earth" his contraption, Flint was able to save his island and quite possibly the world from a fearsome if perhaps surprisingly tasty Apocalypse ;-).

This second installment in the story began with Flint and his friends being visited upon by Flint's Steve Jobs-like idol named Chester V (voiced by Will Forte) the CEO of the most awesome, innovative company on the planet called LIVE, Corp.

Chester first arrives with "bad news." He tells Flint as well as the other residents of the island that his company has been contracted by the government to do the "clean-up" of the island, which had been ravaged by the food storms caused by Flint's FLDSMDFR, and in order that his company be able to do so, all the residents will have to be evacuated off the island. But neither Flint, nor his father and friends -- including Flint's new found girl-friend, the spunky "weather-channel intern" Sam Sparks (voiced by Anna Faris) and her utterly unflappable/no-nonsense "has seen it all" camera man Manny (voiced by Benjamin Bratt), friend of the family/hometown tough guy cop Earl Deveraux (voiced this time by Terry Crews) and local jock/looker and former bully (who used to pick on Flint but now has made-up with him) Brent McHale (voiced by Andy Samberg) -- want to leave. But Chester insists that they do. (Hmmm, why would he want them to do that? What was he up to?) Finally, to "sweeten the deal," Chester offers Flint an internship at LIVE, Corp's phenomenal (dare one say fabulous ;-) Apple/Google-like HQ in San FranJose and offers to pay for Flints friends to go there as well. Obviously, Chester's up-to-something ...

Well, Flint is excited as pie to go to LIVE, Corp's HQ to work in one of its sea of cubicles an inventoraror intern and the rest are promised by Chester that they could "come along" to "help" Flint.

Now each year, at a gigantic stadium-sized company meeting Chester would pick just one of the sea of interns as the inventorator of the year (and reward that exactly one person with an actual paying job ... ;-). Flint, who's invented a new device that he calls "party in a box" humiliates himself at said gigantic stadium-sized company meeting when he prematurely sets the "party in a box" off to celebrate his "victory" ... when indeed, he hadn't been picked. Sigh ...

No matter. Chester has another job for him. He now wants him and his friends to go back to their island and to find Flint's FLDSMDFR, which it becomes increasingly clear had been Chester's true interest in coming to the island to "clean it up" to begin with.

When the gang returns to the island, they find it marvelously changed. It's still covered by food (Chester's LIVE, Corp didn't seem to do a lot of "clean-up"), but the food's become "alive" ;-). Obvious homages to Jurassic Park [1993], the original Despicable Me [2010] and even to Veggie Tales [1993-] follow as the island is portrayed as being covered by Cheesespiders (giant cheeseburgers walking on french-fry legs, catching prey in cheese spray), Shrimpanzees, ferocious Tacodyles protecting their newly hatched "baby tacos," and perhaps most amusingly, sardine-loving pickle-men, who Flint's dad soon happily takes fishing.

And at the center of it all is Flint's old FLDSMDFR that's brought all these happy and whimsical (and presumably edible) creatures alive.

At the end of the film, Flint has to decide whether to hand over the FLDSMDFR that has created all this unexpected and utterly marvelous life to his idol/mentor Chester V, founder of LIVE, Corp (what does LIVE, Corp spell backwards? ;-) or just let all these whimsical foodimals with their robotic Creator live? And what about Flint's friends? He has to choose between Chester and them as well.

It all makes for a remarkable and ... rather mouth-watering parable ;-). And it may help youngsters treat their food (and the animals from which their food came from) with greater respect.

Except for some occasional (and thankfully rare) "potty humor," and a suprisingly/oddly anti-Silicon Valley message (produced/financed by the gigantic Japanese tech behemoth Sony ... ;-) ... which seems amusingly self-serving/contradictory ;-) I found this to be very enjoyable kid/family friendly film. So generally good job folks! Generally good job! ;-)

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Thursday, September 12, 2013

Taking a One Month Hiatus to Attend Servite General Chapter (Sept 12 - Oct 10, 2013)

Dear Readers,

I'm taking a one month hiatus to attend as a delegate of the Servites Friars of the U.S.A. Province our Order's General Chapter being held at the Servite Shrine at Weissenstein-Piatralba outside of Bosen-Bolzano, Italy. Afterwards, I will take about a week's time to visit my relatives in the Czech Republic. I should be back online with this blog on Oct 10 ;-).

