With You, Without You (orig. Oba Nathuwa Oba Ekka) [2013]

MPAA (Unrated)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing

With You, Without You (orig. Oba Nathuwa Oba Ekka) [2013] (written and directed by Prasanna Vithanage) is a Sri Lankan film (subtitled in English) that played recently at the 2013 (49th) Chicago International Film Festival.

Set presumably in northern Sri Lanka, and in the context of the recent (more-or-less) end of the 30 year Tamil (ethnically-South Indian) insurgency in Sri Lanka against the indigenous-Buddhist majority, the film is about a still relatively young Sri Lankan (Buddhist) pawnbroker Sarathsiri (played by Shyam Fernando) who falls in love with and marries a Tamil (interestingly CATHOLIC) refugee named Selvi (played by Anjali Patil).

Now where were either Sarathsiri's or Selvi's kin?  Everything else about the film's setting and the characters presented would suggest that the story was taking place in a rather traditional part of Sri Lanka and that the  two main characters came from traditional backgrounds.  Where did Sarathsiri get the money to start, presumably on his own (without his family ...) pawnbroker business?  And what was Selvi's story?  It's clear at the beginning of the film that she was living with relatively distant (and relatively resentful...) relatives and that she was "from somewhere else" but from where? and why?

The story, often beautifully filmed (both the lovely Sri Lankan countryside and honestly the lovely actress Anjali Patil are beautiful to watch), evokes a gentle "personalist" air akin to that of the Brazilian film Central Station (orig. Central do Brazil [1998] about a previously "hardened by life" middle-aged woman deciding to help a 10 year old recently orphaned Rio de Janeiro street kid who comes into her life, and the more recent Mexican small-in-scope immigration drama Here and There (orig. Aquí y Allá) [2012] about a simple family from a nondescript village situated somewhere in the mountains of Guerrero, Mexico, whose husband/father comes into and out of their lives whenever he returns back from working in the United States only to leave again for the States when(ever) the money runs out...

The difference between the two films I mention and the current one is that I found the ending of the current film to be far more depressing than it needed to be.  On the other hand, Sri Lanka has gone through a terrible 30 year Civil War and the Tamil minority in particular had suffered tremendously.  So it may be hard as yet to see a light at the end of such a deep and sad tunnel.

ADDENDUM: The part of India that my religious order the Friar Servants of Mary is present in is Tamil Nadu.  So I do know a little about the conflict involving the Tamils living in Sri Lanka.


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Don Jon [2013]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RE.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

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

Don Jon [2013] (written/directed and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt) IS DEFINITELY NOT FOR KIDS.  It's definitely an R-rated movie and I struggle to imagine any conceivable reason why a Parent would want to take a minor to the film.  That said, readers of my blog would know that I do seek to reward originality and youth and here I simply have to applaud the originality of Levitt's re-imagining of the legendary Don Juan in the person of "Don Jon" a young, buff, blue-collar New Jersey (as "Jersey Shore") sex/porn addict, who early in the film, in the spirit of both the legendary character and of an addict who, of course, doesn't yet see himself as such unabashedly seeks to present to the audience THE CASE _FOR_ PORN :-).

And his "case for porn" is quite simple: Real relationships with real women (and real people in general) are, well, much more complicated than, well, porn.  And therein actually lies the simplest indication that there's something inherently wrong (sinful) with porn.  Sin, be it lying, cheating, stealing, or even murder is almost always "a short cut," a chosen attempt to avoid the pain that is often required to do things honestly/right.  But, I'm getting ahead of myself ... ;-)

Anyway, Don Jon (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) presents himself to the audience as one who lives by a set of simple values:  He loves "his boys" (his buddies), he loves "his girls" (who he picks up and sleeps with), he loves "his ride" (car), he loves "his Church" (where despite picking-up and sleeping with at least one random, good-looking girl a week, plus of course his hours of watching porn, he goes to Confession each week) and he loves "his Porn" (in which he "loses himself" after a long hard day, or even after having sex with the random woman he's picked-up and brought home...  Yes, no matter how gorgeous/willing said random woman was, she didn't seem to satisfy him the way his Porn did...).

Now there will be both Catholics and perhaps especially non-Catholics that would find Don's weekly excursions to the Confessional (after week after week of more-or-less-obviously unreflective debauchery) appalling.  Here I'd like to say that Levitt is overly simplifying things.  I'd find it hard to believe that a Confessor would let someone like Don off that easily.  After all, at minimum, the Penitent is supposed to show remorse and Don more or less obviously does not.

At minimum, _I'd_ ask Don "Why do you look at all that porn?  After all, don't you know that at minimum you're watching (and presumably getting off watching) other people breaking the 6th Commandment?"  "Well who cares?"  "Well, if you DON'T CARE, I CAN'T GIVE YOU ABSOLUTION."  And if said Don started getting into the question of "I DO CARE but ..." THEN there begins a basis for a dialogue that could end with a Penance and Absolution.  But bottom line, the Penitent has to show/indicate remorse.  So as delightfully Don Jon's character is otherwise drawn in this film, I do have object to the way the Confessional scenes were portrayed. 

Similarly, the story's resolution leaves much to be desired from a Catholic moral perspective.  It's probably not much of a spoiler alert to say that at the end of the film Don "leaves his porn behind" ... to enter into an uncommitted but presumably monogamous sexual relationship with a woman.  Yet, while I'd agree that the Confessor's response to Don's objection to the Priest's not "lowering" his Penance when Don proudly tells him that he's left porn for an uncommitted if presumably for the time being monogamous relationship, is "lame," the priest was fundamentally correct.  To be in an uncommitted if monogamous sexual relationship with someone is still (as mentioned above) "a short cut" (and hence a sin).  Here Pope Paul VI, writing in his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae was right that sex only attains its full purpose when it takes place in the context of marriage and is open to the creation of new life.  Anything less, is well, less (and hence, at least to some degree necessarily sinful).

So while contemporary society might applaud Don's decision to "leave porn" and enter into an uncommitted monogamous sexual relationship with someone, the Priest was right, Don was still not where he should be.

But even if Levitt's film IS NOT ANYWHERE NEAR PERFECT from a Catholic Moral Perspective, what a discussion piece it makes!  And then the other characters, including Don's parents (played by Glenne Headly and Tony Danza), Don's gum-chewing / ever texting younger sister (played by Brie Larsen) and the two women, one younger, one older (played by Scarlett Johansson and Julianne Moore respectively) who "complicate" poor simple Don Jon's life are ALL EXQUISITELY and often HILARIOUSLY DRAWN. 

If nothing else, Don Jon [2013] deserves a screen-play (original or adapted?) nod ;-)


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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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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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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

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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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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