Sincerely and in Christ,

Fr. Dennis Kriz, OSM

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Riddick [2013]

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (O) ChiTribune (3 Stars) RE.com (2 Stars) AVClub (B+) Fr. Dennis (2 Stars w. Expl.)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review

Riddick [2013] (directed by David Twohy, screenplay by Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell, based on the charcters created by Jim and Ken Wheat) is part 3 of a decade-long Conan-evoking sci-fi survivalist drama featuring Riddick (played in all three cinematic installments as well as on the various video-game versions by Vin Diesel). And certainly on the plus side of the current film, the first 25 minutes or so contain (as many of the reviewers cited above also attest) some of the BEST use of CGI ever. One really feels like one is stranded with Riddick on an utterly alien desert planet where "everything's out to kill him" from vulcan-eared hyena-like jackal-dogs and giant reptilian "serpents" with even larger scorpion-like tails. (After about 15 minutes of mayhem on this red-tinged, bubbling, volcanic world, Riddick takes a surviving pup from a pack of those hyena-like jackal dogs that he's taken-down and raises him as his faithful canine companion. HONESTLY, HOW UTTERLY COOL IS THAT? ;-)

Things go downhill, IMHO, in the film when Riddick realizes that "rain is coming" (which he understands to mean that something even worse that what's already beset him will follow). So when he comes across an abandoned "merc" camp ("merc for mercenary"), he activates the camp's distress beacon and ... since the beacon immediately scans/determines Riddick's identity ... soon not one but two bands of bounty-hunters come to "retrieve him." Interestingly enough, Riddick was deemed such a menace to the civilized order existing up there among the stars that the bounty for him was twice as high for bringing him back DEAD than ALIVE ;-).

The two bands of bounty hunters that show-up to retrieve Riddick were, naturally, not exactly the most savory of types. One was headed by a particularly vicious Hispanic accented man named Santana (played by Jordi Mollà) who arrived with a clear plexiglass box to put Riddick's head in after "taking care of him" (probably a mistake to arrive like that, given Riddick's deadly reputation...). The other band was headed by a cooler-headed Anglo-American looking merc (need one say more ... the real villains in these kind of stories are ALWAYS "non-Anglos...") named Boss Johns (played by Matt Nable). He arrives with, among others, a really tough-looking professed lesbian named Dahl (played by Katee Sackhoff) who Riddick promises to "take" (hence probably rape ...) "after it's all over." YES PARENTS, THIS FILM CERTAINLY BECOMES "NOT FOR THE KIDS..." In the midst of one or the other of these motley crews is a naive Scripture quoting teenager, who, honestly it's hard to understand what exactly he's doing there. But he is present, and he's occasionally asked to say some nice words over one or another of the adult Mercs who had died one or another randomly awful death. Much (often mayhem...) of course ensues ...

So what possible value could a film like this have? Well, as I mentioned above, the portrayal of the planet itself is simply breathtaking. Then, YES, this film is definitely not for kids, and yes the Mercs are portrayed as certainly "dregs of society." But then, one would imagine that "mercs" today aren't exactly the most "politically correct" of people as well (they certainly weren't known to be so in the past ... They haven't been called the "Dogs of War" for nothing...).

So this is a really hard-boiled tale that I would hope that _no one_ would take moral lessons from. Still I found the CGI portrayal of the planet itself astounding and if combined with (honestly) "kinder gentler" portrayals of the infinite possibilities for adventure existing out there in the cosmos, this could be actually inspiring to viewers. Just do leave the random and evil mayhem behind...

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Friday, September 6, 2013

Drinking Buddies [2013]

MPAA (R) RE.com (1 Star) AVClub (B) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
RogerEbert.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (B. Kenigsberg) review

Drinking Buddies [2013] (written and directed by Joe Swanberg) is a current/arguably insightful if rather slow-moving "indie piece" about two 20-something couples in which one from each of the two couples, Kate (played by Olivia Wilde) and Luke (played by Jake Johnson), work in a microbrewery in Chicago. The film is currently playing at "art theaters" here in Chicago and is also available Amazon Instant Video. Since the beverages made at the brewery where the two main characters work are available as something a perk to the employees, the title for the film "flows" quite naturally ...

When one generally thinks of "drinking buddies," one generally thinks of a group of guys. The wrinkle thrown into this film is, of course, that Kate and Luke are not of the same sex and neither are their SOs. Kate has been going out with Chris (played by Ron Livingston) for about 8 months, while Luke has been living with Jill (played by Anne Kendrick) for long enough that it's become increasingly difficult for the two to explain to both themselves/each other and to others why they're not yet getting married. And yet it doesn't seem that they are ...

Things take a turn when the two couples go up to Kate's beau's cabin by the Lake (Michigan) for a weekend, where the status of pretty much all the relationships -- "just friends," "living together/practically married," "gee who's that neat other person who I've never really met" -- is challenged.

It's not a bad movie. It reminds me of the movie that the Kevin Bacon character in the Christopher Guest movie The Big Picture [1989] pined to make. It's just kinda slow.

And it does ask the question: Can one really be just a "drinking buddy" with someone who one's at least partly (sexually) attracted to?

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Thursday, September 5, 2013

Sept 3, 2013 - Movies reviewed here available in U.S. for Rent / Streaming

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

In a World ... [2013]

MPAA (R) RE.com (3 1/2 Stars) AVClub (B-) Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
RogerEbert.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (M. D'Angelo) review

In a World ... [2013], screenplay written and directed by and starring Lake Bell, is an indie film about a 20-30 something young woman named Carol (played by Lake Bell) a voice coach, who's been trying to step out of the shadow of her talented but often overbearing and not particularly supportive father named Sam (played by Fred Malemed) presented in the film as something of a "living legend" in the "voice over" field.

How to be taken seriously by a father who loves you but likes his position (on top of his family and his field of choice/career) and who actually dates a young woman your own age? That's the somewhat exaggerated (for comic effect) but very real challenge facing the central protagonist in this film.

Signund Freud had a rather dismal view of intergenerational rivalry. One the one hand, he postulated that children are destined to "murder" their same-sex parent even as they put them up (after they've "murdered" them) on a pedestal to venerate them. On the other hand, Freud postulated that children would be (sexually) attracted to their opposite sex parent.

Freud saw these "fundamental relationships" between children and their parents expressed in the Classical story of Oedipus. Oedipus' parents, after being informed by an Oracle that Oedipus was destined to murder his father and sleep with his mother, put him up for adoption. Oedipus in turn, when as a young adult is told by anpther Oracle that he's destined to murder his father and sleep with his mother, runs away from his adopted parents only to come across his biological father (and kills him) and then his biological mother (whom he marries ...). The point of the Classical Greek story was to say that one is largely unable to escape one's Destiny, no matter how horrible it was to be. Freud understood the story symbolically, postulating that in one way or another, one ultimately "murders" (supersedes) one's same sex parent and one ultimately "marries" (someone very much like) one's opposite sex parent.

In our more androgynous times ("In a world..." / "In our world ..."), we're given the parable of this film in which Carol both looks up to, but despises, her father (her mother is long dead) while her father is actually dating someone who could be her sister (be just like her ...).

So there's a lot of potential for tension in this film ... and yet it is still light enough to be a comedy. Again, one (generally rather benign) way that Sigmund Freud suggested that "tension" is dissipated is through humor.

So as "light" as this film is (about a father and daughter who both make their livings in the rather obscure fields of "voice coaching" and "voice overs") there's A LOT TO THIS FILM below the surface that makes it very interesting.

AMONG THE THINGS that makes the film interesting is that Carol's dad's girlfriend (played by Alexandra Holden) turns out to not be a particularly bad character. Sure she's Carol's age, but it turns out that she both understands Carol's point of view and appears to be the only one who is able to express it clearly to her father. Fascinating ... and arguably redemptive.

But then Hollywood is ultimately about finding "a happy ending.." Freud may have made his mark by looking for the psychological roots of tension/conflict. But "Hollywood" knows that a good story has to end well. To leave people in despair doesn't sell tickets. So after exposing the tensions present in the modern "Father - Daughter" relationship, Hollywood seeks to find a happy resolution.

And here I would argue that Our Religion (Christianity) seeks to do the same. Jesus came to the world preaching Good News. And Jesus' Resurrection (following his awful Death) was, in fact, the Ultimate "Happy Ending." Thus we too, fundamentally believe that the tensions that exist in our society today (or any day) will Ultimately turn out well.

But in any case, this was a good and surprisingly "deep" story. Honestly, good job ;-)

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